Back in the Mirror Again.

[mirror_alice]

Alice snarls, pounding on the glass of the Mirror. Damn them, damn them all!

She shrieks, the sound a mix of hate, rage and utter despair, but there's no one there to hear her....

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[7twistedwishes]

No, no one.

But does not mean she is forgotten: there is a sudden feeling for vertigo... and she falls down, landing on a large couch before a fireplace.

Out of the damn mirror...

[mirror_alice]

Alice blinks for a moment or two, shocked. "We're all mad here," she murmurs to herself.

She figured that she'd lose her mind one of these years, just not in such a sudden fashion...

[7twistedwishes]

Someone leans over the back of the mirror and kisses her cheek. "Yes, we are, my sweet. But not in the way you fear... not yet."

[mirror_alice]

Alice actually jumps a bit in surprise at the touch. "Eshara!?" she asks, still not quite believing that this is real.

[7twistedwishes]

"Oh, did you forget already? You are mine, my dear." She grins. "That sad, dark, terrible place can have one of the myriad useless damned. You... for you, I have other plans."

[mirror_alice]

"I don't forget," Alice replies. "Only wonder at the sight before my eyes."

Then she laughs in joy. "Other plans?" she asks, curious. "What would you have of me, my savior?"

[7twistedwishes]

"The sight is of my offices, in the entrance of Hell. And what I would have of you, my dear, is yourself." She moves around, offering a hand. "Come. I will show you."

[mirror_alice]

Alice takes the offered hand with a grin. "It's strange, thinking of you with an office."

[7twistedwishes]

"Oh, it is practical... not that I need it, but..." She tugs Alice over to her desk and the luxuriously comfortable chairs in front of it. "Would you like a drink?"

[mirror_alice]

Alice's expression is slightly blissful as she eases herself into the chair. Is it any surprise that she's something of a hedonist after so many decades of sensory deprivation? "Yes, please," she says in response to the offer of a drink.

[7twistedwishes]

"Brandy? Cognac, whiskey, vodka, wine? As you can guess, I have a very well-supplied bar." One hidden behind a wall section that slides away to reveal a counter and rows of bottles.

"Champagne and strawberries?"

[mirror_alice]

"Champagne and strawberries sounds delightful," Alice replies with a smile.

[7twistedwishes]

She moves back to the desk with a bowl of strawberries, large ripe and sweet, an ice bucket with the champagne and two glasses. "Roederer Crystal. It was first made for the Tsar, Alexander II. Crystal is a special champagne only made in the high years of grape production, when the vineyards are at their best." If there is a word to describe the moment, it must be indulgence.

Glasses are filled, and Crystal is all that one could expect from the finest champagnes.

[mirror_alice]

Alice sips the champagne carefully, humming in appreciation. "You have exquisite taste," she remarks, closing her eyes in bliss.

[7twistedwishes]

"Oh, I believe that if you can have the best... why not have the best?" She drinks from her glass, a smoothly perfect champagne flute, the wine at the perfect temperature.

[mirror_alice]

Alice chuckles warmly. "Oh, absolutely. I've never understood asceticism."

[7twistedwishes]

"Oh, equal parts masochism, pride and plain simple stupidity." The Devil shrugs, refilling glasses as needed. "You will notice, my dear Alice, that I will not, ever, ask you to show restraint."

[mirror_alice]

"Never?" Alice almost purrs. "I do believe I may have made a better bargain than I thought."

[7twistedwishes]

"I want you..." The Devil gets up and moves around the desk. "...to be my first daeva."

She actually slips onto Alice's lap. "A personification of a sin. A being of chaos and disorder..."

[mirror_alice]

Alice shivers, but from desire not fear.

"Daeva," she says experimentally, tasting the word.

One hand caresses Scarlet's face. "You ask me to be what I already am on the inside," she says with a small smile.

[7twistedwishes]

"I like those who are true to themselves. I offer you a world, and the power to crave your mark on it, to rouse the meek and crush those who can not be roused." The Devil leans closer. "I want to see what you can do with the proper means."

[mirror_alice]

There is a dark and terrible hunger in Alice's eyes. "I will be your Daeva," she replies with a dark smile, "for what you speak of is my heart's desire."

[7twistedwishes]

"Good." The Devil purrrs. "Now, to get you fitted to the job."

"Ever been to San Francisco, my dear?" She gets up, picking the bowl of strawberries and handing it to Alice, then picking up the ice bucket herself. "I chose a lovely apartment for you, but I can get you a nicely isolated house of you prefer."

[mirror_alice]

Alice shakes her head. "No, never."

"The apartment will be fine," she says with a dark chuckle. "improvisation is part of the fun, after all." Meaning that Alice prefers to do her...work outside of where she lives.

[7twistedwishes]

"Oh, good... I think you will perform wonderfully. But first, one thing." The Devil rests down her glass, and presses the heel of her free hand to Alice's forehead, fingers pressing to the top of the woman's head. "This will probably hurt a great deal."

What felt like lightning detonating inside her skull made it impossible to speak, impossible to think, impossible to even keep standing. Her muscles seize and her skin feels like burning, while a series of eldritch images etched themselves indelibly upon her memory. Each showed how she could draw power from the very air around herself, how to channel that power into marvelous and terrible things.

The feeling, the horrendous, familiar, ecstatic feeling of power, of having the void of her soul filled with a new darkness, comforting and familiar, seems to extend for hours... then fades away abruptly, leaving the once-mortal forever changed.

[mirror_alice]

Agony and ecstasy all at once. Her body is torn apart, replaced with a form that is ever so much more than human, a form subject only to her own will and desire.

Alice Liddell drinks in that terrible dark power, the eldritch arts that will let her sate her terrible desires and set the world itself on fire.

The bright bitter fire of the abused and the meek lashing out, the vicious pleasure at harsh words dealing pain, the terrible satisfaction of bones breaking under your hands. Alice is all of these and more, for she is Wrath embodied.

The being that is/was Alice Liddell convulses one last time in her position on the floor and looks up into Scarlet's eyes. "I am Aeshma," she replies, still a little stunned from the transformation that has been wrought upon the very foundations of her being.

[7twistedwishes]

"I like it. It's perfect..." The Devil offers a hand to help up her first Daeva, glad at herself for choosing well.

"Come, let's get you settled in the city." Aeshma is guided to an elevator that climbs swiftly all the way to San Francisco...