By the Chains that Bind Thee (Part 10) by Fantasy Weaver

---

I'm going to keep this short and simple this time: Get ready for a ride.

Part ten of "By the Chains that Bind Thee". Please read the previous parts for context.

-Fantasy Weaver.


Note

1: Some foul language ahead

2: Some adult content ahead

By the Chains that Bind Thee

Part Ten

oOXOo

"Ow! That hurts!"

He tried to push the invasive hands away from his head, but being so small, the Elder Mage easily swatted his hands back down. "Enough fussing. Look at your hair: it’s a mess!" She exclaimed.

He ground his teeth as a brush was dragged through his neck-length, dirty blonde hair, whining and squirming as much as his little body could. The second Elder Mage helping the first had his arms wrapped around his tiny waist, holding him still as the woman ran her brush through his sandy locks. He twisted uncomfortably. "Stop!"

Both Elder Mages seemed to sigh. "I swear you and Oras are always getting yourselves in trouble. You have grass in your hair for crying out loud!" The woman said, repeatedly brushing the same spot.

He hated this. His scalp always got so sensitive. It made everything feel weird. "I don’t care! Let me go!"

"Hey, stop moving, or it’s going to take a lot longer," the man holding him down warned.

It’s just hair. What was their problem? Sure, they use it for magic, but so what if it got a little dirty and disheveled? Besides, all this touching and scraping on his scalp was giving him a headache. Crying out, he banged his fists against the man’s arms. He shook his head, he screamed, he whined, anything to make it stop-

"Hey!"

His caretakers, no doubt fed up with his antics, sat him down in on of those big padded chairs, the ones the older mages would sit quietly in while they had their hair styled. The big male held his arms down on the large armrests while he twisted fretfully, avoiding the woman’s seeking hands an aggressive brushing.

"Look at me Shay."

The small boy pinched his eyes shut. "No!"

"Do you know what happens to fledglings who don’t take care of their hair?"

"I don’t care! Stop!" The woman brushed his hair away from his face, revealing the glimmer of frustrated tears in reddened eyes.

"Don’t tell him that…" the woman whispered silently, almost too low to be understood.

"Shay. Look at me!"

The Elder Mage’s hands were like steel on his bony shoulders. He cried out, baby blue eyes splitting open against his will, fear shining in the wet orbs.

"Do you know what happens?" the man repeated lowly, his sapphire irises showing Shay’s terrified reflection right back at him.

Small lungs heaved with heavy breaths, sweat gathered on anguished features. His ears were ringing. His head hurt. Something within him pulled at his subconscious, akin to a voice commanding him to listen, to listen, listen…

"Fledglings who don’t care about their hair clearly don’t care about their magic…"

He panted hard, unable to look away from those hard sapphires, from that infinitely blue mirror, where his horror-struck features displayed themselves so clearly when his caretaker ominously stated:

"…and if they don’t care about their magic, they get their heads shaved."

oOXOo

Gilded blades glinted dangerously in the light of the turquoise spring. The aesthetics of such a terrifying tool had never crossed his mind before, but now, as Eleos held it aloft, Shay had to admit that there was something decidedly beautiful about a clipper. Morbidly beautiful. This thing he was so averse to, that was used as some stand-in for a boogeyman by his caretakers oh so long ago, it’s pretty. It’s shining and rich, carved with intricate details in the handles and the cutting head.

Maybe that was because, in Eleos hand, it felt like an extension of the handsome mage’s body.

It fit oh so well there.

That clipper would decimate his hair. Eleos would not leave him with anything, of that there had never been any doubt. But now, faced with the ultimate reality, the terror had abated. Musuni had blessed him, Eleos had made sweet, tender love to him, had already hacked away most of his mane. His magic, Shay could feel, was getting further and further away from him. He hadn’t had the energy to call onto it very long before, when he had thrown that force spell at his love, but now, it was like the embers of a fire; still burning, but if left as is, it would die. He had known this, he had known what needed to be done, to be rid of the Order, to be rid of Synn, and now…

He accepted it.

