Despite Pepper's claims, taking Magicfire was not like being drunk.

Not one bit.

She'd also said that it was like walking through the stars. It had been an apt description, but Lisanna wished she'd talked about the surge of strange magic that rolled through her body. How incredible it felt. She kept trying to call it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. It was light magic, the same as it had been the night before, and at times, it was so incredibly bright that it hurt her eyes, though she couldn't have ever dared to look away. She had no idea how to use the strange power, but she kept trying and trying and trying, thinking to draw things in the air. Nothing had shape. The balls of light would lift then explode in a cloud of sparks, sometimes they were coloured, sometimes they were just bright white, sometimes they were cold, sometimes they were hot enough to stain the ceiling black. Distantly, she heard Pepper snickering. You look dumb. She knew that, but she couldn't stop. Again and again the light burst, both enrapturing the takeover mage and slowly destroying the walls in her room, until the power started to peter out.

"What's happening?" Is that your voice? It sounded languid and low. She kind of liked it like that.

Pepper smiled, her wide mouth curling up at either end while she looked at Lisanna, a happy glow about her. "Are you ready? Now the real high starts."

"What?" She already felt dizzy and disjointed.

The redhead flopped back on the bed and lifted her hands over her head. Small droplets of light leaked from her fingers so she was illuminated. She looked angelic in that moment, her pale skin kissed by that gentle glow, her eyelids light blue, fringed by dark, dark lashes. Her back arched. "Yeah."

Lisanna blinked and found what the girl meant. At the edge of her vision appeared things that shouldn't be there at all. Flowers sprouting out of her mattress, twisting their bright faces towards a small orange sun, stars clouding her ceiling, then dropping down around her body one by one. Every time they hit the ground, they exploded into glitter. She thought, maybe I should be scared, but there wasn't a shred of fear in her body.

Pepper propped herself up on her elbows. "Do you see?"

Lisanna got lost in watching her mouth move. Do you? "The stars?"

"Stars?" Pepper snorted and fell back onto the mattress again. "I love this feeling." She went searching for Lisanna's fingers and clutched them lightly. Lisanna expected her to pull her in close, but Pepper just drew small circles over her palm and smiled lazily while she looked at things only she could see. Her cherry hair, to the takeover mage, seemed as bright as a burning sunset. Without thinking, she leaned over Pepper's body and touched the silken locks. She liked the way they felt, like water sliding over her skin, but not as much as she liked the way Pepper closed her eyes and sighed. Lisanna kissed her. Pepper's eyes flew open, startled, then she relaxed and touched Lisanna's shoulder. On another day, the snowy haired girl would be nervous, she'd shake and hesitate. But Magicfire roared through her. She deepened the kiss and grasped Pepper's breasts. Her nipples pressed against the blue fabric of her dress. Lisanna listened to the way she sighed and pinched them lightly, rolling them between her thumb and forefinger until Pepper arched and gasped and clenched at her weakly. Lisanna smiled, pleased with herself. Then Pepper sat up and pushed her back so her head was resting on her pillow. The box underneath dug into her shoulder, small and square and sharp. The room spun. The flowers growing out of the bed withered and died, shrinking back on themselves so fast that it made Lisanna dizzy. She was almost afraid. It's just the high fading. Right? She'd never been stoned before and had no idea.

Pepper kissed her again, scattering her thoughts. "I told you I have to go to work soon, right?"

Work. How much time had passed? Long enough that her lips ached. "Stay." She didn't want her to leave.

Pepper's blue eyes were heavy lidded. "Nah uh. But… maybe just a little more… okay?" She kissed Lisanna's jaw, then moved down her neck to the place where her breasts peaked out the neckline of her dress. The girl grabbed the hem roughly. When the material didn't stretch, it tore.

"H—hey," Lisanna muttered, but the protest waned. Pepper lapped at her breasts teasingly. Lisanna arched. You shouldn't… But in the end, she discovered that she didn't care all that much. It felt too good to tell her to stop. Pepper licked and sucked and teased, then inched her hand up the skirt of Lisanna's dress. As soon as her fingers brushed her center, the takeover mage's body ignited. Another hallucination trailed along. Fire. She was burning

(I come from hellfire)

alive. The flames licked up her skin. Pepper slipped her fingers into the edge of her panties. Lisanna breathed unevenly, momentarily forgetting the odd stab of memory while the girl stroked and teased. She panted lightly and arched her hips, encouraging her fingers inside her body. The drugs made every touch seem so much more. She was shaking in no time while Pepper slowly eased in and out and hummed, her mouth still trapped around Lisanna's nipple, and nibbled lightly. Lisanna whimpered and looked down to watch. Seeing Pepper's copper locks draped over her body caused a wave of arousal to crash over her. She moaned again, louder this time. Pepper lifted her eyes and looked up her body.

