Content Warnings

Uneven / hostile headmate dynamics
Fear of identity death
Remembering childhood trauma
Internalized pluralphobia
Gender dysphoria
Blood, violence, fire, stabbings, poisons, drownings, corpses, and death (you get the picture by now)

I’m not sure what I’m looking for, really.

Inside my own head like this; not just in my own thoughts, as I often am, but allowing myself to be wholly enveloped by them. It doesn’t feel like anything at first, inside myself. I need to call out to Fear, somehow. Find it. But there’s nowhere to search. There isn’t a here, here. For a moment, I think my worst fears realized—I’m truly nothing inside.

But this is my mind. If I need a ‘somewhere’ to find Fear within, then perhaps I could simply make somewhere. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

I need something neutral. A calming place, that can feel like a safe ground for negotiation. Something aromatic, peaceful—an exemplar of closeness. Like a tree on a hill, claimed, a little act of silly self-assertion against a tide of crushing weight. Surrounded by something simple and elegant—a field of white lilies, swaying gently in a breeze, leading up to a bump with that great oak atop it.

And before I know it, I’ve carved landscape out of thought. I’m standing now in a field of tall green grass and white flowers, feeling the flora brush against me as it settles like a calm sea. There’s an earthy, sweet scent in the air, grounding me. The hilltop where that oak tree rests is raised higher than my head in a gradual climb. The tree itself is wide with green-leafed branches, shading its surroundings from light-without-source, and its trunk is strong and healthy. And there’s nothing beyond, in the distance. Not some great unknown that I can’t possibly cross; nor some empty void. It just fades away into a foggy blanket. There’s only here. The sky is full of stars and a hanging moon, but it’s not the dark of night that contrasts them, but a teal-gray-green of shifting marble texture.

In this field of flowers, I get the sense I could do more. Maybe let itself form. But this will do for now. I march up the hill, arms crossed, and everywhere I walk the waving flowers parts for me.

She is…awake? But… where?

And as I crest the top, there it is. Sitting beside the oak tree, its back to me, a humanoid form waits.

Some field? No. Inside its head. It wasn’t expecting this. She’s a creature of razored intent, not introspection. Why is she here?

It doesn’t look how I expected. Lanky and pale like myself, long hair run through with grime and mess, and with dried blood all over its skin. It wears what looks like a jet black version of a familiar trench coat, eerily similar to Alabastra’s, overtop a long white dress.

If the mind this is, then there’s not to do but think. And think it can. Clearly. More so than its last outing. She is full of sweetest crimson and sharp-minded for it again. Strange. The surrounding space of this thought-formed place feels as if it would bend to her whims, if she wished it. It isn’t sure what she would ask for, if that is true.

I walk closer, and perhaps I will it into being, that my foot snaps on a twig—

She turns, startled by sudden movement.

It turns to look at me. Its face would be a more feminine version of my own—if I can even recall what I look like through the multiple layers of dissociation—were it not for the red dripping down its jaw, the exposed sinew at the sides of its cheeks. And the wild look in its eye.

There’s someone approaching. Him. It would know him anywhere. He wants to hurt her. To cage her. Its awful warden come to dole out punishment once more.

My approach elicits an angry snarl.

He looks different. In fact, he doesn’t look like… anything at all. Simply a blank, empty space. Nothing to shred, nothing to attack. He‘s empty. Though it recognizes him by intuition, he does not wear the body.

There’s a strange sense of vertigo when it looks at me. Like gravity might reverse at any minute and send me hurtling into the sky. For a moment the reality of what I’m doing strikes me and I feel as if I’ve lost my mind.

The non-space that constitutes the wretched controller with the dreaded name falters. She considers taking the chance to attack, but she cannot deny its curiosity. She wants to know more.

For a moment, we stare at one another. But I came here with a purpose. I’ve found it; and if this was dangerous, a folly all along, then so be it. I made a promise, and the only way out is through. I walk forward.

He approaches. Is… is she in danger?

But as I approach, Fear flinches. Is it scared of me? As I am of it? Nothing for it but to ask. ‘Fear? That is… you, correct?‘

‘How does the warden know that name?‘ Fear, unsure, backs away against the strange oak tree.

‘The warden’? I wasn’t aware that that particular way of thinking about myself spread to Fear to as well. ‘That is… a complicated story. And one I’m not sure I have time to divulge.‘

Fear arches her back. ‘Do not think it can be tricked.‘ Her mind is far too honed for that now. As daggered an implement as her claws.

I am becoming increasingly irked at that accusation. I take another step closer. ‘Fear, I am not here to trick you. I- er… we are in danger. And not from you or I.‘

‘She can handle danger.‘

She? I realize how ridiculous my surprise is upon reassessing… her. The form she’s taken. I wonder if that’s a recent development? And if I should be at all frustrated that the monster inside of me arrived at full self-actualization before I did.

Now that I think on it, in fact, I am curious what I look like in this space. And the second I have the thought, my mind shifts, and I’m looking at myself as if from a bird’s eye. I’m… the outline of a person. A null space. A walking absence in this imagined world. She is meat and blood and teeth and sinew—a body; and I am the absence in which she should fit.

I take a step away, horrified at the implication of such a thought.

The other one backs away again. Scared once more. It isn’t as glad for that as she’d think.

She’ll… she’ll truly subsume me. I’m empty; never anything more than the space she was waiting to fill.

Fear leans forward. It wasn’t sure it would feel this way with anyone but her huntre- Alabastra, but, she feels empathy for the vessel-warden with the dread name.

He is as unreal as she is. Maybe more so.

Ngh. Its—

My head. It absorbs a splinter of pain. Like I could more clearly feel it strain against the two people inside of it. Or… the two scraps of people that we are. And very briefly I feel like I heard its inner train of thought, and not just what it wanted communicated.

It hurts inside. And it feels the warden’s voice. Not… not him. Not anymore…?

She may overtake me, but there’s only one way to know. I came here with a goal, and if I fail, at least I’ll have tried. At least she can tell Alabastra that I tried. ‘Can I approach you?‘

They, and it will assume they are not him, ask so politely, but surely not out of kindness. These are learned, enforced manners. She thinks they should assert themself. ‘Yes.‘

I walk under the branches of the tree. The gentle motion in this place is just enough to be calming; alive without danger. Next to the vampire that has haunted my month, my years, I pat down at the ground, and sit beside her.

