When Lumiona opened her eyes, there was nothing but emptiness all around her.
Darkness was her only constant.
Then came the mist. And it embraced her.
The succubus's memory began to flow like spilt ink, impossible to stop as it slipped through the fingers of her mind.
She saw the valley's highlands again, covered in greenery. The little house with reed shutters. Her father's laughter and her mother's tender whispers.
***
Her mother. This gentle woman was also a succubus. But unlike her fellow succubi, Lumiona's mother took no pleasure in her power and nature.
In fact, she could have been considered strange, because although she was a pure-blooded succubus, she hid her nature under a constant spell — all simply out of love.
Many times she would say the same words:
"It's sad to have to live like a parasite. No one should be proud of that."
This woman had strived, despite her deeply perverse nature, to instil more than human values — such as compassion, empathy, love, selfish kindness, and above all forgiveness — in her adorable child.
And Lumiona adored her mother, who fought daily against herself for the sake of her family.
But like all sick parents, the poor woman feared the effects of her succubus nature on her daughter....
...Rightly so.
Lumiona's father, the human man who loved her and her mother strongly enough to defy an entire village, was gentle, kind, strong, and protective.
When he was near her, Lumiona felt safe. And even more... untouchable.
"You will be a happy child, Lumi." He often promised.
She was seven years old and still believed him.
But very quickly, people's attitudes changed. The manifestation of Lumiona's first powers shook things up.
A child was injured because he was unaware of his actions, under the involuntary control of the little half-succubus, who was experiencing her first childhood love.
Following this incident, Lumiona saw a horn grow on the left side of her head. Immediately, insults and epithets flew: monster, demon, cursed.
And to add fuel to the already raging fire, a passing traveller fell under the spell of Lumiona's mother, while she was struggling to control her 'abilities' during a period of weakness due to a lack of the 'special' energy that succubi feed on.
The man went almost mad within a few hours and tried to attack her. But he was stopped, tied up and locked in a shed a short distance from the village.
When they went to see him the next day, he was dead... his body shriveled like an old prune.
How?
No one knew.
But attention quickly turned to the impossibly beautiful woman in the village — the supposed victim of the man's failed attack.
...Lumi's mother, who seemed to have grown younger.
Over the years, other cases began to appear in the hamlet.
Young men full of vitality suddenly found themselves weakened or ill, homes broke up in discord that came out of nowhere, harvests dwindled drastically... a few dead bodies were found. They too were dried up to the bone.
No one had any explanations, but a scapegoat was needed. And the family of the little 'demon' was the perfect candidate.
All this time, Lumiona's mother retained her beauty, but she too was becoming weaker and paler — affected by an illness whose origin no one knew.
...Except her and her family.
And because of this deficiency, a horn also appeared on her head.
In the hamlet, people began to suspect the little family.
The neighbours whispered behind their fences. Parents kept their children away — a mixture of jealousy for the women and an unspoken desire for the men who continued to undress her with their eyes.
And the children... they had no restraint.
They insulted Lumiona, pushed her, threw dirt and stones at her. And they would come home in the evening and tell their mothers that she had 'looked at them strangely' or that her horn frightened them.
The mothers nodded, full of false compassion.
On the other side, Lumi's mother tried to comfort her. Her father tried to appease the neighbours.
But the fog of hatred thickened around them every year... And the whispers turned into accusations.
When she was twelve, Lumiona was forbidden from going to the hamlet's little school. When she was fifteen, a young boy, frustrated that the impossible beauty she was becoming refused him a chance, decided to break her arm with a log.
But he was never punished.
Mimi isolated herself and began wearing a straw hat to hide her horn.
Life became a series of grey days, where she walked with her head down to avoid being spat on and pelted with stones....
And things did not change with time.
***
One night, just after she had celebrated her eighteenth birthday, the fog grew thick. Suffocating.
And everything went haywire in the hamlet.
Lumiona remembered the brutal cracking of the door. The deep laughter of a man, then of twenty of them, torches raised.
"We know what you are, demons"' said one.
"We're going to take care of you... gladly!" added another, drunk with a pleasure not yet satisfied.
Then the violence erupted.
They struck her father first, as he tried to protect his family from the attackers.
The men then threw themselves on her mother. And after some of them had satisfied their lowest instincts, they ended the woman's life.
Lumiona had fled, on her mother's orders, but the women were waiting for her. They held her down and beat her. Then the men caught up and took care of her.
Some of the women even joined in.
Lumiona tried to defend herself, to scream, to simply speak. But her senses seemed to have dissociated from her body.
And the worst thing was that, beyond the suffering, there was a small feeling deep inside her that she couldn't explain, but that made her feel disgusted.
An emotion somewhere between the contentment of having satisfied an old hunger and the horror of having eaten a bitter, spoiled, poisoned meal.
Then, after satisfying their grim fantasies, they dragged her outside by the hair, her knees scraping the ground.
The faces she saw in the crowd were twisted with demonic pleasure — while she was in a state oscillating between mad unconsciousness and a faint glimmer of intelligence...
Those faces were those of the children and young people who mistreated her. Those of the parents who laughed.
What followed, for her, was nothing but an abyss. A clammy cold.
...A pain that had no name.
And dawn found her awake, bloodied, chained and caged, sold and put on a cart...
Heading somewhere north.
***
The clinking of chains, she could still hear them. The bars, she could still see them. The smell of rusty iron on her skin, she could still smell it.
The first of her masters, a cruel merchant who exhibited her like a rare beast, took advantage of her surreal beauty to make a small fortune.