Somehow, it would be alright. He had Oras here, he had the support of the Circle of Stars, was favored by Musuni herself and, of course, Eleos.

Sapphire eyes drank him in. Cat-like in form, with long limbs and a svelte body, skin so pale and light and smooth, like porcelain, like marble, dotted with beauty spots that he had likened to constellations when he had first glimpsed them, still wearing his leather sandals, biceps hugged by ornate bangles, golden eyes bled to purest silver, raven hair an aurora beyond magnificent around his slim, angular face.

When he looked at Eleos now, if someone had asked him if he had to live his life again, if he had the choice to remain in the Order, stay blissfully ignorant of his eventual fate under Synn, or to go through every horrific, traumatizing event all over again, Shay knew, without an ounce of doubt, that he would not hesitate to chose the latter.

Perhaps his silence had gone on too long to the Dark Mage’s liking, as he gave few snaps of the clipper.

"Ah-Ah!" Shay’s feet dug in the footrest, hands grabbing the handles on the armrests tightly. The arcane glass’s vibrations died out after about three seconds, but it was plenty of time to get Shay’s mind back to the present. "…Gods, Eleos, don’t just do that."

"Do what?" Eleos smirked. "This?"

Shay’s body jumped under the cloth as the Dark Mage gleefully used the clipper again. His breath came out in short, high-pitched bursts as his mind registered something he hadn’t noticed before. Eleos had never used the clipper for so long before, and the longer he did, the more intense the vibrations got!

"Oh, stop! Stop!" He begged. His insides were still sensitized from his earlier climax and Eleos’ lovemaking, and the arcane glass was most certainly not easing that sensation away.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? The man was doing this to distract him, wasn’t he?

Eleos ceased, giving Shay a breather at last. Shay’s hands were tangled in his disheveled hair now, face bowed to hide the blush that stained his cheeks from the other’s amused silver gaze. The blush only worsened when Eleos laughed, low and soft. It’s the kind of sound the young mage knew would replay in his wet dreams, or that would cause him to remember this moment whenever he heard it from the handsome man in the future.

Soft kisses landed on his crown. Shyly, Shay lifted his face from his hands, closing his eyes in bliss as he nudged Eleos’ lips with his head, demanding more of the affection. A smile curved those same lips.

After a moment, in which Shay tried and failed to form words, Eleos bent to eye-level with him. Even without saying anything, he could see in the Dark Mage’s eyes that he understood the fear he could not voice.

"It’s going to be alright," he promised earnestly.

Shay had to swallow about five times before he could say anything, and even when he did, it came out meek and strained, "Please be…fast." Gentle. Considerate. Understanding. Many number of things he could have said instead of that.

But Eleos, bless this man, seemed to read his mind, and whatever unsaid requests lingered in the air unheard, he put to rest with one intense look. "I won’t allow this to be the nightmare the Order has taught you it is." He kissed him then, a heated, smoldering kiss filled with restrained anger and a promise of better days, of care the likes of which Shay had never felt from anyone before. His eyes were brimming with yet more tears when Eleos broke them apart, and his final words may as well have been beaten into his being, "I will free you of these chains so that no one can claim your soul ever again."

Shay lifted his hands, held Eleos’ face in them, and bit his lips to stop them from trembling, "Someone already has."

His words must have hit something sensitive in Eleos, for those silver eyes had to avert themselves from him. Every one of his actions spoke of how he was dreading the actions he would take as much as Shay was. But he held strong. He kept himself so level-headed all the time. Even now.

Before Shay could say anything of his reaction however, or offer reassurance in the same way this demi-god had showed him throughout this ordeal, Eleos was already standing. Shay sat straighter, wet eyes drawn to the ceiling, where the illusory night sky was his only comfort for the turmoil to come. He blinked away the moisture, head falling back to its resting position, and he awaited his fate.

Eleos, from where he stood to Shay’s right, supressed the heartache that burned in his chest. His right hand clenched around the clipper’s gilded handles.

