Dungeons & Grandma's

He needed to keep Audry away from this, she needed him, he would find her, he would help.

The sky opens slowly as they step out from the well together, not into sunlight, but into a gray mottled sky that breathes. Clouds hang low over the cottage and the trees beyond, the rain coming down in a fine, drifting mist, not enough to soak, just enough to be felt. It collects gently on the sleeves of their clothes, gathers in the shallow grooves of the stone below, and beads across the weathered wood of the porch they approach like dew remembering how to fall.

Xozo looks up as well, her hood falling back as she tilts her face towards the sky. The snakes nestled beneath her hood stir with a curiosity that has Eileen smiling, one hand already on the rail. Watching, she enjoys how each of them lifts its head, flicking their tongues over and over as if drinking in the scent of wet earth and rosemary.

To Xozo, the world above the dungeon feels wider than it has any right to be. Nothing leans in here or presses down like the stone halls did, and the air smells of cool soil and leaves that have only just begun to turn. Xozo breathes it all in, her breath curling faintly in front of her, a slow exhale drawn long, like she is not used to having this much space to breathe.

Eileen does not rush her. She waits beside the cottage door, which she opens with one hand, her body resting lightly on the frame.

A minute passes, then another. The only sounds to accompany them are the soft hisses of the snakes and the rain tumbling down the roof. "Fall's setting in," Eileen says at last, her voice low, steady. "It's colder than it looks too. Not windy yet, but damp like this'll cling to your bones."

Xozo does not nod, but she lowers her face from the sky. One of the snakes nuzzles at her cheek before slipping back into the green throng of its brethren, the others growing still again. "I'll draw you a bath," Eileen adds. "Hot, with sage if you'd like. I find it helps after a long day."

Eileen steps inside without waiting for a reply. Behind her, Xozo lingers one more moment, her gaze still caught on the wide, cloud heavy sky above. Then she follows, mist kissed and silent, the door to the cottage swinging closed behind her with a sound like breath held and then let go.

The kettle begins to sing, a long, low tone as they approach the kitchen, a sound that feels more like breath than alarm. Fetching the kettle from the stove, Eileen finds a pot there which she turns down to simmer. Must be one of their experiments, she muses to herself. "Tea?" she asks Xozo as though the question has already been answered.

Xozo nods once, and Eileen chooses two mismatched mugs from the shelf, filling them with a blend that smells of mint, chamomile, and something darker beneath the surface. It is the sort of scent that belongs to root cellars and old gardens, to cupboards where herbs remember when they were picked more than they remember their own names.

"I'll draw your bath," Eileen says simply, then disappears down the hall with the soft rhythm of someone who has lived in the house long enough to walk by memory alone.

The mug in Xozo's hand is warm. The heat seeps through into her fingers, grounding her without pressing. She lets it rest there, unmoving, while her gaze drifts across the kitchen. There is clutter to the space that feels purposeful, slightly used, slightly uneven, lived in. Herbs hang from the rafters, drying bundles tied in loose twine that sway, pushed by dozens of sparkling Motic Resonances shifting among the beams. Several bob politely when she looks at them. Several more shudder again when she looks away.

On the far shelf, a row of glass jars hold contents she does not recognize but that look similar to those on the spice carts. Examining them, she finds curiously that none of them speak. One contains dried flower heads, another is filled with something the color of ash, a third holds what looks like chalk shavings, labeled in a soft hand that reads 'Not for stew'. There are utensils too in one of the pullout drawers by the stove, utensils she can name only half correctly. A thin bladed carving knife with a dark wooden handle lies beside a spoon that appears too long for any chest cavity. A fork rests beside them both as well, slender and cruel looking, the sort of thing her family would use to extract rather than serve.

Xozo shudders until her eyes land on a nearby stone bowl filled with unpeeled onions. But the way they catch the sunlight makes the bowl appear polished, the onions gleaming faintly, as if they have been placed there as part of an offering rather than precursors to a recipe. "Her god must enjoy onions. I need to remember that," she muses softly to herself.

Taking a sip of her tea, Xozo finds the taste softer than the scent of the cottage, mellow and round, even as something beneath it lingers in the throat. Not unpleasant, only unexpected in that discovering kind of way. That has one shifting their weight in the moment, enough so that it releases the tension from her hips. The cottage too feels strange in a way that does not threaten, it feels nothing like the dungeon and she finds herself carried toward the bathroom in the same manner as Eileen.

Xozo comes to find a bathroom that is warm by the time Eileen finishes adjusting the tap. Steam gathers low across the mirror and curls along the edge of the tile, softening the sharp corners of the room.

Within Xozo finds a tub that is nearly full, the water steeped a gentle green from the sage sprigs she has crumbled into it. The scent rises steadily, sharp at first, then mellow, settling into the air like something remembered rather than noticed.

She finds Eileen folding a towel and setting it neatly on the stool beside the tub. A soft red robe rests on a hook to the side, worn thin at the collar but clean and ready. On the windowsill, a sliver of soap rests on a ceramic dish shaped like a leaf.

