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The Blood War rages endlessly on. One more day of fire and blood and hacking demons apart while trying not to get hacked apart in return, before finally collapsing in her tent, alone. As always.
Day 2,967 of Karlach fighting the Blood War, if her maths is right. Never her best subject, but at least tracking the days is something to do on the nights when she’s not quite so sick of being alone that she leaves her tent to get bullied by the rest of Zariel’s forces. Maybe for day 3,000, she can throw a party. Invite all the guys she can stand at least half the time. There must be, what, at least four of them! And hey, it’s over a month away! Plenty of time to make new friends!
Gods, she’s lonely.
Anyhow, no time to dwell on that tonight! She’ll feel better once she’s dealt with her injuries--a vrock’s claws took a chunk out of her shoulder earlier, and she’d not had time to do much more than tear off another strip of her shirt as a makeshift bandage mid-battle. Which probably doesn’t look much better than it feels, by now.
She grimaces against the sting of the rubbing alcohol, but when she feels around the injury, it doesn’t seem like anything she’ll struggle to survive. Then again, once you’ve had your heart cut out and replaced with a piece of metal, you kind of feel like you can survive anything.
The hardest part is just getting the gauze in place, when she’s working one handed and can’t crane her head far enough to see all of her shoulder and so fucking exhausted from the constant fucking fighting--but Karlach can do this. She’s survived 2,967 days already, and she’s going to make it to day 3,000. (Like it’ll stop on day 3,000, like she isn’t going to have to go on to day 4,000, and then day 5,000, and day 10,000, and how many years is that anyway, is she even going to live that long? How many years does she even have left before she dies, miserable and alone and planes away from anyone she’s ever cared about?)
She wipes angrily at her face--stupid fucking tears making it even harder to see what she’s doing. It’s just a stupid piece of bandage, she just needs to find a way to hold it in place.
Karlach jumps as the flap of her tent’s suddenly pulled open, cursing as the bandage slips out of place again. She fumbles for her axe--even if there’s no signs of an imminent demonic attack on the camp, there isn’t a single devil here she even comes close to trusting.
Certainly not the bitchy, stuck up cambion waltzing into her tent like it belongs to her.
Karlach’s grip on her axe tightens. “What the fuck do you want, Mizora?”
Mizora gives an offended gasp, pressing one of her stupidly manicured hands to her mouth--nice that she can still find the time to get her nails done while Karlach spends all her days hacking up demons. “A little civility, for a start. Really, Karlach,” she huffs, “what kind of language is that?”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re just the picture of civility, inviting yourself into my tent.” Karlach glares at her, raising the axe protectively across her chest. She’s not stupid enough to actually attack one of Zariel’s inner circle in the middle of camp, but it still makes her feel a hell of a lot better to have it out when Mizora’s around. “Zariel sent you to play errand girl again, huh? Well go on, then. What’s the latest bullshit?”
“Such vitriol! Can I not simply visit a friend I’m concerned about?”
Karlach snorts. “Might be easier if you actually had any friends to visit.”
“You’re one to talk,” Mizora tells her cooly. “A camp full of Zariel’s best and brightest, and here you are, fixing up your injuries all alone.” She gives a sharp smile. “Lucky for you, I noticed how badly you were doing today, and came to help.”
“Right, and you’re just here out of the goodness of your heart?”
“I’m here because if you’re willing to let go of your pride for one single, insignificant night, we might both get something out of it.”
Yeah, that sounds more like it. Not that anything Karlach might get out of her presence is going to outweigh having to be around her in the first place. “Not interested.”
“Fine,” Mizora shrugs, entirely ignoring the axe as she steps forward, into Karlach’s space, and sits herself down on the stool that’s the only piece of furniture Karlach owns. “Though while I’m here, I really should make sure you bandage yourself up properly. We can’t have Zariel’s favourite going out of commission because she doesn’t know how to treat her injuries.”
That’s why she’s really here, Karlach guesses. Covering her own ass in case Zariel gets upset and takes it out on everyone else. Unless she’s just trying to make it harder for Karlach to get the damn bandage on. Her whole body’s tense under that judgemental little smirk--except her hands, which have chosen the worst fucking moment possible to start shaking. She can’t fucking do this, she can’t see, not with her eyes watering again, she doesn’t have enough hands and her shoulder aches every time she strains round, and she’s not going to start crying again in front of fucking Mizora--
A warm hand presses the gauze to the back of her shoulder. It’s the best thing Karlach’s ever felt in her life.