Her blue orbs were gone. Replaced by cutting amber ones. Lisanna caught her breath and inched a little higher. The box dug into her neck now. Give it to Mira. The false stars really started falling to the ground, one by one. When they fell, they broke into orange tabby's. Lisanna's stomach clenched.

Pepper pulled her mouth away from her breast and sat up. "What is it?"

The cats faded. Lisanna swallowed. "N—nothing."

Pepper accepted her answer and went back between her legs, teasing with skilled fingers. It took Lisanna longer to get back into it this time, but eventually the fire was back licking up her spine. Pepper trailed kisses down her body, nipping through the fabric of her dress and inching her skirt higher and higher until it was up over her hips and her blue panties were exposed. Lisanna's eyes were glued to the girl, so she almost missed the growing blackness in the corner of the room, but once she spotted it, she couldn't look away. From its inky depths, a new hallucination started to take shape, this one large and sulking, with ember eyes and a jaw full of yellow teeth. My heart.

Eats demons.

It skulked behind Pepper, more shadow than beast, but real enough that Lisanna's lungs contracted. The flowers that had been littering the bed grew again, but this time they were sharp and dark and thorny. To Lisanna, they felt very real digging into her skin. What's inside the box? My heart. And now she roams free.

It hunts for Mirajane Strauss.

Memories hit her one by one, layers of magic peeling away.

The beast changed. In its mouth was a limp girl, one with long, snowy hair, one with dull blue eyes and a mouth that was made for smiles. It only spoke to the dead now. Her chest was torn open, blood and bone and gore leaking out of the place where her heart should have been.

My heart. It wanders. Lisanna's throat closed, a strangled whine crept out.

Pepper took her hands away and straightened, immediately sober. "What is it? What's wrong?"

As soon as she spoke, the spell was broken. The beast faded along with its gory prize, the flowers retreated, the remaining stars absolutely died. But one thing remained. The knowledge that the box wasn't everything she wanted it to be. It was dangerous. You knew that, but the kind of stupor she'd been in evaporated, Rene's magic broken by the hallucination. Suddenly, she didn't want that tainted thing in her room any more. She straightened.

"Lisanna," Pepper tried, "Are you okay?"

Okay? No. The world still whirled. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. "I—I have to go."

"Go?" Pepper asked. "Go where? This is your hotel room."

"Out, out. I have to go out." And go where? To get rid of the box. To find some hole to shove it into and to forget.

Pepper touched a hand to her forehead. "You're tripping. Just relax. You don't have to go anywhere."

Lisanna knew she was wrong. She tried to sit up; Pepper was in the way. With a grunt, she shoved the girl off and stood on shaking legs.

Pepper squeaked and scrambled off of the bed after her. "Lisanna! Stop it, just calm down. You're in your hotel room—you're exactly where you need to be."

Get the box. Throwing aside the pillows, she grabbed it up and held it in her hands. It was freezing. Her skin ached just touching it.

Pepper, who had been continually protesting up until that point, stalled. "Wh—what is that?"

"A secret," Lisanna replied numbly.

"A secret? What kind of secret?"

Chills rolled over Lisanna's skin. "The kind I have to bury."

She tried to move towards the door, but Pepper stood in her way. "Lisanna, stop, please—you're freaking me out. I promise, you're just tripping."

Maybe that was part of it, the walls still writhed while new creatures tried to take shape, every single one of them with maws full of sharp, sharp teeth. Her heart beat faster. They're going to kill me. She wanted to run for a whole new reason. They don't want to the box to disappear. She couldn't tell if it was the drugs, or reality.

She must have been talking aloud, because Pepper said, "Please, there's nothing there. Just calm down. I didn't think it'd be like this—I'm sorry. It must have been a bad batch. Our supplier is spotty, and—"

The creatures faded, her heart calmed down just a little, but Lisanna still shoved by her.

"You can't go out like that," Pepper insisted and came back so she was standing between Lisanna and the door. "You're a mess, Lisanna. Fix your dress, at least—"

Absently, Lisanna looked down and realized that she was still halfway out of her dress. She pulled impatiently at the hemline until her breasts were covered, then moved past Pepper more insistently.

Out in the hallway, Lisanna tucked the box under her arm and broke for the stairwell. Vaguely, she was aware of Bickslow crouching just a few rooms down, fighting with a new-looking door. Though he wore his helmet now, she could see his mouth was twisted into a sour frown. That dark expression eased into curiousness for just a blip, then went right back to unequivocally bitter.

"Lisanna—Lisanna, please!" Pepper cried, ignoring their audience. "Please, you're just high. Go back into your room—you can't wander around the streets like that. You'll get hurt—you'll freeze—someone will pick you up and—"

"What the hell is going on?" Bickslow asked in spite of himself.

