The Day after the Ball: Folly

[catch]

there is a hum, a gentle him,
as blood and blackness runs
from her. the one
coagulated, soaking a perfect prison,
terrible and red against the green.

only it is black, now. crusted, dried.
an hour of speaking, of tongue-spars
between governor and drow,
between different terrors
that ruined Myrkenwood
in each of their own ways.

she would feel the twist of fingers on her wrist,
but wrong, boneless, and it would bring a taste to her
mouth. not unpleasant. it would push past the stiff tongue
locked in a wicked bridle, foul and dry from
want of water.

those boneless fingers pluck at her wrist, at
cruel iron sunk deep
into flesh.
"I am a wishing-goat; I shall grant you a wish," it said, her serpent-wound savior,
and those fingers, that voice
sang a song. and pulled at a single nail.

[Rance]

YOU HAVE SACRIFICED [offered, surrendered] EVERYTHING OF VALUE [worth, gain] TO CALL UPON US [we, me]. WHAT IS IT YOU OFFER, BETRAYER, THAT COULD ENTICE US [we, me] TO THIS CHORE YOU REQUEST.

With his body cowed against the creature's monumental presence -- it called him betrayer , the evidence of some specific offense done in the past -- Audmathus faltered and dropped to a shuddering knee, his black hand extended to bolster the vaporous barrier that separated him from the manifestation.

"I wish to give you something else," the drow said. "Something that is not mine."

THEN HOW [by what means] MAY YOU GIVE IT. BY WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU TO BESTOW IT UPON ME IF THIS THING [object, belonging] WITH WHICH YOU BARTER IS NOT YOURS, BETRAYER.

"Because its previous owners are dead. It may have retainers," he reasoned. "Retainers and curators. But you and I both know, acumenus, that neither of these imply an artifact's ownership."

Audmathus's muscles burned; his head was a throbbing mess of confusion and misdirection. Invisible hands kneaded at his cheeks, jabbed into his eyes, prying tears from their ducts and dragging him closer, closer to the floor. The summoned creature's influence was beginning to pry through the boot-tar circle. The dark elf's will over the conjuration was slipping. Any moment, the handmaiden would slither through the cracks in his spell, shatter his mind to shards, pry inch by inch his veins from beneath his black skin--

Underneath the earth, a basso hum whispered in the peat, setting grains of dirt to sift like scuttling bugs. It was a bone-rattling echo, a sound less in the ears and more in the bowels. If Golben were a porcelain teacup, a fine lady's teacup, a celestial finger tapped its brim, asking for more, more--

Shadowdancer was a black fang drawn in by Glenn Burnie's foot. Audmathus listened with a wondrous patience, the pits of his red eyes on nothing but the governor. This governor, who refused to recognize his new place, who reasoned out his current predicament with a word-bloated tongue, had an answer for everything, and a thousand questions after; but the dark elf chose his retorts with discretion.

"That sword is a husk, Glenn Burnie," he informed. "It is useless weight. It might cut a creature, spill its blood, but beyond that, I've no need for it anymore. Perhaps it will answer your questions more thoroughly than I."

He would have had more to say. Oone, two, three, Glenn Burnie listed; one, two, three, all fine little organizations of thought in a place wrought with chaos and emptiness. But a more pressing audience introduced itself in that moment, as if Glenn Burnie's protracted announcement (I need to get out, only after so much talk) had been a performative litany, a declaration to Golben that it must give reason for his escape, or stir the governor from his endless chatter--

That hum never stopped. The noise grew louder, more apparent, a soil-bound song that crawled through the hedges and set the thorns to shudder. The nearest mirror to them -- a tall sheet of reflective glass -- started to waver, quiver with a resonance that bent its polished surface. Audmathus could feel vibration crackling inside his teeth.

The mirror-glass did not shatter. Instead, like liquid parchment, it slipped out of its frame and dribbled out, mercurial and shining. When the mirror leaked onto the dirt, it was a sheet of quicksilver, errant droplets quickly crawling toward the larger puddle to coalesce and become one again. From the wet nucleus a figure began to emerge, silvered and faceless, the newly-shaping mirror-liquid taking on vicious hands and oversized feet. The figure was vaguely human, a glittering golem that began to trundle toward the two of them.

In Glenn Burnie's mind, the drow's voice was a struggling candle, physical volume eschewed for the immediacy of its mental simulacrum: There are times your weapons must adopt the same love of self-preservation that your words proclaim. The tone was free of pomp and impudence.

