Mariwa: An Ivian Tale

Holly swam in circles.

She dove down to the silt, a guess. A current brushed her hairs, the only sign of her father's passing. Success would not last for long, she knew, and so turned around and sped the other way. Not fast enough, again, as something struck her midsection and sent her spinning underwater. She punched blindly, eventually hitting solid ground and regaining her sense of direction.

The lake had become too turbid to be seen through clearly. The ever growing waves above disturbed debris and mud below, wracking the once mirror surface. She barely had time to move, a powerful Nothing settling over her shoulders and weighting her down, but despite everything her father was no God, and so fighting the Will off was no problem.

No, the problem is that he had very much expected her to resist, she was sure. She turned, crossing her arms protectively over her chest, only to miss in her predictions. She was tackled from the side, dragged against the ground all the way to the shore. Something blunt pummeled at her from all sides, thin edges felt keenly in the pit of her stomach.

She kicked, again and again, missing every blow until she had enough. Screaming, she threw herself upwards, arms spread to catch him, but of course he wouldn't stay and fight. The deadly hug was readily evaded, and soon she was alone again.

Not entirely alone. The choir of gurgles grew impatient, the more daring members of the audience emboldened, rushing into the shallows with barely concealed hunger before her and her father could pushed them away of tear them apart. With each passing second their numbers increased, and with it the quality of each, figures of incongruous body parts now watching the spectacle from the safety of the woods, obscured by the sheer density of weaker Apparitions.

They weren't the only ones fixated on her battered image. Corpses had emerged out of the jungle, bloated and dripping with algae, or gnawed into frames of bone and darkened meat so thin they shouldn't be able to walk. No gurgling jeers and gasps, but much of the quiet intensity things of death always bore in stories, cunning yet empty sockets keeping with her every movement as if they knew them before she did. The moment the first had walked until it was but a pace away from the water, the grandiose blue flower at the central islet had closed its petals and increase the overflow of its nectar, its sweet odor now so thick it spread over the entire lake and clung to her tongue.

Nothing hit her from behind the knees, then kicked her in the back. Arms that were not Arms flew to protect her, but Nothing slipped through them with such casual ease it felt as if she wasn't putting any resistance at all.

"Inadequate!" Her father's Will lashed with enough hostility she felt it in her body. distracted, she was struck in the thigh, the hardskin painfully cracking over the front as she retreated. "Do you take me for a forgiving patriarch, my Mariwa? The Blood has no place for the soft!"

She hopped atop the islet, and the lake surged upwards in pursuit. Her eyes widened as the murky surface indented, a river's worth dogging her steps and striking her chest before she could react. She resisted, sinking her feet into the humid earth, but could only block as a shade slid in her direction. The palm came like the bite of a serpent, skipping through her defense and crushing her lips against her teeth. Losing her footing, she could only curl around herself as she was washed back down.

"Do you see it now? The consequences of mingling with parasites when you don't know better. Your weakness would be a shame for the Di Aila," her father said, grabbing hold of her neck and forcing her to eat dirt again. He squeezed, and though she could feel the pressure of the blood on her head, she didn't suffocate, which in its own way was all the more terrifying.

"I don't care! I never asked for your pride, doesn't matter if I have it or not!" she said, scratching in vain against Nothing. His veil lifted, her fingers feeling the smooth surface of the shell over his bicep. Her Will grappled with his, being overpowered at every turn yet refusing to wield.

"Look at yourself! Don't you feel pathetic, incapable of accessing the gifts of the Blood, incapable of matching them? And yet, you insist in spurning its kindness!" His squeeze grew tighter, and she felt her head about to pop. "Half-bloods of the highest merit have killed their own siblings for crumbs of the love you received. The Brave have waged wars for the glory and favor that would allow them a mere chance of less! You kin with the filth."

"I didn't ask for any of this! Take it all back if you want, just leave us alone!"

She gave up of finding any weakness in her father's grip, and simply trashed, aiming for everything, anything at all, nails unfurled and teeth gnashing until something solid got hit. He finally relented, but she didn't, landing one more kick as he disappeared again, the invisible pressure of Nothing still binding her limbs.

"... My poor, broken Mariwa. You don't understand, do you? Pitiful."

She rose, breaking through the surface and gasping by instinct. Air filled her lungs, the relief of breathing again, that she could still breath regardless of need, calming her. A shiver still went down her spine. She was trapped, with nowhere safe nor any means to convince her father no, enough acknowledging him as such! to convince Glashii to stop this madness.

