butterflies-and-blades

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 31: What to do Without?

It was nice to wake up gently from the night, albeit a little stiff--the ground here didn't have the cushion that the flowers and thick mosses provided at home. I tried to sit up but wasn't prepared for the weight wrapped around my waist. Verca, still asleep, grumbled in tired disproval as I jostled him, and his arm tightened in protest.

I smiled. "We need to get up."

His brow furrowed, and he shook his head, but with enough pressure, he sat up beside me. Together, we packed up the inside of the tent, getting ready to head out for the rest of the day's travel. While we moved around each other--careful not to trip over one another's feet in the small space--, he paused. There was that look of uncertain thought on his face. When I asked if something was bothering him, he alluded to something having happened last night when he was awake.

"Do you remember when the tent was struck by lightning?" he asked.

"I do."

He nodded to himself, invisible gears still turning on the sides of his head.

"Is this an outside the tent conversation?" I asked.

"Yeaaah," Verca said.

We each held back a flap as we stepped outside.

"We have a visitor." Talo's voice rang in our heads before we could have that planned 'outside the tent' talk. They pointed across our little campsite, where a tiefling dressed in layers of familiarity stood. Despite the different shape of their horns, Van was still such a near-copy of Da.

"Why are yo-"

"Why are you so disheveled?" he asked, tilting his head and cutting me off.

"We were sleeping on the ground," I quickly responded. There wasn't reason to make anyone think something dubious was going on.

Talo, however, disagreed. "They've been sleeping together."

My ears and cheeks buzzed like a beehive that had been spiked to the ground. Verca lifted his arm, and blue energy gathered around his hand before shooting twice at Talo. While they yelled at him for hitting them, Van looked confused at all three of us.

"I don't understand what the big deal is. We're all--," he paused. "Actually, never mind."

"Why? What aren't you saying?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I thought about it more and decided it could be hurtful." Curiosity thrummed against the front of my thoughts, but he wouldn't budge.

"Why are you here, by the way, Van?" I instead asked.

He shrugged. "I was bored and followed you guys."

"How long have you been following us?" How much had he seen?

"Since you left Dandruin." The sharp edge of my worry softened.

The four of us walked the rest of the day without too much discussion--up until Verca remembered the conversation we were supposed to have had in the morning. He described the sudden storm that broke out during his watch, as well as the accompanying grumbly, disappointed-sounding voice. It all had given Verca the sense that something was wrong.

The voice warned him about making the right choice between the phoenixes. Well, Verca assumed the voice had meant the phoenixes; it didn't actually specify.

Listening to him, I frowned slightly. Something felt off. We had never really been offered a choice in anything. All we had to work off of was Hades's panic regarding the blue phoenix. Gods didn't seem like the sort to scare easily.

Although Verca and I had both heard from this angry sky voice, we didn't know who he was--whereas we had directly talked with Hades, who had even offered some level of help. We had no such reassurance of good faith from this entity.

"Maybe he's not good," I said, hesitant. "What if that person he wasn't too happy about me mentioning was out of the picture because he killed them for their power? At the very least, we should be cautious about taking anything at face value."

There was a moment of silence, and the winds picked up around us before abruptly stopping. The stillness left an unnatural tenseness in the air. "That's not good," Talo said. They explained they had tried to ask Melora if she had any insight into the history of my shield or who the voice belonged to. Melora had been uncertain about the voice, and she had vaguely recognized the name Allseer--but had then been abruptly cut off.

The dead air around us only fed the seed of worry that had started to grow in my gut. As we continued to discuss our concern, I said, "Maybe we should be careful about what we say right now."

Cold drops of rain fell on my face and along my arms. The sky had turned a dull gray, full of looming clouds that created a dense wall above us.

"We should pick up our pace," I said.

Rushing down the path outlined by the map, Verca shared more of what he had been told during the night. "He didn't want me to turn out like the others. Said that I was meant to be better, and if I chose wrong, they might have to rescind their gifts."

"Gifts" could mean a lot of things with Verca. It was difficult to pin that down to a single concept.

The space between his eyebrows wrinkled in frustration. He wanted to try asking Arawn and Hades for more details tonight; he agreed that it felt like information was actively being kept from us.

The rain pelted into our backs, no longer a gentle drizzle. We moved as fast as we could, pushing against the muddied ground that clung to our feet.

At the cabin, I held the door open as everyone barreled inside. We were soaked to the bone. Dad probably would have been scolding us for tracking water and dirt all over the wooden floors and the many rugs, but it hadn't occurred to me in the moment. Standing inside, his absence hit me with the weight of a rockslide. The house didn't smell like he'd cooked at all in the days we'd been gone.

This was terrible weather to dig a grave. Terrible weather for a funeral.

"Do you want to be alone down there or not?" Verca asked softly.

Coming up here, it had barely felt real. Verca and Talo had told me what happened, but a part of me had held on to the hope that Dad would be perfectly fine when we got home--that there had been a miscommunication somewhere along the way. Even now, there was piece of me trying to hold on to that sliver of nonsense.

"It's not pretty down there," warned Talo.

I looked over my shoulder at Verca. "Can you stay by the bottom of the ladder."

"Of course."

I told Van to make himself comfortable and went down to the basement first, with Verca just behind me.

Dad was lain on the floor. His long, brown hair rested neatly over his shoulders. With his eyes closed, it would have been easy to assume he was asleep if I hadn't already been told otherwise--peaceful, despite Talo's warning.

I crouched beside him. There was a lump in my throat. I wasn't sure what to do. His hands were folded together atop his chest with a piece of paper placed delicately over them. "Did you guys leave this?" I asked Verca.

"No," he said. A twinge of unease pulled at his voice. "Things don't look right."

I tried to assess the area for any presences that didn't belong, but nothing pinged aside from Kaemon. It didn't seem like anyone was waiting in the shadows, waiting to spring out at us.

I picked up the paper. It was a letter, written in smooth, gold ink.

Hi, Maeve.

It was kind of a mess down here. I thought I would clean it up some--make it more presentable for you. He's sorry he was wrong about the time he had left.

I hope I did good enough,

T.

Beneath the note, an orchid rested in Dad's hands. I lightly rested one of mine on his, careful not to disturb him.

"It's okay. It was Thanatos," I said, wiping my cheek with the back of my other hand.

Everything felt as fragile as a tower of glass that had been stacked too high, swaying left and right with the wind's breath. Any fast movement and it might all shatter.

"I'm sorry this happened," I whispered, looking over every inch of his face. The worry lines that framed his eyes and joined his brow were faint imprints in his skin. He didn't smile, but he didn't frown, either. I had never seen him look so free from the burdens he had always carried by himself. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. I'm sorry you were alone. A part of me thought you'd be in the kitchen when we got home. That we were wrong about what happened. I love you, Dad. I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe."

The weight of a hand rested on my shoulder.

I dropped my head. "I don't know what to do, Verca."

"What do you mean?" He asked. His voice drifted over from the back of the room.

I turned my head, confused. There wasn't anyone behind me. And when I turned again, there was a new smile on Dad's unmoving face. The tears that had already been rolling down my cheeks came faster.

A few quiet footsteps, and Verca was actually next to me this time.

"If Da was right about you kicking his ass for telling me about this place, at least be nice to him about it," I told Dad as I half fell into Verca's side.

We stayed like that for a while. There wasn't much else to do other than be. Words only did so much.

Eventually, I got up, dusted myself off, and walked over to the boxes that littered the room. I went to the ones in the back first, checking if there was anything in them other than pictures and journals that we had missed. I grabbed the occasional handful of notebooks while I was there; I knew they had been private, but they were all I had left of him--all I had left to learn what he'd never gotten to tell me. Verca was right; Dad had lived a long life, and the number of journals spoke to that. There was no way to know where to start, so I'd have to fit the pieces together as I went. Now wasn't the time for reading, anyways. Everything I pulled out went into the Bag for later.

Poking more closely around the edges of the room in case there was anything hidden out of sight, I found a large chest--too heavy to drag from where it stood. Not trapped, but definitely locked.

I called for Verca. "Do you see a key anywh--" I stopped myself, glancing at Dad. Everything down here was important to him. If there was a key, it was mostly likely on him. But I wasn't going to blindly root around his body, and I didn't see any obvious signs of it from where I stood. "Any chance you're good with locks?"

"Probably as good as you."

"So no."

"I could probably carry it up," he said.

"No." He needed arms to climb the ladder. "You'll fall and break your spine, and then I'd have two dead people I love down here."

There was a pause. "I love you, too." Verca smiled--not quite a smirk, but something close. That increasingly familiar feeling rushed to my ears as I registered what I said. "I'll give you a redo, Butterfly." There was that full smirky grin he so frequently wore.

He went upstairs to ask Talo and Van if either of them were good locks. He came back down and reported that they both sounded confident.

Van got down there first. He didn't say anything about the dead body of a man he knew--both a relief and a surprise--and opened the chest while the rest of us were still busy talking.

The chest, unassuming aside from its size, was filled with gold and topped with three scrolls. The sight nearly cleared the air in the room. No one sad much at first, too stunned. We had been tight on gold for a while, but this was probably more than any of us had ever expected to see at one time. Living in the woods, I had never imagined Dad having much need for coin. Most of what we had around the cabin either came from the woods or Da. I couldn't think of a reason why he would have this sitting down here.

I picked up the scrolls, curious if they were labeled. "Oh, thanks, that helps," said Van. His eyes traced over the chest, and his finger twitched in the air as if he was counting. "About 11,437 gold, I'd say." Before going to bed, we would later all count the coin together--just to be sure of what we had. Van had been right about the number of coins in the chest, but 1,000 of them had been platinum.

The scrolls had been labeled. Raise Dead, Teleport, and Word of Recall--which came with the specification that the cabin "was the sanctuary." The first two seemed self-explanatory, but the third less so. Talo took the time to Identify it. In essence, it was similar to teleport but specifically brought people here. All of the spells would be helpful tools when stuck in a rough spot, but Flash Recall seemed aimed for especially dire issues. As a group, we decided to keep them all in the Bag for safe keeping. If we thought we were heading into a particularly dangerous situation, then we would take out Flash Recall for quicker access.

Somehow, after that, we ended up discussing digging Dad's grave tomorrow. Even if the rain had stopped by then, the ground would be a wet, soggy mess that would be difficult to dig through, and I now realize it would have meant defacing a large patch of the flowers he had put so much care into tending. Talo offered to try making something to cover part of the ground to let it dry, but I still don't think the earth would have changed much in that time.

Verca gestured to the unfinished basement floor and pointed out that we had the option to bury him here. I wasn't sure how to respond initially--mostly because I hadn't expected the suggestion. A piece of me worried that it might force him into haunting the cabin or something similar, but a larger part of me found it somewhat fitting. He had put so much work into this cabin.

"Do you know any plants that can grow without light, mister underground?" I asked Verca. He wasn't too sure. Talo had a few suggestions, but they were mostly moss and fungi--with the acknowledgement that fungi were technically separate from plants; I was hoping for something more floral.

"With him here, it might not matter," Verca said. "I think there's a good chance things just grow around him."

That sounded nice. I would make the decision in the morning, but we were probably going to bury Dad here.

Van and Talo climbed upstairs first. Verca kept me back. I still had to decide where he'd be sleeping. "You can stay in my room," I said before I could let my nerves change my mind. He hadn’t even technically asked yet. The nights had been good with Verca. Thanatos was right.

"You love him. It's okay." Not Verca's voice. Dad's. I looked around, probably confusing Verca, but didn't see anyone else down there with us. "I didn't want to do this so quickly, but it felt like you needed to hear that. You need to sleep."

Tears blurred my vision. "I would have slept," I argued.

There was a sound of disagreement in my head. And then a comment that my warning about Da had come a little too late. "He'll be sore for a while."

I chuckled and told him to tell Da I love him.

Dad also assured me that he wouldn't haunt the cabin.

There was a pause as I thought about what else to say. I didn't know how long he would be there. "I missed your voice."

Dad apologized, again saying that he hadn't planned to use this so quickly. I should have told him that he didn't need to apologize--that whatever gift or favor was allowing me to hear him this one time meant the world. "It'll be dreams from here on out," he said. A familiar note of regret and melancholy colored his words. He was a lot like Thanatos in that respect. His words dropped twin weights of sadness and hope in my gut. I had to remind myself that Dad would still be there, somewhere, even if it felt so unimaginably far away. But it hurt to know I wouldn't be able to turn to him whenever I needed him. I wouldn't wake up to the smell of his pancakes in the morning. I wouldn't get to stay up late on the roof naming the stars with him. We wouldn't paint any more little flowers on the baseboards together. We wouldn't take turns reading to each other on the couch, buried under piles of blankets, in the middle of winter when it was too cold to garden. He wouldn't be there.

"I love you," Dad said.

"I love you," I said. And there was quiet. I apologized to Verca. "I heard him. We got a stamp of approval, though."

Verca raised his hand. It hovered near my face without making contact. “May I?” I nodded. He touched my cheek. I leaned into the gesture; the heat was real and grounding. His thumb gently wiped away at a streak of tears.

When it was time for everyone to go to bed, Talo and Van got comfortable in the living room, Kaemon nestled atop his pillow in my room, and Verca and I settled into my bed.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 30: Rest

In the same way that I hadn't recognized myself in the washroom mirror, it felt like so much had been taken during the last few weeks. Comfort, safety, simple rest. It all felt like it had been ripped from my hands, and I had been left grasping at smoke.

It was like I was always running, and more than my muscles were starting to give out as I kept pushing myself forward. There'd barely been any time to stop with death waiting--prowling, hunting--around every corner. And whenever we did stop, taking a single second for ourselves, the world was quick to make us regret that mistake. The consequences were sharp blades and glass shards that carved their lessons deep in unsuspecting flesh.

Cosmic justice. There weren't too many other explanations. Maybe Mom and Mara were right. It was more and more difficult to see it any other way.

Despite the growing weight of that fear--despite the nagging dread that grew with the exhaustion--, it faded. So much stronger than all that self-doubt, those distant memories felt closer than ever before. Almost as if for the first time, I felt safe and comfortable and protected. I could relax. It all radiated from a line of warmth that settled against the middle of my back and over my waist and hip.

Sinking into that plush softness, death was a distant concept. Neither hurtful not scary. It existed with the same neutrality of a lizard sunbathing on a rock.

"Don't fret, Maeve," whispered Thanatos's familiar voice. "I promise we're not hunting you. And I'm sorry it's all been coming so fast. They'll keep you safe, as you will them. Trust in yourself. I look forward to when we can talk about more."

I opened my eyes. The glow of six wings cast a warm light over the gentle face of Thanatos and his matching smile. I should have asked what else there was to talk about or if he just meant generally.

"I hope the next time I'm picking one of you three up, it's not you," he continued.

My brow furrowed. "Hopefully you're not picking any of us up anytime soon."

"It's just been a lot of you lately."

I frowned. A prickle of unease in my chest pushed against some of the serenity that had gathered. "It's been a few days."

Thanatos shook his head. "No..." He paused. "I saw you today."

"I didn't see you." He had told me he was there when I was little--and I remembered some of the disjointed pieces now that I knew what I was remembering--, and he had been there in the temple. But Thanatos hadn't been in that basement or anywhere else afterwards. There hadn't even been a gap when the Mask came up. The only possible hole in my memory would have been during that vision.

"It was really quick," he said. ""That sister of yours sure is something,"

So maybe not a vision. Yet Thanatos wasn't there. He'd been each time before.

Working to detangle the knotted thread of my thoughts, I noticed that he was sitting upside down, suspended in the air. "Why are you like that?"

He shrugged. "It's comfier sitting up here." I didn't have a comparison to argue otherwise.

"So, if it wasn't a vision induced by whatever spell she cast, what did I see, then?" I asked, still thinking over what he had told me.

His mouth pulled to the side. "I think that's someone else's question to answer."

I sighed, frustration rising. "And I'm still confused about why I didn't see you at all. Every other time, you were there."

"Someone else was involved this time," he said. "I'm getting close to stepping on toes I shouldn't be."

It was never easy knowing that people around you had answers that they couldn't share, but I didn't want to get Thanatos in trouble. He had been nothing but kind and reassuring in the time I had known him.

"Get some rest, Maeve," he said. "I am sorry for interrupting. It's probably the best you've had in..." he stopped to think. "Possibly ever. Let him help. He can make it all go away."

Even asleep, my ears and cheeks buzzed from the rising blush. He didn't have to say a name; I knew who he was talking about.

"Good night, Thanatos," I said.

He waved as his body melted upwards into the invisible ceiling he had been hanging from like a bat, and he disappeared--leaving the night's previous aura of comfort to sink back into place.

I woke up with the warmth from the night at my front instead of my back. Rather than facing the wood paneling of the wall, my face was half buried in Verca's chest and my hands were lightly balled in his shirt. Eyes wide, I froze when I realized how I had moved in my sleep, not wanting to wake him.

Without saying anything, he shifted and pulled me closer. An arm wrapped around my back. I thought about what Thanatos had said and let myself relax against Verca.

Someone knocked on our door, breaking the silence in the room. I tensed and curled closer into Verca, startled by the abrupt sound. At the same time, Verca rolled over and flung his leg to the side--partially pinning me beneath him. Laying there, a drum slowly started playing behind my chest. The beat sped faster and faster; with it, the bed felt more cramped--there was an increasingly looming presence--than when we went to sleep.

"Verca," I loudly whispered while tapping on his shoulder. He didn't wake and instead rolled the other direction, pulling me on top of him along the way.

There was another knock. Verca groaned tiredly, uninterested in getting up--even as I kept tapping at his chest.

Talo's voice pushed past the closed door. "I don't want to open the door on whatever you're doing in there." The implication once more made my ears and cheeks tingle.

That was apparently enough to make Verca wake up. There was a second of silence as he processed what they had said and then bolted upright--tossing me to the other side of the bed and catapulting himself to the floor. The sound of body hitting ground out of sight made me wince.

Still in a pile, he told Talo they could come in. They crossed their arms, amusement all over their face, when they saw him.

From there, I worked on braiding my hair while we discussed our future plans. Talo was not happy with the prospect of killing the blue phoenix. I didn't mind as much; Hades's palpable panic when he mentioned it made this feel important, even if we didn't have all the details. I couldn't find a way to explain that that seemed good enough for them, though.

At the same time, Verca commented that he didn't think Hades had created the phoenix. He thought that it existed prior to Hades's interference with his mantle. Talo and I were less sure. My only issue with that idea was that it didn't explain Hades's immediate reaction and concern when the phoenix came up.

Somehow, after that conversation was finished, Verca and Talo got into a debate about whatever they did last night. While they bantered back and forth, I focused on re-summoning Kaemon, who had been gone since Sala decided she had no need for him during our time together.

"I had a dream last night, and when one of us does, usually we all do," he said. "So what did you dream about last night?" he asked Talo, pressing toward whatever conclusion he was after. After he got his answer--something to do with Faunsel--I asked Verca what he had dreamed. He had simply responded, "Phoenix stuff," without much detail. "We just hung out. What did you dream about?"

"Thanatos told me I died," I said, "which no one else told me about." I explained that I hadn't seen Thanatos when I died again, so I hadn't realized, and described the dining table I saw instead. Talo was curious if it had been a memory from the temple my family had lived at or something else. The few memories I had from that temple had more stone than wood in it, so I guessed it was probably somewhere different, but I couldn't say for sure.

Despite our general disagreement about the phoenix, we did know that our next destination was the cabin. If we didn't see it before then, the issue would have to wait until after we took care of Dad. Talo was recuperating on the floor from their dream of Faunsel, and we would head out once they were ready to walk.

Meanwhile, while Verca and I waited, he looked over at me. "How did you sleep, Butterfly?"

I remembered the sense of peace that had wrapped around my dream like a handknit blanket and softly smiled. "It was good. Thank you."

Following the map to the cabin through the woods, conversation was light. I'm not sure how Talo ended up on a tangent about how much they wanted to kill Mara and how much they disliked her values. It was hard for me to see past the bond of family, even if I barely knew her and she had just killed me. I felt guilty for how conflicted I was; it was the same internal debate I'd had about my mom since finding out what she had done--twice now.

I was surprised to hear Verca vaguely defend Mara--her thoughts more so than her actions. He pointed out that she might have her reasonings for the beliefs she held--not in a way that sided with or excused what she had done for those beliefs, though; rather, he seemed to want to hold on to the chance that if we ever saw her again, we might be able to talk things out.

Somehow, that conversation also led to him mentioning the scars Wren had left on him. Talo was shocked--Verca had forgotten that he only ever showed them to me at the spa and they didn't know. Meanwhile, a cold anger had washed through my veins. I glared ahead as we kept walking. "I want to pull all of his bones apart at the joints."

Later in the day, Verca paused. "I did leave something out about my dream," he said. "The phoenixes were fighting on top of a mountain or plateau or something like that. But there aren't any of those nearb--"

"The Deep Crow lived at the base of a mountain," I interrupted. "Maybe they were mating. A lot of animals look like they're fighting when they mate. But regardless, that gives us a next destination after home." Even if that wasn't the same mountain, it would give us the high ground to better figure out steps following that.

At the end of that first day of travel, we set up camp and agreed to our usual watch order. Nothing happened during mine. When the time came, I gently nudged Verca awake. He stopped before leaving the tent, looking at me over his shoulder. "I'm sorry good sleep has to wait," he said. "Speaking of which, do you want to keep doing that?"

Butterflies pleasantly swarmed in my stomach. "It was nice," I said.

He lightly chuckled. "I agree, but that's not really an answer."

I nodded. "Right. I would like to in general, yeah. I'm just conflicted about at home. I know he's not there anymore, but it feels weird doing something in the cabin that I don't think he would have approved of." I couldn't imagine Dad being happy about there being someone else in my bed with me--even if it was just innocent sleep. I promised I would think more about it on our way home.

"I'll be back when I'm done watch," he said, pulling back the flap of the tent. "Sweet dreams, Butterfly."

"Sweet dreams, when the time comes.

"It's always sweet with you." He left as I could feel the color rush to my ears.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 29: It Lingers

"What's going on?" I cautiously raised my hands, trying to diffuse a situation I didn't understand. Talo and Verca were both on their feet, glaring at the woman on the other side of the room. Her body language was just as tense, and her mouth was pulled in a taut frown.

"Feron cared very deeply for her," Talo said, never looking away, "regardless of her being undead."

At that, I understood why the woman stood the way she did--like she was facing an unpredictable beast in the middle of the woods. 

"Then it's good I don't have to mourn him twice," she said. 

My hands faltered in the air. "That's not funny," I said. Dad was fine. He had to be. He was at the cabin--probably working in the garden or making a pitcher of tea. I had probably worried him sick disappearing the way I did.

"Good thing I’m not joking," she said plainly. 

I shook my head. "No..."

Talo and Verca's voices drifted through the air. I didn't know who was speaking when; their words bled together as the edges of my vision blurred. They said that they'd found him in the basement after I had disappeared. That Sala had gotten to him. They were waiting to do anything until after I came back.

No.

The air was too thin--or maybe it was too thick. Either way, I couldn't breathe. Couldn't feel my hands or feet or anything. I would have preferred the ongoing ache in my joints and muscles over the vacuum that hollowed me out as I tried to process what they had said. My drying cheeks were wet again.

"No..." I said. My voice was too small, nearly swallowed by the mildew and mold that coated the damp floor. I could feel chunks of the stuff under my nails; at some point--I'm not sure when--I'd scraped my fingers across the ground before balling them up in tight fists. In books, they always said people's knuckles turned white when they held too tightly onto something. But when you're already as pale as the dead, that turned out not to be the case, I learned. "We were supposed to have a year. Maybe two. He promised."

I reminded myself Sala was only at the cabin because of me. Dad would have been safe and healthy if I hadn't been there--just like how Verca wouldn't have nearly died a few moments ago and Talo wouldn't have had their faculties seized by a monster with the intent of hurting their friend. Death and suffering followed me like the moon followed the sun. It latched on to the people around me like a wolf tearing into its next meal. Maybe that's what Mom had seen in me--what she had tried to cut out for the betterment of everyone.

Dad and Da were both gone. Gore-filled scenes flashed behind my eyes. My imagination pieced together every means of taking him from me that she could have done. I hoped he hadn't suffered but knew that was a pitiful fantasy. Sala was not a kind woman.

Family had always been the most important thing; without that, I don't know what I was supposed to do.

Arms wrapped around me. Pulled me close. The touch reminded me of Sala--of the maps she had trailed across my body, drawing routes from one point to another--, but I was too distraught over other matters, spread too thin, to focus on that issue.

My face was cradled against someone's chest, warm despite the armor. In everything Sala had done, she'd been greedy; she never held me with tender intent. Warm. Verca. Not Sala, reassured the remnants of coherency in the back of my thoughts.

"She's been working with the Raven Queen," Talo said, trying to find something to deter the woman. To convince her I wasn't a weed that needed to be pulled from the garden.

She made a noise; I couldn't tell if it was a scoff or a burst of dark, incredulous laughter. Whichever it was, it punched through the air with the force of her disbelief. A part of me was glad I was pulled into Verca's chest and couldn't see the expression on her face. I don't think I could have taken it amidst everything else. The woman said, "I barely follow the Raven Queen anymore. I'm much more partial to Hel these days."

"We met the Raven Queen, Thanatos, and Hel," Talo insisted. "She liked Maeve."

"Right, of course she did. Whatever you say," The woman mocked in return.

There was a pause.

"Ready yourselves," Talo said. Their words wavered with an uncertainty that hadn't been there before. "I looked away."

I pried my head up. The woman wasn't where she had been the last time I saw her. She wasn't anywhere.

Pure cold--glacial and sharp--touched the outside of my arm, exploding up and towards my chest.

Then nothing. 

And then a faint heat that dug beneath my skin's chilled memory in a way only the best campfires could.

I opened my eyes. I wasn't on the ground anymore. Sitting amongst a busy crowd that gave off the constant hum of a thousand lively conversations, I was at a long, wooden table lit by warm candlelight. The center of the table, which stretched as far as I could see in either direction--not that that was very far with all of the people sitting and standing in the vicinity--, offered dozens of platters of different foods and just as many pitchers of different drinks. 

It was welcoming and overwhelming all at once. Someone whose face I didn't see placed a still-steaming plate, piled high with some of everything, in front of me.

"Hello? What's going on?" I asked, looking around for anyone who might be able to explain what was happening. "Where am I?"

I blinked again and was back in that damp, dark basement--gasping for air that I couldn't quite draw into my lungs right--before anyone could acknowledge that I'd said anything.

I was still held close to Verca, wrapped in his arms and half pulled onto his lap. There was an unmoving pressure against my ribcage that shifted from concerning to painful--enough to make me question if any of my ribs had cracked--whenever I tried to breathe. I frantically tapped at his arm, quickly growing lightheaded and unable to speak.

