Witch Hunt

"H-hey, stop! Don't come up here!", yells Faylie down at the street.

It was, perhaps, foolish to let her negotiate as she wanted, but I could hardly think of a better plan. Or any plan. Or even do much thinking at all beyond the thrumming in my ears. She leans out of the window as I cower in the corner of my lounge, one hand tucked behind her back hiding a card already alight with flaming magic. I think, and certainly hope, that she does not truly intend to fireball the crowd, but as insurance policies go it's at least effective.

There's shouting from below, too many voices at once to pick out anything individually. Then the sound rushes out like the wind, silenced in an instant, and the singular, familiar voice of Vail calls back, "Well, well, looks like he's sent one of his thralls out to do the work."

"Thrall?! You've read this so wrong!" And she leans a little further out the window, and Faylie goes white as a ghost. "Wait a minute... Sydney? Paul?! Aldwight!" She lists the names off in a familiar tone.

I say with my hands still running nervously through my hair, "You know these people?!"

She turns to me, and there's a conflict I couldn't expect. "They're from Stilton..." Stilton? Why would he have amassed a mob from that underground shanty village of all places? And how do they even know where I live? I'm fairly confident I never told anyone down there my occupation.

A feminine voice shouts from the crowd, "Faylie, he's a monster, don't listen to him!" She sounds genuinely concerned for Faylie. "We're here to bring him to trial." Once more I'm baffled. Obviously it's not one set up by the city, or these would be police officers, but then, what does 'trial' mean?!

Faylie looks back out the window. "Look, there's been a huge misunderstanding! They're not a monster. They didn't do anything, I swear."

"He hurt my brother Connor", the voice shouts again.

"He's behind the curse - like the Gods-Blessed said!", declares someone else.

"He gave me the gout!", issues a third.

"And he'll kill again", concludes Vail.

The faun is getting frustrated now. She slams her first fist against the broken window sill and yells, "None of that is true!"

I say, "Actually, I'm fairly certain that first one is."

"Almost none of that is true!", she amends. "Look, this is way more complicated than it seems. They weren't in control - they're not dangerous!" Were this not such a dire situation, I'd almost be touched by how doggedly she's defending me.

Vail yells, not to Faylie, but the crowd, "This one's lost to the vampire's charm - seen it before. We're just gonna have to go in."

Faylie says just to me, "What's the matter with this guy?"

"How should I know?", I snark back, "I didn't exactly think to ask after his neuroses when he was trying to kill me." This is going horribly. I'm absolutely doomed.

Below, the crowd starts to march again, and I hear banging against my front door. Those lunatics are actually trying to break into my shop! I'm so horribly completely doomed. And I can't help but start to imagine this a deserving fate. Exactly what I'd imagined: the angry mob come to exact bloody justice for the things I've done. I've only proved with every possible action that I'm a monster. Of course it ends this way. Why was I ever foolish enough to believe it would be any different?

This is all but correct.

Still at the window, Faylie darts head back and forth between me and the crowd. "Okay, Moodie, I'm gonna bluff 'em so they stop, then we're gonna invis' and jump off the roof- oh, sugarbeans, you're freaking out again!" Then she pulls her burning card out from behind her back, and yells, "Okay, wait! Stop that or I'll- I'll do it! I swear I will!"

The mob halts. There's murmuring and whispers below. Her bluff is working.

Then Vail issues a decree to the crowd, "Ya'll calm down now. Wait out here." In a voice as hard as steel, he makes a threat in the form of a promise. "I'll handle this. SILENCIO."

It all happens so fast.

A cold and empty silence grips the space. Unnatural and wrought by magic, my apartment is devoid of sound. And in that total, all-encompassing quiet, Faylie waves her cards around, but no magic forms. Her lips are moving around the word 'Invisiblis', but nothing comes out.

And Vail sails through my window in some colossal leap from the street level. Faylie is knocked away as he lands in my reading room, and already he brandishes a sword. Faylie scrambles back, cards falling out of her sleeves in a frantic attempt to cast anything through the silence. Vail turns and stalks towards me, forcing me into cowering in the corner of my own home. Behind him, Faylie stands. There's something in her hand: that syringe of Subduant. And she rushes.

Right before she can stick it in him, Vail turns on a dime, and grabs her by the arm. He forces the faun's clumsy grip backwards, pulls the needle out of her hand, and jams it above her clavicle.

My heart seizes as the concoction I'd conjured makes its way through her system. She's already looking woozy, and braces herself against the countertop, still in ungodsly silence.

I stand, arms waving frantically to try and get him to stop. And finally, Vail drops the spell, with a sword still pointed at me.

The second I can hear again I shout, "Stop! Please stop! Don't hurt her!" I point frantically at my chest. "It's just me you want. Just me. I'll- I'll go. I'll go to this trial, just... just don't..."

He looks me over, unsure, a tilt to his head. Perhaps he didn't expect me to agree. "You'll face judgement?"

