My entry for the Octopath Traveler Amino's "Enemy to Ally" Challenge! If you enjoy, please leave a review.
Cold. There was a freezing depth that surrounded her, an icy abyss through which she was falling. An inky blackness of no escape. She could see nothing, hear nothing, barring the chill wind brushing past her ears. But she felt everything.
In her leg, there was a fire. The fire raged like a demonic inferno, threatening to course through her veins with a fury that could not be stopped. Yet somehow, she knew this heat to be the source of the cold darkness all around her. The cold and heat that she felt. Constantly.
It seemed like an eternity. Forever. She couldn't recall when it had begun, though she was vaguely aware there had been a before. But that didn't matter now. Not now. Now, all she could feel was cold, and a small but furious heat. And it was agony.
A light. She saw a light, far in the distance. it grew. Faster and faster it grew. It was approaching her. She was approaching it. She braced for impact -
XXXXXX
Twelve days, it had taken to get to Flamesgrace. Twelve long and miserable days. When the wolves and bears did not attack, it was a good day. But they'd made it.
Her mother had always been the religious type. "The Sacred Flame is our sole reason, and our sole purpose of being," she would say. Vanessa could never bring herself to believe it. Any truly Sacred Flame should illuminate all darkness, dispel all cold. The one her mother worshipped did neither, and scarcely put food on the table either. No point in arguing though. It would give neither of them joy to do so, and Vanessa had no issue with the pilgrimage. She merely had something else to worship.
""We are here!" her mother cried out, blessing herself and dropping to her bedraggled knees in front of the cathedral. Her dull brown hair tipped the snow as she did so, the same colour as the rags she bore. Vanessa knew she must do the same, lest her mother have one more of her fits.
"Blessed is the Sacred Flame that protects us all. Blessed is the Sacred Flame that protects us all. Blessed -" her mother continued on, as they walked towards the cathedral, the same as each year on the anniversary of his death. Someone Vanessa didn't get a chance to know, and therefore could not mourn the passing of. Only a vague curiosity at how her life may have differed, had he been there to support them.
As they stood inside the beautiful cathedral, her mother's only focus was the lantern at the end of the hall, behind the bishop's lectern. What a foolish woman. There was something worth worshipping here, but it was not as intangible and formless as fire.
She stared at her surroundings, unnoticed by her mother. The hall was almost beyond belief in its grandeur, in its scale and magnitude. Despite the many other prayers being directed in the seats around her at the burning lantern at the top of the room, she couldn't find herself to join them. There was no need for her to find salvation. She was in heaven right here.
Surrounded by riches she could only dream of.
XXXXXX
The blackness returned, as if it had never left in the first place. She begged internally to return to the twelve days she'd she'd just gone through once again. At least there was hope at the end of that. There was nothing here. Nothing but emptiness.
She was too in her own thoughts to realise the next light approached -
XXXXXX
"*cough, cough*... darling, please pass over the elixir for me, will you honey?" her mother requested.
"Yes Mother," Vanessa replied. They couldn't afford what was keeping her alive. They bought it anyway. There wasn't any choice. To her mother, at least.
No food. Freezing cold. All the time.
There was only one way Vanessa was letting this end. The old hag had hindered her long enough. They were both on death's brink, and only one of them had a hope of climbing back up. The other...
Well, she just needed a little push.
"Here you go Mother" Vanessa had told her. She handed her mother the lukewarm tea, imbued with the elixir she'd gotten from the only apothecary willing to sell low enough for them to afford. At least, her mother thought it was. Rat poison wasn't just for rats, after all.
"Thank you... *cough, COUGH*. You know dearest, I remember when you were younger..."
"Yes Mother".
"...and you would be so worried about us. Get all sorts of nonsense in your head. Remember when you said you wanted to be an *cough, cough* apothecary? I remember that silliness, y'know."
"Yes Mother."
"...it'll always work out in the end, even if that quack said I had months at most. Come here and give me a hug."
"Yes Mother."
The old woman wrapped her arms around her young daughter, Vanessa's long rich purple hair brushing off the torn sheet, she felt a single tear welling in her eye. It was gone an instant later.
"I love you so much."
"I know Mother."
"You always say that. I wish you'd put some passion into it for once."
"Sorry Mother."
"No worries. I *yawn* think I may head to rest for a few dear. Goodnight, and put out that fire."
"Will do, Mom."
