Witch Hunt

It's too bright.

It is not supposed to be here. The sun shines too brilliant and its tiny corner of shadow will not protect it from the unrelenting dayglow. Fear is on a floor of stone brick, and there is too much sound and light. It doesn't know what is happening: it cannot think. It cannot move. It is exhausted down to the bone, like it has been through war.

With quivering limbs, it tries and fails to pull itself from the ground. As slight as it can sliver its eyes to shield the shining sunlight, it attempts to see against the blinding haze. A figure, that it hopes beyond hope is familiar, stands over a railing; an arc of wood that could be a bow, or perhaps the partially eclipsed sun, buttressed against a silhouette arm.

A bizarre and squawking blob of movement flocks around the figure, screeching its discordant birdsong against their ear. Then it dashes away, disappearing against the light.

Fear raises a shaking hand off the ground toward the figure, attempts to say something. Anything. A desperate plea for some absolution of its confusion. But they do not notice it, distracted by something below.

It's too weak. This is the wrong time. It can't... it needs...

It doesn't know what it needs.

With a flop of its skull against the cragged brick, its body goes slack, and it drifts back to unconsciousness.

* * *

I think I blacked out. I can't tell for sure. I don't know what's real.

My world is a sea of pain, and red hunger. The gnawing starvation's return is so, so much worse than I ever imagined it might be. It cores out my insides like a burrowing animal, creating an emptiness I cannot bear. I feel like I'm going mad, like that sucking void at my center is all there ever was.

I only realize I've been screaming when I stop. My vocal chords are shot; run ragged and ripped. I can't think straight. All I can do is swim in that fathomless ocean of madness. Of the sick thoughts I invited upon myself, to eviscerate, disembowel, pulverize, so I might drink of liquified organs. This is torment incarnate, and the universe no longer grants me the mercy of an unconscious reprieve.

I've torn myself apart in my recklessness. I feel like the shattered pieces of myself. I feel sundered. I feel sick. It's all too real and raw and I just want to shut it all out again, like my brain is firing off every sense at once. I pull at my own hair and curl onto the floor. If there is anything happening around me I am too broken to tell.

The deep and angry ache within me pulsates like a cancerous second heartbeat. I try to find some meaning in its rhythm. Some last bastion of purpose, pattern-seeking animal that I am. Is it in time with me? Am I following it? Is it growing or shrinking or waning or waxing? Am I even still here? Did it kill me?

Did I deserve it?

Did the watch pick me because it knew I would fall to ruin without it? Did she ever imagine I might throw it away in such a manner that I couldn't get it back? If I laid here and died would I have ever mattered?

For a while I do just that. Lay here, waiting. With the last gasps of my will I shut myself down, pulling myself inward. Assessing my form, piece by piece, pulled apart, switched off, a machine in crisis hitting the emergency stop. And I break. And then I just lay here. I lay here and rot, hoping it finally comes, that cold yearning in my stomach my only companion.

There's no telling how long I wait. Five minutes? A century? It doesn't feel like it would matter anymore. But slowly, my senses start to return, blinking on again whether I want them to or not. I hear talking. Voices familiar to me. Of course they are. They're the only ones that it could possibly be.

Alabastra drones and warbles.

Faylie chirps through the molasses of my mind.

Tegan's bassy timbre drums along in my ear.

And oddly enough, it's the CAW of a raven that bursts the bubble of sound. Makes it all real again. The unbelievable sensation that paradoxically drives me to believe this is not some hazy illusion. I open my eyes.

The blurred forms of Tegan, Faylie, and Alabastra stand above me in the tower belfry. No. Not standing. They're sitting beside me, as I lay across the floor. Closer to eye-level. Almost equal.

Alabastra catches my eye. "H-hey...!" Her voice trembles with relief, a light and breathy laugh. "You're back with us!"

My fractured mind has no capacity for language. I can only barely even interpret her words, let alone respond. I only stare on.

She tilts her head. "Well. Mostly, anyways."

Faylie scooches closer across the stonework, hand hovering over me. She looks back to Alabastra, asking something with her eyes. The half-elf shakes her head in response, and Faylie pulls back. "Are they... gonna be alright?" The faun sounds terrified. I can't begin to reckon with that.

Alabastra's brows knit, and she nods. "Yeah. No doubt in my mind. Just a little patience." Then she turns to her side. Paella swoops onto her shoulders, pecking and croaking. "Any sign of her, Pae?"

It squawks once.

"North, huh? Well, you made the right call gettin' out before she spotted ya. Good job." At that, the little black bird darts its head, twitching this way and that, and starts to strut around on the rogue's shoulder. Almost proud. Were I not so distant, perhaps I'd feel some way about that. Beside me, Tegan rolls her shoulders, almost in a relent, perhaps over some long-made wager or argument settled, but says nothing.

Ever one to cut in with an anecdote, Faylie interjects, "We lost the jerk-pines in the park before coming here. They probably took off when they saw their angel or whatever flying around."

Kneading a comforting thumb into the faun's shoulder, Alabastra nods her head. "Well, glad ya shook 'em. Thanks for keepin' 'em off me." She turns to the larger of her girlfriends. "And... Thassalia?"

