Tu Fui, Ego Eris

"Don’t go to bed with any woman crazier than you are."

–Frank Zappa

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Chapter 6: Fiat Lux

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"...Holy mother of God..."

The words seemed to almost echo in the large room, what was supposed to be a hall with globe-like models. It had long since aged and lost it's luster. There was a domed ceiling with glass...

Was...

When he crested the steps, he could almost never believe the sight. He had to come closer, his steps both slow, yet hurried. Part of him wanted to see it, had to see it, but part of him wanted to turn around and forget it was ever there. But the dog did it for him, pulling him forward into the room and towards the suspended corpse.

Now he stood mere feet from her. Her. What was left of her, anyway. The maid, Daniella. His mouth ceased to work, gasping, stuttering, and reaching a hand to his mouth as it stayed there, then fell to it's side. He was never a God-fearing man, none of them were religious, didn't even believe in God so much as a strange sort of ancient paganism that none of them still placed any real faith in, but the scene placed the words into his mouth, and he said them, his tone a mixture of amazed, horrified, and one the edge of almost crying.

It wasn't so much that he felt real compassion towards the homunculus, but it was all just a little too much for him to bear. As much as he may have loathed Lorenzo's fellow creation, she had been around for twenty years, serving him, in more ways then one. He scarcely remembered a time when she wasn't around, and had grown used to her, as much as he wished for her to perish. Now she would never come back, she was dead. Killed, and he thought he knew who did it. Fiona.

For the life of him, he never expected this. He supposed there was more to the girl then met the eye. She could hurt somebody...badly, if she had to. If pushed to. He was reminded of himself, killing only when his hand was forced. Unlike her, however, he had the feeling that she didn't particularly enjoy it. Riccardo tried to figure out how in holy hell she did it, it looked like something out of some surreal dream, or an Italian horror movie.

Daniella hung in midair some four feet off the ground, give or take a foot or two, her back arched towards the ceiling as if she was going to just fall. She would be falling, too, if not for the object keeping her off the ground. A large, knife-shaped shard of glass was stabbed through her chest, the tip of one end in the floor, suspending her there perfectly. Her arms swayed back, legs still on the floor but only the toes touching, locks of swirled-violet hair hanging from her head as they pointed towards the ground...and the most chilling fact of all, a still, toothy grin upon her face.

Even now, the occasional piece of glass fell from the domed ceiling, a large hole remained of what was once a grand structure. Normally he wouldn't have dared put himself in such danger, the thought of the same fate befitting him, a deadly shard of glass striking his body, loomed in his mind as he gazed upon the scene. Yet his curiosity got the best of him, and he couldn't help but just...keep looking. He swallowed, and took another step forward.

The glass crunched under his feet, and boy was there a lot of it. It lined the floor in almost a perfect circle, large pieces similar to the ones that were in the maid, and little sugar-like shards that reminded him of the same ones he cleaned up in the guest suite. He tried to put this all together like the vast web it was, the window, the dome glass above him...Looking down, he saw that she was on the mirror, and suddenly it all made sense. The purpose of the room was to provide a way to catch the moonlight for decorative and research reasons, but it hadn't been used in ages. He only saw it used once, and that was when he was a kid. Since then he could care less about the room, though he supposed she would come here to clean on occasion. It was activated by pushing the globes along the tracks until they hit the pressure-plates at the end, illuminating the mirror. Daniella despised mirrors, and most likely was caught on it, to which she noticed it and screamed...And as always, it would reach such a high pitch that would shatter any glass nearby.

He couldn't even begin to understand how this happened; why the maid was even in this room in the first place when he ordered her to look after his mate. She shouldn't have even been there, let alone dead. There was no way she could have done this herself, as she was ordered not to interfere with anything in the house unless told to, like with the flooding system on the spiral steps, it was used to keep the girl out to begin with. He remembered showing her how to operate the system, turning the symbols on the pipe, which drained the water and made it passable. They never really used it anymore, but he instructed her before he left to hunt Lorenzo in the mansion. He remembered it easily, and now it seemed almost like it was years ago.

It was the day after he brought Fiona home, he took Daniella away from her duties in the mansion, and brought her to the pipes, beckoning her and swaggering over to them. He turned, and maneuvered the blocks, indicating her how they worked, and showing her basically not to interfere with the mechanism. It was flooded when they were down there to prevent any outsiders from entering the mansion without their knowledge, and for good reason. What was contained down there was something they never wanted the rest of the world to see or know. Yet he had to shut it off, showing her how, so that he may traverse easily from his hunt to check on the girl. He never expected her to ever enter the place, several tiresome puzzles and keys needed to do such a thing, but that was pointless to concern himself with now. There were several ways around the flood waters through passages only the maid and Lorenzo knew of...But he never used them.

Then he turned to her, and began to point and gesticulate, emphasizing his words. He always felt the need to, because the very sight of her pissed him off enough as it was. She would listen...But rarely ever speak. It was like she was cold to him, favoring Lorenzo over him. Well, most of the time...She actually did seem rather fond of him, even intensely so at times.

"Get to the castle!" He said as he pointed at her.

"Get there, and care for her. I will be back, don't let me find you doing anything else..."

Walking away, he saw her bow to him out of the corner of his eye, and remain there. It was as though she was expecting him to pardon her, or something. He could care less, really. There was too much to do, too many loose ends to tie up, too many dirty deeds to accomplish within only a certain amount of time. She already knew she was coming, and that she had arrived, but for the first time he had left the castle and was too busy hunting to be observing her. He ending up coming back near the afternoon, where he remained in the music room playing his serenade until she would awake.

He looked at the maid's right hand, and couldn't help but notice a glass shard next to it. However, it looked...different somehow. Like it didn't belong with the others. The glass was less thick, and bloody. There wasn't any blood anywhere else, just on that one shard, and then saw that very hand cut, and bruised as well. Blood streaked the blade, and it was obvious that she had been holding it. Had it hit her, and she pulled it out? Something just didn't seem right about all of this, besides the fact that a woman was suspended in midair with a glass shard through her chest...

The dog was next to him, the dog that Fiona had called Hewie. That was very obviously his name, and called him that whenever he went to take him from the cell, hoping it would ease his recall. Surprisingly, the dog was willing to behave. When he came through the door, he sniffed his hand, and his tail began to wag. He licked it, savoring in the juices of his Lady, and was very happy with the fact that her scent was all over his fingers. He allowed him to wrap the rope about his neck, but refused to have him muzzle his snout, backing away and whining as he tried. Finally, he gave up, and just kept it with him, hanging encircled in his waist-rope in case he needed it.

It was very odd to him, like the animal made some sort of a decision to accept him all of a sudden, he wasn't sure quite why, and knew that he really shouldn't care. Yet it was nice for an animal to actually listen to him for once, not be terrified and look at him with eyes of terror. He couldn't say he blamed them, the fact that he harvested animals taken off the streets would make him look evil indeed, yet he did as he needed, as a person will kill for food, he killed for life, for normalcy. Either way, it was like a breath of fresh air, so he actually rather enjoyed this nice turn around. Though he still questioned where it came from.

Surprisingly enough, Hewie walked beside him on the rope-turned-lead, the leash itself actually loose, not pulling him at all. Occasionally he would lower his nose to sniff something or to go down a different hall, but Riccardo would simply keep walking, to which he would be pulled roughly forward to walking normally. As he came upon the room, the dog pulled for the first time ever, surprising him, and it sent him towards the doll-like homunculi that had died a rather unusual death. Now, he sniffed her, from head to toe. When he first saw her, he growled and seemed afraid to come near. Now that he did, however, his attitude seemed different. He was now more curious if anything, as though he knew she was dead. He probably did.

Right now, his nose rested on her hand, his wet black nose pressing against the pale skin. He could hear the loud huffing noise of him inhaling. The dog was very curious, almost like he sensed something there that wasn't previously.

Hewie was here before, he helped her do this. He distracted the maid, attacking her, creating a diversion, all while Fiona pushed the globes into place. Although the dog didn't understand what was going on, he could tell it meant something, that it was important and meaningful to the downfall of their stalker. Then, she walked into the mirror as they stood on the other side, and she stopped, looked down...and was entranced. Her eyes lit up, her body trembled, and a look of absolute distress and hate in every atom of her body. She arched her back, and screamed into the air. It went higher, and higher, and Fiona covered her ears and yelled himself in agony, and his ears flattened against his head and whined as he backed up. Then it seemed silent...But her mouth was still open, it reached the crescendo inaudible to even his ears.

Then came the sound they had heard plenty of during their chase, the sound of breaking glass. It overwhelmed them, overtook them, and it was coming from above. They looked up, and so did she...She stopped. She was smiling. It felt like minutes, but it happened in seconds. The glass dome from above came apart from the center, and one large shard, one aimed strangely perfectly at her, came down...Her arms outstretched, like she was waiting, entranced as she danced about in a slow circle and she still grinned from ear to ear. The glass fell about in a shower of particles...It was almost beautiful.

Her face contorted into surprise, a loud scream of almost pain, the glass shard punctured her chest and sliced into the floor. Fiona gasped loudly, a yell of distress and guilt, and she clutched her hand to her open mouth. She stood there huddling to herself as the maid cried out in dismay as her body slid back on the shard, and stopped, held up and suspended by the glass in her oddly befitting demise. Ironic how a woman plagued by mirrors that showed her appearance, chased her with a shard of sharp glass, met a fate that involved the same substance she always broke to destroy her own image. It was as though the glass itself had taken it's vengeance on this doll of a person.

Just like now, the dog was careful where to step, and they approached the scene with apprehension. Oddly enough, she was still, not moving or falling, her body not slumping down to the side or continuing to slide on the glass until she hit the floor. A key lay on the ground, and Fiona stooped down to pick it up, the Mars key, adorned with the sign of both the planet, and the symbol that also stood for male sexuality and masculinity. How ironic this was at well, for it was the key that led to a sex-craven being of lust and desire for creation. It must have fallen from her pocket as the shard struck her. Fiona went to turn, then looked back at the body...Something about her...About everyone here...Something just wasn't right. The curiosity got the best of her.

She approached the corpse, and looked upon her. Her face...There was more then one thing that frightened her about it. First, the fact that now she had the chance to look at her without fear, that she bore a striking resemblance to the man in the paintings. Second was the smile that had since reappeared. It was almost as though she was happy...How can one be happy when they've just been killed? Then it hit her; the woman was unable to feel pain, this whole experience more of a shock if anything. Did she finally somehow feel pain as the shard ran her through? Was the sensation of finally feeling something, be it pain or pleasure, make her smile in resolution as her life slowly slipped away? Or, rather, because she knew her life was over? Was anyone's life really that bad?

Perhaps, she decided, it was a combination of them all...

So much they didn't know about this woman, so much they didn't know about this place...All things Fiona was certain she didn't want to know. There wasn't any blood...Even the tears of crimson she cried earlier had since dried. It was so oddly clean, none on the glass, none on the wound...The fact that she had cried those tears of blood to even begin with. How was any of this possible?

Hewie had smelled the maid from far away, and didn't concentrate or notice when she did come too close to pick up on it. But what he had scented was a strange, empty-like aroma that he had only ever smelled on artificial, fake things. She looked, and smelled, just like a big doll. There was also an odd plant-like essence, but paid it no heed, surely it meant she had just toiled in the garden or something, but that wasn't her job. Blood lingered on the woman's apron, and it smelled of both that of an animal and that of her own...

Now, he once again stood before the woman. Still being careful where to place his feet, occasionally hitting the glass with his foot and shaking the shards off of his delicate black foot pads and investigating the dead body. She smelled completely different, and now that he had the chance, he was able to find an underlying, hidden smell that started to intrigue him.

Because she smelled like them...Them. Fiona, Riccardo, the large freak...

The dog had never experienced this before...It was too odd for his tastes. He was taught by his first alphas to differentiate smells, understand the small, almost unrecognizable changes and ignore the similarities. But this was unlike anything, and it confused his simple mind. In nature, no two beings smelled alike, even twins. He knew certain breeds smelled alike, that one Doberman smelled just like another, and different then a boxer, that all within a certain breed smelled very much alike then they should, but this was outrageous. They were closer then a breed, closer then twins, but he couldn't fathom how this was possible. In Fiona there was a sliver of difference, but that was all...

Her smell was still very unique, besides the hollow scent, there was that of a plant. He realized where he smelled it before, that strange tuber-thing that screamed in the garden, and that perfume that she had him sniff, they were one of the same. Then came Fiona's smell at it's base, with the plant smell sort of surrounding it like an outer layer. Of course, she was now very different as she was deceased, and could scent the dying cells making up her flesh. Her body was decomposing, it did the second she died, and she had been here for many, many hours now. The noon sun now filtered in through the room instead of the moonlight, and hit her body, reflecting off the glass and baking her hide. Soon, even the humans would be able to smell her. Hewie walked forward and scented her blood, of which lay only on her hand from grabbing her shard, and now could inhale the overwhelming fragrance of both the vegetation and the girl, which matched the man next to him as well. He licked it, and could now taste her in his mouth...Riccardo...It tasted just like the man's blood when he bit him earlier, and just like Fiona's fluids as he licked his hand...

How could any of this be?

Riccardo walked up there with the dog, and loomed over the dead maid. The smile on her face sent chills over even his spine, but it wasn't the first time he'd seen it, so it held no surprise for him. There was so much, yet so little, history behind this now deceased homunculus. So much because her past was painful, so little because he knew a lot less then Lorenzo did.

He still couldn't believe it...Now he and Fiona were truly alone, with the exception of the gardener, there was nobody here to serve them. He would have to now clean, cook...do everything himself. He almost felt like panicking, going into a royal fit. How dare she die! What caused this to happen, how, why?!

Now he would really have to ask Fiona what happened, and demand an answer this time. For so long they didn't have to worry about a thing, cleaning up after themselves, doing much of anything for themselves. She was always so fastidious, so meticulous. Cold, calculating, always performing them without fail. He asked something, she did it, and perfectly. Riccardo had no complaints, and he was spoiled by the artificial servant.

The man hated her. Despised her, loathed the very ground and floor that she walked on. He spent good, long moments of his day making things more difficult for her, in more ways then one. Her physique, much unlike his own, was flawless. The skin that stretched over her frame was perfect. It was thick, rather like the plastic outer layer of a doll, and was hard. When he touched it, he could put pressure into it, and not have to be concerned about even considering hurting her. She felt like a mannequin, fake, her body cold, complexion pale, like there was no pigment there. An albino. Except for her it wasn't red, it was purple. Grayish-purple eyes in her sockets, her hair a light violet and twisted into two locks that hung on either side of her ears, and her lips were of the same shade. Part of her un-braided hair hung over her eyes, her gaze was steely, like there was no life, an unfeeling focus. Anytime she looked at him, even in day to day life...He would feel a chill. She always looked miserable, in pain, despite the fact that she was supposed to not be able to feel such emotions.

Her face was chiseled, perfect. A straight nose, a smooth appearance, her jaw line angled and not round like Fiona's. In fact, she looked very unlike the girl despite technically having the same blood. It was because there was enough variation between the two, just like sisters look unalike at times, the maid simply had different genes dominating. She most likely resembled the mother of the original Aureolus Belli, and simply inherited her frame more then anything. Her body was thin, the level of a anorexic. He had seen her naked, and knew that her ribs protruded and stomach was incredibly flat. There was almost no fat on her, besides what she was created with. She was tall, almost six foot, imposing, statuesque. Her legs were almost like stilts, her arms lanky yet quick to move, to work, muscle packed the bulk that was there. She worked all day every day, her body filled with tightly coiled and overworked sinew, bundles of fast-twitch muscle fiber, of cat-like quickness and determination.

She always wore that same damn outfit, it was one of two that she was given to wear. The other was red, besides that it was identical to the one presently covering her form. The red one was only worn on special occasions, and wondered why Lorenzo didn't think to tell her to wear that one, if this wasn't a special occasion then what was? He supposed there was no point, the girl was meant to be killed when she arrived, not pampered as the maid was most likely led to believe. Hell, he always wore the same thing, too, and also had one for special occasions. He supposed he couldn't comment on that particular facet about her.

It was composed of a blue jacket, tiny, and made up only the top of her frame. It was embroidered with gold leaf, including the very same cane of caduceus that lined her sleeve. They ended at large cuffs towards her hands. She had this inside shirt that she wore underneath it, gold colored, and it had a large collar that came up to her jaw. Below it lay a blue gem that reminded him heavily of Fiona's outfit. A gown rested above that shirt, but underneath the jacket, and was a strangely clean white. In ran over and between her smaller, more perky C cup breasts and down to her hips. The apron was attached to it, and run down over her knees. The bottom of it was stained with blood, it was dark and appeared dried, and he had seen it before. She rarely washed her own clothing. Blood from her own little self-mutilations and handling the meat must have lingered there for God knows how long. Underneath that was her blue skirt, which ran down below her knees. What remained of her visible legs were covered in black stockings, and small, dainty little dark shoes covering her tiny feet.

One of the reasons, and there were many, he hated the wench was because she was so goddamn perfect. Flawless, like somebody put together a gigantic doll and gave her life and a brain, no matter how meaningless it was. Her skin wasn't cracked, dry, ready to fall apart and constantly itching. She may have been hollow, but at least she lacked the ability to feel it. Lacked the desire to procreate and live on, to have children. Not that she could, but there was no reason for her to even want to...The woman didn't have any real thoughts of her own, how could she? She barely even spoke...Yet he then began to reason with himself. She did a lot of work, was silent, was always in the darkest corners of the estate doing meaningless tasks. Surely, if her brain was complex enough, that would allow a lot of brooding, of thinking, of stewed agony...

Suddenly, the reason why she was impaled on a glass shard, like a giant shish kabob, with a smile on her face...didn't seem so far-fetched. Had she done this to herself? Consciously or...not?

