Sia's gaze snapped back to her Mother's. Slowly, her earlier confidence seemed to return. She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. "Of course, as our queen, it is your prerogative, to do with us as you please. May I -"

Hera interrupted her, her voice snapping like dry twigs. "Daughter mine, do me the favor of shutting up." Sia closed her mouth, the earlier look of shocked censure returning to her face, proving that the feeling had never left her. "You will find what your place will be shortly enough. For now, bear witness to my coronation." She reached up, running her hand against the side of Ash's face. When Ash flinched, she tutted. "Now, is that any way to treat a maiden on her wedding night?"

Ash spoke, the sound strangled out of his throat, as though it took enormous effort to do it. "You're... no... maiden."

Hera paused, her hand stilling against his face. "It would be wise for you, in the future, to practice better holding your tongue." She reared her hand back, then slapped Ash across the face.

Netta reacted without thinking, leaping to her feet, running to the altar. She had a mind - she would rip Ashwood away from her, claw her Mother's throat out before she could go through with the rape.  To hell with logic, with the rules of the very magic that made up her flesh, bones, blood.

The feel of the hand closing over her, and the arm that shot around to grab a hold of her by her chest, barely registered in her mind. Before Netta could realize who had had to of grabbed her from behind, she heard her sister as Sia whispered into her ear. "Netta, no. She's out of control, she'll kill everyone in this room if you anger her."

Netta gasped, full memory of falling to the ground from her sister's touch animating her. She flailed, panicked instinct to get her sister's arms off of her.

As she continued to struggle, Hera called out from the slab, the bored, disaffected tone of her voice becoming the sort of thing that Netta thought she would surely hear in her nightmares. "Enough of this. I tire of waiting - I've waited for your touch for so long, my King. I want you to touch me, caress me, Ashwood."

Netta stilled and looked up as though she had been compelled to, her gaze stuck on the horrific tableau on the altar. Her mother writhed up, waiting for Ash's violently trembling hands as they closed around her sides. Netta watched, choking back a cry, as the Monster slid his hands down.

It was quiet at first, as though the sound of her own internal screaming had simply blotted the sound out. As she watched, Netta was aware of a strangled, shaking voice that she knew all too well.

Ash was chanting it, over and over, in Netta's mind and, softly, aloud, his voice distraught. "No, no, no, no..."

Netta shuddered and closed her eyes, felt as though if she continued to gaze at the scene in front of her, she would be destroyed. If she had to watch this, Netta decided that she would much rather -

Netta cried out. "Hera, can you grant me one plea?"

Hera spoke, her earlier detachment not gone from her voice. "Stop, Ash. Netta, what is it you want to ask of your queen?"

It choked in the back of Netta's voice, but she felt her will - what broken aspects of it there was left - return to her as she gazed at Ash's shaking, stilled hands against her mother's pale flesh. She forced her gaze to her mother's waiting face. She felt, as she gazed at her mother's patiently waiting, youthful face, that she was surely gazing into oblivion, a pure and ravenous darkness.

Who was she, against such a will, such cruelty?

Netta heard herself say, "You wanted to sacrifice me, yes?"

Hera's face transformed with a lax, pleased smile. "Why, whatever gave you the impression that that was ever not in the plans?"

Netta felt as though the darkness, the unceasing cruelty, in her mother's gaze was swallowing her whole. "Why can't you sacrifice me now?"

The cry in the room, from the women tied up on the floor, and the horrified, mindless howling Ash made in her mind, for a moment engulfed Netta, overwhelmed her. It was the feel of her older sister's arms as they trapped her that kept her anchored to the world of the dark, secret room.

Almost as though waiting for the outcry to end, when Hera spoke, it seemed to have become unbearably quiet in the chamber. "Because, Netta, I want you to watch. Witness as I dominate your lover, until It becomes nothing more than a tool for my use. A quiet, submissive shadow. And then I will have It eat you alive, tearing you to pieces and then lapping up your blood and marrow."

Netta wept, felt her tears coursing down her face. She was helpless to move from the unbearable, suffocating weight of her sister's arms and weight. "Please, Mother, I can't bear it. I'll die if I have to watch him - and you -"

Hera sighed, her annoyance obvious. "Sia, do you mind shutting that one up? If you have to stifle her to keep her from speaking..."