Tegan sighs. "Sables dragged her off. I dunno if in, like, an arrest, or, uh. Something else. I'm... not really sure what to do about that."

"Not sure there is much to do about it, Dusty. Not yet. But we're gettin' closer." Despite the dour situation, Alabastra sounds confident. She brushes a lock of hair behind her ear and issues, "Sounds like we might just have a motive, if I ain't wrong. Fucking Lupines..."

Faylie bemoans, "I can't believe they let her talk all that garbage."

A breeze of autumn wind whips through the top of the tower. Beyond this vicinity, I hear crowds shuffling in the far distance. And the biting cold of the stone floor on my skin grows more apparent, as touch is returned to me. The hungers rock another wave of pain through my center, but they don't shut me down like they had before.

It's like an old friend, really.

"She was a real piece of work, that's for damn sure", says Alabastra. Then she smiles, fond and confident, and a genuine little laugh spills from her lips. "Holy shit... I just kicked a fascist in the face."

Over Faylie's giggling, Tegan is less jovial. She says, "And almost died. I saw you dangling off the tower in the distance and I..." The knight seems unable to speak her next words into being. They only arrest a canine whimper from her, as she stares into Alabastra's eyes.

Without warning, the rogue pulls the others into a hug. They sit there like that for a moment, embracing each other. This close, I can almost imagine their love like a fireplace, a hearth I can feel the glow from, even if I can't touch it.

Then she pulls away. "She scrammed after she got the watch. Guess she got what she wanted."

The watch... "It's gone..."

The others turn with a shock to me, as I've let loose the words falling from my shook-apart mind.

"It's gone... I threw it away..." My voice sound wild and scratchy, stretched from a torn larynx, and feels far from me, pulled from elsewhere, like an ethereal sort of echo of myself. It doesn't feel like me. It never felt like me, I realize. That's not a thought I'd ever have let myself acknowledge before. But my dividing walls are gone. I feel open and empty; the fences are smashed, and the beasts are out to roam. I can't dam away my thoughts like this. Now they flow freely in a flooding river of consciousness. "What have I done... what the fuck am I going to do?!"

I find no answers in their faces.

Despite the aching soreness, my body feels like it's ready to work again. I lift an arm, placing its gangly paw on the ground and force the torso into a seated position. I pull the legs close to the chest, feeling childish for the gesture, but also like I cannot possibly care how I look right now.

They look at me like they would a kicked dog. Alabastra says, "We'll figure it out. We'll... we'll get it back, or, find somethin' else, or-"

"Why?!" That question haunts me as unflinchingly as my hungers. Not matter how many times I hear an answer, I never feel any closer to sense. 'Why?' Is it purse stubbornness, outright refusal to obey the natural order of things, to assist me even when I categorically, unequivocally do not deserve it? Never mind the danger they put themselves in. I can only assume at this point that they're adrenaline junkies, getting high off the rush of throwing themselves afore the speed train car of disaster that is knowing me. "Why are you still here?"

They could still just leave me up here to rot. Perform the sensible act of removing themselves from this sorry scene. Perhaps, even, finally do the noble thing and throw me from this tower.

But I already know they won't and it drives me mad not comprehending why. I don't know if there's an answer they can give that will make it congeal, force the puzzle pieces together and finally give me the full picture. And I certainly can't do it myself either; I wouldn't know how if I wanted to. Instead I'm left with all the tools and ingredients, but no manual. I'm being asked to be brave; to name it. And I am a craven thing.

Some part of that truth must dawn on the half-elf, because she doesn't even bother answering. Instead she strikes deeper. "We're not goin' anywhere. You're just gonna have to get used to that." She turns to the others. "Right, girls?"

Faylie nods. "It would be weird to abandon you now after all of that. I mean it would also be kinda funny... But, no, I think we're pretty much locked in, now."

The knight is more contemplative. Those new ears of hers fold in, as she lets a nervous smile through the gates of her stoicism. "I gave you my word that I have your back, Bromley. You know what that means."

I shake my head. "But I've... I've been terrible to you!" My hands run through my hair as I remember the past two days with fresh eyes. Biting remarks and hatred and such spiteful lacks of empathy. I wanted them to hurt. My voice goes haunted and choked. "Oh, Gods, I've been so terrible to you! I'm terrible... I'm terrible - I'm sorry - I'm grotesque - I'm sorry-" My face buries into the crooks of my arms, folding inward over my knees. My open and exposed core feels marginally less-so if I cover it physically.

A hand squeezes my shoulder. Alabastra holds me in comfort, a small and stable port in an endless churning sea. I look up. "It's okay", she says.

I feel my face desperately attempt to shed tears, though none come out, and I croak, "No. It's not. I was awful. I..." My head swims in murky guilt as I remember the previous day. "I turned you away last night! Did you... did you find somewhere safe to stay?!"

Alabastra relaxes, like she's finally gotten a splinter out. She looks to the others, giving a satisfied nod, and I'm not sure why. "Yeah. We did. Stopped by the Palace of the Sun. Kansis took us in." Then she scratches the back of her neck. "Not exactly a long-term thing, but it wasn't the streets."

