One does not need to possess the sharp senses of a Tanar'Ri to hear the murmured conversation around us as an unconscious Annah was carried into the Festhall and towards my quarters.

"She was lucky that Mistress Grace showed up, that tiefling girl sure looked dead to me."

"Do you know who she is?"

"I think she's a Sensate, I've seen her around a couple of times."

"I don't think she's a Sensate."

"She sure seems to know Mistress Grace. What an ungrateful bitch though."

"She's kinda pretty, but that tail..."

"This is not over yet. The Mercykillers will have her hide."

I chose my quarters for a lot of reasons, most of all because I fear for another round of smashed furniture once Annah regains her senses and her strength. She might as well break the inventory of my spare room instead of another Festhall guest chamber.

Not everyone knows who Annah is and that she and I used to be travel companions – the Festhall is full or stories of planewalks and adventures after all, and HIS story ends up being one of many – so in addition to the semi-whispered comments there were glances of bewilderment and curiosity following us.

Morte floated besides me quietly, just teeth clacking once in a while. I wonder if his mind was following the same train of thoughts as mine.

Through whatever means, Annah must've gotten the tiefling mercenary to lead her back to the Lower Planes in search for what she must've thought was HE. Not that I think I'll ever learn how she convinced him as the mercenary is dead now, and it is rather unlikely that Annah will tell me.

She was there when the tiefling had been telling his story.

Was it coincidence or had she been watching my steps all along? I should have known that she would not give up on HIM so easily. Why didn't it occur to me that she would be looking for HIM as well?

After Annah was laid down onto a bed in the spare room, I studied her for a moment. She was paler than usual, but there is no doubt that she'll be fine. I would not be surprised if she woke up in less than a few hours even, more than anything it is exhaustion and the sudden rupture of the healing process that has caused her current state. That and the blow to her head.

It were these few moments when I brought her back from the brink of death that were replaying in my mind's eye, and only when Morte cleared his throat I realized that I must've been studying her for more than just a moment.

"Maybe it's a good idea I keep an eye on her. You know…when she wakes up," he ventured, and I was grateful for his suggestion. I guess we both agree that it would not be the best idea if it was me again whom Annah sees once she regains her senses.

"Don't worry, if she goes crazy I'll make her chase me around until I get her out of the Festhall. If she doesn't collapse first. Then we can start all over again," Morte added cheerfully, and I chuckled quietly in spite of myself.

"Thank you, Morte."

"Naw, don't mention it, it'll be fun. Almost like old times," he said, clacking his teeth as if in anticipation before he sobered momentarily.

"She shouldn't have done that, you know."

"I think both of us can imagine why she did what she did."

Morte looked at me pensively for a moment before finally nodding.

Now back in my own room next door, I finally allow myself to wrap my mind around what has happened. Annah's and my paths crossing again most unexpectedly. My bringing her back from the brink of death. The look in her eyes when she recognized me, and what I was doing to her.

The fascination – dark, forbidden and therefore oh so luring - that succubi hold over mortals has prompted many a visitor to my brothel to ask me, one that is perceived as a "reformed" succubus, what it is like to take a soul and drain the life energy from a mortal's body. Funny enough, the existence of succubi proves the concept of both soul and life energy, something which many a plane, especially those that ignore the existence of the multiverse and Sigil, rejects or at least wonders if they even exist.

Soul. Life energy. Life energy sustains the mortal form, while the soul is what passes on, pulled by gravity of kinship. It is the strength of the soul that decides if it dissolves into or absorbs kin essence, forming new entities. Succubi take in life energy for sustenance to fuel their power while dooming the soul to the Abyss, are recruiters to ensure the Tanar'Ri ranks remain endless. And yet even in the Abyss existence is not stagnant – nor is it in Elysium or any other Higher Plane, for that matter. Souls transform into demons, they grow, learn, evolve, dissolve and reform.

And sometimes, they transcend.

It is rare enough an occurrence, but given the sheer vastness of the multiverse even a rare occurrence has its numbers. With the multiverse in motion as it is, I am often surprised that I still seem to be such an exception among my kind. Though I admit that it feeds my vanity.

How does a succubus gain the ability to heal rather than kill? It is actually not as far-fetched as many think. It entails the discipline of reversing the flow of energy; a discipline and willingness that succubi do not – and should not, given their task at hand - possess by nature. Today I can see it as just untapped potential. But I did not always think like this.

Oh, how I remember the hunger that I endured in Baator, a hunger that cut through my being, forced me to my knees and made me a puppet for a long, long time. The Baatezu are as cunning as they are wicked, and they study their enemies and often take more pleasure in subduing their minds rather than their bodies. After all, isn't their ultimate goal to show that their ways, that their laws, rule supreme over everything else? To twist others in their image – many a plane can tell a tale of that. Showing me the error of my Tanar'Ri ways was easy.