This may be one of them, Glenn Burnie.

The faceless mirror-silhouette let out a grating scream -- a nightmare of breaking glass, the tangle of conflicting frequencies -- and lunged for the governor.

* * * *

I am a wishing-goat; I shall grant you a wish.

Stories were meant to come full-circle. Narrative perfection required it. Sometimes, stories lived and breathed on their own, as the Storyteller knew all too well. Like an infection, they could develop their own minute communities, not of plague-cells, but in the mind, in the soul, and the world in which those stories resided could be reshaped, refined, like the slug of red steel hammered diligently at the anvil. Paper and words were formidable blades and astute shields; they were armies all their own, forces of the intangible and conceptaul that could build new religions and raze temples of the old.

One story became another. And then another, and another still.

One
story became
many, many,
and many stories--
many, many stories--
could again become
one.

Beneath the broken Storyteller and the ethereal creature that cradled her, the earth started, shuddered, shifted. The motion was not grand or vast, but minute, forgettable.

The bloodied ground swelled, took a long, wheezing terrestrial breath--

--and then deflated to its original state.

The floor of Golben went flat again, as if nothing had happened at all.

[Glenn]

How kind was Golben, to provide Glenn Burnie with an opportunity to revenge himself upon one of those damned mirrors that he walked right into. Revenge makes for such inspiration, but it never fixes anything... What might have fixed something would have been if the mirror in question had been the specific one he walked into, not because then he could feel better about himself through smashing it but instead because that was the direction he wanted to go. These were the thoughts running through his head as dove backwards, kicking Shadowdancer into his hand and just narrowly avoiding the large-handed abomination.

He was in excellent shape but found himself in very few actual battles these days. It was hard to find a sparring partner with the dogged precision and discipline of Ariane or the sheer unpredictable insanity of Jirai. Moreover, he had just woken up from unconsciousness and followed that up by causing further head trauma due to unforeseen environmental hazards, hazards that were now trying to pummel him into bits. The pack was slowing him down as well but he wasn't quite ready to abandon it.

Rhaena had sent him with a sword and he drew it now with his free hand. It was a beautifully made rapier, but far more ornamental than useful. Oh she'd tried to prepare him for this but her own proclivities got in the way of practicality. Still, there was one use for it. He lobbed it carefully towards Audmathus, hilt first, charging behind it. "I have regrets," He'd say, and quickly, refusing any sort of overt mental communication with the drow. "I always wanted to stand back to back with Calomel or Ariane or my Agony and fight off some threat, like in the stories. It appealed. I never got to do it. Let's do it now then, you and me, just in case."

Of course there was only one physical threat, which meant that when Burnie put his back to Audmathus' the drow (whether he had caught Glenn's sword or not) was positioned in the way of the golem, not the ex-mapmaker, who was conveniently facing no one, even as he brandished Shadowdancer gallantly.

[Rance]

Glenn narrowly avoided the creature's sloppy strikes. Its hands were beams of mirror-shine as it swiped for him, but the governor was deft -- he was on his feet by the time the creature had gotten its opportunity to shred him or separate skin from bone. Its club-like fist of glass crashed through the nearby hedgerow, snapping the tangled limbs as if they were brittle bones.

The governor's rapier was a heavy needle sailing through the air. Audmathus's black fist snapped out to retrieve it, wielding it with sudden comfort as if it had always been his own. He jutted its tip in the air in front of him, the line from sword-point to the round of his shoulder flawless and unbroken. A rapier required a different style, a modified appreciation of weight and capability. Blades were a language, and the drow -- as any drow should be -- was versed in the clichés, tropes, and subtle ironies of sharpened edges.

Glenn Burnie quipped; Glenn Burnie put his back to the dark elf's, an improvisational shield between himself and the golem.

The mirrorkin lunged again, a mercury danger whose hand became fluid, shifting from shard-edged fist to a single long, swiping broadblade. With teeth bared, the drow turned aside the beast's swings with the rapier -- glassflesh screamed against the metal as he parried, deflected, and shot over his shoulder:

"I have regrets," Audmathus offered, "that I wore out my welcome far too quickly in Myrken Wood to ever ask one of your snowskin damsels to a waltz--"

The golem loomed over him, raising high its silvered blade-arm; the drow was a flurry of motion. He spun himself; he took this dance, turning enough to his side to lock an elbow in Glenn Burnie's own like they were maypole children, trying to use his momentum to spin all the way around the governor, their arms a hinge--

--so that by the time the motion was done Glenn was now between the creature and the drow. Audmathus launched out a foot for Glenn's buttocks, trying to shove him toward the mirrorkin and into the path of its downward slice.