After a half-second of hesitation, the Dark Mage lifted his left hand, gingerly carding it through Shay’s uneven bangs. His lover cringed, flinching under his fingertips, air hissing in his nose. Stopping, he kept his hand there, allowed his digits to massage the scalp underneath the platinum locks. It was soft, damp with sweat, and every strand was like silk.

Delicate. Fine.

It would be no match for the clipper’s blades.

Eleos breathed once. He knew from his own harrowing experience that the pain would only get worse.

"Eleos?"

He shook himself. "Yes, Shay?"

Shay’s eyes were closed tightly. "Do it. Free me."

The clipper seemed to weight his entire hand down.

"…Take a deep breath."

With trembling fingers, Eleos gripped Shay’s hair tightly in one hand, and brought the clipper’s blades to his hairline, not allowing the young mage to finish his breath before he shaved the first locks off the top of his head.

Whatever sound that might have come out of his throat got swallowed up; he choked around the scream, sapphire eyes wide and unseeing in front of him as a bout of blindness assaulted him. And then, the pain, white hot and intense, followed by the deep vibrations of the arcane glass had Shay’s voice straining in his throat. There was so much to process. He could hardly keep up. Eleos using the clipper, hand closing the handles, back and forth, those sharp blades slicing his hair as close to the scalp as it had ever been, how the blessed marking on his body glowed brightly through even the heavy fabric of the cloth over his body, the sound the clipper made as it did, a harsh, crunching-clacking noise that rung out in the echoey cavern-

A cooling sensation, a fleeting tickle of soft strands falling from the front of his head.

The momentary blindness dissipated, just as the first locks tumbled to the stark white cloth. He didn’t scream, he didn’t cry. He just…looked at it. Watched as the once shining platinum turned ashy and grey.

That was when panic finally poked its ugly head back out of the dark hole he thought he had shoved it into.

Eleos tried to ignore the terrible cries Shay was making. He tried, he did, but every additional sob that emanated from his poor lover’s hanging mouth was like a hot knife being twisted into his side. He tightened his grip on Shay’s hair, at his crown, just behind the first strip of bare, pale scalp. Any arcane focus with which a mage is attuned to does the same thing when threatened: it sends alarming signals to its user. For hair, it’s in the form of painful stabs to the subconscious, and a dreadful, creeping hysteria that only mounts and gets worse the more damaged it is.

The Dark Mage steeled his resolve. His own magic was growing weaker the longer he used it, but he would sooner put himself into a coma from arcane exhaustion than leave Shay in such a state.

He willed the arcane glass in the young man’s behind to bend and reshape slightly, and brought the clipper back to Shay’s forehead, fighting to keep his head straight.

"Oh, Gods, no- F***!" Shay swore, breath hitching as the implement in his passage wriggled around, just as Eleos clipped another line from forehead to crown mercilessly. The glass, it was pressing along further inside him-

The treasure! The vibrations assaulted it and had the young man squirming on the chair, feet bracing rigidly on the cushion, hands clenching hard on the handles, turquoise markings flaring to life along his skin with every slice of the clipper, every pleasurable sensation inside his body, the pangs of torment from loosing his hair. All of it, everything was so much. Too much.

"Ah…Eleos, stop! Please, stop, stop, stop!"

Eleos clenched his jaw, ignoring the desperate plea. He knew what his little apprentice was feeling. Every sensation, he had also lived through, alone in this very spring, with no one to lean on for support but himself, hundreds of years prior.

He shaved a new patch, denuding the top of the other’s head even further, platinum strands falling, dying on the linen. No. The Dark Mage forced his abilities further, seeing in his mind’s eye what he wanted the arcane glass to do.

Pulling at the titanium grip on his head, Shay tried to dislodge himself from Eleos’ hand, shaking his head from side to side as his vision went in and out of focus through the blinding light and blur of heavy tears. He whined, knuckles white around the chair’s handles, legs kicking on the footrest without his conscious thought. A part of himself not overcome with anguish was forcing himself to try to keep still, but it was getting harder to do so.

He pulled his head forward again, but Eleos was unflinching, and held him back, and the young mage cried.