When Eileen turns, she sees Xozo at the doorway. The girl stands at the edge of the bathroom, her hand barely touching the doorframe, not quite holding it, not quite letting it go. Her cloak is still wrapped tightly around her, the hem damp and darkened from the drizzle outside. Eileen does not speak right away. She merely steps to the side, away from the tub, and folds her hands loosely in front of her. The space between them is not empty or filled, simply offered.

"The water's ready," she says, voice quiet but sure. "Hot but not too much. It will hold heat a while, soak as long as you'd like."

Xozo does not move. Her fingers press faintly into the wood instead, her knuckles pale where the pressure gathers. Eileen, sensing the hesitation, unhooks the robe and turns toward her, careful not to close the distance too quickly.

"You can set your things here," she says, pointing to the bathroom counter. "Towel's on the right, just thick enough that it won't get in the way. The floor's warm too, and you can talk to it about anything you'd like. It just likes to be near the steam."

Xozo nods once, almost imperceptibly, she then accepts the bathrobe. Only then does her body enter past the doorframe, her feet crossing the threshold, silent on the tiles. The door eases shut behind her with no sound at all.

Eileen steps toward the hall without a word, leaving the warmth behind her, trusting that it and some homemade stew will be enough.

Audry steps into the open air as if called. The clouds in the sky hang low and pale, and the light spreads through in wide, diffused sheets that offer no warmth but still suggest direction. She follows it without a thought, forgoing her coat and her shoes. The cold brushes her skin in a way that does not seem to reach her yet.

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The first feather waits for her on the porch rail. It is white at the edges, dark at the spine, a darkness that looks settled rather than spilled. She lifts it without hesitation and places it in her hair. It nestles there easily, too easily.

As she walks, she finds more. One rests between the stones of the garden path, half hidden under moss. Another lies across a bundle of leaves, balanced lightly at the top. A third curls within the crook of a dried squash vine, tucked beneath a leaf that has folded over it like a lid. Each time she finds a feather, she adds it to her hair.

The world soon narrows as the garden fades behind her and the trees of the forest begin. The wind no longer touches her nor do the birds sing around her. The feathers she encounters guide her path instead, and she does not find herself questioning their placement. Nor does she look back questioning why she has come this way.

Fenn moves through the woods with urgency, his body low to the ground and his ears angled forward. The forest is wrong in ways he cannot name, but he feels it in the shape of the silence it brings. The trees are too still, the smells are too muted. His nose especially can tell something unexplained is wandering here. So he keeps close to the earth where the scents are stronger, where the moss still remembers what passed over it.

Fenn smells it before he sees it.

It is not blood, nor is it the scent of feathers or fur. The smell is rather heavy, fungal, the smell of something that used to live and has decided not to anymore. The wind carries it from the slope ahead, low and constant. It coats the inside of his mouth when he breathes in, and he finds his heartbeat stilling.

But then his stomach twists as he finds Audry just a few steps ahead, her shoulders slouched, her hands open at her sides. She does not walk like herself, nor does she walk like a child in the woods. She walks like an adult who has made a decision, her eyes fixed forward, her mouth held shut like she has not spoken in a very long time.

They have both found themselves being led towards a deer on the other side of the hill which stands between the trees, half shadowed beneath the bent canopy. It is tall, but wrong in its height, its legs too long and jointed in ways that do not belong to deer. Its body is pale, the white of old paper left in ash, and it is shaped like a skeleton pulled too thin. Its ribs arc outward like the frame of a broken boat, and in places, rotting flesh gleams faintly, like muscle struggling to remember how to hold weight.

But the real horror does not start until Fenn realizes the creature has no skin, no fur, no eyes, no coat. Its face too is long and bare, the sockets clean and shallow like they were never meant to hold sight at all. Its jaw remains both open and closed, half hinged too wide, half clamped too shut. For in its mouth is something shivering, broken, fluctuating on the edges of death.

A dove is there. Its feathers are mostly gone, only a few sticking to the skin in awkward tufts. Flushed pink in some places, darkened to purple in others. One wing hangs at an impossible angle, bone protruding just beneath the thin layer of flesh. The bird somehow still alive for a moment longer, its throat pulsing, its feet curling. For the moment, the dove distracts the creature, buying Fenn some time.

Fenn does not wait.

The moment Audry lifts her hand, just slightly, her fingers open in offering, he moves. She takes a step forward, and he sees it in her posture, in the lean of her neck and the shape of her breath. For it is deciding she needs to speak.

Fenn breaks cover.

He rushes forward, fast and low, weaving through undergrowth with purpose. His claws touch earth without sound, and he reaches her side just as her mouth parts and a sound begins to form. He presses hard into her leg with his shoulder, a firm collision, not enough to harm, just enough to jolt her.

Audry stumbles sideways, the breath knocked out of her, and the word dies in her throat. Fenn throws himself down on top of her and keeps her there, hoping the brush will hide them both.