We have many years of blood to make up for, Glenn Burnie, slithered his words.

[Glenn]

Years ago, he could have made all of this quite impressive. Years ago, he could have shot between the legs of the golem, climbed up the thing backwards, and done something that even Audmathus would have talked about for years. He had been behind a desk for a very long time. Oh, that's not to say he didn't train each and every day, because he did, but this was different, very different. He was deft. His reflexes were honed. He was a very specific artist with a very specific canvass.

He just wasn't used to dealing with this sort of thing.

It limited one's options, it curtailed one's potential agency. Still, in Glenn Burnie's Myrken and even in Golben, one worked with what he had, and what our dashing, young hero had in this situation was the ability to take a punch. Still, he whipped that ridiculous clothes-filled pack around to his front before the blade-arm struck. Shadowdancer was held by two hands, buffered by pack which was buffered against his own body. "Uhnn." Moreover, he came at the blow at a slight angle. It wasn't a parry, he hadn't time for that, but it wasn't a straight blocking either. One blade slid down the other allowing him to disengage to the side and whip around the larger, inhuman creature.

He spouted more banter as he went. "Did you have a preference? Not Ariane certainly. Not Quincy unless you wanted to lose an eye. Ah, you know who I'd like to have this sort of waltz with?" He was slightly behind the golem now and while it would have been nice to lift a foot and push it much like Audmathus did to him, there was the matter of body mass to consider. Burnie would toss his whole body into it instead, trying to shoulder the mirrored monstrosity towards the drow. "Rosamaria Ramirez. You know what I mean, eh? 'd take her over you, that's for certain."

[Rance]

The rapier was a heavier sword than Shadowdancer; it was of no broadsword's girth, but it was certainly more sturdy, for that was its nature -- it was meant to stab, thrust, pierce between the joints and armor and pop through plates of bone. Shadowdancer was intended for slicing, a finesse in a wholly different sense. With a slicing blade, one could let the weight of their arm do the work. A rapier? It was all the point's job, less the task of a directive grip and more a matter of the perfect strike.

As Burnie narrowly defied the mirrorkin's blows and pivoted around it, if only after sacrificing the integrity of his pack, Audmathus instantly dug a heel into the earth and loosened himself for the mirrorkin's coming onslaught.

...you know who I'd like to have this sort of waltz with? Burnie asked before throwing himself like a caber into the golem and pitching it forward.

The mirror beast stumbled, dragging its glass toes through the dirt.

Audmathus jabbed the point of the rapier down into the dirt beside him, for a thin and wispy blade might not have had nearly the strength of its blunted pommel against a phantom of glass. Greater surface area was essential. He drove the rapier as though it was a horse-spear in the ground, a sturdy stake, then threw himself forward. The drow dove between the creature's legs, but crashed a firm elbow against the mirrorkin's knee as he passed, aiding the momentum of the creature's forward fall. Reflective shards shredded his sleeve and black-skinned elbow, but the pain was wholly collateral--

--for the beast could not keep itself from teetering forward and collapsing with its chest against the rounded base of the rapier.

The living mirror's quicksilver surface burst. It fell onto the rapier's handle, which erupted through the golem's core and then its back like a driven polearm. A rain of shining fragments scattered to the earth around them, dancing across the ground as silver splinters. "You would not survive as long," he breathed, "if you waltzed with Rosamaria Ramirez in this place, Glenn Burnie."

A row of curious black fingers touched his elbow, the red wine on their fingertips spangled with glass-dust.

"But with me," he said, "you might live longer."

What was visible behind the dark elf, though, could have been a ruse -- a trick of the eye, a dance of reflections -- were it not so real. Each and every one of the mirrorkin's broken pieces started to shudder, then cracked, split, and reformed, until a cluster of miniature mirrorkin crawled their way out of the shining debris.

What was once large and alone had become several and smaller.

Might live longer, he had said.

[Glenn]

"With her the view would be better," there was a little wince as Audmathus used that sword as he did. The thing was more for show than for combat. Loving Rhaena and her thoughts for fashion. Still, being with the drow would be more useful than being with her, unless she could conquer their minds like she was doing to his beloved Myrken. The intelligence level was problem about the same. Still, shame about the probable value of the sword. Glenn took a breath and started towards one of the paths with some mild haste.