The cry, however, turned into a loud groan.

His focus shifted abruptly, going to the arcane glass in his ass, how it purred deeply and stronger than before, a constant source of beauty and pleasure amidst the chaos on his head, and how it seemed to be moving inside of him in a very similar manner to how Eleos had made love to him. And something else, his mind registered feebly; the base that pressed against his taint was offering the same vibrations here as well, and now, his manhood stood fully erect.

"No, please, mh…" he offered nonsensically, unable to say anything else, like his mouth was beyond his control, when all he wanted to say was "Please more."

Eleos breathed hard, tilting Shay’s head to the left as he brought the blades to the hair at his temples, paying no mind to the strands stuck in the gilded blades. Shay’s agonized noises were turning back into satisfied moans now. A heavy sigh managed to worm its way from the handsome mage’s lips, as he finally acknowledged his writhing lover, "You’re alright little apprentice, you’re doing so good."

The praise sent Shay’s mind to the heavens. He was hurting and devastated, but every word, every action Eleos took demanded those emotions submit and let themselves be buried under a torrent of love, adoration and rapture beyond the realm of human comprehension. The clipper crunched away with the other’s insistent pushing of the handles, up toward the already bald patches on the top, and despite the pain they caused, there was something else, something decidedly…wonderful. Was that right? With everything he was being put through, getting his hair shaved is wonderful?

No, that couldn’t be right-

His hand punched the armrest. "A-ah!" his eyes snapped closed, mouth open wide, delighted noise stuck in his throat as his shaft twitched excitedly under the linen when Eleos shaved behind his ear and sent a newly freed lock to the cloth, the arcane glass responding to the action with increasing fervor.

"Keep still, don’t move so much, please Shay" the Dark Mage told him over his exclamation. He brought the clipper forth again, along the length of his neck towards his firm hand still holding the other’s head still.

Shay grunted, moaned, hissed, all three? He couldn’t tell. He twisted fretfully in the chair, not knowing where to put his hands, how to sit- "I c-can’t, I can’t, please, I can’t stop, it’s too hard!"

It’s too hard. Oh gods above his cock was hogging every available blood cell in his body, and yet any chance at an orgasm was no more than a ghost drifting far in his subconscious, out of reach. Yet, that only made every sensation all the more unbearable, all the more delectable, all the more intolerable- ‘I’m going to die, I can’t take this…’ his inner voice complained, a fleeting thought that did nothing to make this better.

Eleos pulled his head quickly towards him, leaning Shay’s bare scalp against the solid wall of his abdomen, to better shear away the hanging hair on the left side of the young man’s head. His skin! His sensitive scalp, brushing against the warmth and smooth planes of Eleos’ abdominals, was alight with new, foreign sensations, and this time, Shay’s hands rushed out from under the cloth to grip something, anything, to make it stop, to make it continue, he didn’t know anymore.

His mouth, against his will, opened, "No more! That’s enough-!"

Eleos scowled with his own sorrow, forcing the distress back down with a hard swallow as his wrist were gripped fiercely. "Stop it, Shay!" His hard silver eyes spotted the outline of his young lover’s manhood standing proudly at attention, and ground out, with more force than necessary, "Listen to your body. Stop thinking with your head, and just feel, Shay. Just. Feel."

Just feel, just feel, he didn’t know what he was asking of him! "Let me go!"

"SHAY!"

He choked, a meek noise being forced from his heaving lungs when, with one swift move, Eleos jerked his head towards his hardened features. His scowling mouth, his clenched teeth and jaw, his furrowed brow, those blazing silver irises burning holes into his very soul…

"Look at me," Eleos ground out.

He was. He couldn’t look away even if he wanted to; the man had both hands clamped around his face so hard he could feel him shaking with the force. Sapphire stared into those luminous eyes, harsh pants bursting from him as every sensation quieted, every sensation, except the glass still purring away, even if Eleos wasn’t moving the clipper.