The creature's head stills. The dove slips from its jaw and falls soundlessly to the ground. The deer does not move for several minutes, its face remaining downturned, its long, eyeless skull angled at the earth where the two of them lie. Until one foreleg twitches and a strand of dark black motes curls along its ribcage, it looks away and back towards the dove, which it picks up to chew.

Beneath him, Audry's body is tense but not struggling. Her breathing comes fast and shallow against the dirt, but her hands no longer reach forward in the way they had before, and so Fenn keeps his weight pressed into her, not as punishment, but as a reminder. To stay down, stay here, to remind her not to move.

Until one of the feathers in Audry's hair slips loose and brushes his paw. He turns his nose toward it reflexively. At first, it smells like her... faint traces of soil and salt, of vegetables, of butter, of fruit, of the cottage. But beneath that, coiled deep in the feather's spine, is something else. It is the same rot that clings to the creature in front of them. It is faint but certain, a scent more carried than shared.

Fenn's lip curls before he can stop it. His paw shifts forward, nosing aside a second feather. He lets this one drift closer to his snout and breathes it in again, slower this time. The match is clearer now, it is the same rot as what he sees before him, stitched into the feather's marrow.

Fenn looks to the others tangled in her hair, ten or eleven more, braided with childlike thought. Each one humming with that same quiet wrongness. Not loud or fresh, just present enough to press their weight against the back of her mind.

Another twitch from the deer. Its hoof scrapes lightly across the earth. It has taken the dove and has begun to head in their direction, he does not have much time. Fenn snaps forward now, decision made, and bites the nearest feather from her hair. It pulls free with a small tug, the stem stiff and brittle in his mouth. The moment it leaves her, Fenn feels her exhale beneath him. So he continues the pattern, working through each feather, one by one, until her body slackens entirely.

He then noses her face, gently at first, his breath warm against her cheek. When she stirs, he presses his head beneath her chin, anchoring her to the ground a moment longer. Her hand lifts, brushing his ear in confusion, but she does not laugh. Not this time. She blinks slowly instead, as if waking from somewhere far beneath herself, and looks at him without speaking.

Fenn holds her gaze and he does not move until her breath steadies. Until her shoulders ease and the tightness leaves her hands. Only then does he shift his weight, rising slightly, muscles coiled and ready. She follows his lead, her body slow but obedient, shaped now by understanding rather than command.

Audry leans against him, her limbs loose but shaky. Fenn keeps to her side, each paw placed with care. They move together, careful not to snap a branch or shift a stone. Two steps, then three. The woods begin to open just slightly ahead as they make their way back toward the cottage.

Then the deer lifts its head.

Its eyeless skull turns toward them with slow precision, the neck bending at an angle that belongs to neither predator nor prey. Its ribs rise and fall in a gesture too deep to be breath. A line of black motes slides down its flank and falls to the earth in silence. It does not pause, it charges.

Audry gasps and Fenn barks once, sharp and clear, and together they run barely ahead of it.

The forest bursts around them in green and gray. But the deer does not gallop, it slides, its limbs folding and extending in long strides that barely touch the ground. The sound it makes is not hooves against soil but pressure shifting through the air, a noise that hisses beneath the bark of the trees.

Then the trees fall away and the fence of the garden rises to meet them. One of the sections of the fence is disassembled with a wheelbarrow nearby, leading to an open path on the porch, one that can be followed with ease, no need to use the gate.

And from the mouth of the well in front of the cottage, just beyond the fence line, Motic Resonances begin to rise.

At first, it is only a few, drifting upward like sparks from kindling. Then more come, dozens, perhaps more then one hundred, each glowing orb unfolding in slow spirals, fanning out across the yard in a rising tide of pale multicolored light. They do not rush or dart. They flow outward instead like water over a lip, folding through the air in a quiet procession.

Audry and Fenn both close their eyes and do their best to make it through their wall. Barely do the manage to stumble over the threshold and make it up the dirt path and onto the porch. The deer is not so lucky.

Swerving, it tries to avoid the overwhelming light. It jerks to a halt and spins wide, its legs buckling under the force. Its foreleg then strikes something solid, the edge of a recently repaired wheelbarrow, still half filled with dark garden soil. The motion of impact is clumsy and the wheelbarrow topples as the creature tries to catch itself. Soil sprays upward in a dull arc, striking the deer's side and breaking the moss running across its ribs. The wheel bends beneath its weight. One handle snapping with a wooden crack that echoes against the stone path.

Its limbs kick once, then twice, before curling inward. Then all at once, the Motic Resonances dive downward, not striking, not burning, only overwhelming. They press in with light and presence, not like fire, but like memory reclaiming a space it never ceded.

The deer twists again, dragging itself backward towards the forest, but its bones catch on the edge of the fence post. It does not scream, it does not roar, it only stutters, once, the movement sharp but silent, the Motic Resonances stilling the beast.