And it occurs to me that I have not a single clue how to start. ‘The form you take here is… interesting?‘

‘This is just how she looks.‘ She pieced itself together with scraps of memory clawed back through hard-won focus.

Perhaps I shouldn’t correct her on that. No need to send her spiraling. ‘I recognize that coat, you know.‘ She raises a brow. ‘It’s Alabastra’s.‘

‘Her huntress is known to them?‘

‘Huntress?‘ That’s a… fascinating wrinkle.

‘Alabastra, like the stars above. She is brilliant.‘ It swoons at the thought of her.

I roll my eyes. ‘She’s infuriating, is what she is.’

How dare they?!

Fear looks like that agitated her. Before she can retort I clarify. ‘In the best way, I concede. She pushes you. Inculcates a striving for more. For something better, or necessary. Like… like a plant turned newly heliotropic—following necessary sunlight as it sets through a window.‘

She stares at the not-warden. ‘They are too wordy.‘

A little laugh parts from me. ‘I know…‘

We sit under the branches for a moment, silently taking in this place of half-formed dream and memory. We can’t take too much time, but for now, it’s… comforting. Homely. The alter-ego I’ve been so terrified of shifts on her weight, gripping the skirt of her dress in self-comfort. I pull the bundle of antimatter that constitutes my unself’s knees to the approximation of my chest.

And we watch the lilies sway.

Fear is quite certain that she’s never done this. Just… stopped. Stopped and stared and looked upon the world. Took in its surroundings for more than just advantage, more than just purpose. Something deeper than function. Beauty. Peace. Before, on its nightly hunts, there was never a reason to care about these things. Yet here it is, watching and wanting and caring.

There’s still the stalemate. It must be broken if we’re to have a chance. ‘Fear…‘ And then I feel a touch ridiculous. ‘Is… is there any other name I could refer to you as? ‘Fear’ just seems so—’

‘It pulled this name from the depths of bloody blackened intent and forged herself anew in the ichor. They will refer to her as Fear and only Fear.‘

‘Well a simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.‘ There’s a kernel of truth there, beyond her words. ‘You mentioned intent, and… purpose.‘ At least, I think she mentioned ‘purpose’. I don’t know that I heard her say as much, so much as it just feels true.

‘Its mandate. To rend the world, to cause terror.‘

She’s referring to the urges? Tegan’s told her she was simply an animal. I believed mine were simply related to hunger. It seems it went deeper for Fear. ‘You’re saying… beyond the hungers, you were inundated with a drive to cause pain? To frighten people?‘

It nods.

Perhaps as a result of Lyla’s especial paranoia concerning me— er, us? ‘But, I don’t understand. Why would the urges—her spell, or false disaster—manifest as… you?‘

The wind picks up, conjured by Fear. She’s realizing that she has control here, too. And she snarls at the ignorant maybe-warden. They want to justify her existence. So that they can find a reason to send it away again. ‘Does it matter? She pulled herself together, forged herself out of all that was forgotten, and gave herself new life. She’s here now, and the body is as much hers.‘

And finally, I force myself to contend with the whole truth. Alabastra was right. Fear really is a… whole, entire person. Perhaps she was always here, part of me; waiting to show herself, finally awakened now. Maybe she even came before me, somehow, and I took over and ruled like some jealous petty despot. Or, maybe she’s more recent than that, created like a patchwork out of all my discarded scraps. Maybe she’s right that it doesn’t matter.

Because any which way, the end result is the same. Controlled, prepared, and sedated, needing everything to make sense, pulling everyone else down into my pit of misery like it might vindicate that hate. In all my melancholy and self-loathing, I imposed a cage around her. Or around myself, and she rose from inside it. I came here looking for the dark thing inside of me? I should have brought a mirror. I… ‘I really am a monster.‘

It didn’t realize how deeply she felt the same—until she heard them say it. Because she, too, was monstrous. Hungry, hungry, always so hungry. Though it was never her choice, she hurt people. She can’t take that back. It wasn’t real yet. But now it is, and she can’t take it back. And remorse enters her heart.

And though she doesn’t share those thoughts, I feel them all the same. Like a bleed through broken skin. ‘Did you come from outside our mind? Or… do you think we were one, once?‘

She shrugs. She isn’t sure, either. In some ways it feels like the second, but not in a total truth. Her parts and pieces falling through cracks in the floor, dropping into black water.

I think back to the limit of how far the watch could cast my memory back. ‘What about our earlier childhood memories? Did you end up with those?‘

To that, she nods an affirmative. ‘Pieces and bits. Pleasant and unpleasant.‘ She’s tough. She can handle the unpleasant ones. ‘She picked up what was cast aside.‘

At least they’re are somewhere, I suppose. ‘And the… the people you’ve hurt? Those instances of hunger I’ve had through my life—the loss of control. Was that you?‘

‘She remembers feeling desperate. Drowning. Clawing at any chance to get free.‘

And that’s as fair an answer as I could expect. It all comes back to my faults, doesn’t it? Would any of this have even happened if I’d just never existed at all? If it was always just Fear? She’s defined herself around ferality and blood-hunger, but looking at how far she’s managed to come in the short time she’s gotten to live—how could she not have fared better? Maybe that’s how Lyla’s spell slid its knife so deep in the first place. My failure to ever start living.

The only thing mooring me after such a thought is a promise made in a cavern. Maybe Alabastra will want nothing to do with me after hearing what I did to myself. Or, Fear. Agh. This is too confusing.

But, no. No. More than just my promise. She’s been insistent that I not admonish myself for every mistake, and she’s right to. I can’t keep spiraling. I’ve been terrible to myself, to this newfound other half of mine, but there’s no way forward if I just keep looking back.

They’ve stopped talking, only staring off into the distance of this place. Fear clears her throat.

R-right. We’re running out of time. We need to fix this. ‘Do you remember an encounter with a sorceress woman? One who wielded light magic?’