He had some basic knowledge of labyrinths, but this one cheated, and that was generally okay because he cheated too, but it meant a frustrating sort of stalemate that Audmathus was just adding color to. The path he chose was heading towards the center, not the edge, or at least he thought it was. "You know, you could just magic me away. If it's a matter of principle, I can promise you I won't tell anyone. If it's a matter of power, then you're an overblown buffoon." He said it with a smile though, even as he was heading away.

"Let's find us the storyteller, Audmathus. Maybe they want a sacrifice. She's a charming girl. You could strap her to your arm and use her as a shield." That was how the drow race waltzed, no? "Either way, I think a strategic retreat is in order."

[Rance]

"I've no gift for spellcraft anymore, Glenn Burnie. I squandered what remained of my penchant for it quite recently. Squandered," he repeated. "Or more accurately, surrendered. The game must be fair in Golben. It is only proper that you set the example for those who will come after you. It is our feet for us; I trust yours, in their youth, will serve you faithfully."

The rapier was still thrust into the ground. Around it lay the remnants of the mirrorkin, reforming and crawling back to themselves like lost insects, coalescing into smaller reflections of the greater beast they'd once been. With a syrup-like vine of blood trickling from his elbow-point, he strode quickly at Glenn Burnie's side, his cloak tossed aside to grant him favorable access to his more neglected blade should he require it.

Drow were no strangers to strategic retreat. They were not as recklessly headstrong as duergar nor did they claim mastery over the pits and caverns as did the deep gnomes. They sought out the surface to strike their chosen blows and scuttled like shore-crabs back into their wormholes; they thrived on retreat, for in escape, one could whet their blade anew and continue to breathe.

Those were qualities unique to the living.

He moved quickly in Glenn's wake, cocking his arm to expose the elbow. With a wince, he gouged his smallest finger into one of the creases torn there by the mirrorkin's edged knee. Blood spattered in hot blossoms on the soil behind them, marking their path, that they might not repeat it through the hedgerow mazes. The reflective mirrorkin miniatures did not give chase -- instead, they leaped like wingless moths into the flourishing thornwalls and vanished.

"Their eyes will be in the mirrors," he said to Glenn. "Avoid them. That will certainly be a fitting exercise for you; I hope to see a marked improvement from your earlier performance."

In the distance -- for under their heels, the womb of Golben throbbed, stuttered for breath, and innately knew the way no human or spirit ever could -- the ravenous snarls of great cats filtered through the misdirecting pathways like promises on the wind.

We shall make a meal of you, they might be saying, if one could put words to the hisses of a predatory cat. We too wish to survive, that we might not be forgotten for the murderers we are.

Tigers. Berdini's most colorful threat.

Audmathus put a hand to his remaining sword. "The blood will attract them, but it is the risk we take to find your Storyteller. Within minutes they will find our trail, be upon us, and we will contend with creatures that are, at least, nothing but flesh and meat. Better that," the drow reasoned, "than lose our way and die like decrepit old men who simply can't find our way out."

As they rounded another corner -- and all the paths, all the halls, all the ceaseless hedges and man-made rows looked the same, felt the same, smelled the same -- Audmathus said to his unlikely compatriot:

"Do you know why it's been five years, Glenn Burnie? Do you wonder why, with all my previous persistence and exploits, I simply chose to leave?"

[Glenn]

"Ah, so you came to join me here even though you had no easy way out. Excellent. I think 'd be better off with Ramirez." There was a smirking undertone to Burnie's voice though. Was Audmathus learning to pick it up. There was something more here at play and it was obvious he well knew it, but he bantered in a absolutely futile direction nonetheless. As he did, there was a bit more pep to his walk, a bit more vigor. There was strength to be found in the controlled inanity of it all, at insulting was a way that was both slightly askew and immensely frustrating to respond to. Could Audmathus see it? He'd let him in on the joke before. Was that a skeleton key that he could use now?

In retreating to whet your blade some other day, it helped to take the blade with you. Ah well, someone would find the damned thing in the middle of the Labyrinth and at least all of their suffering would not be in vain, at least until they tried to use it. Then they could suffer more. As it was, the drowlord still had another weapon. That was something, Glenn supposed.

