"She was summoned, it's not hard if you know what you are doing, and have enough power backing you up. I've done it myself a few times, but never anything on that level."

Wait, "You can use magic?"

Dad sighed and opened up another of the boxes, "Yeah, I fancied myself as quite the wizard once. That's actually how I met your mother." Reaching into the box, he pulled out a staff that was nearly as tall as him.

I stared open mouthed at him. There was no way that should have fit. Dad chuckled and laid the staff on the coffee table.

"Your mother was summoned to this world by Lustrum. She couldn't use magic but she knew about succubi and she was fascinated by their society. Succubi are all women," he explained, "naturally, this makes their society a matriarchy."

Lustrum had been a feminist cape years ago. At first she had only wanted equality and quickly built a large following of mostly college age girls. I didn't know the full story and Mom didn't like to talk about it but apparently things had escalated. Peaceful protests became violent and equality became subjugation. Eventually her followers started mutilating any man they could and while nobody knew if Lustrum supported it or not, she was willing to accept responsibility. In the end, she was sent to the birdcage and her followers disbanded.

I could see how an all female society would appeal to her but Mom always told me she left before things turned violent. Was that a lie?

"I'm not sure who did the actual summoning," Dad continued, "but your mother is the one they pulled through. Unlike normal summonings, they made no attempt to bind or control your mother. Lustrum just wanted to talk and Annette was a teacher at heart, even then. She stayed with Lustrum and answered her questions. When things started going bad, Annette argued against it. Eventually, she left to go her own way."

Dad paused to take a drink. I let everything he said sink in. it wasn't too different from what I already knew but it didn't answer the biggest question I had.

"Why did nobody tell me?"

Dad sighed, "It's complicated Kiddo. Part of it was simply because children can't keep secrets." He shot me a knowing look and I flushed with shame, I was six damn it!

"The other reason, was because we didn't want to upset you."

"Why would I be upset?"

"Because what you've done," he waved at my wings, "should be impossible. Succubi have a very low birth rate. They use ritual magic to conceive and even then there is no guarantee of success. Humans and succubi can have children but it's rare, your mother beat the odds just to get pregnant. We both knew, right from the start, you would either be human or succubus."

"Children with a human parent are either one or the other, there is no `half' and it shouldn't have been possible for you to change that. Annette explained all this to me before you were born. It never changed how we felt about you but Annette was worried you would feel about her. It's not unheard of for human children to hate their succubus parent."

"We both suspected you would have magic. We even planned to teach you when you were old enough. But then... After..." He struggled to get the words out. Even now it was hard to think about and we still never talked about Mom's death.

Giving up, Dad shook his head, "After that, I wanted nothing to do with magic. I boxed everything up and just tried to forget about it."

The air grew heavy and Dad took another drink.

"H-how did you really meet Mom?" I asked. They had always told me it was through some friends at college but now I doubted it.

Dad smiled and some of the life came back to his eyes, "After she left Lustrum, your mother went to college. That's where I met her. I knew, as soon as I saw her that she could use magic. It was like finding a diamond in the street and I'll admit, I got a little obsessed with her. I'll skip the details but I was horrified when I realised just what your mother was."

He laughed at my surprised expression, "There is no formal education for magic users, we are all self taught or taken as an apprentice. The only book I had that mentioned succubi was more fantasy than fact and I was convinced she was evil. So one night, I confronted her. I'd spent ages preparing and had dozens of spells and my new staff ready... Your mother thought I was the most adorable little demon hunter she'd ever seen," he admitted with a blush.

Dad stood up and started digging through another box, "After she kicked my arse, she sat me down and explained everything to me. We started spending time together and well, you know what happened after that. Here, these were hers," He handed me a couple of books.

The first looked professionally made and had a picture of stylised wings and horns on the cover, "That's the most accurate book you can find on succubi. Your mother made me read it. The other is her personal journal. She started writing it when she was pregnant, it was supposed to be everything she wanted to teach you."

