Chapter 4: The Darkness Within

I opened my eyes to a fuzzy, unfocused world. While I was more developed than a normal infant at birth, my eyes still didn't want to focus completely. I could make out Argyle looking down on me sadly, as well as 14-year-or-so-old Merlin, and his guardian. The wizard was still rubbing his throat where I'd been choking him, and he'd put on a smoking jacket to cover up.

"I request the honor of killing her myself," Argyle said.

Merlin gave Argyle a half smile. "Your compassion is noteworthy, demon. But no, I'm not going to let her have the easy way out."

I was actually touched at Argyle's offer. An unprovoked death at a demon's hand would have prevented me from going to hell. This aspect of divine law is the only reason that demons don't simply rampage around the world killing humans for Power.

"Then what do you have in mind for her, prince?", Argyle asked submissively.

Merlin furrowed his brows for a moment. "Actually, I want to release her from the curse. She's suffered longer than I ever intended."

Argyle looked at the wizard with incredulity. "After all this time, you'll just release her? She's been hunting you for the better part of a thousand years now!"

Merlin smiled wanly. "And for the first few centuries, her pursuit kept life interesting. But this time, she almost killed me. If she's ever in this position again, she'll probably succeed. I don't want to kill her though, so only leaves lifting the curse. I probably over-reacted when I put it on her anyway. An unending curse, just for fucking Lancelot behind my back? It was a bit much, but honestly I thought she'd reverse it before the Renaissance even hit full swing."

I tried to say something, but it only came out as an incoherent baby gurgle.

Merlin stepped closer and brushed my blanket aside with his hand. I was helpless, unable to do anything but watch and listen as he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were glowing purple and he spoke in a voice far than any which should've been able to come from his body. The demonic half of his heritage was apparent as his voice washed over me in nearly-tangible waves of Power as he said, "I who set your curse, do now release it."

There was a crackle of Power in the air, and it suddenly became hard to breathe, and I felt like something was moving inside of me, slithering inside my very veins with a myriad of tentacles. The entire room darkened, as if the light were suddenly being absorbed. Suddenly, I became weightless and my body began to float up off of the table. Tendrils of chills ran down my body as the sensation changed from weightlessness to being suspended by ice-cold, impossibly long bony fingers tipped with what felt like writhing snakes. I heard a gasp and a shouted inquiry from the others, but Merlin simply said under his breath, "Stupid me. It would take on a life of its own by now, wouldn't it?"

I was still helpless, unable to move. My eyes could just barely focus on a gaunt, bony specter standing behind where I was, and facing Merlin. Its body was formed of pure darkness, but it was shrouded in mist. It as if it were only the shadow of a far more sinister form which remained unseen. Its dull red eyes stared balefully into mine with a malevolence that had never been tempered by a human soul. This being - a psychic cancer which had formed around Merlin's curse like coral on a shipwreck, had drawn power from my centuries of wicked deeds and dark magick.

There was only one thing the creature holding me could have wanted: to absorb my body and soul so that it could fully enter our world. And then, seconds later, to devour its creator as well.

"Release her!" Merlin commanded in a voice impossibly deep for his age. A split second later, he raised his hands and the air crackled as jet-black lightning shot from his fingertips.

An inhuman shriek split the air as I was swung through the air, dislocating one of my tiny arms from its socket as something like toothed tentacles grasped me firmly. The creature dangled me in the air to its side, as Merlin's lightning sparked ineffectually around it. All I could see of the creature was out of the corner of my eyes; it was a seething jet black mist with a menagerie of horrifying images roiling under its surface. This creature was a psychic manifestation of dark thoughts and malice, and its physical form was becoming less transparent by the second.

I'd met a personified curse once, that called itself Croatoan. It was proud of having devoured the entire colony of Roanoake after it was separated from its host, and it was almost a demigod now. The one holding me needed to die before it could finish its transformation.