“There we are,” Mizora murmurs, taking the bandage from Karlach’s unresisting hand and wrapping it tight around her shoulder, fingers brushing against her arm. “Isn’t it so much easier when you just accept you need help?”
“I’m not accepting anything,” Karlach tells her quickly. She knows how this works--she agrees to let a devil help her, and then they tell her exactly what they expect in return, and it’s more than she ever wants to pay. Even for hands touching her gently for the first time in eight years.
Mizora sighs, shaking her head as she neatly ties back the bandage. “Must you always be so difficult, Karlach? Zariel gifts you some of her best work--” Karlach flinches as the devil raps at the infernal engine sat in her chest, but can’t help the shudder that runs through her body, flames flickering at her fingertips, as Mizora’s fingers brush the edge of her breast as she pulls her hand away-- “and you throw a tantrum about your silly, boring little heart. You mope about in your tent playing the prude when there’s a dozen or more devils out there who’d love a taste of Zariel’s favourite mortal. And--” This time, there’s no way the hand on her boob could possibly be accidental, and no way to pretend she’s not at least a tiny bit turned on by it-- “You’re still pretending to hate me, when your body’s doing nothing but asking me for more.”
“I’m not--” Karlach shakes her head, feeling her hair sizzle from all the pent-up heat as she realises exactly what Mizora just said. “Wait, seriously? That’s what you came here for? You want to fuck me?”
The hand withdraws from her boob and Karlach--she’s relieved, of course she is, she’d go eight thousand years before wanting Mizora to touch her.
“Really, what gave you that impression?” The cambion’s eyes narrow, and that evil little smile is back. “You’re the one who wants more, Karlach. Personally, I can’t think what Zariel sees in you.”
She’s always been so fucking jealous of that. Like Karlach had wanted to have her heart torn out and replaced with a machine, like she wanted an archdevil singling her out for attention, treating her like a fucking pet. “Yeah, well, me neither. So if neither of us is interested, how about you fuck off back up Zariel’s arse and leave me alone?”
“Well, I’d never want to stay somewhere I’m not wanted…” Like anyone’s ever wanted Mizora anywhere. “So if you’re sure...” She squeezes Karlach’s uninjured shoulder, runs a hand down a vented arm.
Karlach clenches her fists, biting down hard on her lip. Of course she’s fucking sure. That’s her one fucking rule, the one thing that’s got her through eight years of Hell. They can treat her like shit all they want, but that doesn’t mean she has to agree. She’s worth more than this, she deserves better than Mizora, deserves to share a bed with someone who likes her, someone kind. No matter what Gortash or Zariel or Mizora or any of them try to tell her, she deserves kindness.
Mizora’s lips nudge her ear, and Karlach feels her cunt leak. “But I was willing to cuddle afterwards. Just for a little while.”
She deserves--no fuck that, Karlach just wants--to be held.
"Just do it," she mutters. She's so fucking tired. She’s tired of waiting for kindness, for hope, for anything other than fucking scraps. "I don't care anymore. Whatever you want, just do it."
Mizora tuts. "Now! What sort of person do you take me for?" Her arms wrap around Karlach from behind, mouth still pressed to her ear. "You need to want it, Karlach. You need to say yes."
Karlach groans, fists clenching even as she leans into Mizora's touch. "Yes! Yes, all right!"
Mizora licks up the shell of her ear. "I need to know you mean it. Say, 'I want you, Mizora.'"
"Fuck off."
“Oh? Well if that’s how you feel…” Her hands and lips draw back suddenly as Mizora stands, brushing imaginary dirt from her dress, and Karlach’s left lonely and starving again.
"Wait, fuck, just--wait!"
Mizora pauses at the flap of her tent, an eyebrow raised. “Yes? Something you want to tell me?”
Eight years. Eight fucking years. "I want you, Mizora," Karlach forces through clenched teeth. "Please just--please."
“Since you asked so nicely…” And finally, Mizora’s lips meet hers, tongue snaking into Karlach’s mouth to caress her own. Hands run up her arms and along her back, like she’s trying to touch every inch of Karlach’s skin that’s been wanting for so, so long. Her body presses close, gods, an entire living, breathing body pressed up against her.
Karlach barely has the presence of mind to shove Clive off the bedroll, flipping him over--her teddy bear might be a veteran of the Blood War, but he doesn’t need to get his innocent button eyes exposed to this. And then she’s actually leaning into Mizora’s body, running her own hands up and down her as she remembers what other people feel like.