"Just…" Eleos started, fingers imprinting themselves into flushed cheeks, "Don’t let your hair control you. Don’t let Synn’s power affect you anymore than it has already. The pain you’re feeling is being inflicted upon you, not by me, but by the severing of those shackles he’s had on you for all these years. I want you to feel pleasure," he sighed longingly, "I want you to feel good. I want to free you. That’s what you told me to do, remember, Shay?"

"I…" hot tears raced down his scrunched-up face. He…he had? Yes, he had. He recalled now. It was barely a few minutes ago, why was he forgetting? Or was that it? His hair truly was controlling him, supressing everything good, everything about his own wants? His eyes cleared, his breath came in fast and hard, "Yes, y-yes, I do. I’m sorry, I can’t…"

Eleos kissed him then, softly, hesitantly, his lips velvety and warm against his. He closed his eyes, dark lashes resting on high cheekbones as he whispered against Shay’s lips, "Do you remember when you had asked me to touch you intimately for the first time?"

A forest of moth-littered willows under the moon, the faint sound of crickets in the grass, the dew on long leaves and flower petals, the cool night air. All of it came to him, just like when he had thought of it during his initiation; the feel of Eleos body against his, his slicked hand along the length of his shaft, his hand tangled in his hair, how peaceful and content he had been, he remembered it all.

His hands, unbidden, slumped on the armrests. Closing his eyes, he nodded, unable to form words. Eleos’ grip loosened slowly, carefully, as the man’s low voice washed over his senses, "You said I’ve claimed your soul. If that is true, then give me control now. Let me dictate your body’s response, if only for this one time, and don’t listen to the voice in your head that isn’t your own."

His mind was still stuck on the scene under that willow, and as Eleos’ words melded into the fantasy, only one though surged forth from the depths of Shay’s overtaxed mind, the only thing he knew would allow himself to be fully under Eleos’ control.

"Bind me."

Eleos’ eyes widened, just as Shay’s own parted tiredly. "What?"

"Bind me…" the young mage repeated, leaning his forehead against the Dark Mage’s own. "Like you did that night."

At last, the meaning behind his words struck Eleos, and, despite everything, he chuckled, shaking his head at Shay in wonder. "Alright, little apprentice. Let’s finish this."

It took a great deal of concentration on his part, but Eleos obliged his lover’s request, and dark shadows coiled around Shay’s form in the chair, binding his body to the cushions, arms to the armrests, legs to the foot rest, unyielding. Shay sighed, eyes nearly rolling to the back of his skull; he could feel Eleos’ will in those coils, like the man’s own limbs were the ones holding him to the chair, and somehow, being unable to move, being subject to the man’s power like this, was exactly what he need to endure this.

Eleos stood straight, bringing Shay’s head back to rest against him. "Ready?"

His response, though shaky, was devoid of doubt, "Yes."

Eleos took no time in bringing the clipper to his left temple, the hair there sheared off without an ounce of resistance. Shay felt the arcane glass move faster inside him, vibrating and hitting his treasure without restraint with every pass from the golden tool. This time though, he imagined a shield in his mind, a ward against the persistent alarms his arcane focus was sending him.

The clipper passed behind his other ear, crunching away, eating the cursed gift that was his platinum hair. The blinding light, Shay could see it, too bright, too hot, too terrible to describe, but the pleasure emanating from everything Eleos did, the arcane glass, the cooling sensation of those shadows around his body, his flowing magic permeating the air around them, the dark and quiet cavern, a comfort he had never know he needed, together they shielded his mind from the terror, the loss of his magic, the unknown that lay before him.

‘I want to be my own person.’

Eleos passed the clipper up the side of his neck, more strands gathering on the cape, while others turned to ash.

‘I want to bathe in the truths of this world, even if they’re harsh.’

His moans became quiet now, even as Eleos moved behind him and bent his head forward, chin resting against his chest.

‘I want to walk under the stars and look up at them, knowing that a higher, calmer form of life awaits me in a field of galaxies…’

"That’s it darling…" Eleos’ smooth voice floated to him, as his moans and whimpers hitched with the feel of blades slicing through hair, over his virgin scalp.