His still-rigid arms, unwilling to fully lower their heightened guard, eased just enough for me to draw in those missing breaths in desperate gulps. I stayed like that, silent aside from my erratic breathing that was often too quick and too shallow to really do any good, until my adrenaline lessened just a little bit.

With that, a sharp pain in my right arm floated to the top of my awareness. Something wet dribbled down my upper arm. Being held the way I was, it was difficult to look down to see what was wrong, but when I did, I saw Verca's nails had dug into my skin. A thin line of blood dripped from the cuts. "Verca..." I barely wheezed.

Apologizing, he removed his nails from my flesh and flattened his hand. A pulse of soft heat replaced the lingering sting as he healed the area. Talo reassured him that it was okay before I could say similar. Now more tired than when everyone first arrived, I felt so sluggish.

"...Dear," Verca said. I missed the first piece of the sentence. He brushed some of my hair from my face. "My poor Little Butterfly." Whenever Sala had decided she wanted another taste, she often kept one hand at the back of my head--sometimes pulling my hair--while the other dug into my back when she held me in place. This was different.

"We should get out of here," Talo said. Faint green wisps clung to their body; in the middle of things falling apart so quickly, I hadn't noticed when they'd started speaking aloud. 

"You're right," I said, immediately moving to stand and wanting to never see this basement again. 

My knees buckled beneath me before I could take a step towards the stairs. Familiar, warm arms caught me before I could hit the ground. I held back on to Verca to keep myself upright. There was another light tingle of magic as he focused more healing towards me again.

"I'm fine," I said, looking up at him. "You need to take care of yourself."

He shook his head. 

Looking between him and Talo, I hesitated before asking, "How long have I been here?"

Talo held up two fingers. "Two days."

That explained the feeling that something was wringing out my gut. Sala hadn't bothered to provide food or water of any kind during our time together. She had plenty of other priorities.

I remembered the brunette who had disappeared. "Where did she go?"

"Who?" asked Verca.

"I didn't know who she was."

He frowned. "That's worse... Do you remember those drawings in the basement?"

I nodded. "Of course."

"That was Mara. Your oldest sister."

Oldest sister. My thoughts were a whirlwind that left me dizzy. Family. But like Mom, one that didn't want anything to do with me. "I didn't know I had a sister." The shock made me forget the original intent of my question, which was never answered.

Talo shared that Mara had told them that there were six kids total: five other than herself. Which left four a mystery unaccounted for.

"Dad never said anything about me having siblings."

"I'm not surprised if they're all like Mara," Talo bitterly surmised. They were probably right. With how much Dad spoke of the importance of family, I couldn't imagine any other reason for leaving people out of that.

"Thank you, by the way, for coming for me," I said, looking between Talo and Verca.

"Why?" asked Talo.

I shrugged and pointed out the trouble it had caused.

Before we could leave, Talo said, "I should let Faunsel know Sala's dead. Her death might have made it safe for him to return to Greston." Already pulling out the Sending Stone, they jogged upstairs, leaving Verca and me alone in the basement. 

"Do you need anything?" he asked. His eyes passed over me, looking for anything wrong. 

A new kind of numbness had started to sink in as I tried to process everything that had been gracelessly thrown at my feet. "I don't know. Probably a place to sleep before we head home. And a bath. I feel disgusting." Disgusting barely scraped the surface of how wrong I felt. I sighed. "And I might need to burn some coin on new clothes that aren't so tattered."

Verca reached into his bag and pulled out a neatly folded pile of clothes: a black skirt and a lavender blouse from what I could tell. Exactly what I had been wearing. "They were the first thing I grabbed when we found out," he said.

"How did you know to bring these?" my voice was soft. I dreaded the thought that somehow he might have seen any of what Sala had done. What I had done with her.

"We knew it was Sala." Right. Context clues. Relief fluttered through my chest like the butterflies around the cabin. I tucked the clothes into the Bag of Holding to put on after I had a chance to clean myself of the past few days. Biting the inside of my cheek, I looked toward the stairwell. "I haven't seen sunlight for a couple days. Do you think we could wait upstairs?" They were half-boarded up, but I remembered seeing broken windows when I first followed Sala inside.

"Of course," Verca said and--without another word--went from letting me lean on him for support to swiftly picking me up, one arm behind my back and the other under my knees. Eyes wide, I held on to him the best I could.

"Be careful," I said, worried about him hurting himself.

He raised an eyebrow. "That's a joke, right?'

"No."

And like that, we went upstairs just as Talo finished talking to Faunsel. Verca's grip didn't falter, but he did cough--strained and painful-sounding--as we prepared to move towards the door. Knowing he wouldn't let me walk myself, I pressed a hand to his chest, giving as much instantaneous healing to him as I could instead of starting a debate I wouldn't win.

Verca looked at me with his brow furrowed. "You could have given that to yourself."

"You still wouldn't have let me walk anyways. At least you're healthier now."

Moving through the city, it was probably only midday or so--despite the exhaustion that raced through all three of us. There were people outside going about their days, but the streets weren't overly crowded.

The minor warmth of the sun on my shoulders--nothing compared to the steady heat Verca radiated that was particularly pleasant on my cheek that rested against him--faded, consumed by cool darkness as the street was thrown into shadows from above. We looked up and watched as a massive bird, alight in shifting blues even as it eclipsed the sun, flew over Dandruin. Verca and Talo stopped. We all held our breath, remembering what we had been told about a blue phoenix and hoping it wouldn't dive for us or anyone else. 

The bird flew on, and the sun returned. A problem for another day. Probably tomorrow. 

Still in Verca's arms, we entered the same inn that we last stayed in. Embarrassed and with the faintest ghost of heat gathering in the tips of my ears, I didn't look at the person behind the front desk. "Two rooms," Verca said. “Plus a bath, please.”

Talo went right to their room, and Verca brought me to the bathroom door. He stopped before the threshold and set me down. A faint pink hue gathered on his pale face. "I don't know how to say this in a way that doesn't sound bad."

I reassured him that it was okay.

Cautiously, he asked, "Do you want anyone in there with you?"

I had anticipated that being the thing troubling him. During the short walk down the hall, I had been pondering a similar thought. "Anyone else? Probably not," I said. "But you're not anyone else." I admitted that even if it was just to stop someone from unexpectedly coming in, I would appreciate his company.

I walked into the bathroom first, and Verca followed. 

Turning away, I undressed. I balled up the ruined clothes and threw them in the trash can beside the door. There was no point in trying to keep them. My gloves were neatly tucked into the Bag of Holding alongside my bracers.

I stood in front of the mirror mounted to the far wall. My reflection stared back at me. The features were almost all the same ones I had known my entire life--the exception being the fangs that I was getting my first good look at since they had grown in--, but something about them felt newly foreign. This was a different woman than the one that left home nineteen days ago.

Through the mirror, I watched Verca step up behind me. His eyes were closed, and that uncommon pink tint still colored his cheeks. 

"It's nothing you haven't seen before," I said.

He brought his hands up and blindly helped separate the tangles in my hair. A few days ago, we had been in this same room doing nearly the same thing. There were no tipsy smiles this time or bubbly pops of laughter. The tension in the air had changed, too. “I imagined it was something else that Sala probably negatively impacted.”

I couldn’t say he was wrong. A part of me was self-conscious of how much she had been able to change. “When I get in the water. Then you can open your eyes,” I said, determined to find some kind of compromise with myself. As difficult as it was, I refused to let Sala’s ghost keep walking all over me. 

We finished detangling my hair as much as we were going to without actually washing it. Taking Verca’s arm, I guided him towards the edge of the tub. “Be careful not to trip over anything,” I warned. 

He assured me he’d be fine. That charming smirk of his pulled at a corner of his mouth. I’d missed that smile. 

Beside the tub, I pushed down on his shoulders, signaling for him to sit on the floor beside the basin just large enough for a single person. I walked to the other side and eased myself into the water that was still hot from whoever had filled it following Verca’s request at the front desk. “You’re good,” I said, pulling my legs up to my chest for the time being. My knees poked out of the water, but it didn’t bother me. 

Sitting beside each other like that, neither of us spoke for a while. A peaceful silence floated through the room much like the bubbles that rested on the surface of the water in my bath.

I was absentmindedly washing my body with a soapy cloth when an insistent hunger pang painfully pulled at my stomach. Unlike the other times I had recently experienced a similar twinge, it didn’t fade after a few seconds. I fought back a grimace as it persisted. The pain was a reminder that I would never completely distance myself from Sala. This was her, and it wasn’t going anywhere; there would always be traces of her left entangled in me. 

I scrubbed harder. It didn’t feel like any of the grime she had left on me was budging. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. My skin stung and burned against the friction, and splotches of rare, yet temporary, color gathered over the ever-pallid surface of my body. The pain was a welcomed distraction from my stomachache; if I couldn’t wash off the stains she had left, I would gladly take that instead.

Verca’s hand touched my shoulder. “She’s gone. It’s gone.”

“But she’s always going to be there. I’m always going to be hungry again.” I whispered, fighting past the lump in my throat. 

“Where has she touched you that I can?” There wasn’t any pressure. His voice was a lost petal caught on a spring breeze. “Replace her with me.” His kindness was a field of perfect magenta. I racked my brain for a place she hadn’t tried to claim as her own. So little was left. My prior resolve to push past the ruin she had left felt pathetic; I couldn’t get myself out from under her shadow. “You’re not wrong with it. You’re not malicious. You’re not harmful. You are doing things right. Trusted. Given freely from someone safe who cares,” Verca continued.

“My arm, I guess…” I said, finally answering his question as I remembered how he had taken to kissing the back of my knuckles. An arm couldn’t be too different from that.

He softly placed a hand on my arm. The still-irritated skin stung at the initial contact, but it faded as he soothingly rubbed his thumb over where I had been scrubbing the hardest. “You deserve goodness, Maeve,” he said. “You deserve everything.”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on letting that be true. “I’m hungry.” The admission wrapped me in hopelessness. “It hurts. And it’s never going to stop.”

“Does this help?” Verca asked, guiding my attention back to his hand on my arm. 

“There’s a lot going on. It helps me from wanting to claw my skin off. But not so much the hunger.” 

He leaned further into the side of the tub and took my other hand in his free one. In a familiar gesture, he brought it to his lips and kissed the back of my knuckles. A light flutter in my chest helped bring the barest smile to my face. I was safe here. It was easy to get lost in the aftermath of what happened, but Verca was there every time to carve a hideout where the brambles had yet to grow. 

I rested my head on his shoulder. He didn’t complain that I was definitely getting him wet. We just sat beside each other until the water went from hot to tepid and then cold.

“The water has cooled off; we should probably head out,” I said. 

Verca dipped a hand beneath the surface. The temperature gradually increased until it was just as hot as when I first stepped in. “All fixed,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him but smiled. The gesture was sweet. “Is there a reason you don’t want to go?”

“I like seeing you comfortable. Relaxed. I want you to be able to have that for as long as you need.” 

I squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

We talked for a bit after that. Nothing serious like before. It was casual and easy--up until the point I accidentally called his horns antlers. I quickly corrected myself and tried not to bring any further attention to the slip up, but Verca wasn’t quite so ready to let me get away with it. “Are we going to acknowledge that?” he said with a raised eyebrow. 

“Nope. I don’t know what you mean.”

He smirked.

“Be nice,” I said. “I haven’t slept much, and Sala wasn’t providing any nutrition.”

Verca leaned over the side of the tub, neck bared. I leaned back, eyes wide. “I was going to wait until tomorrow to say anything, but since you brought it up,” he said. Then insisted, “I am yours, Maeve. Take what you need.” I hesitated. As hungry as I was, it wasn’t that simple. He moved his hand to cup the back of my head. “Is this okay?”

The touch was light, like earlier in the basement, but Sala was closer to the front of my thoughts than she had been then. A cloud of guilt hung around me. “Maybe too soon…” I wanted to be okay, but certain wounds were freshly opened--leaving me particularly fragile. 

He lowered his hand and looked up at me. “Then you’re lucky I can’t pull you in. Because in the future, I will make you take what you need since you won’t give it to yourself.”

My insides buzzed. Not in dread or discomfort like they usually did; this was uniquely pleasant in a way I wasn’t used to. 

A deep breath to gather my nerves. I twisted in the tub so that I could lean into his still-exposed neck--whispering, “I’m sorry,” as I opened my mouth.

“Never apologize,” said Verca.

I bit down. The immediate burst of sweet quieted the pain in my stomach, and the rest of the bathroom blurred--a pleasant release of focus instead of a disorienting panic.

Verca made a sound. My ears twitched, focusing on the noises until I noticed the enjoyment that colored them. I pulled back and looked him over, worry wrinkling my brow. “Is everything okay?”

He nodded. “Those were good sounds.”

“I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t done something wrong by accident.” I remembered the similar noises I had made whenever Sala bit me or dug her nails into my back. The pleasure I hadn’t wanted that my addled brain had savored anyways.

“I enjoyed it, I promise,” Verca said.

I nodded, trusting him. Then returned my mouth to its place, licking a path up from the errant blood that had run down the side of his neck while we spoke to the waiting wound, where I latched back on.

When the water in the tub had grown cold a second time, Verca left so that I could dry and dress myself in privacy. The fresh clothes he had brought from the cabin were like clouds against my skin. A piece of needed normalcy. 

Pulling my gloves on, I walked into the hall, where I saw Verca standing in the open doorway of our room. It was a few doors down from the one we stayed in last time. 

“Uh…we may have a problem,” he said. I tilted my head, curious, and peered past him into the room. 

Where we had always seen two twin sized beds in any other room we purchased, this room was much less crowded. Not because it was any bigger than our other rooms, but because there was only one bed, tucked against the far wall, instead of two.

Neither of us seemed to think it was worth going back to the front desk to ask for a different room. Rather, we began to debate who would take the floor. “We have a few options,” I said. “The first is that I take the floor since I’ve fallen asleep in the woods plenty of time at home. Plus, I just bit you. Twice, technically.”

Verca crossed his arms and shook his head. “And I enjoyed that more than you did. I’ll take the floor.”

I glared up at him. “You will not.”

“Hey, I would also be fine sharing the bed,” he added. That was the second option I was about to get to, but I had been hesitant to assume he would be comfortable with that. I didn’t want to be presumptive, and a part of me recognized that it was a foray into unfamiliar waters; I wasn’t sure I would be okay.

“Sala never really took things to a bed,” I said quietly to myself. “That makes it inherently different. Just like when Verca kissed my hand or touched my hair.”

He looked at the bed and then me again. “Turn around. I want to test something,” he said.

Unsure of his plan, I slowly turned to face the other direction.

An arm draped itself across my waist from behind. His chest was flush to my back, and the hairs on his chin tickled my shoulder. I instinctually tensed at first, but his grip wasn’t too tight, and with only one arm, I felt like I could move if I needed to. 

“Think this should work?” Verca asked.

“Yeah, I think so. And this way, I can sneak on to the floor once you’re asleep,” I joked.

“Good thing we know I can keep a hold of you.”

“I’ve gotten out of your grasp before.”

Verca asked if I really wanted to test that. I laughed and told him to go for it. His other arm joined the first around my waist--this time catching one of my arms in its hold, too. Firm but not crushing. I squirmed and writhed, doing my best to slide out of his grasp like I had in the library. One arm budged, and thinking I had found my opening, I focused my efforts there. But instead of spinning into the open hallway, I slowly turned in place a bit more with each push. I looked up and met Verca’s grinning face. My hands were pinned between us.

“I did this on purpose,” I said.

“Mhmm.”

Verca let me go. We walked into the room together. I pulled out Griffon from the Bag of Holding and found a comfortable spot on the bed, hugging him into my chest. The mattress dipped. The underside of the blankets that were still a little chilly warmed. An arm rested on my waist. 

“Good night, Verca.”

“Good night, Maeve.”

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 28: Puppet Strings

I would have rather still been chained to the wall with my arms and legs painfully stretched apart than where I eventually found myself. I wasn't sure how many days I had been in Sala's basement; without any windows to let sunlight in, the barebones room existed just outside the regular cycle of day and night--perpetually leaving only a disorienting nothingness in its place. Somewhere in that time, though, she must have decided she could have more fun with her new toy if it wasn't strung up on display.

She had undone the chains without any warning, leaving me to fall forward and cling to her for support. I would have rather pushed her away and let my wobbly legs crumple beneath me, but I was still lost to myself under the sweetened haze of her charm. Instead of scrambling toward the stairs or conjuring a blade from my bracers that she hadn't stripped me of, I nuzzled into her--draped over her shoulder like a luxurious pelt, worn only to be shown off. I looked up at her; if my face wasn't buried against her, it was nearly impossible to focus anywhere else. She looked down at me with a glitter of amusement in her black eyes, and I am grateful that I didn't say anything else to humiliate myself.

I doubted I was special. I wondered how many people she had put through this hell before.

I'm not sure how long we were like that when the sound of footsteps echoed down the stairwell.

I glanced to the side just enough to watch Verca, Talo, and a woman I didn't recognize--a brunette elf with long hair, bangs that covered her eyes, and a long-sleeved black dress--pour into the basement. For the first time since I had climbed out my window, the dread and nausea that had been climbing the inside of my stomach eased, even if only for a second. 

There was another Sala waiting in the center of the room; she'd been expecting them. A fight broke out without hesitation.

"The undead are in the back of the room," said the brunette, pointing. Her voice was steady, almost detached sounding. A few seconds later, the heavy darkness that had clung to the wall behind Sala and me cleared. The weight of the group's eyes pressed into my back. A renewed wave of shame made me too aware of how close I was to Sala. I wanted to tell them that this wasn't me--that I was just as disgusted in myself as them--, but all I could do was smile dumbly at the pink tiefling at my side.

Moving under the guide of an invisible force, like a puppet pulled by hidden strings, I stood up straight--surprising even myself. My legs still felt as flimsy as cooked celery and my feet still ached, but that hardly mattered when I wasn't the one actually responsible for the shift. I was kept up by Sala's will.

My bow materialized in my hand. My arms came up--readying the bow and aiming and firing, all without my direction. Horror filled my lungs like water as I watched the golden arrow fly. I was lucky that it embedded itself in the stranger, rather than Verca or Talo. A trill of laughter forced its way up my chest and left a putrid taste in my mouth. I didn't want any of this.

Verca ran towards the real Sala. The air in the cold edge of the basement prickled with heat as he got close; his full attention was anchored onto her, his face a steely visage of fury.

With Sala in front of him and me behind, he was all but surrounded. I silently thanked Talo for Enlarging him at the beginning of the fight. My bow melted in my hands, forming the long scythe I had yet to use in a fight before then. No more than a passenger in my own body, I watched my focus narrow in on Verca. I felt my hands squeeze the handle of the scythe, and I wished I could have shoved the blade between my ribs to stop it from finding a different target. But I was a puppet, and puppets didn't have that kind say over what they did.

I didn't want to be there. I would have rather fallen into the darkest, most isolated corner of my mind where I couldn't know what was happening in the world than watch myself attack Verca.

Sala shifted her stance, and Verca was ready to follow wherever she went. I felt the forced amusement fall from my face as my mouth opened. "Stay," I said--somewhere between pouting and pleading. The magic tingled on my lips. He turned toward me, the fire behind his eyes softening--I don't know if in apology or regret--, and then turned away, resisting the Command. A blossom of relief bloomed in the corner of myself that I was tucked away in.

A familiar metallic glint sparkled across the ground like a dusting of snow before shooting upward in a razor-sharp line of blades, nearly dividing the room in two. Verca and the brunette were directly caught in the spell's lingering path.

Not much longer, Verca was falling to the ground, body bloody and limp. Panic threatened to pull me apart, like I was a half-melted snowman left to be sundered into a million powdery pieces by sharp blizzard winds. He was here because of me--because I hadn't been able to do anything to help myself. The only reason Sala was in any of our lives was because I didn't do my job well enough during that first watch. He couldn't die here. I couldn't bear the thought that knowing me had been his death sentence.

A string snapped.

Sala's attention moved to Talo. "Kill him," she said with the simplicity of a parent telling a child to do their chores. She spoke like he was an inconvenience that she didn't care to dirty her hands dealing with.

Another string broke.

A distant expression clouded Talo's face. They walked right up to Sala and Verca and reached a single hand toward his chest. They were crying. A single pulse of magic shook his still body.

However many strings were left holding up this puppet, they were all cut at once.

"No!" I yelled, diving for Verca. My knees slammed into the stone floor, and the air pulsed in the area around us. I did my best to pull him close by his shoulders. His ragged breathing evened out and his mismatched eyes opened.

My fingertips tingled; I thought it was my nerves from the pendulum of panic and relief I had been riding until I noticed the sensation continued up both my arms. I looked down. Arcs of bright blue electricity danced through my hair and down my arms; where I still held on to my scythe, they traveled up the length of the weapon, too.

Verca wasted no time in getting back on his feet. Uninhibited by the pain, he held his spear with more determination than when the fight had started.

The haze lifted from around Talo.

The only one responsible for holding me up now, I pushed through the weakness in my legs, stood up, and walked to the other side of Sala. Gold dripped over my vision. Like the last time, I remained aware of myself. I saw the faint light of the wings in my periphery, but I wasn't thinking about them enough to take the weight off my feet.

I was too busy remembering every time Sala had touched me--in the not distant-enough past and the recent days alike.

"Wait." Verca's voice pulled me from the barrage of memories that already had tears gathering in my eyes. I paused, scythe held back, ready to swing towards her. "Something's missing."

He pulled an old spear from his bag. Snapped the end to expose raw wood. Then drove it through Sala, pulling her up on it so that it pinned her in place. Verca looked at me. His eyes said it all.

The cracks she had left in me finally shattered all the way through. I fell apart in pieces, screaming so loud my throat hurt. I didn't like to be loud; it hurt. But it was all I had. The only path out for all the pain she'd forced into the crevices of my heart and lungs--packed so tightly I didn't really know how much was in there.

I screamed. And I swung.

The blade of the scythe lodged itself in her side, nearly stopped by the wall of flesh it met, but forced itself further just enough to make a point. The vibrations of broken bones traveled up the handle into my palms. 

My knees gave out, having supported me through their exhaustion for as long as they could, and I fell into a pile, sobbing.

Sala's body dissolved into a dense cloud of mist, leaving a broken spear in the floor. The mist curled and moved like there was still some sentience in it.

"No," said a firm, familiar woman's voice. A large, white visage hung in the air. A mask we had become familiar with during our busy day in the temple district. Its mouth opened, and heavy winds blew through the basement as it sucked in the mist. The wind stopped when the mist was gone and the mask had closed its mouth. "Never again," it said in the Raven Queen's voice and disappeared.

There was a long pause as we all took in what just happened.

Then Talo plopped onto the floor, and Verca knelt beside me. Exhausted, physically and emotionally, I didn't know what to do. I think a large part of me was still processing it all. Even though I was in control of my body again, I still felt far away from the rest of the world now that the fighting had stopped.

An odd feeling passed over my senses. Not a charm attempt. Something different that I didn't recognize. Talo and Verca said something, but their words were distant blurs of sound that I struggled to focus on.

"Dead things should stay dead," said a voice I was much less familiar with.

I looked up and saw the brunette--standing farther away than she had been before--staring daggers at me through her thick bangs.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 27: Gone

I brought my head up from Verca's neck. His arms were still around my waist and back, and my hands were still tucked between us against his chest. We were so close. Neither of us moved. I wasn't sure where to look; meeting his gaze made me even more aware of the sliver of space between us, dropping my focus to my hands made us feel too far apart--especially in the silence I didn't know how to break--, and staring at the smear of fresh blood on his neck only made the disgust rising from the warm pool at the bottom of my stomach grow faster. I didn't want to look at it, but whenever the red snuck into my periphery, I couldn't ignore it. It pulled me in like a hypnotist's spiral. Shame soured the lingering sweet taste on my tongue.

I pressed a hand to the wound and did my best to heal the damage I had caused. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"Literally better than before." His voice was steady and calm. Still, neither of us moved. I think that if his arms hadn't been there, I would have slid to the floor and buried my head in my knees. I didn't know what to do with myself. A part of me knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with me--that there was no changing that--, and each reminder I'd never be able to escape wrapped me in pointed brambles. But another part of me fought to remember how certain and unwavering Verca was whenever he offered to help me feed--whenever he insisted that he wanted to help.

Instead of curling up on the floor, I dropped my face into my hands. The underside of Verca's chin brushed over the top of my head. "What is it?" he asked.

Lowering my hands but keeping my head down, I explained how I was always repulsed by myself after giving in to the urge to feed, trying to describe the disgust in a way that he'd know the issue wasn't his participation but mine. "The first time, I made myself throw up afterwards," I admitted. His arms tightened a fraction. "If I'd been alone afterwards, I would have tried last time, too, but there wasn't any opportunity."

Verca didn't move, but I felt the way his body tensed. "Good."

"I don't want to be like her. Or him. I don't want to hurt or manipulate people..."

"You can't manipulate me into something I already wanted to do. I've told you before."

"I'm trying to get my head around that still."

"I hope with time, you enjoy it. Or at least learn to, Little Butterfly," Verca said. The slightest fragment of heat gathered at the tip of my ears, distracting from how impossible 'enjoying it' felt. "And for what it's worth, corpses don't blush, either."

The change in topic confused me at first, but once I registered the reference to the conversation in the living room, I laughed. It was small--barely a chuckle because of the slight lump that had formed in my throat from the difficult conversation--, but it helped briefly lighten the mood in the room.

In a return to the serious, Verca made a comment about how he was keeping better track of the days since I had last fed than I was, which I promptly disagreed with. "I knew it had been two days," I argued.

"Yeah. And?"

"I felt fine. There wasn't any urge until after you cut yourself." If we weren't so close, I would have crossed my arms.

Verca gave me an incredulous look. "That's like saying, 'I'm not going to eat today because I don't feel hungry.'"

"Why would I? I want to cause as little harm as possible. So it makes sense to push the time between feedings as long as possible."

He was not convinced. "You need to take care of yourself. Meaning doing it more frequently."

The thought of feeding every day--or worse, multiple times a day--made me want to crawl out of my skin. Luckily, Verca didn't quite mean anything that extreme; instead, he stood by "every three days" until I conceded. He was too insistent to convince otherwise. All I could hope was that he wouldn't continue to track the days so closely; if I'm not feeling any discomfort, then I don't see why I should be searching for any more blood than the minimum I can function on.

"Thank you, by the way, for seeing me in a way that I often struggle to lately," I said, thinking of how he was never bothered by the things that often made me feel like such a stranger to myself .

