20th of December, 124th of NDE. Somewhere in the Emerald Jungle near Pangcheng.
Zhou An awakened bit by bit. Her etheric feet gliding out from the polished hardwood floor the Shaper of Dreams built for her as a part of the simple, country side shack hidden amongst a throng of trees, bearing pastel foliage consisting of purples, pinks, reds and oranges. Like the orphanage Junoth found her during the Great War. Trees that withered, burned by the spells of the resisting Yudaonese troops and the invaders who brought peace and prosperity to her ravaged homend. Back then, she was driven by fear, but this fear slowly grew into admiration, devotion and gratitude under the umbrel of Hersith Kaguyari and most importantly – Myelia, her Goddess whose magnificence and gift of magic unites all one day, she believed.
Since then, Zhou An blossomed into a beauty on her own, then her petiteness, magnificent contours, lines gifted by Myelia herself were furthered by her Roses and Lotuses, tempered a little by her watchful Ravens in the shadows whom she joined at the age of fifty. A face naturally following an inverted triangur shape with gently rounded cheeks sitting close to her narrow, expressive almond framed eyes holding two dark pearls. Nose with a low bridge, soft, rounded tip with small nostrils, lustrous lips with a natural cupid’s bow. Her hair bold in its bck-brown shade, kept at a shoulder length, and she often parted the right side behind her ear that gained a sharpness, a quasi-dagger tip whilst a bit of her hair arched before her the left side of her forehead accentuating the flowing vintage style she preferred to wear during her false lives as a wandering courtesan.
Her short, petite body was honed in the eastern martial arts, whilst in tandem she learned the etiquette of seduction she enlisted a dozen times to eliminate the few remaining rebel elements in Yudao, her beloved homend. Which led her to Pancheng, where they discovered an ever-growing tumor – a Golden Tumor as Junoth referred to it half-jestingly. Zhou An was one of the first of the Raven Eyes loyal to Kaguyari who enlisted to head to the city, to find the Golden Dawn cell aiming to disrupt the end of the year celebrations, and eliminate their leaders.
A mission like all the others before. Yet the moment she seduced a man called Yao Ning – who turned out to be a high-ranking member of the Golden Dawn – Zhou An sensed more, noticing this group was way better equipped than all the others she infiltrated. And they had a strange fellow amongst themselves, whose identity she could not learn. No one knew where she came, what she looked like. All they knew that she was loyal to their cause – on top of being a bit too deviant, crazy for most of their tastes, but they were willing to overlook it for the cause.
Zhou An did not admit, but partially, instinctively she was afraid of her, hence why she focused on the seduction of the handsome Yao Ning, whom she grew a bit too attached to. At first, the two met only at the brothel secretly owned by the Raven Eyes, even after she was granted membership, but as the months passed since her te June arrival, the two made love in his office, granting her access to numerous files, pns, ledgers detailing the movement of rebels in the city, into the city and even mentions of hideouts. Including one she decided to eliminate herself, located in an old vilge that was the predecessor of Pancheng once upon a time.
Immediately arriving she knew it was a trap. There was something suffocating in the air, which was not the dampness, the vile stench of ravenous pnts gnawing on rotten flesh of beasts and man. It was a sulphureous stench of the hells, she knew from the two missions she had involving warlocks, with fools who decided to parley with the denizens of the Stygian Realms. But instead of running, reporting, she decided to face her fears, the enemy whose face and name remained unknown even months into her investigations.
A choice that was foolish as she awakened, her lips and cheeks sealed by a wide strip of her own sealing tape whilst buried into her yered outfit’s high colrs. Namely a long coat of dragonidh leather tailored in the silhouette of Qipao Dresses, the only changed made though were the elevated, slightly broadened mandarin colr, the silken trimming done with a mixture of dragonidh and aetherna silken in a Threads Pattern, the same trimming done around the simple, round hemline and sleeve cuffs, and the pagoda shoulders. On the other hand, the dress shirt she wore of aetherna satin was made in her favored rose red shade, though its colrs were rounded a bit more at its wings, and brocaded with hummingbirds flying around the full moon – a scenery which she stayed with her since her adoption.
The abrasive squeaking of the silver sealing tape which stirred her from the pleasant dreams came to a sudden end with an equally harsh ripping. “Good morning my sweet Hummingbird.” The Agent whom she came to kill arose, wearing the pretty face of a bonny courtesan she worked with. For a moment, she pondered whether that courtesan was The Agent all along, or she met a gruesome end like all the others she impersonated.
Zhou An remained stoically silent, staring into the dark pearls. Though her gaze remained on her captor, from the corners, she noticed the old wooden walls and floor soaked in a liquid with a strong, earthly smell. Involuntarily, her nostrils fred as she breathed in a little. “Part of the game I pnned for us.” The Agent said grabbing her chin softly whilst her lustrous, bold bckish violet lips leaned closer to Zhou An, then passed beside her face. A soft, muffled whimper escaped Zhou’s taped lips when the sweetened, watermelon scented warm breath of The Agent brushed against her neck. The golden, angled spread colr rustled as the tickling breath slipped into its narrow confines.
The sleeves of her coat sung their own soft lulbies when The Agent used them to bance, looming over her. A second whimper came from Zhou when her lobe was softly bitten by the cmmy teeth. “It would be quite the shame if the world lost such a beauty like you.” Her mildly curving strands quivered as a second, milder draught escaped accompanying the whispered words.
Then the Agent pulled away and circled around her, her fingers slipping along the smooth, creaseless surface of her coat, and the crinkling, glossy silver tape stretching over at sections of her body, fitting her tautly to the mended chair that held her slender form. “I am a fair master of games, gifting you ample time to either wriggle free or bound to the door.” Her hands stopped on Zhou An’s shoulders, and her faux face leaned down besides hers, her gently tapering jawline resting atop the left.