We've both been there before. Gods, we both have... and I almost subjected her to that again. That's unforgivable. Burning hot shame crushes my chest. Never mind what I'm certain are Tegan's feelings on the matter; she was clearly in distress yesterday at the temple and I-

Tegan! No pain strikes me when I have the thought, so I venture to ask. "Tegan... you're... a werewolf?!"

Backed away from one another again, Tegan looks down, shy. "Uh. Y-yeah. It's, uh... We can talk about it later... I'm... still kinda surprised that you didn't ask yesterday?"

I start to run my hands down my shoulders, feeling itchy and wrong. "I wanted to, but I... I couldn't even be curious about things. It was- was like I was... stuck. Every time I wanted a change it didn't approve of, that took me out of that awful headspace, I..." Though the watch is gone, there's a brief run of phantom pain over my mind, from the reminder alone. The horrible pit of thorns has left me with more mental scars than I can count. And they nearly made me do something I could never take back. "I can't believe I almost... I almost..."

That imagined future felt so clear in that moment. I'd be gone by now, whisked away by that woman. And Alabastra Camin would be dead on the pavement. Instead she's staring at me, here and now, flesh and blood, breathing and smiling and starting to cry. And she pulls me in for a hug. I collapse into her, nowhere near strong enough to fight the need for this. I need this. Faylie and Tegan join in, and all four of us share the weight of each other.

It's a fleeting comfort. Everything's been left so muddled in the wake. A thousand contradictory feelings tangle into a morass. I start to ramble, shaking in their triangle grasp, "I... I hated you. I'm not sure I still don't, I... fuck, it's all still confusing." How am I ever going to gain their forgiveness after all of it? Certainly not by deserving it, yet I don't think I could stand to continue without it. "I'm... I'm sorry", I reiterate again, desperate.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it, alright?", Alabastra swoops back in. "It was the watch's fault, not yours. Puttin' those thoughts in your head."

I shake my head. They need to understand. "No. It didn't. I... really did think those things. Feel that way. I hated you. That came from me." The others wince, but listen. I have their full attention. "All it did was... make it so nothing could change that. No new information, no new feelings. It wanted me paralyzed. But... but that hatred was mine."

With the watch gone, and my feelings freed from that terrible moment in their flat, I don't want them to hate me nearly as much as I did, but they certainly still have the right to. Perhaps the obligation to, after hearing the horrid truth. I want nothing more than to see them continue to defy all logic, but I don't dare expect it.

Alabastra leans forward, and conviction takes her. She grabs me by the shoulders. "You are more than your worst moments." She huffs, disturbed by a sudden thought. "Gods, I almost can't imagine a worse thing to do to someone. To take 'em at their lowest and... keep 'em there."

I don't know that I have it in me to tell her that I deserved it. I don't even know if I believe that anymore. I don't know that I believe anything. I feel a true tabula rasa, empty. There's no guiding light within me. I need a north star.

And she always did shine brightest.

Alabastra stands. "Let's put a pin in this - we should get off this tower." She looks down. "You good to move?"

That is an excellent question. There is, after all, the pain shooting down my leg that has not stopped this entire time. I quickly down another healing potion, feel it stich my split vocal chords as it goes, and hope that it's enough to return ambulation to the fold. The wobbly leg is solid enough on first test, and like a long-slumbering thing of death, I rise from what might have been my tomb. The ankle stumbles out beneath me, but Tegan and Faylie are quick to catch me. Tegan pats me on the shoulder, and Faylie tuns to look up at me, beaming wide. Ridiculous, unbelievable, impossible creatures, these three. How did I ever think I'd be rid of them?

I look to our leader. The guilt of the last several days weighs undeniably heavy on my heart. There is so much that needs to be corrected. But there's one thing I need to say now, before all the rest.

"Alabastra. Use your Insight. Just for a moment."

Her head tilts, but she nods. "Okay?"

There's not a shred of venom in those eyes. "Of course you're not shameful."

And the forest of her irises turn glassy, and she breaks into little laughs again. She pulls me into another hug. Into the crook of my neck she says, "Welcome back to your life."

* * *

I could still do without the bird, but I cannot exactly expect everything to change at once.

She flies above us in circles, crying out as we walk through afternoon streets. Perhaps she'd be a disturbance to the civilians, were these roads not currently eerie in there emptiness. It is Devil's Night, I suppose. Ill omens like her and I can nearly blend in this time of year.

We'd briefly searched the emptying parklands for some sign of the event organizers, lingering Partisans or Sables, or even Lyla or Thassalia, but there were no signs we could locate. The approaching police bells convinced Alabastra to call off the search. We'd elected not to take the skyway for the trip back. With the emptying crowd, the stations are most assuredly still crowded to the Hells and back.

So now we just walk down Marble City streets. The skyscrapers of Nivannen eventually give way to the tenements of The Reds, glass and steel falling to brick and grime. My shaky leg is still an awkward hindrance to my walk, but it's nothing compared to the storm in my head.

I feel bare. Not numb like before, that sleepwalking state of blankness I covered myself in. But shattered. Broken open. Exposed. Like the whole world's eyes are on me at once. Like a burned-out home. Instead of feeling nothing, I'm stuck feeling everything. The numbness was almost preferable, even if I could hardly function by the end. All of my misdeeds and hate-fueled thoughts and desperate attempts to bend and break my shape into something less obvious. Such as...