Like when I first dragged us into my room, Verca pushed me back against the door. The old wood creaked under the pressure. He dipped his head beside mine, right at my ear. "Don't disparage yourself," he said in a low voice. I couldn't tell if it was the soft brush of his breath or lips that tickled the edge of my ear. My eyes were wide, and I was too stunned to say that that hadn't been my intention. "You're allowed to want and enjoy it. Work on it, Maeve. You will learn to like it. I do."

He straightened himself.

For the first time since he had first wrapped his arms around me, we stepped apart. Talo was in Verca's head; they were starting to worry about how long we were taking. When we came out of my room, they were waiting for us in the living room. "Sorry," Verca said, "We were talking. Well, I was talking."

It was hard to tell if I started blushing again or not.

Without any other plans, we spent the rest of the day resting with the intention of getting a good night's sleep before heading out in a random direction tomorrow until we found something interesting.

I suppose we're lucky that we didn't have any specific plan in mind, because they would have been quickly derailed. The night was young when I woke up. A sickeningly familiar tug in my chest led me out of bed--toward one of the two curtain-covered windows on the far side of my room. My hands shook.

Despite immediately recognizing the pull and not being smothered under the haze of charm like in the past, my thoughts were scrambled knots and difficult to connect into coherent ideas. I was too preoccupied with following the invisible tug that had me running into the woods--leaving parted curtains and an open window in my wake--to act on the fact that I knew I should have called out. I should have screamed for someone. Dad, Talo, Verca.

I ran so fast that the trees were blurry lines. I ran so fast and without care that my feet stung and ached from every stray branch and rock I stepped on. I outran the night and didn't stop until I had fallen into morning.

"There you are, Darling. I've missed you."

No...

...

...

I don't remember how I got down there. The walls were bland stacks of stone. Water dripped from the ceiling. It smelled musty. I couldn't see much past my hair; my braids had been undone and hung in front of my face in a tangle. I was too tired--too sore--to lift my head.

Kaemon was gone. Everything was out of focus--like I was watching from inside myself.

My hands were chained above me. The metal bit into my wrists, suspended just high enough that I struggled to hold myself up on my tip toes--my legs forced apart by chains around my ankles so that my body was stretched into an X--to prevent them from cutting any deeper. I couldn't adjust myself to try and lessen the persistent pain, but there was a fuzziness at the edge of my senses that made it difficult to care. I wanted to stop hurting, but I was wrapped in a blanket of pleasure that wasn't mine.

This was wrong.

My clothes were torn. Ripped and shredded. I felt exposed but couldn't find it in myself to care enough to worry about what had happened.

A finger touched the underside of my chin. There was no warmth. I wanted to jerk my head away. Maybe bite the finger off and spit it back. But I didn't. Instead, I followed its guidance and looked up. 

I wanted to thrash away from her. To never see or feel her again. To never hear her honeyed words that were too sticky to wash away. I wanted to wrap my hands around my scythe and cut her to pieces. I wanted to scream and cry and hide in the deepest shadow I could find so maybe she wouldn't find me again.

But I didn't do that.

I leaned as far forward as I could, eager for whatever she said or did--ready to beg if that's what it took--and hated myself for it all.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 26: Into the Basement

Dad was in the living room, walking towards the front door when we came through. He stopped mid stride.

I curiously tilted my head. "Where did you go?"

"I was setting up something," he said without further detail. I nodded like I understood, but I wasn't certain what he had meant.

Talo commented that he missed quite the fight outside. "You might want to check on whatever protective measures you have around the cabin to keep things out."

Unfazed, Dad said, "I am the protective measures."

"Right..." they trailed off.

I asked Dad if we had any tents or basic camping supplies tucked away somewhere around the house that we would be able to have, and--as suspected--we did. Dad raised a curious eyebrow at the question, though. "Ours burned down," I explained.

"What happened?"

"The tent was struck by lightning."

His second eyebrow joined the first. Dad repeated his question. Talo described the series of thunder bursts they had heard during their watch. Like in my dream, the first few hadn't been ushered in by the usual flash of lighting across the sky.

"Verca's theory is that Da's shield was specifically struck," I added.

Verca raised finger. "I stand by that."

Without going into too much detail, I explained what happened during my dream after Da left--including the gruff-sounding entity that that had disapproved of my inquiries about the Allseer before changing the color of the stone in the shield. Talo frowned the way they do when they're thinking particularly hard about something.

They asked if the shield was different.

I looked down at the unscratched metal still fastened to my left arm. When training with Da, I had assumed the pristine surface--despite the countless blows it had absorbed--was the result of how well he cared for it. Now, I wondered if the natural resiliency of magic items had more to do with it. Even if it wasn't true, I liked to think both were responsible.

"It felt the same during the fight," I said.

Their face remained scrunched in thought. "May I Identify it?"

I took the shield off and handed it to them. Ten minutes later, they looked dissatisfied. "I expected at least its name to have changed, but no. Nothing," Talo said. Dad commented that magical items weren't quite that simple. They weren't content with that explanation, either.

Before doing anything else with the rest of the day, we took some time to recuperate and regather ourselves. We were all achy and tired from the fight. I plopped onto the couch, and Verca sat beside me. Meanwhile, Talo set up their alchemy supplies to brew a potion. 

After enough time doing nothing and sitting in silence, Kaemon was bored. Siting on my lap, he tapped and pecked at Verca's arm until he earned his attention.

"Why are you pecking me?" Verca asked.

I apologized, gently wrapping two hands around his body to pick him up. "He gets antsy sometimes. Maybe try petting him?" I held Kaemon out, and Verca ran a few fingers over the top of his head. Appeased, Kaemon relaxed. I returned him to his perch on my shoulder.

As a group, we tried to discuss what to do next--especially now that we had faced whatever had been sent after us. We couldn't come to a consensus, however.

I didn't know if anyone had anything they were particularly interested in, but to fill time, I offered the plethora of books around the house. Most of the walls around the cabin were lined with shelves that Dad had filled to the brim. Talo perked at the idea. Most of the books were in Dad's office; I glanced around the room for Dad to ask if they could look around, but he wasn't in the room anymore. None of us had seen him leave. 

I looked at the rug in the center of the living room.

Before saying anything, I walked down the hall and knocked on Dad's door. No answer. I knocked outside his office. Nothing. I even checked the guest room before coming back to Talo and Verca.

"Are we going into the basement?" Talo asked, grinning as I crouched and threw back the rug to reveal the trap door. This time it was closed.

I half expected the door to be locked, but it opened without resistance. Peering down the chute that housed the ladder, I didn't see any traps below; however, I did find a bell and string fastened to the edge of the opened door. It was surprising that we hadn't heard the bell jingle.

Talo panicked after I pointed it out. "We need to go. Now." They stepped towards the door, ready to bolt. "That was an Alarm spell."

I was not familiar with the spell by name, but it felt self-explanatory. We were already there, though. And Dad had to know that this would have been on our radar. If he hadn't been out of the cabin, I would have been doing this in the middle of the night--possibly alone--, and that probably would have been a much worse situation if he was randomly notified when everyone should have been asleep.

I went down.

Verca was right behind me. And despite their distress, Talo followed, too.

When we gathered in a small group at the bottom of the ladder, I had anticipated needing to create a source of light for Talo, but in another difference compared to my dream, the basement was illuminated by a series of lights that ran along each wall.

Standing amongst the covered shapes that came in all sizes, the room was more crowded than last night; I felt small in comparison.

I stepped up to the closest shape and pulled back the sheet. There was a table underneath. Atop the table sat a large stack of boxes arranged like a pyramid. The sheet was thick and heavy--more like a tarp than the bedsheets I initially expected; with how tall the stack of boxes was, I didn't trust my ability to replace the sheet if I took it off. Instead, moved to one of the smaller shapes on the other side of the room.

Again, I found a stack of boxes, but this one was much smaller and easier to navigate. Careful not to tip the stack, I pulled off the sheet and set it on the ground.

Pulling back the flaps of the topmost box, I wasn’t sure what I anticipated finding, but it wasn't a series of art pieces. Mostly pencil sketches, but a few were delicate paintings--all of them portraits. The people in them reminded me of Dad, albeit more feminine.

Talo curiously looked into the box with me. "Who are they? Family?"

"I don't know," I said, still staring at the foreignly familiar faces and wondering what their importance was to Dad. They were near hypnotizing. "He's never talked about any family."

As a group, we spread out to check the other boxes in reach; they were all filled with portraits--each one similar but distinct. I was confident they were all different people.

I turned a sketch over, wondering if there might be any information written on the back.

Mara, 15.

"What does the fifteen mean?" Talo asked.

"Her age, probably," I said.

Talo put out the theory that these were records of different generations across the history of Dad's family.

With all of the boxes near the floor coming up with the same contents, I looked back to the pyramid on the table. We'd probably be out of time soon; there was a tug in my chest that had to see if there was anything else down here.

Talo offered to try something they thought might help move the heavy sheet. Wisps like the ones that rose when they spoke gathered around their hand, which they lifted like a puppeteer. An invisible force ahead of them tugged at the sheet, but it stayed in place.

Dad likely already knew we were down here. Putting the sheet perfectly back in place when we were done probably shouldn't have been our highest priority. I called for Verca's help, remembering his strength. Together, we flung the sheet off the pyramid.

Pulling a box from the bottom felt like it would guarantee everything above it would fall to the ground. I lifted a leg to stand on the table so I could reach the top; before I could pull myself up, though, hands--warm, Verca--were on my waist, lifting.

The hands pulled away, and my weight shifted back into my feet atop the table.

Creaking. Then cracking. Wood split and splintered, and--with one final crunchy snap--the table broke into pieces beneath the added pressure. Like the boxes that fell around me, I crashed to the ground onto a pile of angular debris. I hoped nothing packed away had been fragile.

Without bothering to get up, I reached for the nearest box and pulled it onto my lap. I pushed the flaps apart, peering inside. No portraits. Journals--the edges of some more visibly worn or discolored than others, although they all looked old--of different sizes were neatly organized in horizontal stacks.

Something buzzed near my ear. I shook my head, trying to shoo away whatever fly or bug had gotten too close. In doing so, I looked to the side and saw Dad standing at the edge of the mess I had made on the floor. So not a fly, I thought to myself, guessing that he had probably been with us the entire time.

Dad reached down and took the box from me.

"I'm guessing you disappeared to give us an opportunity to come down here?" I asked.

"I had."

A renewed sense of guilt pooled in my stomach for having broken his table and making a mess of his things.

I studied the box as he set it down at his feet, wondering what I might have found in those notes if I'd had the chance to open even one booklet. "Are the journals yours or someone else's?"

"That box was mine, I believe," he said.

"I'm guessing I'm not going to get the chance to read any of them."

Dad shook his head. "Those are private. Not even your mother got to read them."

Silence, thick like swamp water, filled the gap in conversation. I don't think any of us truly knew what to say. Coming down here, we had anticipated some level of scolding for our snooping, but now there was just a sensation of unspoken sadness--not necessarily at what we had done but from the memories of what we had been allowed to find. There were questions that wanted to be asked but felt wrong to voice, which only amplified the difficult-to-name feeling that hung in the air.

"I saw a name," I said, remembering the portraits. "I'm not sure if you saw from wherever you were."

Dad's eyes didn't meet mine. He kept his gaze low, visibly running through his own thoughts and memories. "Mara's the oldest."

"Oldest of who?" Talo asked. "Nieces? Siblings? Children?"

"Good question," he said. His voice was soft but firm. Between his words, he drew a line with a warning not to cross.

Careful of the chaos strewn across the floor, I started to get up. Dad held out a hand and helped me step over everything. "Thank you for letting us down here," I said, "and I am sorry for prying. I don't know why my dream last night had me meet Da down here."

"I don't know either," said Dad. "Maybe something wanted you to know this was down here."

Still struggling to find the right words, I hugged him.

Before we went upstairs, I learned that Dad had apparently made the portraits we found, which surprised me. He had helped paint my first shield, but I didn't know his interest in art went any further than simple projects and crafts. The sketches we'd found had been detailed and precise--made by the steady hand of a dedicated artist.

Dad stayed behind as the rest of us moved toward the ladder. "I love you, Maeve," he said.

"I love you, Dad," I said.

Verca, Talo, and I climbed up to the living room. For a second time, we tried to plot out what our next moves should be, but we still couldn't agree. During that conversation, though, Talo and Verca found themselves in an unexpected debate about whether or not I looked like a corpse. It started after Verca commented that he did not know if he had died before--as well as the fact that he would not be surprised if he had, which I found alarming. Neither he nor Talo had ever registered to me as undead though, so I doubted either of them had had the unfortunate experience of dying.

During the debate that arose afterwards, Verca's insistence that I looked like a corpse drew out a feeling inside my chest that I had limited experience with. It was a relatively new feeling that I had felt for the first time after learning Sala had turned me and surged whenever I thought about what else that happened with her. Or whenever I succumbed to the hunger she introduced into my life.

The feeling made my bones itch--too deep under my skin to scratch--and exchanged the air with something too thin to breathe. It made me want to hide.

I had never thought I looked like a corpse before; in books, corpses were classically disgusting, bloated and reeking of rot. They oozed at the seams as they drifted farther out of the reach of life's distant memory. Their flesh slipped from their bones into discarded piles of slop.

The confidence Dad and Da had taught me to have in my body faltered. If I looked as if I had been touched by decay like a corpse, then I couldn't help but worry that I'd repulse Verca sooner or later--if I hadn't already.

"I saw an attractive woman and thought, 'hm, she looks kinda corpse-like,'" he said to Talo.

His use of "attractive" in the same sentence as "corpse-like" confused me. "Does that mean you thought I was a corpse when we first met?" I asked.

"I had my suspicions."

I shared how I was struggling to reconcile his previous words.

Verca was quick to shake his head. "I assure you, I am not grossed out by you at all."

The itching along my ribcage subsided, but aspects of my confusion persisted. Somehow, from there, the matter of paleness within Talo and Verca's debate took them to Sala.

"Unless she's very well-fed," Talo started to say.

"She is," I interrupted somewhat bitterly.

"Speaking of," Verca said, staring pointedly at me.

"I'm fine," I said.

He folded his arms together in front of his chest.

"It's only been two days; it was five before that."

"That does not help your argument," said Verca, who insisted I needed to feed.

I shook my head. "I'm okay. And I don't want to hurt you."

Like any other time I had said that, he was quick to counter. "You won't." Verca stepped forward, taking one of my hands in his. He brought my hand to his lips and kissed the back of my knuckles--just as he had last night before his watch. "I belong to you."

I wasn't cold, but a shiver ran down my arms and back anyways, taking my breath with it. I just looked at him, torn. There was a warm insistence in his eyes; I doubted I would ever find the right words to dissuade him--only because he could see right through me.

With his other hand, Verca ran a finger across his neck, leaving a thin cut in its wake. "Verca--" I said, worried about him, but stopped. I hadn't felt the hated hunger when this conversation started, but there was that insistent tug. It was almost as difficult to resist as the day my entire body had hurt from the strain of starvation.

Talo stepped towards the edge of the room. "I think I'm going to wait in the guest room," they said, already walking away.

That was Da's room, I thought but couldn't turn my focus long enough to say it.

There was a beat, and we were alone in the living room. The trap door beneath the folded-over rug was still open. I sighed. "At the very least, not out here. Dad could come up at any moment." I grabbed Verca's hand and dragged him to my room, quickly shutting the door behind us and pressing my head against it as I tried to prepare myself mentally.

Verca's hand touched my shoulder and turned me around to face him. In the same fluid motion, he pressed my back against the door. I had to look up to meet his eyes.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I am," he said without pausing to think it over.

My gaze dropped. "I don't want to be like her..."

"You're not. She didn't ask permission. She took by force." Verca paused. "I'm sorry if my reaction is reminiscent of Sala's, though."

I looked back up at him, confused. For the first time since he had started making sure I was feeding, he looked bashful. Verca explained that he anticipated pulling me close and promised he had no intention of anything untoward. I remembered how Sala had grabbed on to me and appreciated the warning.

One final time, I asked if he was sure. Again, he said he was.

I took a deep breath. Leaning in--standing slightly on my tiptoes to reach him--, I whispered, "I'm sorry," as I opened my mouth.

At the same time, almost as if in reaction to what I said, his arm around my back pulled me closer as I bit down. It wasn't as sharp of a feeling as when Sala had held me against her whenever she bit me. I still hated the memory of how I had liked the feeling. The pressure of being enveloped between Verca's chest and his arms--both a solid, warm presence against me--was firm in a way that became comforting, making it easy to relax as I fed.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 25: Visitors

I sat at the base of the tree. The moss-speckled bark gently scratched at my back--a pleasantly familiar roughness after years of exploring the woods around the cabin. Releasing a tense breath, I did my best to relax against the wide trunk. With my eyes closed, I wrapped a hand around my necklace. When I was little, the carved feather had been massive in my palms; now, the black-painted piece of wood felt tiny.

I had no idea what to do--what to say.

Hi... I tried to push out my thoughts wherever they might be heard. I don't mean to bother you, especially since I was just at the temple yesterday. I'm just hoping to see or talk to Da tonight. I'm worried about Dad.

I squeezed the feather as if that final effort would send my words to the Raven Queen and opened my eyes. Talo and Verca had just finished pitching the tent. I walked over to them. We were all ready to settle down for the night. I would cover first watch so that there was less risk of someone possibly waking me up in the middle of a conversation if I was successful in reaching Da. Then Verca. Then Talo so that they could use whatever little light came from early daybreak to see.

Throughout my watch, I kept my bow in hand--better to be prepared if something untoward appeared in the distance. I couldn't help but remember how the first, and last, time we did watches had gone. The memory of Sala's unchallenged entrance into camp was a heavy weight in my gut as I sat in the dark, alone. Aside from the clouds that rolled in overhead, this time at watch was uneventful.

When it was time to switch out, I gently shook Verca awake by the shoulder. He jumped slightly and relaxed when he saw it was me. I apologized for startling him.

Verca sat up, rubbing the side of his face as he fully woke up. "So," he said, "we should probably talk."

The air in my lungs twisted. "About?" I carefully asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "Last night?"

"Ah..."

The conversation was awkward but gentle and soft-spoken as we tried to figure out "now what." When I had gone to Talo yesterday, trying to figure out how to understand my own feelings, I had not expected that information to make its way to Verca so quickly. And I don't think he did either. We were both at somewhat of a loss about where that left our path forward, but we did both want to find that road--even if it was half-buried under tangled layers of exposed roots and fallen ivy.

"I was worried that you were going to say you had changed your mind when this conversation started," I admitted, nervously biting the inside of my cheek with the tip of a fang.

His face scrunched and warped in confusion. "Why?"

"How much of that conversation did you catch last night?" I asked.

"About half."

Thinking over the later details I had discussed with Talo, I paused. It had been hard to talk about with them and would be harder to go through again with him. Unable to bring myself to voice the specifics, I tiptoed around the edges of the details--that Sala had left a very deep, negative imprint, and a part of me worried he might lose interest because of how that held me back.

A soft but serious expression smoothed the lines that had pressed between his eyebrows. Once more, he emphasized wanting to do things at my pace. Verca held out a hand, palm up. "May I?"

I didn't know what he had planned, but I trusted him. I placed my hand on his. That familiar heat radiated along the underside of my fingers and warmed my glove.

Verca lowered his head and raised his hand, bringing mine with his. He kissed the back of my hand, right at the edge of my knuckles. The brush of his lips was a pleasant spark like every other time we touched but stronger; the sensation lingered after he pulled back--although his hand stayed around mine.

I stared at our hands. There was no impulse to pull back; it almost felt unreal. In the place where that urge usually sat, comfort stepped forward. "Sala never did that..."

"Good. Then maybe this can be our thing for now," said Verca.

I nodded. "I would like that." He smiled.

We exchanged goodnights, and Verca stepped out to start his--now delayed--watch. I laid down and tried to get some sleep. First slow, but then faster, the tapping of rain drummed against the top of the tent. I tossed and turned but eventually fell asleep.

With a level of lucidity normal nights often lacked, I dreamt I was home. Nothing around the cabin looked out of place. A near-deafening crash of thunder, unaccompanied by the flash of lightning that should have preceded it, froze me in place. I couldn't tell if the sound came from my dream or the outside world, but regardless, it was too loud and left an odd weight in the air.

Somewhere in the cabin, a door creaked open. The front door was still closed, as were the doors lining the hallway that branched off the living room. However, I did notice that the rug at the center of the room was folded over itself at one corner.

I crouched beside the rug and reached out to pull back more of the rug.

Another crash.

With more force than I used, the rug was flung from my hand--uncovering an open trap door beneath it. A simple ladder hung from the opening. Making a mental note to see if this door really existed at home, I did not hesitate to climb down into the basement that I'd had no idea possibly existed.

Again, thunder shook the air around me.

My feet landed on solid ground. The secret room was full of different shapes obscured beneath layers of simple sheets. None of it felt familiar. Looking back, I regretted not trying to lift at least one of those sheets to see what stood beneath them.

"You called?" Da's voice replaced the silence that had settled after the last crash of thunder as he stepped forward. Seeing Da, a few knots of tension in my shoulders unraveled. Before I could explain my worry about Dad's well-being, Da unexpectedly alluded to this basement being real. When he realized that I didn't know about the lower level of the cabin, Da said that Dad will kick is ass for telling me about it. 

I told him about how we had tried to contact Dad, but the Sending Stone hadn't been able to reach him--making me fear something had happened to him. And without Dad, we didn't know how to get back to the cabin to be able to check on him.

"We were hoping you'd be able to give us some directions since you've been there before," I said.

"Well I haven't seen him," said Da, "which should be a good sign."

He pulled out a map and handed it to me. Opening the rolled paper, I studied the paths as closely as I could--just in case the map didn't stick around once I woke up.

Before Da left, I also used our time together to ask the questions about his shield that I had meant to bring up when we last saw each other. I asked if he knew the shield was magical, and he had no idea what I was talking about aside from an enchantment he once had placed on the piece. That surprised me, since no such enchantment was there anymore.

I told him the shield's name, which visibly took Da aback for a second, and showed him the now-filled eye socket. He was uncertain about his ability to talk about the name that had managed such an unexpected reaction from him, making me worry that he was being cosmically held hostage by something. He assured me he was not and that he was perfectly fine.

"I think we're out of time," Da started to say before being interrupted by a blinding flash of blue light. When the lingering stain of light faded from my vision, Da was gone, but I was still in the basement.

Ahead of me, an unfamiliar, bodiless voice rumbled throughout the room--much like the thunder that had followed me throughout the dream. "Who are you to ask about the Allseer?"

Awkwardly and not looking to anger any unknown entity that I did not have to, I tried to explain that I was asking my father about a shield that had been his. "I didn't mean to cause any offense," I said.

He told me that the Allseer was dead and did not "handle that position" any longer. That role--I am not certain what it was--belonged to the voice now.

"Be respectful of the dead," he rumbled.

"I respect the dead," I quickly responded. "I died twice and was not a fan either time.

I was not prepared for the entity to ask me to hold out Da's shield. Instinctually, I resisted the order. This figure had not been happy about my inquiries into the shield, and I was too aware of the chance that he might intend to take the shield from me to prevent anyone else from asking similar questions. I wasn't going to let anyone take Da's shield from me.

"I am not going to take it," he said.

Hesitantly, I held out the shield. A large hand descended from the darkness that even I could not see through. Following the direction of the arm attached to the hand, I found a pair of glowing eyes--blue and gold--half-hidden beneath the shadowy cover.

Another flash of blue light. The blue eye of the raven on the shield was now gold.

"Be careful what you involve yourself in, Maeve," he warned. I opened my mouth to point out that I had not introduced myself. A flash of light cut me off, and I woke in the tent, surrounded by growing flames.

The shield was on my arm, and it was a mass of tense heat pressed against my arm. It wasn't quite searing, but it only added to the stress of the blazing tent.

Beside me, Verca was still asleep. I grabbed his arm and did my best to drag him out. That was enough to wake him. He wasn't concerned about the immediate chaos surrounding him--just confused.

Talo, on the other hand, was frantic. They quickly made sure we were both okay as soon as we came out of the tent that collapsed in a charred pile behind us. Lightning had apparently struck the tent while we were asleep. Verca theorized that my shield was hot because it had been the lightning’s target. 

Once we had regained our collective composure, we were ready to follow the map Da had given me, which had continued to exist once I woke up and luckily wasn't consumed by the fire. Before starting that long walk, though, Talo reminded me that I had wanted to try calling Dad one more time. They handed me the Sending Stone.

I turned the stone over in my hand, thinking about what I wanted to say. "Hi Dad. We just wanted to check in on you. We couldn't reach you yesterday, and I was worried. Hope you're safe. I Love you."

Dad's voice in my head was a massive relief. He apologized for the worry and assured me he was okay. A second later, the tree split open--showing the cabin on the other side. I quickly ushered Talo and Verca through the brief doorway.

Looking the same as always, Dad was on the other side. Without another word, I ran to hug him. He vaguely explained that he was somewhere protected against outside intrusions.

My thoughts wandered back to the mysterious basement, and I asked if it was real. Dad denied it, but I could tell he wasn't being honest. Crossing my arms, I said, "Dad," and waited for him to share the truth.

It took a moment, but he conceded. Dad didn't offer many details--aside from it relating to his past. He made it clear he did not want to discuss it further.

Still outside, Talo and Dad got into an argument about parents hiding thing from their kids. I could see how their conversation with their aunt about their family was impacting them as they seemed to take it out on Dad.

Not trying to make things worse, I chimed in. "We do need to deal with Mom..."

I expected a stronger reaction, but instead he agreed that circumstances had changed since his past endeavors to keep information about the past from me.

Without going too into the details, I shared the warning that the Raven Queen had delivered. "She said that we need to change fate."

Dad's green eyes went wide. "She said what?" he asked. I repeated myself and explained how she said Mom was on a path that would forever change the world. Meanwhile, those behind the Divine Gate would be unaffected.

Dad was visibly shaken by this information. Despite what my mother had done, he found it out of character for her to do something like that.

Conversations after that transitioned into outlining what our next steps should be. Talo and I disagreed about what steps were even available to us to be taken. We had been told of so many things we had to handle, but so much of it was explicitly beyond our capabilities. Remembering the story Talo had found in the library, I said, "I'm not letting him die," referencing Verca.

All we had that we could immediately focus on was that something had recently been sent after us. I imagined that had to be getting to us soon, and it would be better to prepare for that fight somewhere less likely to get anyone else hurt.

During the slight argument, it occurred to me that there has to be a spare tent tucked away somewhere in the cabin. Now that we were short one, I turned to ask Dad, but he wasn't there.

Still wondering where he might have gone off to, I missed the purple wisps that gathered on the other side of Verca, coalescing into a large figure before attacking. Boils were visible beneath the sheer cover of the wisps. I moved to flank the figure with Verca. One of the boils opened like an eye and stared directly at me.

