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Welcome to the humble little journal of my succubus and I. The journal is private, so kindly request before you post, or be prepared to face the consequences, which will be dire indeed.

Here is Noelani Morwen! Isn't she the cutest? She totally is. Don't question me.

In an effort to please my--let's be honest here--quite insatiable vanity, here is a post by the Bee, of the Bee, and for the Bee. Am I not wondrous to behold?

[under construction]

Name: Breizh Muireall
Age: Mid-twenties
Occupation: Storyteller/poet/actor
Hair: Black. Extremely thick and corkscrew-curly.
Eyes: Pale, nearly transluscent green. Wide and kind of scary.
Height: 6'0"
Build: Trim and athletic and just a little bit gangly. Strong arms and shoulders, light brown skin.

Likes: Tea, storytelling, writing, walking alone, hunting.
Dislikes: The willfully ignorant, gardening.

All the people lucky enough to be related to my darling. As you can see, there aren't very many lucky people, more's the pity.

Mommy/Guardian: Bee/Breizh

[reserved]

[reserved]

When she stopped writing, hours later, the noise preoccupied her once more, and she grew agitated as she started walking back to town.

She was suddenly aware that she wasn’t heading to town anymore, and wondered why her body hadn’t felt it necessary to inform her mind that Breizh would, in fact, be going farther into the woods.

Sunset proved a poor guiding light, especially through the trees, and Breizh wandered in the dimness, following the ringing, the ringing that was becoming more pronounced by the moment, an incessant cacophony that drove all other thought from her mind, leaving only the single-minded determination to find the source of the sound, the bells, the bells, the bells—

Her foot struck something, sending it lurching. Breizh, unable to keep her balance, pitched forward. She hit the ground face-first, chin digging into the dirt and stopping any forward momentum. Electric currents of pain shot through her face, her arms, her torso; her features twisted into a grimace.

Resting there for a moment, she let the pain subside a bit, and then pushed herself up to rest on her knees. Warm blood dribbled down her chin and throat, but she hardly noticed: she was immediately captivated by what lay in front of her, only a few meters away.

An egg, sitting in one of the last dusty, rosy beams of daylight, turned on its side. Tied around the dark shell was a bright ribbon; at the very center of the bow there was a bell, now soundless. Not bothering to pull herself to her feet, she crawled toward it, stopping again when she was centimeters away.

Wings.

Small, dark violet wings protruded from the sides, as did tiny horns.

Succubus.

She knew what it was, and had known long before any of the townspeople—they came into the knowledge but weeks ago, when they had all been driven from the town, and given news upon their return that to be caught with a succubus egg would almost certainly lead to death.

Stories, some relatively recent and some as ancient as the trees around her, had spoken of Succubi, of unearthly beautiful women who came to men, enchanted them, and then without fail murdered them once the carnal delights were had.

Perhaps because she knew that she would never share that dismal fate, as she wasn’t the right sex, Succubi had always fascinated her. She had wondered if real ones were the ruthless strumpets of her tales or if, as usual, the biased accounts left out the true intentions of the other side.

I’ll soon find out, she thought, dispensing with the last bit of distance between herself and the egg, scooping it up into her arms. She was only in her mid-twenties—her exact age was something she had never been able to ascertain—and had never felt the desire to have children, merely an apprentice, but she was surprised at the rush of almost maternal warmth that flowed through her as she nestled the egg closer to her.

Or perhaps that was merely the unbearable warmth of the egg itself.

She finally rose, cuddling the egg close. She had a couple of options, now: she could head home immediately, trying to smuggle the egg in her cloak with her supplies, and chance being caught; she could wait until the dead of night to creep back, avoiding curious eyes but rousing undue attention by virtue of her long absence; or she could just not go back, and head out into the vast unknown with nothing but an egg, some parchment, three wells of ink and tablet.

The third option was no option at all, and the first carried too much risk. She decided to linger a few more hours in the woods, and hope that speculation about the reason for her long sojourn away would be attributed to a fierce devotion to her work. One of the advantages to being odd was that people expected you to do odd things, and since those things were often inexplicable to the general populace, they were dismissed.

How many times had she heard it about town?

