This is a continuation of the Asexual Succubus Chronicles, hit the tag for the whole series if you'd like!
Only in the underworld will you find yoga classes inspired and eventually instructed by Soul Reavers. You know the ones, the proverbial Grim Reapers, the entities who occasionally must go to the surface to do manual collection of a soul to keep things in the balance. There are a multitude of poses, stretches, and positions one can take. The three-point, the back-reach, full swing, long reach, point balance, high stretch, downward cleave, upward strike, and so on and so forth. The classes are a veritable melting pot of practitioners as well, office workers and infrastructure specialists, soul managers and boiler-minders, everyone leaves their titles at the door. The basic classes are hands free, intermediate practitioners start with short shafts and work up to a full staff, the advanced folks use mock scythes of weighted and padded material. Though honestly most of them end up not stepping up into the art itself.
Similarly to how someone might take up Karate or Taekwondo on the mortal plane with the intention of practicing it as an art without ever stepping into a tournament or doing any actual fighting, reaping is older than Hell as an organization and there are many many practitioners throughout all the realms (with the notable exception of several Paradises where it is strictly forbidden). Though the number of actual Reavers who cross to the mortal realm to work remains barely in the dozens.
In her twenty-eight years in the afterlife, Clarity has been practicing for twenty. She doesn’t consider herself a master by any stroke of the craft, and has politely declined the invitation to come on as an instructor several times. Though she does volunteer to step in and help when her Grotto’s head Reaver, who is an actual proper Reaver and has been for a few thousand years, is called off on a job and all the instructors have to shuffle to cover the gaps. She only covers the beginner courses though, insisting always that her mere two decades is nothing compared to the hundreds of years in practice by her peers. Besides, it helps her get back to basics and keep her form in shape. After all, she’s just an office girl.
Just an office girl.
The interruption comes late one evening when she is in her back garden. It’s the closest thing she can manage to a zen garden in Hell, a collection of the local flora and a little river of sand where there might otherwise be a water feature. Work doesn’t often get to her, but when it does she goes out in her garden and exercises. In a sports top and some workout shorts, she accepts a kiss from her mistress who just smiles knowingly and knows her girl will be back after her workout all sweaty and cute and hungry. There will be dinner and a shower, and snuggling later, but for now the demoness picks up her intricate, custom “harvester” (proper scythes are for Reavers and apprentices only) and steps into her garden to warm up.
Stretches first, barehanded poses, working her core, leveling her senses before she picks up her instrument, her channel. She follows the teachings to the order, step by step until the heat comes up into her shoulders and she feels good enough to really get started. Both hands on the shaft, it starts with poses, then slowly gets more fluid and lively. Her mistress sits on their back deck, relaxed, sipping a drink and watching, listening. Waiting for the noise, the certain way the harvester whistles through the air when Clarity really gets up to full speed. It’s going to be one of those evenings, too, because she really got into it with one of the bullheaded pit managers after lunch.
Another joins Mistress on the deck, a lean robed figure steps up beside her and takes her by surprise. She looks up from her fruity cocktail and startles, but the figure gently motions her to remain still and shakes their head. All darkness and mystery, folded scythe upon their back, they haven’t yet changed back from their trip to the overworld. Together they watch the demoness dance with her blade, appreciating the flutter and whoosh of the instrument, the sharp whistle of the air through the carved filigrees when it spins.
It is music, it is art, it is sacred, and she is in her zone, fully focused. It whirls around her body, she gyrates to some unheard rhythm, snaps and strikes, pulls and twists, carves patterns into the air, and for the first time anyone else has witnessed she spins it up around her body in a plane flat with the ground. Her feet come up off the sand, she whirls, lashes out, and releases it. The harvester sails away from her, helicoptering around in a teardrop loop back to its master who catches it mid turn, only to roll it around her body and send it behind herself. It roars back toward the patio, hooking around the same as before and returning to her. The reaper on the deck does not flinch. Clarity catches it blind, behind her back with her left hand and turns the rotation ninety degrees. It rips around her body and the air splits before her, up and down in a perfect double strike, the blade sings and the echo claps off their tall fence as the concentrated energy cuts a furrow into the sand in front of her and clips the branches of several small bushes while the blade itself spins around her side and comes to rest neatly hanging on her back.
She drops to her knee and bows, setting her palm in the sand and breathing, grounding out as is proper after discharging so much pent-up frustration. She doesn’t hear the footsteps, in fact they don’t make any sound and her mistress would never interrupt her exercises. She freezes when she feels the hand on her back, when they lift her harvester off. Her master’s voice. “The Möbius Strike is a master’s art, reserved to those so honored, restricted for good reason.”
She swallows, closing her eyes and tipping her head down, bracing for the coming reprimand. She has it coming, and she knows it. “Yes, Master. I understand.” This is going to hurt, she steels herself for it, prepared to bleed.
An instrument is set upon her back in the same position as the one just removed. It feels about the same in balance, but the energy is different. It is… unexpected, nigh confusing. Is she not to be corrected for her transgression? From the corner of her eye she can see her harvester held in her master’s hand, and when they turn their bonded scythe is still upon their back. But what is on hers, then? No time for questions.
They speak once more as they turn to walk back to the deck. “Do it again.”
“As is your will, Master. I obey.”