Had Lorenzo still been alive, he would have been pissed. It was because he was rather fond of her, treating her like the daughter she could have been, and like the son he never expected of Riccardo. It was another reason why he hated her. She garnered all of his affection, did as she was told...The "good girl" a father expected of his daughter. She listened, she obeyed, she hung on every word. He said jump, she asked how high, and then she would bow and suck your cock all for asking her to get you a glass of water. Yet Riccardo knew the old man would beat her just as much as he used to beat him, and performed just as many sexual advances, if not more. He asked her to often sit in his lap, bend over in front of him, and suck him off on a normal basis. Riccardo had to admit he did the same to the maid, but in the least he didn't do it right in front of him...

God, it made him sick when he did that...Once he remembered eating dinner, Lorenzo right across from him. He always sat at the farthest edge, their gazes only meeting fleetingly as they tried to avoid one another entirely if possible. Daniella always stood next to one of them, usually Lorenzo, if the old man wasn't there to eat then it was Riccardo. But as she stood next to him, the old man began to watch her chest rise and fall, and he actually started to almost drool at the sight. Riccardo couldn't for the life of him understand how he got so damn horny all of a sudden. Especially for someone his age. Lorenzo then asked her for another course, and she left, then came back with a second helping.

As she lay it in front of him, he watched as the old man grabbed the back of her head, and forced her towards his crotch. Talking into her ear, most likely giving her instructions. Riccardo coughed harshly, the food catching in his throat, and he hit the table with his fist in stress at not being able to breathe. The old man didn't care or take heed, he just forced her head down even further, and could see as the maid's head bobbed up and down, her fingers flexing on the table in strain, and that sickening sound that more then implied what was going on. In embarrassment, he grabbed what was left of his food, picking up the plate, and leaving the room through the door that led to the hallway, where he tried to finish his meal while sitting in one of the chairs, balancing the plate on his knees as he tried to block that image out of his head. Suffice to say, he didn't eat very well that night.

Anytime Daniella didn't do exactly as told, if she broke something, didn't finish a job, he would beat her. His favorite method was one he himself still used, smacking her senseless. He knew she didn't feel it at all, but it didn't matter. It was meant to send a message, and that it did. Her thick skin would be bruised and battered, nose bleeding, eyes black. She would just stand up, walk over, and do the deed as he instructed. Clean the wall more effectively this time, pile more wood on the fire. It worked, despite the fact that there was never any real need to do it, she understood well enough when just told she did wrong. Riccardo had suspected that the old man just got a kick out of it, and was looking for an excuse to beat the holy hell out of something and satisfy his urges, because God knew, Riccardo himself had grown out of that particular niche already. Daniella had been made, in a way, to fill it again.

He would never forget when he made her; it came as an absolute shock to him. Shortly after Daniella's creation, he was then inspired to do the same, and he had began dabbling in creating a female homunculi. What he did was creating them through the normal means, fertilizing the egg and helping them grow. At the crucial stage, he began experimenting with a formula that could ensure the sex. After some trial and error, he began growing only females. However, like the others, they were failures, barely even recognizable as the opposite sex and unfertile. His intention was to create a female so that he may bed her, and hopefully produce a male child that could be the real deal, his clone. It would carry 100 of his blood, and hopefully the Azoth would be rich and pure if he did a good enough job with the female to begin with.

This idea reemerged when he found out about Fiona, and it budded and grew from there. It came to be a duel purpose concept, he fell in love. Have a clone, have Azoth, had somebody to love and care for...He knew this was his main reason for creating a homunculus, not particularly for just reproduction, but also for companionship. Yet even this was far out of reach. The table in the hallway was used for checking over them as well, spreading they're legs as he inserted a very similar instrument to the ones he used on Fiona, but the tract always ended too soon, not even possessing an entire vagina let alone a uterus. They were the ones he had dressed in Fiona's medical gown, which explained why it seemed to cling so well to her form. Woman with only slightly different body types were being dressed in them as well. In a way, that's what she came to be, another creation being examined for his purposes. The large red blood stain a result of him slicing the area below their stomach, checking for a uterus. He never found any.

Again, irony struck, he realized that the woman he now planned to impregnate adorned the gown. It was like she was the real, true homunculus he always strove for.

Basically, when an egg grew, whether naturally or artificially, a hormone was needed to make the sex male. Otherwise, it would become female if this was denied. The sperm ensured the sex, was responsible for it, so in order to achieve all male clones, they had to mix their own hormone and feed it into the tank. Otherwise, there was always chance it would turn female. To get results, they used formulae. He was able to create his own to make sure he always got females during these cloning ventures.

Unlike Riccardo, Lorenzo's clones were healthy...Except for him, that was. But he wasn't going to dedicate more years to his life to raising another son...He had made that perfectly clear. There seemed to be a visible gear turning in his head that he saw through his identical eyes...He had an idea. An idea that had been festering for some time, and now had a reason, a purpose, to be accomplished.

Somebody to fuck, somebody to clean, somebody to obey him, somebody to grind under his heal, a maid... All in all, she was somebody to replace him. For the second time in his life.

The problem was Lorenzo was too goddamned good. Besides his failure with Riccardo, Ugo had been perfect in every way, he had learned from his mistakes and got it right that time. A male would be too successful, would look too much like them and be too artificial as he planned, that wasn't "appropriate for a Belli". He didn't desire a male servant, he wanted something different. A woman, but still somebody that reminded him of himself, looked like him...Had his genetic structure. For some reason, this was very important to the old man, it was for Riccardo, too, which was the main reason he found Fiona so attractive. Incest ran in the family, he remembered hearing that the first Aureolus was actually the result of the union between sister and brother, and that they themselves were the offspring of aunt and nephew. The idea held no taboo to any of them, didn't bother them, concern them. If anything it made them even more aroused, more dire to obtain those that were of the same blood and flesh.

Still, Riccardo knew he could not desire his own children. The idea made him sick to his stomach, doing that to his own boy...He may have loved Fiona, but she didn't come from him, raise her. He was her father only in blood, but otherwise he was her uncle, something he was comfortable with. The idea of him being like his own creator chilled him to the bone; he would die before he did that to his own child. In the end, the last thing Riccardo wanted to be was like his old man...Yet he knew that's exactly what he was. He was Lorenzo. He was Ugo. He was Daniella. He was everybody before him. The words that came out of his mouth often mirrored his creator's, the actions with the maid exactly the same...It was another thing he really would rather not think about.

He then recalled the day he saw her for the first time. For a few weeks the son of a bitch had quartered himself in the cloning room, only coming out to eat and use the bathroom. He ignored Riccardo's questions, ignored his everything. There was a look of tired perseverance on his face, pale, overworked. He was doing something, and he had a feeling what. Although he couldn't create another failure...He could intend to fail, by design...To design.

Curiosity got the best of him one day, and he snuck in while the old man's back was turned. Otherwise, he would have barked at him like he'd done several times already, to leave and that he would "find out soon enough." He opened the door, and saw that he was turned towards the table, interested in the only microscope that they possessed, which he still had and used to this day. But he saw this out of the corner of his eye...Because what took up the center of his vision was Daniella, who was hard not to look at.

She sat there, positively naked from head to toe, not a shred of clothing upon her, in the room's only wooden chair. Her face was tilted slightly downwards, her vision not looking up or focusing on him in any way, not even noticing him. She was limp, gaunt, yet still tightly woven, like she could spring up and run at the slightest hint of peril. Her whole body was so thin, he could see her sunken ribs. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the result of Lorenzo's experiments; he had done it, he made a feminine version of himself. This was Lorenzo, this was Riccardo, this was them in the form of a woman. Had he been born a female instead of a male.

And he couldn't be any more turned on.

Trying to soften his footsteps, he walked in, closer to the buxom young adult woman in the chair. She remained there as he did this, barely even blinking. This seemed odd to him, but in his lust, ignored it. Now that he could see her in a closer light, several things became apparent. Her skin was the palest he had ever seen, her face and body looked to have been just chiseled out of marble like some Roman statue or put together like a mannequin, assembled like a doll. She had very lovely breasts, they were smaller then he liked, but very perky and sat wonderfully upon her chest, and found it odd that the nipple and areolas were a light purple, his eyes became transfixed on them as she breathed, shallow, calmly.

He stole a gaze at her crotch that rested between her closed legs, and could see that her pubic hair was not the customary black, but a light violet. Then he looked up and saw that the drapes matched the carpet. Her hair was long, resting behind her shoulders, it was the same color; purple, as were her lips...And her eyes. They looked like the same shade, light, pale, like there was no essence, no soul behind them. Even now, she didn't look at him. He was now standing some feet in front of her, his sight traveling over her form as he huskily breathed, bent over and trying to look up into her gaze.

"I know you're there, Riccardo..." Lorenzo spoke, not even turning to acknowledge his presence.

"...So like you to come in announced."

Riccardo's mouth corners twitched, smiling faintly, then laughing just a little in his throat. His eyes remained on the svelte form before him.

"I planned to reveal her when she was a bit more...presentable." He chastised.

"But of course, we can't have anything go as planned around here, can we? I know how much you love to ruin everything I set out to accomplish..."

God, he wished he'd stop his bitching. As always, he complained that everything was his fault...

"What is she?" The failed homunculus inquired, reaching forward.

His right hand stroked her hair, feeling it, running it through his fingers briefly. It felt normal, it felt real...But it shouldn't be. People are not purple...and look...so perfect.

Perfect...How could she be so perfect?

"A homunculus. My clone, just like you."

He almost laughed...Why that son of a bitch. This was what he was up to, making his replacement, screwing him over. To think, he was able to pull this bitch out of nowhere, perfect, and he wasn't able to make him at least sub-par? He had some fucking nerve...

Rage overcame him, jealousy, but it seethed underneath, just below the surface. Right now he didn't want to start a fight, just to satisfy his own curiosity, and he had plenty of that. He always did.

"She's not like me at all..." He managed to get out, his anger dripping over the words.

"Ahhh, quite the contrary! She is exactly like you...down to the blood that flows through her veins..."

Lorenzo turned, and gave him a look of glee, he enjoyed pulling one over on his failed creation, rubbing his success in his face. And he continued to do so, and strolled over, hands behind his back. Riccardo always had a slight fear of the man, and backed away only slightly as he approached. He stood behind the creation, and reached towards her hair, shifting in through his fingers.

"...but I suppose you're right."

Lorenzo turned his head up, and looked at him with a haughty sort of confidence.

"Unlike you...She's flawless...She's obedient..."

Riccardo snorted, and looked his creator in the eyes.

"...She's part mandragora, isn't she?" He asked, knowing this knowledge would catch him off guard.

His smile faded, and he tilted his head just a little as he took a step forward, and Riccardo again stepped back.

"We all are..."

"Yes, to create our blood and to use as a base. But she has more then that. She's like a walking floranimilia, isn't she?"

"How did you know tha-"

"I'm smarter then you think I am." Riccardo retorted, defending himself.

"I've forgotten how cunning you are..." He replied, and started to walk back to the table.

"...and how mouthy."

Again, he turned back towards his duty, the table, looking through the scope.

"How did you do it?"

Lorenzo was more then proud to explain. It was lengthy, and he still didn't remember all the details of it. He wanted to create a servant, the perfect woman, he wanted to make her flawless and obedient, as he said. By using the strange combination of plant and animal that was created ages ago, fusing it with his own, he made an egg that was blank, the mandragora's cell yet with the proper coding from himself. He then inseminated it via the normal method; and like that had made their new servant. Because of it's plant nature, she grew quickly, like a weed. She was given water, and formulas, but no food. Because of the lack of fat, she looked so different, so unsound, so frail yet fiery. Her breasts were smaller then they could have been because of the almost lack of gelatin like material.

It was a purple mandragora that was used, explaining the color that came through. Her gaze was cold as ice, and she was stiff, unmoving only when needed, much like a plant will stand still only when forced to move in the wind. Several organs didn't exist; she had a stomach but it was small. And she had no uterus, no ovaries. Though he said her brain was of normal size, and worked at just the same capacity. He did want her to speak and learn, after all. Though it was made to only focus on one thing at a time, so that she would dedicate herself, obsesses herself on that one point as he liked. He wanted her to be determined, and work on something until it was finished, and finished correctly.

Then there was the absolute lack of human Azoth. This puzzled...and disturbed Riccardo. As a man with only half that of a normal person, he felt sick to think somebody would actually intentionally create a being without Azoth. It was the essence of life, the very thing that made someone human to begin with. His egg was faulty, but hers was designed. She was incapable of feeling pain or pleasure for this reason, even worse then his own inability to feel most emotions to their full extent. Because she was created using a floranimilia, the plant Azoth that was there was used to fuel her life. It was barely anything at all, and was purely residual. She wasn't defected, she was created that way, and because of this her skin was free of cracks or deformity. Lorenzo's Azoth never made it through in the spermatozoa, it was never intended to. The plant design made it incapable of forming and fusing this element to begin with. This was intentional, he did not want another incarnation of Aureolus Belli, just a servant. He wondered briefly why he just didn't make an Azoth-laden woman to suck life out of, or impregnate, then figured out why. When one wants a robot, they build one...When one wants a child, they conceive or adopt one. He didn't want an Azoth-laden child, he wanted a robot, and that's what he got.

She was incomplete, a living doll, and she would always have something lacking.

"What are you going to call her?"

"Daniella."

It sounded like he had the name picked out for some time, like he had thought long and hard about it. No doubt he did, this was something he most likely fantasized about for God knows how long.

Riccardo was pissed, partly in fact that this was what he wanted to create for so long. And the old man not only up and did it in two weeks time, but fucked it up intentionally, spoiled her, ruined her. She wasn't vibrant and full of life, she was incomplete and robotic, and incapable of giving him a child. He hadn't fucked a woman in a year; his work killing him in social matters and keeping his life at bay. Really, she wasn't his type. He preferred his woman less bony and more curvaceous, and capable of showing him affection. She had none of that, but her general appearance as a family member, and the fact that she was sitting in front of him, naked, didn't make it hard for him to reconsider what his "type" was.

An idea came into his head, and like the reckless sort he always was, he made his move. He looked over to Lorenzo, preoccupied in what was probably Daniella's blood sample. Now he was going on about something else, but he was done listening. He knelt down on one knee, lowering his gaze to the woman. Looking in her eyes, she actually looked back, but not into his own eyes...It was still so discomforting. He reached up, and pulled down his hood, at which her eyes actually widened a small bit. There was an instant recognition to her face. He looked just like her creator. Her master...

He grinned sheepishly at her, not particularly wanting her to look at his face...yet he had to in order to look into her eyes, they locked, and he moved closer. His face moved closer to her right breast, and his left hand to her left. Then his right held her shoulder, as he expected her to get up, but she never resisted. His tongue danced over her right nipple, making circles along the smooth, lovely areola next to it. From it dribbled his spit, warm and sticking to it as he worked. Riccardo began to squeeze and grab with the left, and when she didn't protest, he did it harder, to the point where a normal woman would scream in pain. Then, it was gentle again, as he groped, squeezing, his thumb rubbing the nipple as his rough skin pressed against it.

Then he began to suck, very carefully, in taking it even harder into his mouth. Like a child suckling his mother, and indeed that's what he felt like, taking the opportunity he never had as a baby. He did so in a smooth, steady rhythm. His tongue brushed the nipple even harder, and he leaned in, in taking more as he opened his mouth. She tasted so fucking good, she was cold, but she was still so good. Forgetting her painless nature, he wondered why she hadn't moaned yet, and began rubbing his healthy white teeth on her flesh as he simultaneously sucked and licked, swirling about with his tongue, and then he moaned with her breast still in his mouth...He did so louder then he should have, and his sucking became very audible. Then he got closer, practically falling on the woman as he leaned into her, and the front legs of the chair came off the floor and she began to lean over backwards, the chair nearly tipping over.

Lorenzo turned around, and his eyes shot open as wide as they got.

Rushing him as fast as his old legs could take him, he grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, fingers digging into his brown uniform and flinging him back. He backpedaled from the throw, a surprising amount of strength left in his arms. Riccardo only went a few feet, then gained his momentum back as he tried to stand, gazing back at his master.

He was slapped, his hand striking the side of his face, then again with the back of it. Riccardo rose his hand up to feel the pulsing skin on his cheek, and closed his eyes as tight as they would go in agony. It always hurt his face more then he knew it should, thanks to the open scars...And fuck, did it ever hurt now...

"You sick, perverted fuck!" His father screamed at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?"

The scarred man laughed, a deep, sardonic tone in his throat. He thought this was just hilarious. Then he wiped a small amount of blood away with his hand, and pulled it away. It came from a blood vessel in his permanently wrinkled face popping from the hit. Like braking open a new scab. Then he starred at the drop as he rolled it between his fingers, laughing again.

"...Just enjoying the new member of the family, M' Lord. Having a bit of fun..."

"You keep your damn hands off her!" He snorted, taking his gleefully smiling son by his uniform, grabbing the loose clothing in his hands and pushing him towards the still open door.

"...She is no member of the family! She is my new maid, she is to serve me!"

His voice rose to a frightful crescendo, still walking towards the door, but then he missed it, and pushed him against the wall instead. Riccardo's demeanor went from joyful troublemaker to terrified victim; as he knew that look in his creator's eyes. Lust, both for Azoth and him. It still gave him nightmares.

It was still the main reason why he couldn't sleep.

At once, he stopped smiling, and in response Lorenzo grinned instead, taking his place as the giddy one. He held the man, one hand now on each shoulder, against the wall. Even now, he held a certain fear over his own son, it was part of the reason why he did anything horrible to him. It gave him a certain pleasure to wipe that smug smile right off of his face. Oh, how it pleased him more then anything in the world...

"Did you not see the absence of the birthmark on her shoulder? She is not one of us...She is in her own world, in her own place as our servant. Do not rise her to our level. She does not posses the Azoth. But make no mistake; she is mine. And she is to stay pure and intact..."

"Let me go-"

"No." He told his own flesh and blood, and smiled wickedly. Seductively. His voice husky.