"Oh, Gods", I stop in the street and say aloud, to no one in particular. "I... miss my hair." My hand broaches my shorter locks. Only barely down to my shoulder now, it hasn't been this short in years. My one lifeline of self-comfort, and I dispensed with it in some impulsive attempt at order. The lack of weight on my head is practically haunting. I feel incomplete. More incomplete. What have I done to myself?

Alabastra looks me over, mouth pulled into a tight line. "Hey... you still got more than enough! It still looks alright!" She puts a hand to her hip. "In fact, do a little trimmin' here and there, maybe getcha some bangs - you'd be right in the style."

My arms cross. Exactly which style isn't lost on me. "It would... hardly suit me", is all I can muster in defense. Admittedly, my barriers have fallen so far, I'm liable to acquiesce to this. Perhaps when we're not on the clock.

"You kiddin'? It'll look great on you..." She trails off, considering for a moment. "Oscar..." There's an upward lilt. It's almost a question.

I find myself staring from the beach at an endless swim through the ocean of traits I hate about myself. It's too much to bear: I need some other distraction, a life raft. I need relief. "I... have something to confess." The others look to me with rapt consideration. "I... I truly, deeply loathe that name."

She could say she knew it all along. Of course she did. She could say she called it, that she told me so. Hold it over me like another of her little jokes.

It means the world that she doesn't. "Okay. Then... to whom do we speak?", she asks. Then her smile grows a little too wide as she adds, "Muhnsker?" Of course, she wouldn't be her if she didn't insert some stupid wisecrack.

I can't pretend it doesn't lift my spirits a touch.

But it is a fair question. If I'm not that name, then, who am I? Am I feeling especially ridiculous? "Um. Just. Just use the nickname. Refer to me as M-Moodie. I suppose. For now." Evidently not. Still, even that feels like an unfathomable thing to have said. Only a week ago I'd have thrown myself from a tower for that comment.

"Sure thing, Moodie."

Her nickname doesn't make me bristle as it once had. Perhaps because it's not technically a nickname at all, at the moment. For all intents and purposes, it is my name. At least for now. I'd almost call it an acceptable placeholder, but 'placeholder' implies a future, which would mean having to think about the future at all. That is something I am still in no mind to do.

"If anything", I say as we start walking again, "It is perhaps actually appropriate, now. More appropriate." I cannot deny that I am feeling again: too much. My mood does, in fact, feel liable to shift on the wind.

Alabastra looks like she's going to say something, stops herself... and then goes ahead and says it anyways. "It was kinda evergreen."

"Shut up", I say, not even trying to suppress the chuckle that carries it.

It is bizarre how easy that was, after agonizing so long over my name. A pain that's followed me like a long shadow, growing worse and worse with each passing year; and it's over, just like that. I feel as if I've cheated, somehow.

We get walking again, and as we do, the events of the past few days cram inside of my mind in a chaotic tangle. Now that I'm free of the watch, each and all are demanding attention and reevaluation. They surge and intertwine in threaded memory. I'm not sure where to start. From the beginning? Or, work backwards from the end?

No, I know. The end. The most pressing matters should come first.

Matters like Serrone. "Lyla... I should inform you of what she told me."

The rogue looks over her shoulder as she walks. "She had your measure. What was that about?" There's a deep anger resonating within her. Not at me, but at the mention of the socialite. Of course, she's everything Alabastra would hate in someone: a rich Lupine, selling out other women, hurting people for profit and hatred, and immune to her Insight to boot.

As I have the thought, I realize that's the point where the watch's poisoned perspective would have twisted my feelings into more opportunities to hate her. I took every chance to do so, and only tore myself apart for it. Regardless of how I feel about her after all of this is over, The Timekeeper made me obsessed. I've only been separated from it a short while, and I already know I never want to be that way again.

I refocus on the question she asked. "I'm still not entirely sure. But she was aware of my condition. And that I'm not the only one, but that my case is unique. That I was liable to act in bloodlust. She claimed to want to cure me of it." I pull inside of myself, still uneasy with the implication of everything she alluded to. "She seemed to think I was somehow responsible for this."

The three look on in confusion. "What?", Faylie says. "I mean... you're not, right?"

My shoulders shrug. "How should I know?" In truth, it's as good a theory as any.

Alabastra says, "You're not."

At this stage, we'd be arguing over far-off theories, at best. "She didn't seem convinced of that, either, for the record. She also mentioned that we are... connected, somehow, her and I. That it was the Gods doing, putting her on some path, with me as the antagonistic figure at the other end." Her statements were a little hard to follow at times. Like she was constantly rewriting the truth in her head. "And... she even implied that we'd met before." More than met, in fact; that I'd done something, though whether to her or someone else, I'm not sure. It's not impossible that she was bluffing, or had me confused with someone else. But it would track. I'll just tentatively add it to the pile of my mistakes.

Faylie stares a moment. "Okay, you've got some weird stuff going on."

"You are one to talk."

The faun sputters. "Okay, that's different, Moodie." Despite her protestations, she's smiling. She's nearly never not, but there's something about it. Almost nostalgic. "So then, you don't remember meeting her, ever?"

"N-not..."

Tegan adds, "Maybe something to do with you being a dhampir? Something when you were young?"