The giant hit hard. The fight had barely started before we all looked rough. One second, I was standing--sword and shield at the ready--, and the next, I was on the ground, and the edges of the world were out of focus. 

Gold dripped over my vision, but I remained conscious of my surroundings and in control of my body.

Only a few feet from me, Verca was on the ground, too. His eyes were closed. A bruise on the side of his face was already starting to turn into a mottled cluster of dark purples. I reached for him. "I said, you're not allowed to die," I repeated as I grabbed his arm, pushing what healing forward that I could before pulling myself onto my feet.

Verca's eyes opened. He stood up and rushed toward the giant without a second of hesitation. Spear at the ready, he stabbed the figure multiple times. Each piercing blow left trails of purple smoke in the air in its wake.

Above the giant, the smoke reconsolidated, and the figure disappeared.

With the immediate threat gone, we all took a moment to compose ourselves--not saying much to each other and breathing heavy.

Looking around, I noted that Dad was still gone. "Dad?" I called out. No answer.

I started toward the door to the cabin, hoping he was inside.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 24: Unease

That night, dreams brought a return to the unpleasant. There was a void of darkness. Ever since placing that stone in Da's shield, the dark had left me on edge in a way that it never did before. Before, all dark was the same. Now its stubborn presence meant something was wrong.

Verca and Talo were there in the void, too. Remembering the time we were all pulled into Verca's dream to fight, I summoned the scythe and cautiously looked around for anything hiding in the dense shadows. Nothing came.

Talo called out. No response. And then I tried with the same results. We only heard something after Verca followed suit.

'Well aren't you an interesting trio," said an unfamiliar, masculine voice from out of sight. In response to our questions about who he was, a manic laughter echoed around the wall-less area. "I don't want to spoil the fun." What he did want was to get to know us.

"You won't get much from us if we don't know who we're talking to," I said.

"You don't seem very prepared to make friends." The voice was bodiless, but his mocking pout was audible.

An unfamiliar feeling brushed along my wrist, just below where I held my scythe. I yanked my arm back just in time to see an odd purple wisp wrap around the air where I had been.

Talo grabbed one of their potion bottles and threw it towards the empty space the wisp had occupied. The spot wasn't empty, though. Verca, who had been beside me, was unexpectedly there--as if the void had rearranged us just to place him at the other end of Talo's attack. The bottle smashed against his leg, erupting in flames that Verca quickly patted out.

"We might want to be careful of where we attack..." I said, still looking around.

The voice spoke lightly, as if there was the chance of something friendly on the other side of whatever was behind this. "Why attack at all?"

"That's up to you," I said, frowning. "What do you want?"

"To know what I'm up against." The quiet tapping of footsteps approached. More purple mist followed, obscuring the figure in a cloud of shifting wisps.

Talo said, "You're the thing from below the Nine Hells."

The mist-covered figure laughed at the confidence behind their claim. "No. You think he's this small? I'm what you let out. I just wanted to see what I was up against."

Something glittered against the darkness. I jumped out of the way just as a series of spear-shaped columns of light imbedded themselves in the grounding front of us, angled as if the figure had thrown them. Talo and Verca were less fortunate.

"Good luck with what is coming," said the voice. "It won't be me. I'm not strong enough to manifest outside of here. But prove you're strong enough and maybe you'll see me again." The figure spun a similar-looking spear to the others over his head and disappeared as his body dissipated upwards. 

We were back in our room, awake. Verca and I barely had time to sit up and look at each other before Talo was knocking on our door. It was a different start to the morning than what I had expected when I went to bed the night before. But it did save me from the awkwardness of not knowing how you are supposed to act the morning after something like that.

As a group, we decided that we probably should not stay in one place too long. If our shared dream was to be believed, something had definitely just been sent after us. We gathered our belongings and left for the castle so Talo could have a conversation with their aunt.

It was not difficult finding the castle; Dandruin was a massive city, but the spires still stood tall amongst the plethora of large buildings. What was more difficult, though, was getting the guards to take us seriously. Outside of the castle gates, Talo approached a guard. "Um, hello," they said. "I'm here to speak with my aunt, Meli." Considering how the rest of our limited time in the city had gone, it should not have been a surprise that we were promptly surrounded by guards with their spears at the ready. We stayed like that until someone was able to verify Talo's claim.

When we were allowed to progress, I was surprised that no guard accompanied us. There had recently been an assassination attempt on the queen, and it was not like we knew where we were going. Yet we were being allowed to free roam the same halls that had been infiltrated less than a week ago, based on what we had been told. Talo tried to look for a guard inside to point us in the direction of the throne room, but the castle was eerily empty.

Following Talo, we eventually found a large set up double doors--decorated with a series of ornate carvings--that we assumed signified the outside of the throne room. Talo knocked. From the other side, we heard shuffling as something inside was moved.

A few seconds later, one of the doors opened just enough for a tall blond man in a long coat to peak out. He looked over the three of us. "We don't have any meetings scheduled for the day," he said.

Talo explained that they were here to see their aunt. I found it weird that no one knew we were coming when a guard had gone to verify Talo's identity. Verca theorized that the guard had asked someone other than the aunt.

The man frowned softly. "I'm unsure which one that is." He alluded not knowing if someone had followed "his habit of picking up kids." Talo specified that they meant Meli, and he nodded, saying that he had "to go peel them apart."

While we waited, it occurred to me that the person the man referenced sounded a lot like how I had heard others speak of Da lately.

Returning, he introduced himself as Darin and led us into the room, where a green skinned tiefling woman was draped across the throne. Based on how she and Talo started talking, I assumed she was Meli. The two talked about Talo's family for a while, giving them both answers and more questions based on the frequently shifting expression on their face.

At the end, Meli gave us directions to the library, which was located elsewhere in the castle. The towering shelves made the last library we visited feel like a small bookshop in comparison. I initially worked on finding information about the "Allseer" figure referenced in the name of Da's shield, but I did not find any helpful information--only scattered excerpts about sight and omniscience.

As a group, we also tried to look for more information on the time giant that Hades had spoken about. While I did not find anything about "time giants" in particular, I did stumble across texts written about time manipulation--which was mostly attributed to the work of powerful wizards.

I did not come away completely empty-handed regarding giants, though. I found a few references to primordial giants and titans--both of which were rooted far in the past. And both had ties to a figure named Thor who seemed to have some level of historic religious importance. Verca found most of the same information I did. However, he was able to clarify that Thor was not simply an important religious figure; he was a god who hunted giants in his youth.

Talo's research came up with an ancient story of a hero who was given a spear. This hero was tasked with killing "the last fomorian" with this spear. The story appeared across a number of cultures, but they all ended with the hero dying as he plunged the spear into the fomorian. The trend--and the use of a spear specifically--made me worry for Verca's safety. Especially knowing that he had been warned the other night against becoming a martyr.

While at the library, Talo also tried to find information on the Nyx that Verca was supposedly dipped in, but they were unable to find anything. Which meant we were done there and ready to go back to the tree where we were to meet Dad.

We waited to contact him through the Sending Stone until we were outside of the city limits. That way we would not have to worry about establishing a manageable meeting time; we could simply say we were there. Talo pulled out the stone, doing just that.

After sending the message, they frowned, looking down at the stone in their hand. "There's a problem."

The spell had not gone through. I asked Talo what might have caused the stone to fail in that manner. They said one reason a Sending could fail was if the recipient was in a different plane. I couldn't imagine why Dad would have gone to another plane. He barely liked leaving the cabin. Another possibility was that someone else, or some outside force, was interfering.

I looked around, trying to see if any suspicious figures were following us, but I did not see anyone.

"Maybe you should reach out to Faunsel, just to make sure that it isn't a problem with the stones in general."

Talo nodded, gave the other stone a try, and reported no issues. Worry twisted inside my gut. We did not know how to get back to the cabin from here, and we had no way to contact Dad. We had no way to make sure he was okay.

Talo carefully suggested the possibility of trying to ask Da since had been to the cabin before and would know how to make the trip. They quickly clarified that they did not mean to suggest we go back to the temple. I shook my head, saying, "They mentioned being able to meet through dreams, I think." I suggested they set up camp while I try to figure out how to pray. And if this didn't amount to anything, they we could at least try calling again in the morning. I might even ask Talo if I can call so that I can hear that he's okay if it does manage to go through.

Dad put so much effort into making sure she didn't know about the cabin. She couldn't be involved in whatever is going on, right?

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 23: Unexpected

We moved outside, and with the little guidance we had been given, we quickly found a temple that matched the vibe we were after: a white marble structure with four columns along the face of the building. At the top of each column resided a single torch that flickered with glowing green flames that were oddly reminiscent of Verca's eye when it flares in that odd way it does sometimes. However, when Verca caught up with Talo and me--we had somehow gotten ahead of him--, the torches turned blue. We asked if he saw, but he somehow hadn't caught the change.

There was no door to the temple, just a large opening in the marble that faced the street. We followed Verca inside. The temple was silent and empty--aside from our intrusion. Without saying anything to us, Talo moved deeper inside, looking around. I stayed put and called out, "Hello?" seeing if there were any attendants in earshot.

A tall, cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows that clung to the back of the room. "What business have ye?" asked a masculine voice beneath the hood. Purple smoke rose from an unseen mouth. Talo paused, intrigue clear in their now wide eyes and lightly tilted head.

Verca asked about the temple's meeting policy.

The figure told us we had to wish to go. A decrepit hand reached out form the cloak, palm up. The attendant asked for a payment in exchange for whatever meeting we were after. None of the other temples had made us pay to meet with their gods. The request left a sour taste in the back of my throat. I wondered if the requirement of payment to worship that was why no one seemed to come to this temple--at least not anymore.

Talo handed over a Gold Piece first. Verca and I awkwardly complied shortly after. The man retracted his hand with his earnings and told us to follow as he turned toward a hall that branched out to the side.

During the walk, Talo said out of nowhere, aloud, "Well...it sort of happens to me," followed by the unpredictable green wisps. I had to assume they had been conversing telepathically with the man in private considering his own wisps.

"I've been like this the entire time I've been here," he replied simply, then paused at the top of a dark stairwell and looked at all of us. "Follow along. You don't want to get lost on the trip."

We all pushed ahead, swallowed by dark stone and shadow until the floor eventually evened out.

"Watch your step; this is the most dangerous part. I don't want any of you to fall in," the attendant said. Despite his words, he did not sound particularly concerned about our safety. I could almost hear the grin behind his hood.

Ahead of us, a narrow pathway--no more than five feet wide, ran ahead as far as I could see. On either side, hands reached out of a cavernous void. They were a mismatched collection of skeletal and flesh and something entirely different. I cast Light on my scythe so people could better see where they were walking.

"I don't want anyone joining them ahead of schedule," the man said. "Follow if you wish," and he kept going. Each of his steps were silent, and his body didn't move with the rhythm of a someone mid stride. There was a smoothness that was much more akin to floating.

As we carefully followed his lead, I stayed at the head of our little group. Occasionally, I looked back to check on Verca, keeping an eye on how he was doing. Each time, he seemed relatively fine, but I also knew how hard it could be to get a solid read on him at times.

The on-the-surface endless path eventually did end, coming up to a massive set of wooden double doors--about thirty feet tall and fifteen feet wide. At their center, a crest was carved into the wood. The image showed a three headed dog with glowing red eyes.

"End of the ride for you. Do as you wish, and good luck on your trip back," said our guide, chuckling faintly to himself as he faded into nothing. Which was weird, but there was not a lot of time to focus on that.

Verca moved to the front of our line and stepped forward to try pushing the doors open, but he was interrupted by one of the hands along the walkway that grabbed at his ankle. Verca fell onto his stomach, and the hand tried to drag him into the abyss.

I dove for his wrist, trying to keep him from falling over the edge, even though I knew I had never been particularly strong. I had to try something, and that was all I could think to do in the moment. And while I kept a hold on Verca, I felt the floor slide beneath by stomach. We were both being pulled.

Thinking quickly, Talo enlarged Verca--breaking the hand's grip--and dropped the spell so that he could get back up on the narrow platform.

"Run. Now," Verca ordered, and we all rushed through the--luckily unlocked--doors that opened as soon as we touched them.

We spilled into a home office space that was surprisingly small for how grand the doors had been. There wasn't much decor aside from the sturdy wooden desk situated at the center of the room and the fireplace nestled into a side wall. The flames danced through shades of blue, red, green, and gold.

Behind the desk sat a man with slicked back black hair, head down with his attention fully locked onto whatever he was working on. He wore a crisp black jacket with a blue shirt underneath. The shirt collar and wrists poked out beyond the jacket, exposing a white trim that broke up all the blue and black.

Not looking up, the man asked, "What do you want?"

I looked to Verca and said his name, letting him take the lead here.

The man's head shot up. "How do you know that name?"

Talo and I frowned, and we both said that was his name, pointing to Verca.

The man waved a hand, dismissing the desk and rushing toward Verca--arms spread wide as if preparing for a hug. It only took a few steps for the tall man to cover the comparatively small space, but in that time, Verca's mantle from the day we met flared and whipped to life in a nonexistent breeze. Stars blinked awake across the dark fabric.

The instant the man touched Verca, there was a burst of light, and the figure was pushed back. A pained grimace clearly pulled at his face as he tried to regather himself.

I half stepped in front of Verca--more concerned about him than the man--, my grip tightening around my scythe to the point that my hand hurt through my glove. I didn't know what was going on, but I wasn't going to allow him to be hurt by complacency.

In a transformation reminiscent of when Thanatos fell away to Hel, I watched the man turn into something else, piece by piece, until we were staring down someone new: a man with a skeletal head with broad antlers who sat in the air like it was his chair.

Wielding a new voice, this figure asked us our names. My grip around the scythe intensified--as did the stinging pain that now climbed my arm--, and I hesitated to answer, remembering Da's old warnings about names.

Before I gave an answer, he compared me to Hel. Similarly, he also implied that the two of us had met before--as well as "the others," including the man whom he had just replaced in the room. Like with Hel, I had no recollection of whatever he meant.

We eventually gave our names, and in exchange he finally introduced himself as "Arawn, god of the dead punisher and judge of the Feywild." From there, the conversation became a difficult to follow whirlwind of new information.

Arawn alluded to there being things that Verca also did not know, and then vaguely explained that his mother had done something to keep Verca hidden from "him," presumably the now missing entity who was originally in the room--likely Hades considering the temple we were at, but it felt rude to assume who people were without proper introductions. To be more specific, Arawn had said, "Whatever your mother put in effect to hid you from him is still in effect."

For the first time, we also learned that Verca had only been ten years old when she died.

More directed at Verca, Arawn said that he had told Verca a story at some early point in time about his father and his mother hiding Verca from "us'--presumably referencing gods like Arawn and Hades from what I could gather. In doing so, she had dipped Verca in "Nyx herself."

Talo asked more about Nyx. Arawn explained it as "darkness, the night sky, almost the primordial sense of nature" that came "before us gods."

From there, the conversation moved towards our original reason for coming to the temple. Talo asked about the thing that Verca seemed to have unleashed.

Arawn paused. "That's complicated." And with a flash of green, he was gone, leaving just the three of us in the office.

Using that break, I tried to check on Verca. Understandably, he was still processing--both the information about his mom and the change to his mantle. In an attempt to help, I threw out the idea of asking Dad about it once we get back to the cabin since he always had a thing for stars when I was younger.

A column of blue fire erupted in the center of the room. The original dark-haired man stood at the center of the pillar once it faded. He claimed that it was decided he would be "the one to discuss the giant Verca unleashed." That was the first time we heard that this had anything to do with giants, which made this all feel much more momentous than it had before--and we had already been treating it as something rather serious.

The man seemed to want to use his time for other matters than dealing with us, yet he was stuck with our company for the time being regardless--although he did comment that it was nice to see Verca and me again.

After being asked for more details about what happened, Verca recounted the events of his dream, detailing the shifting statues and the spear he took. The man before us had a rather pointed reaction when told which one the statue had ultimately landed on.

The conversation was momentarily interrupted by an apparent argument between the man and Arawn--which we could only hear one side of since Arawn had yet to return. I assumed that the argument meant the two men did not get along, but likely-Hades shook his head and said that was not the case; although he did add with a brief squint of his eyes that Arawn was "a little close" to his husband.

The god explained that each of the giants were tied to an entity. This one, the purple eyed one, was linked to him and time. The boil-covered giant was entwined with a person who Arawn had given a spear to, and the third giant--which Hades implied was linked with ice was associated with a person deemed "not important."

We were told not to let them out.

"I thought they were already released?" I asked, confused.

He pointed toward the ground and asked us if we had heard of the Nine Hells. Personally, I had not, but the rest of the group had some level of recognition. "Well, there's a tenth." We had to go there to stop them from getting out completely.

While we were there, he also wanted to improve Verca's mantle but worried that touching Verca again would have another negative reaction. We suggested that Verca simply take it off, which seemed to work. Hades touched the mantle, bathing it in blue flames reminiscent of when he had returned to the office.

It somehow came up that Verca also had something going on with a phoenix, which did not go over well with the man. He informed us to kill a blue phoenix if we ever see one. After giving us another glance, he retracted that statement and told us to run because it would almost definitely kill us at this point in time.

Before he left, we also narrowly managed to acquire a diamond from in exchange for having to pay to come down here. Based on his reaction to that fact, the attendant is not supposed to take a fee anymore.

The large double doors opened, showing the main room of the temple on the other side.

"Oh, on your way out, don't look back. Bye!" Hades called out from behind us as we left.

Leaving the temple, we passed the attendant. Without pausing, I said, "He says to stop making people pay." An odd groaning sound was the only response.

Between visiting three temples--and what happened during those visits--we were going to take some time to ourselves before we did anything else productive. In this case, that meant stopping in literally the first bar we could find and all getting drinks. Not knowing much about what drinks were available, I just asked for something sweet.

Talo downed their drink in a single motion. Verca and I intended to sip ours, but Talo telepathically startling the barkeep from across the building and causing him to break something prompted us to swiftly finish ours and run out before we could be told to pay for the damages. My cheeks were warm for a while after that.

We found an inn with a washroom--I was not going to be able to rest with dried blood in my hair and we could not go to the cabin like that or Dad would have a fit--and purchased our standard two rooms for the night.

A bit clumsily, as the world was a bit slow to respond to my motions, I tried to wash my hair. Another set of hands joined mine in working through the knots. Verca was there. "Your hair is so soft," he said. I felt my already tingling cheeks flare further.

He asked me about my reaction to Hel's interest in him. It was difficult to find the right words to describe the way my chest had bubbled and tightened in response to how she approached him.

His hand brushed my ear, and the alcohol-induced blur at the edges of my vision cleared like a fog blown away in the wind as I jolted upright.

"I think I would have felt the same if someone had been like that with you," he said and stood up, leaving me to finish washing my hair on my own.

I sat in a maze of my own thoughts that I was not sure what to do with for the rest of my bath.

Once cleaned and mostly dry, I paused outside of Talo's room. Gently, I knocked and was let inside. I had thought over what I wanted to ask them, but still was not confident in how to the words out.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" I pulled at the edges of my gloves.

"Not at all," Talo said. Their face was open and kind.

"You have a boyfriend," I hesitantly started. "How did you know that you liked him? Or that he liked you?"

Talo explained that they didn't really anything until after Faunsel started flirting with them and proposed they have sex. Something hard and spikey lodged itself in my stomach. Thoughts of Sala and the disgust she had left me with.

Talo called Faunsel sweet and said that he made them feel warm and that it was hard to think around him. Verca was warm.

The conversation moved in a direction I hadn't meant for it after that. We talked about Sala. The impact she had. How ridiculous I felt for being so affected in the ways I was when she had caused much worse.

I thanked Talo for their time and went back to the room I was sharing with Verca, expecting him to already be asleep. Instead, he was standing a few feet in front of the door. "If it helps, I like you, too," he said. He turned toward his bed so quickly after that that I wasn't sure if I saw that smirk he often carried around or not.

"What do you mean? You can't just say that!" I said, rushing after him.

Apparently, he had been getting bits of the conversation telepathically from Talo's end. I froze, processing what had been said. I couldn't string any words together.

"You're beautiful." Verca had told me that before, but this was the first time that it settled over me in the way that I think he meant it.

"I...I think I like you, too," I said. It was awkward. He had already said it in response, but I had never actually said it to him and felt the need to actually put it to words.

He raised an eyebrow. "You think?"

I wanted to cut out my tongue and bury it. "No, that's not what I mean. I just was trying to find the words, and this was all very unexpected, and I am struggling with what to say..." I trailed off, curtaining my face behind my hands to stop my rambling.

Peaking between my fingers, I saw him smile, and that calmed the rising pressure in my chest.

"Everything is at your pace," he said, voice warm and serious. It was not a mixture I often encountered. But it dislodged that spiked ball that had found its way into me while talking with Talo. I brought my hands down. "And I am still going to ask sixteen times before and after kissing you for the first time."

His smile was contagious.

Without saying much else, we went to bed.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 22: Gods Abound

"Valon," I said as we moved down the stairs, "I've been meaning to ask someone for a while: what is the Raven Queen's domain? She keeps coming up lately, but I don't actually know what her sphere of influence covers."

I expected surprise--maybe even a small amount of judgement--at the fact that I didn't know something that was probably common knowledge, especially around here. But Valon didn't make any comment. She explained that the Raven Queen oversaw two primary concepts. One over the transition between death and a person's proper final resting place. And the second being fate.

"She makes sure that when your time comes, you will not escape," said Valon. "She does not control or manage fate; she just keeps track of it. If a person passes earlier than intended, she is also the one who aids their return."

Talo's forehead wrinkled. "Is it possible to change fate?" they asked.

Valon's veil fluttered in the air, a ghostly black wave that followed her head as it snapped towards Talo. "You may have options along the way, and the destination may change, but..." She trailed off, letting the silence speak for itself. "There is a reason the goddess of fate does not actually control it."

She asked again about our preferred method of seeking a meeting since nothing concrete had been decided when she first described our options--none of which had sounded pleasant. It was uniquely difficult to choose what kind of terrible you wanted to endure when you knew it would all be miserable one way or another.

"I think we'll do whatever we are guided to," I said.

She nodded and apologized. Referenced my prior reaction to the idea of enclosed spaces. Said something about it being faster than other options--or something like that. I might have missed the specifics. A pit opened at the bottom of my stomach. I reminded myself that no route would be more pleasant than any of the others.

One by one, we filed into the basement, where a line of sarcophagi sat along the floor. Verca, without waiting a second, walked right up to the closest one and pushed the top open. It looked like we were doing this. With less confidence, Talo and I approached two sarcophagi of our own.

"Let me know if you need help," Verca said, swinging a leg over the edge.

I pressed my hands against the edge of the lid. The stone was gritty and rough on my fingertips. I pushed. And as if the sarcophagus had pushed back, I promptly fell onto my ass.

A few quiet footsteps. Verca was there, opening the top.

Standing up, I said, "Thanks."

We all stepped into our sarcophagi and eased ourselves onto our backs. My skin itched wherever it met the inside. My back, the sides of my arms, my head--which itched in a particular way that made me think there might be bugs in my scalp. For a second, I thought I wasn't half-entombed in stone but soil.

The top closed on its own, cutting off all light and dipping the inside of the sarcophagus in an impenetrable darkness. The dark wasn't supposed to be a thing anymore--not since that gem had attached itself to Da's shield.

The pitch black was a weight, and under that pressure I worried my chest would stop moving, That my sternum would crack and my ribs would buckle and I'd never leave this suffocating box.

The itching stopped; the stone wasn't there. I couldn't see, but I could feel myself move.

Something large and white rose in the distance. A porcelain mask. Similar but different to the one my mom had worn. Like the intimidating mask I had seen after touching that statuette in Legen, the lips were painted red. Unlike that vision, though, there weren't the invisible fumes of fear that permeated the all-encompassing darkness. Nor were there the sharp words that hurt like a knife--like shards of glass.

Talo and Verca were there, too. In the distance on either side.

"What brings you to me?" said an increasingly-familiar, feminine voice, echoing like a distant bell.

Talo spoke first. "We're here to support her--Maeve."

There were no eyes behind the mask, but--much like the attendants in the temples--, I could feel the attention move onto me. "I'm sorry," I awkwardly said. "I didn't really come here with a particular aim. It was my Da's request."

The porcelain mask's mouth did not move when she spoke. "I apologize for our last meeting. I was not myself and reacted poorly at seeing you again." The Raven Queen paused. Something moved in the darkness, barely visible. Looking closely, the vague outline of a body could be seen connected to the mask--so faint that I doubted I had seen anything at all. "You can thank your friend for preparing me and offering guidance."

I remembered what Thanatos had said about helping. And also what Da had said about trying to talk to her before he left.

A light flared in the dark. It was impossible to tell how far out it was with how little there was to see between here and there. But the light, glittering gold, came closer--peeling away the shadows it passed only for them to melt back together afterwards--until the shape of that light wasn't so fuzzy around the edges. It was the outline of a man, and with a few more steps he was more than an outline.

With matching dark hair and dark clothes, he was full person. He walked up with his hands in his pockets. There was an overall casualness that accompanied him, even with the gold trim that could have made his otherwise simple clothes fancy.

His eyes looked hollow at first glance, but with those last few steps before he stopped, gold irises blinked into sight. I had never seen the man before, but I had seen the six bright wings at his back.

"Sorry she's so formal. And sorry I was so formal. Nice to meet you," he said.

"You're the golden mask," Talo said, their interest piqued.

He chuckled. "That's what you're calling me?"

Verca was tense--barely not hostile as he watched the man, jaw clenched. Green wisps hovered around his eye.

Thanatos, who had yet to properly introduce himself, looked at Verca. "Have we met?" he asked.

Verca's glare dug deeper into him. "It seemingly wasn't important enough to stick."

Thanatos face softened in a way that reminded me of the regret I so frequently heard in his voice. "I apologize for whatever happened." He turned to face the larger group as best as he could, which was difficult because of how far apart we were, and said, "Hello. I'm Thanatos."

"Can we call you that?" Talo asked, hesitant.

"Well it's not my name name." He turned toward the mask of the Raven Queen. "Like I call her--"

That barely visible form of a large body in the dark swung and slapped Thanatos out of existence, snuffing his light. A few second later, he and the light flickered back into sight as he immediately started arguing with the Raven Queen. Her anger behind the mask was palpable.

When there was a lull in their tense conversation, Talo spoke up. "So, what does Maeve need to do?"

Arms crossed, Thanatos looked over his shoulder at the mask suspended midair. "Good question."

"We need your help," said the Raven Queen. "There are certain things even gods cannot do. Unfortunately in this case, that includes punishing the guilty."

Verca's eye flared green again.

She continued, "This is a fate we're trying to change, because letting it pass would mean the end of Fardora as you know it."

