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To Dream of Darkness

A story by DoggyStyle57

Chapter 16, Written December 2011

===

Chapter 16 - Friends in high places

On the last night of her heat, Darla, in her identity as 'Heather', came in through the front doors of the inn with Ashley, as if arriving from elsewhere. Shortly after they arrived, a new guest entered the inn, reverently carrying a small chest, and accompanied by a carriage driver who brought in the guest's other luggage, accepted his fee, and departed with another paying customer. This new fellow was one that the girls could not recall having seen in the inn before. He was a reasonably good looking red fox, in his mid 40's or so, and from the cut of his clothes and the amount of luggage he brought with him, he was a gentleman of some stature, and likely to be quite wealthy. He spoke in low tones to the innkeeper, arranged for a room, and asked to have his one large portmanteau and two smaller chests carried up to the room by the innkeeper and Meridith. The working girls all sized him up, bantering with each other about what his tastes might be, and whether or not he would want a girl at all to warm his bed tonight.

He did not go to his room at once, nor did he seem to pay any attention to the preening wenches that tried to catch his gaze. He sat at a table in the common room, alone, and as far from anyone else as he could manage, with his head in his hands, as if very tired, or very sad. Before him on the table sat the one small chest that he had carried in himself.

Molly went to his table and asked, "What be yer pleasure, M'Lord? A meal, or a drink, or somethin' else, mayhaps?"

The gentleman looked up at her with eyes that seemed so haunted that the friendly young ferret wench involuntarily stepped back a pace, as he said sadly, "Your best brandy. Bring the bottle." He slapped two gold coins on the table as if they were mere coppers, and leaned back, with his eyes closed, and rubbed his eyes with one hand.

Molly meeped, scooped up the coins, and scurried to the bar, returning as swiftly as she could with an unopened bottle of their very best brandy, and a nice glass goblet. "W-will there be aught else, M'Lord? Anything at all I could do for ye?"

The fox said nothing. He took the bottle without even looking at the label, opened it, and poured the goblet half full. He drained that overly large measure in a single gulp, before looking at Molly with a glare that made the poor girl meep again and run from his table as if slapped.

"Maybe he just doesn't like his girls so young," Meridith said, having returned from upstairs in time to see the most unusual sight of Molly turning tail and running from a customer. She walked up to him herself, and asked, "My Lord? Did our little Molly offend you in some way? Can I serve ye, instead?"

He barely glanced at the wolf girl, before rejected her with just three words, "Not you. No.", and he looked at her with that same haunted expression. He gazed at the small chest once more with a pained expression, as if expecting the chest or its contents to somehow berate him for even talking to the wench.

Meridith backed away, murmuring to the other girls, "Those eyes... It's as if he's starin' at hell itself!" She shuddered and sought another possible customer.

"This one's mine then, if he's anyone's," Heather said. She walked up and sat across the table from the fox, bold as brass and not waiting for an invitation.

He glared at her.

She calmly returned his gaze.

"Ye don't run?" he asked, as he looked at her more closely. There was something painful in the way he looked at Heather - like looking at her broke his heart.

"Should I run? I don't think so," Heather replied. She opened her mind to his thoughts, and saw at once that the man was drowning in grief. He was in town to place the ashes of his beloved wife and daughter in the family crypt, and those ashes were in the chest that he bore with him. But there was something more, a sense of extreme guilt, and a deeper pain that she couldn't yet see. "Perhaps you just need to talk, then? I'll keep your counsel better than any priest at confession. You seem troubled. Please, let me ease your burden."

"Nothing can ease my burden, lass. Not while I live. But... all right. If you'll stay the whole night with me, and help me to forget, just this one night, I'll pay you well," he said, as he thrust a hand into his pocket, took her hand in his other hand, and placed ten gold coins in her palm - a fee far in excess of what any whore would normally charge - as if the money meant nothing to him. His hands were shaking. "The whole night, mind you, and your silence on whatever I may ask of ye."

"I think you found the right girl. We have a deal, then," Heather replied, as she put the coins in her pouch, took his hand in hers, picked up the bottle and goblet with the other hand, and led him, unresisting, to the stairs. The gentleman gently cradled the small chest in his arm, as if afraid it would break if touched by anyone else.

Meridith told Heather the gentleman's room number as they passed her, gave Heather the key, and she whispered also, "Good luck with that one."

===

Heather let them into the room, where the lamp had already been lit and a low fire kindled by Meridith, when she and the inkeeper left the luggage in the room.

The older fox followed meekly, and after placing his burden on the bedside table, he stopped with his hand resting on the small chest, trembling and weeping, and whispering almost inaudibly, "Forgive me."

"They call me Heather. How should I call you, My Lord?" Heather asked.

"I am... was... Lord Edward Randall. The last of my line, and there shall be no other. That is behind me now. Ashes of my past. The burden of my sins." he said.

"You do not strike me as a sinner, Lord Randall," Heather said softly. "You don't have to speak of it, but I'll listen, if you want me to. Have you lost someone you loved? Surely it was not your fault?"