"I don't know!", I say a little too loud. My eyes dart. I didn't mean to startle them. Dammit. "How could I possibly know any of that? It's not as if I had an altogether normal childhood." And my own words strike myself deeper than I meant to dig. I fail to say anything to follow up, just left in huffing in exasperation.

Alabastra walks back toward me, and cups a hand around my shoulder. "Hey... who cares? Alright, don't feel shame for havin' a few gaps - Gods know I got plenty. If someone says that ain't 'normal'? Motherfuck normal."

My downcast gaze follows up the trail of her arm, and I pull myself up from any spiral this would have sent me down. I don't have it in me to disagree. Best I just bring us back to the subject at hand. "A- anyways, she- Lyla... whatever interest she had in me was swiftly replaced when she realized I had the watch." And suddenly I'm reminded all over again. The watch really is gone. After everything we went through to get it, after being so convinced it would see me drift into forever.

I'm not immortal anymore. I don't even know what to do with that. How am I meant to think about a future I can do nothing but dread?

"That thing wouldn't be good for anyone, Moodie, but it was a match made in the Hells for you." The rogue seems to have read the distress on me. Not from her Insight, of course. I think I believe her, now, when she says she didn't break that promise. Upon further consideration, she has started to seem genuinely remorseful that she'd used it on me all these years. She continues, "You were right to get rid of it."

A bitter sort of resignation takes me. "And you were right... again. The Lupines never wanted it because it was a cure - it was far more than that. If it could even be said to have been a cure at all." My hands palm around the outside of my glasses. "And I practically handed it to her on a silver platter." I can only hope that I haven't doomed the city. That hardly even feels like catastrophizing.

She looks behind her, issuing Tegan forward. The knight ambles over, and she drapes her other arm around her girlfriend, bringing us into a huddle. "Listen up, the both of you. We are going to stop them. Watch or no, my thoughts haven't changed a bit. There's nothing they can throw at us that we can't handle. And there ain't a chance I'm lettin' those fascist nutjobs get away with talkin' about my favorite people like that."

Faylie speaks up from the side, "Hey! What am I, chopped liver?"

Venison does sound enticing...

I wrench the thought away with clenched teeth. Right. I'll have to readjust to those.

"This is for our monsters, Bug. Grow some dragon wings if ya wanna get in on this."

Though I think it likely that the Lupines would have some strange and bigoted taxonomical answer to the question of where fae lie in that distinction, there are more pressing matters. I look to Tegan. "I understand if you are not ready, but... I feel it's imperative that you explain." I try not to let any acidity poison my words; I'm not owed a thing after how I've treated them, but part of me is still rather upset that I wasn't trusted with this.

Evidently I failed on that front, because Tegan is already on an apologetic backfoot. "Uh, yeah, I'm. We're- I'm sorry we didn't tell you earlier."

I huff. We may as well get to the heart of this matter first, since we're on it. I turn to Alabastra. "Why did you keep so much from me? That you knew about my vampirism, your Insight, your relationship, this. Did you truly have such a need for secrecy? Was it about me?" Though I suppose I've proven their point, in a way, if it was.

Alabastra delivers a reflexive, "We had good reason on this one." Then she trails off, doubtful of her own words. "Though, I guess we thought we had good reasons for all of 'em. It's not like we sat down one day and decided 'Let's lie to Moodie as often as we can', it's just... I guess when you take a step back and look at it, it does kinda look that way, huh? It all comin' out back-to-back like this really puts it in perspective."

The rogue seems unsure of herself. And in a strange way, it makes a sort of sense. She mentioned she lives in lies. Breathes them in and out, swims in that space, and sees straight through them. Being able to peer other's truth intuitively may very well have made her abysmal at asking for it. And by extension, divulging it.

She continues, "If I had to put one solid reason behind all of it, I guess it's that... it's a dangerous life, the adventurin' gig. You get so used to only being able to really trust the people closest to you. Secrets come with the territory. Not... not too different from the family, really." Her own comparison seems to upset her, as she stares into the middle-distance for a moment. "The more you know, the harder it is to walk away. From the business... from people."

Then she was keeping that door open for me. I don't quite appreciate the gesture the way I'm sure she hopes, but it hardly matters anyways: that door is shut behind me now regardless of how I feel. And as far as her secret-keeping goes... "I'm still not entirely sure I forgive you, but I at least believe you weren't being malicious."

"I'll take that." Alabastra stands a little straighter. "And for the record, I think we're fresh out of secrets. Least as far as I can remember."

Faylie says, "Or at least, we'll definitely give you the full dish if they haven't come up and they become relevant again!"

"Full honesty", Alabastra concurs. "You're part of the team. If you... wanna be, that is."

I don't have nearly the capacity to ponder that question. One thing at a time. My eyes cast over the knight again. "Then, what was the reason for this secret?"

Tegan takes a moment to gather her words, and the darkness behind her eyes makes it clear at once that this is not a pleasant topic of conversation for her. She always was cagey about her past, but now it seems to creep from her as if a daydreaming nightmare. The words don't pass through her lips, and she looks to her girlfriends for help.