Behind him, Faylie says with vanishing strength as she loses her fight against the torpor, "M-Moodie, wait..."

She'll be out in only a moment. There's a small mercy in that. She won't have to watch what happens next. And I don't want her to worry. "It will be alright, Faylie", I lie.

Faylie Nevis collapses onto the floor.

Vail spends only a single second spying the sleeping faun, before looking back to me, in his usual jumpy way. "She won't follow?"

I shake my head. "That condition will last through the night." And I pour a touch of pleading into my words. "So please don't hurt her."

If I can divine any meaning in the fire of his eyes, I might choose to believe that he's considering my words very, very carefully. Then he nods. "Turn your back to me. And walk to the door."

And once more, I am taken captive.

* * *

At least the crowd seems to have the patience to wait until we've arrived at our destination before they tear me limb from limb.

They have me in cuffs, courtesy of the monster hunter, and they jeer at my back we march through the streets of The Reds, crossing quickly towards Grennard. And all around us, folk continue to amble on about their evenings. Perhaps some think it's a Devil's Night stunt or reenactment. A few walk forward and ask what this is about. Most of those clear off again when they're told who the monster in this situation is.

A couple start arguments on my behalf, but they're pushed out of the street, and can do nothing against the mob but run from it. I'm not sure if I hope the police have been informed or not: that may just be a different path to the same end.

But the worst are the people who take notice, who clearly see and recognize what's happening, and simply don't care. They just ogle, curious at best, but say nothing. There's not a shred of empathy in their gazes.

I wish the feeling of cold iron around my wrists wasn't familiar. Those childhood memories of unkind treatment from unfeeling lawmen; they're still as raw as first experience, even with the watch gone. I'm reminded of my old adage to myself. Better that I don't resist. All that's left is to take some sick sense of satisfaction that I was right that it would always end this way. That, and to believe that it was worth it.

That would all be the easy reaction, anyways.

But then I look up at the setting sun, the orange hues gripping the blue of the sky. And my heart starts to pound through my chest. If they're taking me back to Stilton, then no one there is safe. My stomach is already aching. I'll turn sooner rather than later.

I cannot give up yet, then. If I do, more are at risk than just myself. I need to convince them, somehow, to let me go. For everyone's sake. I rack my brain for a plan.

They have me between Vail at the head of the pack, and the rest of the mob. As we walk, a woman says to the posse leader, "Vail! You were so brave!"

And the fiendling looks back, and smiles. A wide and genuine smile that breaks strangely across the as-of-yet stern face of the monster slayer. He gives a little laugh, and brushes his hand through the air. "Ah, it- it was nothin', really." He looks like a man who's met the Gods. Purpose-filled and renewed. Baptized by their praise.

It's sickening. I deadpan, "So glad you get to feel like a hero."

"Quiet", he bites back, and his brief little moment of triumph is gone.

The others go silent. I spare a look back, and they're staring at him. A few even seem contemplative. A longshot plan strikes me. I'll never convince him of my humanity. But I might convince them. It will be a tricky proposition, given I don't entirely believe it myself, but countless innocents are dead if I don't.

At risk of his further ire, I say, "We saved your life in the heights. Doesn't that count for anything?" I push down my own rising sense of irony at my words.

He begins, "I said-"

Someone from the crowd interrupts, "W-what does he mean, Vail?"

Part of me wants to expound, but I shouldn't come across like the driving force in this conversation. He's already on the backfoot. Better I don't seem on the attack. He says, "You just wanted to offload your guilt."

"Yes!", I affirm. In how many ways must I say it? "It was awful, what I did to Grace. I never denied that."

"You were just keeping your victims alive, and healthy - so you can feed again. That's all this is." He's twisting everything to fit his view of me.

I hate how familiar it is. "Grace forgave me." It's driving waves of self-loathing through me to actively seek out their pity, but I don't have a choice. "You're the one making this a conflict."

"I didn't start this! You nearly killed her! Don't try and blame me for your sins."

"I wasn't in control! There is more going on than you understand." I motion up with my head at the dusking sun. "For the Gods' sakes, the sunlight isn't burning me. I'm clearly not quite the monster you think I am." Not yet, anyways. Nauseous hunger is already boiling over.

The crowd is starting to turn restless. Someone says, "Hey, wait, that is somethin', isn't it? We're out in the freakin' daylight."

Another adds, "Yeah, Vail, he sure seems human enough..."

The monster slayer's fists turn to iron slugs. "Just some trick." He stops, and the whole crowd stops with him. Then he turns, speaking past me to the posse. "Don't let yourselves be fooled! He'll be singing a different tune once it's clear he can't talk his way out of this. Charm is always a vampire's first line of defense, but I promise, it sure isn't their last."

I intone, "Do I seem particularly charming to you?" Then I... realize how that came across. "Actually, ah, don't answer that."

