#cador

6th anniversary celebration artwork

Amid the weeping and lamentations heard that morning at Tintagel, one voice rose above them all: a child crying 'Dad!...Dad!...'

Morgan had dreamt the night before she had seen her father die, watched him as he fell from his horse, watched as King Uther's men set upon him with their spears. She woke up crying, and her half-sisters Margawse and Blasine comforted her, told her it was a nightmare. 'Look,' they said, 'look, there's your father out there now.'

Indeed the man they saw into the castle courtyard that night looked like father, sounded like father...but there was something wrong, Morgan thought. She saw a crow circling the sky above the castle, silhouetted by the full moon, and she thought she saw a bright red glint in one of its eyes.

The man who had come and embraced Ygraine was her husband, there could be no mistaking it. He was flesh and blood enough. But now Sir Brastian was telling her that he had never left the castle Terrabyl, save only to attack King Uther's camp. The man that came to her was no illusion, all in Tintagel had seen him. Confusion gave way to a cold dread, for she had heard stories of incubuses. She said no more, and could only wonder what would become of her family now. What would become of her daughters? What of her son Cador, who was now the inheritor of the title of Duke of Tintagel?

Margawse and Blasine were round about Morgan and Cador's ages when their own father, Ygraine's first husband Howel, brother of King Aramont, had died. But Gorlois had been more of a father to them than their own sire, whom they did not see much of in the brief time they knew him, had been. Gorlois did not treat them differently from the children he himself had with Ygraine, and he showed all four of them the kind of love a father should show his children.

Now they were all gathered round the bloodied body that they had called father. No more would they hear that rumbling voice of his. No more would they hear his laughter. Morgan clung to that body. Her cries turned to screams, as though the sound would somehow wake her father up. The boy Cador could not bring himself to touch his father, and in the end he turned away and he held one of Gorlois's hounds and buried his face in its grey fur.

Blasine remembered when she was a child in Brittany and one day she and Margawse and their parents were riding through the woods when they saw a little wolf cub. The wolf cub was alone. It looked sad and desperate, its fur was filthy and matted, and it was howling mournfully, over and over again, and Blasine covered her ears, both wanting the howling to stop and wanting to hear the howling of another wolf pack who might come to the cub's aid. She never found out what happened to the cub. She remembered crying herself to sleep that night thinking about the cub and then having a terrible dream that she did not wish to recall. Seeing her little half-sister Morgan in distress reminded her of that cub. Blasine went and held her sister and wept with her.

Margawse turned away, kept to herself, grief and rage warring within her. Gorlois had taught her how to fight and how to joust because she wanted to learn those things, because it seemed exciting. He had gifted her with a specially-forged suit of armour for her birthday once. She wanted to arm herself now, to ride out and kill Uther Pendragon, or die trying. Or die trying. No. She couldn't do that. She couldn't leave her mother and sisters and her brother behind. She would weep for Gorlois, and she would wait.

In the morning sky, a crow once again circled the castle and settled on a turret. No one paid it any heed, and thus no one saw that one of its eyes was red like the fires of Hell. The strange crow looked at the scene, remembered his own family and what the Devil had done to them. What will be will be, Merlin thought, though it did not lessen the pangs of sorrow he felt within his breast.

The holidays came and went without much issue, took about a week for Carmen to adjust to walking again and even quicker to adjust to her new arms. M had holed himself back into his room for the most part, much to the teen siblings disappointment. They wanted to see how bad his jolly could get. But nonetheless his gifts were set by his door for him to collect. On HearthsWarming morning, the teens came down from their prepared rooms to find that the little humble decor that was previously put up had multiplied tenfold, the tree was almost overloaded with ornaments, a curved fortress wall of presents for every person in that HQ was sitting both under and around the tree, almost as high as the tree itself. Walls had boughs of holly, evergreen, ribbon and poinsettia flowers in a classic red green and gold motif. There were straw grass goats, menorahs, different species figurines caroling, candles of nearly every color that was specific to multiple different holidays. It was like every winter holiday exploded into a single room.