"That's a lot out of nowhere," I said, trying to process the gravity of what we were being told.

"You aren't the only heroes, but you three are linked in a way unlike any others. Since the moment you met, forces beyond history have been acting upon you. Forces that are now intrinsic to you--that you cannot break from."

I wrung my hands together. "Will dealing with this fix or make up for whatever I did?" I just wanted to know what I did all those years ago to push my mom to do that. To know why she still saw me as a monster so maybe I could right that wrong.

"You did nothing wrong." The Raven Queen's already quiet voice softened further. "You were punished for my sins. You were an innocent child, guilty of nothing more that surfacing a memory."

I didn't understand.

"Your mother is on a dangerous course that must be stopped," she continued. "Her path threatens to reawaken something old. We behind the Gate will be fine, but the rest of the world will not."

The silence was as pervasive as the darkness. I don't think anyone knew where to go from such a dire place.

Verca revived the conversation by asking about the shifting statue that he had pulled his spear from. Thanatos's eyes went wide as he processed what Verca said. "You will have to go somewhere else for that information."

The Raven Queen agreed. Her own instructions guided him to some place of "death and flames."

The mask turned towards Talo. "Taloshl, I know she can be aggressive," she said, referencing Melora, "but you two are more alike than you might think. Hopefully, you might be able to help each other."

Her attention passed over the three of us again. "I know that you--Verca Mors, Maeve, and Taloshl Cruor--are our best hope to change what has been set."

At some point during this all, Thanatos had been slapped away again. He returned, holding the side of his face. "I think you hit me too hard..." His voice weakly trailed off, and his hand fell, exposing the bare bone of his skull as if half his face had been torn away from the last blow.

From that point, decay rushed down the right side of his body. Skin and muscles fell away to bones that were quickly dressed in a new flesh--one of vines and moss and leaves.

At the same time, what flesh remained on the other side the body changed, too. It was subtler than the complete reconstruction we just watched--not much could surpass that--, but it was enough to make me confident this wasn't Thanatos in front of us anymore. This figure was distinctly feminine.

The gold wings dimmed, their image flickering until the right ones were replaced by the skeletal remains of wings, draped in vines instead of feathers, and the left transformed into outstretched branches, bearing the leaves of the seasons across the three levels. The upper wing was lush and green, the middle was a collage of colors--like a captured piece of autumn--, and the bottom was bare wood.

Her hair was longer than Thanatos's, and she wore a dress of ivy and bark. The white birch of the bodice contrasted the dark greens and browns of the interwoven vines of the skirt. It reminded me of the white bones that peaked through the greenery along her right side.

"It's so good to meet you," the figure who replaced Thanatos exclaimed, wearing an energetic smile. She rushed forward. "I'm Hel. It is so nice to see you again and to meet you two."

She made an odd comment about the Raven Queen being "the main one" before she was distracted by Verca. Pink irises locked on to him, and Hel stepped closer. "It is especially good to see you," she said, a flirtatious pull tugging at her grin. The green around his eye shrunk back. I frowned. I didn't like the way she looked at him.

"You said we've met before?" I asked.

Hel came closer, less than an arm's length away. "Why, yes. The first time you were here." There was musical-like quality to her voice. "Oh, you don't remember that either, do you?" She brought her hands up to cup my face. I froze, for a second unable to see anyone other than Sala. But I couldn't pull back. While one hand was soft and warm, the other was damp like morning dew and stiff. It reminded me of waking up outside after falling asleep stargazing with Dad. We would both be horribly stiff the next day, but it was always worth it. Here, though, the shock kept me in place--that and the fear of accidentally upsetting a goddess.

"We had so much fun the first time," she continued. "Well, we and Than. She wasn't really there... You were a very sweet kid, though."

I hadn't put much thought into the time between when I died that night and when I came back. There hadn't been anything there in the memories Da gave back, so I had assumed there was nothing to know. But Hel was making me wonder what else I didn't remember.

Like Thanatos two times prior, the Raven Queen swatted Hel into nothing, cutting her off from continuing.

The Raven Queen sighed. "I am still dealing with my discomfort at your presence, Maeve. And I ask that you allow me the time to do so."

Hel came back and asked if we had any questions. Talo raised a hand. "Are you all one person?"

And then they were promptly knocked out of sight. I was surprised by the Raven Queen's apparent penchant for violence.

Thinking of the rules of dreams based on our few forays, I imaged that Talo had woken up, but it seemed that they were just lost in the darkness. Hel was quick to retrieve them.

When everyone was back, she again asked about questions. I shook my head. "I didn't come here with any particular goals. I only came here because my father asked me to. But I still haven't really had a good experienced in a temple--"

"Feron never came here," Hell interrupted, confused.

"No, not him. My Da. Dad's best friend who he coparented with."

Talo clarified, "Zel."

Hel's form morphed into that of a different woman, the details still too faint to clearly make out aside from the pale mask with red lips. Above us, the massive mask was gone.

"I did not know who he was to you. I knew he would die protecting his daughter, but I did not realize--I thought there had been an error." She raised a barely-visible hand, and a whirling circle opened in the darkness beside her.

On the other side was a series of wooden tables in a long, warmly lit banquet hall. At one of those tables was a very familiar red tiefling with a pair of broken horns. He looked up just as he was pulled through the circle, which closed behind him.

The void around us had felt so nebulous that I had assumed we couldn't move ourselves. Thanatos and Hell had walked around, but they were different than us.

Despite that assumption, though, I was running toward Da before he'd processed what just happened, barreling into him and wrapping my arms around him as tight as I could. It felt like so much more than a few days since I had last seen him.

"It's been a really rough day," I said. Which I shouldn't have said, because it sent us down a spiral that led to me having to explain that we saw my mom and that she killed me again, but I had always been able to talk to Da about anything, and it had been an awful day.

Apparently, there was a long line of people--potentially more gods than people--who wanted to kill her after she died. Da estimated that he was somewhere between third and seventh placed in that line. "Lots of gods have issues with child murder," he said.

"There has to have been a reason, though," I tried to rationalize. "For why she'd do that to family...You don't just hurt family..." Family was everything.

Da was not the kind of person to lightly show how sad he was--he’d sooner hide it behind a joke or any other witty comment--, but it flashed over his eyes anyways. "Maeve, there's no justification for what she did."

There was green around Verca's eye. "I'm not going to let her hurt you again. Not like that, at least."

Since Da was here, Verca tried to ask the Raven Queen if he could see his mom, but she shook her head. "She is outside of my jurisdiction," she said, again suggesting that he would have to go to a different temple for such a request.

We talked to Da for a while longer. I showed him his shield. He was glad I met Eadrun and Van and that they had given it to me. I meant to ask if he knew about the raven eye or that his shield was generally magical, but the conversation moved on before I could bring it up.

It was amazing getting to see and talk to him again, but I wasn't ready when it was time for him to leave.

After he was gone, the Raven Queen started to say the I could meet again in the future through dreams but paused to correct herself. "Actually, I will probably leave that to the other two."

I grimaced at what went unsaid after that. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for. I do not know how else to stress that."

Shunted back into our bodies, we woke up with the sarcophagi already open. I pulled myself out as quickly as I could, my chest tight like I had gone that entire time without breathing. Hands on my knees, I focused on in and out. In and out.

Verca touched my shoulder. Once the surprise passed, breathing came easier.

Before leaving the temple, we thanked Valon.

"I do hope you come back," she said. "Or that the meeting at least helped to salvage the visit."

I mentioned that it had been nice meeting Thanatos and Hel, which confused her. Valon at least recognized Thanatos's name, but she seemed to have no idea who I was talking about when I said Hel's name. Back in the dark, I should have asked her domain; I could have at least used that to see if it rang a bell in Valon's memory. All I could really say was that I didn't like how much interest she took in Verca.

From there, we went straight to the Melora temple. Talo led the way for the most part. I noticed mid-walk that I still had blood in my hair. It was matted and dry and crusty by then.

Inside the temple, there was a massive tree standing in the center of the space but a noticeable lack of people--at least compared to what I knew from my few memories of temples.

A man walked up to us and asked if we needed anything. I nodded towards Talo. "They're the one you'll want to talk to."

Talo said they were there to meet with Melora. The man gave them a weird look. "I'll be back," he said and walked away.

"I think he thinks we're crazy," Talo said.

A few minutes later, he came back. He said it was odd, but he had something in mind. Talo followed him behind the massive tree, where we couldn't see either of them. Verca and I waited in silence. Tired, I leaned against my scythe to take some of the weight off my feet.

When Talo came back, they walked without the tension in their shoulders that they had carried when entering the temple. "I don't hate her anymore," they said.

Verca nodded. "That's positive." I agreed.

They pulled out the once-staff, now once-wand, that again looked different. More akin to the many tools Talo carried around--of which I understood little about how a single one of them worked. "Apparently, Maeve, your father originally found the staff in the heart of a tree," Talo said. There was a leaf on the arm of their jacket that was not there before.

"Your dad sounds like a crazy person," Verca added with a smile. "And I think I have an idea of where we're supposed to go for me: the Hades temple."

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 21: Her

In the kitchen, Dad told us that Dandruin was at least two days from the cabin on foot. His finger moved in the air as if he was tracing a trail on a map that only he could see as he described the way. Dad also offered to take us there, but the trip back would be more difficult without having done it the other direction first.

He sighed. "None of you have a way of contacting me, do you?"

Verca and I shook our heads, but Talo started rooting through their pockets, telling us to hold on one second. Focused, they held a cupped hand close to their face as they worked on it with their other; I couldn't see the details.

For a few minutes, we all watched them, curious. Even Dad's head slightly tilted to the side, the waves of his long hair falling to the side of his head.

Finished, Talo held out their hand toward him, offering a rune-carved object in their open palm. "Here." A Sending Stone.

With a line of communication established between us and Dad, we accepted his offer to take us to Dandruin with the plan to call him when we were ready to be picked up at the same tree.

We finished breakfast and afterwards followed Dad into the woods to find a suitably large tree. It was odd watching him move across the uneven ground of the root-filled forest without his staff. Satisfied, he stopped at a tree whose wide trunk rose into the canopy like a pillar. The nearby trees were saplings in comparison.

Like we had seen a few times now, Dad pressed a hand against the bark, which responded by splitting itself into an archway just wide enough for a single person to pass under at time. I told him that I love him. Goodbye for now. That I'll see him again soon. And we all stepped through, leaving him on the other side of the tree as it closed behind us.

We were at the outside of the gates of a massive city. Without the cover of dense leaves that fit together like the patches of a quilt, it was brighter here than in the woods, and without the abundant flowers, the air was not quite as sweet.

A long line of people and merchants and carts led to the gates, where guards talked to each group before allowing entrance into the city. We walked to the end of the line to wait our turn. Whispers and stares followed us--from civilians and guards alike.

Verca tapped the shoulder of the man ahead of us. The person looked over and took a timid step away from our group. "Is this much traffic normal?" Verca asked.

The man wrung his hands and avoided looking at Verca. Instead, his eyes jumped from target to target like a frantic grasshopper. "Something happened at the castle." His voice was small. "So the guards are being more cautious as a result." The man stopped every few words, fighting a stutter.

"What is wro--" I tried to ask, but the man turned and ran away before I could finish. It was his turn to speak with the guard monitoring the gate. I looked back to Verca and Talo. "That was odd."

Talo half shrugged. "Verca can be intimidating."

I frowned, not understanding, but the conversation was cut short when we were ushered forward.

Whereas the people ahead of us had only been met by one or two guards when they approached the city gates, we were nearly surrounded.

"Is there an issue?" I asked the guard in front of us.

He shook his head. "No issue. We just need to check over everyone entering the city."

"They why are there so many more guards around us than other groups?"

"You're an odd-looking bunch," he said. I frowned. There was nothing wrong with us. "And that garners extra attention. Now, do any of you have any bonds or ties to any evil gods."

I raised an eyebrow. "No."

"Good, good. And why are you here?"

"It was my dying father's wish," I said bluntly. This felt ridiculous.

He paused, mouth half open as he processed the unexpected response. "Right. That is a good reason," he said before turning to the side, muttering something to himself about 'fanatics.' When he looked back to us, likely prepared to ask another follow up question, his just starting to relax demeanor hardened. "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

"Why? What is going on?" My eyebrows pulled together, confused as I took a half-step back. Cold metal touched the bare skin of my back. The rest of the guards around us had lowered their spears.

The guard we had been speaking with crossed his arms. "I am not asking anymore. I am telling."

I looked to Verca and Talo, genuinely confused about what was happening, as we were led away from the gates. Talo's hands were shoved in their pockets. Had they signed something?

We were taken into an interrogation room. A quiet click from the door as it closed behind us made it clear we were locked inside.

"What is going on?" I again tried to ask the guard.

He pointed to Talo. "Why don't you ask your friend here?"

Apparently, Talo had signed Da's name.

"And just after an assassination attempt on the queen's life, you can see why mentioning the past king would be suspicious," said the guard.

"The king?" I asked, stunned. No one had ever mentioned that about Da before.

Apparently, that only made us more suspicious.

The guard asked more questions about Da until I clarified that he was not my biological father. "He was friends with my Dad and they coparented together."

Upon learning that information, the guard eased back. "That...actually tracks with him."

The guard left the room. This time, the lock did not click into place. A good sign.

When he came back, he said that they had sent a message to Da's wife to verify what I had said. A weight slid from my shoulders. "I'm glad I made a good impression with Sylvaera," I said. "Well, I think I did at least."

While the guard was still there, Talo signed something else that apparently warranted him reaching out to someone else to verify what was said. A few minutes passed, and upon his return, he said that we were free to go. On our way out, he made some kind of comment about the "queen consort's niefling," which abruptly confused Talo--enough that I decided against asking them what he had meant.

As we were released, the guard said he would send word to the other guards in the city that we were not a danger. Yet, he still advised us to be careful near the castle since we were an odd-looking group, according to him. The unspoken insinuation that being odd, which I still did not understand--even after the many times it had been said, going all the way back to Legen--, made us more likely to cause trouble was nonsense. Each time it was implied, it pushed splinters under my skin. There were fair reasons for treating us with caution, but none that could be seen so quickly from a distance; at the very least, a bit of closer inspection was required.

Before we completely parted ways with the guard whom I had decided I didn't like, I asked if he could point us towards the temple district. Instead of offering even simple directions, he said it was impossible to miss and sent us on our way.

While the assistance would have been appreciated, he was right. We quickly found ourselves standing in the center of a wide road lined with tall buildings--similar to each other only in their grand statures. Even the comparatively smaller buildings stood proud. Otherwise, all the temples were unique in appearance. Different architecture and different colors and different symbols and scatterings of people in different dress.

The Raven Queen temple was obvious due to its dark stone and the sentinel raven statues posed on the roof. Purple curtains blocked the windows from the inside. All of it was like Greston but without the imposing aura that had clung to that temple like a permanent fog. This temple rested without looming--perhaps because it was surrounding by temples of similar size, unlike the temple in Greston that stood alone.

Gathered outside, it was impossible to forget the horrors of Greston.

Talo glanced to the side, glaring at one of the distant temples.

This is for Da, I reminded myself and led the way inside.

We stopped a few feet into the entrance hall. The heavy double doors shut behind us, slowly blocking out the burst of light we had let inside as if it was an intruder to be excised. We didn't really have a plan and awkwardly stood there, unsure of what else to do.

At the end of the hall stood a half-circle of whom I assumed were the temple's attendants, based on their shared attire and veils. They all faced a woman standing at the center of the arc with her back to us. She spoke to the rest in a level but firm voice; a superficial warmth barely covered the chill beneath her words.

"My temple has improved so much because of the changes I've implemented." The speaker had black hair so intense it swallowed the little light that survived inside the temple. She wore dark armor that was partially obscured by the feathered cloak that cascade down her back. "Our worship has been so much purer."

The woman presented herself like what she said was positive, but it was difficult to tell if she was trying to scold the attendants or not--especially given the undertone of disapproval. Like she had decided things were being done wrong here.

"I think she's from Greston," Talo said to Verca and me. "What should we do?"

I thought they meant in general, and I said I didn't know. We didn't necessarily come here with a goal. But they clarified that they meant interrupting this speaker's efforts to influence this temple.

I was still at a loss. If things were good at this temple, then I figured they would stand their ground, able keep themselves from turning to zealotry. I couldn't see Da associating himself with a place whose morals were so fragile as to crumble with such ease.

A priestess at the end of the arc moved her head. Her eyes were obscured by the veil, but I could feel her attention land on our group. She stepped away from the rest of the attendants and walked towards us.

"What do you need?" she asked in a feathery voice similar to what we had heard in Greston. Talo apologized for our interrupting, and I explained that we were not particularly sure ourselves.

"I'm here at my Da's request," I said. "He recently passed. I honestly would not have wanted to come here if it weren't for him. I had less than pleasant experiences in other temples, between the magically compelled drowning and the forced ritual participation."

The woman seemed horrified by what I said--especially the drowning. Mostly to herself, she commented, "Of course it didn't work. You have to be willing."

She shook her head, clearing the thought, before moving on to ask me about Da. I remembered what I had learned in the interrogation room and hesitated, unsure of the best way to say who he was. Stumbling over my words, I awkwardly said, "The past king..."

I anticipated surprise or doubt because I felt outlandish simply saying it. But I did not expect the way her body shifted as if it were lighter, nor did I expect the causal familiarity in her voice. Formality slid away, leaving something much more conversational in its place.

"Zel! Yes, he certainly had a habit of that," she said, nodding. People were saying that a lot, lately.

"It's still weird hearing him called that. My Dad has a thing for full names, and it took a long time for him to agree to use Zah." I could still hear the way Da groaned every time Dad had said Zahzel.

"I figured it would be more familiar than what we usually call him."

"What did you call him?" I asked.

"Champion," she said very simply.

"Champion? Did he duel?"

Talo shook their head. "It's not from dueling, Maeve," they said. "Champion references being chosen by a god."

"Ah," I said, not sure of what else to say. I touched my necklace and looked down at the wooden feather he had carved when I was little. I remembered the similar necklace he wore--different only in the material it was made from.

"It is curious that I never heard him mention you," the priestess said. "What did you say your name was again? Maeve?" she asked, making sure she had caught what Talo signed correctly.

At the center of the arc with the rest of the attendants, black wings erupted from the back of the speaker at the center of the arc. "I see you are lost." Venom followed her words as if they alone were enough to condemn those standing before her. No longer draped in false niceties, the sound tickled something in the back of my mind. "You allow monsters in your halls."

The speaker snapped to face us. A blank porcelain mask covered her face.

She rushed forward.

The corners of my vision bled gold, racing toward the center as it pushed me into myself--much like the way you might push down a stack of blankets in a chest too full to close.

I was barely aware of anything as the gold tried to coalesce, but there she was, a wall of feathered furry suspended in the air. Her arm was raised. She held a rapier I hadn't seen her draw.

The Mask shattered. Thousands of pieces froze in the air. Necrosis more intense than anything I had ever felt before shot through me. It started at my head, right between my eyes, and ate through the rest of my body. I could see the rapier pointed at the center of what had once been the Mask--black piercing through gold--but I couldn't move. Couldn't scream.

"I won't let you out again, Monster," she growled.

And it clicked as she pushed her sword deeper.

Mom.

A mass of gold light rose behind her, pulling my focus from all the pain. The shape of a man--always obscured by his own light--and massive wings that made the woman's look like those of a dull fledgling.

"Maybe he was right," the man said. That familiar voice. So often it was weighed down by the sound of regret and sadness. "Maybe we should have done something. I'm sorry she's still able to hurt you."

A part of me instinctually wanted to look back at her, but something else said it was better to not.

My mouth was stuffed with cotton. I searched my thoughts for something to say, but when I tried, everything was foggy. It was hard to focus. "Who are you?" I asked. I'd been wondering that a long time.

The silhouetted man half bowed--really more of a flourish. It was surprisingly effective at easing the mood. "Thanatos, god of death at your service."

Honestly, I hadn't expected an answer. I wasn't sure where to go from there.

"Few people get to meet me twice," he said "so you must be special. Some don't even meet me once."

"Before..." I said, pieces together. The memories Da surfaced.

"Yes. I'll admit I try to take particular care of kids. The wings and light usually block things out." He hesitated. "I was little late the first time." Said like an admission of guilt even though he had not been the one in the wrong that night.

For a few moments, neither of us said anything.

Then, he continued, "Listen to them. It doesn't have to be with her, and if she is there, I'll be there, too, to help."

I imagined he meant whatever meeting the people at this temple will try to convince me into. To be honest, I had expected as much; Da wouldn't have wanted me to come here simply for an agonizing run in with my mother.

The light became harder to focus on. "Looks like we're out of time," he said, and the light was gone, and I was on my back--gasping for breath, looking up at the stone ceiling with Talo leaning over me.

"Careful, careful," they said.

Everywhere hurt. A stinging ache that pulsed under my skin and in my muscles. Inside my head especially.

My face was wet. In my periphery, I saw the pool of dark red that had begun to spread around me like a grotesque halo--stained and deformed.

Hands surrounded me. I sat up quickly--too quickly--, trying to protect myself from them. Each one touched me and retreated. By the end, any trace of pain was gone. Almost as if I hadn't just been murdered again. No one had said it, but I could feel that it was true.

I looked around. The hands had belonged to the temple attendants, who now stood around us in a scattered circle. Beyond them, stood Verca. He wasn't moving.

"Where is she?" I asked, looking for the emotionless porcelain face in the crowd. Trying to find her before she attacked again.

"She left," Talo said.

She wasn't here. I was safe.

"Well, you've met my mother," I said through a single, humorless chuckle. Everything had reached a point of absurdity that I couldn’t help it. The pain was gone, but my throat was dry, and I wanted little more than to curl up in my room at the cabin.

I reached for Kaemon at my shoulder. His feathers had always been a comfort.

He wasn't there.

I scrambled to my feet, looking for him. "Kaemon?" I called, over and over until I was nearly yelling, voice hoarse and gravely and sore. I had always sounded raw and grainy when I raised by voice--I remembered the scar on the side my neck and the final burst of pain from the memory of that night--, but this was beyond that. "Kaemon!" My legs barely kept me standing.

"Maeve," Talo said calmly. "He's not here. I think he's a familiar. Which is good; it means you can resummon him."

I had raised Kaemon. He'd been a baby I found on some city street that had fallen from his nest. I'd known him his entire life. He was Kaemon.

"Normal birds can't communicate the way he does."

"No. That happens when you're close with an animal..." They shook their head.

The priestess we had spoken with earlier stepped forward. "May I?" she asked, but stopped, attention sharply moving onto Talo, who glared back at her. It was clear there was a conversation going on that I was not a part of.

Whatever was said escalated until Talo snapped at her verbally--only to be silenced, hands and mouth, magically by the priestess.

Again, she turned to me and repeated, "May I?"

I watched her outstretched hand like it was a rabid animal. "It depends...With what?"

"To guide you," she said, formal and soft spoken like when she first approached us.

I nodded.

She moved my hand to my necklace. "Think of him, and ask for him to return."

I squeezed the wooden feather. "Kaemon, please."

A familiar weight returned to my shoulder. I nearly cried as the relief washed away the pins and needles in my hands. When I asked Kaemon about what Talo said, he was unable to speak about why he was magical.

The priestess took a step back, giving us space. "You are all welcome here," she said.

It was then I noticed Verca had not moved since I had come back. "Verca?" Talo and I asked together, worried.

He fell to his knees. We rushed over. He pressed his head into the stone floor.

"Verca, Verca it's okay," I said, dropping to my knees beside him.  "Everything is okay. I'm okay."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. Not again. I couldn't do anything. I'm sorry. Not again." Again and again, he repeated himself. I tried to reach him, but it didn't feel like he heard any of it. All I wanted to do was show him everything was okay. It hurt to watch him drown like this. It hurt more to know it was something that had happened because of me.

Gingerly, I touched his shoulder, but he instantly recoiled, and I pulled back. "I'm sorry," I said, guilt running down my back as I remembered the impact of people like Sala and Wren--and that I should have known better.

Unable to do anything else, I reached into the Bag of Holding, pulled out Griffon, and set him near Verca's hands for him to hold if he'd like.

With Talo's and the priestess's help, he eventually calmed down. It was a relief to hear his voice say something other than the panic-induced loop. He tried to give Griffon back, but I shook my head. "I pulled him out for you to use."

Verca opened his arms. Already on the floor beside him, I cautiously--for both of our sakes-- leaned over to hug him. I didn't anticipate being pulled forward with his full strength, practically held against his chest. He was even warmer than usual.

Moments later, Talo was pulled into the hug, too.

After we pulled apart, I looked to the priestess. "Do you know what I did?" I dreaded the answer.

Her head dipped in apology. "I wish I did."

Like a staff, I summoned the scythe to help me to my feet and leaned against it to help maintain my balance. Despite the healing, I didn't quite feel like my steady self.

"Interesting," she said, but didn't elaborate when I looked at her curiously. Instead, she continued, "I'd like to ask you to stay."

Thanatos's words echoed in my memory. "I imagined as much. Although, I've never had a good experience in a Raven Queen temple. Between the dying and the drowning and the meeting that another god said we shouldn't be there for..."

"Another god?" asked Talo.

I explained that the masculine voice from that day was the one I kept hearing and that I had learned who he was when I was gone.

"What god was it?" Verca asked.

I looked to the priestess. "I don't really know religion stuff. Is it okay to say another god's name while in one's place of worship?"

"It is mostly fine," she said.

"He said he was Thanatos, god of death."

All of the attendants gasped and muttered between themselves. Apparently, 'most' did not include him.

The matter of taboo names reminded me of the nameless followers we had met previously. "Do you not have names like the brunette we met in Greston?"

"That is complicated," the priestess answered after a tense pause.

"It just would be nice to be able to refer to you in some way other than 'that priestess'. And Dad has a name, so I wasn't sure if that was an everybody thing."

I could feel the odd expression she gave me. "What is your father's name?"

"Feron."

"Oh," she said, voice high and tight like someone had unexpectedly dropped ten pounds of dead fish at her feet. "Yes, he is a particular case. But you may call me Valon."

"Thank you, Valon," I said.

Talo hummed telepathically, signing as they said, "That sounds a lot like Vallah."

Again, the circle of priestesses gasped and talked in hushed comments to one another.

Amusement pulled at Verca's face. It was a welcomed contrast to how he had looked on the floor. "Let's see if we can go three-for-three. Hades?" He smiled as the women gasped for a third time.

Apparently, both of those names referenced other gods, too.

It was a pleasant distraction from whatever meeting we were about to have, as well as the various unfortunate means that could be used.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 20: Prophecy

Sleep that night was a calm reprieve from the developing pattern of dread. The abstract peace and relaxation of a normal dream was refreshing like the gentle waters of the stream near the cabin.