‘…to know that there’s someone in the beyond who cares for me.’

The clipper passed over his crown, platinum strands slowly dissolving as they fell to the cavern floor, ash turning to dust, turning to nothing. Eleos caressed the bare strip, and shivers coursed all the way down his spine, and he struggled, only for a moment, against the shadows around him, but as the demi-god shushed him, he felt himself grow still, and his body go lax with pleasure.

‘I want to stay here, knowing that a being beyond my understanding didn’t use me, didn’t hurt me, but sent me her own flesh and blood to show me that there is something better waiting for me than fire and eternal torment.’

Small, hitched sobs, not of sadness, but of pleasure too beautiful for this world, echoed in the space around them. His moans, he realized; soft and subdued, as a warmth so different from the singe on his mind enveloped his being. Eleos sheared still, taking off the uneven strands, until there was barely anything left. Two more passes, and it would be over.

He brought the clipper to Shay’s nape again, pushing and releasing the handles, reaching up higher and higher. "You’re almost there, just let it happen."

‘I want to be free.’

The last strands swayed lightly on his bowed head. Eleos readied himself, blades ever so close to those final locks.

Shay sighed, allowed the warmth to build, to curl and coil around inside every one of his limbs-

A shattering ringing broke the peace.

Light. The blessing dissolved.

Eleos tensed. "NO!"

The next moments happened too fast for Shay to comprehend. One moment, he was at peace, the next, his mind was thrown into a hellscape of inescapable horror.

It was him. All those eyes. This couldn’t…

A piercing cry ravaged Shay’s throat, twisting and ringing with the terrible power that swallowed his mind. Blue eyes rolled to the back of his skull, closing, and when they opened, they were white-hot with rage. Burning, bright radiant light broke the binds on Shay’s body and burned the chair and cloth to cinders around him in a flare that shook the entire cavern, and Eleos, who had jumped out of the way, had called up nearly every last bit of magic he possessed, and called forth every shadow and consuming darkness into the room, the very power that allowed Musuni to drown out the light of her children under her veil of night.

A possessed Shay grabbed at his head and screamed in wrath, a sound in a tongue so ancient and cruel it rippled around in the blinding darkness. Shay’s body twisted and radiated white flame, that reached out into the shadows, as though trying to light them up to no avail.

Shay’s mouth opened, and his possessed body wailed, in Synn’s terror-inducing speech, "YOU INSOLENT BASTARD! THIS SHALT BE THINE END!"

Synn wiped around, flailing in Shay’s body as it somehow tried to resist him, hand grabbing at the mage’s bald scalp in abject horror and outrage. "WHAT HAST THOU DONE!?"

The white flame flared more intensely from Shay’s body as fury-filled eyes scanned the darkness around them with the sole intent of finding Eleos and figuring out the location in which his vessel stood. The connection being so faint, and the darkness being so thick, with no doubt that barrier keeping any information from being leaked out, made it all the more pressing to kill that impertinent demi-god.

"…get out of him."

Synn turned Shay’s body around, smiling crookedly as the thrill of the hunt made the fire burn hotter around him. He gave a hysterical laugh into the impenetrable blackness, "COME THEN, DEAREST SIBLING, SHOW THINESELF!"

Eleos, in the darkness, felt himself succumbing to his emotions. Abhorrence, terror, his own righteous wrath turning his blood to ice in his veins, and a need to protect and free Shay, his love, from his abuser’s control. The emotions bubbled, simmered and broke the surface of his mind. Finally, he snapped.

He melted out of the shadows, the thick coils twirling around his body, his hair no longer glowing beautifully like an aurora or speckled with star-like light; it was all consuming, blacker than black, sucking away all light from around him, stealing the light from Shay’s possessed form, even as Synn produced more.

Synn turned to him, and laughed low and dangerously, a pitying expression turning Shay’s soft features into something horrible. "THERE YOU ARE…"

Silver eyes had turned as dark as the rest of the surrounding air, tar-like tears dripping copiously down his skin.