"Not my fault... Not directly, perhaps. But I fear it is a judgment upon my soul for the evil that long has dwelt in my heart," he said, as he sat on the bed. "My wife, Mary, and my daughter, Sarina... are both gone. They were taken from me last month, by a plague that swept through our township, well to the south. Why was I spared? They were pure, and virtuous. Not... not like me. My poor Sarina... My poor, poor child. She did not deserve this. I would gladly take her place, if her life could be spared."

Haltingly, he spoke to her, and his story began to unfold. After his wife and daughter had died, he was a broken man. He could not bear to live in the home they had shared. He sold his mansion, lands, and business interests, and set forth to take the cremated remains of his wife and daughter to be interred in the family crypt, in the city near this inn. He would then have to go in person to tell his brother in law, Lord Thomas Penington, who was his wife Mary's brother, that his sister Mary and his niece Sarina were both dead. When that sad obligation was done, and the funeral held, Lord Randall intended to go to the abbey in the town, donate his wealth to the church, and become a monk, taking a vow of silence and chastity, and praying for his 'past sins'.

Heather sat beside Lord Randall and held him close, kissing him gently on the cheek. She could feel that he needed physical release. It was clear in his mind that before his wife died, he had been a lusty man, who loved his wife with a great physical passion, and that she had loved him with equal enthusiasm and frequency. Since her death, a month earlier, he had not been in bed with any woman. He needed a woman's physical affection like he needed to breathe, but he had been denying his nature, out of some warped sense of guilt. But what she could not understand was what guilt he felt over this tragedy, and he would not tell her. She doubted he could ever maintain a vow of chastity as a monk.

She touched his mind, soothing him and changing his thoughts just enough that he could relax and enjoy her company. As they began to make love, she sought in his mind his deepest fantasies, so that for this one night, she would become the girl of his dreams. He kept his eyes closed, but hungrily accepted what she offered.

His need was so great that she allowed his dreams and fantasies to reshape her very appearance to suit his whims, certain that she could erase any inconvenient memories that the change might cause, while leaving the memory that he had been sated in greater measure than he thought possible.

As had happened so many times before, the sexual connection opened his mind to her like a rose blooming in the sun. She could see every memory in his mind. She saw the happiness he had shared with his wife and daughter. She saw many memories of their child growing up, a lovely red-furred vixen that would have been almost the same age as Darla really was, had she lived. Mother and daughter had looked so much alike, especially as the young vixen started to become a woman.

And therein lay the seeds of his guilt, and his fantasy, and his self loathing, all at once. As the child had grown, and as his beloved wife grew older, Lord Randall had lusted after his own daughter. He had never actually touched the child. But for the last few years, as he mated nightly with his wife, he had almost always fantasized that it was his daughter he was mating with. Twice he had stood outside the child's bedroom, intending to claim her, before having second thoughts and returning to his wife's bed.

And then they had perished, suddenly. And while he mourned their loss, Lord Randall had been appalled to realize that what he regretted most was not that they had died, while he had lived. It was that he regretted bitterly that he had never consummated his forbidden desire to mate with his own daughter. That was what haunted him, and made him hate himself. He had accepted Heather's offer because she happened to look vaguely like his wife and daughter, though her fur was, thankfully, not red, even though he had not consciously made the choice based on her appearance.

As their mating was nearly ended, Lord Randall opened his eyes, and saw not the black-furred adult whore that he had hired, but instead the very image of his red furred fourteen year old daughter Sarina! And there she was, astride him, her eyes wild with lust for her father, and saying, "Ohhh, I love you, Daddy!" Even as this shocked realization hit him, his body responded, and he shuddered as he achieved his release. Then he passed out, murmuring, "Sarina! What have I done? What... have... I... done?"

Heather immediately forced the guilt wracked man into a deep sleep, as she pondered what to do. She had given him what he most deeply desired, and yet also what he most feared. She had not wanted to wound him more deeply. Yet she saw one way to make amends, and at the same time, to benefit herself.

Still in the physical form of fourteen year old Sarina, she opened Lord Randall's portmanteau and found the man's nightshirt, dressing him for bed, and cleaning him of all signs of their copulation. She put her own chemise back on, altering it with a quick spell to fit her smaller, younger form. Searching his belongings, she also found several of Sarina's dresses, which, according to a handwritten note tucked in the paper wrapping them, Lord Randall had apparently planned to offer to his own niece, Amara, who was his brother in law's daughter.

Having found all she needed in the fox's belongings and in his mind, she started altering the Lord Randall's memories. When she was done, she left him asleep, unable to awaken until she woke him in the morning, and went to instruct Ashley in what must be done.

===

In the morning, Lord Randall awoke in bed, with his daughter Sarina snuggled close behind him for warmth. He got out of bed and gazed at her innocent face with a sense of guilt and longing. Once more he had resisted carnal temptation presented by his daughter, and yet he knew he could not do so much longer. Nor could he bear to watch her growing up into the image of her mother. Last night he had experiences an unbelievably vivid dream of mating with his own child, and he knew that if she lived with him much longer, he would be unable to resist really doing so. He steeled his resolve for what he must do, as he swiftly got dressed. Then he gently awoke the child.

