A Blade and Her Witch

  Content Warnings:

  Violence, imprisonment via lack of mobility, soul draining/feasting talk, traumatic flashbacks involving death and a newly woven prologue wiggly chappy for the cuties to wonder about and chew on!

  Chapter 0.5: The Truth is just a Rule you can Bend (Demon)

  Your wool doesn't match the rest.

  Your voice is deeper,

  horns are longer.

  You're a black ram in a herd of grey ewes.

  just like me.

  - Foster Rell

  14th January, 2025 CE

  It's been almost two centuries since I've been back here. The earth beneath my boots lies cold and fallow, untouched by any in decades, I assume.

  Finding it was a surprise really. Foster asked about my childhood. He of course knows that I'm not Terran, and I had mentioned previously that I've been on earth for a long time even before the Convergence. Yet... I honestly never considered that the Sanctuary of my childhood would have survived the violent rearrangement as many other similar magicks did not. Lazily drifted closer and closer toward me through the slivers of Void between our Worlds.

  I wonder how my sisters are doing. Do they miss me? The thought is quelled immediately. I haven't served my time, not sufficiently for my sins.

  I walk through the Sanctuary slowly, approaching the Cradle of my birth when I call out. "Cousin, are you here? It's... Call me Tymalth Rell, if you would. The Name I've permitted myself."

  A long few heartbeats pass, enough that she leads me to think no reply will come. That... even she left this place to decay and crumble.

  "Well... Good morning to you too." Comes a sleepy chuckle. One that every part of this place seems to shiver with. "Of all that might come to prod me into wakefulness you certainly weren't my first guess."

  A spark, a twist, then from Threads that must be entwined deep here a silhouette cracks free from the dirt. The broken Frame of a Doll tugging up as if on clumsy strings to grin at me through a shattered and loose jaw. "But... also not my last. How do Her Dreams find you, Cousin?"

  "Guilty... Ironic, I know. But... I killed her. Laid the groundwork for so much suffering despite my intentions to do the very opposite. I explored for excitement and stayed in shame, and home simply... followed me here. It's good to see you though. I didn't realize it was you, May. Makes things... A lot funnier in retrospect." I comment as I look in the Cradle, finding... an odd gem.

  "Who's..." The Doll asks while drifting to hang at my side, for a moment like she's never heard the name, then her expression sours. "Drat. Will have to purge her from the Threads now. Our aunt will be so... disappointed. Thought May was one of my best shells. If she asks why I had to cut that one loose I'm not going to even try and lie to her."

  "Please don't, May is important and she has a lot of the new type of Dolls depending on her. Also, It will be nice to have... a bit more access to family without feeling... awful about it." I ask, picking up the gem to inspect it.

  "But that defeats the point of the entire..." She starts to whine as cracked eye sockets drift to the gem. Pauses. Purrs low with fresh interest. "Oooooh, Yes. That is quite the fascinating offering to the Penitent shell you've adopted."

  I look closely, seeing a message etched on the gem.

  To our firstbrewn child and this Pack's nibling:

  When you find yourself riven

  by seemingly unforgivable mistakes

  and cracking with guilt.

  May these storied memories

  Remind you that nothing is always and forever.

  Especially and even the consequences of our actions.

  And this Pack will never love you less for yours.

  Eyes forward, little Jellyfish.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "What... What the fuck, May? Is this your work, or is it actually from my mothers?" I demand, form writhing and boiling as ink steams from me.

  "Wouldn't have the foggiest. I've been sleeping. And... Well, so few of them care to speak to any part of me these days." She shrugs and drifts backways. "If you insist on my keeping that Name and Shell you'll need to avoid acknowledging our familial relations outside any of the Divines' Temples, else Death will come for us both."

  I calm immediately and offer her a hug.

  "Fair enough. I'll be visiting her soon enough. See what's going on with our dear auntie... She owes me answers." I respond as I slide the gem into a pocket.

  My cousin embraces me easily, the Frame she wears smelling of old decaying porcelain, long-settled Cursestorms, and... only just less than fresh blood.

  "Give her my hallos, and feel free to come back and reclaim this place whenever you'd like." She pulls back but doesn't release my shoulders right away. "Or... actually. It's barely functional. Pester me into drowning it and dredging you up a new one next you feel like shifting Names or Planes. Will make sure it doesn't follow you like some sad wounded birb missing three wings and two legs. Can be carried like a bobble in your pocket. Just like our uncle's is."

  "I'll... See him too eventually. Chalice has got a weird spot out of sync with the Real, and I'm not quite certain how to get there." I give a crooked smile. "Foster and I will come visit you through May, and we can have a bit more of a private conversation there. He's got some bad habits and I need to ask your other self about his history."

  Then, with a giggle, I collapse into a puddle of ink that shrinks inwards and evaporates as I return home.

  Chapter 1: It Begins Softly (Blade)

  Despite the vast variety of creatures that crawl, swim, dig, and fly on, in, and around the surface of D?mmerung, humans alone are the only sapient species. Perhaps this sense of loneliness is why we invented Dolls as a nearly sapient surrogate.

