"Drop the key, or I’ll kill you."
The mont he made his threat, Ferro felt the Oath mark hidden in his fur start to tingle.
But more than that, he felt a sure sense that Star couldn’t kill him. Not until the Oath was fulfilled...
"No," Ferro growled, "I’m done getting pushed around, Santina. If you want the key, you can try to take it from ." He lowered his right hand behind his back, gathering mana as he raised his left.
"You ungrateful bastard!" Santina let the spell fly, a dark red beam of magical energy. A re handspan away from Ferro’s body, he felt the Oathmark burn just short pain as the spell arced aside.
"My turn for a spell," the catkin raised his left hand, producing a weak but visible ball of compressed fla.
"As if that would harm , even if you could attack!" Santina sneered. "But go on, let’s see what you can do with two tails."
"I never said I was going to attack you," Ferro said, before bringing his left and right hands together.
The compressed ball of water vapor, continuously drawn as he shunted its heat into his other hand, exploded into a cloud of mist as he turned tails and ran for the barrier.
It was hard to estimate, but he thought he might have been five hundred asures or so away.
"Ferro!" a roar sounded behind him as the incubus gave chase.
"W-wait for !" Lawre sprinted after them.
Spell after spell tore after Ferro, turning aside because of the Oath mark. But that didn’t stop them from interfering with his sprint as the terrain in front of him was destroyed in Santina’s rage.
Realizing he was going downhill, Ferro drew on his magic and began to cast a continuous stream of vapor, leeching its heat into his other hand as he sought to create his own obstacles for Star.
Leaping over a crack he iced the ground behind him, but Star leaped over it, leaving Lawre to flounder as the youth hit the ice and fell.
Halfway to the barrier, he saw a ravine that carried a trickle of water and angled for it, but just as he iced a line alone the entrance, he tripped and fell face-first onto the smooth surface.
"I have you now!" Star leaped, intent on landing on Ferro, but at the last second, Ferro lifted his other hand and let loose all the heat he’d stored up at once.
The effect was explosive, pushing him along the ice as the concussion knocked Star out of the air, failing to harm the demon, but buying Ferro precious ti.
It was enough to buy him a few seconds to realize what he’d done, and once he scrambled to his feet, he decided to try sothing new.
Hastily gathering water and siphoning its heat, he pushed the spell out in front of himself with his right hand as he positioned his left toward his back.
Please work. Co on!
A mont later, he released a continuous stream of heat and force from behind himself as he ford ice ahead, his speedy regeneration enough to keep both aspects of the spell going as he rocketed forward, catching his balance on the smooth ice as he began to skate on his sandals.
A laugh escaped him as he sped down the ravine. But as he put distance between himself and Star, he heard sothing that sent a chill up his spine.
A monstrous roar, but one from a source he knew...
Lanoch.
The distraction was enough to send Ferro tumbling as he misaligned himself. He landed a hundred asures away from the shimring barrier, amidst a pile of skeletons that stretched in every direction around the edge.
As shock and horror delayed his mind, his movents found little purchase against the bones, which shifted and hindered his every attempt to crawl forward, or even stand.
But crawl he did, and halfway across the final distance, he felt hope stir once more before suddenly sothing landed heavily on his back.
"Give that key!" Star snarled, grabbing for it on Ferro’s arm, only to pull back suddenly as his hand began to burn.
The realization that Star ca to harm because of him ca just before the Oathmark began its punishnt, searing Ferro’s hand in the sa fashion as what Star had received.
As he rolled on the bones in agony, Ferro saw as Lawre took a massive leap, landing just asures away but with more sure footing.
He quickly approached, and Ferro scrambled once more to close the distance with the barrier, heedless of the burn on his hand and the red in his eyes as he crawled, and then stood. As he closed to within twenty asures. Ten asures. Five...
He reached out, wishing beyond hope that he’d get through even a single mont ahead of his pursuers. Because if he crossed first, he would have ti to run before others managed to cross.