Moms journal was a leatherbound book with floral prints in the leather. It was filled with Moms neat writing and I skimmed through the first few pages. It read more like a notebook, ideas were scribbled in the margins and sections had been crossed out.

What really drew my eye was a line of symbols near the bottom of the page. I didn't know what they meant but as I looked I could feel them trying to draw on... something. I reached towards it but Dad stopped me.

"Is that-?"

"Yeah, it's a spell," he turned his head to get a better look, "It's... a light spell. Safe enough, go ahead."

Wondering what he meant, I turned my attention the `spell', it looked more like a complex maths formula than anything else. I could feel that pulling sensation and I reached out. My fingers brushed the page but nothing happend. I gave Dad a questioning looking but he simply nodded.

This time, I focused on the pulling. Did the spell need something? I tried to push against the sensation and gasped as I felt something inside of me shift. The words on the page started to glow. The break in concentration caused the words to go dark.

I tried again, but this time, I didn't stop until all the symbols were glowing. I watched as they detached themselves from the page, an ethereal copy floating just about the original writing.

Taking a calming breath I reached for the symbols and they merged into a glowing sphere. It felt delicate in my hands, like it would break if squeezed too hard. Dad mimed a gentle throwing action and I realised what he meant.

I threw the sphere. It hit the far wall and the room was filled with a bright white flash that left after images on my eyes. I turned in shock to Dad who was grinning broadly. I broke into a smile of my own. I could use magic!

"So... I know it's a bit late, but how do feel about learning magic? We can make a weekend of it." Dad offered and hugged me tightly.

I could use magic, this was something Emma and her friends could never take away from me.

* * *

1-3

After Dinner, Dad sat down with me at the table and started teaching me the basics of magic. He'd dug a collection of books out one of the boxes. We'd ordered takeout as neither of us were really up to cooking after everything else that had happened today.

"This is your basic primer. It contains the full runic alphabet and a brief description of what they mean." He passed a slim leather book towards me. "By writing these in the correct order you can create a spell."

He pulled a piece of paper towards himself and quickly wrote down a spell, "In theory, writing a spell is simple. You state the target," he circled the first half of the spell he'd written, "then the effect. Go ahead and look up the runes, see if you can tell me what this does?"

I flipped through the book, making notes on a sheet of paper. Each rune could formed one syllable or it could be a word on its own or a part of a polysyllabic word. The first rune I found was... `Open'? it took me a bit of reading to realise that the rune before it stood for `Define' or `Target.'

Oh, I get it! I quickly scribbled `Target Open' on the sheet. The next rune was `Light'

[Target {Open}; Light {Blue};]

"It's a light spell, like the one I tried earlier but coloured blue?" I wasn't too sure about the last part but dad smiled and nodded.

"That's right. Interesting idea on the notes, where did you learn that?

I looked at my notes and I realised I'd what I'd been writing, "Its the pseudocode my computer science teacher was showing us."

"Makes sense, most magic users have there own way of making notes. Now, can you think of a reason for using `open' as the target?"

"... Because there isn't one. This just creates a flash of light wherever the spell lands?"

"Exactly, if we replace open with `hand' you would get a spell that works a bit like a torch. Now this is just spell crafting at its most basic, it gets much more complicated once you start adding conditions."

It took me much longer to translate his next spell

[Target {Hand}; Light {Blue}; Direction {Forward {Hand}}; Power {User {Constant}};]

"That's more or less it," Dad said, "the `Constant' means the spell will last as long as you continue to feed it power. You can add all sorts of conditions such as timers or triggers as you see fit. It all depends on your imagination. Why don't you try creating a couple of your own?"

Dad busied himself making us both some tea while I worked. In the end, I created a spell that should act like a stun grenade, a loud bang and bright flash that shouldn't effect me if I got the runes right. I also made one to conjure water.