"Divine providence sees no desire. There is no choosing, only being chosen. Every right by birth is thus a duty by birth as well. And you, my dear, explendid daughter, carry the recognition of your lineage like the regalia of a monarch!" Glashii said, much to her chagrin. "How can I make you see what you are meant for?"

"You can't! I'm Holly Seneschal, a human being, raised by human beings!" she searched left and right, considering if withdrawing towards the far edges would be too dangerous with the crowd still increasing. "I don't want to become anything else, and I won't!"

"None of my words will reach you, will they?"

A burst of water to her left. The next hit came from the opposite direction, impacting her ribs. Stumbling a few paces, an underwater current tried to pull her off her feet. She dropped, staking a hand through the ground and holding on.

"All the Blood sees is purity," Glashii said, the conveyed tone closer to cold disappointment than the prickling anger from before. "What the Blood sees then, in somebody who so dearly wishes to mingle with lice, I cannot claim to know."

It took her a moment to understand what he had said, and a word in particular froze her. A trembling hiss escaped from in between her teeth.

"I should be thankful, regardless. It's as much of a sign as anything that there is still hope. No matter how far buried."

"You don't know anything." The words flooded out of her, almost unconsciously. "Not about me! You don't even know how disgusting you are!"

No reply. The conversation was over, and not a second too early.

If she wanted to survive, she had to do one of two things: She had either to find a way to reliably see Glashii coming, or she had to find a way to hide like he did.

That latter, specially, sounded promising to her ears. She remembered an ability she had scant few opportunities to use. Her skin changed, its natural pale tone giving way to stone gray with hints of white grain. Seeing it again after so long, she couldn't help but shiver a little. Had it always looked this unnatural? No, so long as it worked, she shouldn't question it.

The answer to her unspoken question came in the form of a haymaker from underwater, a precise hit to right below her ribcage, making her torso feel as if it had exploded. Screaming, she tried to retaliate, finding him already gone. This wouldn't be enough, she needed to go further. Was there a way to imbue it with Will? Do it entirely through Will?

Not the latter, she quickly realized. Though both used, well, willpower, both processes were actually completely different, and if there was any common ground between then she failed to find it. Then, she tried the first, taking the plunge and approaching the Apparitions and their cadaveric counterparts in the hopes Glashii would hesitate.

And so, when she was dragged back by a great wave that curved towards her back, she was almost surprised again. Instead of being caught off balance, however, she followed the flow, and no more than a couple seconds later collided with something fast and hard, both sent sprawling apart.

She took the opportunity to flee, cocooning herself in her Will as she tried to coax something out of her color changing. It was useless, she soon realized, or close to as she felt Nothing push her back, grasping her Nowhere and keeping track of her movements. How was she supposed to make this work in the first place? Was there some spot she was supposed to charge, something she was supposed to will, to flicker, to break?!

Unlike that crimson night months ago, her answers did not come by instinct, but neither would they come by trial and error, Glashii gave her no quarter. Slowed by a myriad sore bruises, he caught up fast, landing a heavy kick to her already shattered thigh and drawing a bubbled whimper out of her. Turning to meet him head on proved useless, he was already gone.

She abandoned her hopes of stealth, having not the slightest clue where to even start. Her skin returned to its sickly pallor, and she spread herself thin.

She could cover almost the entire shallow lake, and knew that her once-father was Nowhere. He existed where she didn't, moving through her blindspots unimpeded. She had no idea how, no idea why she could notice him without noticing. What was so different between them both that he could and she couldn't?

That would be the shape of his Will, wouldn't it?

He had felt nothing like her the few times she managed to touch him. Both were exactly as real and solid as one another, but he was slicker, more flexible, perhaps even colder though she wasn't as sure of that particular analogy. Soft yet strong, flimsy yet firm, impossible contradictions she couldn't comprehend yet he made effortless.

The next kick was the strongest so far, bearing none of that chiding restraint from before. Meant to hurt, hurt she was, forced out of the water with a choked gasp as she was thrown back to the islet. Feeling like a toy, she struggled to find her bearings as she spat out muddy stems and rotting leaves, which saved her in the end: still too shocked to rise to her feet, she was just in the right position to grab on solid ground with all fours when the river rose again to take her back.