  - Mutallias, The Twelve Frames

  Another day where time has no meaning

  Borazag is a proud chitin-eater, feasting on the carapaces of his foes and protecting his tribe from any who would invade the Archives they call home. Unfortunately for this dumbshit, he's nothing more than just semi-intelligent sets of graspers, compound eyes, and an absolutely infuriating sense of taste-touch-sound through the set of odd spiral antennas on his head. I would have drained his Ousia to Manifest my human form moons ago, but tragically, even draining him to death would only be enough for a few dozen heartbeats before I would require a new mobility aid. Instead, I suffer through his use, hoarding what Ousia I can from those he kills with me in hopes of — something.

  I desperately want something else, another serial killer, or Warlord, even a Denizen would be better than being stuck in an underground archive with Borazag.

  I refuse to even attempt to talk to someone who treats books as building material and tried to use me to itch his joints! He learned quickly the only time he did that though. Started draining his Physis fast and hard, not enough to kill but he collapsed and didn't touch me again for seven Driftdreams.

  Bitches love respect, and I'll be a bitch to get it, even from whatever the hell Borazag is, the weird cannibal beast.

  A messenger approaches Borazag from one of the numerous tunnels they've dug into the rock around the Archive proper, chittering about some impending invasion, likely from a rival clan of these awful insectoids. I rouse with the influx of new information, so rare these moons.

  Please let it be something with the ability to read.

  There's something deeply ironic about how despite being trapped in an Archive, I miss books most of all. An age ago, a Bondsmith won the right to handle me from the hands I was using and it wasn't until she held my length that I realized that the old bat was blind. BLIND! What’s the point of subjecting myself to an inferior mobility aid when there are perfectly functioning ones all around that I could just barely sense with my Ousia? Tragically, she did not take kindly to my opinion on the matter and left me in a storeroom to collect dust where I wasn't found for almost four moons. Me, a Blade five meters long from tip to pommel, crafted from the purest iron. How dare she reject me when she's clearly the inferior one! Stupid decrepit rotting meatbag.

  The idiot grasps my shaft without even cleaning the graspers and sends a squad to investigate. I’ve learned from generations spent with these things that they'll either come back victorious or not at all. This entire tribe is too proud to ever retreat, and if they didn't breed so disgustingly quickly they would have died out because of that before ever tunneling into the Archive and finding me.

  I adjust my form, consuming the slightest smidge of my Ousia to hone my edge to razor-sharpness and add a bit more weight to my pommel. Borazag has a tendency to aim too low with me, and it is unacceptable to have my point driven into anything other than the flesh of a target, especially not shit-brick tiles.

  Imagine taking the impurity that a body rejects and using it to build something designed to outlive them. Disgusting. Unacceptable.

  My pommel is slammed into the gross bricks below Borazag's feet as he puts his weight on me to stand. I consider biting at his Physis for that but… there are other things to feast on in these tunnels. I don't truly hunger but at times it seems like it would be nice to experience something inherent, something that isn't filtered through another, something mine, as personal as a fatal blow.

  Squad's already dead. I can taste the Miasma formed from rotting Ousia that flows through the halls long before the scout reported that the invasion is advancing. Doesn't even offer numbers or composition, why did I ever bother wasting my time learning this blighted language? It’s SUCH an ugly thing.

  ** ** **

  Futile hours later

  We’ve been waiting for… a while now. Not a full sleep cycle for Borazag but long enough for a stupid thought to bubble up.

  I miss Home.

  And like some stupid rotting sack of meat, I chase that odd thought. Too bored to consider the pain it will bring.

  What is home to a Weapon aside from the battlefield? I belong to no one, I exist to… to…

  I feel myself slipping into existential dread once more. Flashes of silver-gray before horrid pain. So much mewling and sobbing as girls I think I care about lay still and dead. More pain follows, and then I cry out as I realize it’s my turn to die…

  I don't know how long I drift in my personal abyss divorced from the outside world, drowning in wretched sensations as potent as the bite of any spell. Which is so stupid. I’m not supposed to feel this way! Not supposed to wallow in the weakness of rotting flesh! Why do I even have these memories? Those girls were simply the Ousia needed to forge me, I don't even know their names. Mere fuel for the fire to melt iron to a pure unbreakable form of perfect death and hunger.

  I am abruptly torn free of my pitiful dredging by the sudden explosive taste of… Blue? and find myself captivated by the taste-sound of blue bubbles clashing against Borazag's Ousia. Looking through his compound eyes I see Her.

  My Newest Victim!

  A whirling wellspring of deliciously flavored Ousia! The perfect feast to drive off the wretched memories for at least another cycle!

  Yet Borazag is not capable of winning this fight. Not without my help and a generous investment from my own wellspring. The things I do for a good meal.

  Thanks SO much for reading this SUPER fun collaborative project we is doing with Ruby, Blade of Dusk

  Linkies to Ruby's other works:

  Aaaaaaaaaaaand check our our (Nevarii & Els') other works below!!!

  Lamentations of The Dead Dreamer

  Sun Spoken Turn