The Hydra's Curse

Arc 2 Part 2

Living in the caves certainly played havoc with Calvin's sleep cycle. The lack of sunlight, and the fact that so many of the people living within the cave network were actually nocturnal beings made it incredibly easy to become one as well. But the fact remained that his night vision was unfortunately quite awful. He needed to get out of the cave for a month, fly around the continent for a while and get a sense of what was happening in the larger world.

But at the moment he was fast asleep, only gently pulled from his slumber when Sasha slid into their little nest beside him. She was the reason he stayed—and their bed of course. Just a little less than two years ago, the entire town of Salutem had robbed a cargo ship. It had been wrong, but their little community needed some essentials, and thanks to Sasha's hypnosis they had done it with minimal injury and no casualties on either side.

The floor was layered with bags of feathers and topped off with a luxury carpet, making for a wonderfully comfortable sleeping hole. He hadn't slept so comfortably since he'd been burned and forced to flee his home. As the hydramorph slid into their makeshift bed beside him, he cracked his eyes open and smiled faintly.

"Back already?"

Sasha yawned with both heads as she pulled herself in closer to him, wrapping her arms around him and snuggling in. The initially eerie feeling of her hairsnakes playing over his back and shoulders had become a sensation of comfort, something familiar he'd grown to love about her.

"Just a kid seeking vengeance in the wrong place," she sighed. "Bit off more than he could chew, ran the moment I let him. The usual."

"Night terrors will do that to you," Calvin said lazily, yawning himself.

He felt Sasha nod faintly. "I think that's the best part about what happened, not living in fear anymore."

Calvin suddenly felt the urge to play devil's advocate just to annoy her. "Well, it's a different thing that we need to be afraid-"

"Oh shut up," she pulled back slightly so he could see her faces grinning at him in the low light. "Fine then. Not living in magically induced terror."

Calvin grinned back and pulled her in tight again, shifting so he could unfold his wings and wrapping them around her. "It's definitely a plus," he finally agreed. "It's no wonder those poor buggers go insane. What happened?"

Sasha stopped to think about it briefly. "His sister," she said after a moments pause. "Probably burned by a shadowcat."

"Visiting him at night without him knowing, inflicting night terrors?" It was a situation they knew all too well, particularly with shadowcats. Their ability to blink between shadows in the night made it incredibly easy for them to enter homes—something the burn victims did to visit their old family while they slept.

"That's usually what it is." Sasha just sounded resigned to the situation. Someone would have to go and find the poor girl before she inflicted to much damage on her former community. "But on the plus side, we know where to look. He was carrying a sword made in Yowlen."

Calvin grunted. "That is pretty close by air. I'm surprised he made it this far on foot."

"Probably had a horse, but you know how they get once they're close to here." One of her hairsnakes nipped his ear affectionately.

"Oh, so you're going to sic the job on me now are ya?"

Sasha giggled. "What? It'll only take out a half a day to get there."

"And a bloody month to catch that shadowcat," he muttered. "Do you know how big of a pain that is?"

"You should be good at it by now! Plus you're going stir crazy in this cave, you need to get out into the day again for a while."

"But I don't wanna," he mock pouted. "It's comfy here."

"I know! Why do you think I'm staying? Besides, who else we keep the stream of terrible heroes from slaying the residents of this little place?" she asked in a teasing tone.

"Cain? He's a big guy." Calvin wasn't serious, he knew fully well that it was best if Sasha stayed. She was by far the best equipped to keep people away in a non-lethal manner.

"Pfft. Cain's just a big fluffy dope. I don't care how many heads he has." Her hairsnakes nipped at both his ears again while her lower hands started playing down his abs. "And we don't want you getting fat now do we?"

Calvin snorted. "Careful now, you might offend me." One of the benefits about his form was he didn't seem to story energy as fat, and was quite proud of his figure for it, even if it came with very little work. He leaned back from their embrace and kissed her, drawing it out passionately.

"Ohh, the right head this time," her left whispered into his ear while her right reciprocated his advance. Her forked tongue, much longer than his, slipped into his mouth playfully while her lower hands each reached down and grabbed one of his members.

"And you want to send those away?" he asked in mock sadness, breaking the kiss off.

The tips of her tongue poked from her mouth as she smiled at him. "That's why we're having a little sendoff party," she said, adding a bit of hiss to her voice like she usually did when they had sex.

"You're as bad as I am," Calvin grinned as her left head, unfazed by their conversation continued to suck seductively on his neck. "And you didn't even have a run in with a succubi for an excuse."

There was something thrilling about only talking to one of her heads while the other acted as an auxiliary, trying to steal his attention from the other. It was the only time she ever behaved that way around him—pretending like she was two separate people in one body. It was bizarre, having his girlfriend suddenly become two distinct personalities clambering for his attention. Normally her dual personality act freaked him out, but during sex Calvin thought it was hot. It made him feel wanted, desired, something to be fought over.

Finally he rolled on top of her, going in for a kiss on her left head this time while her right nibbled and sucked on his ear. "Come on," she whispered faintly, her voice a primal serpentine hiss, "get them in there already, don't keep a girl waiting..."

He could play that game too, and dropped his voice into a guttural, draconic growl.

"Gladly."