Her Will penetrated it in time, mixing along its length and commanding it to return. It slowed down, but Glashii's control still held all the sway. She bore the brunt of the impact, knowing he would be coming next.

She pulled herself back as fast as feasible, pouring every miserable bit of Will into that river, hands repeatedly grasping at nothing in antecedence for the slightest chance of a lucky touch. And there it came! Nothing elegantly slithering through Nowhere in her direction, there and yet not, aiming straight for her head as she shrunk back, arm raised to stop him-

A second river blew her with enough strength to launch her. She spun, until she felt the crack of ancient bark at her side and hip, the hollow as solid as any wall despite the years in death. She fell, retching in pain, crashing into a pool of her own bile. This time, she didn't get the chance to get back up, a third powerful stream taking her, forcing her against the wood and washing the grody away.

Glashii was right there, exposed to dry air, closer to a shade than a shimmer but never quite either, little of his body discernible through the transparent illusion. The next wave was calm, but covered the islet entirely, leaving an unnatural mound of water to half submerged her laid body, its touch enhancing the camouflage until he was nothing but a distortion of the lake's dim light.

Something pressed against her chest, two sharp Nothings digging into her breast as she was turned on her back.

"This?" Glashii said, the kind tone lent to his Will making her all the more outraged. "This is a farce. A mere show of what you could be capable, and yet refuse yourself for the sake of wretched monstrosities. Do you feel the pain?"

"G-get off me," she whispered. He retracted a scant distance, and fell again, lower, driving the air out of her lungs.

"It does not compare to the pain of seeing your family massacred, of fleeing their cooling bodies. It does not compare to the pain of your own child being whisked away beneath your nose, of learning her potential had been crippled by a minute lapse of attention. And certainly, it does not compare to seeing her spitting on millennia of work," he said, punctuating by grinding on her solar plexus, "centuries of carefully cultivating Mother's love!"

Her stomach. Her cracked thigh. Finally, her shin with enough strength to break the bone and ground beneath. She screamed.

"Never, never, never have I seen a heresy of such level! Not even the Blood could vanish it? Had it never manifested..." He spat. "I cannot finish this task alone. Not here. Consider yourself lucky for having a merciful father, another would have chosen to cut the shame here and now."

The moment her leg was relieved of the pressure, she tried dragging herself away, only to stomped again.

"Stop! Stop!" she begged.

"My poor Mariwa, I promise haste. This may seen excessive, but it is nothing compared to the damage you already dealt yourself."

"I don't want to go," she said, looking up, trying to meet his eyes only to be reminded he remained hidden. "Please, what did I do to deserve this? Take whatever you want from me, you won't ever see me again. Just let me go!"

It hurt so much. Why was she hurting so much? Having her legs burned off hadn't hurt this bad, nor did taking the brutal beating God had given come close. Now, she felt the fragments of bone scraping one another too keenly, every darkening blot on her skin flare in waves. Moving was torture, and for all the desperation in her Will, she received no prompt answer.

"... You will heal. As I said, the Blood is enough sign there is still a chance. Fear not, My Mariwa, for soon you will be home. There, where your true kin lie, you will receive true recovery, and understand why I make such harsh decisions."

Her heart sank. There would be no running away, would it? No salvation, either. Were the others even still alive?

Rage seeped through her cracks. The next stomp came fast, a burst of mud raining from out of view emphasized by one of the sharpest pains she had ever felt. She whimpered, hands clenching in powerlessness, nausea churning her stomach and twisting her eyesight.

She had an idea what came next. She tried to flip over and protect her arms, but she was stopped cold. She looked up and saw the lad grinning down at her. Stick thin and tall, with barely enough muscles to earn the name, no scars to really mark him as an adventurer or fighter of any note, but his smile was the stuff of nightmares, stiff and sly with calculated malice.

She smiled back at him, all pretense: her heart was thumping so hard it was starting to hurt. She was scared, both of him and the chance he might feel her fear through the sole of his reed slipper. The ones who actually got to her always came back for a second taste, and she always won those of course, she was Holly Seneschal! They would always look down on her for being a sinner, a sin, and she would always be there to give them a taste of teeth for thinking so.

But this one time, she was honestly afraid.

He crouched, and she suddenly couldn't breath. He reached for something besides them, a glint in his eyes. When he got up with some difficulty, she trembled: he had a rock the size of her head in hand, sweetly caressing it's surface like it was his own child. This time, there was no masking; her eyes widened and the bastard chuckled.