Ah yes, him walking into the mirror. "To be fair," he had been recovering from head trauma, in shock from betrayal, deeply concerned about what his failure would mean to those he cared about and his people, perhaps suffering the aftereffects of Rhaena Olwak mentally sedating him or Giuseppe drugging him or worse. "you are an ass. The good thing about the blood is that they'll go for you first." Of course, so was he.

Everything looked the same, was the same in every way, but Burnie was able to walk on effortlessly picking directions, occasionally tapping at the empty air with Shadowdancer just to make certain. "Audmathus," this plainly stated. "Why in the world do you think I wanted you to sit down and talk when you were trying to give me a present?" You failed. Your allies were wretches. Your goals were stripped of their meaning through the efforts of achieving them. The future was bleak, a repetition of the same over and over again. You stood up against an uncaring world and found your brilliance rendered meaningless in the face of it. "I would know this but I will not offer a guess. I am missing reference points and we've delved enough in generalities. We'll never make a proper man out of you if we keep wading in that pool."

[Rance]

"The great Glenn Burnie, struck comparably silent by questions asked him amid all of his own inquiries. Is today a holiday," he asked. "Must it be celebrated?"

How much blood would he need to mark their path to the Storyteller? The droplets were conservative; they were lost gems in the dirt, but for hours still, his eyes would see their heat. The pair might avoid retracing some of their steps as, with each turn and each bend around a corner, left became less distinct from right. Direction did not exist in Golben; it was a glass-thin concept dashed apart by the blades of repetition, perspective, illusion, and solitude.

"You've taken on a storied mantle, Glenn Burnie. The Governor of Myrken Wood," the drow proclaimed. "Filled before you by wholly manipulatable men and corrupt specimens of humankind. King of a cursed little land viced between far greater countries. Conceivably, Myrken Wood should cease to exist; yet, it licks its own wounds and perseveres against all sense of logic.

"Faeryl never came to the realization that I did, Glenn Burnie: that even creatures as arrogant as drow have some sense of self-preservation. That a place simply refuses to die speaks not for the strength of its people or its governor, but of whatever providence has chosen to allow it to thrive in the first place. This place begs creatures from the outside to try to destroy its walls. War ebbs on the horizon, waiting to crash in on you."

The good thing about the blood is that they'll go for you first.

Glenn Burnie knew everything. Everything, and nothing at all.

"I am not suicidal, Glenn Burnie. I left because Myrken Wood frightens me."

[Glenn]

Providence.

They had been glib up until now. There had been moments of brief disagreement, of disappointment or even unpleasantness, but for the most part there had been civility between two men who should have been the worst of enemies here in this blighted horror. From Burnie there had been a level of near-affection. From Audmathus, it had been largess.

Now, though? Now it was outright rancor. Governor Glenn Burnie of Myrken Wood was not pleased. His lady-love had prepared him for such varied and interesting things. In his pack was rope and a razor, was kindling and sweetcakes. She had given him that perfectly matching sword and placed upon his hands sturdy adventurers' gloves. For all he knew she had brought in an expert artist to quickly sketch his prone, dressed form so she could remember him just like that. Everything, ultimately, had a use. There was no object in the entire world that Burnie could not find a use for if given enough time.

Here and now? His left glove taken off. Shadowdancer quickly sheathed, a half turn and a

***SLAP***

as the glove was brought hard and quick across Audmathus' face.

"You are a fool. No, no, you're just a drow." Burnie would show the drow his back once more, would storm onwards, words continuing to flow. "Myrken is alive? Myrken is sentient? Myrken breathes? Maybe, but it's not Myrken you have to fear. It is the human element inside, because as Myrken has pushed back against you, it has pushed down upon them for years upon years upon years. Generations. It has hardened them. It has strengthened them. It has made their hearts defiant daggers pointed directly at such things as gods and providence and fate. We defy them with our every breath, and we defy you and your lot with our very existence every day. You were right to know fear, Audmathus; for a drow even wise to know it, but your pride and your unshakable cultural blindness make you a fool even now in the face of what you've learned."

[Rance]

...your pride and your unshakable cultural blindness make you a fool even now in the face of what you've learned.

He touched his bloodied figners to his cheek where the sting of the glove-leather still burned on his skin.

"You're a rebellious child, Glenn. And you fit a role. Bromn, Calomel, and Helstone all left a perfect, Glenn Burnie-shaped hole in their wake. They chiseled it out with foolish mistakes and insurmountable pride. And in turn, you did the same for your lady.

