A little milk, a little honey, a little bread; that was the offering, set out on the windowsill like my grandmother taught me. An invitation as old as the houses we built to keep the things we feared out.

I feared him him as he crouched in the portal. He had lean limbs and skin the colour of cobalt. His eyes were the pale circles of the hunters moon and I knew I could run and be his prey, instead I stayed and welcomed him a second time with a spreading of thighs; an invitation even older than bread, milk and honey.

He fell upon me like a beast, his grip like iron and his cock seemed to retain some of the heat that had forged him. Gasping and bucking I felt the wild magic in his hands knead me into the shapes he wanted and needed. My flesh felt fluid in his touch, writhing as I was unmade and made again within the cage of his long limbs.

Silently he finished inside me, accepting my body as the offering it was, and while his cock still twitched out the last of his seed, he leaned in and whispered an old truth at my ear. I let his words and seed soak into me; trying to remember it was futile, but there was hope that it would become part of me.

The sky was gloaming outside as I stirred, forcing aching limbs to remember their purpose and drag me to the dresser and its silver mirror. I tumbled into the wooden chair as my knees, still weak, betrayed me.

Shaking fingers struck a match and lit a candle so I could meet myself. A streak of white hair in my red and one blue eye, that was the lasting memento of the ritual, that... and with a little luck a child that would change my body in more gentle ways.