Seeing him suck his creation's tits...Which was technically him incarnate...Had truly turned him on. He ground against his son's hips with his own, and felt that he had turned hard from the experience with the maid, and followed suite as he also soon acquired an erection himself. The look of horror and hate in his other creation's eyes was reminding him of the earlier experiences. He had missed it, and was one of the reasons he made the hollow woman, but he had to admit it all was so fucking sexy. Lorenzo may not have been sex-crazed like his son, but he still was a man, he still needed satisfaction every now and then.

All the boy ever seemed to want to do was fuck woman; and he knew this probably had something to do with his Azoth deprived body coupled with his dog and animal-like nature. It was no coincidence; he in-took canine Azoth to supplement his own, he had become one. A wolf in a scarred alchemist's skin. No wonder why he couldn't clone worth a shit, he was too busy chasing tail around town to work on it long enough, or at least, that's what he always assumed. He knew the fact that his body was so horrible was the real reason, but to admit that would admit his own failure as an alchemist, so he rather didn't like to think that way. He wasn't happy with him bringing woman back to the castle's guest suite...But eventually he grew curious, so he made a peephole in the wall behind the painting by the secret corridor. There, he watched his son bed girls and woman, all while he pleasured himself.

The old man wasn't sure what he liked more...Riccardo, or the woman.

"You've been very naughty, Riccardo. You're causing me much grief..." He whispered as he drew his face closer, and brushed the smother skin of his face next to his creation's rough, stubble-covered one.

He stiffened, and felt as the older man reached down, and began to slip into his pants. Despite the tightly knotted rope, they were still loose. The minute the bare hand touched his skin, he retorted. He grabbed the hand and pulled it out, throwing him and his arm away.

"...Don't you ever touch me again, old man..." Riccardo growled, his tone both angry and embarrassed.

Lorenzo smiled back, standing farther away, and laughed...He laughed, and laughed...

Then the brown-clothed homunculi looked at the woman in the chair...and saw that she was smiling. Smiling. It was bright, it was white, it was taunting...Just like him. Just like his damned creator...They were one of the same.

He hated her ever since.

Riccardo quickly turned and left the room in a huff, throwing the hood over his head to once again obscure his face. He slammed the door, but uttered one last comment into the air before he left.

"You better watch that little bitch of yours; she won't stay very pure for long..."

Thinking of that brought back sour memories, and he instantly regretted it. He shook his head of the thought, he'd be turned off for sex for a good few hours. Maybe even the whole day. Now he had this feeling as though he had bugs crawling in his pants, like that old man was trying to reach down there again. It make him gut-wrenchingly sick to his stomach.

His fingers traced her jaw line, his mind wandering still as to the maid in general. To her life. How miserable it must have been. He actually found himself feeling sorry for the false woman. In a way, he always did. Angrily, he sighed, and realized he now had another body to have disposed of. He looked the glass shard up and down, wondering; how in God's name was he going to do this? Luckily enough, the dog was behaving, that would make things easier at least.

Carefully, he reached around both sides, around her arms, and began to pull her off of the shard. There still wasn't any blood as he lifted her, none forming on the glass as she was pulled up. She was so light, barely even Fiona's weight, that it was literally no problem for him. With a final heave, he threw her over his right shoulder, her arms dangling over his back. He sighed again, realizing his trek to the graveyard would be made that much more difficult.

The dog came along willingly, walking again at his side. He seemed oddly fascinated by the bundle he now carried, looking at her and almost whining. Like he recognized her, and not just from before. Like he knew her deeply, like he was at her side the whole night...Like Fiona.

As his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her slim body steady, he couldn't help but remember how the woman had "serviced" him over the years. There was the mundane, like fixing his meals, washing his clothes, and even coming to his aid when he was sick. Once he was in bed for a whole week, sick with the flu. She brought his medication, his formulas, his food. Daniella never seemed to visibly care, she was always cold and callous, but it was still oddly comforting.

Then there were the others. Riccardo had made good on his promise to Lorenzo that very night. She did not stay pure long enough at all. The old man had dressed her up in a lovely medieval style chambermaid uniform. Even the symbol of their family adorned her sleeve as it did his own hood. He was still teaching her the ways of the castle, just like a child must be taught everything, he had to program her somewhat like a robot by showing her how to do everything, including even speech. Though she never was taught to write.

He waited until his father left the castle itself, going into the mansion for perhaps some research at the time. Then he snuck out, and swept the maid off her feet. She was simply standing there like a statue in the hallway. He picked her up, and she made no resistance. Her body bounced in his arms as he plundered her from their master's servitude, and sought to defile her perfect body. Part of it, he admitted, was in just. To get back at that rotten old fuck for everything he ever did to him, what better way then to sleep with somebody so precious to him?

And then there was the plain and simple fact; he couldn't really kill the old man yet. He was still too strong, too powerful an alchemist. But she wasn't, she was weak, she was without sin. Pure. Innocent. How he wanted to destroy this pristine creature that foul man had made. She was so wonderful, so without flaw, he would make her filthy from the inside out. He may not have been able to attack his father, but this was his clone just as he himself was. This was just as good, and he wanted to fuck her, beat her, destroy her sanity, and make her life just as miserable as the old man made his. And in the exact same way. There was a slight squickiness to making love to somebody that was his own creator in feminine form...But it was quickly overtaken by lust, as it seemed to turn him more on instead, be more of a deal-maker then a deal-breaker.

Bringing her to where he brought all his woman home to sleep with, the guest suite, he placed her on the four-post bed. She just...laid there. Looking up at him with more of a look of curiosity then of fear. This puzzled, and quite frankly, disappointed him. He stood before her for a moment and just looked at her. The strange, erratic way that she breathed looked eerily mechanical. Her stiff breasts moving up and down as her chest did so. Arms at her sides, legs together, just...starring at him. Lorenzo had braided her hair into these odd pairs of spirals that lay on each shoulder. Somehow he had the feeling it would be like fucking a giant mannequin, but still felt wanted to go through with it. Why not?

"Undress." He ordered of the woman, then turned around to do just that himself.

He walked down the small steps of the room, and reached down as he quickly began to undue the rope about his waist. Right now Riccardo felt it best to be fast, as if Lorenzo found out...Well, he really didn't want to be caught fucking somebody in front of him. He was really, really very glad it had never happened yet, that he had never walked in on him and a woman together. It was a constant fear and a dis-concerning thought looming in his mind. The man liked his privacy.

The rope fell to the floor, then his shirt as he shed that, pulling it over his head and dropping it. At the time he was even more muscular, even more cut and fit. It was something he always had over Ugo. Actually having a physique that was created by hard work and tireless hours. When his brother was sleeping, he was working. And when Ugo was in the lab, he was toiling and seeing to his master's needs. Things had changed, and he had rose to fill his brother's place, and he had become a little less like a worker then as a researcher. Yet he was to do both, a constant juggling of tasks that never really worked out. Things went unattended to, the chandelier in the hallway, the vacant room, blood splatters...All things left to rot as he had to attend to the cloning process he felt the need to accomplish. Almost like he was trying to please the monster of a man that was his father. It made him ill.

His chest was also lined with the very same deep scars that lined his face, and were mostly vertical. Though most of these were closed, they were a thicker skin, they were healthier. Yet they still had their effect, even if they were more superficial if anything. It was the main reason he still made love to woman with his top outfit on. This woman? He almost wanted her to see them. Riccardo had hoped it would add to the physiological horror she would experience. The more, the better as far as he was concerned.

Turning, he was surprised to find Daniella sitting up on the bed, naked. Her clothes sitting in a perfectly folded pile next to her. She tilted her head just a little in his direction, looking at him in a blank, waiting manner. He smiled in gratification, and approached the maid with a laugh in his throat. Climbing the small steps, he looked at her, and already began to feel aroused. Perfect...Perfect indeed...

Approaching her, he walked up, and smiled at her bluntly. He lay his hand on the back of her head, and she made eye contact with him. She did not smile back, did not show any hint of either wanting or not wanting his touch. Riccardo did not love this woman, but lowered his face to hers, and placed his lips upon her own, pressing her head towards his face to get his tongue deeper and taste the inside of her mouth. She wasn't very...normal in texture. And her lips, her tongue, did not respond or interact back. It disappointed him, and after trying to kiss her in passion for a few moments, he had realized it wasn't going to work.

A disappointed growl came from his throat as he broke the cold kiss. And it was cold, her whole body was lukewarm, and her mouth was no exception. He looked at her again, still no response. Well, he would have to try something else, wouldn't he? He moved his hand down to her chest, lay it on her heart, and pushed her backwards. She landed flat on her back on the bed, body and bed bouncing at the impact as he quickly pulled down his pants and simple, thin boxers. Then he proceeded to crawl on top of her, spreading her legs and moving between them. No more foreplay, no more this or that...It was obvious she wasn't going to care. Now it was his turn to be pleased. He would just have to see how "unfeeling" this Daniella was.

He moved quickly, glancing towards the door nervously. Then turned as he looked down at her. Still no reaction. His hands on either side of her body, gazing down as his heavy form rest on top of her lighter one. He didn't like to operate like this...Actually rather enjoying eating out a woman or some other type of foreplay, lubricating her before he penetrated them. Still, it was because it warmed them up for the experience, it was obvious she did not care. So why should he?

His bare chest lowered, and he brushed against her breasts as he now pressed fully against her. Bringing his nose under her chin, he sniffed her, inhaling her oddly "fresh" and almost newborn aroma. There was an odd organic scent, but it added to the palette. His breath hit her, warm to her chilled skin, though it titillated and thrilled most woman, it had no effect on her. She didn't feel very good to him, too cold to the touch, but she smelled marvelous. His teeth began to nibble the tender flesh on her neck, taking it between his chiseled incisors and biting just a little, licking it when it in his mouth. Again, no reaction. Letting it go, he made sure there were no marks, smoothing the skin back with his rough fingers to make it look untouched.

Moving down, he crawled backwards, and now resided back at her voluptuous, heaving breasts. Her breath quickened only a little, obvious it was effecting her although she wasn't showing it. His hands went along her thin, fat-free sides, marveling in how smooth and perfect she was. He wished there was a curve to run his hand along, but knew he had to make due with what he had. They then moved up and below her breasts, rugged hands then cupping them both, and rough thumbs came up to scrape her unfeeling nipples. His hard, pulsating organ was between her legs, though it didn't penetrate yet. He used the opportunity to tease her, grinding only his hip against hers as he started to pant just a little. Her mouth was open just a touch, but her gaze was still blank.

Looking back at her legs, he moved them up just a little. Then he reached up, and grabbed a pillow. He pulled it down and lifted her rear up as he let go of her breasts for just a moment. Sliding the pillow underneath, he sought to make love to her in bit more promiscuous position. This way, he would be putting more of himself within her, his weight and length fully inside. While down there, he pulled her legs slightly more apart, bending them more at the knees, and then once again crawled between them and on top of her. Now she lay in a backward slant, arms at her sides.

Then, carefully he again maneuvered into positron, then very gently, entered into her tight, virgin pussy. He watched her face for pain or discomfort. He had a feeling it wouldn't anyway, it was a force of habit. Her expression was of plain, absolute ignorance of either bliss or shock. It was disappointing, but he reveled in just how tight she was, and he loved it...It enraptured and totally enclosed his long cock, squeezing it gently. But as he slid in, he was surprised to find it hitting a sort of fleshy barrier. What the fuck?

Turning his head slightly to look at her from his like position on top of her, he looked from her to behind him, wandering what the hell was going on. He was laying with his chest on her, breasts squeezing between them like the meat in a sandwich. His breath hit her face, and looked straight into her eyes from this position, their lips brushing one another from how close they were. He inhaled, breathing in both her aroma and her own exhalation.

He had only been able to get about halfway in, and the head of his organ hitting the end rather harshly. He may have been a bit larger then the other clones, another of the "perks" to his deformity, but he wasn't a damn horse for God's sake. There wasn't a woman yet who he wasn't able to fit inside and make gasp from his sheer ability to impale them on his surprisingly effective prick. This came as quite the surprise to not have a single reaction, and to have such a small canal. And, well...He didn't like it.

Then he remembered what Lorenzo had said. She had no uterus, but also must not have possessed the upper part of her vagina. In other words, she most likely was made this way just to screw him over. Riccardo questioned why he didn't take the opportunity to make a woman that could birth an incarnation, create a clone the natural way. But then he remembered that he didn't want anything to do with it anymore, with children, with raising them. It still seemed like such a horrible waste. He wanted a servant...Not a woman to love. Making her able to have enjoyable sex would be a good way to distract her from her duties. She could give good oral, anyway. And that seemed be all the old man was interested in nowadays.

Well of course, making his life a living hell seemed to be his first and constant duty! Why wouldn't he make this woman a dissatisfying fuck? He snorted, and looked at her in disdain. Pulling back, he tried to shorten his thrusts as he pumped in and out of her, the only real pleasure he received at the head and tip and the tightness of her virgin cunt. Leaning down, he sucked her breasts just like before, tongue lashing her tits and becoming a greedy, vengeful monster as he tried to make the best of the situation. His breathing sped up, her chest heaving with his as she started to finally react in some way. He bit them, tasting her sharp, bitter mercury filled blood and ceasing to care anymore. Panting slightly, being very audible, he started to growl as he fucked the woman more out of irritation and blind hate for his master.

He came, crying out in a deep, guttural combination of a snarl and a yell. No real exertion came from the experience, and he wished he could have collapsed on the woman, panting, and telling her how good she made him feel. He had emptied more Azoth into the woman then what he received...which was none. No jolt, no feeling of a quenched hunger, nothing. This had to be the worst he ever had...Yet her face. It was so placid, so chilling...In the very least, he had done what he sought, he had defiled her. He looked down and back at her slit, and saw that his fluids had emptied out, having nowhere to go. This angered him most of all.

Ever since he started cloning, he hating to waste the life-giving substance. When Ugo left, he had stopped bringing woman home...and it depressed him severely. He instead moved towards getting it from the dogs more then ever. Though he knew he wouldn't gain anything from the experience, he at least felt it would be rewarding to an extent. Punishing his old man would be worth it. He was wrong, and he hated to be wrong. Now he just wasted what could have went to a clone, and it nagged at his conscious.

Just as he was going to climb off the homunculus, he looked at her once more in anger...and realized she had done a complete turn-around, she was smiling. Her smile shook, frightened, terrified him to the bone. And it made him freeze, his face contorting into a sort of loathing...It wasn't of pleasure, or even happiness...It was like she was doing it out of self-gratification. Just like in that room when he first saw her, and Lorenzo had attempted to molest him again...And she was just grinning evilly at him. Now she was doing it again, but for a slightly different reason.

Because she had taken something from him.

His Azoth...he realized it now. She hadn't done it in the kiss, she was too unresponsive at that point. But when he fucked her, she seemed to have recognized the sensation...The feeling of "wholeness" he often got afterwards, but maybe even stronger for her. She knew it, too...Somehow, she knew. And she had liked it.

"Azoth..." She spoke, her voice almost strained, sustained.

"How do you know that word...!? How do you know...?" He questioned, yelling.

"Azoth!" She cried again, her voice pleading this time...and her smile dropped to that of a crazed, craven woman.

Then she began to paw at him, her hands grabbing his shoulders, trying to pull him even closer. And her grip became tight, digging into his sensitive skin, feeling the Belli scar on his left shoulder as she dug her fingernails into it. He yelped in pain as he tried to pull away, then she wrapped her legs around his waist, and started to moan, rubbing herself against him, her clit brushing his body in an almost desperate attempt to get it to work. It wasn't about the sensation, she wanted more of the substance, the element she lacked.

"Azoth!" She wailed. "Essence of life! Of woman!..."

It was the essence of woman. Of man. Of humanity...Of life...And she knew this...

She began to cackle, to laugh horribly, and he knew that he had to get away, and fast. He tried to back away and off, but her grip was too strong, so he smacked her hard across the face. But it had no effect, she just kept laughing. So he hit her again, again, and again...Then he picked her up, and threw her from him, flinging her off the bed and onto the floor. Her limp body came off, but not easily, her fingernails dug into his back, ripping his skin in the process and leaving claw-like marks on his body.

He didn't scream, didn't curse...Just starred as his pseudo-sister, the feminine version of himself and everyone before him as she laughed...Just laughed, and laughed, just like his father. In many ways, it was his father. It was him. He pulled up his pants, then ran down the small steps, away from her, as he grabbed his shirt, and to the door where he took one last look at her. She was on the floor, her hands pushing herself up to look at him and gave him another grin. He half expected her to come crawling at him asking him for more. But she didn't, and her grin faded as she seemed to almost return to normal.

"This didn't happen. Get dressed, wash the sheets...And stay the fuck away from me."

Opening the door, and slamming it shut, he walked out into the warm night as he tied the rope back on his waist. He really had wished it didn't happen...

But his warning didn't last long. Because he didn't keep it. He saw her early the next morning, keeping her distance as he commanded. Avoiding her for a few days, resisting eye contact, skirting out of the room quickly. Then he gradually began to warm up to the maid, and let her make meals for him, do work. Almost instantly, he noticed that the place was cleaner, well kept, and she had become a normal part of the scenery. Daniella, the chambermaid to all of Belli Castle.

Then as they got comfortable again, he noticed that she had been eyeing him provocatively. His curiosity was piqued, and he began to conceive ways he may be able to get pleasure from the woman in one way or another. In the end, the old fashioned concept of oral sex seemed the best way...And he knew just how to use it. He could use it to screw her up, be too busy pleasuring him to attend to Lorenzo, ensuring a good beating. He would kill two birds with one stone!

Anytime he did this; he waited to the time of the month when he would be at his least fertile. Right after making a batch of clones. Whatever he did that day didn't matter. Sometimes he would brake his own rule he would admit, but it didn't matter, his clones grew for a few months before a new one was needed. Even he had to just enjoy himself sometimes.