She hates the whine that spills from her throat as Mizora pulls back from her to shimmy out of her dress, and thrusts out her chest with a smirk.
“I don’t usually lower myself to sleep with mortals,” Mizora murmurs, tongue flicking across her lips. “You’re lucky I’m feeling so generous today.”
She’s pretty enough, Karlach supposes, in that Upper City girl way where it looks like it took them an hour or more to get like that. That’s never really been Karlach’s type, though, and the attitude that having a spare hour to pretty up makes her better than everyone who doesn’t isn’t helping the situation. “You’re lucky I’m frustrated enough I’d practically go for a lemure.” Actually, if Mizora carries on like this, a lemure might start looking like the preferable option.
But then Mizora’s hands are pulling at her breeches, and her bra, and slipping down between her legs, and Karlach’s already so fucking desperate that she’s rutting against her hand.
“You’re soaked,” Mizora tells her smugly, like Karlach might somehow have failed to notice the small lake forming in her smallclothes.
She can’t do this if Mizora keeps talking, if she keeps watching her with that same insufferable smirk that says she knows just what she’s taking from Karlach. Karlach pulls her into another kiss, squeezing her eyes shut in an effort to pretend she’s with anyone else right now. Maybe if she doesn’t look, she can imagine she’s back in Baldur’s Gate, celebrating her return with a normal girl who’s friendly and hot and has her fingers buried deep in Karlach’s cunt because she likes her. Maybe she can pretend the shouts of Zariel’s army are just noisy tavern goers, and the tavern just smells a bit like brimstone because everywhere smells like brimstone, because there’s no way anywhere in Baldur’s Gate ever smelled as good in real life as it does in her memories.
Mizora’s wings wrap tight around her back, like the bitch can tell what she’s thinking and is determined to remind Karlach that after eight years of telling herself she’s better than that, she gave in and got on her back for a fucking devil. And it’s good. A wingtip strokes up her spine as Mizora crooks her fingers, pressing against the walls of Karlach’s cunt. Her free hand pinches and pulls at a nipple, while the tip of her tail tickles Karlach’s thigh. It’s more stimulation than she’s ever felt in her life, nevermind the past eight years, and she can’t do anything except buck and moan underneath.
Mizora chuckles, mouth warm against Karlach’s ear again. “I wouldn’t have taken you for such a pillow princess, Karlach. I was expecting a little more reciprocation, you know.”
Karlach grits her teeth. It’s not like she feels bad for not getting Mizora off--if the devil just wanted to cum, well, she’s got two hands, and her own fancy tent, probably stuffed with feathered pillows that are a lot more comfortable than Karlach’s threadbare bedroll. Karlach never asked for her to turn up and start touching her. But still… She doesn’t want to be someone who just lies there and takes and gives nothing in return. In her fantasies, in her dreams of being back home with some blurry, nebulous figure that doesn’t smell like sulphur, she’s always eager to give everything she can, to make every touch a celebration. And sure, maybe that’ll be different, because her blurry, mortal, future sweetheart will deserve better, but if even someone she hates can overstimulate her enough that she forgets to reciprocate, what hope does she have of staying focused on someone she actually likes?
She gets her hand slapped away anyway, when she reaches out to rub at Mizora’s clit.
“Are you trying to scratch me open? Those claws are a disaster! I know tieflings are wild animals, but honestly--”
“You wanna go ask Zariel if she’ll give me some time off the frontlines every day for nail filing? If you can’t take the finger nails, don’t fuck a tiefling.”
Except that’s not it, is it, because she’s not actually an Upper City girl sneering at the savage tiefling girl at Gortash’s side; Mizora’s a devil herself, and most of them have sharper nails than Karlach does. Maybe it’s a cambion thing that has her trimming her own nails down, some human part of her heritage still looking down on anyone who looks too much like a tiefling. Or maybe it’s just Mizora being Mizora.
“You hardly need to go bothering Zariel for something quite so trivial,” she tuts. “Here.” She waves a hand, reciting some spell or other, and the tips of Karlach’s nails are suddenly gone, filed down far enough that they sting. “There,” Mizora says, pulling Karlach’s hand back towards her cunt. “Cleaned, too! I don’t need you getting any of that nasty demon gunk on me.”
Again, seems like a good solution is to stop forcing Karlach to fight in the fucking Blood War, but then Mizora’s knee is pressing up between her legs and she’s gone, pain in her fingers dulling away as she grinds down against the sensation.