—Oh, she’s a talented storyteller, you know how my little boy dotes on her, but she certainly has some strange habits—

—you see how she hunts, alone? It’s not right for a young girl to act so masculine—

—sometimes I wonder exactly what it is she scribbles on those endless sheets of parchment—

—just a mighty queer little thing, no wonder she can’t find herself an apprentice—

Smiling to herself, Breizh returned the same exposed root upon which she had earlier been writing. She tended to her face as best she could, and then reclined against the tree, the egg held in her scraped and throbbing palms as she caressed, studied, and wondered.

She sat there for some time, until she realized that she still had the morning chores to tend to and then people to entertain. Her small parcel of property contained, aside from the house, a small garden that was perpetually failing to produce anything but weeds and frustration, and just enough room besides that she could keep a modest chicken house. She owned a cow, and paid to keep it feasting on her favorite farmer’s fields. Every morning the old man’s grand-daughter, a chipper little thing not quite eleven years old, deposited a large pail or two of milk on her back doorstep.

Speak of the devil…

“Miss Muireall! Miss Muireall! You’d best come for your milk ere it sours!”

She was early, this morning. Usually she didn’t appear until some time later, when Breizh tending to the garden—“tending to” being the phrase she substituted in polite company in place of the more apt “shrieking and cursing viciously at.”

“I’m coming, Ada!” She rushed up the ladder, pushing up through the floor-door and then making sure to shut it behind her. Her back door was open, and peeking into her house was Adelaide, milk pail in hand. Her hair was pulled back into two braids, her body kept warm by a long, thick cloak that couldn’t possibly have belonged to her. She smiled cheerfully and proffered the pail, which Breizh quickly took.

“Thank you, Ada, and if you’ll excuse me—”

The girl’s smile dimmed into a small, uncertain grin. “Miss Muireall, ain’t you gonna offer me some tea?”

Breizh could have kicked herself. The tea! Breizh had offered Ada a cup of tea the very first time Ada delivered her milk, three years ago, because while Ada wasn’t a particularly bright child, she was cheery and sweet and Breizh had wanted to thank her both for the milk and for making bearable what had otherwise been a miserable morning. Ada took one sip, and as soon as the liquid hit her tongue her face contorted into the most exaggerated grimace Breizh had ever seen. She suspected that only a rudimentary sense of politeness had kept the girl from promptly spitting it out.

So, of course, Breizh made sure to offer her a cup every single morning, and was always amused by the frowns of disgust and hasty declines that she received.

“Right! Tea. Terribly sorry, Ada. I’m getting on in years, as you know, and my mind works about as well as your grandfather’s old mule. I’m lucky to remember my name, most days.”

It didn’t seem to work. The doubtful smile had melted into a worried frown. “Miss Muireall, what happened to your face?”

Breizh laughed it off. “Oh, this? Tripped and fell right on my face heading home last evening. I’m losing control of my body as well as my mind, it appears.”

Ada dropped off milk eight more times before anything interesting started to happen. Breizh passed her days in quiet agitation, unable to find herself content anywhere other than in her cellar. She did her chores in the morning and told her tales in the afternoon, always anxious to get back to her egg.

It took all the will she had not to run back to the house and dash to the cellar—a pounding litany of Has she hatched? Has she hatched? drumming through her head—but for over a week she emerged from the underground room in disappointment.

The eighth dawn was colder than usual, the vibrant hues of morning washed out by cold and fog, vivid yellows and pinks cast into frigid pastels. The chill persisted through the morning, and Breizh bundled up in layers to go about her work. It would be warm later in the day, but the icy early-day that stretched on and on was the first harbinger of autumn, more real to her than the leaves outside her window that were slowly having the life leeched from them.

Upon rising, she didn’t spare much of a thought to the egg, except to check on her after she had put the tea on and got a fire going. After all, the cellar was the driest, warmest room on the house, and swaddled in blankets as it was, the egg was unlikely to be experiencing any major discomfort. Then she remembered that eggs were much more sensitive to the cold than humans, and the blankets might not be enough.

She wanted to bring up the egg and set it by the fire, but she didn’t want Ada to see it when she came by with the milk. She could always not invite Ada into the house, but after the trek she made with the milk, and through this kind of cold, it would be immensely thoughtless and cruel. She couldn’t do that to Ada.

Deciding that she would just keep the girl in her kitchen, Breizh brought the egg up from the cellar, clutching it close. It shook in tiny, sporadic trembles for a few moments, before abruptly stopping.