Riccardo recalled back to the first time he did this; mere weeks after that incident. He watched as the old man ordered her to clean the table, then left. He had just finished eating, and felt rather bloated, so he sat there and watched as she cleaned the table as asked. Lorenzo came back, and told her to meet him in the hallway for some more work. He watched as she straightened up, and was about to leave. This was the perfect opportunity.

"Daniella."

She stopped dead in her tracks, her hand about to reach for the doorknob. Then, she turned on a dime and looked back at him.

"Yes, master?"

Though not her Lord, he was still considered a master. Higher up then she was, second in command. She was still a slave to his will. Lorenzo would always override him when it came to orders, but she also could not blatantly disobey him, either.

"Come here."

Doing as told, like the obedient little thing that she was, she approached him. He sat farther back in his chair, slouching back, moving the chair with his feet so it could slightly face her. She seemed to catch on. Then she stood before him, and looked blankly at the man.

A small smile played across his face, and his hands sunk to his waist. The rope belt was being undone. Her eyes widened, much to his surprise, and her lips twitched almost in anticipation. Had she figured it out already? The rope fell to the floor, and she watched eagerly as he reached down and took it out, and he reached up with his left hand as he did so, took her right wrist, and pulled her down to his level.

"Put it in your mouth, and suck it."

She obeyed, sank to her knees, and he spread his legs apart so she may fit in-between them. Looking a little confused at first, he looked towards the door to make sure the old man didn't see them. Then he spied back down at her quivering, almost desire-laden face...Alive with some sort of emotion for the first time, but still like a statue.

"Master wants me to-" She tried to say, but he slapped her hard across the face. It echoed in the room.

"I'm your master now, you little wench..." He spat, practically ready to beat her into a pulp.

She wanted it, but the fear of disobeying Lorenzo seemed to take precedence.

"Let me give you a piece of advice, maid...Don't ever let orders get in the way of pleasure..." He told the woman. And smiled wide...

"...Get in the way of the things you want...need. And you need and want this, don't you?"

Daniella looked up at him...and there was a spark in her eyes. She had learned something new, it was taught to her...Embedding in her subconscious. She looked down at the organ in front of her, and tilted her head, studying it. It still came a surprise when she took it in her hands and looked at it closer. Her hands traveled up and down the rough, uncircumcised length. His breathing began to increase, the concept of getting caught and the very experience itself enough to excite him. He was about to urge her to take it into her mouth, but she leaned down to do just this before the words came out.

She opened her mouth and licked the length from head to testes, he shuddered in pleasure, and grinned. The new maid taking her time, savoring the moment. After a few minutes of this, she reached up and began feeling everything she could, from the top down to her mouth as she licked, like some prize she had just earned, fondling him and nibbling at his foreskin. He leaned back and closed his eyes, his arms resting on his stomach in content. A full stomach and fellatio, what more could a man ask for?

This warm-up stage didn't last long, however. She returned to the head, then took it into her mouth, sucking it like she would a straw, trying to draw out the Azoth-laden life fluid. He lurched a little at the intensity she used, the way her tongue lashed around the tip like a seductive snake. He looked down at the woman, and she looked up, her light purple lips wrapped around his cock, hands now moving their way up and down and feeling rather like he was inside a warm cunt...He smiled back in assurance, and grasped her violet hair by the back, and she willingly let him pull her up. Along the way, she grazed it with her teeth, and now beginning to take pre-cum as it shot down her throat. But she didn't swallow it yet, she swished it about in her mouth and added to the sensation.

Now she was deep-throating him, his organ pushing down into her esophagus as she easily stopped her own gag reflex. This was the first woman who ever did that for him before, the others not quite knowing how. And good God, did it ever feel good. She then pulled back, and there was a moment of irritation and disappointment, reaching the tip of her lips and about to come out...then she took it all again, deep throating him...Now he realized she was building up a nice, steady rhythm. He smiled back and complied. Pulling her head harder onto his phallus, he began to thrust into her throat, and she began to moan as he started to pant, all the while he could just feel himself building, ready to come. She seemed to realize this, and pulled it more out of her throat and into her mouth so that she may savor him.

He climaxed, and found himself clutching her head as he pulled her into him, and spilled inside her mouth. He leaned forward in sheer exertion, the experience from the wonderful blow-job intense and sensational. His teeth ran along her hair as he sighed into it in a satisfied manner. The pressure she had on his inner thighs was extreme, grabbing hold in shock when he pulled her forward. Slowly, he sat up and sank back in his seat, happy, a grin on his face of self-fulfillment. He watched as she pulled slowly off of his organ, but still kept the very tip in her mouth. Her throat bobbed noisily as she swallowed, and she seemed to swallow all of it. Somehow, this felt good to him. It felt very good. He smiled back.

"Like how I taste?" He asked in a husky tone, a small laugh making up the end of the question.

She bobbed her head a little in response, and was surprised as she continued. Her tongue lapped the head, and she tried to get all that was left. He sighed wistfully, body tingling...Wholeheartedly enjoying himself. She started sucking and licking it clean from head to toe, like a popsicle, and finally left him clean. Like it never happened, the only evidence the shimmering surface of the ribbed, rough skin, covered with deep wrinkles that had a sheen similar to wet leather. Finally, she pulled it out completely, a sickening "pop" as the large amount of suction was broken.

A small amount squeezed out between her lips, and dribbled from her chin and onto her chest, staining her blue jacket. She smiled wide, showing those surprisingly white teeth that have most likely never even been used until now. The poor thing was so malnourished and skinny...He was rather glad to have finally given her a good meal.

Riccardo smiled back at the woman in response, and forgot about Lorenzo spying the stain. He didn't care anymore. Let him see, that might provide some after-dinner entertainment. Maybe he would even beat her, already she was a good fifteen minutes late, maybe more. That master would not be pleased...But this one? Oh, he was rather pleased, indeed. The maid had been given her very first lesson in cock-sucking by the steward, and she was a fast learner, and showed amazing promise, great skill, in the activity.

"Very, good...Very, very good..." He said in a rather commendable way, looking into her eyes.

"Azoth..." She commented, just as before, then licked her lips of the juices.

It almost looked as though she wanted to go again, but he knew that would be risky. The old man would be getting suspicious by now. He made a "humph" noise in his throat, his smile fading, his cruelty returning. Reaching forward suddenly, he lashed out, pushing her backwards by her face. She fell back, like a domino, stiffly, no cry of dismay.

"Now, get back to work."

As he said this, he stood up, pushing himself back into his pants. She looked at him coldly, as always, and stood as well. Not turning to him, not even glancing back, she turned swiftly and walked towards the door, still licking her lips. He reached down to acquire the rope and cinched it about his waist. Smiling in satisfaction, he cracked his neck to relive the tension, and followed her shortly thereafter.

Cresting the steps, he was just in time to witness the maid being slapped harshly by Lorenzo. Backhanding her, and the last one sent her so fiercely to the right that she fell onto the floor. Then she looked up at him...and gave him another strangely flirtatious smile. She knew he was enjoying the sight. Then he looked at the man that stood above her, and it was obvious that he knew. The look on his face was of irritation and betrayal. He had spied the stains on her outfit, the smell of her breath. Then as he looked into his eyes, he slowly grinned wide, and walked towards the guest room. He strolled down the steps from that room into the courtyard, in a good mood. That good mood lasted all day.

This continued behind closed doors, shut away in the dark. That was, until Fiona arrived. Before his plans for her began. He knew she had been listening to their very open, very vocal plans of what they were going to do. That a girl named Fiona would be entering the castle, that she would be brought here to be sucked dry by Lorenzo, and used as a fuck-toy by himself when he was thrown her corpse when he was finished, like some chained dog in the yard given the remaining bare bones of the owner's meal. Or at least, that was the deal, and the plan. The plan changed once it entered his mind, once desire set in, and desperation.

He began to abstain himself, and refused to even beat, let alone allow her to give him a good blow. Once he started smacking her, he would find it hard not to want to let her undo his pants. A month had gone by. Then he noticed odd behavior with her...A sort of pleading, almost hungry look to her gaze. She would look at him with a mixture of contempt and expectation. Like she was pissed with him, but also very willing not to be. At first he ignored it and chalked it up to her being a loon. Then it all began to make sense, he wasn't giving her any residual Azoth. Although it would never quench her thirst, never fix her, fill her, it helped. It was a jolt, a fix, like a drug addict getting a sprinkle of cocaine. Getting it from both him and Lorenzo, she got her fix often enough.

Now she was going through withdrawal. And he could see it. Visibly see it. Sometimes she would twitch, for no real reason. She would be standing there, stiff as a board, then she would just twitch. It was so quick it was hard to catch to the human eye, her neck snapping to the side, then back, or her arm or hand shooting out and knocking something over, just to pick it like nothing happened. It was obvious in her face she was craven for Azoth, needing it, stricken for it. Something, anything...Suffering. Perhaps if he cared for her, he would have relieved her suffering, but he almost got a kick out this new way of torture.

It never once crossed his mind that she would actually harm anybody for it. Chase anybody for it...Attempt to slice it out of the very woman he had been openly discussing for several months now.

Good God...

Now it made so much sense. It came together, all of it. The broken glass, the way Fiona avoided the question about the maid like the plague. Why the dog seemed weary about her when he saw her corpse.

"She has the Azoth..." Lorenzo had said very openly several times.

It was something he said very often. And it was something he was sure the maid had caught at some point.

He had instructed Daniella to make her a good dinner, to make sure nothing happened to her, that the girl was not to leave the castle. Then he remembered the last time he had seen her, after he had grown tired of searching for the old man. How unresponsive she was, how stiff, even more then usual. Before, she would at least answer him. She was not to disobey him...In the end, it was her programmed, learned obedience to Lorenzo that won out. Along with perhaps a dark, sick desire to slay the girl herself. He tried to piece that moment together.

"Have you seen the old man?" He asked, his voice hitting on aggravation. She was cooking in the kitchen, stirring stew in a pot.

"I am not at liberty to discuss that." She told him, her emotionless face showing no hint of suggestion. It was drawn out, like her constant pleads for Azoth.

"What did you just say to me?"

Riccardo made his hands into fists, his face growing closer to hers. He was not in the mood for this. For her attitude, the attitude she always had for him when it came to Lorenzo.

"I am not at liberty-" And with that he grabbed her fiercely by the arm, dropping the spoon in the pot, her body being dragged all the way upstairs to the vacant room, her steps stumbling and catching on the ground. Then she was thrown inside, and the door locked behind her.

He pulled out a chair, pointed towards it, his voice ferocious and fierce.

"Sit." Was the only command he gave, and she did so, walking over and planting herself firmly in the seat.

Riccardo walked about the room, his rage shooting through the roof. How dare she?! He was going to be the new Lord of this manor, she had better start listening to him! He made sure the door was good and locked, he didn't want Fiona seeing this, if she was still roaming the grounds at her own will. Although he suspected she wasn't, that she was slumbering away in the bed, he had to play it safe.

"Where is he!?" He tried, simply, coldly, walking back towards the woman.

"Where is the old man?"

No response. Her face was cold, like stone.

"Where's he hiding?"

Nothing. His rage boiled...Now he stood in front of her, stopping plainly before the living doll. This defiance would stop as of now. His hand came back...

"SLAP!"

Her face went in the other direction from the hit easily enough, but had no effect. The answer was the same. Silence.

"SLAP!"

Again, her face went in the opposite side as he backhanded her.

"SLAP!"

"SLAP!"

He grunted from the exertion, throwing everything he could into each hit.

"SLAP!"

"SLAP!"

"SLAP!"

Talk, goddamn it!

"SLAP!"

"SLAP!"

"SLAP!"

"SLAP!"

WHERE IS HE!? His thoughts became hurried and filled with panic, he had to find him, had to...

"SLAP!"

Finally, his hand grew tired, and he threw the last vestiges of himself into the last hit. He stopped, and her bruised, battered face came back to stare at him. This was his Lady's life she was toying with! Her very future, safety, hung in the balance of this icy, unfeeling creature.

"I won't let him touch her!"

His voice broiling with a protective, possessive edge as he turned away from her, hoping Lorenzo could somehow hear him in the large castle.

"Do you hear me old, man?!"

Now was the time, now the house of cards would fall...He wanted the old man to hear him, hear him clearly.

"The Azoth is mine..."

And with that, he took one more, angry look at Daniella, and turned from her, walking into the corner as he leaned against the wall, one hand holding him up as he sort of stewed in his own hell...He just had to think. Think. Where could he be?

Then he looked back at her, and saw her...Smiling again. But this time, towards the door. What...?

Just what the hell did she see?

He looked towards the door, nothing. Then he turned to her, and so did her head. She tilted hers, that stupidly happy grin on her face. Riccardo approached, walking up to stand before her once again.

"What the bloody hell are you smiling about?" He coldly spat.

Then she closed her lips, but still smiled, and tilted her head in the other direction like some curious bird. Her eyes loomed on a familiar target, his crotch. She reached forward quickly, fluidly. This was the routine, she was beat, then she would undo his pants and release the Azoth from his body. As her hand went to untie the rope, he slapped it away rudely.

"Don't touch me..." He seethed.

"That is no longer yours. You're not worthy of it."

Then the maid did something he had never...Ever seen her do before. She looked hurt. For a split second, she frowned, her eyes looked dark, her arms moved to rest in her lap, and she twitched a little again.

He ignored it, and went to walk out the door. Understanding her at this point really was very useless. It always was, she was quite the enigma, and he could care less.

"Master...?"

Stopping, he looked in her direction. How very odd, she normally didn't speak unless spoken to.

"She is...perfect. Whole...Pure."

Then she tilted her head...Tilted it until...Until a snapping was heard. And he could have sworn that a person shouldn't be able actually be able to tilt their head that far...

"...She will make a fine lover."

That last word was accentuated...Then she licked her lips a little, and smiled again. This scared him...It disturbed him...And he wanted to be out of there. So he gave her a dirty, filthy look...showed his teeth in a sort of mock snarl, and ripped open the door, slamming it behind him.

It nipped at him inside, internally...Like there was something wrong. And yet he also tried to push it out of his head, to focus on the job at hand. Kill the old man. Bed the maiden. The maid never entered in to the equation. She never did. Now he realized his fallacy, his failure to recognize the emotion as old as time itself.

Jealousy.

Riccardo supposed it was because he didn't think the homunculus was capable of feeling any real emotion, never was concerned with pleasing her, hurting her, feeling sorry for her. What he didn't count on was the small amount of life-energy she was sucking from her masters, both from him and Lorenzo. The woman had become a hybrid of them both, like a twisted, sick bundle of hate for everything and everyone, and was reduced to the most primal emotion of them all. After all, one predator's desire to obtain the other's larger, fuller carcass, meant for them to try and obtain it, steal it. Be successful by wanting what the other had. Or the mate that the other had, the more beautiful, powerful, healthier mate to bare them better offspring.

...The one full of life.

He was stricken white with sickness, revelation, as he walked further and further. His destination now the graveyard. He would grant her a burial, not a cremation, because of his pity...Because she bore their blood. But he would not give her a gravestone, she had tried to kill his mistress, his Lady, and for that he could not forgive her. For a moment he wondered why he should even give her that...Yet he deep down inside, it was because he thought of her as his sister. He always did, though not in the true way. Both creations of the same man, having the same blood, even if hers was altered a great deal. Pity nagged at his heart, he felt sorry for her lament, her torment...And sympathized for the poor maid.

A woman that could have been born his sister, not the hollow, artificial living doll she was...He wandered about what could have been, what should have been, and felt his soul bottom out as he walked, towards the graveyard, towards where Debilitas should still be.

The broken puppet on his shoulder, the lacking maid, his estranged sister. He almost thought he heard bells ringing like a funeral procession, but knew it was his imagination. The dog was at his side, walking obediently. Hewie sensed the solemn nature of his new master, and kept his tone the same.

Into the darkness of the mansion, the reaper marched.

---

What Riccardo only hinted at was the sort of life the maid of Castle Belli lived, and it was complex despite her simple physique. Her taught, slender body holding years of torment, it was more then she could handle. More then she could stand. It wasn't so much that she was shut away, almost never seeing the sun, gazing out through dirty windows as she cleaned them...but that was all she did, was clean those windows. Clean everything. Clean...Clean...Suck...Cook...Clean...Lick...Clean...CLEAN...FUCK...WASH...

Azoth...

AZOTH.

She knew she lacked it. Daniella was told this by her own master. Almost causally, feasting on her meals, he mentioned that she was perfect...That she was unable to feel, taste, have pleasure, unable to experience pain. She tested this out herself to see if it was true; and indeed it was. It was something she tested routinely, especially after she sucked one of her masters, that was when she felt the most alive. She would take a knife and slice the tips of her fingers...Watching the blood seep onto the cutting board, and smile almost in joy at the movement, the way her body did something indicating she was alive...It always clotted so quick, too quick.

Too quick for a human.

For twenty years she lived a life of plotting madness. A steadily growing desire forming within her. For Debilitas his child-like mind meant his odd behavior, Lorenzo it was greed and dementia, and for Riccardo it was the insatiable, desperate, maddening need to procreate and breed. Yet for Daniella it was to be more then what she was, to live like even a normal person, she would kill just to be like Riccardo. Even to be half laden with Azoth, to be the one desired. Not just for sex, not just as a servant, but as a lover and a master. It killed her inside, but she knew in a way she was already dead.

Daniella was dead before she was even born, and it was intended that way.

Only using the bathroom once a week, and bathing even less, her body was in general maintained like a plant. She never ate, she was never hungry and could never taste it even if she did. When she showered, she would then brush out her hair and braid it back, using her own wooden brush. She also would brush her teeth, using either of the men's toothbrushes but no mirror. They somehow always remained white regardless. The reason being there was nothing to stain them. She still liked to lick the spoons and forks when they finished, a touch of their food, and their life fluids, clinging to it still. It was oddly satisfying.