Mizora’s hands are back on her tits, circling her nipples almost too gently this time, touch feathery-light--she’s stopped guiding Karlach, she realises, she’s rubbing at Mizora’s clit, getting her off, all of her own accord. That’s good, she reminds herself, she doesn’t want to turn into a selfish lover. Her stomach still churns in disgust at her own actions, at the fact that--that what, she asks herself. That she allowed this? Would she prefer if it was rape? Is she really that fucked up?
A noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, forces itself out from her throat. As if she could last eight years in Hell and not be fucked up about it.
Mizora looks down at her disdainfully. “Something the matter, pet?”
“You really need to ask?”
“Oh, I know, enjoying my attention must be such a bore for you.” She shakes her head, lip curling. “At least I know my way around another person's body. Honestly, I don't know what Zariel even sees in you. It’s certainly not your looks, and I think we can rule out any skill with your hands too.”
Like she’s supposed to be some sex god when she hasn’t been with anyone since she was a clumsy, overeager teenager eight years ago. She’d been nineteen, she remembers, fumbling with a boy round the back of Gortash’s place, quick as she could with her shift due to start soon, but so into him that even a few minutes were worth it. She’d been planning to take him out, treat him properly with dinner and wine and all that shit that seemed so grown up back then, once her next payday came around. She doesn’t remember his name now.
She screws her eyes shut again, focuses on rutting against the thigh pressed between her legs, smooth and warm and solid and sticky with her juices. On the way her clit pulses every time she catches it, oh, just there, that has her whining and grinding down like nothing else in the world matters.
There’s a sudden, painful pressure on her nipples. She yelps, eyes flying open again to see Mizora pulling at her tits like she’s trying to tear her nipples clean off.
“Bastard!” she growls. “If I wanted pain, I’d be back on the frontlines right now.”
Mizora snorts. “You really are inexperienced if this is too much for you.” She lets go, reaching up to stroke her jaw. “But I’m willing to provide pleasure alone, so long as you stop trying to shut me out.” Her face twists into a stupid pout. “It’s really very hurtful of you, Karlach.”
“My heart’d bleed for you, if I still, y’know, had one.”
“You’ve really got to let go of this victim mentality of yours. You’re a warrior in the Blood War now,” Mizora smiles viciously, flicking at Karlach’s burning nipples as she grinds up against her cunt. “And that makes you no better than the rest of us.”
“I will always be better than you.” No matter what she lets Mizora do to her, no matter how many days she spends fighting on and on and on in Zariel’s service, she still has her morals, and that’s more than she can say about any devil she’s met.
“Really?” Mizora’s wings tickle her back, a sudden sting as the tip brushes over her bad shoulder, but before Karlach can object, there’s hands cupping her butt, gently directing her as she ruts against Mizora’s thigh. “I watched you cut down a horde of dretches today. They were people once, you know, with hopes and dreams and whole lives ahead of them. But then, you've never cared all that much who your axe is pointed at anyway, have you? How many people did you kill for that old boss of yours, back in Baldur’s Gate? Did you convince yourself they were all baddies, that surely no one who deserved to live could ever get on the wrong side of your kind, benevolent master?” She strokes along the slot in Karlach’s chest, managing to squeeze the very tip of her finger inside. “You take every soul coin Zariel gives you, gobble up the souls of the damned for your own gain, and judge people like me for being willing to offer the damned the chance to make their own choices.”
Karlach shudders as the finger in her chest starts thrusting in and out. “Like--oh, fuck! Like anyone really has a choice in dealing with devils. At least I’m honest.”
“Are you? All those years pretending you were too good for this.” Her tongue flicks out, licking up the side of Karlach’s jaw. “You'll pretend you didn't want it when I'm gone, won't you, or that it never happened.” Wings pressing in close, massaging her back. “But I'll always know, Karlach. And so will you.”
The hand drops from Karlach’s butt to force underneath her fingers finding their way into her cunt again as her clit grinds against Mizora’s thigh, and she’s fucking seeing stars, screaming loud enough that half the camp must hear as she cums all over Mizora’s leg in the best orgasm she’s had in eight fucking years.
She’s blinking back tears as she comes back to herself--and to Mizora’s smug little smirk.
“So soon?” Mizora coos. “It really has been some time for you, hasn’t it, pet? Well! That’s hardly an excuse to be selfish.” She grabs Karlach’s hand, guiding her back to her cunt. “Though, honestly, I might be better off doing this myself.”