Blendin and Daring’s eyes went huge and their mouths were unable to shut for a very long time, they were so stunned. Carmen had gotten up early to start the massive amount of festive food and blinked as she sipped her coffee, leaning a little on Wally’s walking cane. “Well. That was expected. Looks like M couldnt contain it in his room this year.” The kids looked at her, “M DID THIS?!” Carmen nodded, sipping more coffee. “Mmhm. This is what I was warning you about. This is just the living room. See all this? Embody all this into a single person. Thats what he is dealing with. And he HATES it. Like a song you absolutely hate being stuck in your head only worse.”

Vasha and Drake came through the front door and stopped short, “M got loose? And we missed it??” 079 blipped up on the tv, which was decorated in tinsel garland much to the ai’s annoyance. “Yes, yes, the rude one spent all night like a cartoon whirlwind, I’m surprised no one woke up with the incessant caroling off key.” Soon everyone, other than M respectably, had seen the holiday explosion and marveled at the little personal details for each agent and family member. After a hefty breakfast of meats, waffles, pancakes, french toast and various danish and fruit, they all gathered for gifts. Predictably the kids got the majority of presents since it was their first winter season with family. “There no way we can bring all stuff this back to our dorms…” they both lamented. Asta shrugged, “Why not just split the stuff between here and there? Its not like you don’t have a place to stay right here. You can come and go as you please!” Blendin absolutely loved the idea while Daring was a little more apprehensive. She then noticed everything of hers had a gift receipt, to which Carmen nodded, “To show you that we didnt steal any gifts. I want you to trust us. Our honesty is one of our biggest gifts we have for you.” Daring smiled a bit, still torn. “Everything is so nice, and not just blindly given. All these things are all part of my interests..” she paused and it looked like she was looking for something to be mad about it all. But all she could muster was, “Well, I still think you’re up to something! Quit trying to prove me wrong!” And after muttering a sincere thank you, she proceeded to curl up on the sofa, getting a feel of her new phone and laptop complete with writing programs to make it easier to write and publish her works.

Lekir plopped a bow onto Carmen’s head and joking poked Wally, “Hey Stripes, Happy HearthsWarming, we upgraded your wife! With those augments from Sky and Sig, and the demon essence, she’s no longer a little squishy! She can actually take a hit now!” Carmen thought a moment. “So I got stronger, live longer, my appearance changed and I have fire powers. What about the new fangs and am I supposed to draw heat to make heat? Because I made something cold with one hand and something hot in the other earlier.”

Lekir raised an eyebrow and suddenly got onto the mare’s lap and started sticking her fingers into her muzzle to look at her teeth. “What do you mean cold? What fangs?" She looks closer into her mouth and quickly clasps her hands around her wife's snout, "FUCK! Okay... so good news and... not bad news!" Carmen blinks, confused, “Well you said I was only half demon now. What do you mean not ba- Ow…You mabe me bipe my tonge.. mmh, I hope I’m not venomous or poisonous. Because that would suck about now. Or am I a fire vampire?” Lekir baps her lightly and sits back down, debating about getting a chart and crayons.

“You’re not a fire vampire, you’re an idiot sandwich. But no, You don't inject anything... well you could but don't try it, you could possibly liquefy someone from the inside out or freeze them entirely while removing all the water in their body, essentially freeze drying them.” Carmen narrows her eyes, running her tongue over her teeth, “I dunno if I like that.” Lekir waves it off, “Its not really something you need to worry about, its more a conscious thing like you would need to choose to do it. So first off, don’t bite people. Ok, I told you about the pendant that had my brother's essence, right? My two brothers have different parents, but we each share one, I'll leave out all the details of that, that's not important!” She takes a deep breath and tries to figure out how to simply explain it. “So, back in Cador, my home world, Larquez is what we called a Harbinger. They are a being who has purified blood due to Ketsru blood, demon blood. Instead of it causing mixed bloods to create a lesser of the two parents like in your world, it instead enhances both or more to 100%, meaning you're 100% Jirvi, Ketsru, Vesk and... equine. None of your history is removed, just... more if itself. It's hard to explain, but the title should be a hint. You are much more than you ever were, and likely able to overwhelm me now... which means... WE CAN BE ROUGH WITH YOU!” Carmen squints her eyes suspiciously, “And you got all that from my hand being cold and hot and by looking at my new fangs?”