My succubus nature, doomed me to a succubus' hell. I was not able to feed on mortals, and my masters enjoying showing me just how much a Tanar'Ri demon was below them, wild and craving and HUNGRY beyond imagining. I screamed, ranted and raged, convulsed, rebelled, only to find that it was futile and pointless and exactly what they wanted, which enraged by only further, to the Baatezu's amusement. For a while I tried to perish, to kill my shell so my essence would return to the Abyss to be reshaped into a lower form. Everything would be preferable than the hunger that savaged me. But even that escape route they blocked.

When I look back at my former self, I know that the one who had rejoiced in her nature for the brief time of her existence, having been sold to the Baatezu at an early stage, had to die to give way to transformation as the only form of escape.

It took a long, long time, and each step was paid with another small breaking, another subtle death, another abandonment of who I was.

To many it might seem that to fall from Tanar'Ri grace is a blessing and should be celebrated rather than mourned. I don't see it that way, even today.

The lustful hunger that drives you forward, the hunger that is satisfied so deliciously as the life energy is pulled from the body in an often violent, ravenous ripping and the sheer exhiliration as it becomes part of you. The feeling is indescribable. It is the moment that succubi literally live for, never do they feel more *alive* than in such moments. No risk or threat is too high against such prize, and nothing compares to it. Nothing at all. I know what I am saying.

The first thing I eventually learned was self-sufficiency; how little was really needed to sustain me. Oh, I was weak, no doubt about that, and far from being able to maintain the pleasing form by which I am known as Fall-from-Grace. I started to feel it though. A soft, gentle pulling, the imperceptible remnants of life lingering in the air, like heat or sweat that a body exudes, and yet scraps compared to the richness of life that permeates the mortal form. There was little of that in Baator, but it was enough. I learned to live on scraps, to pull even the tiniest flicker from my surroundings. It was a lesson I don't know I was supposed to learn, but I did, eventually, humiliating as it was. That I would survive, low and weak, was the second realization, and I knew I had to be very careful about it, just as I had to be with the many lessons that followed. In that way, I could relate to the Zerthimon in Dak'kon's tale, and how he had overcome his illithid masters. How he had observed and hidden the self-discovery he had made, biding his time

Even when I still possess the ability to take a life in the…conventional way, the gratification nowadays compares to pure nourishment only, and sometimes it leaves a somewhat stale taste in my mouth. And this is why I know that I don't live intensely. Conversely, it makes it easier to release the life force for healing purposes. A strange notion, actually too alien to even occur to a succubus, to give up that energy, to direct it at somebody else.

Pulling life energy from my surroundings takes a time and is tedious and inefficient compared to the draining of a living source. In Sigil, it grew easier thanks to its mostly mortal population, and when I had traveled with HIM the fights had supplied me with enough life energy to heal my comrades, but it was HE who would bring them back from death as such spell would usually leave my reservoir depleted.

Ultimately, this is the reason the tiefling mercenary is on his way to the Dustmen crematory. He would have survived, his injuries were far less serious than Annah's, and I would've healed him as well had my resources not been insufficient for a spell of this magnitute, and time was too short. I could sense it as I touched Annah, could feel how her body had started to shut down, how her soul readied itself. So I pulled from him what was needed.

I take no joy in that what I did. But I made a choice, just like I had when I killed HIS foes in battle.

His life energy filled me, became part of me and I felt the familiar prickle as it permeated my being before I focused it into the spell. I placed my hand on Annah's chest and established the link, felt how skin and tissue and bones mended and re-formed, felt how her faint heartbeat strengthened, and in that moment it occured to me that it was the first time that I was touching Annah. During our travels, she had prefered needle and thread or potions over my healing spells, and more than once she had threatened to cut my wings off should I ever touch her when healing her, which made healing not impossible, just more difficult and time consuming. If HE had not intervened at some point, I think she would have forbidden me to heal her altogether, even in the most dire moments, but she grudgingly gave in after HE stated she was too important to HIM to risk death over such petty disputes.

With a gasp Annah's eyes flew open as her lungs took in much needed air, and her eyes bore into mine, wild and wide as life rushed from me into her mending body, the spell nearing completion. For one long moment, she just kept staring at me as her mind slowly registered what was happening. Then her eyes narrowed.

I didn't even see the blow coming.

It wasn't a strong punch and surprised me more than it hurt, but it managed to break to link before the spell had had time to heal her completely.

Annah staggered to her feet, her eyes blazing in frustration and anger and something else that even now I am not able to decipher, and made a half-hearted attempt at drawing her daggers.

The next moment, she toppled over. From behind, the Mercykiller captain had knocked her out with the pommel of his sword.

I managed to appease the commotion that ensued, able to convince the Mercykiller captain that I knew Annah, that she was not crazy, and that she had most assuredly still been in a daze when she had drawn her daggers. It was to my advantage that we were in the Clerk's and not the Lady's Ward and that most of the crowd where Sensates. Eventually, the captain allowed me to take Annah to the Festhall to recover, but he made it clear that Annah would be questioned once awake.

I refrained from healing her a second time.