The foot moved, too fast for her get back on her legs and run. It crushed her elbow flat against the ground, and his eyes moved from her face to her hand.

She watched, helpless, as he lifted the stone over his head and threw it down-

She needed to get out of here.

She needed to get out now!

Nothing she had tried worked. Nothing she knew she should be capable of worked. What was left?

...An idea came to her. Even if further abilities would not come to her by instinct, they still had to be part of her, right? Still present, if buried deep beneath even where instinct could reach, all she had to do was find and reveal it. If she could hide from Glashii, she would be alright, she had to be alright!

Already balled up in her own Will, all she needed to to was turn it on herself. She hesitated for a moment, not knowing what would happen if things didn't go as planned, but she recalled the heavy thud, the wet sound of meat squashed, and knew there was no time to lose anymore. A thousand arms turned towards her core at once, and she activated her revealing ability as they sunk into her, the physical world quickly disappearing around her.

The sensation was... unique. It was like shoving herself elbow deep into her own intestines, with all the discomfort entailed. Her insides defied description, the tactile analogy she used to sense all that strange Merurgical or Ashic Plane stuff breaking swiftly against something she could only say was made of herself, had the rough texture of herself. She vaguely felt her physical side writhe, distant and detached to current matters.

It had to be somewhere here. She pushed her ability to its utmost, felt the warmth of the light caressing its way inside to reveal herself, what made herself herself, what was purged to keep herself herself, and even itself working in an endless cascade of heartbeats or something similar, but nothing of use. She needed to go deeper.

And right below the surface vagaries, laid impossible things, mesmerizing and absurd sensations that explored their way up perfected fingertips in search of connection and meaning. These had many names, a million names each, but no set words to identify them. They crawled over, under, into her gore of gores, tissue and needled veins pumping her into herself, mindless for the waste spilling out like a ruptured stomach.

Fingers plucked tendons that were not tendons like the wires of a lute, fondled paths over sensitive organs, clearing a path through meatless meat with no purpose she could know even when she knew, floating under the rhythm of context and intent. Intent? So it did, or had done, until the interruption.

She shivered, realizing her mistake. She had been right to hesitate, this had been the wrong way of reaching in, and now she had left countless wounds into her being and disturbed the fragile ecosystem that here thrived. She was not what she had been months ago, suppressed into pliability and with years of neglect ready to rush in and make up for the lost time, her foundations were solidifying and fresh and utterly incapable of handling her meddling.

And now, she was here, looking for a way to undermine all that work. That was the wrong way to do things, she came to understand. The right way, however, would grieve rather than save her.

The search was brief; the search was endless. Innate knowledge had made for a poor guide, if a lucky one, taking her by hand to where Something was made Something and Nothing was made Nothing.

She witnessed the first, still and complex, build with a craft beyond dexterous, and something swelled inside her chest. She witnessed the second, a necrotic wreckage barely twitching as a sign of life, and tears swelled to her ductless eyes. She despaired, the sight of her hope leaking away making her want to go mad. The only salvation she found was a glimpse of a grander image.

Was it the angle? Was it a revelation? Was it destiny? No, none of those things existed here, as far as her concern had gone.

There was, between Something and Nothing, a duality, a contradiction, a load bearing pillar of solid metal, forged with no regard for the building that would slowly grow around its unending countenance, and now the single most important element of the whole. She raged at it, knowing its touch without knowing its meaning, but to dislodge it even the slightest would mean the crumbling of Her.

They led opposite ways. Above and below. To the whole and to the broken. Incomplete? Malformed? It didn't matter in the end, she followed the former, a second of walking across an endless kaleidoscope, until she realized she knew this place, quite intimately too.

She had come full circle. Did that mean there was nothing for her here?

No, it was all her, wasn't it? Everything was Her. There was no wind, there was no gravity and no distance, no matter, only Her.

And so, she revealed herself. And the bittersweet answer to her plights was made obvious.

She gasped aloud, back curling into itself as her muscles seized.

In the months since her battle against God, her Will had solidified, and though some slight modifications could be made on the spur of moment anything large scale had become close to impossible.

Without consequences, anyway. She would have to take it, she had to change. Full of holes and phantom agonies, she began the process of cracking apart and remaking herself, knowing it would be the last time she could and survive.