Pepper whirled when she heard him. As soon as she saw his helmet, she gave him a look that said, freak. The seith mage wasn't so unused to being looked at like that, but he was still annoyed. "Talk."

When the redhead didn't say anything, Bickslow raised his voice and said, "Hey, where are you going, Lisanna?"

If she heard, she didn't give any indication, just kept on walking with singular purpose.

Pepper finally spoke up. "We were having fun, then she just cracked and started going on about this fucking secret that she had to bury, and then she just started walking." The redhead was close to tears. "Gods. It's the Magicfire." She rubbed her hands over her dress uneasily. "She's tripping hard and won't stop. I don't have time for this. I have to get to work. Gods."

Magicfire? Secret? And… tripping? Lisanna? "You telling me she's stoned?"

"Yes." Two large tears trekked out of Pepper's eyes. She reeled away from him and dashed back into Lisanna's room. When she emerged again, she held a dark coat, Lisanna's blue one, and a pair of tall, black boots.

"Lisanna! Wait! At least put on your coat, or—or your shoes!"

Lisanna was at the stairwell now. She turned and Bickslow caught sight of a tiny box held in her grasp. His heart stalled. There it is. And there it went. Lisanna pushed open the doors and just… left. "It's winter," the seith mage protested. "She can't go out like that."

"Ugh!" Pepper looked like she was coming apart at the seams while she hurried after her. They're both high as fuck, Bickslow realized, and almost laughed, if he could find it within himself to do such a thing. Pepper kept on talking. "She's going to get killed. She's going to freeze to death, or some pervert is going to pull her into his carriage, or she's going to fall into the river and drown. Then I'm going to miss work and I'm going to get fired. And—"

The rest of her rant fell on deaf ears. Bickslow huffed internally and warred with himself. She doesn't want you going after her. She hates you. But then again, she was going to freeze out there, and the redhead wasn't wrong—what if someone picked her up? Yeah? You think they're going to be worse than you? The depreciation started as soon as he left her hotel room and hadn't let up since.

Just go. She already hated him, so it didn't really matter, right? He dropped the screwdriver he'd been fighting with and rushed to catch up to the redhead. It was easy, his legs were a lot longer than hers. He made it to the stairwell before her and pushed the door open roughly. Down below, he saw Lisanna's snowy locks. "Lisanna!"

She didn't look up.

The stairs were tile and loud under his leather boots and Pepper's high heels, but even above the racket, he could hear the slap of Lisanna's bare feet across the cold floor. "Give me those." Turning, he ripped the boots and jacket from Pepper's hands, then hurried,

On the bottom floor, he got to the glass doors just in time to have them slam closed in his face. He pushed them aside impatiently and broke out into the outside world. The sun was setting on the horizon and storm clouds were moving in. Already, big chunky flakes of snow fell from the sky. He squinted into the twilight and saw Lisanna's telltale yellow dress whirling in the wicked breeze.

He started to run. She looked over her shoulder, saw his approach, and started running as well. "Lisanna!" Her feet must be freezing. "Lisanna! Wait!" She was fast, faster than she had any right to be, leaping over snowbanks with ease, feet pounding over the snow-crusted cobblestones and carrying her with surety towards some goal. It was then he realized that she was using one of her animal souls to accelerate her running speed. He cursed and moved faster, until his steps were uneven in the snow and one misstep would send him gracelessly end-over-end.

Hurry, hurry, hurry. Fuck, she was fast, moving through the silent town with purpose. Her short hair whipped over her shoulders, swirling like a silver fan in the wind. With sure feet, she dodged the occasional pedestrian and crossed streets without checking for racing carriages. Each time she approached an intersection, Bickslow's heart felt like it was going to die, and every time she moved through unscathed, he thought he'd collapse with relief.

A tall bridge came into view, one with concrete pillars reaching towards the heavens. Its sides were lined with thin railings and the occasional flowerpot. Neither seemed substantial enough to keep wanderers safe from the river rushing below. Lisanna ran until she was all the way to the bridge's center, then ground to an abrupt halt and looked over its icy edge.

"Lisanna!" Bickslow's voice fell flat, his lungs gasping too hard for air. "Lisanna, wait!" He could see from his vantage point that her feet were chapped and bright red with cold. It must have hurt, but she seemed so singular in her purpose, he didn't even know if she noticed. "Lisanna!"

It would still be several long seconds before he arrived, but he watched her fixedly, envisioning darkly her climbing up on that rusty railing and slipping into the churning water below just because she wanted to. The river crashed over exposed rocks, the water mostly shallow with maybe a few deep pools lingering at the bottom. His heart was contracting painfully. "Lisanna!"