Merlin's lightning was blasting right through the creature's intangible form and playing along the wall in a cascade of sparks. He raised his palm for a moment, and then his forehead blazed violet as his mystic eye opened. The ancient cambion took after his father's side for a moment and channeled his demonic father's side of the family, bathing the apparition in pure eldritch hellfire.

The darkness let out an astonished, pained shriek as the apparition recoiled, furious that Merlin could actually hurt it.

I felt the tentacles wrap tighter and tighter into my arm, biting into my infant flesh like barbed wire. As Merlin bathed it in spectral fire, the tentacles dug in and I could feel tendrils of icy cold slithering through my capillaries and snaking their way into my circulatory system. It was digging into me like roots, sucking warmth and life out of me as the mass of blackness began to pulse a dull purple color as it tried to absorb me. The part of my brain that really was a human infant began crying as my life force began draining into the monster. My bones began to lengthen I grew, at first slowly and then faster and faster as I aged. Merlin continued to strike, bathing the shade in mystic fire and loosening its grip. I could feel the roots pulling back involuntarily, thrashing under my skin as they tried desperately to hold onto me, but still managed to continue siphoning my life force.

Merlin's life force was burning too, but slower. He looked around 17 now, and he was still aging as he burned his his own life force in a desperate bid to destroy the Curse.

My limbs shook convulsively as my body kept growing. I tried to kick the creature, but it didn't work. The mists kept pulling together, creating a tangible form. My body had aged to about 10 when my kicking feet found something solid and squishy. The creature faltered and dropped me, letting out a deep, inhuman howl like winter storm winds cascading down a rocky canyon. I collapsed backwards onto the floor, my legs feeling weight on them for the first time ever. My aging started to slow down just as breasts began to grow out of my formerly flat child's chest.

The first words I uttered out of my new throat were, "Fuck you!" I may have physically been a child, but my body had just reached adolescence, which meant I was just beginning to be fertile. And now that I had the chance, I was going to tap into my life force to help Merlin finish this.

I didn't have hellfire, but I did have normal lightning. And the Curse now had just enough physical form to be hurt by my Magick. I struggled to one knee and stretched out my hand, blasting the Curse with blue-white plasma. The creature shrieked and howled, thrashing back and forth as it staggered backwards into the wall. Its billowing, misty shape was beginning to shrink a little. I was aging myself rapidly now, but I didn't care as long as we killed the Curse.

Merlin and I both blasted it, and the black mist burnt away like the sun burning away morning fog. The creature's physical form was visible now; it was a coal-black gaunt biped with long, bony fingers ending in barbed tentacles. Its face was insectile and arachnid at once, its center occupied by a pair of huge glowing red eyes which radiated a hatred that no living creature could match. The entity realized it was naked now and opened its maw, releasing a screeching wail that nearly burst my eardrums. My hands flew to my ears as I tried to block out the sound, lightning still dancing along my fingertips but not going anywhere useful. I looked back up saw the Curse was gasping for air, getting ready to counter-attack. It brought its tentacled hand up, about to do something.

My hands jerked back up almost by reflex, and I channeled everything I could muster into an eldritch fireball. Merlin did the same with a ball of jet-black hellfire, and the twin blasts streaked towards the creature just as its tentacle fingers extended towards me at a blinding speed. Our fireballs struck just a split-second before the fingers would've struck me, but that was all it took. The shade let out a squeal of fear and terror as its chest broke out in flame and spread throughout its body in a split second, outlining it in fire. The fingers which had almost struck me flailed aside like whips as it suddenly tried to flee. It was by the window where Merlin had been a baby, but now it stampeded towards the door on the other side of the room. It passed me and stomped away, shoving Merlin aside roughly as the fire spread across its body as if it were covered in gasoline. The creature had just made it to the door when its legs snapped and then shattered, sending black charcoal across the floor like broken glass.