Tendrils of Will flew at her from every direction, engulfing her in a second. Slippery tips found purchase through the division of her limbs, grasping them in an attempt to drag them away, as if he could prevent what was coming. There was no Nothing there, just Glashii's panicked movements made clear.

"Are you ██████?!" The garble of words that poured into her burned their way inside then outside through myriad weeping wounds. She recognized her once-father's words, somewhat. "You would ██████ your own ██████ to escape me?!"

Joints divided, arms melded, fingers lengthened and shortened, all loose and out of control. Things once torn apart fused together, nervous analogues creating confusing bundles against one another. Touch became taste, became smell, became touch again. And her physical body suffered, bleeding and spasmming, moans and whimpers gurgled with foamy spit.

"This goes beyond the mere ██████, it is monstrous! Stop ████ now!" Glashii said, Something pulling up her body and crashed it against another surface, hard and coarse. "Do you not ███ ████ it ███ ████ to you?!"

She seized control of her hands, pushing herself into some semblance of a crawl as the transformations faltered, succeeded, had to be reworked or stopped from doing so. Nothing was going according to plan, and now she was more wound than girl. Glashii provided an unwelcome help, holding her together, willingly or not, while dripping hostilities into her.

"█████ this abhorrence! Is ██ all for ███ ████ of ███████ yourself of ███ Blood?! It █████ ████!"

This was wrong. Another mistake. She was dying, pulling her seams apart for uncertain result. Was this what she had intended to do? Focus was all she had left, her head occupied equally by a paralyzing headache and the sensation of having her skull filled with lint. She tried to reel back, only for her Will to rebel and double down.

"...████ have you ████ to ████████?"

She pressed through. Controlling her Will was only a matter of will, in the end.

Will did not bleed. it did not scab, nor coagulate, or so she had gathered. She had to pull back what she had lost, unfeeling chunks of flesh that was not flesh, and form makeshift curatives out of their remains. Not close to enough: it barely held her together, and the way the chunks were fading wouldn't last to the next morning. If anything, they were a detriment, a constant wrongness prickling at the back of her head.

At least she had stopped breaking though. Arms left serpents of splintered joints, each hand with its own number of poorly jointed fingers and sprouting stumps, so many limbs failing to merge with one another and becoming misshapen fusions, but at least she stopped breaking.

"Ah... Aaaaah..." she rasped.

"...Are you proud of yourself?" Glashii asked, contempt diluted in poorly controlled waves of fear. "All this in rejection of the undeniable? You are moments away from death."

"Dad. I... I..."

"Are you happy with yourself?! Not even the touch of the best soul healers could undo the way you have destroyed yourself! Could you loath me so much as to-"

"I feeeeeel sooooooo goooood! Hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe hehehehe! I can't feel my body at all!"

The animal thing inside her kept an eye on her father stepping away with a jump, but she couldn't mind it less. It was so strange! Her body was gone. All those sores and broken bones were gone. Not really, of course, but the agony, the distress, all washed away by the indescribable suffering and unnameable horrors of shattering away! Had it always been this easy?!

She had seen so much! She had understood so little! But she had seen, and she had interpreted, and wasn't that all she had needed? A way forward. It had been there all along, muffled under the light, under the roof of the Oke, under endless kilometers of carved stone corridors and intestinal labyrinths, yet always watching, always welcoming of her presence, always waiting for the day they would see each other again.

Dipping into the lake and spreading herself into its cool embrace had felt like coming back to a home she had never been to. But a home you spent years enjoying, can you even feel its presence anymore? She should have. Aaaaah, how could she have missed it? How could she have ignored it for so long?! It greeted her with such delight once, pushing her undesired growth forwards knowing she would resist it, but also knowing she would die without the guidance. How could she!

It had been there all along!

"Mariwa!" her father called her. "We must go. We have to-"

Broken legs flew at his face like whips, forcing him back. Before he could react, she rose on her arms and flew into the water again. Its cold welcome enveloped her, and she wasted no time creaking her bones that where not bones into place around her, enjoying her second home while she still could.

Glashii Di Aila pursued. his own Will slithered in her direction, tugging open wounds and wet bandages in its desperation to keep track of her position. Soon, he was Nothing again, there and Nowhere at once, impossible to find, now impossible to ignore, soon to charge through their grapple to finish his task by any means necessary.