How she hated them...How she loved them...How she wanted to be them...

So, she found herself doing everything for them. Anything. Despite her brooding misery, she partook a certain pleasure from her work. She enjoyed cooking, cleaning, and sucking them both. Yet it was like a drug, and despite the love she took from such activities, it slowly killed her inside, and she became more and more insane, mad, ready to snap like the twig from a tree. All that had to happen was to have someone step on that twig.

As the years went by, she began to cut herself more, and more. She sliced her wrists open, and would sometimes "paint" with them...The carousel in the mansion being a prime example of her art. What was once intended for the growing children of the castle, had been made filthy. Her hand ran along one of the horse's heads, studying it...And she could sense, just sense...That her Riccardo was here, as a child. And so was her Lorenzo...Also, as a child. The room was heavy with the old smell of little boys. They used to play here, just like the nursery in the castle. It smelled the same, the exact same. But this room was different, because it taunted her. She couldn't have children. Wasn't allowed to have children...The smiling faces of the horses almost screaming out to her..."Not you, not you...not you..." The cheery, ever-playing music slurring into lyrics...

"You-can-never-have-them-he-doesn't-want-you-You-can-never-have-them-he-doesn't-want-you-You-can-never-have-them-he-doesn't-want-you..."

"...he-doesn't-want-you..."

"...he-doesn't-want-you!"

"-doesn't-want-you!"

Hearing something that wasn't there, she twitched. Her neck snapping to the side as she laughed in a giddy manner, head twisting from side to side at an unnatural speed. Her neck so mechanical, so false, that it sounded like a wooden toy as it did so...Then she walked towards one the horses, and ran her right wrist along one of the upright ears, cutting it open rather easily. Laughing in madness, in joy...in fulfillment. The blood flowed freely, and it felt wonderful. She was bleeding profusely, and took her cut, and smeared it everywhere she could find. The floor, the walls, the horses...

Yet the music remained...

Another twitch, another cracking jerk of the neck, and she walked towards the source. The speaker in the upper center of the carousel, up near the top. Her hands dug into them, ripping out all the wires she could find. There was a stutter, a pause in the music, then it continued. But it was now in a jerkier, more tolerable fashion. Broken. Just like her. Satisfied, she stopped, and backed away...

That was all it took, like a job was finished, and walked out the door...Daniella never did go back that way. Which, considering it led to the dungeon nobody used anymore, behind a series of traps needed to get there, it was a room that had not been used for centuries, she never had to. It was only opened as for her own desire to maintain, it wouldn't be opened again until a year later...When Fiona arrived. To the lowly maid, it was as though it never happened.

In the first week of her new life, as she learned, as was educated to the ways of slavery and life in the castle, she began to look at herself as she passed in the mirrors. The first few times were fleeting, just catching the image of a woman in the reversing glass, nothing more. Then as she realized who it was, herself...She began to loath passing them, and avoided them altogether.

But it went from avoidance, to destruction. Only a few months within her creation, she couldn't help when cleaning the castle bathroom, leaning over the sink, to see herself...Catch herself in the mirror that lay on the wall.

Herself...

She stood up...And saw her, fully, every thin limb, the blank stare, pale skin...Suddenly, she became aware of her own...Existence. Existence...Living. Walking. Staring. Azoth deprived...Filthy... Defiled...Not complete. Incomplete. Not a woman...She was not a woman...She was something else...

No.

No...

Before she could stop herself, her scream filled the air...It rose, higher and higher until her own eardrums came close to bursting. Then, the lower left-hand side of the mirror shattered. It just fell put, the crack from the corner left spreading to the center and radiating to the rest. Then it broke, falling into the sink piece by piece. It's sound nearly as loud as the scream itself. The rest was turned into a cracked, shattered mess that still remained intact, but never allowing anyone to see themselves in it again. Then slowly, her voice came down...There was no longer any image staring back at her...Just a cracked piece of glass, and something to clean up...

Clean...Clean...

Her mind refocused, having something to preoccupy itself with. It was programmed for this, and now had something else to think about...Back to it's automaton ways.

She stuck her hands into the glass shards in the sink, and began to pick them up. Her fingers becoming bloodied and cut, but she didn't feel them...Didn't care. When she saw herself in the broken pieces, she looked disjointed, false...and somehow, she loved it. She smiled...She couldn't see her whole form. How false she really was...Just parts of her, just how a normal woman would have parts of her that were perfect...Only parts. This was beautiful...She was beautiful. Clutching the shards to her chest, she began to dance in a circle, waving around in the bathroom, and began to laugh lightly, rhythmically...Overcome with madness and joy. Raising the shimmering pieces to her face, she kissed them, licked them...Crimson flowing from her lips, trickling out from between them.

Then the door opened in a quick, hurried manner. It was Riccardo, alerted there by the loud scream and crash. His face was hooded, as it always was, then he looked the maid up and down, watching her for a short moment as she danced with the glass shards as if it was a dance partner, lips slowly pecking kisses upon them. She stopped for a moment and starred back at him, and smiled with the jewels that were her teeth.

He looked almost...frightened. And just like that, he backed out of the room, and walked away, leaving the door hanging open in his haste. It was only days since she pleasured him for the first time, and this was a side of her that he had yet to see, besides the bedroom when he had defiled her. Made her from her pure form, to her dirty one. But it was as though he had temporarily forgotten...Not anymore, it all came back to him...Reminded of her madness. She watched him hurriedly leave, and she continued to dance for a short while.

It happened again and again, all over the estate...Everywhere there used to be a mirror. Lorenzo didn't care, he never looked in the mirror anymore, and waved it off as nothing at all. Riccardo seemed a little off, but was more un-eased, more disturbed if anything. He kept a certain distance from her, only grabbing her when he needed her.

Daniella hated woman. Beautiful or not, she always saw something in them that she knew she lacked. Imperfection. Purity. Virginity. Womanhood...They all had it, even if it was only at one point. Even if a whore, they were once virgins, even with a hysterectomy, they once possessed womanhood, even when dirtied, they were once clean...They were all the same in her eyes. Something she could never be. They were real. The masters hung them up as pictures, like the laundry room where she frequented. The forth month of her creation, she walked in with a full load in her arms. Sheets, they were almost always sheets...

Woman. Woman everywhere. Glaring at her. Taunting her. Imperfection made them perfection. Whole, vibrant, full of life.

You'll never be us.

We're real. We're real. We're real.

You'll never be real.

You'll never be us-

The pile of sheets fell from her hands to the floor. Calmly, she turned around, leaving them there for now. Walking out the door, she then later came back with a glass shard. She had gathered it from the trash, one of her earlier breakings of a mirror that she didn't remember, she was just recalling having to clean up and throw away the glass. Slowly, methodically, she went to each painting, and carved out their face. She laughed gleefully as she did so, making short work of them all. Their voices in her head seemed to dissipate as she worked. Rip them apart...Rip them open...

Soon the only thing that remained of the picture were scarred, like those of her lover's face. This thought made her feel relatively at ease, and she snapped from her trance. All she remembered is that it appeared there was glass in her hand, and something had become of the ugly pictures in the laundry room. Had she been normal, she would have shrugged in confusion. Instead, she turned around completely, clicking her stiff legs and heels, and picked up the sheets in a fluid, swift motion. She found it odd that they were bloody, getting more-so by the moment, but gave it no more thought. Then she walked through the door, to the washing machine as if nothing had occurred.

There were two things Daniella lived for. And that was; pleasing Lorenzo, and pleasing Riccardo. They had their different ways, for Lorenzo it was less about pleasure and more about work, the opposite being said for his creation. To her, they were identical men in two forms. That one being, was her creator. She lived for her creator, and loved him dearly. Daniella would kill for him. Die for him...One of his forms, Lorenzo, was the first in line for her, but he was not her only.

Riccardo only treated her as a stress and sexual tension reliever, yet she saw it as much more. She saw him as her "lover", in that they were a couple. Daniella, in her artificial madness, had seen things that weren't there, thought things happened that never did. She assumed he loved her, that he asked her to give him head not to pleasure himself, but to give her Azoth. That he was gifting her...Trying to free her. She never slept, but she at times daydreamed and her simple mind wandered as she worked. Him fucking her passionately, on a lovely ornate bed draped with fine silken sheets...It was a wonderful wet dream, a dream-scape of orgasmic delights...No room that grandiose existed in the castle, she had completely cooked it up in her mind...It made her feel something close to arousal in her loins, but not quite, and a small warmth she had never experienced before. It became driving. It became her obsession.

Making love to the man...It occurred once, when she didn't care. How she wished she could turn back the hands of time. She would make it more enjoyable...She would make it so that he forgot how short and unsatisfying her canal was, maybe she would try to get him to fuck her anally. She didn't know, but she would find a way. But every time she tried to grab him about the waist in a comfortable way, to move him towards a bed and sit him down, he swatted her away. Sometimes slapping and beating her cruelly. Somehow she loved this. Though Daniella never really showed it. As long as she got his Azoth, the Azoth that lasted only momentarily through giving him oral sex, she would be at least placated. Though it still drove her to at least try...He never took her advances as such, more like annoyances to be slapped away like some fly hovering in one's face.

Yet she somehow still believed that it could happen. It was forbidden love, a servant for her master. Against the will of the higher Lord of the manor. Her own dirty little secret, one she kept from them both. She imagined herself being a woman, a complete one. Taking him, she threw him onto the bed, and rode him like a cowgirl aboard her bucking horse. His prick felt so good wedged in her newly acquired uterus, breasts bouncing beautifully as she pushed up and down. His hands would reach up and feel them, squeeze them and moan plaintively as she sort of half raped, half seduced the man to love her...Love her. How she wanted him to love her...Then he toyed with her clit, and she screamed as she experienced the ultimate pleasure. Life...Azoth flowed into her as he came inside her womb, she screamed in orgasm as every atom in her body exploded in positive wonder, her toes curling in her straddling position.

She would make it work. When he wasn't looking one day...She would make it work. Perhaps a knock to the head when he wasn't focused, or a sedative in his food. When he went out, she would roll him over, and sit atop him. She would stimulate him as she always did, and ride him until he came inside her body. Perhaps if she cut herself up there with some glass or something else sharp, it would open wider...

Before the maid could implement the plan, however...She came along...

That filthy, vile creature...That disgusting tramp, harlot, whore...Lady of the evening...Streetwalker...Slut, stupid bitch...Little cunt!

They called her Fiona...Miss Fiona, as she was not married...

But Daniella only thought of her as really one thing; usurper. A threat to her plan, stealing her Lover and Lord away from her. The first time she heard of this woman, she was getting her Lord, Lorenzo, the glass of water he had instructed. She sat it on the table, and stood there beside him, waiting for his next order. She was almost always at his side, like a dog tethered to it's master's hand. Only when he told her to "Go clean..." would she leave. In which Riccardo sometimes grabbed her when she was alone, for his own sadistic purposes.

He sat in his wheelchair at the small table next to the lab, rolled up to it so he may converse. Riccardo sat in the wooden chair on the opposite end, elbows on the table and hunched over. He always looked so tired, especially when sitting. Daniella wished she knew what being tired even was. She never felt it. Regardless, she stood there. Not even thanked, the glass sat down at his master's hand, where he raised it to his lips, coughed, and looked ahead at his failure of a son.

"...So that's the plan, then?" Riccardo asked, his voice slurred, like he was ready to give up even speaking.

This wasn't the first time they talked like this, but this was the first she had hung around to listen. All together, it was most likely the forth time in a period of a month. She wasn't curious, she didn't know really what that sensation was, but she had to admit this was different, and she wasn't sure she liked it. What were these two planning?

"Yes..." He choked out, having a hard time speaking with his failing voice.

"...I still don't see why you just won't tell me what you're going to do with them..." Riccardo replied, a little irritated.

"In due time, Riccardo...In due time."

It seemed as though Lorenzo wanted to keep the murder, and location, of Ugo and Ayla secret until the last minute. Telling him beforehand might give him some seed of an idea in his head, might even try to warn his clone-brother what was to occur. He knew the two were rather close. Though he knew hate had built in his system since he left them, and he didn't leave on the best of terms, he still knew they had fond times together. That deep down inside, they really were brothers, and that he had even met Ayla and knew they were rather "close" as well. He couldn't risk it, and when Riccardo got an idea in his head...He was a very dangerous man, because he was the type that would do anything to see it happen.

They made a deal about Fiona. Lorenzo would take her life, Riccardo her dead body. He didn't seem happy with the idea, but giving a dog a bone was better then nothing at all. Lorenzo told him there was a way through the "dry method" to have someone remain "alive" without Azoth, their mind functioning, but not real in the physical sense. As always, he simply thought of his son as the type that wanted to just fuck everything in sight like some intact dog, not who had any real purpose behind it. Regardless, he said he would do this for him if he cooperated. Give him his own sex slave. Though he really didn't know why he should give the waste anything...He supposed it was because it would be the only way to get him to cooperate.

"...Now, this...Fiona." Riccardo replied back. He always brought her up...

"Is she...attractive?"

At the mention of the word, "she", Daniella's eyes widened just a little. She looked towards Riccardo, her gaze intense. He never noticed.

Lorenzo sort of smiled, and placed his hand upon a yellow envelope that was sitting to the right the whole time. Riccardo simply assumed it was some map or something of that nature. He slid it over to the cracked homunculus across from him, a look of eagerness in his face as it came closer.

"...Decide for yourself."

Like a child unwrapping a Christmas present, he grabbed and tore it open. He pulled out the small assortment of pictures, all in an envelop addressed from America to their address in the United Kingdom, in Ugo's handwriting. They wanted them to see their daughter. Their daughter, as in the technical fact that she was their child. He supposed he had gotten too proud, forgotten about the absolute hate that must have brewed towards him as he left some twenty years ago. An invitation to them would be sent out shortly thereafter.

"We want to see you again. And your pleasant wife, and we want to see our child." One of the sentences read.

"...The past is past. Ugo, come home. We dearly miss you..."

Lies, all such disgusting lies...Penned by Lorenzo. The fucker loved to lie like the Satanic figure he had become. The great deceiver, the snake in the grass.

"If you come, the castle will be yours. I have become weak with age, and I pass it onto you as it's rightful heir. I now have a gardener, a maid, and of course, your brother Riccardo is still live and well. He wants to see you all, too. He'll now serve you just as loyally, I will make sure of it."

That was the lest deceitful statement of them all. But it was one that still probed him to come, and set the wheels of motion. The wheels, the gears, of fate. He eventually agreed, sending a reply back telling Lorenzo he would make arrangements to claim the castle, but that he would have to visit there first to see it's condition and see if Fiona and Ayla liked it there. Lorenzo told them how to get there, as it was so long ago that he had practically forgotten. Shadow Way Road, an oddly creepy and appropriate name for a route that flowed between the woods of the large, privately owned property and forest outside the castle. Still, it was very long, and it was only a two-lane road. It was always a bit dangerous. On it, somebody could be killed, and nobody would ever know. The police knew to stay away from the area, bribes, threats...It was enough for those that wanted to keep away out of the God-forsaken place and it's inhabitants to begin with.

The plan was set, the pieces were in play, the game was ready. Lorenzo the king; Riccardo the pawn in his deadly game. The hitman. He just didn't know it yet.

Pulling out the catalyst pictures, the ones that started this whole plan in motion, he seemed absolutely enthralled. His gaze steely, possessive. They were school pictures, and there were several. One was of her face for the yearbook, dressed in an all-covering white blouse uniform from some fancy private school that demanded such tight lifestyles. She wasn't happy. Her face had upon it a forced smile, her eyes dull. Somehow, this made him feel almost...sad. Why was she so miserable? She reminded him of himself in this large cage of a home, he suddenly felt the need to free her...Make her happy.

Make her his.

He had the plan even before he saw the pictures...Yet just as one sees his soon-to-be wife before an arranged marriage, he had a face to put onto his fantasies, all the years they would have together. He moved the pictures about, and saw one of her in a school line up, all the girls wearing the identical outfit. She was easy to see among them, her unique and sensual body standing out, her archaic features and ancient blood displaying themselves amongst the mixed breeds. She was like a purebred in a room of mutts. It was a bit unusual, a bit unnerving, to see a sort of feminine version of himself standing with people, not among the castle walls. He couldn't say he liked it.

In this picture, he could now see her waist...Where her womb lied inside her. His finger traced her face, then wandered down, ending at the area above her crotch. He sighed wistfully as his eyes bored into that particular area. Already he fantasized making love to, and caring for, the girl. Only about another month, he told himself, just one more month...And she would begin to grow his child within her.

Daniella saw it, though Lorenzo did not. Sure, he was looking at him, but he didn't see it in his eyes. Daniella did, and she knew right then she was going to have competition. A sudden flare of hatred and jealously rose beneath her steely exterior, and as she held her hands in front of her...She dug her fingernails into the other, and they bled, knuckles turning white...

Riccardo looked up at Lorenzo...Then grinned rather mischievously.

"...In a month, correct?" He asked, wanting to confirm.

"Yes. Riccardo, soon. I will have my Azoth...And in exchange, you will have your lover."

Lover...

She heard the word...And was enraged...

"M' Lord?" Daniella questioned, knowing she had to leave.

"Mmmm? Oh, right, right...Uhh, go clean. We're done for the night."

Turning and walking away swiftly, she left, she had to get away. Any longer standing there and she would have said something out of turn. She walked in a stiff-legged manner down into the kitchen. It was in there that she seethed...And she plotted, drawing her own plan against the girl that hadn't even arrived yet.

Then the day came, and the castle had become a hotbed of activity. A powder-keg ready to blow. Riccardo left, Lorenzo waited in the reaches of the mansion. He arrived with the girl, but she didn't see her yet. Daniella was too busy trying not to be seen...Her own agenda a secret to everyone. Even she didn't know exactly what she was going to do...Only that something was going to occur, and that she would let the pieces fall where they may. If Lorenzo was the King, Riccardo the Pawn, then she was the Queen, not the girl, and would make her move when the opportunity presented itself.