She picks her head up and focuses straight ahead at the fence, pulls her palm from the sand and dusts it off, then reaches behind herself and takes hold of the thing upon her back. The shaft is contoured at the grip, it feels good in her hand, and she whirls it into her starting posture with the usual flair. It unfolds as she twirls it out, the long, arching and intricately carved, gleaming sharp blade hinging up and locking into position. Runes in the metal flash when it snaps into place and her blood runs hot. She has never seen this one before, it is unlike any of the practice harvesters and mock scythes she’s seen at the Grotto. The craftsmanship is exquisite, the like of which she has never touched with her own hands much less wielded in motion. No time for questions though, it feels good. The balance is perfect despite the more complex, larger, and menacing blade. The energy feels right, like she doesn’t even need to attune though she warms up with her standard attunement pattern anyway.
She begins to hit her rhythm again, working patterns and feeling it out. Now she knows she is being watched, but not by how many eyes. She knows her master fully realizes she is being cautious rather than stalling, but it plays on her nerves a bit. She performs a few warm-up strikes to push the unsteadiness out of her body, then starts winding up. This blade doesn’t whistle so sharply, doesn’t speak so loudly on the simpler moves but it requires so much less effort. She doesn’t command it, it responds to her as if it knows already. Finally she begins to push herself and the instrument sings for her in kind. The metal rings as she cuts the air, the edge gleams in the evening light, and soon it is leaving amber-edged trails. Then the dance begins, it changes, from practiced to lived, sacred as the energy of the motions flows through her body. It whirls up level, circling her body as she lifts from the ground, rolling her head back as it passes over her face, everything in slow motion to her as it circles out and leaves her fingers. It sails away from her as she dances, sweeping around the yard and returning, carving quarter-moons into the air along its path. She receives it again, rolls it around her body and sends it behind. It sweeps out, circles around and returns, slices hanging in the atmosphere of the garden. With well practiced reflex and otherworldly confidence she catches it again, turning the rotation and spinning it forward to strike. Up first with a bright amber-edged flash then down again with a thunderous clap before it spins up onto her back where it started.
The burst of energy does absolutely no damage to the yard, but more startling is the clean slice in reality hanging there before her. It crackles and shimmers, but hangs steadily, offering a view and perhaps passage into what looks like another realm. One she has never seen before, she tips her head curiously for a moment before her training takes over. Clarity swings down with her cupped right hand as if she is taking a scoop out of the air, then turns the flat of her palm to the tear as she swings up, willing it closed. The portal zips up at her command, then fizzles out of existence as if it were never there.
“Very good, young Reaver.”
Clarity turns to look over her shoulder, around the folded blade at her back. The sight stops her in her tracks as her master walks across the yard. There are eleven Reavers, counting her master, in her back yard. Her Mistress is still sitting, watching intently. Reavers do not get together very often, and when they do they strictly only gather in multiples of three as per tradition.
“Thank you, Master...wait. What?” Her heart is thundering in her chest as her eyes flick over the gathered crowd.
“I came here to offer you a scythe, if you would be willing to take on more advanced techniques. However you were already in motion when I arrived, and it was clear you are long since prepared. I have not seen this other harvester of yours, it is not the one you keep at the Grotto.”
“I...I keep this one here at home. It was a gift from my Mistress, custom made. I only ever use it here in the garden for my exercises. Not to bring something so intricate to the Grotto or give any appearance of grandeur or to show off.”
“It is beautiful, you should keep it here and use it only here indeed, with your Mistress. A sign of your devotion to her, and your respect for the teachings, and the Grotto itself.”
“Then the one on my back…”
“Is bound to you, a true scythe that has now been properly wielded in your hands. It is yours now and for eternity. You are already a Reaver, you have the gift. I will have you as my apprentice if your Mistress will allow. Will you train with me?”
Clarity nods, slowly, her eyes going to her Mistress. “I would, if I may.”
Mistress is a question to be answered, as a queen holds a considerable amount of authority in the realm. She nods. “I see no reason to deny either of you this apparent destiny, but do remember that she belongs to me. We still have need of her at the tower.”
“Then she will continue her normal schedule at the Grotto, plus another session weekly, and when I see fit she may be called to accompany me on jobs or called off to jobs herself as needed.”
“Then we have an agreement. As she is mine she will remain here with me if she so chooses, and regularly attend to her duties as a Reaver as appropriate. I will see that she is not overtaxed under my care, and you will see to the same when she is under yours.”
“If the council agrees…” Robed figures silently nod in approval. “Then it is settled. You as well accept this?”
“I do. I will abide by my responsibilities to the tower and to the Reavers, and I will remain here with my Mistress.”
Whispers drift through the air, weaving an intricate pattern as an inscription marks itself down the shaft of Clarity’s scythe. Then ten robed figures step away and vanish to leave only master, apprentice, and Mistress.
“So we are bound. Exercise with your scythe, young Reaver, and dance with your harvester for the pleasure of your Mistress. I will see you at the Grotto tomorrow, at the usual hour.” They bow politely and step away, drifting and vanishing into dust.
Clarity breathes out, staring off into space and taking a moment to soak up everything that just transpired. Her Mistress steps up and slides an arm around her, marveling for a moment at the terrifying weapon on her girl’s back. A device so storied and shrouded in darkness that not even the demon queen has had one so close, much less a Reaver of her own there in her arms.
“Imagine. I had no idea of my good fortune that fateful day you wandered into my building. Now look at you. Look at us.”
She smiles as her Mistress gently guides her chin and her attention up with her hand. “Of all the things I never imagined…”
“So now that it’s official. Think you can teach me to dance too?”
The smile grows. “I’d love to but you’ll have to start the same way I did, with empty hands.”
“Oh, hmm. Not tonight then. I plan on keeping them very full tonight.” No time for a response, she pulls her girl up into a firm kiss and slides her other hand up that snug workout top.
Definitely no more scythe training tonight.