Looking the formula over, Dad seemed impressed. "Protecting yourself against your own spell is a clever idea. For the most part, you are immune to effects of your own spells. For example," he created a ball of flame in his hand, "this fire will not burn me while I'm channeling power into it. If i was to set the table alight however I would no longer be protected."

"This brings us to some basic safety rules; Don't try cast a spell unless you know exactly what it will do. And I don't want you using `Constant' until you have gotten used to feeling your magic. If you cast a spell that requires more power than you can supply it will start to drain your body. In some cases, this can be lethal."

He closed his hand, snuffing out the flames.

"How did you do that? I didn't see you write anything down"

"Hmm? That's why you should be very careful about casting spells you didn't write yourself. With practice you will get more familiar with a spell and will be able to get the same effect using less runes. Eventually, you can cast your most common spells without writing anything. This means a spell someone else has written may be missing important runes. A lot of magic users find that out the hard way."

As dad explained it, anybody could write a spells but only people who had magic could use them. There were exceptions of course. It was possible to store Magic in objects or devices that could then be used by others.

Apparently, this was actually a bit of a problem as it meant there was a large number of enchanted artifacts around that anybody could use. What's more If Magican used the same spell book for a long period it would slowly store a charge. The `scrolls of Merlin' were said to have so much magic stored in them that they couldn't even be handled safely.

Dad didn't go into too much detail as most of that was high magic theory and not something I needed to worry about for awhile yet.

Returning to the lesson, Dad quickly scribbled another spell. Rather than have me translate it, he asked me to close my eyes and focus power into it.

Doing as he asked, I felt the same pull from earlier. Dad explained it as the spell trying to draw on my magic.

"Now, this spell has no power runes, this means any magic you put in will immediately evaporate. For now, I want you to feed energy into it and see if you can feel the flow of your magic. when you are confident enough, try increasing or decreasing the flow. This is so you can learn how to cut off a spell if you need to."

Putting my hand over the spell, I felt the same pulling sensation as before. Pushing against it I could see the runes starting to light up but they never got beyond a dull glow. Closing my eyes, I tried to `feel' my magic.

After a while, Dad made me stop and take a break. It took me four attempts before I was able to feel it. It was impossible to describe, it felt like liquid fire was moving through my body and into the spell. By focusing on where I could feel the `drain' I found I could `push' against it, increasing the flow or pull to slow it. Stopping the flow all together was much harder and the effort left me breathless.

As I opened my eyes, Dad put a hand on my shoulder and smiled proudly

* * *

By the time we called it a night, my head was swimming in information and I decided to take a shower to help me relax.

Stripping down, I ignored my reflection in the small bathroom mirror. It wasn't big enough for me to see more than my face in and I would never get anything done if I kept stopping to stare at myself.

I gave the shower a minute to warm up before I stepped in but even so, the water was barely warm. Frowning at the dial, I realised it was at my usual temperature. Dad had said I was tougher now and that Succubi came from a hot world so I shouldn't be surprised.

Carefully turning the dial, I got the shower how I liked it. Washing my hair had always been a chore, it was my best feature and I went to pains to keep it looking nice. The addition of horns only made things worse.

Standing under the shower head, I was very much aware of the spray as it hit my body. Closing my eyes, I let the feelings wash over me as my hands explored my new appearance. My fingers brushed over the scales on my body and I wondered if they would need any special treatment. As my hands worked their way up, I could feel heat starting to pool between my legs and gently bit my lip to stifle the moan.

One hand ghosted across my breasts, catching a nipple and giving it a tweak, causing me to gasp. It seemed so bizarre for my scales to be so hard and my flesh so soft, and yet for the sensation to be almost the same, even as — I gasped. My hand had brushed across my nipple, and almost without my thought it returned, fingers rubbing and pulling at that little nub of flesh as my other hand slid back down again, across my stomach, down further —

Fuck! I held my breath, my mouth open as my fingers pried my folds apart, so soft and slick and —