The Vesk shrugs, “If you were only part Jirvi, fire demon, you would not be able to switch from hot to cold. It would be just fire. And the fangs aren’t a Jirvi trait. But this does mean you can also shapeshift since you are a Cador Harbinger now.”

Carmen scratches her head, “I honestly dont think I’m Harbinger material.. I mean I probably wont use most of what you say I can do.. I’m just a little thief.”

Lekir wags her tail, “A little thief who can fight and win wars and not break when having the most intense sex of her life! I’m sure Ninoga and Kiros are gonna be thankful not to have to treat you like bone china anymore!” Carmen’s face got as red as her blouse, “I dont want to fight in wars or anything like that.. but the sex does sound pretty nice..” Daring exclaims out loud, “Omg! Can we NOT talk about my mom’s sex life?! Its fucking gross!! We are right here! We dont wanna hear about our parents fucking everyone under the sun! Right Blendin?!… Blendin?” Daring turns and sees her brother not even paying any attention as he had new headphones on and was fully engrossed in playing a new handheld video game.

Lekir snickers and pats Carmen on the thigh, “Don’t worry, you’re now able to survive the gravity and atmosphere of Cador, I can bring you there and there’s a few Harbingers there that can teach you how to control your new powers. We can go starting next month if you wish. Maybe take a few weeks off or something. I’ll get to show you around.” Wally grins, “Wow, that is a lot to kinda sink in. So she is technically a main character now, not just the odd one out! Like an anime!!” Blendin looks up, moving his headphones, “Someone say anime??” Daring just gives a slow turn look at him, “You heard THAT but not all the other stuff?!” He blinks, “What other stuff?”

After cleaning up the wrappings and ribbons, there was a modest feast complete with desserts, to which after was the mountain of dishes that took nearly three days to clean completely down to the last fork. Luckily by then all the leftovers were already devoured and enjoyed, the wine cellar had never looked as empty in quite a while.

Soon it was the middle of the first month of the new year, the kids went back to their dorms and M stumbled out of his room all haggard and hungover. The HQ had been cleared of holiday swag and was back to its normal decor for at least a week or two. He made his way to the kitchen to brew some deathwish coffee, black, no sugar, no cream. From in the very large walk in pantry, the entrance to the wine cellar glowed blue and Skyggja and Drake were hauling stacks of crates of different liquors and spirits on dollies, trying to replenish the inventory that was consumed over the holidays. “Hey its the sleeping snow angel, awake from its nap!” Drake chuckled as M leaned against the pantry door, his response was just a deep growly groan as he sipped the coffee. His somewhat tattered teal and blue insect wings twitched a bit but his tentacles were still tucked in, not shown. His long slender and brushlike tail swayed with slight growing annoyance as he watched more crates get stored.

“Where’s Red?” He grumped, Skyggja raising an eyebrow, holding a crate for a moment. “Well aren’t you your bright and festive self. This must be you normally from what I’ve heard. Carmen is upstairs with Sig, she wanted to discuss possible add-ons to her hands. I think she thinking about storing lock-picks or something in there. Which is really easy to do. We just need to make sure her new superpowers dont interfere with the system or components.” M scratched his head with one eye closed, “New Superpowers? I thought I heard something about her only having fire.. ain’t yer stuff fireproof or some shit?” Skyggja set down the crate and put her hands on her hips, “Didn’t anyone update you yet?” M grumbled, “Yer the first two souls I’ve seen since waking the fuck up. I haven’t even looked at the fuckin calendar yet.” His face showed how much of a hangover he had, even his cheeks had a tinge of queazy green. “Oh, well Lekir can fill you in with details but the shortcut version is that the essence made her more than fire but rather she won the lottery and got like three other bloods? Something confusing but she’s considered a Harbinger now and has new added strength and other things. Like you could slam a metal chair against her back and she’s just look at you, not budging.” M smacked his lips and sighed, looking into his drink. “Well la-dee-fuckin-dah. Looks like I’ll need to find a Vesk and do some fucking homework. As long as nothing fucking changed her into someone she’s not..Then I’d have a fuckin problem.”