Fear casts her memory back across the frayed thread of time and murky thought. There’s something familiar in the dark shadow of the call. ‘It thinks… there was a woman. Her touch was like fire, and her words were empty hopes and coiled threats.‘ She, or perhaps we, were so small and frail under the glowing gaze of cruel healers. ‘We had no recourse but escape. Violent and desperate.‘

As Fear speaks, it’s like I can feel the echoes of emotion drifting off her words, like the spilled blood I’d encountered of Alabastra’s in the Ethereal Realm, only realer. We’re sharing. And though there are some parts of us that are still too colossal to see in full, I believe I can behold enough of the picture.

There were no lies in Lyla’s claims—but like everything else, her perspective was skewed. We were a starving and panicked child, and if she tried to banish some darkness within us, she only succeeded in causing harm. Of course we fought back. History’s just repeated itself.

But it doesn’t have to. ‘Fear, listen. Those urges, that mandate. It isn’t real, it’s— that sorceress. She conjured it. She made you feel those things because she thought that’s all we were—violent, and hungry. But she’s wrong. You don’t have to listen to it.‘

Furiously, she shakes her head, like she’s been cornered again. In truth, if she allows herself to think—and here, full of blood, next to someone she once hated, she can—then she can see how little she even wants to hurt anyone. She enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, but excitement doesn’t have to mean cruelty. She thinks any abject malice was just the mandate speaking. But she wrapped those impulses around herself like a blanket, and made them her exoskeleton—where is she without that clarion call?

That terrible pressure toward violence—it feels to her like a shard of glass, that it has wrapped within its fist so tightly, that it staunches the bleeding it causes. What happens when she lets go?

There’s only one other person here to ask who might have some answers. It shouldn’t trust them, but she has no choice. And maybe… it wants to.

‘If she doesn’t follow the mandate, then what happens to it? Does she disappear?‘

It almost seems that Fear wants to listen to the urges. Why would she not? She’s scared of losing herself. For a moment, I look upon her and understand her worries. A level of sympathy I didn’t realize I was capable of. I wonder if this is how Alabastra feels, all of the time.

And I realize that I know exactly what we need. I just need to be brave. ‘You won’t. Fear, you will never go away again. You’ll get to be your own person. I promise.‘

‘Why should it believe them?‘

‘Because if you don’t, we’re both dead. And because I know I hurt you— hurt us both.‘ My un-face meets her bloodshot eyes. ‘We can make this work. In tandem.‘

‘She wants to be herself.‘

That’s a relief. I didn’t do all of this to not self-actualize. I’d rather share than disappear. ‘So do I. We can… cohabit. Separate—together. Keep each other in stable orbit.‘

Such a change of heart for someone so cruel. Can she believe them? ‘Do they truly want to?‘ She stares into the void. ‘Are they still him?‘

‘No. I’ll never be him again.‘

‘Then we can be a girl?‘

‘I—…‘ I’m still working on that.

An expected cowardice. ‘They hesitate.‘

‘I have been strongly considering it, I assure you—‘

‘Considering? Years in the body and the best they can do is consider?‘

‘Those years were not without strife. I have experienced setbacks on this topic in the past, I simply want to ensure—‘

‘They can’t even say it. They are a girl, are they not?‘

‘W-when accounting for the likelihood of—‘

‘No more hedging!‘

‘I just—‘

‘Why won’t they admit it already?!‘

‘Because I’m afraid!‘

And that’s done it. The second the admission leaves me, I collapse, feeling myself sob without tears.

‘I’m… I’m afraid. I’m just so terrified, all the time. Of myself. Of not deserving this, I— Of-of anything I try coming back to bite me again. It just keeps happening. I’m terrible. I’ve-I’ve been terrible for so long. I’m horrified I’ll prove myself right again. I’m sorry.‘

They are weeping, now. And its head starts to buzz again. Its considered them an adversary, resented them. But now it just sees someone as broken as her.

They never wanted to harm it, did they? Harm them both. It wonders if they could have even helped themself, or if they were too shattered to do so.

And an inexplicable urge takes her. If they can’t be strong enough on their own, then she’ll carry the torch. They wanted to protect them both by hiding away. If they succeeded, who can say? But it doesn’t matter anymore. Because now it’s Fear’s turn to protect. She reaches over, and wraps her arms around its other self.

She throws herself around me, and it draws the sobs out louder. I think it burns, a moment, until I realize that’s just what warmth feels like when you’ve been cold so long. My hands pull around her. And we’re two people in one mind, embracing after years of a long armistice, and finally there is peace over the rafters.

‘I don’t want to hurt us anymore.‘

And in the places of non-space Fear touches, she feels the barrier as permeable. Passable. 

It wants to trust them—that it can be more than the need to harm. It sounds too good to be true, but if they can work together?

‘We can be more than what they made us.‘

And finally, I think I believe it.

And through that barrier, she pulls something free from the void. Skin and blood and muscle and bone. Ripped free from nothing, made physical and organic. And she forms in its arm.

I feel more solid suddenly. Realer than I was. And I’m… covered in blood? Though it’s just in my head, I feel for the first time in a very long time that feeling I’d made myself forget. ‘It’s like I can breathe.‘

‘Like… wind in your hair?‘

‘Like a bushel in bloom.‘

‘Or running downhill. Filling a starving stomach. Like… a caress.‘

All of it. I understand. ‘I… think I’m alive?‘

‘She has what she needs?‘

And that breath catches. We’re two minds in one body without a soul, and if we’ve broken the rules of what alive means, then so be it—because we are alive. ‘I do.‘

‘Good.‘ She stands, and helps her other to her feet. ‘Then let’s make sure we don’t lose it again.‘

In that space I made for the two of us, finally, there is reconciliation. Understanding. Commitment. And then there’s just light.

* * *

I… she… we come to, in the broom closet she- I, was in before. We’re out of breath and shaking, and I wipe at the puffy wetness that’s soaked under our eyes, wild and manic, because we’re here, and we’re together, and I’m alive.

And finally, finally, finally—the hungers are gone. Not just arrested, but evaporated. Solved. It’s… it’s over! The aching in our stomach, it’s vanished, swept out to sea, and there’s nothing left to compel us.

The call, too. Gone. But she’s still here.

Good to hear.