"Get out of him" Eleos’ voice echoed, repeating ten times, silent-screaming whispers in the darkness.

Synn shifted slightly. "THOU HAST NO RIGHT TO DEMAND SUCH A THING FROM A GOD."

Eleos’ voice was cold and slicing when it echoed deafeningly around them. "Not my god."

Synn flashed forward, faster than Eleos could handle, Shay’s own outstretched hand reaching for his throat.

Time slowed. Eleos watched Shay’s face, the face had grown to love now but a ghost of its former self, single lock of hair leaving a trail of light behind him, come ever close to him as he lifted his arms to protect himself. He didn’t want it to end this way.

It couldn’t-

Whatever momentum Synn had used, now stopped, and instead, Shay’s burning body fell onto Eleos’ own, sending them tumbling down to the cavern floor creeping with shadows. Grunts and scrapping sounds of scuffling preceded their landing, where Eleos rolled away to one side, and Shay to the other.

What had happened?

"AH!" Eleos snapped his eyes up to Shay’s writhing form, where he tried to stand or sit, but ended up on his knees, clutching his head.

Eleos realized what was going on just as Synn whipped Shay’s body up to give wrathful cry that had his own ears ringing.

‘Shay, he’s fighting back.’

From within that astral plane of hellish visions of fire and nightmares and blinding light, his astral self was pushing back against the invasion, was fighting for control of his body, fighting to break the chains.

Eleos’ black eyes searched in the darkness which only he could see into, quickly scanning the floor. He stood up, running away from Shay’s twisting silhouette, searching for it frantically. Where was it!? Where did it land!?

Somewhere behind him the Dark Mage could hear Synn’s indignant cries, "IMPUDENT VESSEL! THOU’S BODY IS MINE TO INHABIT SO LONG AS THOU STILL POSSESSES MY POWER!"

Faster, quick, where was it!?

A glint of gold in the darkness.

‘There!’

Synn allowed more of his power to flood from the human’s body, but every time, Shay’s own will had it faltering, the light flickering unstably around their shared form. The link wasn’t strong enough! He couldn’t even concentrate enough to have the disrespectful brat’s hair grow. This would have truly been the perfect form; he just needed to get it under control.

Out from the shadows, Eleos jumped on Shay’s back, the god possessing him letting out a furious shout. The two brothers fought for control, stumbling around in the blackness, bursts of light and dark the only thing a human eye would have been able to see.

XXXXX

Oras stiffened where he stood panting outside the barrier, holding it up with runes shining forth from his palms.

Suddenly, the blue and gold runes making up the barrier shook, and part of the seals dissipated, like cracks in a mirror. Oras panicked, pushing himself to his limit to keep the barrier from bursting. ‘Girls, what’s going on!?’ He called out through their telepathic connection.

A faint, tired energy preceded Hyacintha’s response. ‘I can’t keep this up. Someone needs to replace me...’

Leena’s smooth voice drifted through the link, spreading through to the entirety of the Circle of Stars. ‘All available mages that have some amount of expertise in seals are to come immediately to the sacred spring!’ To Oras, she said, ‘Just keep holding with me!’

He didn’t need to be told twice, but holding this type of barrier with but two mages is draining. He clenched his jaw, steel blue eyes narrowing with focus.

Something terrible crept along his subconscious. He shook off the feeling.

In his mind, he heard Leena exclaim from her position, ‘Is everyone seeing what I’m seeing?’

The sacred spring’s entrances, which they were tasked to enclose within a barrier…

They bled coils of dripping shadows.

Oras’ sandy hair shifted more fervently around his head as he reinforced the barrier with all his might. ‘I have a bad feeling about this…’

XXXXX

He didn’t know how long they scuffled, flinging dark and light magic at each other. The only thing Eleos knew for certain, was that, in spite of Synn’s less than perfect link with Shay, he was still running out of time. His magic was nearly used up by now.