Sia spoke, clutching Netta to her, her voice seemed to have returned to some degree of its typical hardness. "What's the matter, Mother, I thought you said you wanted her suffering -"

Hera interrupted, her voice angry, rising for seemingly the first time from a low, almost bored tone. "Shut up, you spoiled child! I will tell everyone when they can and cannot speak, I will not stand for anyone to question me or my methods. I will not -"

Netta kicked, flailed in her sister's oppressive grasp, knocking her head back and hearing the sickening thud as the back of her head collided with her sister's jaw.

Sia cried out, and Netta joined it, the sound of their crying a disjoint unity that met with the unholy wailing of Ash in Netta's mind. It was as though they were all members in a chorus whose music was the insane howling of the damned.

Hera's voice, a yell, rose, somehow, even over the sound of their screaming. "All of you will be silent, quiet now - this is my moment, the instant I have been planning for decades, and I won't have it spoiled by my own progeny!"

Netta almost managed to wrestle free from Sia's tightening grasp, her struggling sending them to the ground, with the taller Witch clutching Netta's writhing back. Netta's gaze was stuck, horribly, to the sight of her husband, crouched over her mother, frozen as he was forced to heed the will of her mother.

As Sia tried, vainly, to keep her still, Netta realized then that her mouth was still free. She cried out, trying to struggle away from Sia. "Please, Mother! Don't make me watch this. If he has to kill me, please just do it now." Netta struggled, then her mind fell on one last hope, one thing that could sway her mother. She added, "One last request, from your daughter. Your - your pitiful, unnatural daughter."

Hera stilled. Netta saw it, uncertainty, the moment before Sia's hands groped over her face as though she were looking for purchase, silencing and gaining control over her.

As Netta pitifully, half-heartedly fought her sister off, Hera spoke. "I've grown tired of your bleating, little sheep. You want to come to your death early, who am I to argue? Ash, get off of me and lift me up."

Ash cried out aloud, and Sia stopped struggling to gain control on Netta, as though she had been frozen.

Sia hissed in Netta's ear. "What are you doing? Mother - she's going to kill you. Don't you understand? She'll kill you like she had Beryl killed.  But it'll be by your Familiar's hand."

Netta only watched as Ash appeared next to the altar, his hand extended to Hera as he helped her up. When he turned back, facing her, she saw his wide, horrorstruck green eyes.

Netta almost broke at the sight of him.

As Hera took his hand, the naked Witch stood next to Ash. She stood like a queen should - tilting her head up high, seeming to not be in the least bit phased by the oversized - truly hulking - Monster that stood next to her.

Ash shivered with the desire to snap her neck.

For a moment as they gazed at each other, Netta could feel their thoughts melding together, their emotions. Their agony, shame, fear, anger and sorrow melded together until it felt like a living, tumorous growth in her soul.

She dropped her eyes from Ash's, tried with all of her heart to suppress the trembling in her lips.

I can at least die like a woman.

Hera said, "Very well, dear. Saorise, let go of your sister, allow her to come up here, to me."

Sia hesitantly relaxed her hold on Netta. As Netta got to her feet, she briefly wondered if Sia was overcome with a desire to not let her sister walk to her death.

She could not bear to hold onto Ash's gaze, his eyes hurt too much to look at. Forgive me.

Netta strode to her mother, her gaze never wavering from Hera's own. As they stood, a foot and a wide ocean of differing moral values between them, Netta found herself wondering what a person - no, creature - such as her mother felt. Was capable of feeling.

She gave Netta a feigned, polite smile, then calmly asked, "How would you like your pet husband to dispatch of you?"

Netta closed her eyes, then turned to look at Ash. She had promised herself, earlier, that she would not cry. Could not afford it.

She gazed into the eyes of a creature who so adored her, whose trepidatious, almost sweetly naive hope had once surprised her utterly. Netta blindly, helplessly, felt the tears as they poured down her face.

Without thinking about it, Netta leaned up and forward, taking a grasp of one of the closest, low-hanging mass of antler atop his head. She pulled him down to her, almost kissing him, her lips hovering for a moment over the softly trembling jutting of his own.

She couldn't bear one final kiss, Netta knew she would not be able to stop herself from drinking more of Ash's heat, his fire. Instead, she forced his head lower, imprinting a kiss on his forehead.