Alabastra swoops in, "If it makes ya feel better, Moodie, we only found out a few weeks ago." She motions between herself and Faylie. I raise a brow at that. Tegan managed to keep a secret of that magnitude? For years? From Alabastra?

... Tegan?!

And finally the knight explains, "I didn't tell you because I was... really hoping I wouldn't have to tell anyone else. It didn't seem like it would end up mattering... until the theater yesterday. That was only the second time I've ever, y'know... done that."

Huh. "Then this lycanthropy business, it's new for you?"

She sighs, pulled far and away from herself by my question. "No. Kinda? I don't know." Her head shakes. "I mean I've technically always been uh, one of those, but - it's, it's a long story. One I didn't, uh- couldn't get into."

I look around at the empty street we've been walking down. "And... now?" Not that I mean to push her...

The knight scratches the back of her neck in a self-comforting gesture. "I, uh. Short version is, I was raised in a... I guess a priory? Like, they made us read The Tributines back to front every day, uh. And me and my sisters had to wear those awful dresses. And we prayed. All the time. To all the Gods, but, Lunara especially. And, uh. Well, my family, and a few of the other families were- were werewolves.

"My folks lived in Drywater before the Shard Plains were annexed, uh. They were... encouraged by the government to join a convent to stay out of the public eye, and... the moon Goddess' was the best fit, I guess."

Though the uncomfortable history she touches on twists my heart, werewolves following the Goddess of the moon isn't so outlandish, I suppose. "Then, you were born a lycanthrope?"

She winces in a familiar pain. We're more alike than I knew... Then she nods. "It doesn't start manifesting until you're like... 13? But, way before it did for me, uh. Things changed. The priors decided. Uh. They... they said..." Tegan starts to look lost in her own story, tripping on herself. Once more she looks to Alabastra for help.

She answers the call. "Plague changed things. I mean, Anily never did treat werewolves kindly - you'd think we would, since we consider wolves so sacred."

"We do have a tendency to put them on everything, yes...", I deadpan.

"Instead we always been weird about 'em. But after the plague swept through, it only got worse."

Tegan's regathered herself. "They told us that our- that it wouldn't be tolerated anymore. That they had a cure. It was... it..." Her hands start to shake. Alabastra and Faylie are quick to console her.

Though she gives the others thankful smiles, she still looks a touch lost. I've never been entirely competent at this sort of thing. I always seem to choose the wrong words. But seeing that forlorn, er, puppy-dog look on her face, the folds of her canine ears... I have to try. "There's no need to be specific", I say. Then, I remember their own little adage, that they save for situations like this. "We don't have to continue, if you don't wish to."

It seems for once I chose correctly, as all three beam wide back at me. What's that old expression? The good copy, and the great steal?

The knight swallows down her insecurities. "I guess, long story short, they told me the... curse was gone. That I would never transform like that."

"Then this... talk of a cure...", I wonder aloud. If similar cultural attitudes did indeed drive Tegan's childhood trauma and this current ordeal, then perhaps similar methods do, as well.

She shudders. "Y-yeah. It... hasn't been, uh. Easy. To hear."

Yet, she's been taking it all on the chin. Either she's not let the depths of her discomfort show, or I've been blind to it. All this time, I've been speaking about my vampirism in such fatalistic terms, not even realizing that it might brush against Tegan's discomfort. And, while it's still certainly true for myself, I can't imagine her condition being nearly so innately grim. More than anything, I wish she'd told me for that reason alone: that I might avoid making her distressed.

To think, the watch kept me so uncurious about this fascinating paladin, so uncaring about her disposition. She's carried that bravery like a banner, so stalwart I hadn't even realized it was there. Gods, what a fool I've been.

She continues, "Anyways, I left the- the church, uh. For a lot of reasons. That being, y'know, one of them. And then I came here." She chuckles to herself, uplifted by a less harrowing memory. "It wasn't actually supposed to be a long-term thing. Marble City, I mean. But, then..."

Alabastra waves her hand. "I

happened." She does have a tendency to happen to people, yes.

Tegan smiles back at her partner. "And, I guess after a while it kinda just... faded into the background. I didn't really even think about it anymore. That's... at least why I didn't tell these two. It just stopped mattering... or, at least, I thought."

I say, "I'm still surprised it didn't come up."

The rogue cracks back, "Believe it or not, when we're not in crisis mode we are capable of being tactful." Then she leans back a touch. "We got our cries out about it that first week, then we got down to brass tacks."

"Then why not tell me? After it started, I mean."

The knight wrings her hands nervously. "I was still hoping that it would just... go away. That I wouldn't have to talk about it. It's not... safe, being a werewolf in Anily. Especially not anymore."

My eyes scan the ground. I nearly object that it's hardly safe for any of us, Faylie and Alabastra included, for different reasons. But, that wouldn't be fair to her.

She looks almost shameful when she adds, "I... wanted to hide."

Then I cast that gaze up with crossed arms, looking at her ears. "But not anymore?"

"Not anymore. I'm so sick of hiding. We-" She stops, borrows some of her girlfriend's determination, and her gaze redoubles on me. "Moodie, we shouldn't have to."

Lyla's speech rings in my ears. And the past week of being revealed that my own secret was never quite-so is still too bitter to swallow down so easily. "At least you had the choice to hide. Evidently, I never did." I don't mean to hurt her with this, and I hope I do not. But I cannot help being a pessimist. "And look at you now. You're outright proud."