He ordered for her to tend to the woman, as he at the time believed she was still in the guest room. She walked into the room, and didn't find her there. So she took the time to take out the clothing that master Riccardo had made at the tailor specifically for the woman...Reminding herself how he had never bought her any clothes...And laid them on the bed. Standing in the corner, she hid in the shadows, controlling her stiff breathing and appearing as though she was never there to begin with...She was known for this. Appearing from nowhere, being where she shouldn't, knowing her master's secret passages to end where one would never expect her to be. She was sneaky, she was stealthy, like an ambush predator hiding behind a tree to pounce.

Then she appeared...It was like she was expecting her when she did, and she didn't know why. She supposed it was because if she wasn't here, she couldn't have gone very far butt ass naked. Daniella watched with great interest as the object of her Lord's affections walked up the steps, and went to open the door. She noticed she was wearing nothing but a sheet wrapped around her, the very same sheet that once lined the bed, holding it up with her left hand near her chest. Her right hand went to rest on the knob...The maid then took a silent step towards the bed, ready to halt her if she proceeded to open the door. Then the girl seemed to sense a presence, and gasped as she then turned around, noticing her for the first time as though she was a ghost. Daniella smiled as she saw the girl jump...Trying her best to look hospitable, friendly.

"I've gathered some clothes for you."

She had told her, a look a fright still upon her face as she rose her arm up over the bed, indicating the clothing on the covers as she then took another step forward, this time towards her.

The girl walked backwards, and the maid walked past her. Going towards the door, she was stopped by her subtle voice.

"Um..Uh..." She stuttered, like she was afraid to talk or even ask a simple question.

"Wait. Don't go." Fiona cried out, pleading and confused.

Daniella looked backward only slightly, just barely indicating she was paying attention.

"Um, excuse me, but where are we? And... how did I get here?"

She was going to answer her, because she actually was sort of "programmed" to do as told. If one asked her a question, she was supposed to answer it. Unless it involved her master, and he told her not to tell a certain creation of his where he was hiding. She saw the altercation between him and Lord Lorenzo earlier, which sent him into the walls of the castle. The Lord superseded him, as much as he may have wanted her to talk, it was never going to happen so long as she believed he was still alive. Daniella immediately felt his presence...and looked up. The painting. She knew of the secret room behind the wall, she always did, and knew it sat there where he could watch. He never told her the real reason why the eyes were cut out of the painting so that he may gaze out, but it didn't matter. She caught the painting's eyes, and looked into them as though he was standing right before her.

She remembered what he had told her earlier, far before even Riccardo brought her there. He had grabbed her, and pulled her close, and told her very specifically to make her comfortable, that she needed to be kept in the castle for a while. Of course, he planned to harvest her Azoth shortly after her arrival, but telling the maid she would be a new addition, not a prey item, would result in a calmer demeanor and less suspicion to the girl. She would be easier to handle and hold down when he chose to end it.

All it took was his gaze...And she remembered the command, repeating it to reassure that she understood.

"Yes master...We will keep her here for a while... I will make sure she stays...comfortable."

The last word was said almost in a questioning way. Like she wanted to confirm this order...She would have no choice but to follow it.

By "we" she meant the two of them. Not Riccardo...He was not in their plans, not yet anyway. Everyone in the castle had their own set of plans, inlaid within another, intentional or no. She had her own. Lorenzo gave her orders, as did Riccardo, but in the end she had to find ways to please them all.

Daniella watched as she turned towards the painting, following her gaze in curiosity. She then seemed to jerk involuntarily as she caught the painting's eye, and then fell to the floor. For the life of her she didn't know why, but she didn't particularly care, and snuck away like the illusion that she was. The door shut, and she walked away, downstairs to prepare dinner.

Oh, and it would be quite the dinner, indeed...She would make damn sure of it.

They were not cannibals. No, no...That was a fact. They may have been a rather unorthodox group of people, to the public 's perceptions, anyway. But they were no cannibals. That didn't mean she couldn't give their guest...And possibly even Riccardo, if he chose to come to dinner, a "nice" little surprise. It was sure to make them both sick, easy to manipulate... to take from them what she wanted. It was a human head.

It wasn't that they went around murdering people; oh no. The Belli’s had far better things to do then just go out and rip someone from the streets. They may not be particularly the most moral bunch, but they only killed when necessary, much like a predatory beast. The maid had no way to leave the castle, or to kill even if she wanted to. Luckily for her, Lorenzo kept quite the collection of nasty things in the mansion, and they weren't just bones and mammoths. One was a female head in a jar, which she stole thinking she could always replace it with Fiona's later, not caring if he would really notice it or not. She pulled it from the brown alcohol and formaldehyde solution, and carried it back by it's long blond hair. Everyone too busy rushing about that morning to notice her.

Not that they would have noticed her, they never did...It was one of the reasons she seemed to be everywhere in the castle...Appearing from nowhere. Nobody noticed the lowly maid.

That was about to change...

Daniella had never served a guest before. Not once. Riccardo stopped bedding woman before even she was created, not because of it, he was too busy trying to clone now that Ugo had left to do anything recreational. She came to fill his niche, though the man hadn't had real sex for over twenty years. So there were no guests at Belli Castle for twenty years, and Fiona was very intriguing to her...An outsider, someone different. Though she still knew this girl was related to her, she could just smell it on her. Riccardo's smell was very strong and pungent on her. That blond hair didn't fool her; this was a Belli indeed. She had the Azoth...

Azoth...She may have been simple, but she wasn't stupid. That was far from the truth, and she knew what Azoth was. Lorenzo told her about it hours after her creation, it was still only a name for an emptiness she had. He seemed to take pleasure in informing her that he had created her to be "The perfect woman", without original Azoth, without life. She could produce minuet amounts of it, but only at about the level of a plant would. Practically useless. She always felt so empty, false...Fake and hollow. Like she needed to be filled by anything. Either it be a phallus in her short cunt, in her mouth, or something else entirely...She felt the need to always want something inside her.

It wasn't just lack of Azoth...It was something else, too. She was something lacking, something inside her that should have been there, but wasn't. She found out about this particular facet from Riccardo. This, after all, was his biggest desire.

"You cannot have children." He told her one day, as she was pushed away...again.

She had tried to grab him by his waist, and he rudely took her arms from around him, throwing her towards the floor. He knew that if he let her, she would have dragged him down the hall, through doors, and towards the guest room bed. He wanted nothing of her madness, she was a waste of his precious time.

"...Children?" She questioned, a bit curious.

Riccardo would sleep with woman years ago, purely because he wanted to fuck them, and to get some Azoth kick to help him in his needs. However, as the years went by, he became partially disenchanted with having sex...Just to have sex. Oh, but that didn't mean he didn't want to take a woman to bed, that wasn't true at all. But he had stopped looking for just anyone, he wanted somebody whom would be the love of his life. He wanted a child, he always did. Yet just any woman wouldn't do, it had to be someone special, it had to be just like him, and be able to be him, act like him, look like him...It had to be a clone, it had to be him in order to be reborn. If Daniella was able to have children, able to be normal, she may have been perfect. As she was, however, she was useless to him. She disgusted him.

He wanted to make love, almost constant love, to the mother of his child. Not her. He wasn't sure if it would ever happen...If he would ever have sex with a woman again. Yet it was the only thing he now craved, and she wasn't it.

"Yes, children. Do you know what that is, wench?" He was a bit irritated, though he wanted to explain it to her so she at least would leave him alone.

The maid nodded, she knew, vaguely. She had seen paintings, the nursery, though she barely even went into the room...Aware that, normal people, in other words, not her, stayed small for years as they grew into adults. That they came from a woman, and that a man created a child inside the woman's body using his own seed. That two were needed, a union, a combination, another copy of themselves. She actually rather liked the idea, but never dwelled on it much. For Daniella, the concept never really mattered much...Until now.

"Yes, Master Riccardo..." She replied, her head dipping a little in shame.

"Well, you can't have them. You have no womb."

She didn't ask, but she did look at him in a quizzical manner. He sighed angrily as he read the expression, which very rarely ever showed on her face.

"A womb is a woman's uterus; it's a reproductive organ. It's in their belly, behind their stomach and above the crotch..."

Riccardo indicated this on his own body where it would be, had he been a female. Laying his hand flat about where his bellybutton was, though she couldn't see through his clothing.

"...It's where a child is created and grown for nine months. Then she gives birth, do you understand?"

Daniella nodded, comprehending just enough. She had some basic understanding as it was, being a woman, and having a sort of natural inclination to desire the knowledge. At this, she looked down at her own body...And had a sudden, even more vile repulsion towards herself. It rolled in like waves, crashing into her badly like the beach of the ocean herself.

"So, this is why you do not wish to make love-" She was cut off.

"No, it is why I want nothing to do with you. I hate you enough as it is, but if you could have children I would in the very least be able to stand you."

Then he sort of smirked, being a obvious wise ass and enjoying the look of cold disappointment on her face.

"Now, if you'll excuse me..."

Watching, he left...Just left. No asking to be forgiven, or anything of that nature. She stood there for a while, a long while. This had occurred the second month of her creation, though he always turned her down, she now had a true reason for it. He didn't like her, and she couldn't give him a child. She couldn't bore him the next Aureolus Belli.

Slowly, it began to eat away at her. She scarcely remembered a time when she didn't want to have Riccardo's child. It became a new fantasy in her mind, being pregnant. Not only having him bed her again, but carrying his child. It wasn't so much that she wanted a baby, she wanted to make him happy. Satisfy him. Be normal, be his. He was hers! All she ever wanted was to be a normal woman, be able to be fertile and receptive. Alive, complete. Then he would accept her...She was convinced of it.

Just the knowledge that she was imperfect was enough to destroy her sanity, now she also knew she possessed no womanhood; no uterus. It made her enraged, obsessed. She needed one. She had to have one. She was incomplete... Incomplete...

When cooking the "meal" for the guest, she remembered that the girl came up to her and was spying her activities. She walked past her, not walking closer, but just gazing at her oddly as she stirred the supposed soup. Lifting the ladle from the liquid to check the consistency, some of the hair fell from it, dropping into the boiling water. The girl's eyes widened a little, she must have thought it was angel-hair pasta or something similar. Daniella made a small, light hum in in her throat as a sort of casual greeting...And the girl did wander closer, and for a moment she suspected if she would gain some nerve and ask a question or two. Then she just backed off, like she had become suddenly frightened. She watched her walk through the door, and she continued cooking.

Later, Riccardo walked up to her, and began to question her on the whereabouts of Lorenzo. Or "old man" as he put it. As much as she wanted to please him, she knew she could not. She could not tell him, could not even hint. Her Lord was her real master, her controller, and she was his puppet. She would die for him if she had to. He led her to the old, vacant room, which had been vacant as long as she was there, and beat her. Daniella then tried to make it up to him, tried to make him feel better, by trying to pleasure him. To her disdain and surprise, she was once again pushed away.

She hadn't fed from him for over a month, she was starving...Craving, twitching...She had to have Azoth...Had to...Her body seemed to feel as though she was falling down a pit, not even able to feel her own extremities and body. She felt distant, almost as though she was far, far away...Deep inside, she tried, she contained, if only she can just hold on a while longer, she would obtain it. That vile little whore...

Daniella then sought out the girl, visiting first the guest room, and was surprised not to find her there. Then she had to go on a small search, and found her, oddly enough, in the watch tower. Finding this very odd, but not particularly caring, she came up behind the woman as she tried to unlock...No, we couldn't have this. She was trying to enter the mansion. The damn little slut was trying to probe into their secrets, she could just see it. Why else would she be going into the mansion, as opposed to going out the front gate? Walking up, she took her hand softly, causing her gasp in shock and drop the key to the floor. There was a dog with her now, but ignored him as though he never existed.

Fiona stuttered some "no" noises, crying practically as she turned to her...And Daniella came in, closer. She suddenly realized just how strong her feminine aroma was, and knew why. Not only was she close...But she had this "Azoth" the masters spoke of, as well as womanhood, femininity...It was strong, it was almost overwhelming to her starved senses. She wanted to kiss her, snuggle her tight and taught form into hers. Pressing her own smaller breasts into hers and pinning her against the wall...And just eat her, put her mouth everywhere it could find it's way. Take her body, make it hers. She inhaled the breath as she exhaled, just like her master did to her twenty years ago.

"Dinner is served, Miss."

Her stiff speech announced, then leaned in just a little closer. Thinking that perhaps the girl just didn't hear her, which is why she didn't reply, she repeated.

"Dinner is served, Miss." Then smiled at Fiona's awkward, surprised stare.

Several minutes past, all with the maid's gaze drilling into the girl, waiting for her to do something, anything.

"Oh..." The girl gasped, then took a step back.

"Okay, then...I'll...I'll be right-"

"Now please, miss. It will get cold."

The heiress nodded and swallowed, obviously frightened. She should be, and she loved it. Then, Daniella turned, expecting her to follow. Fiona, behind her back and without her noticing, walked backward, stooped, and grabbed the key from near the floor at the door. Quickly, she hurried to catch up. She was hungry, though she sure didn't want to eat anything here...Especially from this strange woman. The way she walked ahead of her was most unusual, stiff, her feet loud and echoing in the room. She feared saying no to the woman for two reasons, one, she didn't know what she might do, she was afraid of her strange, placid nature...Even the way she smiled was unnerving. Two, she didn't want to be a bad guest. For all she knew, these people...besides the giant that chased her, were half-decent, meant well...Perhaps she really just wanted to serve her a nice dinner. As she followed her to the dining room, she hoped desperately she was right.

Daniella took her towards Lorenzo's chair to sit. She looked wearily at the odd woman, and Daniella simply smiled back in her subtle, customary fashion. Pulling it out a little she nodded to it.

"Please have a seat, miss. I will bring it out for you. Master Lorenzo will not be joining us this evening, he is...not available."

Her voice seemed to drift off, not wanting to discuss that particular subject, not even hint at it.

"...Master Riccardo may join us; it has yet to be seen. He is...occupied at the moment."

Fiona looked at her strangely, then nodded, taking a seat. It was hard and uncomfortable, she didn't particularly like it. The maid pushed it in just a little, a skidding noise being made on the floor and making her jump in her seat. Right then she noticed what was to eat in front of her, nine bowls of steaming soup. She wasn't sure what in God's name it was, it smelled and looked different then anything she had ever eaten in her life. There were two large, ornate cups, one which was filled with what looked like wine, the other water.

Then she felt a cold, wet nose on her arm. It gave her a another jump, and looked down to see Hewie under her arm. He was seated, butt on the floor, under the table. Whining, it was obvious he was hungry and wanted some of what she had. Yet Fiona knew that she couldn't give him any, it was soup, what was she supposed to do, dribble it down his throat with a spoon?

Looking up, she watched as the maid walked to the door and opened it. Fiona looked towards it and to the dog, she knew what she was implying. It really was rude to have her dog begging for food at their table.

"Go, boy! Go on!" She waved her right arm in the door's direction, he just whined again in response.

"Hewie...Go."

The dog knew what this meant from his last owners. They would open the door, then the gate, and ask him to go outside. Now she were doing the same to him...He didn't have time to feel bad, but he did give one plaintive gaze back as he shifted onto all four feet, and walked out the door. The maid promptly closed it behind, the dog scratched at the spot under the door for a few moments. He then cried loudly, barked once, and was silent. Plopping down tiredly at the door, his body resting against it, he was too used to this sort of thing. It came so naturally...Besides, he was tired. He didn't trust that maid, she didn't smell right...Yet he had no real reason to attack her, nothing to make him think she meant any real harm. He would instead keep an eye on her, watch her more carefully then she might like.

Daniella came up beside her as she sat there, and realized she was being watched. The maid was staring down at her from her position, which just happened to be right next to her chair. It was very uncomfortable in general...And she felt obligated to eat, not wanting to appear ungrateful or unappreciative.

"May I ask...Uh, please, miss...?"

"Daniella." She informed, her voice drawn out.

"Daniella? Oh, that's a very lovely name." Fiona complimented, looking away. Wanting to appease the strange woman.

"Thank you, Miss."

"May I ask, Daniella...What is this we're having?"

The maid didn't say anything for a few moments, and for a while Fiona thought she just decided to ignore her, then she blurted it out.

"A special of the Castle, it has no name. It is pasta in meat sauce."

Nodding, the girl turned back to her meal...Slowly, and took one of the many spoons. Daniella watched eagerly, and smiled as the girl looked the spoon over, repulsed at the idea of eating off the resident's silverware, let alone sitting in their chairs. Yet she eventually dipped it in, gave the maid another shaky look, and raised it up. She sniffed it, then tasted it with the tip of her tongue.

There was an odd expression on her face, of uncertainty. Obviously she didn't love or hate it, but stuck the rest in her mouth as she proceeded to eat. Daniella smiled inwardly, not wanting to give her satisfaction away. She kept looking towards the door, seeing if her lover would really come to dinner; but he rarely ever did anymore. Too busy wasting away on the castle and those "clones" in the mansion. He was like a shadow, when he was visible, it was fleeting and hard to catch.

Some time passed as the girl slowly took gradual, occasional sips from the soup. It was obvious she was trying to put more appearance on then anything. She could just barely stand it. Daniella only cooked the head to make her sick, she didn't get any particular morbid glee from it, in fact, she thought it would still make a rather nice meal...That didn't mean she should tell Miss Fiona, of course. Still, she wanted Riccardo to appear. She knew he would eat then most likely take off again, she could still attempt her plan, she would have all night. Seeing the man's hooded face would have lifted her hollow spirits, she had made such a lovely meal...

The steward of the estate never did come; despite expecting him. Though she had to admit he never did say he was going to show up for dinner. It was why she made so many bowls of food, well...That, and he had ordered that of her.

"Make her a large, fit meal. Whatever she desires." He said.