"So be it!" he screamed into their connection. If she insisted in keeping their old passing, she would only hasten her own loss. He had to have known, right? This place hadn't been chosen solely for its beauty.

But it had been there all along, and it would be there always. Arms vestigial and crude, overly touched on and made too complex for ease of use, rose above everything, and called for its presence.

She let it wash into her and learned. She let its presence wash over her, wash over the light obscured lake and its flower infested shores, wash over her suddenly frozen father. The next time she grasped for him, he no longer could be called Nothing; she felt the work at play there, the way his Will worked its own energy onto its skin like a fine coating of grease, still too slippery to hold still yet no longer capable of avoiding her sight.

Her eyes wide open, she met her father's own through the murk as if they shared this dance in the most crystalline of waters.

"Impossible," was all he managed to say, before she crashed against his stomach.

Her jaws shut against the bones of his pelvis, tearing through loincloth and muscle alike. Not even the water could mute his howl. A knee met her in the ribs, claws raked her back and glanced her spine, and not a thing did she feel. Her knuckles pummeled at his side, digging holes into the metal of his cuirass until they found his flesh.

An elbow struck her in the back. For all she could ignore her own pain, the alien sensation of her shoulder blades shattering was enough to make her let go, the strength behind the blow doing the rest to force her away. Her father fled her, not fast enough; not seven paces away and she was already moving to encircle him.

He hid himself again, but this time she had caught on to the trick. She sunk to the silt and dashed for his legs as he turned to flank her. Too late did he realize she didn't need to shed light over everything to find him, for all she could see him he could see her, too slow to dodge as her teeth crunched the shell over his shin like soft skin.

She should have tasted blood then, but even that was lost to her. What wasn't lost, was reflex; she twister her body in time for a slicing kick to only scrape her arm, the sheer strength of her bite finally cutting all the way to the bone, sliding off with a mouthful of tasteless flesh she spat off to continue her attack.

"The flesh of your own lineage...!" Glashii was the one to retract this time, easily escaping the grasp of her Will.

She would have been left blind then, if not for something strange happening: she felt something odd in the World of Wills, diminute to the point it was nearly negligible, a presence mixing with the water's own yet of a distinct nature. She felt it all around her, its familiar touch on her skin conjuring the image of blood on the water, and followed its trail as if starved. Not a moment later did she brush against Glashii, seizing the tip of a limb.

She burst out of the water in his direction, a starved arrow. Arms pushed her aside, too slow to avoid her grab. Underwater again, she pulled, mouth open and fingers shut tight, already turning to deliver another devastating blow, but unfortunately her grip strength proved lacking, Claws sliced through the left of her face, slapping her with enough violence to change her direction and cut through an eye.

Her vision vanishing, leaving an entire quarter of her sight blank distressed her enough she became paralyzed. She put a hand to the wound and held, as if she could keep it from falling apart. It wasn't too bad though: the wound felt shallow in a weird way, so low in Will she could already feel it healing a little.

"Woooooow," she said. "Is this what life felt to you too? It's amazing! Holly Seneschal could never handle this kind of stuff!"

"This makes it three," Glashii said, tone ridden with so much despair it made her speechless "Thrice you made an attempt at your father's life. Could you really be trying to profane such a holy concept for the sake of such unforgivable sin?"

"I don't get it?"

"What I mean to say, My Mariwa, is that you have strode over a line you should never have crossed. That you have indeed reached the point of no return, that you dared deface the Blood and your history both into sacrilegious toys," he said, all emotion gone from his Will. "And that you have left me with a most unpleasant duty."

She didn't have to understand his words. The jolt that pushed her into action was clear enough, though too slow.

She met her father face to face, teeth gnashing and hands clenching to hold him down. She expected him to flee, and instead was left reeling as his forehead crushed hers, staggering her back for just long enough a hand clamped around her face from below, sickles piercing as deep her facial muscles and completely restraining her mouth.

She punched, but the angle was too wrong to cause any significant damage. The retaliation came swift, something slicing through her stomach, and even through the numbing haze she panicked, understanding she had been spilled open. Nails uncurling, she tried to swipe at her father, a quick elbow pushing her arm aside. Will limbs frenzied, she no longer tried to hold on to Glashii but to tear him apart, gouge him to pieces, thousands of pinching fingers raining at him as she pushed away, uncaring for the claws tearing a painful path down her jaw as she escape and planned her next-

She crashed.

Oh. His blows always held Will, didn't they? That cut hadn't been only to her physical stomach.