A click echoed through the space, breaking the profound silence. Not even the rustling leaves of the Emerald Jungle could be heard, Zhou An realized. All around her in the retively spacious room with soaked walls and cobwebs hanging in the upper corners and connecting the three beams above, wax candles lit up, a green spark on their fuses. She instantly recognized the pernicious, proverbial Wild Fme of the Crimson Circle – a group of Druids from the central nations of Heleion who don’t shy away from tapping into the destructive facets of nature and its elements.
A fme they forged by introducing the ravenous hunger of wild life to the element of fire, giving it the resilience of earth, making it nearly impossible to put out by using water or depriving the fmes of air. And on top of that, they bestowed it with the power and ravenousness of dragon fmes. Easily the Wild Fmes burn through not just wood, textile, flesh or bone, but even stone, metal with the same efficiency. “I see, you are aware of it.” The Agent said, sniffing her taped cheeks, burying her face into her colrs and hair like some animal driven by lust.
“Though, fear not, I given it some mild adjustments. You see, in a way, I tamed the most dangerous fme in existence.” Her pleasantly warm palms lurched Zhou’s head towards the two wax candles on the back of the two dead Golden Dawn operatives, still appearing solid, but there were a few streaks of the dull liquidized wax trickling down on the slopes. “Roughly thirty or twenty minutes.” She added, then her meaty, lustrous lips blew between her colrs, the chilly breath traversing down her body beneath her sleek garments tickling her, and as she squirmed lightly, the sparks trembled. The candles on the backs slid towards a little towards the edges, whilst on the other side she heard wood moaning. Turning her now freed head, she noticed the crumbling cupboard holding another candle on its top, left dry and covered in thick yers of dust.
“I’ll be waiting outside, for a round two.” The Agent lurched her head, face staring towards the ceiling blocked by her borrowed face. Then she pressed and kissed Zhou An on the tape, leaving the bckish violet lip mark on the lustrous, smooth surface before sauntering outside, winking at her before closing the door. Upon the click, another soft quiver pushed the candles on the cadavers, whilst the cupboard remained unaffected, though the candle on it appeared closer to melting down into a puddle.
Zhou An waited for five, six minutes pondering, making movements soft and weak. Her eyes darted left and right, then even turned her head back, noticing one more candle burning on the window’s pane. One equally close to fully melting down, further sowing doubts towards The Agent’s cims. She had less time, she was sure about that, but still remained calm, listening the continuous crinkles of the silver sealing tape. Slowly her breathing turned heavier, and she was assailed by a wave of sensations, making her heart skip a few beats.
The room lightly blurred, twisted right and left as Zhou An used her remaining stamina to lightly hop towards the door. All the while, dark thoughts began to creep into her mind and heart. Desires formed, wishing Yao Ning to be with her, to be subjected to his anger when he learns she used her. She even stopped and suddenly jerked her head to the right as if she was spped across her face by his rough hand. She could feel the burning sensation that would have followed, and her wrists bound to the chair’s arms twisted, toiled towards her nether region. Zhou An desired nothing more, than to mingle pleasure to the phantom pains she experienced in those few seconds, which felt like hours.
Through the small gaps where both phantom sensations ceded for a minute and half, she realized The Agent probably poisoned her through her breaths or the kiss. Or before that, it mattered not as she wrestled to strain her bound body, to halt the incessant squirming. Zhou An could not fault her adroit captor, her erudite adversary as she herself was trained to use such venoms, poisons that induce phantom sensations, dominated the victim’s mind to carry out the bidding of their jailer, master or mistress.
And like her, Zhou An also knew – and prayed a little she was right – how to break the alchemically induced madness. From right to left, she began to swing lightly whilst squirming still to satisfy her body’s needs imposed on it. Four times was all she need to tip the bance of the chair. The only price that somewhat satisfied her was that the tape looping around her skirt, p tightened, pulling her further into the harsh, wooden seating devoid of padding. Loudly, she arrived with her head smmed into the cupboard, leaving it miraculously intact, and another thump followed when her head bounced mildly upon impact with the soaked floor.
The earthly, bitter scent of the alchemical oil amplified her headache, whilst the sealing tape’s invisible tendril dug into her smooth, glossy cheeks and lips that appeared more prominently as she tried to open them intuitively. Her heart beaten wildly still, but Zhou An was free at st from the grasp of the dark thoughts and desires. She could focus at least now.
But this strangely serene moment ceased at a moment’s notice. Precisely when she heard the wood moan loudly for a second when the top shelf broke down, and snted towards the inner wall soaked in the alchemical oil. And the half melted down candle glided towards it with the pace of a snail. Zhou An squirmed weakly, realizing the act to free herself from the hold of the poison drained the st of her stamina, she closed her eyes and muttered a prayer to Myelia through the tape…
Afterword:
Another one, first in 2025.
And a short confession. Originally this wasn't the first story I pnned to start off these short, focused stories. But this has been on the to do list for a long while, and now seen an opportunity to do it.
Partially, this was inspired by the Ri Fukushima scene from the Million Yen Women. I tried my best to describe her with some additions given by her being a member of the Bck Rose Order. And of course a bit of introducing wildfire into the story. A minor and unrented fun fact, but as I was going through her wikipedia page, I noticed she pyed a Red Priestess in GoT, fifth season in the episode titled High Sparrow.
Anyhow, for this week, two more stories will remain. The next set in the past, the st set in on another pnet, featuring Rhommi as she had been neglected for a long while.
Thank you for reading this and hope you all have a nice evening! Till the next one, take care folks!
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