"You're welcome, by the way," said a formless, masculine voice. The same voice I had heard a few times in various places. Spoken another way, the same words could have easily been sarcastic or snide, but like most times I heard him, the tone was instead soft and kind. "I hope you appreciate the gift."

I looked around, unable to find the source of the voice or anything else out of the ordinary. "Thank you," I said, awkwardly fumbling over my words as I tried to think of what else to say. "I assume you mean the scythe?" There weren't many other new things that he could have been referencing; the only other new arrival had been Da's shield, and that gift felt like Da's or Van's to claim.

The voice did not respond. I waited, hoping for him to say something more, and was only met by a single black and blue swallowtail, fluttering on the still air until it landed on my forehead.

When I woke up, the quilts on my bed were mostly undisturbed--a sharp contrast to the twisted piles that had been half tossed to the floor the previous morning. Griffon was still in my arms, but he was not clutched in distress.

I sat up and looked down at my hands, willing the scythe to form. The golden energy coalesced, becoming solid in my grasp. For such a long weapon, its lightness was still a surprise. I turned it over a few times, idly looking it over before getting up and moving towards the desk on the far side of my room. I pulled back the heavy curtains covering the windows on either side of the desk. Like an animal waking from a long nap, sunlight stretched across the room.

I willed Da's shield to replace the scythe and set it down. Over the years, the originally dark wood had faded in spots, leaving an inconsistent gradient of brown tones across the desk. I pulled the chair back, careful not to snag the rug--whose once rich purple fabric had also faded in similar patternless patterns. It was still soft underfoot, though.

Sitting down, I reached for the bottom drawer on the right side of the desk. Inside, there was a collection of glass jars filled with different paints. One by one, I set them in a neat line in front of me. From the top drawer on the same side, I brought out the matching set of brushes and the old, multicolor-stained cloth I used to wipe off excess paint.

When Dad, Da, and I painted my old shield, there hadn't been any pressure. We were all laughing, having fun as we made somewhat of a mess at the kitchen counter. Dad had never been a fan of my training with Da; painting the shield had been meant to make Dad feel more included in it all. Given the mess we all made, we were lucky that that shield had come out as pretty as it did.

Looking down at Da's shield, I struggled to find that same levity. The brushes were heavy in my hands. The paints watched me with grave judgement. I couldn't mess this up.

Painting the first flower took longer than I expected--probably because I was so focused on ensuring every brushstroke was perfect. After that, the second flower came easier, and the third had a promising start before I was interrupted by a knock at my door. I paused, grateful that I had been dipping my brush in more paint and not mid-stroke.

I set the brush on the scrap cloth. "Come in. The door's open."

Verca walked in, followed by a wide-eyed Talo.

"We have a problem," he said.

I frowned. "What is wrong?"'

Talo opened their mouth. Gold light poured out alongside Celestial words that did not feel like their own.

"Each in your past has a devil you can't escape:

The one you know, the one you don't, and the one that's always known you.

The sands of the hourglass pass everything in a dream you can't escape.

Sins of the father beget punishment of the son.

And a matron's love knows no bound.

The towering figure of sand.

The monstrous giant.

And the woman who seems to be a mirror.

Not everything is set in stone, but these things fate demands you face. But even fate may have more to it than you expect."

The glow faded, and Talo was able to close their mouth. There was a long stretch of silence as we processed what had been said.

Back to speaking in our heads, Talo added that they'd had another weird dream during the night. They had expected something from Melora, but instead they had found themself in a desert-like expanse with a large tree in the distance. They had approached the tree, and when they touched it, they saw a series of images come to life.

First there had been a masked woman with dark hair. Long ears had extended from the sides of her face, and her skin had been very pale.

Next, they saw a humanoid figure covered in boils.

"That sounds a lot like one of the people from Verca's dream the other night," I said before they could continue. Talo and Verca agreed.

Verca added that he thought the masked woman resembled me. Dark hair and pointed ears were relatively common traits though; without any other details, I was hesitant to agree. Talo said that they had thought of the women at the Raven Queen temple in Greston.

They went on to share that the final figure they saw was that of Morpheus.

As far as we could tell based on what Talo had told us in the past, Morpheus was a relatively antagonistic force, and while we did not know what Verca had released from that statue in his dream, the boil-covered entity did not seem friendly, either. If Verca was right about that first image being me, I worried that I would become something vile we would have to stop.

Talo was quick to disagree with my concern. "I think this means we're going to need to find out more about your past and any other missing memories." They pointed out that we had yet to learn how I had come back after being killed, which was not something I had thought about since Da had restored those memories.

They also indirectly referenced the fact that they and Verca still did not quite know what I had remembered.

I did my best to share what I could, going through the details that stood out. I also shared what I could regarding the winged figure, speaking with that same masculine voice I kept hearing, who had only appeared in my dream after the events of the memory. Verca had asked if I had been able to make out any specific features of the man, but the light coming from his wings had left him little more than a warm silhouette.

"We'll have to talk to the glowing Mask the next time it comes out," Talo said. Apparently, they had promised it that they would not prod, making them hesitant to take the first step in starting that conversation.

After we'd finished trying to untangle what we could of the information we had vaguely been given that morning, Talo stepped out to speak with Faunsel via a Sending Stone they had been given. Verca stayed in the room, playing fetch with Kaemon, while I continued painting.

"By the way," Verca said after tossing Kaemon's toy for him to chase, "how are you feeling?"

He must have seen something in my body language that I'd yet to process myself, because my stomach twisted in a sharp pang of hunger as soon as the question was left in the air. I dropped the brush I'd been using and pressed my palms into my eyes--trying to push away the quickly growing need climbing my bones.

I counted the days in my head: five since I had attacked Verca in the library. "Actually, I think you should go," I warned, fighting the waves of empty nausea that came from not eating.

My chair swirled without me moving it. I lowered my hands and saw Verca leaning over me, head tilted to the side so that his neck was fully exposed.

"Take what you need," he said.

I pushed myself as far from him as I could, held in place by the back of the chair. "Verca, no. I can't."

But he insisted. Didn't step away. Stayed too close.

"I don't want to hurt you," I said, shaking my head.

"You won't."

My nails dug into the armrests of the chair. I could feel the urge--the hunger--under my skin, eager to take what was offered.

It felt like there were knives in my gut--slowly shaving slivers of flesh off the corners of my ribs--, but I wasn't sure if that was from the hunger itself of my attempt at fighting it.

Verca brought up a hand and ran a sharp nail against the side of his neck. Blood gathered on his finger and continued to bead around the cut. He leaned closer, holding his finger barely an inch from my mouth.

The smell was intoxicating.

I couldn't fight it. I leaned forward, bringing my mouth around his finger first--sucking and licking at the little blood I could. Not enough to satiate the depth of need that had gathered over five days, but the pain at least lost its intensity.

My eyes flickered to his neck as the taste of blood--rich even in small quantities--faded, fully cleaned away now. Since being turned, it had lost that metallic tang; now it was decadent and sweet like perfectly ripe fruit or luxurious chocolate cake. I abandoned his finger and brought my hands to his shoulders, pulling him closer. He didn't resist. In the haze of hunger, as I leaned into the crook of his neck, it felt as right as matching puzzle pieces coming together.

I opened my mouth, my fangs lightly grazing his neck as I first licked at the thin line of blood that had gathered beneath his cut.

And then I brought my mouth fully around the wound, fangs pressing against sensitive skin.

"I'm yours to have," he said as I bit down. Hot blood rushed over my tongue and down my throat. The heat was filling--a small fire pooling in my stomach--and comforting at the same time. Verca exhaled. His breath tickled the tip of my ear.

"Oh gods, not again." Talo's words abruptly replaced the mindless enjoyment I had gotten lost in for I don’t know how long. They didn't sound horrified, though; perhaps embarrassed. 

I pulled away from Verca, slamming my spine once more into the back of my chair and hiding my face behind my hands. Shame was already wrappings its slimy arms around my torso.

Verca pulled out a piece of cloth and pressed it to the fresh wound on his neck.

Shame's grip tightened.

I gently touched the edge of where I had bitten him and did what I could to heal him in apology.

There was still blood around my mouth. I reached for the cloth I had been wiping my brushes on.

"No," Verca said very simply when I picked it up. He held out the fold of fabric he used on his neck.

I took the cloth and wiped my mouth. "Thank you."

Talo brought up their offer to make blood bags again. I shook my head, saying I was fine.

"It could even be Verca's blood, if you want," they said.

It wasn't an issue of specifically wanting to feed from him; I didn't want anyone's blood. I couldn't act like this was normal.

They also said something about the bags being better than waiting until I was at the edge and attacking someone else. I remembered how I lost control in the library. We had been lucky that it was Verca I threw myself onto and not a stranger. The thought brought a new nausea, different than the one that accompanied the hunger. Still, I couldn't bring myself to give in. 

Talo dropped the subject--for now, at least.

Before leaving to check in with Dad, they pulled something from their jacket. A small wooden jewelry box. "I made something for you, but with everything going on there wasn't really a good time to give it to you," they said, holding out the box.

I was stunned. Although simple, the box itself was well made and beautiful. There was the weight of something else inside.

I opened it. A metal butterfly safely sat in the container. The craftsmanship was immaculate. Thin lines were etched in the metal, decorating the wings.

"Thank you, Talo," I said, at a loss for words. "It's beautiful. Thank you." I hugged them, only realizing what I had done after my arms were wrapped around their body. Wide eyed, I stepped back and focused on my smile as I thanked them again while putting the butterfly and its box in the Bag of Holding where it would not be damaged.

When Talo did leave for the kitchen, looking for Dad, Verca stayed behind while I finished painting the shield. A part of me had hoped that he would go with them so that I could open a window and make myself throw up again. But another part of me enjoyed the company.

We were both quiet while I worked. By the time I was done, the bottom third of the shield was adorned with white lilies similar to my first shield and a number of other flowers in the background. The upper third of the metalwork was covered in butterflies, leaving the emblazoned raven comfortably nestled between the two.

I hadn't thought about how long it would take for the paint to dry until that point, which was especially concerning given its current link with the bracers. Verca helped to speed up the drying process by waving a flame over the paint.

"I lied earlier," he said, looking down at the shield instead of me. "I did have a dream." He explained that he didn't want to share earlier--partially because there was already a lot going on with Talo's dream.

"Why did you change your mind?" I asked.

"I'm not sure." He said he would tell Talo about it later and described what he could remember of it to me.

He had been in a dark space, unable to make out many details of whatever was around him until a series of tendrils reached out and two glowing green eyes had opened, staring at him from the distance where the rest of the body sat out of sight.

He looked at me. "When my eyes turned green the other day, where they alight like that?"

It had been so quick, but I thought about that moment. We hadn't been in the dark, so it hadn't stood out so obviously, but with a second though, I was sure that they had.

Verca nodded, clearly trying to tie together whatever details he could in his mind.

"It told me not to be a hero," he said. "Not to be a martyr. It said it didn't want to bury us both." There was a tense line between his eyebrows--troubled by whatever he had experienced.

The language of 'both' was interesting. I couldn't help but think of the times he had mentioned his mother.

"Talo and I don't want to see you die. We are both going to do our parts to keep you safe," I said. "And regarding the issue of martyrdom, especially knowing that I think you can probably be the most reckless of us..." I tried to find the kindest way to phrase what I meant, but it was difficult.

Luckily, he stopped my rambling. "No, I agree."

"You don't need to throw yourself into the fire to handle whatever is ahead of us. We're going to figure it out, and get through it, together."

A beat of silence as he thought over my words. "Can I have a hug?" he asked.

I hesitated.

"You don't have to."

"No, no. I just hugged Talo," I said, feeling ridiculous. "And you're usually the most bearable touch these days, anyways. I can give you a hug."

I stepped closer to Verca and carefully wrapped my arms around him, keeping the pressure light. He matched the intensity. We stayed like that for a few seconds before I moved back.

"We should probably see what Talo and Feron are up to," he said. I agreed, and we walked into the hallway.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 19: A Watchful Eye

The bird's scream echoed against the shadow-cloaked cavern walls. Standing in the center of the massive, dark space, its far away outline was difficult to follow. I ran ahead and pulled to the side so that we weren't in too much of a clustered line. As I moved, the weight of my sword and shield changed, redistributing themselves into different shapes--like wet clay experimentally stretched from bowl to vase by an artist's curious hands.

I adjusted my grip on the bow I now held and pulled back on the taut string. An arrow of gold energy that struggled to glitter against the oppressive darkness materialized, ready for release.

One breath to steady myself, letting my focus sharpen around the bestial bird ahead of us and quieting the rest of my runaway thoughts.

I let go. The arrow flew wide.

A second arrow replaced the first in the bow without missing a beat, ready to fire. It followed the first.

The bird and its many bright eyes dissolved into the shadows of the cavern. The three of us turned our heads, trying to follow its path, but like a swooping owl, it made no noise.

Claws raked across my back. It had gotten behind me. A crushing force pinched my waist as its mandibles wrapped around me. My feet came off the ground as it brought its head up.

It only took a few pulses of its massive wings for the bird-like thing to take us back towards Verca and Talo. The wind it created with each push flung my braids into my face.

Talo's eyes were wide as they surveyed the situation. They handed something off to Verca.

My attention moved back to the monster bird as its hold on me tightened. I pushed against the beak, but it hardly noticed me. When I looked back to them, Verca was much closer than before--although he appeared to stand in the same place. Beside him, Talo looked tiny in comparison. It was less that he was closer than it was that he had doubled in size during the few seconds I had been distracted.

Verca looked down at himself. A grin curled across his face as his focus moved back to the bird.

I squirmed in its beak and mandibles again, trying to find a gap to slip through instead of trying to pry them apart. The jagged edges of the beak and mandibles meant that the pressure wasn't evenly distributed across them, and with enough wriggling, I was able to slide free.

Dropping to the ground at its feet, I willed the bow back to a sword and shield as I looked at the colossal figure that still towered over us.

If a vaguely insectoid bird was capable of snarling, I think it would have as it stared down at me before lunging forward and clamping down around my sides once more.

Up close for a second time, I saw a single pale blue eye amongst the clusters of glowing red.

Frustrated, I jammed my sword into one of its oversized mandibles, digging the blade as deep as I could. A sharp crunching crack ripped from the side of its face as the pincer tore away from the rest of it.

Alongside the detached mandible, I fell to the ground. The creature wouldn't be grabbing onto anyone else.

In its own anger, it raised its wings again and flew back into the deeper shadows of the cavern. Not wanting it to get too far away, I raced after it.

When we first came into this open room in the cave, we had seen a dull orange glow in the distance, but the weight of the darkness made it impossible to make out specific details. Considering the heat that filled the air as soon as we passed through the entrance at the base of the mountain, it had occurred to me in the seconds before the fight broke out that it might have been lava.

I was right about there being lava in here, but I had underestimated the extent of its presence: much larger than a single crack, a stream of lava ran across the back half of the cavern--just behind where the bird had landed.

Face to face again, a massive claw swiped at me. Like before, it made solid contact--razor-sharp talons easily tearing through the flesh over my ribs. It did not sting as much the first attack, but the tiny gap in my memory following the hit made me fairly confident that I promptly passed out--that and the suddenly finding myself on my back and, upon sitting up, seeing a still-massive Verca with eyebrows pulled together in worry.

The bird screeched. Pain blossomed along every edge of my mind before the darkness of the cave invaded the little light that remained visible, spilling over like the bleeding ink of a wet letter.

I came back again and saw Talo rushing past before gold dripped over my vision, and I lost myself behind the Mask.

When I regained awareness of myself, the golden glow of the Mask still clung to the edges of my vision. My hands were wrapped around the long handle of a scythe--made of the same energy as the weapons from my bracers--that I had never seen before. I looked between Talo, who stood just in front of me, and Verca, positioned on the other side of the now-bisected monster.

"What happened?" I asked. It was unusual for me to come back while the Mask was still present, and the unfamiliar scythe did nothing to lessen the confusion.

I had never held such a large weapon before; despite its size, it was surprisingly light. When I was younger, Da used to lovingly tease me for not choosing a weapon with more heft--instead favoring precision over pure force. I'm confident this would have amused him.

There was no real answer about the scythe aside from the implication that it appeared as a part of whatever I did to cut the bird in half.

The Mask however, seemed to be playing nice. Talo had asked it to bring me back, and it had complied. They commented that the Mask that emitted light seemed to be more amicable than the others and willing to entertain at least some requests.

"How are you doing?" Talo asked, not so subtly trying to look me over for injuries. While a large portion of my body still stung from all of the claw and beak injuries, I was on my feet. I would be fine and could take care of myself if I needed to.

I was midway through telling Talo as much when I was interrupted.

"There's no need," Dad said, stepping out of one of the many shadows at the edge of the space. One by one, he healed us all. Chalice-shaped lights hovered in the area around him as he worked.

I had been meaning to ask Dad about the Mask and if he knew anything regarding the questionable number of entities potentially possessing me. With everything else going on, a good time had never come up. There was no better moment than when the thing was right there, though.

"I don't know about the Mask," he said, giving me--well, presumably it--a weird look, "but they're your wings."

"My wings?" I had not expected that.

"I knew it would take time for you to grow into them." He seemed completely unfazed--as if that was a normal occurrence.

Talo gestured to the separated halves of the bird-like beast. "What was that?"

He looked at the creature, his shoulders falling some. The wrinkles under his eyes were more pronounced. Since coming home, there was a sadness that hung around Dad that I hadn't remembered being there before. Perhaps I just hadn't seen it.

Dad explained that thing was an Ancient Deep Crow--a particularly old one at that. The crow had lost its mate and descended into a dark place in its mourning, spiraling farther and farther from what it had once been. Spaces like this cave provided important nesting spots for Deep Crows; Dad said that this crow needed to be removed so a new mating pair could use the cavern. He had known this crow its entire life, which was why he hadn't been able to handle it himself.

As he explained the matter of the crow, I was still trying to understand what Dad had said about my wings. "Can we go back to the wing thing?" I asked, struggling to grasp how they could be mine--especially when they only appeared alongside the Mask.

"I can show you," Dad said, and two massive white wings spread behind his back--much too large to have simply been hidden in his clothes. Although I was rarely present at the same time as my wings, the few times I had seen them, they had been semi-corporeal in the same way as the Mask. The gold hung in the air with a twinkling glint like the remnants of a dense fog. But Dad's wings were as there as the rest of his body; there was no seeing through them, and if I were close enough to reach him, I could tell that the dense feathers would be soft to the touch.

He tried to explain that we were aasimar, I term I had never heard before.

Dad gestured to Verca. "You know how your friend here is part devil?" We had never super delved into the details of tieflings, but I had a vague memory of Da commenting as much when I was younger. He had not been a person who felt it necessary to leave things unspoken or skirt around matters of fact.

I nodded.

"I take offense to that," Verca interjected. "I'm also half orc."

"Assimar are like the celestial equivalent," Dad said. "And that is an excellent point. You're also half elf." That explained the years-long misunderstanding.

Dad opened his mouth to say something else but stopped himself. When I asked what he almost said, he shook his head, frowning. "I'm not ready to talk about it."

He changed the subject after that, saying that he was the "equivalent of one hundred and ten years old."

Talo, who seemed to understand more of what Dad was capable of than I did, said, "But don't you age at a slower rate?"

Dad nodded. "I am actually over one-thousand." He paused, his face briefly scrunching as he thought something over. "Maybe closer to one-thousand and two hundred." He looked at me with those forever sad eyes. "I am fairly confident that I only have a few years left."

All the lingering aches from the fight with the Deep Crow turned into a cold numbness. A hollow feeling opened in my chest. I couldn't lose him and Da. Especially not so close together. I imagined continuing to travel with Talo and Verca--it didn't feel like we could stop where we were--and coming home to a cold body in the middle of the cabin.

I couldn't...

Dad tried to reassure that we still had time, but when you know time is limited, the usually long stretch of a year feels like it could pass in a second--tumbling out of reach like a ball down a flight of stairs. I didn't know what to say.

His acceptance of his limited remaining time had been a part of his reason for assigning this test. He had wanted to make sure Talo and Verca were people he could trust if he wasn't around.

Dad looked to Talo. "And with that, this is for you." He held out his staff. I think they tried to hide it, but it was clear that they were intimidated by the implications as they reached forward.

The staff, which was probably taller than Talo, shrunk when their hand touched the old, twisted wood. They turned their hand, looking at the now wand-sized staff. "I wasn't expecting that."

"I cannot say I was either," said Dad.

Before it was time to leave, Talo asked if they could take a moment to draw the Deep Crow for one of their parents. Once they were done the sketch, Dad employed Verca's help with pushing the halves of the Deep Crow into the lava. The massive body sunk into the lava stream, succumbing to the intense heat. Dark feathers were consumed in flashes of flame, but a speck of pale blue bobbed to the top of the glowing oranges and reds. The odd sight caught my attention, and I reached out with the blade of the scythe, skimming the surface of the lave and pulling out the blue fleck--a small stone.

It was the blue eye I had seen amongst the crow's many red ones. I told the others where I had seen it earlier during the fight. Dad, despite his years of knowing the crow, said that he had never noticed such an eye on the creature.

I let the stone cool and picked it up between my thumb and pointer finger. Out of curiosity, I willed the scythe back into a sword and shield--Da's shield. I brought the stone closer to the emblazoned raven, comparing its shape and size to the missing eye.

The stone tried to force itself into the hole, nearly flying out of my grasp. I barely managed to maintain my grip on it, not quite allowing it to settle into the slot.

Just in case, I asked Talo to Identify the stone--if there was something catastrophic lurking within this stone or shield, I wanted to know before letting them rejoin.

Talo agreed, saying that they would take a look at it once we were out of the cave. Dad led us back into the woods, taking us to a tree which split in half at his touch--much like the tree that had taken us to Da's family. In a single file, we stepped through and were returned to the cabin.

We all gathered in the living room. Talo sat on the floor with the stone. With it cupped between their hands, they silently focused.

"It is called the Allseer's Stone," they said after about ten minutes. "It was separated long ago and yearns to return to its proper place."

"Da didn't seem like the kind of person to carry around evil things," I said, "so this should be fine." I brought the stone back to the front of the shield, this time allowing it to shoot into the raven's empty eye socket.

Light swirled around the outside of the shield before releasing a burst of blue energy into the living room. A sense of completion settled in the air.

Once more, Talo tried to Identify the shield. This time, they learned that it was called the Allseer's Shield. When they handed it back to me, they pointed out that a second eye socket had sunken in on the raven--meaning a second stone was probably somewhere waiting to join the first.

"So what now?" Talo asked. "Aside from rest, I mean."

"As much as I don't want to go, Da requested that we visit the temple in Dandruin," I said, already feeling uneasy at the thought. I had no intention of denying him one of his final requests. "I just hope that it goes smoother than the temple in Greston."

Dad tilted his head, and I reminded him of the chaos that occurred in Greston--particularly regarding the magically compelled drowning and the mid-ritual decapitation. Based on the disturbed expression that flashed over his face, the weight of the events hit him more upon hearing it a second time.

"Did anyone stand out while you were there?" he asked, carefully choosing his words.

I wasn't sure what he meant at first, but in revisiting what happened, I remembered how different the brunette woman had looked compared to everyone else there. When I described her to dad--including how she had claimed to have no name as a part of her devotion--, his face fell.

"What?" I asked.

Again, he avoided any real answer. "She reminded me of someone I once knew."

Dad's head snapped towards Talo, a dark fury in his eyes. In the same motion, he pulled out a blade I hadn't seen him carrying--coated in flames--and swung at them.

"Dad!" I yelled, trying to pull him back from whatever had overcome him.

Verca called out, too, and the flames sputtered, leaving the blade alone pointed in Talo's direction.

"You knew Toma?" they asked.

Dad dropped his weapon. "A long time ago."

I wasn't sure where that had come from. The safest assumption was that Talo had telepathically said something to only Dad.

"Was he one of the 'infected?'" I asked.

Dad sighed. "I don't know."

"How did you know him?"

He looked at me. "I can answer, but it'll open a conversation that I don't think you will like."

I had had enough of information being dangled just out of reach. I would be fine.

Despite my decision, he looked uncertain. "A long time ago, your mother and I and three other adventurers went into the Nine Hells to put a stop to an archduke that was the sworn enemy of the Raven Queen. Toma was one of the people left in charge of the temple your mother and I lived at while we were away. Having an outsider in a position of power in a Raven Queen temple--especially that temple--was nigh unheard of. And one-thousand years later or so, you were born."

I focused on releasing the tension in my shoulders, not having expected her to be a part of this story. Dad had warned me. The rush forward in time at the end of his story made me wonder what might have been left out, though.

I thought to the memories Da had uncovered. "Does you living at a temple relate to your issues with 'the infection of zealotry?'"

Dad nodded. "It does."

"I guess that is another thing to add to the list of things wrong with me: the Raven Queen hates me," I said. Echoing each other, Talo and Verca voiced their disagreement.

Verca crossed his arms. "I'm going to start making you say nice things about yourself." I frowned but kept my attention on Dad, whose face had twisted in confusion.

"She doesn't hate you," he said.

I remembered the feminine voice screaming in the dark when we had been forced into the ritual to meet with her. What is she doing here? She can't be here! Get out! Rage and fear had laced her words.

And I remembered the raven statuette that had burned my hands through my gloves and the vision of a towering mask that emanated the same fear. Sharp, distorted words: It's all wrong. You're wrong. You shouldn't be. You shouldn't be, repeated like a mantra.

"She doesn't hate you," Dad repeated. "She feels guilty for what happened."

The ghostly crash of broken glass echoed in my ears. It was impressive that a memory buried for so many years could play now in such vivid detail. In trying to understand the why of it all, it had been easier to believe she did it following divine orders--orders from someone that she and Dad apparently once devoted so much of themselves to. I was at a loss for words trying to fathom what other why there could have been.

He continued. "I do not outright hate the gods, including the Raven Queen. I hate what people do in their names."

The weight of that sentiment fell over the room, bringing a quiet lull in the conversation as we thought over his words.

Shortly after that, we started moving towards bed. I stepped into the kitchen to grab some peach slices before going to my room and was stopped by Verca. "Say there's nothing wrong with you, first," he said. There was a determined stubbornness in his eyes. I wanted to push back, but I could tell there would be no getting out of this; he had made a decision, and I suspected there was very little in the world capable of swaying Verca after he had made up his mind about something.

Begrudgingly, I said, "There's nothing wrong with me." The words felt like they had come from someone else's mouth. I couldn’t find it in myself to believe them.

He looked me over. "Alright. It's a start. We'll work on it."