Vail stares a moment. The crowd is nearly silent, only a few whispering to themselves. The slayer looks around, and gestures to a nearby sewer entrance. "We're drawing too much attention"- he motions to the eyes glued to us from the streets -"We'll take the rest of the trip through the underburrows." He starts to leverage the manhole cover off the street intersection.

No one in the crowd does anything. If this is working, it's not working fast enough. What would Alabastra do? Well, probably antagonize him, but... would that work? It might turn the crowd against him faster. It's a risk, but I'm running out of time.

"How did you find me, anyways? Did you stalk me? Interrogate someone? Hurt them? Torture them?" I very much doubt that he did, but the crowd doesn't need to know that.

"Get in the hole, vampire", he says. There's grit in his teeth. I'm making him angry.

I keep pushing. "And why do Arthur Forsyth's dirty work? Is it all just a job to you? He's a Lupine, Vail. An anthro-supremacist, violent Anillian nationalist - I promise he despises you. And he's clearly terrible to Grace-"

"Shut up already, before I cut your damn tongue out!" And he grabs me by the collar, and throws me down the ladder.

My body lands with a shock of awful pain in my side. For a moment my world is a ringing white, with stings crawling up and down my arm. When thoughts beyond 'ow' are returned to me, I reconcile that, for one, I think my shoulder's dislocated; and two, that that may have worked too well.

When I open my eyes again in that dark underburrow tunnel, his face is above mine, snarling as he's crouched beside me. "You wanna know somethin'? I am not doing this for Forsyth. He wanted me to find out who you were and take you to him - but that wouldn't be justice. Your half-elf friend was right about one thing. These folk in Stilton needed a monster hunter to protect them." He followed Alabastra's advice, then? Yet he held onto his vendetta against me? "And I didn't have to hurt a soul to find you. The priest that healed Grace - he gave you up. After I told him what you were."

My vision spins on his words. Kansis...?! He...

He can't be telling the truth, and yet...

From the ladder up to the street the crowd starts to filter down, single-file. The one at the head of the pack, a young woman I believe I recognize as the sister of the Stilton-dweller I'd hurt, says, "Vail, that's enough. This... this doesn't feel right."

As I'm left still reeling from his words, Vail stands. "Well... that's what the trial's for, isn't it?" And louder to the descending mob, "You'll all get your say! We decide together."

The woman says, "That's... fair, I guess."

N-no... I've only succeeded in getting them to actually agree to due process. That's not enough. If I'm brought to that borough they may as well wheel in a bomb. They're inviting themselves to the slaughter. Though it's a unlikely, my last chance is to appeal to Vail's protectorate senses. Maybe he still has some

sense of twisted honor in him.

"Please... listen to me", I mumble, dazed and hungry and wracked with pain inside and out. "You have to let me go. You are putting these people in danger."

The slayer looks down at me. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning."

His hard-edged glower that makes me want to tear the horns from his head tells me isn't budging. "You'll have your say too, vampire." Maybe if I just run... "So save your defense."

Hunger pulls me into the dark, and I black out.

* * *

It burns.

A flaming sensation around its wrists flares like the sun in miniature. It screams and struggles to no avail. Its feet, too, are bound, though by little more than mortal means: ropes and knots. It is too anguished to care. It is in some dismal massive brick cavern, lit in blue from crystal in manmade rivers. Ramshackle buildings ring the interior in a semi-circle of pitiful dwellings. And it stares down at the ground from an elevated position. It's tied to some sort of wooden plank, with its hands around the back, and it rests on a foot-stop. It's not sure if the ring of spokes around the pillar is buttressing, or kindling, but more wood sticks to the base in spokes.

And it is surrounded. A crowd gathers before Fear, chanting and shouting, torches at the ready. It cannot think, its hunger and pain and middling self-preservation drown out its attempt at thought. Fear writhes against its bindings, but whatever enchants its wrists keeps it from breaking free.

One figure in the crowd steps forward. He looks like a devil, and it has no memory of him, but it knows from somewhere deeper that he is to be hated and dreaded. He is dressed in some western getup, complete with a wide hat. The fiendling shouts, "And just like I said, it shows itself!" His hands are outstretched to the crowd like a carnival barker. It wants to stab him with his own horns. "You played the part of a chatty monster, but now the truth comes out."

It snarls in the man's direction. The crowd backs up, a wave of reflexive terror that passes through them like a shockwave. Fear should relish that, but all it can think of is freedom. It doesn't know how it got here or why this is happening. It just wants this to stop. It wants to see the world drown in a sea of red. It wants to be held again. It wants and it wants and it wants. It starts to scream again.

An older, wiry man like a bushel of twine steps beside the hated foe. "Goodness! Mr. Vail, it is seeming as though he is rather... wild. This is, ah... safe, correct?"

"Calm down, old-timer. Those manacles are enchanted - blessed by the Sun. It'd have an easier time stepping through a pinhole than gettin' out of those."