Her breath stopped minutes later. Vanessa heaved late into the night. The flame never lit again.
XXXXXX
She caught her breath. The pain of her personal void was preferable to the torture that had just occurred. Why was she taken back to that place? WHY? She would have taken death over that.
She would have taken death over that.
Death.
She hadn't thought of it before.
It wasn't implausible.
Oh Sacred Flame, please, no. No. She saw the burning, piercing light below. She couldn't take it again. NO. NO! NO -
XXXXXX
She was surprised at his offer to take her in. He'd made her mother an elixir at a discount, sure, but she had never considered the possibility that the man had actually cared about her family. He himself had been widowed at a young age, and unlike her mother had no child to show for it. Maybe there was some kind of familiarity there that caused him to take pity on the girl.
She hated pity so much, from anyone. She decided she would never give it to anyone.
He told her to take him for a father. She appreciated the offer. It was never taken up.
Every day was spent in the dusty warmth of his personal library, perusing histories and encyclopaedias, magic, politics. Medicine. Despite her mothers delusional pretences, she had never given up on her dream, although she knew she had a different passion towards it than her colleagues. Knowledge was power. Money was power. Knowledge, therefore, was money. And she wanted money.
When she left the man''s household at 19, she left abruptly but organised. Her satchel was packed with every herb she'd need to earn their trust. Every medicine to cure a common illness.
Every poison she'd need to make it worse. Every antidote to charge exorbitantly for.
She regretted the first victim. Not of the scam, she'd be pointless feeling sorry about that. No, it was someone who had died from her poison.
She told herself it was inevitable. All lives end. She had just shortened the length until the inevitable. And it wasn't her fault he was too stubborn to pay up. That he couldn't get a loan because of his prior gambling and drunkenness. He had been a menace to society, and she had done a world a justice by bringing his end.
She had killed him in cold blood. It was all she could do to stop herself from puking with her self disgust.
It numbed though. Even as the patients and victims increased.
The disgust numbed.
XXXXXX
It wasn't numb any more. She saw them all, floating in her dark beside her. Every face, rotten and decayed, of the ones she betrayed. Every death on her behalf. There were children in the crowd. How could she have let there be children in the crowd?
But there was one missing. A face that would be both relief and terror to see agin among these many faces.
"I'm sorry Mom... I'm so, so sorry..."
There was no answer for the long overdue apology. Only the disappearance of the ghosts around her occurred with its utterance. She felt them inside. It wasn't cold anymore in the abyss. It was hot. Hotter than the heat in her leg earlier. More burning than the pits of hell, which she thought she saw coming up to meet her. She deserved this. She could only accept that.
She would take it all back if she could. How could she have let herself get so cold? There were children in the crowd. HOW COULD SHE HAVE LET THERE BE CHILDREN IN THE CROWD?
Her surroundings grew brighter. Redder. It wouldn't be long now.
"Sacred Flame, please forgive me..."
XXXXXX
Her eyelids fluttered open. Fever. She had a fever running. Alfyn. That boy had stung her with Slumberthorn. She stood up.
There was a single beam of light coming in through a barred window. Gaol. She was in the dungeon. No wonder she had a fever.
She was weak. And small. In a way she hadn't in years. How dare he make her re-live that. How dare he awake those feelings.
She got a loaf of bread in the evening off of the prison guard. She didn't bother him otherwise. If she had her satchel, her fever would be gone in an instant. By her own medicine.
She couldn't sleep. She hadn't been sick before. Not like this. Not outside and in. Not emotionally. Regret filled her through her like blood pumping through her arteries. And she cried. She cried for a long time. Even when the fever was gone, she still cried.
It was a week before she even considered her future. She wasn't going to make it out of here. Even if she did, she doubted her stately home would be left when she got out. The townsfolk would probably tear it from its foundations upon learning of her treachery. They would probably tear her limb for limb. It was funny to think how the bars kept her trapped, but also safe.
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It was two months before the thought came to her. She requested parchment and ink to her guard. Having been an exceptionally good and quiet prisoner, he obliged.
She begun to write. She had a title in mind already. It would be her one recompense. If it could even deserve to be called that.
"Medicine for the Common Folk"
"By V. Hysel"
No-one would tread her path again. Not if everyone knew some basics. Not if it was written in the common tongue, and was short and to the point. They wouldn't be able to fall down her slope without a few hurdles.
There was something else that needed adding to the title.
"Dedicated to my mother."