Drake chuckled, “Oh, no, she’s her usual stubborn self, just dealing with a lot changes. Rightfully so. She says she’s taking it stride but I’ve heard her break down behind closed doors once or twice. Its gonna take a bit for her to get over what happened.” M hmmed in return and turned to walk away but paused and looked at the glowing doorway, taking a sip. “Hm. Maybe I’ll work on the C5 doorway later. We do have that interdimensional item transporter just sitting in the mech lab. I bet I can access the fuckin multiverse if I connect the ley doors and Chronoskimmer to it.” He muttered. Skyggja stacked more crates, just about finished, “Just make sure you run it past me, I don’t want any funny business running through the system. I don’t need that goofy ass Dogma Metatron digital wanna-be nagging me for something I had no clue about!” M waved his hand, “Yeh, yeh..” and proceeded to talk a walk outside by the perimeter.

He strolled the beach and stood watching the waves for a few moments before he noticed a small boat that was dragged ashore. Looks like its been there possibly an hour with how the tide was currently. His gaze wandered up towards the gardens and saw a small moving patch of electric blue hair. Cracking his neck, he magically sent (a power that he called shadowing to summon or send away items from a short distance) his cup back to the kitchen with a small puff of toxic green flame and smoke and straightened his half open button down shirt, tucking it into his pants. He silently made his way to the intruder. An extremely slender dark balance changeling female, same body color and tail shape as M, but her hair was that electric fiberoptic looking blue hair in a half shaved/ shoulder length droopy mohawk style that he had seen from the beach and her eyes, segmented and gradient like his, only in red and yellow. She was crouching behind the bushes, taking account of the security cameras. Deciding to mess with her, he crouches down near her, rubbing his chin and whispers, “Do you think they’ll notice us?” Her long ears perked up as her eyes grew wide, whipping her head towards him. It took her a minute before squealing with delight, “Oh em gee!! Skaedfryd!! I didn’t know you were here! Were you assigned here too?! We can work together!!” She flung herself at him hard, tackling him and planting her lips upon his. He pushed her off his lips and leaned up on his elbows as she stayed straddling his hips. He wiped his muzzle with his sleeve.

Assigned? What was her game? M recognized the changeling as his ex from 200 or so years back. “Uh, yeh, I’ve been posted here for a while. Why are you here?” She flitted her little red and orange wings, shimmying her shoulders, “I got hired by this big shot no name contractor to put a hit on the red lady in there! Who hired you?” His ears dipped back as he narrowed his eyes, dropping the playful act, “I was hired by the red lady in there. I’m part of her fuckin security.” She shimmied again, grinding her hips, “Oh so a secret inside hit job then? You were always the best cause of death in our generation~” she practically moaned at him. She ran her fingers over his chest, slipping into his shirt, licking her lips. He sighed in annoyance and dropped his head back. “No, you fucking dumb bitch. I mean I am literally her protector. I don’t kill. I found something better to put my talents toward.”

This was news to her and her mood switched on a dime, “So you mean to tell me this cunty unicorn basically pussy-whipped you into submission? What the actual fuck? You were so sexy back when you were covered in blood, pieces of corpse littering the ground, your claws ripping through muscle and sinew like a hot knife through butter~” she got sidetracked again and started to grind again. She stopped and looked down, “Why arent you getting hard?” He growled, “Because I dont fucking like you, you annoy the piss outta me and I want you to get off of me.” Its not like he couldn’t just toss her, but he gave her a chance to move on her own. She leans forward, brushing some hair behind her ear, moaning, “Thats not what you said two hundred years ago~ As I recall, you used my horns like handle bars to bend my back in such a twisted way~ Ooohm, makes me wet just remembering!~” His eyes glowed as he picked her up with his tentacles and got to his feet, dusting himself off. She, on the other-hand, seemed to be in near orgasm just by the thought of being handled by tentacles. “For fuck sakes, get a fuckin hold of yerself!” He simply tossed her into a bush and shuddered. “Crazy ass bitch, get off our island and report back to yer boss that you failed. Fuck, you’re so fuckin one track minded. I’m goin back to work. Fuck this shit.”