The old man tilts his head. "This is truly the monster that was talking The Reds at night, then? He was... so calm, before, with Alabastra."

"None of us are immune to being fooled. Vampires are master manipulators." The fiendling crosses his arms. "We should get this rolling."

Nodding, then shaking out his coat, the old man addresses the crowd. "Well, everybody, we are not usually doing this for those outsiders to the community, nor are our trials typically so..." He glances up at it. "Eh. Threatening. But this one has hurt some of our own, it seems. So, we'll take input from the crowd-"

Someone in that smattering of souls shouts, "It's clearly a monster, what are we doing?"

Another voice shouts back, "'What are we doing' is right - this is wrong! We should just let him go!"

More in the crowd start to yell over one another. They bicker and fight and push one another. They're a house divided. It snarls and pulls and thrashes against itself to no avail. A froth starts to work up in its wicked jaws from the convulsion. They're easy pickings. They'll all die for this spectacle. They'll hurt tenfold for the hurt they've caused. It cannot wait to pull them apart by the joints. It can hardly breathe through its own mad blood hunger.

The old man turns to the crowd, and puts his hand out in a calming gesture. They silence at his command. He clears his throat, and begins to address Fear, "Mr...." Then he stops, and looks to the fiendling.

"Bromley", the fiendling says. "Oscar Bromley." It thrashes against the abhorrent name. NO. It is Fear. It was never him. It will tear the sun from the heavens before it will ever be him again.

"Mr. Bromley", the old man continues, "You have been accused of the harming of members of this community, and the wider population of the cliff downs. How do you answer to these, ah, charges?"

Through a twitching jaw it heaves, "IT WILL CUT YOUR HEART FROM YOUR CHEST."

"Goodness!" He turns to the younger man. "I believe that counts as a confession?" He's afraid of it... yes... It holds to that in the sea of cruel stings. Fear still has purpose. It can make them afraid even in this state. It sharpens its mind on that whetstone of purpose. These mortals will kill it. It must focus, or it is destroyed.

The younger man steps forward. Close enough to commit his features. For how imposing his silhouette is cut, he looks younger than he likely is. "I'll admit, never seen one this feral before. You're not gonna get much conversation out of it."

At that, the old man turns to the crowd again. "Well, then I suppose we shall put it to a vote." Once more the crowd grows restless. Arguments erupt, boiling blood and bags of meat. "Settle down - settle down! Now, all in favor of banishing Mr. Bromley from Stilton-"

"Banish?!", the fiendling interrupts. "You let that thing back into the wild, it'll kill again."

"Mr. Vail? We're not murderers!" Then he looks bewildered, and gestures to Fear's makeshift stake. "Wait, is that really why you had us build this ugly thing? You said it was for safety!"

His hands go to his hips. "It is for safety. Fire's one of your best defenses against a vampire."

With a shocked face, the older man moves to retort. But a voice from the rabble shouts, "Graolo, what do you think we're doing here? This is different. That's not a person. The slayer's right." Fear starts kicking its feet at the ropes. If it breaks its own ankle it might loose the knot.

The old man fails to control his flock. His protestations are nearly lost over the bickering, "Now, hold on, we're not going to kill one of Alabastra's friends! This is a community for everyone."

In this vestibule of brick and concrete, chaos starts to claw its way free from the dying carcass of order. Fear turns itself this way and that, attempting to gain some leverage to twist its body just-so and free it from its prison. The rest of the prey descend further into their quarreling.

Then their fighting is cut into eerie silence. There's a clamor behind the crowd, arriving from the entrance and demanding attention. A stocky white dwarf in white robes, and-

Its huntress, and her knight. Gods she looks like an angel. She locks eyes, horrified for it.

Then she is furious. She is not just any seraph: she is one of vengeance. "What. The FUCK? Is this?!", she yells at the silenced crowd.

The old man turns, sheepish from her screaming. "A-ah, Alabastra, we-"

But the fiendling cuts him off. "They're just as charmed as the faun was. Don't let them set it free."

"Oh, you stupid asshole", she seethes back at the fiendling, but the crowd has already resumed their fighting.

Some rush forward to the huntress, blocking her bodily. More fight with those initial, pulling them away, descending into nearly an outright brawl. The old man has lost his grip on the crowd entirely, and ducks off into some corner to cower. And a few approach the pillar Fear is tied to, looking to pull at it. Yes. Closer.

The fiendling steps in front of those, swords drawn. "If you even-", he's cut off by an arrow sailing his direction and though he dodges with unnatural speed, it cuts through his longcoat. He hisses, "Hells. Fuck it." And he rips a torch out of the hands of a nearby onlooker.

And throws it onto the kindling.

Immediately a fire erupts in the drywood, slowly licking and crackling up the sides. Panicked gasps like a deer's mewling leaves its lungs. Already the heat rises, smoke starts to billow. It catches the word 'stop' from the crowd, echoed again and again.