That connection with Fear, forged in a tender moment, has taken root inside of us. It’s all still real and fresh and I feel exposed and cracked open, but that bridge between is stable and ready for either of us to cross. Who knows what else could pass through it, what that… even means for us. But there’ll be time enough to discover that, assuming we survive.

There is, after all, the divinely empowered fascist to deal with.

I’m still in control, with Fear alert and ready. I turn and press our head against the door. There’s fighting and stomping and rage-filled roaring outside. Whatever, ugh, Paella did, she continues to keep Lyla distracted. If we’re lucky, we won’t need to turn and fight at all.

But I’m not betting on it.

We draw the sword together, and I give us some last minute preparations; every last trick I had prepared in my satchel, to grant us an edge. A stamina draught, a check over our healing stocks. And more. I do have one plan, and it’s all in the groundwork. And I finish right on time, as the fighting dies with a final screaming spell that heralds itself with a whine though the cavern. There’s an eerie silence, before the flapping of angelic wings, still ringing with holy magic.

Fear puts a hand on the wheel, and attempts to blanket us in shadow… but nothing happens.

W-what?!

Ah. Shadow magic, and a mandate from a sorceress of light. I have a hypothesis, but I almost wish I didn’t.

Those magics—I think they were never ours. We were nothing but… but a puppet, dancing on Lyla’s strings. Not but her shadow. Now that we’ve claimed ourselves, I believe we’ve lost access to that twisted connection she accidentally forged—and the abilities that came with.

Well. Fear hates this.

I’m not a fan, either. Though the source was detestable, this does lower our odds, I will admit. But I still believe in us.

It doesn’t matter. We’ll make do without. We have each other—that has to be enough.

I feel a calm cast over my other half.

Then allow her the reins.

By all means.

And she bursts from the door.

The garden beyond is cast in artificial light from park lampposts down the walkways in winding parallels to the river. There’s blood in the air; it can sense it like a shark to chummed waters. Those magics are all theirs, it seems—a gift of vampirism. She spots a corpse or two, of men in shiny black armor, recently dead from massive clawed lacerations of some colossal predator. Fear smiles; she’ll always respect a fellow hunter.

Behind a garden wall, she crouches and spots their pursuer. Golden wings, golden hair, golden magic… but her heart is stained.

Stay out of the way of her magic—sunlight will hurt us.

It is aware.

Just… just making sure.

She rolls our eyes.

Above them, the woman’s voice booms loud enough to shake rocks loose from the ceiling, “Where did it go?! Show yourself you— you shape-bending monstrosity!”

It repositions the blade around the hilt, twirling once, assessing her options.

How many times must it strike?

Theoretically even just once should work, if you strike deep enough—but the more you do, the sooner this ends. I’d aim for thrice.

Three times, and the bell tolls. She can do that.

It creeps low and silent, dipping from shadow to shadow, not with magic, but with a killer’s stalking. Any others in this chamber are evacuated or slaughtered; there’s only a hunter’s dance, and this woman is no hunter. Only full of hate. Closer, closer, inch-by-inch, it stays out of her flying eyesight, as the sorceress darts in nervous bursts from place to place. Something has clearly rankled her.

Fear reaches her quarry—not the angel, but a lowly corpse, dead in the grass. The freshly spilled blood is splattered over the green in a perfect clash of color. And it concentrates. The blood is pulled from the dead man’s veins, dehydrating the corpse and leaving it mummified. He wasn’t using it anymore, anyways. The blood pools around it in a swirl, and sticks to it like a coat—

No, not the shirt it’s new— Ugh, Gods, you’re already doing it.

With its crimson mantle donned, it weaves a bloody glyph, lines up the glowing red runes with the woman, and waits for her to stop.

“You accursed, disgusting monsters, crawling out of every crack in the earth—show yourself!”, she shouts at the darkness. Mortals, screaming at that which they don’t comprehend.

Fear will never understand it. Doesn’t she realize yet? She’s just food. That’s all anyone is, really—Fear included. She shakes her head, pulls her sword through the circling runes, and pulls back like a slingshot. And right before she fires, she realizes that the sword is familiar. The very same it slaughtered the clan of warriors with in the hotel.

Ah. That’s why they held onto it?

Alabastra?

And Faylie and Tegan.

The mage and the knight.

They’re sentimental sorts. You’ll like them.

She’s already fond.

And the sword launches through the air, buffeted by bloody magic in a makeshift projectile. It sticks deep into the sorceress’s midsection.

The woman screams, wings buffeting her once as she briefly falls out of the sky. It creeps closer, following the sounds of wailing prey. It doesn’t get nearly close enough. The woman conjures a torrent of light it only barely notices in time, and she ducks under a wide arc of light that scythes the local flora in half, and lights the garden around it in a scorch of fire.

In a parkland lit ablaze, crackling flame around it at every angle, she crawls along the ground to avoid the smoke. Above the licking trails of fire, she just hears the sound of a piece of metal excised from a body. The sorceress is not a hunter, but it will give her what’s due—she’s tenacious.

Wings lift her back into the air somewhere above us. And Fear hears a chuckle. “Ah-ah. There you are, darling!”

She looks up to see an angel bringing holy wrath upon our undead form.

Its bloody jacket unfolds into flowing tendrils, that pull us along the floor with unnatural speed. The dripping blood evaporates into clouds of red where it hits the fire, but pulls it out of the line of danger, as the sorceress’s spell erupts behind it. It stumbles back to its feet and runs.

The woman is too fast, too formidable; it sticks to the smoke, its only hope of breaking her sight. With an arm over its eyes to keep them from burning, it follows her nose.

We need to get her out of the sky!

It IS AWARE!

Well don’t be churlish with me!

A trap. It must lay a trap.

It darts through the smoke to another corpse, conveniently ripped in-half already. Potion-wrought unnatural alacrity lets it leap into the branches of a nearby tree to avoid a direct hit of sunlight. And she waits.

The angelic woman announces to the burning garden, “To think, I once thought that all it would take to make the wicked see the light was love. In the absence of a more civilized approach, it seems we’re reduced to speaking the one language all creatures understand… power.”

Keep talking…

“I reserve now my love for those who deserve it. I will save my country from the likes of lying fiends like you.” She floats next to the tree, and begins to conjure once more.