I filled a small bowl with peach slices, walked down the hall to my bedroom, and went to bed.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 18: Hello, Goodbye

The pain quickly faded--a passing ghost everywhere besides my hands, where it stayed. I wiped my cheeks. A few dark spots speckled one side of my griffon's face from where tears had soaked into the fabric. I took the corner of my blanket and tried to blot them away. Tried to use it to distract from the lingering tremors running from my chest to my fingertips. I sat up and held on to Griffon, waiting for it to eventually come to a stop.

Which it did, after a long stretch of focusing on the line of tinted sunlight that slipped past the break between my curtains, spilling onto the area rug that brought some softness to the hardwood floors. I thought about what Verca said yesterday about finding ways to ground myself.

Still holding Griffon, I went out to the living room. Amongst the spread of blankets and pillows on the floor where Verca and Talo had been pseudo-camping out, I almost didn't see the breast plate beside Verca's place on the floor, still asleep. The thought of accidentally smashing my bare feet into that was not a pleasant one.

I looked over at Talo, who was already up working on their potions. "Do you know how this got here?"

They turned their head. "I didn't even see it until now."

Dad stepped out of the kitchen adjacent to the living room. "He didn't have any. I thought it would help," he said.

Verca woke after that. Like us, he was surprised by Dad's gift but appreciative.

Talo commented that they had once again returned to a night of upsetting dreams. Verca half chuckled to himself; there was a sourness in the sound. "You, too? I'm guessing we all had an eventful night, then?" He and Talo looked at me.

I hugged my griffon tighter. My eyes darted to the fireplace, focusing on the ivy and floral carvings on either side of it instead of them. "It..." I paused, trying to decide what to say. "It was something."

Verca described his dream first. There was a constantly changing room with a statue at its center. He told us how a spear had been lodged in the statue--a spear that he now had with him.

I have said before that very little should surprise me about Verca anymore. But the second instance of him finding something in his dreams and it suddenly becoming corporeal in the waking world felt like a particularly odd pattern. The first time it happened, it had been a shock--primarily because of the curse, which he was confident the spear lacked--, but the second made it feel connected. There must be a reason things keep coming to him like this.

Despite Talo's and my concern about the trend, Verca insisted that the materialization of the spear was not the oddest part of the dream. Rather, he said it was whatever seemed to be awakened or released from the statue when he pulled the spear free.

Like the room, the statue had changed as he approached it. The body of the figure remained the same, but its visage cycled through a series of three faces: one bulbous and covered in boils, another sharp and stone-like--in a way that went beyond the stone of the statue itself--, and the third that Verca called the most upsetting of the trio. He described the face as cold and filled with hatred. Otherwise, it was normal, which was perhaps why he found it so unsettling.

"It was almost like it was waiting for revenge," Verca said.

Assuming we were right about these figures being released, we agreed that we couldn't leave them to become other people's problems. But we also didn't have any more information than the fact that this would probably because an issue, so we were left in a waiting game on that front.

Talo described their dream next. They had been confronted by Morpheus again, but that turned out to have been orchestrated as a punishment. The goddess Talo had been interacting with lately--somewhere along the line, it had been presumed that she was Melora, but I do not actually recall being told that the goddess had confirmed that herself--had let Morpheus through in retaliation for Talo trying to stand up to her yesterday.

They explained that she demanded Talo get Dad's staff. It sounded more like a threat.

Confused, I looked between them and Dad. "I can't image you without that staff, though. You've always had it."

"Things have been discussed," he said. There was unfamiliar, serious edge to his voice. It showed in his eyes, too--in the way he looked over Talo.

Apparently, he had tasked Talo with proving they can--or will--fight.

"How will this 'proving' be done, anyways?" they asked.

Dad said, "There's a creature in these woods. A creature that does not belong here, but I cannot remove it myself. So you three are going to deal with it."

I frowned. Just yesterday, he had told us that he had turned into a dragon. If he could do that, I was not sure what could be so beyond Dad's abilities that we would have a chance at managing.

After Dad finished describing his test, it slipped out that his intention was to see if Talo and Verca were capable of "taking care" of me. I can't imagine that he had intended that to be shared information because it had hurt to hear. It was a different pain than being stabbed or blindly slashed through; it was soft and fluid, reaching into the cracks and freezing inside--expanding in a place that didn't have the give to expand in turn. Too much like that root-bound plant.

"I can take care of myself," I insisted. It felt like a lie; I remembered Greston and Sala--I hadn't been able to stop that. But I still wanted it to be true. I wanted him to believe in me. To believe that I could be enough--that I was more than someone who needed others' protection.

Dad's face softened. "I need to know they can keep you alive," he corrected himself. He tried to emphasize the importance of that. I squeezed Griffon tighter.

"Where are we going for this test?" Talo asked.

Dad turned his attention to them. "That's a part of the test." He pulled out a massive, black feather--far bigger than anything I had ever seen before. Dad handed it to Talo. It was our job to track down the creature, and this feather was our starting point.

We couldn't jump straight to searching for this monster that we knew next to nothing about, though. First, we had to say goodbye to Da one more time.

"It will be a small ceremony," Dad said. He looked to Verca and Talo. "The three of us will probably be in the distance, and you will be further ahead with his sons and wife."

He smiled for the first time that morning. "But first: breakfast. I made pancakes."

The entire time we were eating, I was thinking about meeting Da's family and the different ways that could play out.

With breakfast finished, Dad took us into the woods. I put Griffon in the Bag of Holding as we moved outside. Da had mentioned Dandruin before, so I had assumed we would be going in that direction--which also meant that I had anticipated finding a road and going on a long walk to the city which I had only heard of in passing. But we didn't wander on to any major paths or roads at all. Dad instead stopped after only a few minutes of walking at a large tree.

He brought a hand up, resting it on the moss-covered and mushroom-scattered trunk. The branches above us reached over a broader area than any of the nearby trees. Flowery vines draped from the sky like pale pink and lilac garland.

Next to Dad's hand, the trunk split at its center--opening like an animal yawning at the beginning of a long, sleepless night. And in that open mouth was more trees but without any of the flowers of home.

Dad gestured forward. One by one, we stepped through this tree and came out another. I was halfway between the two when it occurred to me that no one had asked about my dream. That was a shard of relief.

On the other side, there was a cabin further ahead--just past the sightline of the tree that had brought us there. The rest of the trees at the perimeter were dense. There weren't any butterflies.

"We'll be here," Dad said to me.

My feet felt like they were a part of the forest floor. I didn't know what to do. "Do I just go up and knock?" I asked, hesitant. I felt so out of place. "And you're just going to stay behind?"

Dad said that they could ask if they could join if that would make me more comfortable, but I didn't want to intrude. At the same time though, I worried about Dad. As far as I could tell, Da had been his best friend. I didn't want him to feel shut out, either.

"More are welcome." A feminine voice interrupted my awkward rambling. I froze and with wide eyes followed the direction her words had come from.

A tall, dark skinned elven woman with white hair stood to the side. It was a surprise that we hadn't seen her sooner. She introduced herself as Sylvaera, "Zel's wife." It was weird hearing Da called that. When I was younger, Dad had only referred to him by his full name--Dad had always had a thing for full names. Eventually, with enough of Da's complaining, "Zahzel" had been shortened to "Zah" but never "Zel."

She asked if she could hug me. Unlike with Dad or Da or even Verca, I couldn't force myself forward this time. Wordlessly, I shook my head no.

"It's okay," she said. "It's okay to say no."

Like when we got there, I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't want to misstep and risk losing the invitation I had been granted to be a part of Da's farewell.

"Who are your friends?" asked Sylvaera.

I awkwardly introduced Verca and Talo, who acted just as uncomfortable as me when they each said hello.

There had been a feline animal behind Sylvaera that I didn't notice until its shape started changing. Bones and muscles moved underneath flesh. Hair withdrew into skin. It rose on its hind legs, quickly growing taller and taller. Where the feline had been curled up stood a half-elf man dressed in greens and browns.

His name was Eadrun. He was the older of the sons that Dad had spoken of earlier, and he said the younger was around somewhere. Eadrun called him "the other horn breaker." I remembered when Da had come home missing both of his horns, not just the one. I had still felt guilty for what happened to the first and had decided not to ask about the second. Sometimes, when I was little, I imagined different scenarios to explain the missing piece. Despite its simplicity, my favorite that I often came back to was the idea that Da had just wanted them to match and did it to himself. That or he clumsily fell off Coriander while trying to dismount.

Both Sylvaera and Eadrun had some kind of understanding of who I was. I apologized to each of them for not knowing anything about them. Da had only ever said that he had another family somewhere else--never any details.

It also turned out that, apparently, Eadrun and Talo vaguely knew of each other because he had known Talo's parents. He was offended to learn that their parents had not spoken much of him, though.

"I'm surprised that you are more upset about your friends not talking about you than you are your father," I said, genuinely trying to understand the situation. Of whom we had met, they both were more accepting than I expected. I'm not sure why I had that expectation; perhaps I was worried they would see me as a threat to their family.

Eadrun looked to Dad. "That was all because of him." Dad dropped his gaze, and when he didn't add anything, Eadrun continued. "He didn't want you to feel like you were missing out on anything."

I couldn't find the words for a proper response. "Oh." I don't know how things would have been different if Da had ever been able to talk about his family. I don't even know what he might have wanted to say.

After that, I remembered that I needed to be more careful about my teeth. I had nicked the inside of my lips too many times to count with the newly developed fangs, but I still kept forgetting how easy they were to see when I talked. It was sloppy. I need to be better about keeping my mouth shut.

My effort to be more conscious of my fangs came too late, however. Eadrun noticed, and the conversation veered when he started talking about dhampirs. The context appeared vampire-related, but I had never heard the term before. He referenced knowing two individuals who seemed to be one of these dhampirs, and he almost asked a question before wondering aloud "if that would be insensitive" and deciding he should ask someone named Cress.

Eventually, he explained that dhampirs were people who were only partially vampires for one reason or another. His theory was that the determining factor for which a person became was based on whether they were alive or dead when turned. Someone he knew named Tasha had a vampiric parent, and this Cress person had apparently been turned somehow after he had died. I did not ask for the logistics--partially because I did not want to pry and partially because I was still mortified that he had noticed the fangs in the first place. His theory opened a complicated door, anyways.

"It's less of a binary than it seems," I said, averting my gaze.

"Well," Eadrun said, changing the subject, "I'm going to go find the one you've actually met before, since he's sulking and won't leave the house." He turned and walked inside.

Verca smiled. "I think I like him."

A few minutes later, Eadrun returned with a man notably younger than himself--likely closer to our ages. He was a red tiefling with black horns that were curvier than Da's but more upright than Verca's. Watching him follow Eadrun towards us, I was unable to look away. I knew staring was rude, but I couldn't stop myself; it was like watching a younger version of Da approach.

Aside from the uncanny resemblance, something else itched at the back of my mind. An old memory slid to the surface--not one that had necessarily been buried; it had simply gathered dust over the years. I was very young, probably not much older than I was when everything else happened. There was a meeting, but we weren't home. I remembered traveling rather frequently with Dad before we settled down--it was why the wagon story was so easy to believe. I think this was the last place we stayed before moving into our cabin. This was a cabin, too, but it was surrounded my unfamiliar plant life that was much weirder than anything at home. Da had been there. That had been before he was Da, though, and he had brought a kid about my age. We had played while the adults talked in another room. 

"Maeve?" asked the man, a curious lightness in his voice and a slight tilt to his head. He was familiar--as familiar as someone can be after nearly twenty years--but I couldn't place his name in return.

He was amused, watching the struggle play across my face.

I gave up. "I'm...sorry. I can't..."

"It's okay. We were young. I'm Van. Dad talked a lot about you, especially during training."

"All good things, I hope." I rubbed the edge of a glove between my fingers.

There was a pause. Van looked over his shoulder at their cabin, then back to me. "One second," he said. "I think I have something for you." And he jogged inside.

When he came back, he was carrying a very familiar shield. Sleek black metal. The image of a raven emblazoned on the front. It was the same shield Da had during the fight with Sala yesterday and the same shield he had used as long as I had known him.

"I think he would have wanted you to have it," Van said. "Especially since none of us use shields."

I was speechless and looked to Eadrun and Sylvaera, expecting someone to object. No one did. "Are you sure?" I asked. Van nodded. I carefully stepped closer and took the shield from him. "Thank you."

I held on to it like it was my stuffed griffon throughout the entire funeral.

Back at home, I waited until we were all settled inside to ask Talo if they could identify the shield. I had never seen Da do anything more than use it as a regular shield, but he was the kind of person who always had weird magical items on his person. "Just in case," I said.

Talo took a look at it right away. I thanked them.

After ten minutes, they looked up, frowning. "It's an old piece, but it's missing something."

I didn't understand. It looked the same way it had since I was little. Talo pointed to the raven's eye on the front of the shield and suggested we ask someone at the Raven Queen temple in Dandruin. Although Da had told us to go there, the thought made me squirm.

Trying to avoid the subject as I fastened the shield on my arm, I said we should start working on that test of Dad's.

Talo, Verca, and I went outside. As a team, we pressed into the forest, looking for any trace of the creature the massive feather had come from. Meanwhile, I also played around with the bracers--trying to see how they interacted with the shield. The first time I summoned the bracers' sword and shield, the gold light wrapped around Da's shield before sinking into the dark metal. When they were dismissed, Da's shield disappeared alongside them. And when they were called upon again, the shield came, too.

We were walking in the forest for a long time. Talo guided the general path while I pointed out any hidden obstacles that I had discovered exploring the area as a kid for them to avoid and Verca kept track of the broken branches and stray feathers in the trees above.

In the distance, long, echoing caws sounded around us from every direction. Ahead of us, the trees became more scattered. The rocky base of a mountain sat in the nearby distance.

Verca pointed to the tracks we had been following. "Whatever this is had four legs in addition to its wings." Each imprint in the soil was like that of a massive bird of prey--three talons facing forward and one facing backward. The tracks led into the large opening of a cave at the bottom of the mountain. For a second, we paused there, but waiting was not going to change anything to come inside this cave. I pushed ahead.

There was a calm in fighting. I wanted that.

It was uncomfortably hot inside the cave. The bottoms of my feet nearly burned against the stone. And although we could not see anything alive in the immediate vicinity, it felt like we were being watched--a feeling that was only increased by the cawing that continued to echo around us like the swirling wind of an oncoming storm. A deep sense of wrongness emanated from every corner of the cave.

When it got too dark for Talo to see, I cast Light on the front of my shield, illuminating the area ahead. But even with that light, the space felt too dark. It was like the light had been denied permission to enter.

We pushed ahead. The already large path opened into an even bigger cavern. A faint orange glow pulsed in the corner of the room, but the oppressive darkness continued to obscure the light.

In another corner, one by one, a cluster of red eyes opened--each trained on us. Four massive avian legs carried the beast further into sight. Behind it, its wings were dark curtains that obstructed most of our view behind it. A curled, feathery tail swished low in the air—the threat of a predator who saw us as no more than pests to be played with. And most upsetting was the beak with sharp mandibles on either side, which opened to release the loudest, mind-ringing shriek I had ever heard. 

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 17: Butterflies

The soft sound of moving water as I came up to the stream was a familiar comfort--not quite as comforting, though, as the plentiful return of butterflies all over the forest. Back in the desert, even the small oasis had been absent of the fluttering swatches of lively colors. With everything else going on, it was the small details that helped it sink in that I was home.

I worked on scrubbing the blood from my clothes first. Wading into the cool water, I took items off one at a time to be washed, then folded them and set them carefully aside on a nearby log as I went. Wispy clouds of red spread around me. Just as the moving water would carry the dilute blood away, I would move on to the next piece, bringing all of it back again. Once everything was as clean as possible, I stepped further into the stream so that when I sat down and pulled my knees to my chest, the water reached my shoulders.

I traced a finger over the many lines on my skin. Stared at my hands. Thought about the feeling of blood between my fingers as the final dried remnants flaked off and were carried away by the light current.

Leaves rustled behind the dense wall of foliage that created a makeshift curtain at the top of the sloped bank. "Maeve?" Verca's voice reached out hesitantly.

I grabbed my clothes from the log and hurriedly started getting dressed. "One second," I yelled back.

With all of my clothes on, I paused with the necklace Da and I had made together in my palm. The hand-carved feather had been painted black and fastened on a simple leather cord. Some of the color had chipped away at one edge, exposing a sliver of dark brown wood. I fastened the necklace around my neck. "Over here," I called out.

Leaves parted. Verca stepped forward, accompanied by a kaleidoscope of butterflies--black and blue swallowtails, to be specific. He explained that Talo and Da had been talking telepathically, leaving him awkwardly sitting in the silent living room. So he had decided to take a walk, instead.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

It was a difficult question to answer. Despite my best efforts, no combination of words felt like a close enough approximation. The persistent tightness in my chest reminded me of plants with knotted bundles of roots, trapped in pots too small to accommodate them. Hidden by soil, it can be difficult to tell when roots are under duress, but sometimes it shows up other places--namely, the warped or even cracked sides of the pot, unable to withstand the internal pressure. But that metaphor didn't feel like it did justice to the feeling that I couldn't bring enough air into my lungs anymore.

He asked if I'd like a hug. The fact that he asked always surprised me. Verca stood with his arms open, letting me choose to close the distance. I felt ridiculous as I took a series of small steps forward until his arms carefully wrapped around my back. His usual warmth was especially pleasant in contrast to the chill left behind by the stream.

We pulled apart. Trying to lighten the mood, I said, "I'm guessing you need me to lead the way back?" I didn't anticipate him saying that he had followed a kaleidoscope of butterflies here. I also was surprised that he knew that that's what a group of butterflies was called.

However odd the butterflies leading him had been, we didn't linger on it for some reason. I think we were both too tired to open up that mystery.

Similarly, we didn't put too much thought into the golden feather I found as I started in the direction of the cabin. The glint of gold amongst the flowers underfoot was enough to make me pause, and--remembering the feather that he had picked up in the desert after that flame-wreathed bird flew overhead--I had asked Verca if it was from him. He looked over his shoulder and said, "No," shaking his head. "This might sound odd, but I think it's yours."

I was confused until he reminded me what else came whenever the Mask went up: wings. The memory loss from each incident made it difficult to hold on to those kinds of details, but he was right.

Crouching down, I picked up the feather by the quill. Holding it to the light, I watched it shine unlike any bird I had ever seen.

"You should hold on to it," Verca said.

Nodding, I opened the Bag of Holding and set it inside as I stood up.

Back at the cabin, Dad and Talo were in the middle of moving the living room couch when we came in. The cabin was cozy but small; "I should have mentioned we don't really have any guest rooms," I said, grabbing some blankets to take over to where Dad was helping set them up across from the fireplace. Dad, Da, and I each had our own rooms, but there was never reason to anticipate other company before today.

"You should all get some rest," Dad said; it wasn't that late--we had gone to Sala's right as the day started--, but it felt like weeks had passed since we last slept. He explained that he would leave to tell who he needed to about Da while we slept. "I should be back before you're up. We'll be able to talk more about the next steps at that point."

Talo and Verca got comfortable in the living room. I went down the hall, stopping in front of my closed bedroom door. Similar to the shield Da had given me, the door was decorated with butterflies and flowers that I had painted with Dad. The ones at the bottom were messy blobs compared to what I had drawn once I had grown older and tall enough to reach higher.

The door creaked a hello as I pushed it open.

Everything inside was exactly how I had left it. My black and purple stuffed griffon sat against my pillows, staring at me. He was mostly face, but I had always thought it made him cute; he had no legs--only two wings that stood out from his plump sides and a long tail sewn onto his back.

I gently touched a wing as I stopped next to my bed at my desk. A slim and relatively long object sat on its side at the far corner. One end came to a point while the other was jagged and uneven and revealed a mostly hollow base. I gently turned it over in my hands, remembering how Da had smiled and told me to keep it. That day felt so long ago, now.

I put the old piece of horn in the Bag of Holding and went to bed holding my griffon.

Sleep sent me hurtling through a memory that the day had only just recovered.

My eyes opened, and I found myself in a body much smaller than my own. Looking up, I met a face that I still wasn't quite familiar with--despite seeing her now for the second time and in my gut knowing who she was. The woman stood tall overtop of me. Despite her relatively thin frame, her presence demanded attention. Gray streaks ran through her otherwise black hair, which had been braided into neat strands and pinned back out of her face; the dark contrast made her gray-ish skin seem even paler in comparison.

Silvery-gray eyes stared into mine. Something about them felt like there should have been a comfort or warmth there, but there wasn't. I could not tell if that warmth had left her or if it had simply never been there. Regardless of the past, her eyes were blank now.

Everything felt wrong. There were other people around us; I couldn't tell how big the crowd was--just that each almost-familiar person looked like her but not. Here and there, a feature would be different. Eyes or hair for some, plus a few handfuls of other mismatched characteristics. There was a cake sitting on a nearby table, too. Lit candles sat in the icing, which I thought was odd.

It felt like things should have been happy.

"You don't belong here," the woman in front of me said. Her voice shook something in me. I recognized her words from the vision evoked by that raven statuette in Legen. Confused, I tilted my head.

Somewhere to the side, there was the crash of breaking glass, followed by the tink-tink-tink of stray pieces falling onto the floor.

An abrupt pain tore through my lower abdomen. I didn't know it was possible to hurt that much.

"You aren't right." Her voice again.

Then again across my face--sharp and gouging--, throwing the scene into darkness.

"You can't be here."

Again and again and again, each one a surprise. I lost track of where it hurt after the first few.

"I have to fix this."

Like bookends, all I recognized was where the pain started and where it ended--with a final flaring cut at the side of my neck. I didn't realize that I had been squirming and pushing back until then, when it quickly became difficult to muster any kind of movement.

"I did this, and it's my fault."

My hands fell to my side--overcome by a heavy limpness--and stung from blindly trying to protect myself. I could feel what seemed like chunks of glass lodged in my palms and fingers. I remembered wondering why my hands were wet.

"I must fix my mistake."

Unlike what I had remembered in Sala's basement, there was a bright light when I was able to see again. Instead of rain and dirt, there was a figure backlit by six large, golden wings that threw shadows over his face. "Oh no. Oh, poor girl," he said, a genuine sadness in his voice. "We'll take care of you now."

I woke up with tears on my cheeks, clutching my griffon. My entire body hurt.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 16: Home

The memories were sharp. An abrupt and deep rush of unknowable pain, strong enough to turn the edges of my vision into a blurry smear. It hung in the air around her like the ghost of a halo. More pain--each new placement coming with a different nuance to the agony. The blurry halo quickly was consumed by darkness that devoured the rest of the world. However sightless, everything else continued unabated as if nothing had changed.

Talo and Verca were talking, but their words were far away, locked in the background as if there was a wall of water between us--or perhaps a wall of dirt.

Wet dirt was the first thing I had seen when the world came back.

"Is there anything else going on?" Talo's voice came through the soil.

I blinked, and I was back in the present, looking at Da. I turned my head. Talo and Verca were both close; I hadn't seen them come over. It took a few tries of opening my mouth for a sound to come out. "Memories? I guess...?" It was so much to unpack.

I pulled back from Da and rolled to the side. Next to him, my back gracelessly hit the stone wall. My thighs slid through still-warm blood. I closed my eyes. Tried to focus on my breathing. I couldn't look down at the puddle I had sat myself in. Couldn't think about how it was just starting to turn tacky or how it would only get colder from here without a body to keep it warm.

I thought about how I was cold. A body isn't the primary requirement for warmth, is it?

Talo handed me something to drink. They said it should help with headaches. A single gulp was all it took to empty. It tasted like tea. Dad made tea a lot. And plenty of juices. I balled my blood-covered hands in the fabric of my skirt.

Talo got to work identifying the scroll Da had given us. The basement was quiet while they worked. Verca sat beside me. I appreciated the lack of pressure to talk.

After ten minutes, there was a necessary break in that silence, though. Talo looked up from the scroll, something else in their other hand now, too: a wooden icon with the symbol of Melora--we had seen it the other day in one of the library books--carved into it. The scroll itself was for a teleport spell.

My focus kept coming and going. At some point I shared that Sala had manipulated more memories than just those from our first meeting. Verca's frown deepened. "I'd been worried about that," he said.

Talo stood up. "I should tell Faunsel about Sala."

My throat hurt. "Yeah, guess he should know his boss has been going around practically assaulting people." The comment had slipped out. They didn't know any of that yet. I had spent so much time doing my best to make sure they didn't know the messier details about Sala, but emotional exhaustion makes you careless. It was ridiculous that those pieces of the story had left such an impact when she had done plenty worse.

But no one said anything about it. I suppose it was easy enough to assume I meant the biting. There is plenty of different kinds of assault.

They handed the scroll and icon to Verca and went up the stairs. We stayed because I didn't want to leave Da's side.

After Talo's footsteps faded, we were silent for a while longer. Everything felt unstable. Like the building would fall apart above us if a wrong word was said.

But silence can't last forever. Verca got that look on his face like he was trying to find the right way to say something.

"You can always talk to me," he said. The words came out slowly, as if he hadn't quite decided which ones were going to come next. "Especially as someone who knows what it's like to lose a parent."

A new quiet settled around us as I fought inside myself to find a response. "Family is so important. I was supposed to protect my family. If I had stayed home, he'd probably be fine right now." There was that tickle at the tip of my nose and the wobble in my lips, but I don't think I had any water left in my body to lend to tears. "I had thought leaving home--seeing the world--would be full of wonder. Intrigue. Fun. But instead, things have only been taken."

"Leaving hasn't been all bad. You met Talo and me."

Friends were new. And nice.

He added that he had learned things since joining us, too. He'd learned to trust. That not everyone was a danger, and he could put his guard down. Guilt rose to the surface of my skin, adding to how filthy I felt. I apologized again for what had happened in the library. I could only imagine how much of a worse betrayal that must have been for someone just starting to open himself up to other.

"It was fine," Verca said. "I meant it when I said I would have offered anyways."

I called the urge that had propelled me on top of him vile. "I don't want to be like her." Sala's smile was etched into the back of my memory. The imprints of her hands invisibly seared into my skin.

He said I could help people, but it wasn't quite "people" he was talking about; he said I could be the guide that I didn't have, implying a prolonged connection with the world of vampires. But I don't want any more contact with vampiric circles than I've already been forced to have.

Talo came back. Faunsel was already prepared to leave town, and their information had been enough for the final push, they reported.

They knelt in front of me and reached for a hand. I flinched so often that I should have grown to expect it, but the instinctual jump continued to take me by surprise. I wanted to be better than that. "Give yourself time to process. We're here for you," they said.

I looked down at myself. The scars on my arms, my legs, my torso. There were even more I couldn't see without the aid of a mirror. I traced a finger over the semi-circle on the left side of my stomach, right above my hip.

Without looking up, I whispered, "I think I was murdered."