Synn gave another cry. Yes! Whatever Shay was doing now, it was the advantage he needed. With great effort, Eleos teleported himself forward, closing the distance between himself and Shay’s flaming form, sweat marring his brow with the monumental strain it put on his body. Synn was too busy flailing to gain full control of Shay’s body to stop him when a magic-infused hand grabbed him and pushed him to the floor.

They landed with a harsh thud. "BASTARD!" Synn growled, but to whom it was addressed, Eleos didn’t care.

He wrestled the glowing body beneath him, trying to keep the possessed flailing to a minimum, avoiding punches and kicks aimed to incapacitate him. His right hand held firm on the shearing tool, and as he got the burning body to still, he lifted the blades-

Shay’s twisted features, wrought with sorrow, gave him pause before his hand, holding the gilded clipper, could remove the last of the hair that tied him to Synn.

With a ringing cry, Synn regained control, pushing Eleos off his body, a much stronger hand grabbing his wrists, forcing him to grind his teeth. "Ah!"

The clipper dropped to the ground with a resounding clang.

With a forceful shove, Synn pinned him to the ground, blinding golden chain binding Eleos’ weakened body to the cavern floor. Eleos choked as one wound around his throat, and he glared up at the vengeful god.

Synn’s eyes turned to the gilded tool, a sneer painting Shay’s lips into something far too sinister, far too terrible for those beautiful lines.

Eleos watched, black eyes leaking copiously, as Synn reached for the tool with a low, sinister laugh. He turned it around in his hand, inspecting it. "MUSUNI IS A FOOL," Synn said, "I DO WONDER, IF THE SACRILEGE THOU HAST PERFORMED ON MINE VESSEL, WOULD BE JUST AS TERRIBLE FOR YOU, ELEOS."

Eleos struggled weakly, the golden chains glowing around his body in response to Synn’s reinforcement of them. No, it couldn’t end this way, he couldn’t let this happen! But with all his struggling, he couldn’t call upon any more magic, and all he could do was scream in horror and anguish as Synn approached with the clipper, menacingly closing it as he did.

But before it ever touched the Dark Mage’s forehead, something…unexpected happened.

The arcane glass, still lodged deep withing Shay’s body, responded to the clipper’s use.

A confused noise left the possessed mage’s mouth, a mix of Shay’s voice and Synn’s angry exclamation, as the implement vibrated and moved in and out of Shay’s passage unrelentingly. Eleos, dumbfounded, watched as Synn buckled over him, hands flying to the floor to support his weight.

Those white eyes closed, and when they opened, the right one was a beautiful, teary, angry sapphire blue.

Shay, in control, lifted his naked body, sitting atop Eleo’s abdomen.

He shook his head, but not at Eleos.

Straining, loaded with fury, he uttered lowly, "Get out of my body."

The left side of his face deformed itself as Synn struggled to regain control. In a desperate attempt to stop Shay’s right hand, the left one, under Synn’s influence, made a grab for it, but Shay’s mind was stronger now, and his will would be imposed!

He forced his left hand to wrap around his throat instead. With his astral self locking his mind away from Synn, he lifted and placed the clipper behind his head, where the last remaining strands of hair glowed far too brightly.

"CEASE THIS-!"

Shay closed his fingers around the handles with fast, deliberate movements, his hand climbing higher with every clack and slice and crunch that divested him of his arcane focus.

And as the last strand turned to ash, every sensation turned to pure, absolute, orgasmic bliss.

The ringing reached its crescendo, dissipating in the air around them, the light flared brightly and the vibrations and pumping of that arcane glass implement reached its maximum, sending him tearing through a climax so powerful he physical bent backwards, back arching as seed arced out of his weeping manhood, landing on Eleos’ body beneath him just as the chains turned to residual magic. His mind, at last freed, was overrun with every beautiful memory of his lover’s hands, his affections, his endearing words and teasing actions, every last thing that had happened in this room all came rushing to him in a tsunami that washed away the tainted power of the sun from his body, his heart, his very soul, and finally…

Only the darkness reigned around them in the quiet cavern.

XXXXX

Two parts remain. I hope this was an intense read. Constructive criticism, as usual, is appreciated!

---