The curse crashed to the floor, screeching pitifully and trying to run on the stubs of its limbs as what was left splintered and crumbled. It let out a pitiful squeal as it reached out with its hands and those shattered too, scattering black fragments across the hallway. The monster squealed helplessly, now just a torso being rapidly consumed by the fire. Moments later, only a pile of soot was left.

Meanwhile, the fireball had been expensive in Power. I took a step back and braced myself against a wall as I aged, my body rapidly changing. I was still completely nude, and my pubic region itched as my pubic hair sprouted and grew, and the nubs on my chest ballooned gracefully into a pair of spectacularly shaped breasts. I nearly lost my balance as my center of gravity shifted several times as I aged through several years' worth of my life. Moments later, I felt like the room had stopped moving underneath my feet and I could take a few cautious steps.

There was a full-length mirror on one side of the room, and I walked up to it. I gasped as I saw a face I recognized. My skin was a pale porcelain white, my hair black tinged with brown. I was slender and graceful, and appeared to be in my early 20s. I was actually the spitting image of my first body; the one I'd fucked Merlin with so many times back in Arthur's day.

My breasts were medium-sized and well-formed, tipped with salmon-pink aureole and short, wide nipples. I suspected that Merlin had tampered with my developing body "just a little" for old time's sake.

I looked over at Merlin himself. The wizard looked like he was just a little bit older than me, slim and toned without being skinny. He was still wearing the red smoking jacket, but he'd grown into it now. The jacket was open at the chest, revealing a tantalizing triangle of flesh and just the right amount of chest hair. Most surprisingly, I realized that I didn't want to kill him anymore. In fact, I kind of wanted to fuck him silly.

I wanted to bitch-slap the inner ditz who wanted to jump him right now, but I couldn't blame her too much. It had been nearly a thousand years since I'd had sex in a body of my own, and sex with a fertility-powered sorceror was the best sex in the world. He and I stood facing each other, the silence stretching on for almost a minute until I finally broke it.

"Clever move with the portal, Merlin", I grumbled.

He smiled and shrugged. "It was all I had left. Stopping my guardian using the baby, though, that was genius. I honestly never foresaw that issue arising with the portal. All in all, you nearly got me. But truthfully, I think it could be said that you were cheating a little." He gestured at the spot where the shade had disintegrated.

I nodded. "Yes, and not having that thing in my head now explains why I don't really want to kill you anymore", I observed. I paused for a second, then narrowed my eyes. "Maim, though - now that's another story. I'm pretty sure I still want to maim you."

Merlin nodded. "I knew that curse was a stupid idea when i first cast it, and I shouldn't have ever let it go more than a couple of centuries anyway. Curses gain a life of their own over time, and eventually they start to thinking for their hosts. That's probably what brought you here."

I shivered, my nipples suddenly hardening as I realized how close I'd come to becoming that thing's earthly body. "It knew you could destroy it, so it set me on a path to kill you."

He half-smirked at me, the same look he used to give me when I was his apprentice nearly a thousand years ago. It still made me blush. "Yes", he said, "it knew that the only thing that could exorcise it before it was powerful enough to take you over, was me. So, it very patiently shaped your thoughts until it convinced you that I needed to die. You're lucky that I'm paranoid, even for a wizard."

I grumbled and nodded, digging my big toe in the carpet sheepishly. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go from here, but it was probably going to start with clothes.

Part 4b: Replacing Merle

The only clothes I saw on the floor were baby clothes. Thanks to Merlin's cohesion spell, the shorts I'd been wearing were a shredded pile of threads in the middle of the floor. Covering up this spectacular new body felt wasteful, but I was feeling a little exposed and wanted to think. It suddenly seemed to dawn on Merlin's guardian that I was naked, so he grabbed a robe from the wall and passed it to me. "Brianna wears this at night when she's nursing Merle - err, when she used to nurse Merlin."

Merlin smirked as I donned the robe, and I shot him a look. "You still love that part of being a baby, don't you? Some things never change."

The wizard shrugged and stepped towards me. "Some things never do, no." He stopped just a foot away from me and took both my hands in his. "Take me back, Morgana?" he pleaded.