“You’re more than welcome to,” Karlach mutters, disgust seeping in stronger in the wake of her orgasm. “You can fuck off any time now.” Even if she will be alone again afterwards.
“And leave our deal unfulfilled?” Mizora shakes her head, manipulating Karlach’s fingers against her cunt. “I promised cuddling, Karlach. And I know how desperate you are.”
Karlach scowls. It’s not like she’s eager to be alone and untouched again for, what, another eight years (or ten, or twenty, or the rest of her life--) but if Mizora wanted to take an easy out… “You’re the one still offering to stay,” she points out. “Still not sure what you’re getting out of all this, if I’m really that crap in bed.” Unless it had all been an excuse to bully her. But Mizora doesn’t usually go to the effort of fucking her when that’s all she wants.
Mizora sneers, moving Karlach’s hand faster against her. Without the overstimulation, Karlach’s hyper aware of how weird and wrong her fingers feel, nails cut short and still stinging.
“Oh, you are nothing,” Mizora hisses. “Never doubt that. You’re a curiosity to Zariel, a mascot full of mortal limitations that no amount of devil blood can make up for. And, pet? Get used to that, because no one else is ever going to want you for anything more.”
Maybe it’s true. She’d thought Gortash valued her, and she’d turned out to mean less than nothing to him. All her friends back home, the boy she’d messed about with, they all must’ve moved on long ago, no room left for the wreck that’s Karlach even if she did find a way out of Hell. Everyone she knows here would sooner stab her in the back than help her out, and, oh yeah, even the woman fucking her hates her guts. Maybe it’s stupid of her to keep believing in a world outside Avernus, that there’s people out there somewhere that won’t make her feel like shit. But then again, she’s never been that smart.
So she grits her teeth and refuses to give up that last, stupid bit of hope, like she’s refused the last 2,966 days, and wonders instead how sad Mizora’s life must be that she has to treat other people like this.
It’s… probably pretty sad, she thinks, watching Mizora, as she gets off on Karlach’s mutilated fingers--and seriously, no devil’s gonna let her get away with that, so if she doesn’t fuck mortals then, again, who is she fucking? Her own eyes are screwed shut now like she’s the one who wants to be somewhere else, a tear escaping down her cheek. Karlach’s kind enough--just about--to not say anything about that.
Mizora presses a hand to her mouth, gasping as she cums, shuddering on Karlach’s fingers. It’s over in a moment, and then that horrible, scornful little scowl is back on her face as she wipes her fingers clean on Karlach’s bedroll. Well, eight years into fighting the Blood War, Karlach guesses there’s been worse on it. Barely.
“Well, your performance was tolerable,” Mizora says. “I suppose you deserve this.” Her arms wrap around Karlach as she pushes her gently down, almost snuggling into her. Karlach’s hugging her back before she even registers what she’s doing, too caught up in how fucking good to just hold someone.
Mizora presses her face into Karlach’s chest, caressing her foot with her own.
Karlach’s never quite realised how much smaller than her Mizora is, before. Karlach’d been tall, back in Baldur’s Gate, but she hardly sticks out among Baatezu.
“Must be difficult growing up half-fiend, yeah?” she says slowly, thinking back over Mizora’s words. She might have clawed her way into Zariel’s inner circle, but Karlach knows better than anyone that Zariel’s attention isn’t the same as being valued as a person. “Hard to fit in with either side of the family. Never really trusted by the humans, or good enough for the devils.”
Mizora tenses in her arms. “One day,” she says calmly, “Zariel will grow tired of you. And it’ll be my pleasure to have you hunted down like the animal you are.”
“That’s not a no, is it?”
“Or maybe I won’t bother to wait for her permission.”
Karlach could point out what Zariel’s response would likely be to that kind of insubordination--but it’s not like Mizora doesn’t already know, at least as well as she does. She could point out that Mizora’s lonely and out of place and desperate for some gentleness too. And then Mizora would deny it and bitch at her and try her very best to make Karlach feel like shit again, because this doesn’t change anything. Because she’s still an evil bitch who decided she needed to manipulate and mock Karlach instead of just admitting that she wanted a hug. She still happily lies and kills and ruins lives, like that’ll make her feel any better about herself. She’s still a devil, and she’ll still keep hurting Karlach if she gives her even half a chance.
Mizora curls closer against Karlach’s chest, her wings wrapping around the two of them.
Just for one night, Karlach doesn’t pull away.