But Fear’s ready for her. The blood of the torn body below erupts in a geyser, directly under the sorceress, and ichorous chains wrap around her. They drag her out of the air like an anchor. Fear somersaults off the tree and dives for its sword in the center of the ring of fire, swipes it, and darts back again. The woman writhes upon the ground just long enough for it to deliver its second slash deep across her midsection. The vampire unfurls its jaw to put horror into her heart.

Perhaps the last was too far, as the woman explodes in light.

Fear is thrown from the explosion, feeling a burning everywhere over its form, and scrambles desperate for cover. She turns their head over the other side of the pillar, and concentrates on the Blessed to keep the blood chains wrapped and binding her glowing wings. It’s the best she can do with what she has. The crimson sinks into the feathers, solidifying in a calcified crystal.

Ducking back around, she turns to the body, letting the blood flowing through them stitch and suture the burn wounds that have opened along their skin. Then it has a thought.

Whose blood is this?

I apologize, I am still recovering from the fact that you UNHINGED OUR JAW.

Ugh. Does she ever stop complaining?

I heard that.

Regenerated as it needs to continue her hunt, she crawls further up the pillar. Just one more strike. Fear reaches the top and peers down. The woman’s wings have been clipped—now they glow a piercing red under the dried blood, ossified and useless. To compensate, she surrounds herself in a barrier of gold, likely impenetrable.

But not untrickable. The Blessed would let down her guard to go on the offensive. Fear just needs to give her something to shoot at. The vampire reaches out to the last of the corpses, drawing blood from its shredded limbs. It will only get one chance at this.

The blood swirls in a snaking river across the floor until its close enough to reasonably be where Fear might have been. She forms it into a semi-constructed simulacrum of their body. Even a simpleton would only be fooled momentarily.

A moment is all she needs.

She sends her bloody replica forth.

It all happens at once, in the blink of an eye. The duplicate slashes once with an un-harmful arc. The sorceress lets down her barrier to banish the sudden attacker. Fear drops from the ceiling. It stabs deep through her shoulder blade. A final burst of light sunders the clone and launches Fear across the room in one swoop.

We collide with a lamppost, bending the metal and feeling a rain of glass upon our form. Fear braces against the landing. Our body aches in every corner, and its resources are exhausted, but it’s done it. Three strikes, like that game humans enjoy.

She doesn’t have enough blood left over to heal the wounds.

That’s alright. I’ll take it from here.

And Fear all but collapses in a corner of our mind. She did so well, and she’s still here. But I have it handled.

Laying onto our back, I take a healing potion and drink deep. And I use the sword like a cane to stand ourself up. In the distance, I see Lyla stalking once more. She uses her radiant magic to heal off the wound, as she had before. Then she spots me. I hold up a hand, only half expecting her to actually stop.

But she does, if only to gloat, “It’s pointless, darling. I drink from as never-ending a font as that portal behind me. No mark you mar me with can truly wound me for long.”

“I know.” And I reposition the sword, holding it now in the way Tegan taught me. And then I tilt the blade downward, and a single drop of viscous, black material drips off the edge. “That’s why I poisoned the blade.”

A little trick I learned from my first test, the night Grace was attacked—healing magic accelerates toxins in the system. I may not have had any Subduant left, but an alchemist can fashion a poison out of just about anything, really. It’s all in the dose.

And Lyla Serrone starts to retch.

“You could try to extract it, of course, but you won’t do so quick enough without taking quite a bit of blood with it.” I gesture behind me, at the burning and bloodied battle we’ve left this garden. “And between here and our spat downstairs, you’ve already lost too much. Not even you can heal what isn’t there anymore. So pick your poison, really.”

She falls to her knees, grasping her throat, slowly losing her ability to breathe. Her hands briefly light with magic, assumedly trying to pull at the poison in her veins, but it only elicits a visible shock of horrid pain over her. “You… you monster. Disgusting vampire… you don’t know what you’ve done. I would damn you to the hells, but you’re already cursed!”

I look down at our hands, covered in gifts from people I can’t deny that I love, here because I had the good fortune to live outside the tiny world this woman would impose. And though it’s not without hardships; I can’t find a single reason to believe that this feeling, this finally unhooked barb pulled out my heart, isn’t worth all of it. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach Alabastra’s conviction of good fortune, but I don’t think I need to.

Because it’s not ill fortune, either. Nothing so cosmic, or decided. It’s not a disease. It’s just me. It was always just me. Just us. I put a tender finger to our fangs, and affirm what I should have known all along. “This was never a curse.”

Her hand sticks out to fire another beam of light, but the magic fizzles out in her palm, unable to concentrate past her imminent demise; inches from a portal offering an endless stream of lifegiving waters that can do nothing for her.

She should finish her off. No risks.

That would be the practical thing to do, of course. Yet. The blade suddenly feels heavy in my hand. She claws at herself in pain, eyes starting to bulge from her skull, and… no. I have to believe ourself capable of more than just danger.

We can’t let it end this way.

Don’t pity her. Dozens have died already. And the sorceress would have done the same.

But this is different. She’s already beaten—she might still realize her folly.

Is she so naive? Mercy won’t change the sorceress. She doesn’t deserve it.

Probably not, no. But neither did we.

She made us a murderer… She won’t forgive her.

I’m not asking you to. And neither will I. But you said it yourself—we can be more than she made us.

“Lyla.” I take a step closer, sheathing the sword. “This doesn’t have to be the end. I could still save you. But I would require something in return.” And I have her attention. “I don’t care about an apology. But I would need you to undo what you’ve done here. Put a stop to the storm. Truly help the people you’ve hurt, grant them reparation. Advocate against the Lupines—assist us in ensuring that the world they want will not come to be.

“Yours would be an influential voice in such a struggle. You might still make it better. If you can promise me all of that… If you can put your pride away—I will devise an antidote.”

Of course, I already know what she’ll say. My conditions would mean admitting she was wrong. Too much pride. But on the off-chance she doesn’t; it’s not simply wishful thinking or mawkish sentiment. She truly could turn the social tide, make things better. This is practical. Optimistic, yes, but pragmatic, too. Just in longer terms than simple survival.