Stop. It wants this to stop. It stares into the raging inferno that starts to singe it at the heels. The fire looks to it like the depths of the hells and it doesn't want to die. It's sorry it's so sorry it doesn't want to die-

Parting the sea of the crowd as she charges, the knight is a freight train of momentum under her armor. She heads directly for Fear, and runs straight into the fire at full speed. In a leap, she knocks herself into the pole and cracks it at the base. She and it are both send flying away of the main wicker in a shower of wood splinters and crackled smoke.

Still attached to the top half of the beam like some half-skewered piece of meat, Fear lands with a hard thud onto its side, as it stares into the blaze it was just thrown from. Beside it, the knight stands to her feet, dusting herself off. She looks different. A tail wags behind her, and she sports two ears of wolven kind. She is more impressive, like this. At least, until she sunders the image by having to put out her own tail from the fire.

Though it still cannot trust her holy magic, she saved it. She is more than respectable.

The knight huffs once, having shaken the fire off her new appendage. "Holy shit." She puts her hands on her knees, out of breath. "Hi, Roodie."

Fear still seethes and writhes in place, but it will not burn today. Survival is no longer an issue: now it starts to gnash its teeth. It has its hunger to act upon.

The knight walks to the edge of the post it's tied to, picking it up and pulling it further from the fire. She talks as she drags, "Listen, this is really more of Allie's thing, but, uh... if you can hear me in there, Moodie, um..." The scraping against the dirt, grime, and brick floor carves a line as they inch closer to the sheet metal and plank homes. "We, uh. We really lo- like you and appreciate you. And it's nice having someone so smart around that's also, like, fun to tease and stuff, and it's really, really nice when we get to see under your shell, and... and we even like that you're an asshole sometimes. Y'know, even though you went overboard lately with the watch, but, uh, I mean... and... yeah." Vexingly, there's a growing blood-rush to the knight's face. She's either cold, flummoxed, or aroused by Fear.

And it doesn't have a clue what she is talking about. It growls at her.

"Right, yeah, fair, I'm bad at this." She stands, clearing her throat, and points behind her with a thumb. "I'll go get Allie and also kick that guy's ass. Don't, uh. Hurt anyone. Please." The knight runs off in some direction.

It pulls against the beam. The ropes around its feet were pulled loose in the crash. Like some writhing worm, it crawls along the floor and keeps the beam in place, pulling and slithering its way to freedom. Five feet. Three feet.

And it is unleashed.

Mostly. The manacles still burn their way into the its skin. It can smell its own charring flesh, cooked at the wrists. Fear shoots itself up with its hind legs, standing, arms behind its back, dizzy but alert. Perhaps if it bolstered its strength with ichor, it might break free of its chains yet; it scans the crowd for acceptable targets.

A girl hides behind a metal shack. She stares up at it, cowering around the corner of the pseudo-building. Beside her, a second figure stands, holding a bat like it might save him, and instantly it recognizes his blood scent. One of its earlier victims. Perhaps it will take a second taste. Awkward like a newborn animal, it starts after the duo.

Then an arrow plinks off the metal building before it.

It skids to a halt, and its prey run off. With a slow turn, it beholds the huntress in all her radiant glory. The blue light of the cavern bounces off her silver-gold tresses, her instrument of violence is newly-nocked, and it loses all thought to her smile.

"Hey, you", she says with a breathy laugh. She lowers her awaiting shot, letting the arrow fall to the ground for lack of tension.

So far from her, with its hands tied, and twice-lost to her wit, it doesn't dare close the gap. Instead it does the only sensible thing.

It turns and runs.

If it cannot give chase, it will be chased instead. It darts into a building, eyes scanning the interior for advantage. It's soaking in shade, but it cannot use a drop of it with these damnable chains upon it. It looks for something, anything, that will shatter them.

Halfway through a failed attempt to break them apart on the side of a table, the huntress yells from the doorway, "Moodie!"

Dampened by this awful metal as it is, it is still a starving animal, heaving with hunger and sick with pain. She was more foolish than it thought to come here. It waits for her next move. She only needs to lose her advantage for a moment.

"Okay... alright", she starts, to herself it seems. It still does not understand half so much as it wants to about her. Then she refocuses. "Listen, I know things have been a little shaky for us, lately, but... Moodie, if the last few days ain't enough to scare me away, nothin' will. Alright, I know it is hard for you to listen to yourself, to- to accept that it's okay to want the things you want, but, if you just try to-"

The starvation in its stomach burns a hole, and it can wait no longer. It rushes forward, running along a wall, baring its fangs in a desperate attempt. She dodges with a deft roll further into the home. It slams into the ground where she was, springs back to its feet, and charges. She's still low to the floor, and lies flat on her back at its approach, then kicks up. It slams into her heels, lifted off the ground in a sailing arc, the world tumbling around it, and it shatters a table head-first.

