Heresy

"Horns, little daughter, just like you always wanted....!"

Cattwyn's silky voice lilted across the Aldor Courtyard as one young Fireflower Azrethoc put on the crimson hood.

The warlock beamed. "Little daughter"....she hadn't heard that in so very long. It was a term Lord Azrethoc had sometimes used with her, as close to a loving statement as any demon would have posessed, it still managed to fill Fireflower with that twisted emotion that passed for warmth, even when spoken by her minion.

The delicate features of the undead girl were even more apparent, with white undead skin set off by the deep-coloured fabric and the menacing half-skull perched upon it, topped with the horns Fireflower had coveted since she had first seen them on Mistermaster all those years ago.

"Yup Catt, I like....I definitely like..." she gazed at her reflection in the pool of water, adjusting it to her satisfaction. As she did so, she caught the dissaproving glare of an Anchorite as her succubus blew him a kiss.

"Sugar..." Catt cooed, eyeing the Draenei a moment longer, enjoying his uncomfortable reaction before turning back to her, "You feelin' better now?"

The little warlock frowned and looked up a moment, her glowing golden eyes surveying the landscape as her complex and knotted mind made sense of "feelin' better".

"Better..better.... feeling...I don't..yes feel. Okay! Think so, yeah. Busy busy good, mind's clear when busy....busy busy BUSYBUSY.....stay busy, no feelin'...busy....busy is good, right Catt?"

The succubus nodded guardedly. She needed Elzebeth to keep it together. It hadn't been enough that Azrethoc's own daughter had slain him, the demon-child now outcast and isolated. No, even her minions had been thrown to the winds with the little warlock, deemed as corrupted by their mistress' tormented influences.

It was hard to keep an eye on her these days, being as the little wench was particularly fond of Maazhum, her felhunter, Cattwyn was rarely summoned. Maazy, bounding and mindless, oily and smelly - it drove the succubus to distraction how loyal the warlock was to the subservient mutt.

Cattwyn sighed. Someone had to do the work around here and it had fallen to her. She bit her lip and inspected her fingernails idly. Perfect, as usual.

If you're a being aeons old, you tend to pick up on things over time, if you were one of the lucky ones. Maybe you'd had masters that spoke too much, or been careless. Maybe you'd been given time to observe the world around you long enough to begin to shape it.

Cattwyn was one such minion. Part big sister, part protective mother, part obedient slave and part wicked teacher to this young warlock meant she had a lot more control than Fireflower maybe realised.

Yes, she was bound to serve Fireflower, but "serve" was such a.... oblique word. "Serve" could mean countless things. A servant requires a master - it is an unspoken understanding that requires the presence and participation of both - else both wander, and eventually disintegrate, without aim or definition.

Cattwyn wasn't about to disintegrate. At the end of the day, the succubus knew that she needed the little nutbasket as much as the warlock needed them. So what if Azrethoc had cast them out? So what if she was forbidden from returning to the Coven?

This was the Outlands, baby - a whole new game. She knew the power that still vibrated here was on a scale that would have blown Azeroth away, and it was up to her to shape and form this messed-up little slip of a girl into a warlock worthy of the name. Warlock not just in name, but in the bones.

"Elzebeth..." the succubus began, thoughtfully.

"Yeah, Catt?"

"You ever wonder why those Aldor let us hang out here? Hmm? Bein' that I'm a demon, and that you're a warlock..."

"AND PART DEMON!" Fireflower shrieked.

Cattwyn shrunk back slightly. "Yeah, honey, we know...nothin' changes that...part demon..anyway, you ever wonder why they do?"

Fireflower's delicate little face twisted up in thought.

To understand how this girl's mind worked, try to imagine a normal mind as an orderly set of pathways, with many lanes, neatly turning and curving in on itself, as those thoughts that race along it speed to and from their destinations. Fireflower's mind, by contrast was as if these tidy and ordered paths of thought had been partially built or destroyed, the thoughts having to pick their way along twisted and unclear paths, sometimes being lost or corrupted along the way, sometimes crashing into others as they desperately tried to make sense of themselves. Some would reach her consciousness fully; a moment of guilt or anger, doubt or even occasionally affection. Others, ripped and shredded beyond recognition, would instead explode inside her mind like a thousands fireworks, lacking any real boundaries, and instead causing the girl to become enraged, vicious, incoherent.

She wasn't stupid - for the thoughts along those pathways were as constant and swift as a netherdrake's flight. It was simply that this..experiment, this construction that was this demon-girl was like an unfinished project, created but then left to self-destruct without hands to guide those paths straight once again.

The warlock finally shrugged.

"Nope."

"Because they have to, Fireflower. They've no choice in the matter. You've given them allegiance..."

"I what?"

The succubus sighed. "Remember, honey? They made you pick between these and the elves and I told you to pick these?"

"Oh yeah. I liked the water...falling water...." the girl pointed up to the cascading waterfalls nearby.

The succubus nodded. "Yes, the water..."

How was it possible that the girl could be so damned focused when it was time for something to die and yet even the simplest question about ANYTHING else was met by rambling incoherent comments and vague offhanded gestures?

"ANYWAY...." without thinking, she cracked the whip behind the warlock in frustration, preparing to continue.

As she did, she felt the tiny white warlock's hand at her throat, and her childlike voice drop to a threatening tone as she had spun to face her minion.

"Easy...Catt..don't talk like that, not like that, Catt, not like that..." the rhymes....the rhymes were the pathways twisting up again. In moments of rage or shock, or what passed as joy, the warlock tended to sing-song a sentence, in an eerie childlike way that made even the succubus nervous.

The glowing eyes had focused on her, a cold and unfeeling gaze descending upon her. Fireflower's nostrils flared slightly and slowly in time with her undead breath; her chest rising and falling against the succubus' own.

This close to her, you were reminded all too easly she was still the daughter of a Demon Lord. Somewhere inside that tortured mind was the innate sense of power, the lingering taste of arrogant confidence that came with demonic royalty. And as powerful as Azrethoc had once been..these were, after all, the little hands that had brought him to his knees.

And all because she'd felt betrayed.

There is only one thing more dangerous than a being that kills because he doesn't feel anything.

And that is one that kills because he does.

"Sorry, kiddo..my bad, my bad.."

The tension lingered in the air a moment longer when Fire suddenly dropped her hand, utterly distracted again.

"Let's go to Nagrand!" she shrieked and lifted her hands, channeling the spirit of the dreadsteed once again. "I wanna see those thingies..thingies..again what are they, TELL ME CATT! I can't remember...."

"Thingi...er...you mean the ethereals?"

"Yup! Shiny people, shiny bandage people. They give me things, I like them."

"They will if you do things for them. You like being busy right?"

"Yes, Catt..." the warlock's tone had changed slightly; a pathway was clear somewhere in that mind of hers. "You know that, why must you ask stupid questions?"

The succubus sighed.

It was going to be a very long day.

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"I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it." - Mae West
Fireflower's Words of Wisdom: http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...ompilation.jpg