"Humm? Good morning daddy!" Sarina/Darla said with a sleepy grin, as Lord Randall touched her shoulder.

"Get dressed, dearest." Lord Randall said softly. "Put on your nicest dress. Today we must see your uncle and his family."

"I know, Daddy. But don't be sad. I understand what we must do," Sarina said cheerfully. "Mommy will watch over us both, won't she?"

"She will dearest, she will," Lord Randall said sorrowfully.

===

Lord Randall hired a coach to take them to his brother in law's home. When they arrived, a manservant let them into the elegant home's foyer, and went to get Lord Penington.

"Edward! You should have written to let me know you were coming! Welcome, welcome, my friend," Lord Penington said enthusiastically as he entered the foyer and shook Lord Randall's hand. "You really should visit more often. We never see enough of you! And can this be little Sarina? How many years has it been? My! What a beautiful young vixen you're becoming! But where is Mary? Edward? That look on your face... Good Lord, man, has something happened to my sister?"

Lord Randall began to cry, and he sobbed, "She... is with us. But she shall not be able to greet you. Oh, my brother... There was a plague... The doctors and mages did all that they could, but... Mary didn't survive. She is gone, Thomas. Mary is gone, and we are come to inter her ashes in the family crypt. I couldn't just write that in a letter. I had to tell you in person."

"Dear God. And she was so young. This is terrible, Edward, just terrible. We will help with all the arrangements, of course. Come into the parlor, and have a brandy. I'll have one too. God, what a shock this is. I need a drink. I can hardly believe it. We must break the news to Meghan and Amara," Lord Pennington said.

===

A few days later, they held a funeral, and Lord Randall and Sarina together put Mary's ashes into the small crypt. No one but Sarina could see that a second set of ashes also were placed there, Sarina's, with the single white flower that Sarina put in the small marble vault.

When they returned to the Penington estate, Lord Randall said to his brother in law, "Thomas, I cannot express how profoundly Mary's death has beset me. I could not bear to look at the estate where we lived together. At every turn I saw her, and wept. I have sold it to my neighbor, who gave me a good price. And I have sold my business in the town, as well."

"What? But what will you do? Where will you live? What is to become of Sarina?" Lord Penington asked.

"Thomas? I know it is so much to ask, but... will you take my daughter as your ward, and raise her as your own? She looks so much like her mother. I love her with all my heart, but I cannot bear to always see her, and in her see Mary. Please, say you will take her into your care. I will give you half of the wealth that I possess, to hold in trust for my beloved Sarina, to pay for the best possible education for her, for her living expenses, and as her dowry, should she choose to marry, or as funds to set her up with a shop, if her promising talent as mage should prove worth that endeavor. She is quite skilled at oneromancy, as young as she is. I think that is why she is so calm in the face of her mother's death. She can quell the nightmares that come from her grief. Would that I could quell my own nightmares so well. She is such a brave little vixen!"

"Of course we will take her in, Edward. Of course! She is my sister's child, and all that I have left of her. But what will you do, Edward? Wherever will you go?" Thomas Penington asked.

"I had some thoughts of becoming a monk, but, well, you know that life would never suit me, eh? I like women far too much, though I was faithful to Mary, I assure you! She was all the woman any man could hope for, by god. I am taking a steamship to the Orient, Thomas. Travelling to the far colonies, where nothing will remind me of Mary. Maybe, in time, I'll find a new wife. But I need to go, to get away from here," Edward Randall said. What he didn't admit was that leaving was the best way to ensure he would be free of the temptation his own daughter presented to him.

===

Sarina was given a room at the Penington estate, across the hall from her cousin, Amara. None of the Penington family had seen Sarina in years, and with the memories that the false Sarina had obtained from Sarina's father, and the additional memories that she rapidly gleaned from the Penington family, Sarina had no trouble making anyone believe that she was the real Lady Sarina Randall.

A week after the funeral, Sarina sat in a sheltered bower in the gardens, with Asha, who no one but her could see. It was a cold day, and lightly snowing, and no one in the family was inclined to question her wish to be alone with her thoughts, amid the silence of the falling snow. No one could hear the conversation between Sarina and her familiar, which was mind to mind.

"That was well played, Mistress," Asha said. "You have gained a new identity, powerful social connections, and wealth. And the one that you took this wealth from still came out of it better than he would have."

"Yes, I think so. Sarina's father will be much happier, believing she still lives. He still has half his wealth, instead of giving it all to the church. And he never would have been happy as a celibate monk! That man was far too lusty for that!"

"You should know, Mistress. So we're done with whoring, I take it?" Asha asked.

"No need for that now, so yes," Sarina said. "Lady Sarina Randall should not lack for lovers, and if I ever do, maybe I'll just summon you for that. You still have five years left to serve me."

"You have but to ask, Mistress. Get them to set you up with a shop soon, so we can resume our studies. Five years is barely enough for me to give you a good tutoring in pyromancy," Asha said with a grin.