"Ah, fuck. You keep me on my damn toes, that's for sure." From the wreckage it twists to see her standing, stretching her neck.

Fear whimpers in response, the cruel metal digging further into its charred hands. It sits up, feeling pathetic afore her. It doesn't even want to win. It just wants her to have to work for it.

The huntress steps forward. "Okay. Let's try this again." She straightens out her jacket. "Moodie. I know you're in there. Aren't you?"

It snarls as it rises back to its feet, bewildered, unable to piece together her words. She... wants to know if it is someone else, it thinks? It isn't. It never will be again. It shakes its head.

Her eyes go wide. It could drown itself in those twin forests. "You're...", she starts, stunned. "You're not... you're not Moodie, are you? Not even a... remnant. You're someone else."

She seems to understand! It nods.

Her hands pulls at her own mouth, considering it like it was art. It could make her into art. Beautiful, bloody art, yet it would pale in comparison to her in full motion. But it's not supposed to want things alive, is it?

Now she's staring at it. Should it have answered elsewise? It can try again.

Then she swallows once, and speaks in a wholly new tone, "Alright. Shit. We'll try somethin' else, then." The huntress focuses on it again, her stare intent and peering. "Does the... does the name... Oscar mean anythi-"

It shakes its head furiously, as if to excise the awful utterance like discordant notes in its skull. How does she know how does she know how does she know-

The huntress waves her hands out in front of her. "Shit, hey, okay, it's gone! It's gone! That's not you! Struck from the record, shoulda... shoulda known. That's on me." She points to herself, and offers another grin, as if in on some unfathomable joke it can't understand. "I... I get it. Trust me, I get it."

Her calm demeanor brings it back down as well. Despite its own drives, it wants to follow her, to be a mirror to her desires.

She tilts her head to one side, struck with curiosity. "Do you... recognize me?"

Of course. It couldn't forget her if it tried. And it would never want to try. A wonderful splinter in the skin of its uncrackable purpose, threatening to shatter it into something more. It nods its head. "Its... huntress."

"I... guess that's not inaccurate?" She laughs again, motioning to her sternum. "Alabastra. I'm Alabastra."

It considers her anew. A name. It can name her. Alabastra. It has only named itself before, but it commits her to heart. Alabastra. Alabastra. Its huntress is Alabastra. It sounds like music.

Alabastra asks, "And, do you... got a name?"

Sharp and frantic, it says, "Fear."

"You're... afraid?"

It shakes its head. "IT is... Fear

."

Though she doesn't seem to understand, still she nods. "That's your name?"

Fear affirms. A name and a function, no distinction, inseparable. For now. Though in this state, its mandate seems hard to grasp, like oil. Without blood to let it think, Fear is little more than a name to it.

"Okay! Sure. Sure thing!" She still sounds astonished. Fear isn't sure why. She is the astonishing one. "Guess that's not the strangest name I heard. Once knew a guy named Shlork. That- that was the guy's actual fuckin' name!" She starts laughing to herself, almost hysterical.

It doesn't get the joke? A pain rocks its midsection, and it folds over. It has been so patient for her, but Gods is it hungry.

She stops laughing. With hands out to the monster, Alabastra says, "Okay, Fear. Can you tell me what you're feelin' right now?"

Feeling... feeling... what is it feeling? It's feeling too much. It's all real and raw, a conflicting storm inside its head like an angry buzz of bees. It feels lesser than it was before, unsatiated by blood. It can hardly form more than the baseline thoughts of instinct. "It is... starving... and confused."

"That's alright, Fear", she laughs, shrugging, "I'm a little confused, too!" Another joke to herself, but this time it cannot help but smile, too.

And its smile is returned twice over. That works?! Glorious.

Alabastra seems to turn something over in her head, before continuing, "Fear, listen. Those hungers you're feelin'? I want you to- to shut 'em up. Shut 'em out. They're not real, alright?" She's closer now, almost within arm's reach. "Can you... can you do that for me? Can you be... be good for me?"

A flood of warmth fills it from the middle out. Good?! Yes. Yes. It can be good. It wants to be good. Fear can be so, so good for her. Its neck hurts from nodding.

Right. What did she say? The hungers, yes. It can be good. It closes its eyes, trying to focus is dulled and buzzing mind on those scratchy feelings, telling them to quieten.

It's a mercurial and murky endeavor, and it feels like it's drowning. It looks up at Alabastra to try and find renewed purpose in her face.

Instead the shack around it erupts in sudden violence.

A figure crashes straight through the shanty home walls, rending the metal with its body like a cannonball. The slayer stands from the cloud of dust he's kicked up in this living space, swords at the ready. One points to Fear. "Lights out." The slayer rushes forward.

"Not on your fuckin' LIFE!", Alabastra yells, ducking low and kicking the fiendling hard in the side.

As he stumbles back from the blow, Fear observes a glint of red blood on his blade. Where is the knight?