And I would fairly confidently predict that poison in her system has already done enough—she’s helpless. The worst she can do is say no and die—

The blood holding her wings erupts. They spring out and she charges us. She scoops a piece of sharp glass from the floor and stabs it into our chest and it fucking burns.

FEAR!

SHE TAKES CONTROL. The woman has them pinned to the ground, forcing them into the bank right next to the swirling whirlpool. She claws at them, along the face and the chest, pulling at her other half’s satchel. Fear pushes the woman off of them with a kick and throws her backwards, end-over-end into the churning waters.

And I switch back in.

The rush-rapid current spins around the massive pool, sucking inward to the portal at the center. Lyla is carried in a spiral through its current. “The… the Gods… they will protect me… they will—” And then she’s pulled under.

My hands go to our center. She took my satchel!

And a dagger of broken glass sticks from our chest.

My throat start to choke up at the pain. We’re alone. We have nothing left to heal us. And it is bleeding a not-insignificant amount. I do what I can to pack it, to staunch the blood loss, but it burns, and I’m getting woozy. The world starts to spin, the exhaustion and the pain and the utter weight of it all.

No. She doesn’t want to die. Do something!

I… I tried. I feel my head hit the dirt. There’s just me and Fear, bleeding in the garden. And I don’t want her to be afraid. It’s alright, Fear.

Everything’s going to be alright.

* * *

If these were my last moments, what would I have left behind?

An inherited apothecary, never mine, cared for like it was. Or maybe it was. Maybe the act of motherly love was always enough to make it mine.

People I hurt, that I deserved to hate myself for. Or maybe I would have found it easier to tell them I was sorry. To make things better. Maybe I could have unburnt those bridges, not let myself live in misery.

A trio I nearly saved myself for. Or maybe I did. I tried as hard as I could, for her. I just wish I could have done more.

My other half, damned with me. Or maybe saved. At least we got to live, even if it wasn’t for long.

The abilities of an alchemist, without ever changing anything. But I did, didn’t I? I saved Alabastra, many times over. And maybe one day she’ll save the world because of it. If anyone could, it’s her.

I didn’t dare hope, or have ambition. I tried to force myself to remember a dream, but I could have dreamt all along.

And so, in what may be my last moments, we do just that. We dream.

We dream of a world that worked, that didn’t force barbs inside of us to keep us from wandering off-course.

We dream of friends, and family, and love. We dream of making it right to Lainey Sedgwick, of a happier day with Alabastra Camin, and Faylie Nevis, and Tegan of Drywater.

We dream of good food, and good hunts, and good people, making this city we hate and love better bit by bit.

We dream of dancing under starlight.

Maybe that’s enough.

* * *

And before it gets too dark, I shoot up, coughing and spitting up the liquid that fell down the wrong pipe. We’re shivering, from the liquid poured over our midsection. A cherry-red liquid, made in my own shop just a few weeks ago.

All from the same familiar bottle, held by a familiar hand, belonging to a familiar girl with a familiar grin.

“Oh, thank fuck“, says Alabastra Camin, as she wraps herself around us. “You fucking asshole.” She’s sobbing.

And Faylie and Tegan are quick behind, forcing a group hug upon us, huddled. Safe and healed. Partially, anyways. That hole in my chest is still knitting itself back together. It is not a pleasant feeling. “A-another“, I manage, throat sore.

As Faylie scrambles through her bottomless bag, Tegan holds out a hand, and the golden light that would have doomed us just a moment, or what might have been a moment, ago, now speeds along the suturing, the twisting reknitting of split sinew and fat and muscle and skin.

“You’re gonna be alright”, says our stalwart knight.

Beside her, Faylie produces another potion, and we drink it down to be safe. “Holy shit we really… really thought…” She wipes under her eye with her wrist, and then gives us a sugary smile. “Well. Doesn’t matter. Hi.” And strangely, she performs a small wave of her hand.

Slowly, in a parody of motion, I wave back. “Hi.”

Then I look around. The fires have died down to a low smolder, and there’s no one else but us here. The cavern still smells like burnt grass and mildew and blood, and the night sky beyond doesn’t look so different. It hasn’t been long. And longer and I may have been gone. They were right on time.

“Alabastra?”, I venture, still collecting myself.

“Yeah?”

I meet her gaze, with a hand run through our hair. “Never let me be optimistic again.”

She punches us in the shoulder. “Sourpuss.”

The others don’t look any worse for wear, despite whatever means they took to get here. Which, speaking of… “How did you…”, I begin, hoping they pick up my meaning.

Faylie starts to ramble, “Well, we wanted to follow you the way you came in, but that hole was way too high up and weird and small and we couldn’t climb it or teleport so we had to run like so fast through the entire tunnel network and there are way too many tunnels here. Like I’m pretty sure this hill is eighty-percent tunnel.”

Alabastra adds, “I’m just glad we made it.” Then she follows my sight, to the burns and the bodies. “Though… seems like we missed the party?”

My eyes roll. “Most of this was not my doing, I assure you.” Not that Fear would have minded if it was. “I… think it was Paella’s, in fact.”

“Makes sense.” It really doesn’t. She seems to notice my confusion. “Told her to get to this place the second I saw Serrone take ya.” And that just raises more questions than it answers. “Where… is that little rascal anyways?”

“Who knows.” I shrug, then finish explaining, “And Lyla… she disappeared beyond the water portal. Very likely dead.” Unless the finer details of her prophecy includes how to work a makeshift alchemy kit, she’s not making that antidote herself. Never mind the endless oceans where she’s headed, which means she’s either swimming until she drowns, or is drowned already. “She would… need a miracle.”

The rogue looks less convinced. “Let’s put that down as a hard maybe.”

Then she hugs us again, drawing another wave of comfort from her girlfriends as well, and we sit like that a moment. The tension starts to fade away, and I realize how absolutely exhausted I am. We have been put through the wringer. A small chuckle leaves me into Alabastra’s shoulder.

And like it’s just now hit her, she maneuvers around, grabbing us by the shoulders. “Moodie… you fuckin’ did it!“

Exactly which ‘it’ she means is anyone’s guess. I don’t care to ask. I have larger concerns.