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm not entirely over the whole curse thing yet, you dumb shit."

"I admit, Morgana, the curse was a dick move on my part. But now that I'm seeing you here, and we're both the right physical age, I'd love to give it another try. I promise I won't hold Lancelot against you."

I thought about it, biting my lip as I did so. Merlin was leaning in close to me, and his arm found its way around my waist. I could feel his erection pressing against my thigh, and my pussy began to heat up in anticipation. There was a crackle in the air of sexual tension, the almost undeniable attraction between wizard and sorceress. Almost undeniable.

"You know what, Merlin? No. No, I'm not playing house with you, and no I'm not settling down."

Merlin gritted his teeth and let out an annoyed sigh and turned around. "So be it. But for what it's worth, I'm sorry", he said.

I looked around the room and spotted what I was looking for: the unconscious woman I'd occupied just a few minutes ago. While I was a baby, they'd moved her off to the corner so that she wouldn't be in anyone's way. "Argyle, go take care of her, would you?", I instructed. The demon nodded and slung her limp form over his shoulder. "Just leave her in the living room; we'll clean her up and set her back somewhere safe once we're finished here."

Merlin sat down on the chair his mother once used to nurse him in. He looked at me and asked, "What now, then?"

I smirked and said, "Now, we fuck. I never said you weren't getting lucky tonight." Okay, fine, undeniable.

The wizard spluttered and sat up, very pleasantly surprised. "Oh, man I could use this. Fighting that thing burnt up most of my reserves."

He turned to his guardian. "You're going to take Brianna to a romantic bed and breakfast tonight. We'll figure out how to break the news about me to her later on, but for now just tell her that I'm with her parents." His guardian bowed and left the room.

Merlin chuckled. "I've trained him well over the last few months. He got his wife pregnant with me, then he got addicted to getting women pregnant with my portal. Every single pregnancy has fed into my Power reserves, which is the only reason I had enough to take down that Curse." Merlin paused for a second and cracked a grin. "He slowed down when I made him meet and marry Brianna, but I still make him maintain a quota. He still impregnates an average of three women a week, but it's not all localized anymore. I made him switch to getting his pictures from match.com and reality TV in order to distribute the load - so to speak."

It was my turn to smirk. "So to speak. Now, let's get down to business. You owe me my first cock-derived multiple orgasm in almost a thousand years."

Merlin waved his fingers and uttered a word of Power under his breath, and the robe fell off of me in a pile of loose threads. Merlin had always loved that spell. I smirked and cast the same spell, and Merlin's clothes fell apart in a pile of rags too. His cock was already stiff and erect, and I could feel my pussy moistening in anticipation.

It was right then that Argyle stepped back into the room, minus the unconscious woman he'd been carrying. He looked back and forth between us and sniffed at the air, detecting the scent of arousal. "Oh, don't stop on my account", he said.

Merlin gave a crooked grin. "Don't worry, we won't. But now that you're here, there's something I intend to do about a wayward former servant of mine."

Argyle winced. "Yes, my Prince?"

"As the son of a Daemonic Prince, I bind you by this geas: you may never claim Morgana's soul, in whole or in part. She shall be immune from your charms from this time forward."

Argyle hissed and snarled in wrath for a split-second, as Merlin's words were seared into the very core of his being. But a split-second later, the pain was over and his grimace of pain was replaced with a lecherous grin as he looked at me. "Well, there went that excuse", he interjected.

I raised my eyebrow. "Any particular reason you did that?" I asked Merlin.

Merlin shrugged as a whiff of sulfur wafted through the air. I looked back at Argyle, who had decided to recast her flesh in my own image.

"Copycat", I teased her, even as I admired her body. If I were in a man's body right now, I'd totally have jumped me. Our bodies were slender without being skinny, with just the hint of muscles showing underneath perfectly toned alabaster skin. We looked like ghostly-pale yoga instructors.