Then there were the others. Those who wanted her as a servant, as personal entertainment, as a trophy, or for the strangest... as a concubine.
Some even appreciated her succubus nature.
Lumiona had stopped crying after three years of this hellish life. Her mother said that the only positive thing about being a succubus was that they never broke completely.
Lumiona discovered to her horror that this was not true.
At least, until that day... that warm afternoon when he arrived.
Another slave, a human. A gentle, intelligent, patient man who spoke to her as if she were a person and not a thing. He cared for her as he would for himself and helped her see the light of existence again.
He taught her to read, to write, to learn.
Thanks to him, Lumiona laughed for the first time in years. And they continued to laugh together every time they met.
Thanks to him, she learned to love the little horn she couldn't hide.
Then, something new was born for her.
A flame, deeper than the one she remembered feeling for the boy of her childhood.
They loved each other in secret.
And from that love came a wonderful gift.
When their daughter was born, Lumiona believed that the world could be repaired... Just a little.
She understood what her mother had felt when she had been in the same situation.
And like her mother, she had the same concern for her daughter.
But her love for her family was stronger, and the man she loved reassured her.
In tribute to Lumiona's parents, they decided to name the baby by combining the characters of both their first names.
Lumiona believed she was finally living a dream after an eternity of nightmares.
But the dream was short-lived.
The master sold her.
Not Lumiona.
...The child.
Like one sells a calf.
All Lumi could do before being separated from her beloved daughter was to write her baby's name on a piece of parchment and keep it in a small container, which she tied to a string around the child's neck.
Then, for a reason that the half-succubus could only consider retaliation, the slave master killed the man she loved — that same evening.
She could still hear the scream she had let out that night.
Constantly.
On that cursed night, pieces of her soul had been torn apart.
And so began the cruel monotony of her torment once more.
Being used, rented out, by nobles eager for her mixed blood, her special nature and the skills that came with it, her mere existence as a woman.
She had become an object again.
Nothing more.
And Lumiona repeatedly wanted to join her parents where they now were, in order to end this torment. However, a subtle but unshakeable glimmer kept her in the world of the living.
Her daughter.
So she decided to use her condition for the best, and reject her weakness for the worst.
...Her humanity was that weakness.
After that, whenever she was 'on duty', Lumi decided to use what made her different to manipulate, pervert and control.
She unleashed her power, which had been dormant for so long, waiting patiently.
Ironically, she even took some pleasure in releasing her demonic instincts.
One evening, she left her prison and finally broke her chains.
Not by force.
By cunning. By instinct. By hope.
She regained her freedom after manipulating and corrupting excessively — with her body and money, not to mention her power.
Lumiona ran for days, without food or sleep.
Until she came across a strange being, her saviour.
He saw her blood, her nature, the wound in her heart...
The thickness of her inner mist.
...And he welcomed her.
This man, who was not really a man, taught her to channel what lay dormant within her.
He showed her the workings of a dark, perverse magic that went hand in hand with Lumiona's will.
She learned to turn the mist into a veil. To turn pain into a weapon.
When she was ready, she returned to kill her former master.
Then the others.
It was brief... and cold.
And then she returned to the strange being and thanked him.
Once she had said her goodbyes, Lumiona continued walking.
Always. Searching for her daughter. Searching for a place where the pain would stop.
And as if by a sign of destiny, one day she heard some news.
And this information pointed right back to where it all began.
So the demon returned... to the valley of her childhood.
There, she manipulated and imposed her mist, just as her master-liberator had taught her.
It was her justice... or her revenge. It depended on the point of view.
But Lumiona had also learned to let go of other people's points of view.
***
A dull sound made the surface of her consciousness tremble. Lumiona fluttered her eyelids.
The mist-filled room she was in formed around her.
Shadows moved around her, empty, mechanical, unconscious.
She breathed in slowly.
Suddenly, the dark room she was in began to change. First, the shadows disappeared. Then it was the walls' turn.
Finally, the windows and door, all made of reed, vanished, leaving tulip petals in their place.
The floor did the same, and — before Lumi could really comprehend what was happening — she found herself in a field of tulips stretching as far as the eye could see.
"What... Where am I?"
"Where you deserve to be." Said a voice behind her simply.
When she turned around, what Lumi saw brought tears to her eyes.
She smiled.
Then, after a sigh of relief, she added cheerfully:
"Ah... I see."
The young girl she had become reached out her hand. And it was taken by the man she loved.
"We've been waiting for you, little tulip." Added another voice.
"Sorry I'm late... Mum, Dad." Lumi simply whispered, her eyes wet, her hands trembling, and a lump of joy and regret in her throat.
The tears she had tried to hold back now flowed freely, cascading down her cheeks and reflecting the light from the field of flowers like tiny crystals.
But despite all this, the young lady was still as beautiful as her beloved remembered her.
"No need to apologise. You've endured enough over there, my darling." Replied her father, gently stroking her horn.
An amused murmur passed over Lumi's lips, almost tender. Then she replied.
"I'm here now, and I have a lot to tell you."
"Well, we have all the time in the world."
She turned her head towards her mother.
"First of all, you should know that your granddaughter is doing well!"
"A granddaughter? You didn't tell us about this, Ansel." Replied Lumiona's mother, staring at the young man next to Lumi.
"Now you know. And her name is Enalid... Ena after Papa's Enathilius, and Lid after your first name, Adhalid, Mum.'
"Oh, really?"
The little group continued to chat as they walked towards the tulip horizon.
And the mist followed them, wrapping itself around their silhouettes like a caress.