And as he felt the distortion on his fingertips-
"Nooo!" Lawre shouted as he tackled Ferro at the back, pitching them both forward and past the barrier just a mont ahead of Star.
Unlike the last barrier, this one ca with a strange sensation. As if his mind and body and soul were twisted inside out and through each other before he landed heavily against a cool, hard surface, outside a massive wall that opened just ahead, revealing a corridor that branched to the left and right.
The heart of the Duat. The Labyrinth of Djet.
"Get off of !" Ferro shouted, batting aside the child’s arms as Lawre reached for the key, but failing to stop a claw from snagging the string. A mont later their struggle sent the key flying, and it clinked to a rest off to Ferro’s right...
Just as Star erged from the barrier.
As Lawre saw this, he pushed off of Ferro and scrambled towards the demon, as Star gingerly threaded his clawed nails around the string, lifting the key indirectly.
A look of triumph ca over the demon’s eyes as he said, "I hold our Oath fulf-"
The key clattered to the ground as Ferro’s truefire spell vaporized the band before curving away from Star’s body.
He’d made it, just in the nick of-
"I’ve got it!" Lawre dove and snatched up the key, panting as he grinned from ear to ear with relief.
"Good boy," Star preened, before casting his gaze on Ferro. "Well now, I suppose that’s our Oath then. Fulfilled to the letter..."
Ferro gazed in horror as Lawre held the key before Star, keeping it for the demon. Then he watched as the oath mark began to disappear from Star, at the sa ti that he felt his own disappear from his chest.
"Any last words?" Star raised his hand as Ferro stood, a bead of dark mana gathering at his fingertip.
This can’t be... Ferro rembered the prophecy he’d been given. The next ti he saw his sister would be the day she died... But what if it was all a lie? What if his life, up until this point, was all just so cruel joke? A cody of his abuse, exploitation, and failure.
The laugh rose in his belly as tears began to leak from his eyes. Ferro cackled, feeling as if his ribs would break from the pressure within as he felt the fear of death slip away.
Through it all, Star scowled, and the look on his face set Ferro laughing even harder.
"Is he... alright?" Lawre finally asked, concern rising on his leonine face.
"Alright?!" Ferro broke his laughter with a shout. "I haven’t been alright for years! I’ve been enslaved! Prostituted! Raped! By the man you call ’Father’!"
Lawre winced, but Ferro continued.
"And to co here, to the heart of this Hell for a chance... just one chance that I could save the only family I have in the world- chasing a prophecy from that charlatan bitch up above..." He held his eyes laughing to himself. "You wanted broken Star? Here I am!" Spreading his arms, he held himself open and waiting. "Kill . End my suffering. And when you have what you want, spare a mory for the boring cat you betrayed to get it."
Star held the spell. He held Ferro’s gaze for a mont longer...
"You, dear kitten, are anything but boring..."
What?
As soon as he dropped the spell, he leaped onto Ferro, bearing him to the ground as he straddled his hips, kissing him on the lips as he drove his tongue into Ferro’s mouth.
Instinct and training made Ferro return the kiss despite the shock running through his brain.
And when he was finally allowed to breathe, it was because Star pulled back as he started grinding his hips. "I’ve heard so many death speeches, but never one like that. Oh, precious... You have no idea how exciting it is to see soone cast everything away in their final monts..."
"What’s happening?" Lawre looked away when Ferro looked at him.
"Run and hide for a bit, little lion, but don’t go too far," Star said. His voice lowered as he turned back to Ferro "The adults need so alone ti..." he growled and bit Ferro on the neck.
Star pinned him by the shoulders as Lawre awkwardly went ahead into the labyrinth. His eyes were crazed, his lips drooling with lust as he licked them, and his tail was already wrapping around Ferro’s ankles.
All Ferro could think was, "What the fuck..."
"My thoughts exactly."
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