She watched him stalk away but then hurried after him, she had shifted from her navy blue catsuit, to a baby blue pleated short skirt, a low cut light purple crop tank top and baby pink leg warmers and light green fishnet elbow length fingerless gloves. She whipped a vine around his ankles and swept him off his feet so he dangled upside down face to face to her, her smile to his grimace. “See? I turned that frowny frown upside down! We should totally sixty-nine like this sometime~” M nods, “Oh sure, how about the Tuesday after never, which is a week after Fuck off!” She laughed “You’re so funny! Now come on, you can tell me all the little details on this little chicky’s weaknesses~ I need to hurry and get this job done so I can do my nails. They’re gonna look sooo good around your cock… and scratching down your back as you take me, mmmhf!~” she squirmed as she stood in front of him, he was still upside down and quickly losing patience. He had learned to be extra cautious of his actions during his hangover, he had a bad habit of overreacting greatly. Things that normally make him quickly explode now brings him to a slow rumbling boil before going all out.

“So yer saying that you need a good fucking, right? You want me to rail you till you cant walk right for weeks, fill you up with my juices and make you my little sex pet, is that it?” He softened his tone to a low sexual growl, making her legs tremble just from listening to him. “Oooh fuck yes!!” She begged, letting him down to stand on his own. He caressed the back of her neck with surprising gentleness with his hand, the other sliding around the small of her back. He twisted her so she had her back to him as he pressed against her, his hand almost cupping her chin upwards as the other explored her front, his muzzle kissing and nipping her neck hungrily as she practically melted in his grasp. She writhed and moaned, he stroked her nethers just barely. She couldnt see his eyes but they were twitching in disgust. His hand wanted to recoil from feeling how drenched she was.

He removed his hands and grasped hers together behind her back, shadowing a pair of Carmen’s handcuffs and locking them in place before pushing her to the ground, face down, ass up. “Oohhh fuck! If I known you were going to be this kinky, I would have brought toys!! Aaahhhnnn~” she wriggled her ass as he got close behind her, he could feel her grinding, he reached and grabbed her hair and pulled her head back, “I always knew you were such a bad girl. You really want me to stick it deep, dont you? You want to feel every single inch…” she cried out and begged, her body already trembling in wanton anticipation. “Oh god yes!! Give it to me!!” He straightened up and shadowed Lekir’s spear into his grip and thrust it into her back by her shoulders and pushed it all the way through deep into the ground. The changeling mare screeched and her two vines whipped out by her wings, trying to attack him. Effortlessly, he catches both and pulls them taught, using a large folded pocketknife to slice them off by the base. She writhed and attempted to reach the spear but the way he had her positioned and bound, she didnt have proper movement nor leverage strength to rescue herself. “What the FUCK?! That shit is cold like ice!! Let me up! Skaedfryd!! I’m gonna kill you for this!!”

She, like M, was not so easily disposed or destroyed by a simple spear to the body. For good measure, he hammered the end a little bit to make sure it didnt move. He picked up the severed now-wilted vines and wiped his face with his sleeve, groaning. “Maybe now you’ll take the hint and fuckin leave.” He got halfway the path when Lekir starts coming towards him, “Where is it, bug boy? I know you took my spear! And Carmen’s cuffs. Only you have this green flamey smoky magic. I’ll have you know I was in the middle of- is that..? what is doing over there?” He looked over his shoulder at the struggling ex and shrugged. “I needed it for gardening, ya know, just doing some trimming, getting rid of some pesky horny weeds.” He tosses the vines into the compost heap and puts the knife back into his pocket.

School doodles of some Poptropica Characters drawn as humans!