"...I want her very well, carrying a large amount of food within her, enough to have her strong, full..." His eyes seemed to light up at the thought.

"...I have my reasons..." Riccardo finished, a sort of smirk on his face as he walked away.

Despite her ignorance, she still was able to grasp the true reason why. He wanted to impregnate the woman, make it so that she would carry his child. He wanted her to be more then healthy, more then full and laden with plentiful, nutritious food. It made her twitch with jealously and hatred toward the girl...yet she could not disobey such an order. Instead, she would tweak it. If Fiona had asked, Daniella would have thrown it out and made something else. She would have made her anything she desired. But no, not a word of protest escaped her lips...Not at this awkward table.

"My creator said he made me the perfect woman..." She commented, then looked down at the girl with a slight smile.

She looked up at her, a confused expression on her face. If she was a bit more extroverted, she may have asked her just what the fuck that meant, but she kept quiet. Looking back down, she went back to sipping the soup solemnly, thinking to herself just how much longer she could keep this up. There was something very unsettling about the dinner, she couldn't really put her finger on it.

"But I cannot taste or experience pleasure. Or feel...pain." The maid went on...

To the girl, she was just being weird. Daniella, on the other hand, was trying her best to rub it in. "I'm perfect, not you." She hoped desperately this would make her feel worthless, horrible, like the piece of waste that she really was. That she would stop subtly alluring her masters and lovers. Craving a hateful remark back, or a snarky comment, she went on about her perfections...She certainly didn't expect for her to just...Get up, and leave.

"...Thanks for the meal." Fiona muttered, then stood up, hastily backing away from the robotic maid.

Not turning her head to look, she listened as she walked away, opened the door, and stepped through. It shut, and she took the opportunity she rarely ever had. Skirting towards the meal, she checked to make sure she wasn't still there, and bent down. Taking the used spoon, she lifted it towards her, and licked it with her oddly purple tongue. It's taste was of electronic, sizzling vibrancy. She hadn't had this sort of sensation in over a month, the girl's Azoth was so strong and sensual that it left it's imprint even on the spoon she ate from. Unlike the others, it was feminine...It was the very essence of woman. The very element she lacked. Again, she checked to see if she could taste, she always did...No...Couldn't taste. Was not complete...No taste, no pleasure, no woman, no Azoth...

"I am not complete." Her voice droned to nobody in particular.

Daniella was always about the facts. Getting something right, the first time, getting it accurate. Do this perfectly, do that the way it should be. Simple, truthful, this or that. Things are the way they are, and that was how it went. And she understood that she was not complete, and that the girl, was. Simple equation meant to be complete, she could take her, and be whole, be a woman. Simple, it was all so simple...

The maid quickly delved into the meal, finishing it all greedily. She stood over it, as she rarely sat unless ordered to. It dribbled down her chin, and she wiped it off with her sleeve, moaning in fulfillment. Slurping the hair into her mouth like spaghetti strands, she licked the bowls clean...She never really ate, was never hungry. It was the largest meal she had ever ate, but it would make her small stomach just as laden as the master would have wanted it of the girl. Now, as she took the girl's womb, she would carry his child. Now she would be fit to grow a baby. She would be a real woman...

Carrying the bowls, stacked one onto another, she took them into the kitchen. She washed them, scrubbing harshly. Not thinking of the girl, she again became an automaton, only one task on mind. Clean. Clean...Make it clean...Drying them, she whisked them to the cabinets and put them inside. The full pot of soup would have to wait, usually it would sit there for hours on end, as she was never sure if Riccardo would show up or not. If so, at least there would be warm food waiting for him still. She just hoped he wouldn't show up, yet. Obtaining the Azoth and womb would be difficult, and she wanted to make sure she was complete the next time she saw him.

Over an hour passed as she completed some cleaning, and then her mind snapped back. Azoth...

Slowly. Carefully. She made her way up the stairs. The door to the girl's room was opened with silence, not even a creak being made. She walked towards the now slumbering girl as she lay atop the bed, too sick and tired to even pull back the comfortable blanket and sheets and sleep underneath them. Poor little thing, she wished she was capable of pity...

Her steps were quiet, dainty, and they never announced her presence. Though she had a loose idea in mind, she never really had a concrete idea in head for what she was about to do. She decided to wait and see. There was no dog anywhere to be seen. The maid didn't even know what a dog really even was, she always saw them as objects if anything. It didn't matter, it wouldn't matter unless it would get in her way.

For a moment she stood there, and watched the girl breathe. Such an amazing thing...How life always fascinated her. She took her hand and gently graced her cheek, just brushing her fingers along her skin, up a little, then down with the tips. The girl didn't feel her, her sleep uninterrupted. Sleep always fascinated her, too, jealous of her ability to fall into it so quickly. Then she continued downwards, and over her breasts, admiring their full yet perky nature. She went further down, over her stomach...

...There.

The womb. That's where it lied, she knew through the books and Riccardo's lecture. It wasn't where Azoth may have been manufactured, but it was where she could obtain it. If she could cut it out...Rip it out...She could cut herself open, put it inside, and it would be inside her...And she could have a child. ...Yes! It could work! Then he could even fuck her...Her mind raced with possibilities, her eyes opened as wide as they got...

Ceasing to no longer care...Only wanting what she craved, she began to hit the area, patting it once. Then she grabbed it, forcing her nails in and laying the palm flat. She tried to just tear it out, but there was no use this way...She wanted the womb, she had to have the womb...

...Had to be complete.

With a start, Fiona awoke. Her face shot up with a gasp, and her eyes focused on the false woman. She was startled to find her standing over her body, hand on her stomach. Her gaze was horrifying, eyes wide and focused on her face as she leaned forward towards her just a little more. Fiona began to gasp and heave, body shaking...

Stiffly, the maid then stood up straight, turned around...and began to walk away. She didn't notice that the girl was behind her on the bed, starting to get up and crawl away in utter fear and discomfort. Instead...She walked towards the window. Looking out of the glass, she turned her head back towards the girl.

"I am not complete..."

Then she turned, and saw the her reflection in the window. She needed, had to destroy the horrible image staring back at her...It was a window, not a mirror, the reflection not perfect, so she didn't scream...But it still needed to be destroyed. Placing both hands on the glass, she brought her head forward, hard against the pane. It didn't sting, traumatize, it didn't hurt one bit. She didn't feel a thing.

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

She could hear the girl gasp behind her, she went ignored.

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

The glass began to break this time, cracking where her forehead touched it.

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

"SMACK"

Now the crack grew, radiating out, spidering from the center.

"SMACK!"

"SMACK!"

"CRASH!"

It shattered, her head suddenly no longer against a window. The glass fell down around her, hitting the floor and leaving a jagged, dangerous hole at the center. Slowly, as she looked upon the mess...Her mind shifted gears, not to clean it...But to her other job, the other duty...Her own. She had to be complete. Before her the solution, a piece of glass hanging from the hole. Reaching up, her hand clasped about the shard, she felt no pain as she took it, and pulled it free.

As she looked upon the shard, she could see herself. It was incomplete...Like her. It was beautiful. She brought it towards herself, slowly, and kissed it tenderly. Lovely...

Slice...

Slice it out.

Rip it out.

Azoth.

Three thoughts dominated her mind as she turned, and faced the maiden. Glass shard in her right hand, and gaze fixated. Tonight, the heiress would die, she would be no more. Her jealous, constantly craving, always hollow, always plagued mind would be satisfied, and she would be complete.

Kill... Kill... Kill...Die, die...Die...

Slowly, she approached the now standing girl. She cowered within herself, face stricken with horror, unable to move as her previous caregiver had turned murderer. The shard in her hand made blood, and it trickled down the sliver of sharp transparency as she walked. Her fingers and hands stained crimson. Yet it had no effect.

"But I cannot taste or experience pleasure. Or feel...pain."

Then it hit her; she wasn't human...She wasn't normal. Sure, she thought she was weird, this whole place was, she fit right in! But now she knew there was something about this woman that wasn't normal. She mentioned about being created, but figured that perhaps she was just bullshitting for one reason or another...This maid wanted something from her...No, rather, something from inside of her?!

She had been touching her belly, her eyes on it, greedily staring...

The dog came from nowhere; what the maid didn't notice was Hewie sleeping under her bed. Crawling out, he stood beside the girl, hackles raised and growling in his throat. He saw the object in her hand, and had flashbacks to when he was worked; when the master would come at him with the whip or stick, pretending to have a weapon but never hurting him. These people, he was taught to be leery of...So he knew, she was trouble.

"Go, Hewie!"

Attack!

As he sprung forward, Daniella never caught it. She was too focused, too obsessed, with Fiona to even care. Yet he was the catalyst, the main player of the field, he would make all the difference in her fight. It had become his fight. His jaws wrapped around her left arm, and she lurched downward and gasped in sheer surprise.

This was a totally new sensation for her. Not pain, she felt no pain. Even the teeth in her arm provided no sensation. Yet the weight, the sheer power, of the dog on her arm was a new experience in itself. Not even thinking to use the shard in her other hand, she wavered back and forth, crying out in irritation.

"No...No..."

Despite knowing the word, he didn't listen. She wasn't his alpha, he didn't have to listen...

Her taste was unusual, her blood flowing thick, unnatural. It tasted like a plant at first, she wasn't normal. Not even close. And unlike the others, she didn't smell like Fiona at first...Had he probed deeper, he would have found it. Before he could try and analyze the scent fully, he heard the girl run away, throwing open the door and flying through the castle now that the maid from hell was distracted. Seeing this, she flung her arm back, and in one fell swoop, unlatched the dog as her arm arched upwards. Her strength was surprising, and his teeth separated from her flesh as he cried out and went across the room. Twisting in midair, he landed on his feet, and took off after his alpha.

She made chase; running after the two as she left the shattered glass on the floor. However, as she walked briskly through the castle, down the steps, into the dining room...And the girl was no longer in sight, she couldn't help but realized how dirty everything was...It always looked so dirty to her...

Suddenly, she switched gears again. Clean. It was time to clean...She went to the kitchen, and got an old washing rag from the sink. Walking slowly, she scanned the room, then tried to remember which specific locale she hadn't cleaned in a while. The watch tower, she had noticed while in there, was quite filthy and hadn't been cleaned in a good while. She took off swiftly, rag...and shard... in hand, shard in the right, rag in the left, and made her way there.

As she got there, she realized she still held a bloody shard of glass. This puzzled her, as she couldn't quite understand why it got there, and how. Gently, she put it on the ground, and walked through the door. She took to scrubbing one of the large blocks in the puzzle. Daniella wasn't mindlessly cleaning for long, the door opened. She barely heard it, didn't really pay much attention. Her duty took all her concentration...

What shocked Fiona the most was just how the fuck this happened. She ran straight here. Straight here...How was this possible? And she was just standing there, leaning over the block somewhat as she scrubbed and wiped with a rag. At first she had every intention to run, this woman was just chasing her, after all...Yet curiosity got the best of her, as always. Maybe she just went a little...Nutty? Maybe she snapped out of it?

Hewie continued to growl, staying behind as his hackles raised and body slung towards the ground as she walked up to the maid. She only went a few feet, wanting to see if she still possessed the shard. In response, she turned around completely, scaring her half to death, but staying put. Fiona's eyes widened as she looked at her...Yet the shard was gone.

"Miss...It's cleaning time, now..."

Then, she turned again...and proceeded to continue cleaning.

What the fuck...?

Fiona didn't reply, she just wanted out of this Godforsaken hell-hole. She backed away, and walked up the stairs, casting a weary eye towards her as she went. Hewie stopped and gazed back occasionally, but proceeded along behind and beside her. Soon, too soon, she even forgot about the maid. Chalking it up as just another odd experience in the place. She walked to the door, took out the key, and this time, unlocked and stepped through.

At the sound of her footsteps walking away above her...Daniella remembered.

Slice...

Slice it out.

Rip it out.

Azoth.

Standing up, her back cracked, and she fixed her stiff neck. Her hand opened, and the rag dropped from her hand onto the floor below. Walking robotically, she recalled where the glass was. Picking it up, once again digging into her hand. Up the steps, through the door...

She stood there, head tilted slightly to the side. The girl was in front of her, down the hallway. Hewie and the girl spun around, and the minute she was spotted, they took off in a run. The sight of them speeding down the hallway was more of a turn on and incentive to give chase then a deterrent, and she followed. Up the steps, running at full speed...Daniella followed in a steady, quick, walk.

There was a noise, a sound of something falling. As she crested the small set of steps, she saw the girl laying on the next before her, trying to get up. As she approached, the girl gasped again and tried desperately to stand back up, crawling backwards up the steps. She wished she could experience some sort of feeling of accomplishment, but it was just a job to be done, and soon it would be finished-

Who the hell was that?

A woman just walked by, she was stunning! She turned and looked towards her, how dare she! No right...She had no right to be here!

Then she realized it was her...The imperfect one, the one that was of false flesh and bone. The maid...The one who cleaned, cooked, and sucked. The sick, worthless, incomplete piece of filth-

She shook violently, and screamed, screamed. So loud, so horrible, so high as it went into crescendos and dipped as she caught her breath. Her hand flew to her forehead, holding it in agony...A headache, reaching it's peak, riveting her bones, it was as though her very appearance was too much for her own head to bear. She shouldn't exist...It was the only pain she knew of, internal, shaking her whole frame...Her own eardrums and skull ready to break apart from her own voice.

Fiona began to back away, finally catching her footing as the maid stood there, screaming at her own reflection. Distracted, she took a step forward, once again still curious as to what was wrong with this person. It was just a mirror...It was almost as though she hated herself or something. She couldn't see why, she looked so beautiful, so perfect...Oh well, blame society, she guessed...

Taking the opportunity, she fled. Hewie not far behind her. Close to an hour passed, all with her screaming at herself in total torture...Then her voice finally reached the point that broke glass, and it shattered, falling into pieces at her feet. She took a moment to catch her breath, and went to stoop down and clean it up, until her mind snapped back and forth again, and stood up instead. She was learning, slowly, to forget her duties...

"Let me give you a piece of advice, maid...Don't ever let orders get in the way of pleasure...Get in the way of the things you want...need. And you need and want this, don't you?"

Her master's words, they floated back to her. She still remembered them, she remembered everything. Maybe not right away, but she would eventually. All she needed was the time, and a spark...The girl was spark enough. She walked, shard still in hand, to the door. Instantly, she heard the water, and knew now that it had been flooded. Riccardo was nearby. He set it so that he would not be disturbed in the mansion, no doubt. Perhaps even in an attempt to stop Lorenzo from escaping as well. She would have to be careful...He tended to only work in the cloning sectors of the mansion, where the Mars key was required. Only she and him possessed that key, she wouldn't run into him.

Well, no matter. She would find that little cunt, first. Knowing another passage, she hastily made her way there. On the way, she felt something press against her breast, able to feel the pressure, but no sensation. She opened up her inside pocket on her small blue jacket, and saw the gift the Lord of the manner wished to give the girl. He gave it to her specifically for this purpose earlier in the day.

"Give this..." Then he coughed, and held it out.

"To her...It's a gift..."

She took it, pocketing it thusly. The girl would get it, that was certain...

Walking the halls, she came across a fenced section of a room. She didn't come into the mansion often, but when she did, she had much to clean. It was still visited less then the castle itself. The bathroom of the mansion lay across from her...Her mind twitched, mentality switched, and she grabbed a nearby dust-rag, and began to clean a nearby antique.

It was cleaning time again...Again, she wasn't cleaning long.

First the growl of the dog was heard, and then the timid, frightened footsteps of the young miss. The girl eyed her suspiciously, keeping her footfalls light and trying not to arouse her suspicions. Quickly, she opened the door to the bathroom and waved the dog in, watching her in the corner of her eye. There was no instinct to chase, no need to, it was cleaning time-

"Click...Click..."

The sound of the shutters being drawn open was heard, and her eyes widened...Standing straight up. Dropping the rag. She took her glass shard, laying in the pile of antiques next to her, and walked through the many corridors...Towards the bathroom.

As she opened the door, the dog growled, and issued a bark. But it was as though nothing happened at all to the girl. She was staring, bewildered, and frightened, at the window. They were underground, next to a large aquarium where the windows could open up and see the aquatic life. A large, prehistoric fish glided past, it's form massive and imposing. Long since extinct to the modern world, they still held onto at least a few, thanks to the wonders of cloning via alchemy.

Suddenly, the girl looked up...And caught the reflection of Daniella in the window. She gasped, and took a step back away from the window, forgetting the fact that it was behind her that was the danger. The maid stood there stiffly, looking down at her own feet in an almost solemn expression. Then, slowly, she lifted her head up, eyes widening just a little...

She was skirted around, the girl telling her dog to come with her as she ran past her and out the door. Since then, the chase was on. It stopped and started here and there, where she would lose her and remember her "programming" to clean. Ending back in that sectioned-off room...It was there she recalled why the "cage" was even built. For her. Several days after her creation, he started her "training". He would throw her in there, shut the door, and lock it. Lorenzo would come around, watching her. When she cleaned, like told, she would be praised like some dog. When she started acting...off...Like trying to attack him, rushing at the cage and beating at the chain links...

The mirror. It was a small hand-held one, and he took it, and shinned it in her face. She caught the reflection, and stumbled back, screaming horrible. He turned it again, to the side, and she stopped.

She slowly backed away, her scream ending...

"Clean. It's cleaning time, Daniella..." Lorenzo instructed.

Obeying, the maid turned, and went to scrub the antiques, put there just for the training purpose.

She was taught to fear the mirrors even more, and that aggression towards her masters was not acceptable, ever. Much like a canine being rehabilitated. Lorenzo had known the woman was faulty, prone to sudden, unbelievable moments of insanity. He felt, however that he could control it...Fix it. When he suspected her of beginning to "lose it", like laughing or going into moments of relapse, he knew what had to be done. Yet somehow, it worked, her fits of utter madness were put under control, and she very quickly learned to work without a praise...Only punishment, a slap, a beating, was replaced when any inefficiency was spotted. She was no longer dangerous. They had her under their feet...