I open my mouth to correct her. And stop. It’s… a big decision. I’ve faced a woman of divine prominence and this still feels like the scariest thing I have ever done. Perhaps… perhaps I don’t need to tonight, it can wait for a better moment, or—

Do it or she’ll do it for you.

Fine!

And for the third time in my life, I say it, but only now, finally, do I want it to stick. “If… if it would not be too much trouble… Could you… Ah. M… My name. Not Moodie, anymore. But… Marlowe. C-call me… Marlowe, please.”

The Gods and their champion have not a single thing on the smile on Alabastra’s face, decorated with teary eyes. “Marlowe…“, she says, sickly sweet, and it sounds like a song on her tongue. Before, when I’d blundered, it just made me blush and bluster; now it’s like another wound just closed. Who knew your own name was supposed to sound so good? “Marlowe!”, she says it again, and starts to shake us.

“Okay! Okay…”

And still hugging me, Tegan timbres, “N-nice to, uh… meet you again, Marlowe.” I can hear the rouge in her cheeks.

Alabastra says, “And, just to make sure, this the whole kit n’ kaboodle? The ‘she’ and the ‘her’ and the ‘girl’, ‘lady’, ‘vampress’?”

‘Vampress’ is terrible, but… “Y-yes. All of it.” And I stare a moment longer, and rotate my hand forward. “Go ahead. Say you knew all along. You earned it.”

She tilts her head, and considers.

But stealing the moment before she can, Faylie chirps, “I’ll do you one better, Marlowe!” And from her bag she produces a bottle of champagne, bought alongside a bribe, and POPS the cork. The bubbling liquid spills slightly onto her lap, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“That’s what you were saving that for?”, I say.

Faylie’s head nods, then her deer ears flop down. “Oh, um. We don’t have glasses, though. Ha-ha.” And she tilts the bottle back, about to drink.

Alabastra catches it, tilting it back down. “Ah-ah-ah. New girl gets the first swig. She earned it.”

Each referral is electric. Gods dammit, I could have been feeling this the whole time?

Why did no one tell me?

It’s going to strangle her.

Metaphorically.

Probably.

The faun hands me the bottle, and I turn it once in my-our hand. “I… don’t really drink champagne—”

“Marlowe“, Alabastra chastises.

I give her another eye roll, and take a swig. It’s bubbly and light and burns just a little, but it’s worth it. And as I hand the glass back to Faylie I make something clear. “Now… don’t exactly expect me to change too drastically.”

“Of course not”, says the rogue.

“I’m not suddenly going to become all sunshine and roses.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I won’t be giggling or skipping or smiling anytime soon.”

Alabastra chortles, and she holds her fingers up in a this-much motion. “Maybe a few smiles?”

My gaze scans back to the ground, and I have to control the one threatening to burgeon through now. “Maybe.” And since I’m revealing information. “There’s… something else you should know, too. I’m… not alone in here? Fear is here, too.”

Her brow raises. “As in…?”

“It’s… all still a little confusing, I will admit. She’s… separate from me. We’ve, I suppose, agreed to share. Though I believe she’s content to keep to the back for less intensive or day-to-day runnings of the body, if that makes sense?”

“Does she, y’know, remember me?” There’s a hopeful lilt to her voice.

She would never forget.

And Fear shares a torrent of emotions through me, thoughts and feelings, memories of every shared encounter the two have had while I was under. A fight, a plan, gently being held and—

I blush.

You… you KISSED her?!

Yes…? We should do it again.

N-no!

Tyrant.

Unbelievable.

We are going to have a prolonged discussion about this later!

“Marlowe?”, asks Alabastra.

I shake our head. “R-right. Apologies, that may continue to happen even more frequently, now. But, yes, she remembers you, but we have agreed to… come to decisions as a team from now on. It’s still on shaky ground, I don’t— don’t have all of the correct words to articulate—”

“Hey! That’s alright. You don’t gotta figure out everything in one night.” And thank the Gods, she doesn’t bring up the… the thing she and Fear did. I wipe my brow.

Faylie passes the bottle over to Tegan, already seeming woozy. “And, um, are ya still hungry?”, the quickly-drunk faun asks.

“No”, I say. “I have some theories on the precise nature of why they’re gone, but I am so very tired and will explain it later.”

“Fair ’nuff.” She yawns. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

And though it mostly is; I look to Tegan, now drinking from the bottle in large chugs. The wolf ears stay atop her head, her tail still swishes behind her. Our fangs still won’t diminish, not that we’d even want them to anymore, and I imagine our reflection hasn’t returned, either.

I look to Alabastra. “What about the storm?”

She snaps her fingers. “Oh, right we didn’t letcha know—it fuckin’ vanished. Died down. We saw it from a tunnel higher up while we were climbin’. It’s gone.”

Interesting. Yet nevertheless, the changes they wrought remain.

“And the other afflicted? The Gloamwoods, the Lupines, the Sables?”

“The Gloamwoods are cleanin’ up the rest of the bozos for us. No tellin’ what that looks like, but I guess we’ll find out soon.” Then she looks forlorn for a moment. “Think sunset might’ve still hit the rest while they were escaping. Loose end to tie up.”

Then that’s confirmed it. Though they started in her own mind, her own paranoia, it seems whatever Lyla Serrone brought into the world doesn’t quite so easily die with her. There’s quite a bit of cleanup to do, yet. And even beyond the storm, there’s the political ramifications. She spread those worries into the world, and I can’t imagine that hatred dies any less furiously than she did.

But that’s a problem for tomorrow. Or, maybe later this week. Faylie is moments from passing out from her own magical exhaustion, and we’re not feeling much further behind her. In fact, I think Fear is already asleep, mentally, and we still have a long walk home.

Tegan passes the bottle to her first lover, and Alabastra drinks it once, quick and messy. She wipes her mouth with her coat sleeve, and stands. Our leader issues her final order for the night, “Well, ladies, we better get a move on.”

‘Ladies’. No addendums. I could get used to that. “You read our mind.” I stand with her. “Let’s go home.”

She grimaces a moment. “Yeah—if only savin’ the city saved our housing prospects, huh? Guess we’ll bunk up with Kansis again?”