The slayer's eyes dart back and forth between the two predators he has cornered himself with, a sword stretched out to each of them. Fear looks to Alabastra. She nods. Tonight, once more, they hunt in tandem.

He charges for Fear, of course. Without its magic and with its hands tied, it has no advantage. So it will be bait. It backs up in a dash as his sword swing for it. The silvered blade edge cuts through the air mere inches from its sight. Once further away, Fear kicks an errant bit of wood from the shattered table into his face.

As he stumbles back, a point-blank arrow from the huntress digs a canal deep down the man's forearm. He drops one of his blades in a clatter. The slayer spins on a dime, and makes a wild but precise lunge at Alabastra. He's fast, but she's quick. She pulls up her bow to block the blade blow, though the string is severed by the sharp edge.

The man digs his sword across the inside of her bow in a furious lock, narrowly missing her face.

Fear rushes forward and dropkicks the slayer in a rage. He's sent onto the ground, other sword scattered.

Alabastra swipes up the weapon without delay. "Stay down, fucker."

He vaults up to his feet once more. He is tenacious, it will give him that. Then he looks to the various wounds sustained over his skin, and he siphons his own crimson from his sluiced veins, drawn out with blood magic not unlike its own. The red liquid forms into solid hardened crimson daggers he holds in either hand.

Alabastra swings at him with the slayer's own blade, but he shunts himself to one side with unnatural speed, throwing one of the daggers into her shoulder. As soon as it pierces her form, she locks in place, held by the blood magic.

Before Fear has a chance to dodge, he tosses the other dagger in a barely seen underhand into its stomach, and like Alabastra, it feels its body seize like a frozen river, fighting a losing battle for control over its own circulatory system.

The fiendling stands to his full height. "You think you're the first monster that's talked back? Who's pleaded? Who promised to change?" He fits a boot under the guard of his sword, and kicks it up into his hand. "I've faltered before. I won't again." He lifts his arm above his head.

And his hand is caught by another.

A set of large arms grab him from behind, lift him overhead, and slam him down onto the floor, head-first. He lands with a hard smack onto his horns. Fear and Alabastra are freed from his grasp, the blood-formed daggers dissipating in clouds of red.

With heavy breaths, the knight stands, holding her wounded side in pain. "Asshole."

"Dusty!", cries Alabastra, rushing to her paladin. A long gash has riven its way through her armor, exposing a bloody and raw slash.

The knight backs away, against a wall, nodding slightly. "I'm... I'm fine..."

Alabastra looks down at the would-be slayer. The fury of a thousand ruined souls could not match her snarl. And then she kicks him in the stomach.

And then again. And again. And again and again and again.

"FUCK! YOU! YOU STUPID! MOTHER! FUCKER!", she yells to punctuate every blow. Each boot hammered is like a gunshot into his gut. Fear can only stare. Bloodied, bruised, and brutal, she is glowing. Why would it ever need sunlight?

The man, on the verge of consciousness, looks up pitifully, lip busted, face swollen, unable to form words.

She bends onto her knees at the tail-end of her onslaught. "You better get the fuck up and start runnin', Vail. I better never see your face again. 'Cus if I do, I'M PUTTIN AN ARROW THROUGH IT! FUCKIN' RUN!"

Dazed and pummeled, it cannot possibly read the expression on the man's face. For a moment, it prepares for some final desperate assault. But then he rises to his feet, and limps into a run.

When he's out of sight, the two women collapse over each other, holding on for dear life in desperate tender grips. Alabastra, arm-in-arm with the bleeding knight, looks down at the duo of discarded swords.

Her green eyes go wide. "They're silvered... shit." She looks back at the knight, one hand moving up to run a hand down her ear. "Dusty, are you..."

The knight nods, wincing in clear pain. "I, uh, fuck this stings. Yeah. I gotta..." She gets woozy for a moment, stumbling before being caught again in Alabastra's grasp. "It's like a... a poison. I gotta... get it out of my system. I don't think I've lost too much blood. Um. K-Kansis. Kansis is still around. He can help."

Alabastra nods, gripping her by the forearms. "Alright, go, quick." She jerks her head to the side, in Fear's direction. "I'll handle this."

With a parting kiss that sends a heat to Fear's ears, the knight departs. Is that how they show devotion, it wonders...

Another shock of bloodthirst tears into the meat of its stomach. It's so completely famished it whites out the world for a moment.

When it steels itself once more, she is before it. "Alright, Fear. If you can be... good-" It nods again, too far-gone in its haze to care how desperate it has made itself known to be. "Then let's get those cuffs off ya."

She maneuvers behind it, a set of lockpicks in hand, and it hears a click as the tension along its right wrist relinquishes, then its left. The second the terrible manacles are away, it feels the cold sting of the open air on its burns, squirming against the pain. It brings its hands to its front to inspect the damage. Half-inch-wide burn marks wrap around Fear's arms, charred deep into its form in a line of blisters and cooked carrion. It feels like its flesh was peeled like an apple. But with the sun-blessed metal gone, it once more feels the stygian call of potential in the darkness around it. It wreathes a gloam-formed balm over its claws, a dark and safe blanket to tender its wounds.