Alabastra says, "It's still fucked that the Lupines took that choice from her."

"Is that what they did? That's still speculation." I keep my voice as even as I can. This is about more than just my petty grievances. "It doesn't quite make sense, does it? Why would they talk about curing an affliction they caused? If you're right, wouldn't they want to force us underground, and not expose us?"

Tegan speaks up, impassioned. "They want us gone! Whether that means we're so out in the open we're hunted for it, or forced into hiding, or so beaten down we accept their 'cure', or we're pushed out of MC." She's getting flustered, in fact. "It's like we can't fucking win."

Faylie adds in a small voice, "That feels like why we really didn't tell you much... People like that make it hard to trust."

Though I see their point, the pragmatist in me can't shake this. "It might have still been useful in our investigation to know this earlier."

Alabastra shakes her head. "I don't think it would have made a difference, Moods. We already told ya there were others, and we didn't understand why it was happening any more than you did." Then she grimaces. "But... ah, shit. I'm makin' excuses again. Sorry."

Although I feel ridiculous for it, I can't help but stare a moment. "Are you... apologizing for something... unprompted?"

Now it's the half-elf's turn to roll her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Okay. Laugh it up. I deserve it." She motions down the street. "Let's keep movin', yea?"

Absurd woman. Whatever my thoughts on their secret-keeping, we've reached an impasse. I don't have it in me to hate them for it, though I'm not sure yet whether that will translate to trust.

The only thing that might get us there is continuing to share what we know. I turn back to Tegan as we continue our trek. "So then, the first time you transformed..."

The knight nods. "When all this started. Same night it did for you." She all but visibly casts her mind back to the beginning of this month. "I felt those urges. Uh. Wolfed out. Then these two talked me down from the edge, and I came back."

They keep mentioning they talked her down. "You didn't think to try the same trick on me? When I... attacked?"

The faun says, "We actually did! But..."

"You weren't exactly in a listenin' mood", Alabastra concurs.

Of course. It seem I'm always making things difficult. I look between the three of them. "And you don't have any idea what exactly was said that brought Tegan from the brink?"

Faylie says as she kicks a can down the road, "We kind of said a lot of stuff. I mean, there was funny stories, and times we cried, and memories, and we said a lot of cheesy stuff about how much we loved each other and that everything was okay, and..."

Tegan adds, "At some point it kinda just... went away. I stopped listening to it."

"It was, honestly, a real fuckin' emotional night, Moodie", Alabastra concludes. "And it's not like we wrote down what we said. I barely remember half of it."

I try to find some pattern... it could be an emotional connection was all that was necessary, but Antitia seemed to indicate otherwise. I just can't think of how words alone could possibly halt the urges. "And, you haven't felt them since? They didn't return once they were gone? Why?"

The knight shakes her head.

Alabastra explains, "Honestly, Moodie, we had no fuckin' clue. We thought it was a one-time thing... until you. And a few other rumors, like that dwarf girl in Stilton. It all seemed random at the time. We couldn't figure out how it ended for Tegan, or why your case was so different." Her arms cross. "Even when we kept lookin' into it, nothin' came up that made it make any damn sense. Instead we found the watch, and... I thought more answers would come from there."

"Instead it seems we're right back where we started", I mumble.

"Well... I wouldn't say that." And the rogue starts to get one of those smiles on her face again. The kind that tells me she has some inane notion crocked up in that skull. "After the thing with the theater, and after all three of us got to talkin' last night, and definitely after today, some ideas been bouncin' around the ol' noggin, and... I think I've got a theory."

I groan audibly.

"No, no, I'm serious!" Her hand motions start to grow erratic, as she paces circles around us. "Thassalia and Lyla. What'd they have in common?"

Faylie says, "They're both ladies that sold out to a party that just sees them as baby-machines?"

"Well, yes, but-"

I sigh, "They both wielded some amount of holy magic, though, Lyla seemed far more proficient at it."

"Also not that - but good catch!"

Tegan stammers, "They're both, uh-de-eh, um. Puh- uh, just. Never mind. Just never mind." She covers her face with her hands, tail wagging shamefully.

"All true observations, but not quite what I'm gettin' at", says Alabastra, despite the fact that Tegan didn't really say anything at all. She waits a beat before elaborating, "My Insight! I couldn't detect if they were lying... which means there were lies to detect! Why else would they need to block it?" She says that like it's some massive, obvious revelation.

Despite my erstwhile state, I remain the way I am. "That seems like an immense leap of logic."

"When have I been wrong?"

I stare.

She bites her cheek. "I mean... Look. Follow the trail, with that assumption. If they've got some kinda power that has to deal with truths and lies... that could be where all this is comin' from. The whole basis of how they're transformin' people! They're just... puttin' magic lies in people's heads! Tellin' that poor dragon girl she's gotta hoard, tellin' Tegan she's an animal, tellin' you that you're hungry when you're not! The rest of it, the storm spell and the speeches, it's just flash! Smoke and mirrors!" Alabastra takes a breath, wide smile on her face. "It really could be that simple!"