And I’ve already come to a decision on this front, long before this moment. But I’m going to savor being on the other side of this, for once. “What do you mean? We’re all going to the same place.”

Alabastra double-takes. “Wait-wait-wait, you’re good with us stayin’ with you tonight?”

I cross my arms, and stare. “No.” And before she has time to turn glum, I clarify, “I am ‘good’ with you staying… every night.”

Now she’s serious. “Hold up. You’re not implying what I think you’re implying, Ms. Marlowe Bromley, are you?”

“It’s… an awfully empty apartment with just one tenant—”

Faylie interrupts, “Ohmygodsohmygodsohmygods no fucking way!”

And Tegan adds, “Marlowe, what?! That’s… you can’t be serious, right?”

But Alabastra isn’t excited. She’s starstruck. “Marlowe. You don’t— you know you don’t have to do that just ‘cus we helped ya out, right? You don’t owe us anything.” Though she’s hedging, there’s a sincerity, or a tempered kind of joy, at the back of her tongue.

“I know”, I say. “I’m not doing this because I owe you. I’m doing this because I want to. I did all of this for a future—and I cannot imagine a future without the three of you in it. And obviously the easiest way to ensure that comes to be, is to make sure your needs are met, so, why not?”

“You’re… you’re not joking.”

And here’s the punchline. “Use your Insight.”

She stares, but nods, hanging on my words.

“You have a home with me.”

“HOLY SHIT!” She nearly knocks us off our feet with the hug she’s just forced around us, once again joined by her girlfriends. I’m almost starting to grow tired of these. Almost. And she sobs into our shoulder, for once.

I let her have her moment. With a pat on her back, I continue, “Now, I do have some ground rules. Obviously I won’t be asking for rent, or anything resembling rent, but I do expect you to be courteous roommates.”

“Of course, of course—”

“And I won’t ask for your help around the shop—that would be extracting your labor, and I am aware of how you feel about that. But I do still run a business, hopefully, so I would ask that you do your utmost to not bring your less-than-lawful affairs to our doorstep. Obviously exceptions can be made—”

She squeezes tighter around our form. “Best behavior, Marlowe. Honest to Runo.” And thankfully she unravels herself before she crushes a windpipe. She makes eye contact, holding it. I soak in those emerald eyes until they burn into me. I’m not paralyzed… I’m nothing but energy.

Tegan pats me on the shoulder. Faylie skips ahead, looting the corpses of the Sables with a yawn. And in the beating heart of Marble City, we let a perfect moment sink through our bones.

CAW.

And there it went.

Paella the raven swoops down from… somewhere, and starts squawking upon her approach through the cave. “Ah, great. The raven. You know, perhaps I am feeling ready to hear how exactly she managed—”

The corvid turns in a corkscrew, and explodes in a shower of feathers.

And where it had been, a new figure lands before the four of us, utterly unrecognizable. A… human? Humanoid?! They’re maybe 18 or so, of indeterminate gender, wearing an old baseball uniform and cap stuffed with black feathers and coated with grease and grime. They have a small, mousy face, covered mostly by their black hair, and carry a twitch to their movements.

The… person that just appeared stomps their foot. “Stupid-stupid vampire! I am not-not-not a raven!!!”

Wha… what?!

Our jaw drops. I only stare for a moment, and say, dumbstruck, “I… can see that—”

“I am a crow, you DUNCE!”

My mouth stops working. I’m left speechless. What? What. What?!

The rogue says, “Ah, lay off her, Pae. She’s had a rough week.”

There’s a curious, very birdlike tilt to the young woman’s head. “‘She‘?” Her eyes narrow, and she pouts to the rogue, “Hmm. Well, at least she-she-she has the brains to know the winning team, okay?”

I try and reach out with a gaze to Alabastra so she might clue me in that this is some joke—to put an end to the madness.

She just shrugs. And then Paella the… crow takes off into the sky again, transforming and flying away in a swift motion.

I just stare, blank, mouth hung open to catch flies. Tegan brushes against our shoulder. “We tried to tell you, Marlowe.”

Faylie adds, “You thought she was a raven?! Not cool.”

Those shoulders sink, and I look to our leader. I try to rack my memory for a single thing that disproves this next theory, and not a thing comes up. “Since that old man’s home in Grennard, did you technically lie to me about anything when I didn’t ask you to?”

Alabastra’s hand goes to her hip. She looks left. Then down. Her tongue explores the inside of her cheek. And she snaps, recollective. “Book gnomes aren’t real.”

“I FUCKING KNEW IT!”

The others start to walk away, but our feet don’t carry us yet. We just watch a moment.

Beyond the mouth of the cavern at the heart of Marble City, we stare out into a night sky, full of stars, above and below, city lights shining under an electric and magic power. And it’s gorgeous. And massive. Too big to ever see all of in one life, and it’s just one city. There’s a sea of people to meet, a wealth of things to know, and music, and freedom, and clothes that aren’t horrible, and wrongs to right, and a way to be that doesn’t feel like chafing at every corner. There’s a whole world out there.

And for the first time without caveats, I, Marlowe Bromley, step into it.

Hi.

When I started writing Witch Hunt, I didn't realize how personal this story would become to me, how deeply I would fall in love with my own characters, and how much I'd discover about myself over the course of its creation. I'm in a very different mental place than I was when I started, and I think looking back, a large part of that is due to getting so many of these feelings onto the page, into words.

I've always been a very large believer in letting art speak for itself, but I do have so much more I want to say. Perhaps sometime soon, on other platforms. Certainly not in these notes, where they might color the work itself.

But I will have more to say next time (and there Is a regularly-scheduled next time, as we move into the epilogue), about the future most of all, and reflections on what this story became — how far it exceeded my initial aims. For now, though, the only thing of import is to say that I've been so deeply touched by how Witch Hunt has resonated with people. More than I'd have ever dreamed. Thank you so, so very much for coming with me on this journey. You have my eternal gratitude for sticking with it through thick and thin. I hope you've enjoyed, and perhaps if it moves you, share this story around. I'd love to get the chance to put in front of a few more eyes. Either way, until next time. < 3

Next update is (1 - epilogue) corpse flower; on Monday, December 2nd.