"You built Golben, even indirectly. You neglected your Myrken Wood. Fine words you have here, for an audience who cares nothing of you or your people. I'm being instructed on the human element and its efficacy by a man who seems most comfortable with drow. Jirai. Sarayn. Selenthis," he listed. "Me. Are you sure you ever found your way out of the Underdark, Glenn? Is this labyrinth just some childish dream to help you establish control in a way you couldn't when you were outside of Myrken's walls?

"Making maps," the dark elf said. "Maps that lead to nowhere. To no prosper, no paradise."

Audmathus stepped into stride behind Glenn Burnie, and noticed with each strike of heel to soil that the ground before him was wet, tainted by tiny little droplets. He crouched, slid his black knuckle through a blossom of liquid, and said to Glenn--

"You're bleeding."

And at the bend of Glenn Burnie's elbow, where the sleeve strained with each movement of his arm, the evidence was clear: the shirt was wet with blood, the fabric shredded to loosely-hanging ribbons. The skin had been raggedly sliced, as if clawed by broken glass, showing beneath it the pink moisture of epidermis peeled away, gouged apart--

A wound to match Audmathus's own.

[Glenn]

Audmathus spoke and for once, Glenn Burnie had no response. The drow didn't argue against his words. He added his own. He did not contest those things that mattered the most to Glenn, he instead went in a different, more personal direction. Glenn spoke of ideals and generalities. Audmathus was very specific.

Glenn believed in the possibility of progress. He believed in historical causality, that one thing led to the next, that you could map it back, could make sense of it. His rise had not been inevitable, but the hole they had created had made it possible. He had stepped forward and pulled the disparate pieces together. Even that had not been his desire at the time.

Now he was here. Now Rhaena was in power, but not a human Rhaena. Still, was she not a Rhaena of his own creation? One that he fostered? One that he utilized? One that he allowed and encouraged instead of restoring and bringing back to her own humanity, even before things took a turn towards darkness?

Perhaps Golben was not made to control him, to contain him, but instead as a path that would lead him...

Audmathus spoke again and Glenn Burnie quickly put a hand to his own cheek.

[Rance]

"Did you hear me," Audmathus said from behind Glenn.

The governor touched his own cheek, before--

a hunger flared in his belly and twisted within him, grinding against his ribs, begging him to answer it; the hedgerows were endless, one unremarkable corridor leading to the next, and the next. Freedom awaited around the next corner. No -- the next. No -- the next, and that which came after, and after, and if only he could find something simple to eat...

--Audmathus was behind him, his breath a caustic wisp. The words, however, were not wielded with disdain or humor returned; they were simply informative, the begrudging admission of a creature who recognized that his own survival was more probable if the risks were shared with another.

"I suppose I'm not the only one the striped cats will want to devour now. It would be wise of us to recognize the inevitability of the threat; even if it was only my blood they followed, the difference is merely aesthetic, and our prejudices entirely our own: our muscles and meat surely taste quite the same to them.

"Black flesh, white flesh, no matter -- they will scarcely be done peeling the strings off my bones before they set their eyes on you, Glenn Burnie."

Thoughtful as Glenn might have been, the drow stepped past him, pried up an edge of his tattered cloak, and ripped a musty strip from it. He balled the makeshift bandage between his boot-black palms and tossed it back to his human compatriot.

"Wrap that elbow and let us move. Consider that offering my kindness to Myrken Wood in this, its time of challenge. Long live the Governor."

[Dulcie]

Ghostly fingers wormed their way between the wedge of the iron manacle and the nail and the Storyteller would gasp awake, her eyes opening wide, staring straight up at the sky as inch by inch the nail was pulled free from her wrist. Her howls of pain stirred the beasts that roamed in the labyrinth, their own cacophony of sounds rising to meet with hers.

When the nail was free of her wrist she'd clutch at her hand and sob for a moment, horrible, rattling sounds that were paired with eyes too dry to form any tears. Perhaps a creature like her couldn't cry at all. The hole in her wrist gaped open, the blood once more flowing from it, curling down along her pale arm, in dark rivulets that finally dripped from fingertips, staining the dress that she wore.

When those first horrible moments had passed she'd tug her wrist free of the manacle and throw it as far away from herself as she could, collapsing back into the ground as she gulped at the air. With eyes clenched shut she would offer out her other wrist to the strange creature that had joined her, bracing herself for the next jolt. This would be the end of it, and then her journey could truly begin.