She didn't look at him, just threw the box and leaned dangerously over the ledge, as if she needed to see the moment it hit the rocky bottom and disappeared.

It bounced off the bridge abutment, then turned end over end, swirling frantically through the air until it hit the water with hardly a splash.

Bickslow arrived just as it slipped out of sight. His lungs rose and fell too quickly. He grabbed Lisanna's arm and yanked her back from the ledge, even though there was still a railing between her and that ice-littered water. He expected her to yell at him, or to look furious, but she only looked scared.

"B-Bickslow—" Her teeth chattered.

She looked like a skittish rabbit. "Lisanna—what are you doing out here? You're not wearing any shoes, or a coat—"

Her tongue felt heavy. "I—I had to get rid of it—it was going to hurt Mira."

"What?" The box.

"It's for demons." Her hands shook violently. "It's for demons. It hunts. It's for—"

She went on and on. She's cracking apart. Bickslow gnawed on his cheek. "Here." He came in closer than he had any right to and wrapped her coat around her shoulders. As soon as he made contact, she quieted, but she was as limp as a doll. He put her freezing arms through the arm holes, then zipped it up all the way to her chin. Then, he stooped, boots in hand, and tapped her bare leg. She lifted it, feeling rather agreeable now that the cold was starting to sink in, and Bickslow wiped away the snow and ice chunks from her feet. She quivered. He had the sudden urge to wrap her up and carry her back, but he didn't think she'd appreciate that. He did her other foot.

"What was in the box, Lisanna?" He looked up her beet-red leg and into her still startled blue eyes. Her mouth moved around the word. He didn't need her to say it aloud to know what she spoke. "Empusa." The demon eater. He stood, all of the hairs on his arms and his neck rising to attention, and grabbed her wrist. "What?"

She nodded numbly. "Rene's heart. It—" It looked like it hurt her to speak.

Bickslow released her wrist and looked over the edge of the railing, heart throbbing, mind whirling. Could it be? As a seith mage, he knew many kinds of spirits, celestial, earthly, and then the darker ones, the once that came from hellfire, and the most famous of all was the demon spirit Renatus, the man who tore out his demon lover's heart and fed it to a demon hound named Empusa in retribution for her unfaithfulness. Long ago, both hound and demon had died, but—according to the tales—neither were able to leave the living world behind. Together, they satiated their anger by hunting and eating demons, Renatus choosing which lived and which died, Empusa ravenous and all too pleased to kill.

It was rare to find demon spirits. Some seith mages spent their lives searching for them, because to have one in their collection meant that their power would be uncontested. He had never bothered because, while it wasn't impossible for mages to trap and use both celestial and hellfire spirits, rarely did it go well.

The air got dense. Bickslow's skin, already pricked with goosebumps, started crawling. He's here. He knew without ever turning that Lisanna hadn't been mistaken or lying. He turned stiffly to look into that ancient demon's face and felt his balls contract. His first reaction was to grab Lisanna and back up, but there was nowhere to go. His second option was less appealing than the first, and that was to stand and fight, and maybe, just maybe, trap the thing—that would ensure it couldn't cause any more harm—and hope that the attempt didn't explode in his face.

He didn't have time to do either.

He was just reaching for his helmet to expose his eyes when the demon spirit snarled, "Devils," and rushed in faster than he had any right to. Without another word, he grabbed Bickslow by the collar. The seith mage thought he was about to suffer the same fate as Renatus' lover and find himself without a heart, and indeed, there was an intense magic pouring out of his clawed hands, but Lisanna came crashing out of her stupor and realized what was about to happen. With a yell, she launched herself at the copper haired demon and tried to shove him off. He was immovable. He held her out at arms length and shoved Bickslow hard. The railing at his back cracked and broke apart, the already aged metal totally rusting and degrading with the onslaught of tainted power, and suddenly Bickslow was falling through the air. It all happened so fast, he hardly had a chance to suck in a startled breath, though he had plenty of time for thinking as he whirled through the cold air. The sky was dark now, filled with snowy clouds. Great, chunky flakes drifted lazily from their fluffy surface. I'm going to die and this is going to be the last thing that I see. Lisanna's pale face as she leaned over the railing and screamed, Renatus' glowing amber eyes as he watched him spiral down, and all that fucking snow. This is it. He wondered if he was going to feel the rocks dig into his body when he landed, or if he was just going to crack his head open like some kind of rotten melon and that would be it. After all the dangerous jobs he'd been on, it seemed so lackluster, dying like this, but when was death ever glorified or special? And yours isn't going to be any different.

It was then that he finally hit the water.

mmmmm….

I do love my cliff-hangers.

Sorry this has been so lackluster and weird. I'm going to try to do 110% better.