Until the training came back. The mere click feet or small sounds rupturing her concentration. She had one task, serve the masters, that could be anything from cooking to cleaning. But now she had two...Serve the masters...and herself. She shifted between the two now rather easily...

Yes, there was cleaning time...For her it used to be all the time, every time. It was shown to the maid, however, that times could change.

She would return to the caged area after losing her, and repeat the process. Passing by, the girl always keeping a good eye on the oddly calm maid, and then leaving. As she walked down the hall, a certain amount of time would pass by, and like the buzzer on a kitchen timer, she would hear the sound drift up once again...Footsteps, a door opening, anything...

...And it would once again be on. Traversing the hallways, making her way...

Several times during the chase, the dog bit her. Either while she had grabbed a hold of the girl's arm, laughing a little as she held it and tried to pull her towards herself...Or simply running towards her. All Fiona had to do was shout "Go, Hewie!" and he latched onto her. Sometimes the target was her arm, her leg, or even her back a few times. It never hurt, but it always bled, and it was always an inconvenience as the girl ran away. Yet she never focused on the dog, it was never a concern for her. It was as though he never even existed, only coming into the picture when she was held back. At times she gained the upper hand, sending her into panic as she screamed and fell. That dog, though...That dog was always there.

Something told her he always would be...No matter, she didn't have long, anyway. There was nowhere to run in the mansion, the only way outside was through the door the Mars key unlocked. Even then, she would meet up with Riccardo first. If she had to, she could make up an excuse for why she was here. Following her to try and stop her, perhaps? Daniella could be sneaky when she needed to, could be more then an automaton when the situation called for it. Though her reasoning still mechanical, her mind simple and easily fooled, working on only one task at a time.

She was pushed, during her chase and the girl's own desire to escape, farther into the mansion. Daniella entered the Room of Deception at one point, and found that the fire had not been tended to in some time. Automatically, she came to her "caring" ways, and stooped down. She left the glass shard on the floor, and picked up the iron poker as she stoked the fire. Hearing a noise, she kept going, not particularly paying attention. Then the noise got a little too close for comfort...And she snapped out again. She stood up, turned around...The girl before her. Her neck cracked as she moved it farther to her right then it should have gone, head laying almost on her shoulder, the poker steaming as it was held in her hand.

For a little while she chased with this poker, until she circled around back and realized how ineffective it was as she went to slice at her. She needed to cut out the organ, and to do that she needed the shard. Dropping it back along the fire, she picked up the glass, and went back to work.

Then the girl found her way into the fenced area at one point, and knew she had entered the carousel room. Approaching her carefully, she walked closer...The little thing didn't learn, did she?

Standing up from her bent position, Daniella turned around, and stood before her. Fiona gasped and took a step back, the dog barked at her. Fiona looked at him, then back, never sure what the crazy maid would do one minute and not the next. Suddenly, she remembered. She was to give her something, Hebel's Perfume...

"My, what a filthy little princess..."

Expressing her real thoughts for the first time, she chastised her, her lips and face still stiff and blank of all emotion. The girl seemed a little surprised at such a comment, insulted for the first time by any employee of the castle.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled it out, and handed it to her. Her reaction was delayed, and the small, purple vial attached to a golden chain almost dropped to the ground as she reached forward to catch it.

"...A present form the Lord of the manor..."

She turned back around, it was still cleaning time. The girl stood for a moment, checking some things in the room, then left. The door was closed, but carefully. No sound was made. Then she heard it down the hallway again, the door opened, left opened...And immediately, she sensed it again...

Slice...

Slice it out.

Rip it out.

Azoth.

Grab the glass, go...Go...

Switching back and forth...Cleaning time...Killing time.

Daniella caught her in the graveyard next, she was backing up, looking very cautious, hand on her chest...Then as she approached, slowly, steadily, pushing her towards the door, she heard a growl. Looking down...The dog was suddenly before her unannounced, hunched down, hackles raised and tail bristled. She struck down with the glass, and he jumped up and away, twisting in midair and landing on his feet. Then he ran towards her, and jumped onto the maid and knocked her to the ground. Her scrawny body hitting the hallowed dirt hard as he tore at her clothing and hard flesh. He ripped, he bit, he chewed. The sound was even more worse then the action, but it was enough to stun her there for a good many minutes, her mind floating in and out of consciousness as she lay there. She could hear the girl call the dog from her, and then he let go, and ran away as she heard his footsteps plotting farther and farther. Had her neck not been protected by the clothing, she would have had the jugular torn out. Instead, the dog bit about her head and ears, making the back of her cranium stain red with blood.

The girl and her dog had fled into the catacombs, somewhere she herself dare not tread. It was known for having a guardian of it's own, a homunculi created by one of the previous incarnations of Aureolus Belli to protect his family's burial ground. She instead backed away, and went another way, one she knew well. Now that she noticed what the girl had in her hand, a film reel...Now she knew where she was going. She would surprise her with her own way there. Now, she no longer went back to the caged area, the hunt truly was on. She would be distracted no longer.

Again taking a passage, she found her way to the projection room. The wall itself opening then closing, she paced the room, looking over the mannequins and tilting her head at them. They were not perfect, no need to dismantle them. They lacked the part of the body she did, they were kin to her. Then she heard the sound of the bookcases moving, and took her place behind the movie screen. Fiona entered the room, the dark obscuring Daniella's feet so even she couldn't see her there. The dog wasn't there...And knew now this was her chance. Only a few moments passed, and then she heard the girl fiddling with the projector, and the screen in front of her illuminated as the movie played.

"What is this?" She finished as it shut off, the sound of the film reel slowing to a stop still evident.

"I was being filmed..."

Taking the opportunity, she slashed through the screen. Her face visible through the small sliver that she created, she could now once again see that little whore on the other side.

"Who's there?!" The girl cried, obviously distraught and frightened. She had though she'd lost her!

With almost glee, the maid came out from behind the screen, approaching her quickly. She slashed several times at her, causing her to scream and backpedal into the mannequins behind her, almost to try and camouflage herself among them. Daniella smiled at her, and in response Fiona's eyes stained towards the door...If she could just make it there...She tried to dart forward, but the maid moved in front of her, a horrible smile still on her face.

"Why are you after me?!" Fiona questioned, trying desperately to reason with one of these people for once.

"What do you want?!"

For a moment...This seemed to almost calm the maid. She looked at her, watching for a reaction. Her face went from the smile, to the placid, blank expression she was used to.

"Azoth..." She droned, barely audible, drawn out.

"Azoth?" Fiona repeated, still confused.

The false woman's eyes seemed to widen, her face now alive with a restrained jubilation...Like she couldn't take it, could no longer hold it inside her.

"Azoth..." Daniella repeated, and there was a very audible "click" that went off in her head...And Fiona realized that she truly was mad. Insane. Demented...There was no reasoning with this lunatic.

"Essence of life...of life...of wo...wo...woman...WOMAN!!"

It was almost as though saying the words had reignited her madness, the realization of her duty. She could be a woman, all she needed was the Azoth...And so her head began to shake, violently, from side to side...So violently, that Fiona could no longer see it, just a blur...And she laughed, laughed...

As she did this, Fiona fled out the door, the maid turning as she did so and lashing out with the shard. She caught her right side, but Fiona just cried out in sudden, sharp agony, forgetting completely what had happened seconds later. Even her clothing appeared together from the thin slice it took, so she never noticed it as she took off through the door, and down the bookcases via the ladder as the dog barked below her and the crazy maid followed. She shakily climbed down the steps, jumping down as she got half way. Again, she ran to the catacombs, where the chase ended as she made her way to the odd sanctuary.

The maid spun around, up the stairs, and once again through the passage. She was getting closer to her master's domain. Close to where he tended to be, in the upper layer of the mansion where the examination room, the homunculi, and the valve was. It was where he had been earlier, and may very well be right now. She had to hurry, now was the time, or not at all. Or, maybe he wasn't there, and in that case, she would be trapped like the horrid little rat she was.

She was cornered in the examination room, and she approached her as the girl seemed so oddly...Calm. Hewie was outside, the door closed in his face as she rushed inside with some odd agenda in mind. She skirted behind the table as she approached, something behind her back. Daniella stopped as she stood behind the table, in front of the X-ray panel. Stalemate. She waited for the girl to make her move. Then, surprisingly, she did something she certainly did not expect. Pulling a bottle from behind her back, she took it and threw it straight at her. It broke on contact, splattering it's content onto her face. At first she didn't seem to react, just an inconvenience...Then she felt something...Odd. Not pain, but as close as it could get. Like something was eating away at her. She held up her arm to look at it, seeing some of the bone literally expose itself, shaking as her body reacted but she didn't feel it, and knew the same was happening to her face...A headache racked her nerves, her brain, and she fell to the floor, a thud resulting as she did so. Again, she was out of commission, knocked out and laying on the floor for a good few minutes...And again, the girl ran.

Fiona was always running...Soon, she would make sure she would have nowhere to go.

The hall of globes. Somehow, she knew it would come to this. Like a vision of the future, fate itself showing it to her. And, a part of her glimpsed her own demise, and it didn't scare her. Didn't stop her. Rather, it spurred her on.

Let the pieces fall as they may...

Walking up the steps, she heard the dog bark wildly at her, and watched as the girl turned her head and gasped. This put a massive smile on Daniella's face, watching as the moon in the ceiling dome illuminate the area below them. It was like the very Roman Coliseum itself, and soon the two would fight to the death. The girl somehow found a way to stand there, cowering in the middle of the room, trying to shrink herself down. Her face was belayed with terror, a scream building up inside, ready to explode. Still, the dog barked, trying to alert his master of the danger that was Daniella. The maid began to laugh, laugh and laugh...Head shaking and bobbing from side to side as her neck no longer felt any pain, any ability to break, going so fast it wasn't visible to the human eye, but a blur. It was mechanical in it's movement, stopping and starting at random, sounding like a old wooden children's toy, cracking and creaking.

As she approached Fiona, she stopped mere feet away.

"...ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...Hah!" Letting out her breath swiftly as she smiled at her, sounding rather like a hiss of a cat...

Raising the glass shard, she appeared to be ready to strike again, and her laugh started right back up. Head shaking horribly once more in utter madness. The dog reacted out of sheer instinct, he was trained to attack only in two instances, one when he was ordered to do so, the other when he believed his owner was being directly put into danger by another. This was the second, the woman's sudden spell of continued insanity and raised arm triggered it.

He launched himself at the woman, clasping onto her hand and staying on as she fought. Yet she struggled weakly, her shard flailing in the air as he used his weight to pull her down. She fell to the ground, Hewie still latched onto her pale, senseless hand, growling fiercely in warning-

"Hewie!" Came a terrified, bewildered gasp from his master.

She was appalled by his fierce assault, and so he let go, walking back over to her side. Looking down, Fiona watched as the maid stopped laughing, slowly coming to a halt to catch her breath. Then, her head turned...quickly, as it snapped to the side and up at her and glowered with a evil grin. Her laugh, more drawn out, more in a taunting manner then ever, picking up as she got off the floor.

As she stared at her soon-to-be Azoth, she stopped again...Her laughing dying down as her consciousness regained, down from her high of absolute craven lust.

"Blood, Flesh...Woman." She spat, each word picked over.

Everything she ever thought...Everything she ever wanted to say, flooded out. As the perfect woman stood in the center of the globes, she preached, she sang. Edging closer, shard in hand as it sliced deeper and deeper into her own skin...

"You vile creature..."

Her voice was on the edge. She wanted her womb, her Azoth...She wanted everything about her. Her large, voluptuous breasts, fair skin, child-bearing hips, bright blue eyes...She wanted to fuck her, be fucked as her, she wanted to be her...Everything about her...She wanted to rip her skin from her bones, throwing it over herself...Tear her womb from her body, slice herself open, and put it inside...Tying it neatly shut with some string and a needle...For Daniella she would never feel it, but the girl would...

Want. Sex. Fuck. Be. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect...Touch. Feel. Touch. Pleasure. Be. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect...

Slice...

Slice it out.

Rip it out.

Azoth.

"You lure the man into your filthy body, again and again... And you, are allowed to do that, because you are a precious, precious little princess..."

In her mind, Fiona was trying to steal her masters. But especially Riccardo. She once again saw something that never occurred, a spark when she had yet to see them in the same room together. Saw the false image of them in bed, once again as if she was seeing the future. An image of him on top of her, fucking her ruthlessly as she screamed and wrapped her legs about his waist, pushing him harder into her cunt. Then her fingers clawed into his shoulders, and she wailed, wailed higher and higher just like her own voice, and he smiled at her reaction. Her slim and beautiful fingers traveling up and down his muscular, almost pulsating arms as she sighed in wanton satisfaction in his grasp...And looked away, and smiled at her as if she was right there in the room...

"He's mine..." She said in her predisposed fantasy, one she believed either had happened or soon would.

"All mine..."

Then she saw her do it again, then again...Straddling him, being on top as she bounced herself up and down...Using his organ like an anchor for her body as it disappeared inside her. She moaned in ungodly pleasure unlike ever before...Daniella should be there, she saw herself there...

In Daniella's mind, she was the woman scorned.

She was the precious little princess, he wanted to fuck her, who was so perfect and precious in every way...

"Precious, precious little... princess!"

Daniella laughed again...This time, not in madness, but instead despair...Pulling the glass saber towards her face, she stuck her tongue out, and ran it seductively along it's edge. How she wanted to do it to her master's cock, to the girl's pussy...Yet the orgasmic delight of her own blood would suffice...Her body reacted, though her mind never did, and she cried from sheer agony, though she could not feel it...Her tongue lashed against it, blood trickling down the edge, the girl put her hand to her mouth in absolute abhorrence...

Tears of blood ran down her cheeks, emptying from her eye sockets. She could never produce real tears of saline, no water, no ducts. Instead, they were pumped full of blood, artificial, fake-like blood that never functioned like it should. Fits of insanity...Broken thought...Delusion. Now it effected her physically, blood being where it was not intended.

Looking towards the heiress, she began to laugh again at her horrified expression. But now it was a forlorn laugh, one of almost sadness...She was tired of this unfeeling pain, this almost creeping death.

What followed afterward was a clash of two wills, a meeting of minds. She struck, parrying her left and right as the girl attempted to go to the door, but was blocked every which way. The maid was desperate, a look of plaintive...Crying need in her face for the first time ever. What was once a cold and callous woman had turned into an utter monster for emotion, wanting nothing more but to twist the girl and have it drip down into her throat like a filthy rag. The dog lunged, grabbing her about the neck as Fiona busied herself with the globes, now seeking to end this threat instead of avoiding it. Throwing the mutt from her several times, she advanced, only to be pushed away and back several times. Once she was knocked down for a few minutes, but arose without fail.

"That didn't even stop her!? What is she, the maid from hell!?" Fiona had thought to herself as she watched her raise back up like some zombie from it's crypt.

She dropped some magnesia upon the ground, which stunned her just enough to move the last globe in place. Then the mirror illuminated in the center of the room, and she ran past and over it, standing on the other side. Without thought or concern, Daniella followed, walking over the small circle glass...

...And stopped. It was lit, and it displayed her body...There was nowhere to go, no escape...She saw herself, couldn't believe herself...She screamed louder and louder...This time it didn't take hours, it happened in minutes...

There was an immense sound of...crashing. It's sudden brilliance was like a butterfly's wings in the spring air. It was as though her spell was broken. She looked away, breaking her gaze from herself in the reflection, and glanced up. What she saw was beauty in it's most pure of forms. Shattered, destroyed images of herself glided down slowly from the ceiling. Incomplete. Torn. Broken. Just like her.

She danced around in a circle, smiling in...satisfaction. More and more reflecting light, and she realized it was the most amazing, gorgeous sight she had ever beheld. Like God himself was actually real and gave her a show to watch before she died. She saw an even larger image of herself, broken, only partially there, and it came right at her, she grinned wider as she watched it approach...grin on her face anticipating it's arrival-

"AAAAUH!"

Screaming in a sudden, amazing shock...She came to the realization that it was in fact, glass. It sliced through her chest and hit the floor...Her body experienced pressure and puncture...She was penetrated, at last...

Again, her mouth opened and she wailed at the almost instant fact that she now was dying, it filled the room and echoed...There was no way off that shard, as her body fell down onto it, slicing deeper and falling only further...What she saw was the night sky, framed by the broken ceiling of glass, raining down upon her like a shower. Her whole form shish-kabob-ed on a large broken spear of transparency...She sighed in defeat as she realized this was the end.

There was a light. It was intensely bright, and it wasn't coming from the sun, as it was night. In the light, she somehow knew that she had to go towards it, not stay here. That she was more then a body, that all living things, false or no, had a soul. Azoth was life energy, this she did not have, but she still had a remnant, a formed spirit, a state of mind. She was still alive, and still worthy of Heaven.

In the light, she saw herself...She saw the future, she saw her master's and Miss Fiona's children, and the things they would encounter and experience...Saw her other master, saw him die...And felt unholy satisfaction at his demise. Saw all deceptions turn to revelation, and all the truth unraveled and brought to reality. She had seen the land of milk and honey, and the ultimate final orgasmic experience that was the whole and necessity of life itself. Daniella now knew all, and saw all...All in the light. All in that final second her body clung to life, she witnessed her whole life in a second, and felt an unusual, overwhelming pain...she felt pain, finally felt pain...It felt so good, as her body realized it's soul, and she faded from black into white. Her life went from hell, to heaven, no purgatory involved. No gates in her way.

She smiled, grinning from ear to ear, the glass falling about her. Her eyes lifeless, lost of luster, looking no different then when alive. The large doll remained so, her form limp and frail...

If only Fiona had known what Daniella's name really meant, she may have understood the look of absolute ecstasy on the maid's face as she hung suspended.

Let God...be my judge.