As the flesh knits itself in lines of sinew and veins and fat and skin, it looks up at Alabastra. She's stepped in front of it, silhouetting the blue light of the cavern beyond the slayer's entrance breach. Her hand goes to her hip, and she looks exhausted... weak... vulnerable. "So, how 'bout it, Fear? Wanna try again for me? Those hungers, can you just..." She trails off, her face dropping, as Fear rises.

The hunger in its stomach demands its tithe. Ravenous madness starts to creep along the edges of its vision.

And it charges.

Alabastra darts out of the way of its wild, dagger-clawed attack. She slides to one side from its attempt and says, "Woah, hey! Good! Be! Good!"

It grabs at the sides of its head, greasy fingertips digging through the its mussed locks. No! It... it doesn't want to hurt her. It can't have only part of her. It stalls itself long enough for Alabastra to tackle it to the ground. It's pinned by the weight of her, her legs wide over its torso, and it struggles only briefly as she holds its hands to the floor above its head.

"Stop it... stop!", she admonishes it like a misbehaving cat. Her silver-gold hair falls down the side of her face, tickly at the sides of its cheeks.

Fear stares up at her, the urges gone again, for now. It can only look up, with its lower lip in an uncontrolled quiver. It could stay like this forever.

"There we go. Therrre we go. Good. Good. There's a good..." She shrugs to one side, eyes darting for a moment. "Gonna go out on a limb here-... girl?"

Girl?! A wild heat stretches out through it, lungs compressed in a wonderous hanging moment. It likes that very, very much. Girl. The wide eyes it stares back at Alabastra with don't dare blink. It feels like it could fly.

Alabastra nods, an incredulous smirk on her face. "... Girl. Definitely girl."

It feels so right. Like a piece it didn't know it was missing. Didn't know... she was missing. Yes...! It gets a floaty, giddy feeling in her gut, acknowledging herself in such a manner. The bubbling thought rises to the top of its mind and she just has to celebrate, and... and show Alabastra how thankful she is... how devoted it is.

She forces her arms out from Alabastra's grip, grabs her by the sides of the face, and kisses her. Sloppy and far over-full of tongue, she's still the greatest thing its ever tasted.

Alabastra lifts her head away, bewildered. Her head tilts to the side, and delight catches a draft across her lips. "Okay?!"

Fear has so little memory of anything or anyone, but she is sure this is the greatest moment of her life. An apotheosis. It feels complete. At home. Alive. She wants to be here, only here. Staring up at Alabastra. She isn't sure what drove a creature such as her to it. Fear has forgot its namesake entire. All she wants now is to be held by her.

She could baptize it with those eyes.

It feels greedy and ravenous for her. Roughly, she kisses her again and again, quick and desperate pecks, and it's not enough. She needs more of her. Its jaw unhinges in a ripping snap of skin and bone, tearing in seams along the sides of its cheeks, and its extended mouth unfurls to envelop the entire bottom half of Alabastra's face.

A little squeak of shock leaves Alabastra. When it pulls back and refolds its jaw her huntress is frightened of her. But only for a moment. Then she laughs again.

Fear can't possibly know what's so funny, but she laughs too.

And then another sucking pain in her stomach rips from her any semblance of thought. She shakes her head to excise the sudden yearning to tear Alabastra's throat. Its face collapses into her hands and she lets loose a wail in writhing failure. Nothing is working. Her mandate won't leave her.

Outside the shack, screaming voices start to demand information, or justice. It isn't sure.

Alabastra says, "Shit. Alright, ah... fuck, okay. Okay. Listen. We're gonna... we're gonna fix this. We're gonna find a way, alright, Fear?" She tries to nod it head. Through the gaps between her fingers she sees her huntress pull free a small glass vial from a pouch, filled with a blue-gray concoction. "But... but for tonight, I just... I need you to be a good girl and drink this, alright?"

Her quivering limbs reach up, and vile fingers wrap around the potion bottle. Alabastra looks sincere. She wants it to trust her. And how could it not. With a pop, it flicks away the cork stopper, and forces the cold liquid down her throat. It burns like shards of ice as it goes.

Fear is grabbed by the sides of her face, a hair on her cheek brushed away with a shaking thumb. The bottle in its mitt shatters as weakness bids its arm to drop. And Alabastra locks eyes with her and says, "You did so good, Fear."

"Will it... wake again...?"

Alabastra doesn't seem to know how to answer that. "I... I hope so." Then her head shakes. "No, no. You will."

With banishing strength, Fear wraps a hand around Alabastra's wrist. "DON'T... please don't give up on it..."

Her gaze goes glassy, but tempers with sheer will. "Never."

"It... wants to be real."