Beside them, Hera grunted. "Am I supposed to be touched by this show of affection?"

Netta ignored her, raising her other hand up to take hold of another growth of antler atop Ash's head. She let go of a breath that had been trapped in her lungs. Slowly, Netta forced Ash's head lower, remembering all the while the many similar paths that Ash had once taken down her body.

She forced Ash's head down, down, until he had crouched on the floor due to his great height. She backed up, feet softly sliding along the hard stone floor, gently gripping his dark, twisting mass of horns.

Netta was careful with her hands as they slid further, further up to the very tips of many of the horns. She knew, from shockingly vast experience for as short a time as they had begun to explore each other, that the horns had edges closer to the top, points that were blade sharp. They were, after all, the result of his once-gentle heart being forged, honed in a killing fire.

How fitting that they should be used in this manner.

Netta maneuvered herself backward, then jutted the tips of his great, chaotic horns against her chest.

Ash had been silent, almost docile, in his grief and fear not reading in her calm demeanor what she had planned. That changed in a moment. He jerked backward, realization at what Netta meant blaring bright in his mind like neon.

His voice was hoarse and gravelly, sorrow and panic sounding as though it were strangling Ash. "No - no -"

Netta was relentless, could not afford to take a moment to allow her fear to overpower her. She closed her eyes, said what needed said. "I'm sorry, sweet one." And she was, almost more than she could bear.

Netta was saved by some potential urge to stop or say something further as Hera's voice seemed to ring in an executioner's order. "Ashwood, plunge your antlers through her chest."

Ash writhed, every muscle on his broad back and leaping and spasming from where he sat, crouched. He looked to be in agony, as though his body was attempting to rend itself from the inside out. The noise he made was more like what Netta would imagine an animal that had itself been gored would sound like.

Netta clutched his antlers without thinking, her hands closing around the sharp ends and edges. They felt thick, but lighter than she would have thought, as though they were hollow on the inside. She could feel the wounds that had formed on her hands, sharp, biting, anchoring her to this moment.

Do it, Ash. Netta could not bear to hear it in her mind, the echoing, maddened cries as he struggled to gnaw off the aspects of him that agonized to do the Witch's bidding. Ash had already endured so much, had proven already to be the only Monster Netta had ever heard of who had managed to resist the will of a Witch for this long.

He struggled for a few moments more, agonized, as hopeless as a wolf whose leg had become caught between two rocks. And then, blessedly, he wore his energy reserves out, until his body became stiff, as though Ash was a large string, drawn taut. His mind had gone blank, as though his will had been removed, leaving a disturbing silence it the wake of its disappearance.

Ash reared back and, with blinding speed, he lunged into Netta.

Netta didn't feel it at first. A curious, bursting sensation - one that left her with an, oddly, yawning sfeeling - seemed to spread, hot, through her body.

Hera's voice was like a call from beyond the dark place where Netta's mind had fallen, anchoring. Too bad what she called out was, "Pull out of her."

Netta felt as all of the mass that had been buried in her chest was ripped out, so quickly that she scarcely believed that any of it had been thrust in her to begin with.

It was as though the world was ending around Netta, scarcely aware as she slid to the floor. She did not pool to the floor, as she thought she might. Rather, she was vaguely aware of how she was suddenly sat on the floor on her knees.

She could not focus on him, as she clenched blindly at the hole that felt as though it had been blasted through her. Gone was the conscious understanding of what had happened to her, what she had wanted.

Netta was frightened of the oblivion that called out to her, how it spoke to her in a lover's hush.

She felt as though all of her strength, her life, was seeping out of the grave wound that her hands numbly seemed to rush to try to close. Netta had pressed her hands, wet with gore, over the hole over her heart, as though she meant to close it with her shaking hands. Netta looked down in a horrified daze, saw the contrasting, paled flesh of her hands against the violent, hot red of her blood, her life, as it stained her clothing.

She had fallen to the floor. Netta did not know when she had fallen, but she was vaguely aware of the cold surface on her back as she laid on it. The pain was becoming less of something she was aware of, as though it did not matter to her, although Netta's shaking hands clenched as powerfully as they could still manage, wet and hot.

It was a process, Netta was shocked to find. She had killed others before, but she had not thought that dying would be like the sweeping crescendo of an orchestra.

By the great King, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever felt.