Heat erupted from my right. White fire flared around Verca. The scattered candlelight that normally lit the basement fell dim in comparison to the intensity of the flames that threatened to consume him. When they dimmed like a campfire that had run its course, he was fine, though.

"Not now," Talo said, "but eventually, let us know what you need for closure."

"I...I don't know..."

"You don't have to right now. But when you do, we'll do whatever we can."

My finger was still following the path of the disconnected circle imprinted in my side. "I just want to know what I did wrong. Why she did that."

"How old were you?" Verca asked, a stiff chill infused in the question.

I shrugged, only able to sift through so many implications of such fresh wounds so soon. "I don't know. I was young." A pause. "I don't think the wagon accident actually happened."

I raised my head and looked to him. The flames a few moments prior had been concerning, but unexplained fiery events were a semi-regular occurrence with Verca. Less common was his usually pink eye flaring bright green.

"No one hurts children." The voice was his, but the shape of his words and the rhythm with which they fell into place were foreign. His eye returned to its usual pink after that, and--all too reminiscent of the shield--he did not seem phased, despite confirming that that was not a regular occurrence. Talo and I were both concerned. I originally thought he had said it had never happened before, but looking back, I'm less sure if I actually heard that or assumed it.

Verca, who still had the teleportation scroll and wooden figure, asked if we were ready to go. Nothing was going to change to make going home easier, so there wasn't much point waiting. We all held hands; I kept one on Da. About to start reading, Verca paused. He surveyed our group. "Who here has teleported before?" Talo raised a hand before returning it to the small circle we'd made.

Verca grimaced. "Sorry, Maeve."

And we were gone, encapsulated in a vortex of shifting colors--which was a solid dose of motion sickness on its own, but the reorganization of my organs as they were jerked to and fro was a different level of nauseating.

Dew-laden petals and soft earth touched the bottoms of my feet.

And I fell to my hands and knees, immediately throwing up the nearly empty contents of my stomach. It was mostly bile, burning on its way out as every muscle in my abdomen fought against me.

Talo started pulling together something for my stomach, and Verca held out his canteen. I took the water, sitting back, and tried to wash away the acidic aftertaste.

We were in front of the cabin. It looked the same as when I last saw it. Flowers of every color covered the forest floor, except for the small path of stones leading to the door. Barely any grass was visible. More flowers grew up the walls. Warm yellow lights shone out from the windows.

"It's all very pretty," Talo said.

"I wasn't joking when I said we gardened a lot." I remembered coming home whenever I went into the woods by following the flowers.

Talo said we should get inside, and I said that we should probably knock; it had been too long since I was home to just walk in.

A massive shadow rose over us, blocking out the green cast of the canopy above. A flash of electricity, like a storm come alive, rushed forward, and we were unconscious.

It is difficult to measure time when you're not awake, but it did not feel like much had passed before my eyes were open again. I somehow felt less sore than I did after our encounter with Sala.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should have looked. I'm so sorry..."A familiar voice continued repeating itself above me.

I blinked, waiting for my vision to come back into focus.

Dad was above me. Laying on my back, I was half pulled onto his legs--his arms holding me close. His long, wavy hair was less kempt than when I last saw him. His eyes were red and puffy.

Instinctually, I almost clamped my mouth shut to hide the fangs. But he already knew about those, so instead, I rested a hand on his upper arm. "It's okay, Dad. I'm okay." Most of the blood on my hands had dried, but I still left a dark stain on him.

The exchanges that followed coming home were a chaotic flurry. There was so much on everyone's mind; it was difficult to keep ourselves on track with a single discussion for very long. In the disorganization, Verca, Talo, and Dad were not properly introduced to each other until much later in the initial conversations.

Apparently, Dad had turned into a dragon? I had no idea he could do anything like that. Aside from Da saying that Dad had seen everything, I barely knew he had any control over magic.

Early on, vague references to Sala came up. Dad told me not to blame myself, but it was hard. What was the purpose of Da's years of teaching me how to fight if I couldn't even defend myself?

"You're a victim," Dad said. I had no idea how much he had seen. The teleportation nausea threatened to return as I imagined everything he could have witnessed. He was surprised to know that I hadn't remembered anything until very recently, which did not feel like it boded well for what he was magically present for.

When I mentioned that Da had done something to return those memories and that something else had come through, Dad's face fell--knowing what I was referencing before I had to say the words. He looked borderline fearful as he began another series of apologies. I had never seen him like this and tried to tell him it was okay--that it was a long time ago and I was here.

"I didn't want you to have to know," he said.

The first time I tried to formally introduce Talo and Verca to Dad, we never got past Talo because, for some reason, I commented that they had been dreaming of Dad's staff. Like always, he had it with him, and seeing it reminded me of their interest in figuring out why they had seen it. In hindsight, it probably would have been a better conversation for later.

Dad looked at Talo curiously after that. They tried to explain what had been happening with their dreams, which brought the conversation briefly to the matter of Morpheus. Talo called him a god, and I added that I still doubted his stance as a deity because I had been able to hear his name.

Dad was even more confused after that. "Were you not able to hear the gods' names?"

I awkwardly shifted the weight between my feet. "Not really. Not until Toma's partner threw a sort of statuette at me, and..." I trailed off, unsure how to describe the image that encounter had evoked in my mind or how the figure had burned my hands through my gloves. "I really don't like the Raven Queen and still don't understand how Da could be involved in any of that."

A new wave of visible panic washed over Dad. In a frantic hurry, he asked if we'd been to a temple, where we were, if anyone had recognized me or my scars, and if anyone had asked about him.

"We were in Greston," I answered. "No one recognized me. They just insisted I had to have a meeting and were very unpleasant about it all. And someone asked about Da but not you." Dad was worrying me.

"You cannot go back there."

"They were very unpleasant. I have no intention of going back."

Talo commented that Da had told us to go to a temple while here, though.

Dad sighed. "If I could possible trust that any temple was free from infection, it would be his in Dandruin."

"Infection?" I asked, imagining some kind of magical growth pulsing in the temple basement, ready to release toxic spores across the entirety of Greston.

"I don't know what else to call zealotry," he said, a grim expression on his face.

Talo, Verca, and Dad had their actual introductions after that. It wasn't anything in-depth--just an exchange of names--but it was something. After that, Dad said we could go inside while he took care of things regarding Da's body. "He's not ours to keep," he said.

A weight that I hadn't considered fell down on me, crashing through ribs and pinning vital organs to the forest floor. I looked at Da, gently cradled by the flowers around the house. I hadn't considered the chance that we wouldn't be involved in whatever kind of ceremony was held. He had another family--one who had greater right to those matters than the people he visited when he could. For the first time, I felt like we were an afterthought--a secondary part of his life.

I imagined someone coming to take him away while we were inside, unable to say goodbye. The thought made me feel like we were outsiders.

"I promise he saw us as real family," Dad tried to reassure. "You understand now why I had to keep you hidden; she couldn't be allowed to know you were still alive."

The larger plants on the side of the cabin moved, shaking and rustling--pulling everyone's attention. A massive creature stepped through the leaves: a griffon covered in shiny, dark feathers. I recognized her from all of Da's visits.

Coriander mostly ignored us. She walked straight to Da and eased herself to the ground beside him.

"I'm sorry," I said, seeing the pain in her expressive black eyes. She didn't acknowledge me, and I couldn't blame her.

She began to shrink. Her limbs seemingly rearranged themselves as she became smaller and smaller until the griffon I had known since childhood was instead a raven. I didn't know she could do that.

Talo stepped towards Coriander and Da. They pulled something small out that I couldn't quite see and tried to set it on Da's chest. Coriander snapped at them, though, keeping the offering away. Talo stood there for a while. I assumed they were trying to talk to her telepathically. I don't know what was said between them, but Coriander--her body language still incredibly tense--pulled back, allowing the item to be placed.

"We'll take his body over tomorrow," Dad said.

For the first time that day, it felt like the ice that had been inching into my bones thawed a little. "We're taking him?" I asked, hopeful. Dad confirmed, and I explained what I had previously thought was going to happen; that was why it had hurt so much. Relief hit me like an early spring breeze.

Dad had said it before, but it meant more now with that context when he again said he was confident I'd be allowed to attend whatever service was held. The first time, it had felt like something nice you say when you're trying to comfort someone beyond being comforted; it felt more real the second.

"His family knows about you," Dad added. "Particularly his wife and one of his sons whom you met when you were younger." I didn't remember either of them. Da so rarely talked about his family with us that I had assumed he was the same with them when it came to Dad and me. I wondered what they knew--what they'd been told.

Talo and Verca went inside. Dad stopped me before I could follow. For the first time since I'd been back home, we hugged. Again, I flinched.

"One day, we should go over what spots are okay," he said.

I looked at the flowers beneath us. "There's not much of those anymore."

He said I should clean up at the nearby stream before heading in and offered to send Verca and Talo along for company if I'd like. I remembered the last time Sala had brought me to her house before today. The confidence I had always had in my body felt naive and immature after that. Verca must have thought I was so odd when we were at the spa.

I told Dad that I'd had a recent change in perspective after everything and I should probably go on my own.

Dad said that I hadn't been immature; "rather," he said, "you had an openness and maturity that few people do. It's something to be proud of, not embarrassed."

I thought it over, but in the end still went to the stream by myself. They had just gone inside; I didn't want to pull them back out when they were hopefully getting comfortable in the small but cozy living room just beyond the front door.

[butterflies-and-blades]

Session 15: Da

Leaving the cabin was a mistake. I've thought it multiple times in the twelve days since Kaemon and I followed that wisp through the trees and found ourselves in a desert that personified the unfamiliar. But this time, I understood how truly stupid of a mistake it was. How avoidable all of this would have been if I'd stayed where I was supposed to be. I've been nothing but a fool, and, fuck, I don't know what to do anymore. I don't want to ruin anything else.

Yesterday was supposed to be a day off--a reprieve from all of the misfortunes we as a group kept finding ourselves entwined with. Mornings usually came with the weight of whatever that day promised to bring, but beneath the grogginess of waking up, that morning held a levity. Temporary as it was.

I asked Talo and Verca what they planned to do with their day. Talo spoke of tinkering, and Verca shrugged. He said he had no hobbies to turn to. I pointed to what we had told those bandits who only had crime to fill their days; it was not healthy to have nothing to help pass the time. He agreed it was something to work on.

We had been living on the road for nearly two weeks now, but we had never taken the time to visit the tavern that resided beneath our room. I offered that as a potential option for later. Talo and Verca liked the idea, and we went down for breakfast. Verca almost did not come down, saying he was planning to nap instead. The possibility of him isolating himself worried me, and I think it was that open worry that convinced him to come down with us.

We sat in a line at the counter. When someone came out to take our orders, Talo attempted to ask for something called a crepe. The man on the other side of the bar--his name was Patty--had the same reaction as Verca and me. We were confused, unfamiliar with the dish. Talo was just as taken aback by our lack of recognition. They began to describe it, which quickly gave me an idea. I verified that they were not allergic to peanuts and ordered us both pancakes with peanut butter spread on them instead of syrup.

The tavern was not busy, and our food came out without much of a wait. Patty slid a plate in front of each of us, as well as the drinks we had ordered. The heat of the pancakes melted the peanut butter, thinning it out so that it dripped down the sides like a sauce. It was more fragrant than when prepared at room temperature, as much the smell of nostalgia as it was the smell of breakfast. The taste--the peanut butter given more nuance through the process of melting--brought fond memories to the surface.

The dish had been Da's idea, years ago. At first Dad thought the combination was ridiculous and unnecessarily messy. But Da had taken charge of the kitchen that morning anyways--"Trust me, Feron," he'd said--, and by the end of the hour, he had won Dad over. When Dad asked where he had gotten the idea, Da said it was something he had picked up from a friend. The way he smiled when asked, I think Da had been just as hesitant to the idea when his friend first made him try it.

Talo finished their food first. They slid off their stool and pointed towards the door, saying they were going to Faunsel's.

Verca was smug. "Have fun."

"I'm just going to work on stuff," they said, defensive.

"This is supposed to be a day off," I said. "You can't tinker on anything that you normally would put 'work' hours into." Talo left, and I looked back to Patty. "Do you have any recommendations for relaxing ways to spend a day off?"

He took a second to think before recommending an establishment that provided hot mud baths and other spa services.

"Does that sound interesting to you?" I asked Verca, then realized that it might have been presumptive to assume he wanted to spend his free day together. As a group, we had all been together almost constantly. Perhaps he wanted space from us. "Unless you'd rather do something on your own," I added, trying to sound less pushy.

"I'm alright with whatever. What do you normally do to relax?" he asked.

"Well, the things I normally do are not really available here. Gardening, exploring the woods around the cabin, looking for butterflies, reading--although that was mostly so I could press flowers between the pages once I was done. Dad has a lot of books around the cabin."

Verca mentioned seeing some butterflies back when he lived underground. The concept baffled me. I pointed out that that was odd. He said, "I suppose it is. I hadn't really thought about it before. They didn't really show up near Wren."

It did not surprise me that something as beautiful as butterflies would stay away from someone as horrible as that man. I failed to stop myself from saying as much.

Verca asked about my favorite butterfly. I described swallowtails--he did not know them by name--, and recognition brightened his face. Of what he'd seen underground, black and blue swallowtails had been particularly abundant. There were many swallowtail colorations, but black with that pop of blue was my favorite. I had to actively stop myself from sharing too many of the factoids I had collected over the years; none of Dad's books had ever listed underground amongst their natural habitats, though.

We finished eating and followed Patty's directions to the spa. At the front desk, a woman asked us if we would like one room or two. I commented that one would be more cost effective. Verca's face was pink, and he didn't look back at me the rest of the time we were checking in. He stared aggressively forward, his gaze going far over the woman sat at the front desk. I wasn't sure what had him so upset; perhaps I should have asked.

With everything set up, we were brought to a room and left to ourselves to undress. There were two stone bathtubs in the center of the room and benches along the nearest wall to set our things. The space was sparsely furnished, including a lack of partitions to change behind. I supposed the purpose was to make the space feel more cohesive and whole, rather than divided and separated from itself.

I took my gloves off first; beneath them, the flesh of my palms was sensitive. The scars on the inside of each hand looked no different from the ones scattered across the rest of my body, but they were the only ones that still ached--especially in response to direct contact. My gloves normally helped limit the discomfort, but it didn't make sense to keep them on just to be dirtied.

When I was younger, before Dad gave them to me, I had to be careful how I picked things up; otherwise, I risked sharp bolts of pain shooting through my hands and up my forearms like hot lighting. The pain once made me drop a glass at the dinner table. It had shattered on the ground. Dad, who normally stood so tall, was kneeled beside my chair in an instant. Already cleaning up the mess, he told me to be careful not to cut my feet on the shards. I remembered apologizing and him shaking his head. "There are just so many nerves in the hands," he had said. I wasn't sure if he'd been talking to himself or me. A melancholic weight had gathered in bags beneath his eyes; he'd always had wrinkles--his happy crow's feet lit up the cabin whenever he smiled--, but I rarely saw him like that night. Dad had seemed more upset with himself than me.

The bracers came off next. I was partway through pulling my blouse over my head when I saw Verca in my periphery. He was pinker than before and quickly turned away from me. Through the back of his head, I could not see his eyes, yet I was confident he was staring just as seriously into this wall as the last.

I was folding my skirt when he took off his shirt. Like his chest, his back was covered in scars--some of which, this time I noticed, had the warped texture of old burns. The top of one shoulder bore a similar mark, different only in the particular attention clearly applied to it: a W, wide and messy as if it had been burned atop itself many times.

A brand. A sickening mark of supposed ownership. Verca wasn't something to be owned by anyone. No one was. My shock at the short-lived sight--Verca must have realized what he had exposed and quickly turned back around--held off any other reaction.

I didn't know what to say. The best I could do was try to reassure him that he was okay. That he was safe.

Apparently, all of the marks were from Wren. With that information, my usual indifference to scars faltered. Verca had been through so much with that monster.

I remembered my palms and asked if any of his still hurt. He seemed to tense at that, rather stiffly saying, "They're fine." It occurred to me that after spending so much time with someone like Wren, it was reasonable to assume that people would only ask a question like that if they intended to use it against him.

"I promise you're okay," I quickly followed up. "I know that sometimes they can stay sensitive and just wanted to make sure I never touched a painful spot by accident." My words blurred together from the speed I tried to clear the air with them.

Memory is a fickle thing. It holds on so tightly to some things and lets go of others without a second thought.

I remembered that Verca turned the focus of the conversation away from himself. I remembered the rise of those terrible feelings I had been trying to hide since we arrived at Greston, and I remembered the heat of his hand on my shoulder, but--just a day later-- the rest of those details were already out of reach. Admittedly, today was enough to shove almost anything nearby into obscurity.

But I do remember Verca reaching towards my face and how sharply I recoiled. It wasn't fair to him; he had been nothing but kind and was often the most bearable touch since Sala. He certainly wasn't her. But there was something broken inside me, I think, and I wasn't strong enough to overcome the tactile memory of skin.

I couldn't read whatever floated in his eyes after that. "There was a tear I was going to wipe," he said.

Too lost in trying--and failing--to seem okay, I hadn't noticed I was crying, but when I felt under my eye to test, my fingertips came away wet.

A spa attendant came in shortly after that. We moved to our respective tubs of mud and were each given facial masks once settled. After the soft footsteps of the attendant leaving, the room was silent.

More happened after that. But perhaps our greatest weaknesses hide in the malleableness of memory. For something so vital to how we see ourselves and the rest of the world, it is surprisingly easy to manipulate, apparently. Over and over and over.

The sudden urge to run out of the spa and the even more abrupt loss of that drive--leaving me to walk back nude, dazed, and suspiciously unquestioned by those who did see me--was evidence of the mind's vulnerability. It apparently did not even have to make sense to work. When I came back, Verca was still in his tub, cucumber slices over his eyes. He had not noticed I had left, and apparently, I was not going to comment at any point on the odd experience of running out for no reason. Instead, I stepped back into my bath for the rest of our session and pretended everything was normal.

Finished at the spa, we met Talo at the inn. Verca asked Talo about their day, teasing about whatever happened with Faunsel. When Talo learned that we had gone to the spa and shared a room, they returned the favor by teasing Verca back. I was not sure what was wrong with how we had decided to spend our day; aside from the few hiccups, Patty's recommendation had been enjoyable.

"At least I know when I think someone's attractive," Verca said. I was more confused by what that had to do with anything.

The tavern was more alive when we went down for dinner than during breakfast. Not quite as overwhelming as Faunsel's club--although I still kept to the perimeter to avoid the crowd--the music was pleasant. Voices and instruments filled the modest space without smashing together in an unmaneuverable cacophony. We drank and danced. Talo took off their jacket, showing more of their tattoos, and moved further into the crowd. The rest of the night passed with swaying hips and sweet drinks. It was pleasant. Almost naively so now that I know what the next morning had prepared--retroactively tainting the night, maybe the entire day, with a rotten taste.

I woke to the sound of Sala's voice in my head and a tug in my chest. "Please come." She practically begged, "I need help. All of you, please."

We had been planning to visit her today anyways. I woke Talo and Verca, telling them what I heard. We gathered our things. On our way out the door, Talo pushed a potion vial into my hand. They said it increased movement speed. I uncorked the glass and downed it as we ran outside.

Stepping into Sala's house, a commotion could already be heard from the basement. We didn't say a word to each other and rushed down the steps. Me, Verca, then Talo.

I didn't know what to do with the information I saw as I turned the corner at the bottom of the steps. There was Sala, who wasn't a surprise, and six other ghoulish figures. They stood in a circle around someone who would always be familiar--no matter how much time had passed since I last saw him: a red tiefling with a pair of broken horns, dark shield and sword at the ready.

Da.

The entire group was mid fight. He already looked worn down. Several piles of ash were scattered within the vampiric circle. For some reason--charm, it was always fucking charm these days, wasn't it--, I couldn't direct my anger at Sala, even as I watched her attack him. Which left confusion the only reaction available.

"How bold of you to think you could have done anything to save her." She had sounded scared when I heard her earlier, but now her words dripped with smug confidence. Like she was enjoying this. Amusement danced in the black of her eyes. "She's mine, you old fool."

Da cut through two of the ghoulish figures beside him, adding to the dust piles.

I ran to his side, frantically trying my best to heal him as much as I could. There was nothing more important than family. I looked over my shoulder at Sala and yelled, "What is going on? Stop attacking my father!" A foreign pressure in the back of my head wanted this all to be a misunderstanding.

"He was trying to take you away from me," she said. There was something behind the too-sweet sap of her words that I couldn't pull to the surface.

Sala raised a hand. The air hummed, and a cold glint sparkled in the space around us before abruptly solidifying into a wall of blades, poised to attack. Two of the ghoulish vampires that were presumably aligned with Sala were trapped in its path, and so was Da. I couldn't see Verca or Talo on the other side. It was only Sala and me standing in the middle of the winding divide she had created.

"I'm sure we can figure this out," I shouted over the sound of metal scraping against itself. "Please stop!" Nothing. Frantic, I looked around, trying to figure out anything I could do. And as I turned, one of my braids flung over my shoulder into my periphery.

White hair instead of black. I froze and looked at Da, eyes wide, as gold creeped over my vision, and I lost myself behind the Mask.

The sound of grinding metal was gone when I returned. There wasn't much sound at all aside from the wet, labored breathing of someone on the ground a few feet ahead of me. Talo and Verca stood on either side of the figure. Sala was nowhere to be seen.

Coming out of the Mask was always disorienting. It took me too long to recognize who it was. Or to see the dagger lodged squarely in his chest.

I ran to Da, dropping my sword and shield--there was no crash of metal hitting stone, so I assumed they returned to bracers around my forearms--so I could grab his hands. The rest of the world was a faraway blur.

"No, no, Da. You have to be okay." I squeezed his hands as hard as I could--as if I could keep him there through sheer force of will. When I was a kid, I used to try to stop him from leaving the cabin by hugging his legs and telling myself he couldn't leave if I didn't let go. It never worked. Da would chuckle, a heavy hand patting the top of my head, and Dad would gently pry me off him. He would say that we had to say goodbye. That we'd see him again soon.

Da coughed and reached to pull the dagger from his chest. Talo and I both stopped him. I wasn't willing to cut the little time I had left with him any shorter.

"What were you even doing here?" I asked. My grasp on him never faltered, even when my palms started to sting beneath my gloves.

"Your Dad saw everything," he said. A new anxiety slid under the louder worry for Da. Everything could mean anything. So much had happened in the past twelve days, and most of it left me feeling ashamed. "And there was no way he was leaving the cabin."

Da reached for my face, and I sharply pulled away--for a second letting go of his hands before scrambling to grab back on to one. I couldn't let go. "It's okay. Please," he said.

The tide of shame rose, and my lungs were drowning. I stared at his hand, desperate to lean into the familiar comfort but unable to forget how Sala had touched me. I stared at his hand, wishing something so simple hadn't left me so broken.

I forced myself forward, eyes squeezed shut as I fought to ignore the crawling nausea that writhed in my gut. The churning slowed when Da's calloused hand lightly cupped my cheek.

"You can go home," he said. I shook my head. "You need to go home."

"I can't."

He brushed his thumb near the corner of my mouth. Enough to draw quiet attention to the fangs I didn't want him or Dad knowing about. His earlier words echoed in my head. Your Dad saw everything.

I shook my head again. "I don't even know how to get home."

Da reached for his side and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper before his strength failed, and he dropped it beside us. Blood was already smeared across the outside of it. Talo silently picked it up. I was grateful. I wasn't letting go any more. He coughed. "And visit the temple."

I remembered visiting the temple in Greston and frowned. "Those people are terrible."

Surprise briefly interrupted the twist of pain across his face. "You haven't been to this one," he insisted. I still didn't understand how he could be involved in any of it. "And I'll give her a talk. Because apparently someone needs to." I didn't understand.

Things quickly declined after that. So much blood had pooled around us. It was obvious that Da was barely hanging on.

I squeezed his hands again, as if that would make a difference. "I need you, Da. I barely know who I am anymore. I'm so lost."

He half smiled. There was red on his teeth. "You know who you are."

I couldn’t find the words to say more than his name or beg for him to stay. During everything, he kept saying that he knew for a long time that this--his end--was coming, as if that made it better. Family is so important. You're supposed to protect family. I don't know what to do knowing that I failed.

Da looked past me. "So, you're the one," he said, his words starting to slur together. Barely able to see through tears, I followed his gaze, but nothing was there.

"Please, Da. Please."

He pulled himself forward and kissed the top of my head. "I love you, Little Raven."

I felt his hand go limp in mine.

I practically collapsed overtop him, shaking from tears that only fell harder. And harder and harder as a fog cleared that I hadn't known was there.

First there was yesterday at the spa. "I need you, Darling. Come quietly. I need you," spoken in my head with the allure of a music box in the night and an irresistible urge to follow. The running through the city in nothing but a towel. Stopping just inside Sala's too-familiar doorway. A wave of her hand and the mud from the spa was gone, and the towel fell to my feet. She stepped up to me like a predator surveying its latest catch. "Oh my, Dear, you even came gift wrapped. A shame I couldn't unwrap you." A finger under my chin. "My Little Bird. You looked so good in feathers." Teeth in my neck, and a disgusting, pleasure-laced whine as I balled my fists in the back of her silk blouse.

Then the night we went to Faunsel's after hours. I'd been sitting in the dark, alone, when the tug dragged me to my feet. I followed, running through so many twists and turns of city streets that I had no idea where I was when I finally stopped before that manor. The doors were open. I stepped inside. The doors shut. The lights dimmed and air rushed forward. "It's so good to see you again, Darling," Sala had said. "I know I said I wouldn't do this again, but I couldn't help myself. Just look at yourself." Fingers touched the bottom of my earlobe, then trailed down my jaw and slid to the back of my head as I was pulled against her lithe but strong body. "I tried to wait as long as I could." Again, that pain, and again that revolting response.

I wanted to peel away my skin so I could separate myself from the humiliation.

"It's a shame I cannot always have you with me," she said. A pause. I was still pressed close her. "May I kiss you?"

No. Absolutely not.

I felt the tug of a smile that wasn't mine. "Of course," said my traitorous tongue.

The first kiss was gentle. The second was not. And for the third, she brought her mouth to the still-opened wounds at my neck.

Something in me had almost begged, "Please," at that. A relief that I didn't.

Then there was the first night. The actual night, nearly six days ago. Here, most of what I remembered was right. But the deviations were like having my head held beneath icy water. "I love when you behave." The bite. The sounds. The way she lifted my feet from the ground and the way I held on to her. Her nails had dug into my back. They had hurt. But for some reason I enjoyed that, too. "You might just be the best I've ever tasted. I do hope I'll see you again."

And then--everywhere--unimaginable pain.