[h1][color=f26522][center]Lorelai Von'Strauss[/center][/color][/h1]

Lorelai leaned into Alexina's touch, she had a talent for alleviating the pain that no one ever had.  She had wondered whether the twisting effects of the dark powers flowing through her lost their grip in the presence of her lover's touch,  but was that specific to Alexina?  Or to their love?  With any luck she'd never get the chance to find out.

Indeed, the thought had occurred to her that she could simply trade her life for those of her sisters.  Lorelai's mother had sent her away when she was young for training,  and was hesitant to allow her to return when she became a woman due to her prodigious power.  In a way Marian Von'Strauss wasn't so different from Reyna Ruvina,  but would her mother have killed her to keep her power safe?  She didn't know,  she prefered to keep fonder memories at the forefront.  What this all meant was this coven was the first and best family she'd known.

One life for many,  Hector understood that.  She wondered what her old nemesis would have done.  Hector was a foolish man to be sure,  to face darkness was always foolish.  Before there was flame there was darkness,  and no matter how bright the light the darkness would return once it faded,  light was the illusion, a flickering and fickle thing.  Hector was brave and powerful though,  and failure to respect that would also be foolish.  

Sometimes she missed Hector, the thought that the opportunity to face him in his prime escaped her was depressing.  Perhaps she would have died, but the battle would have been all the sweeter.  The thought of Fenros approaching,  possibly with other hunters, made her fear for her new family and her love.  But she'd be lying if she said it didn't also excite her.  Ever since Hector died other hunters had seemed dull, simple men, she struck them down with little satisfaction and as much passion as the tide had when it sweeps away children's sand castles.

A real challenge again?  After all these years?  She felt her heart surge with that rage that she remembered when she was young.  She felt the infernal influence all around her,  reaching out,  offering itself up to her power.  Would Fenros taste as sweet?  Perhaps the Parisi brothers?  She would love to find out.

Her eyes fell on her companions,  Hazel a young witch near the beginning of her road to greatness,  Vespa a cunning and potent witch already with the potential to be so much [i]more.[/i]  Then her eyes fell on her love,  she scanned her face,  committing it to memory.

When you'd lost as much as she had you learned to treat each moment with those you care about as if it might be your last.  She impressed the feel on Alexina's hands on her back into her mind.  She had a vast library of such moments,  the night they met and Alexina stopped her lifeblood from adding to the forest's power,  stolen kisses under silvery moonlight,  the first time they'd made love.

With an effort she calmed her trembling heart.  Sqeezing her love's hand she drug herself back to now.  Lorelai simply had too much to lose to be careless,  no matter how much it might please her.  She turned her mind instead to the task at hand.

[color=f26522]"We should use every opportunity we have to increase of supply of sacrifices and other reagents.  Vespa, perhaps I could keep an inccubi or succubi ready for you to...absorb power from?  Unless you have a better partner in mind of course."[/color]  Lorelai kissed her love's cheek.  [color=f26522]"And if there's anything I can do for you my sweet you only need ask."[/color] She gave Alexina a look that said both 'I love you' and 'don't you dare die'.


[hr][center][h1][color=2e3192]Sousiel[/color][/h1][/center]
[hr]Sousiel walked towards the little mountain town fuming, to be deposited from her sleeping perch so rudely, and by her Mistress no less.  Ever since [i]Lexi[/i] had entered the picture she was feeling neglected.  She sighed, she was pleased that her Mistress was making powerful allies, and Alexina was certainly among the most powerful of them, but sometimes she missed the days when it was her and Lorelai against the world.

Oh, and armies of demons waiting in the wings, to afraid to disobey her Mistress.  She grinned,  she wasn't ashamed of the pride she took in Lorelai's power,  how could she avoid it?  To revel in such hatred, such capacity for destruction, it was intoxicating.

Sousiel was born the day Lorelai was,  forged in the pit for the task of acting as her familiar.  The Von'Strauss birthright,  some of them never took their power beyond that first binding.  She remembered the first day Marian had shown her Lorelai, asleep in her cradle as they approached the infant Lorelai stirred already sensitive to the infernal.  She knew then she would have to be powerful if she intended to stand next to her witch with any sense of pride.  So she rose through the ranks quickly, on the broken bodies of her peers and superiors.

Years later she heard of the fall of the Von'Strauss dynasty,  of course well before it happened.  Hell knew what was coming long before the witches did.  The strangest thing happened though,  the word went out to keep it silent.  They weren't going to warn the witches.  Rumors in the flesh pits were that the Von'Strauss Matriarch had offended the Adversary, King of Shadows for the last time,  and that they were keeping the intel to themselves.  She hadn't worked so hard to become some simple demon,  content to lash tormented souls for all eternity.  She made an appeal to The Adversary, she remember how his laugh nearly shook her apart.  He said that if she could save my witch she could be bound as planned.

That launched a many month long campaign to ensure Lorelai was out of the picture by the time Hector and his paladins arrived.  Marian was already threatened by her daughter's development so it only took a few subtle manipulations to convince her that her bonds with Lorelai needed to be broken,  then several more to delay Marian's plan to kill her daughter.

Months later Sousiel met Lorelai for the second time amid the ashes of her family.  Grief-stricken the strange girl looked at Sousiel for the first time she would remember and what she offered wasn't a pact,  nor was it a demand, Lorelai bound Sousiel as simply as someone stated the sky was blue.  That moment was perfect, the first time she felt her Mistress' dominion wash over her, it was like coils of steel wound through her essence,  even thinking of resisting made her feel sick inside.  From that moment on the two of them went on to slay more hunters than I can count,  and bind demons most of the Von'Strauss would have worshipped.  Eventually they even slew Hector Digard himself.

To be displaced now by some red headed meatbag whose sole purpose (other than defending Mistress) seemed to be rolling around naked with Lorelai, and generally making her smell like sex or the forest.  Suffice it to say it was infuriating.

Sousiel sighed again,  she wasn't being entirely fair she supposed.  Lexi did save Lorelai's life, and her Mistress did seem to be more at peace with her around,  she just wished Mistress would have ended up with someone with more ambition,  perhaps Medusa,  Electra would have been fine as well.  Her and Vespa got along,  why not her?

Sousiel finally stopped in front of the mountain village.  She spotted her weaker kin out and about.  Not all demons were born in the pit,  some of them coalesced from the darkness within the hearts of men.  Barely useful for anything beyond information she paid them no mind.

Taking on her fully human shape was difficult.  Lorelai's power was largely tied up elsewhere,  but there were enough of the urge demons about to eat,  and she managed it.

Demons had a nose for hunters,  each one of them carried a scent that was distinct from normal humans.  There's a common misconception that a hunter is just a man that kills witches,  but there's a reason there aren't many of them, and why they're all men.  Perhaps finding out precisly how many hunters where holed up here would earn her Lorelai's favor again.

She headed to the tavern.

[@Aerandir][@SillyGoy][@Jupiter Hollow][@NanoFreakV2][@agentmanatee][@Vocab]

(Sorry for the wall of text,  Sousiel needed a backstory apparently.)