Although my first impulse is to snark, I let myself consider the implication for a moment. If she's right, and it is a big if, and this is all so simple as a lie, can I really afford to not at least attempt to follow through?

I delve into the hungers, feeling that gnawing in my stomach. The aching longing, that all-consuming need for blood. And I try to imagine it all a falsehood. Just some thought put into my head, no different from the watch. To imagine that I don't truly need blood at all... I'd be perfectly fine without it at the moment, thank you very much.

The hunger slams another dull pain into my side, and I fold over. Nope.

Still recollecting myself, I cast my gaze back up to Alabastra. "It seems your little theory is insubstantial."

Indignant, she motions behind her. "Well, it worked for Tegan- I think. Worked so well, in fact, that the urges didn't even come back! Both times! I mean, maybe all it takes is havin' a good sense of self about ya! Just... try!"

"I just did!"

"Try harder!" She crosses her arms, staring. Not angry, but concerned. Like she's annoyed I'm not taking my medicine. How the tables have turned.

Although I still hardly see the point, I try to dig deeper. Not just pushing down the urges, but asserting some will over them. I am not truly hungry. These urges are a lie. I am. Not. Hungry!

I look up again, and GODS what I wouldn't give to sink my fangs into her neck.

Dammit!

"It isn't. Working!", I seethe into the ground, not able to meet her eyes after that thought. Employing my old tricks, I reconstruct a few of my own mental walls, and force the urges inside. Then I stand tall once more. "Are you still so sure you know what you're talking about?"

Her eyes roll. "I said it was a theory! Plus, there are..." She sighs. "Extenuating... circumstances..." I don't even have it in my to pretend to not know what she's talking about. My shoulders fold in. I am doing my utmost to ignore the elephant in the room, if it would just stop stepping into my line of sight. Thank the Gods, she changes the subject, "And! We already knew your case was different!"

"Nobody else was having blackouts like you...", says Faylie.

"Nobody else got as violent as you", says Tegan.

"And nobody else got shadow magic like you", concludes Alabastra. "And all that shit Lyla said? It's all startin' to point somewhere, isn't it. I mean, so we haven't nailed down your case yet, but it feels like we're gettin' closer, right?"

My eyes roll, but she isn't entirely wrong. She's earned the benefit of the doubt enough to at least consider her words. If she is right about lies, then she has a shortcut. "Alabastra, if it will help you the disprove this ridiculous theory, then - in the unfortunate scenario in which I attack again, I give you permission to use your Insight on me." Then I add in a mumble, "Though, hopefully such an opportunity will not arise."

Alabastra tilts her head, but whatever question is on her lips doesn't leave them. Instead she says, "Can do." She spits off in rapid-succession, "Though, pro'ly easier ways to test it, first. We can get on that tonight."

"In the meantime, we should also look into Lyla Serrone more. Anything that might give us the upper hand." The others are staring at me as if I've grown a second head. I suppose that's only fair; that may be the first time I've taken charge in... Well. Ever. "Yes, I know. I am surprised as you, believe me." Absurd though it seems, I may at last have found some level of motivation. Even if it is fueled by spite.

Lyla Serrone started this mess. I would have been content to live the rest of my likely short years eking out a pittance from my shopfront, not harming a soul but myself, playing the warden evermore. Instead, if Alabastra is right, then she has turned me against myself. Let me loose upon the world. And in the process, she nearly took one of the only three people I can't truly lose. Though, that is yet another thought all on its own I'm not nearly in the right mind to unpack.

There's only one concrete idea I can possibly form in this still-floating state; I'll be damned if she beats us again.

The rogue smiles. "You get dibs on the next head-kick."

"I may just take you up on that. But first we'll have to catch up to her."

"Ah, she won't be easy to find, though."

I stare at her. "Yes she will?"

With a laugh she says, "What? You wanna head back up to the heights? Camp outside her house or somethin'?" Towering over me as she does, she leans to get closer. "You are gettin' bold."

"N-no? We're heading back to the Other Side."

Now she looks confused. "Right, for your debt?" The blonde stares a moment longer, then realization strikes her all at once. She goes wide-eyed, and shakes me by the shoulders. "For Cozzo's tracker!"

I'll be damned. "Did I get there before you?" Despite myself, I can't help but smile at that.

She stares a moment longer, then turns in a huff. "Shut up, Moodie...", she says, stifling her own self-snicker. She circles her finger in the air as she goes, and above us, Paella squawks and turns northward. Then the rogue catches up to stand beside her girlfriends.

They all drift ahead of me, walking down the street once more. And very, very briefly, I just stop.

I stop, and I stare from a distance at these three ridiculous, irregularly brilliant, dangerous, and madly in-love women. Faylie hops up on Tegan's back, who spools an arm around Alabastra, who gives Faylie a quick peck on the cheek.

With everything that's happened, my walls are torn apart. There's nothing stopping me from reckoning with the thought I had poisoned myself with earlier. And though I'm still not quite sure what it means, I can no longer deny it: I desperately want what they have.

But that's a pointless little dream born of my new lease on life. No reason to get carried away, losing myself to wishes and whys. I've just been given my mind back, in all its fractured, blood-starved imperfection. I won't throw it away again so quickly, lost in that labyrinth of want.

So I shake my head and keep walking.