He had hidden the damage, hadn't he? What an interesting trick. She still couldn't feel it.

She gasped, water pouring down her throat as her muscles went limp. Her senses fell in disarray, veiling the physical world with a pleasant dream like fog, one even her Will seemed to catch on and enter into lull. She felt... peace, if she had to describe it. A heavy, overwhelming peace she was helpless to deny despite the circumstances.

She enjoyed the way her body rocked with the water's turbulence. It took a few seconds to finally settle, as her body drifted to the bottom of the shallow lake and laid among old mud and frightened crustaceans who had fled to their burrows, only now coming out with the shift in the battle. She could sense them, but not turn to greet, apologize maybe for all the chaos she had brought to their home.

She was brought back to dry air by the arm. Everything had gone still: the apparitions had gone silent, breaths held still for the climax; the waves were settling, their task accomplished; and the flowers, poor things, scattered petals and verdant leaves drifted to and fro, their field badly ravaged by the battle.

And above her, stood Glashii Di Aila, pondering her still body.

"This rescue has been a failure. I was too late, my Mariwa. No esteem by the Blood would have you accepted into the Land of the Brave."

Distantly, she wondered if the way he held her by the shoulder should be uncomfortable.

"The things you have done, the things you nearly did, defiled the Blood. Dearly I wish I could have taught you your duty, and the laws cast by our ancients to protect our power against those who would crush us, who came so very close to crushing us! And yet, to what reason should I? I must admit now, this goes beyond what could be fixed, by me or others. Your very structure has grown warped, your view of reality, your very way of speaking! Never had I imagined a being of the holy Blood could be so depraved as to struck her own father, to court the senseless Madhounds, to-!"

The hand might have squeezed. It might not.

She should be overcome with bitterness, dying here and now despite how hard she tried, how much she had to look forward to. She should go out like Elder Seneschal had, defiance in her eyes and flames on her tongue. Yet, the desire never came.

Glashii mumbled under his breath, or maybe he cried out loud, it wouldn't have made a difference. The touch of his Will softened. "This is unpleasant. No father should have to- Doesn't matter, duty is duty.

"Rest in profundity, my poor Mariwa. May death make you as pure as I wish I could have made you in life. I hope one day you can forgive me for my stupid inaction, as your ancestors will surely forgive your sins."

Of all the nonsense her father had said today. She tried to scoff; there was no sound, short of a pitiful imitation of a cough.

Pure. As if he knew what that was. As if he hadn't been the one at fault for that. If she could still get angry, she would.

Perhaps it was for the better that she didn't. She felt her consciousness drift, waiting for a blow of grace.

It never came. Maybe it was indecision. Maybe it was cruelty.

So she closed her eyes, and waited.

Little by little, she lost herself.

As she thought sleep would take her.

The children laughed.

It was like waking up to your body eaten by flames. Electric, frantic dread that pierced through the veil of death to reignite her body so she could run. She had never noticed it before, how repulsive that malicious cackling was, a primal fear as strong as that of burning alive clinging to the air like an oily film.

She could feel its approach down on her bones.

She trashed in vain. Couldn't her father hear it? Couldn't he realize that she need to either get away or die faster?! She tried to beg, she tried to slap him, she tried to put all the strength returned to her body on a final stand of Will.

Nothing worked. She whimpered.

"████ ██ the matter ████ you? What ██ █████████ my ██████?!"

They would never make it.

That beautiful, peaceful end shattered as a great crescendo broke from the Apparitions, the impossible mass of ghosts fleeing with tangible desperation, pushing each other to get away faster, some not even minded threading the waters of the lake.

it fell like a solid tree into the waters, its many voices adding to the choir and twisting their melody. Glashii screamed as it touched the stretched length of his Will, two waterfalls parting to the sides in animal fright and howling agony. She knew it well. Explosions of mud and dirt announced its arrival to their side, the weight meaningless against such destructive force.

In that last moment, Glashii Di Aila let go of her. Turning to escape

In that last moment, she saw Agare soar, Hagan firmly in hands. it dove in an arc, and time slowed to a crawl.

Glashii Di Aila's decapitation was swift

She hit the ground, and the water rushed in to obscure her.

A rapidly crumbling Will touched hers.

"██ ██████, run!"

And with that, the Di Aila family came to an end.

And with that, she stopped thinking, and everything went dark.