She sat on a stool, her ethereal hood draped over her back like a cape, holding still as Mother pulled a brush through her hair. Mother was humming her song again, the song that kept their home, The Maw, alive with dark energy. She could feel the magic buzzing in the air; oh how she would love to take part in it. More than that, she'd give anything to merge with it, to become one with the shadows forever. Maybe than the constant discomfort of her situation would go away.

Mother stopped humming for a moment. "Six," She said softly. "Will you please repeat what I explained to you earlier?"

She took a deep breath, and recited: "Shadows and darkness are the embodiment of goodness, while light is evil. Those who possess its power within them are abnormal and ugly. If I ever encounter one, I must destroy them, for if I do not, they will destroy me. They are one of, if not the only thing that can."

"Good girl." Mother said approvingly. This wasn't the first time she had made her say this speech. They had done it almost every day, and she now knew it by heart. She supposed it was good Mother did this, it meant she cared. "Now, this is of utmost importance. Do you remember how to recognize a light caster?"

She nods. "They are very eccentric and flamboyant, probably the light burning them from the inside. They are also quite sociable and they move from place to place a lot. Always spreading their filth... Physically they more often than not have bright, unnatural hair and eye colors, and they make no secret about their powers most of the time. However, the more powerful ones can disguise themselves, so it's better to go by personality rather than appearance."

"Yes, perfect! Wonderful job, Six!" Without warning the brush was replaced by long, thin fingers. Dark particles rained from them, absorbing into her form, giving her a tiny bit of extra strength. If only she knew how to unleash it. "You will probably never encounter a light caster, but if you do, you'll know what to do."

No! I don't know what to do! Triple thought frantically, holding her ground despite the fear coursing through her. Even though The Lady had warned her time and time again about the dangers of light casters, she had never taught her exactly how to go about fighting one. All the magic she knew she'd had to learn herself, perusing shadow tomes and practicing spells while The Lady was tending to The Guests or performing other duties around The Maw. This was actually quite difficult since The Lady had spent more time with her than anything else; she really had been obsessed with her at the time, or rather she was obsessed with pretending she was the daughter who had left her when she found out what she'd become over the years.

Leora looked quite taken aback at Triple's outburst, but mustered a shaky smile. "Y-yeah, that's right! I am a light caster; very cool you figured that out so fast. I take it you've met light casters before me? That's really cool if you have, other than Mom and me I didn't think there were any more left."

Triple was admittedly surprised that Leora didn't start attacking immediately, but instead continued speaking in a relatively casual manner. If she didn't know any better, the shadow girl would think that she didn't plan on hurting them. But she did, so she refused to take the bate. Instead, she called to her power, casting a thick shadow barrier between Leora and the others.

Six and Mono gasped. They had both looked confused at Triple's reaction ever since Leora had revealed herself. Triple found this a bit strange. Mono she could understand, but Six? Hadn't The Lady told her about light casters at least once?

Leora gasped as well when Triple cast her spell, but for entirely different reasons than the others. "Whoa!" Excitedly, she bounced over to it and poked at it with her pointer finger, testing the resistance. She than sent a tiny beam of golden light into it, which created a hole as easily as though it were paper, much to Triple's horror. She rushed to patch up the hole, much to everyone else's bemusement. But unfortunately for her, since she was panicking it didn't quite work out, and the whole thing crumbled in on itself, the last remnants of power rejoining her bing.

"No!" She cried, and as a last resort, clumsily shoved Leora away from her friend and sister with a large blast of shadow magic.

"Agh!" The girl cried in surprise, stumbling back before falling hard on her butt. "Ow..."

Wasting no time, the shadow girl began to advance. Leora in turn starting scooching backwards on her bottom, hands raised in surrender. "Wait wait wait! Hold on a sec! Can't we talk about this?"

Triple was about to make a sarcastic retort, when she was interrupted by Six, who had apparently finished processing the situation.

"Triple!" She shouted. "Why did you do that?" She began making her way towards Leora, presumably to help her up, but the shadow girl blocked her path.

"No! Stay back! She's a light caster!"

"So?"

"So, light casters are the enemy of shadow casters!"

Six and Mono both gaped. Leora on the other hand looked much more at ease. "Ooooh! So that's what this is about! Let me ask you a question, Triple, I'm assuming that's your name, if you're willing to put up with this oh so evil light caster for a couple more seconds."

Triple was very tempted to refuse, but seeing the surprised and hesitant but hopeful expression on her sister's face, the same one she had worn when she had lifted the hunger curse from her, made her feel as though she had little choice in the matter. She sighed, then nodded reluctantly. "Fine. You can ask, but I might not answer depending on what your question is."

"Alright, thanks! So here's my question to you: what is a shadow? Tell it to me like I didn't know anything."

Really? Triple thought. She was wasting her one question on this? "It is darkness." She said automatically, the answers to the questions The Lady had asked her still fresh in her mind. "The embodiment of beauty and goodness. The most pure magic that there is."

Leora looked as though she wanted to tell Triple off for preaching, but instead she simply said, "Mmm, not quite." Which wasn't exactly better since how would a dumb light caster know anything about shadow magic anyway? She keeps going. "There's a difference. Darkness is simply the lack of light, while shadows on the other hand are dark areas caused by something blocking the light. That means, that shadows couldn't exist at all without light. So then, how would shadow and light being enemies make any sense?"

She pauses long enough to allow Triple to take in this information. Loathed as she was to admit it, Leora did have a point. Plus her reasoning had a lot of evidence behind it, while The Lady on the other hand never gave any reasons behind her claims. Nothing besides that's just the way it was. But that could have been simply because Triple had never asked. Maybe Leora was just saying all this to get her to drop her guard, maybe...

She continues. "Well I'll tell ya how much sense it makes. It makes about as much sense as saying that water is the enemy of humans. We can drown in it yeah, but we'd die of thirst without it. Also our bodies are mostly liquid, just like shadow casters needing light to see. You might not need it since you aren't human, but humans, no matter what their elemental alignment, can't see in pitch darkness. You'd probably lose yourself in it too, eventually."

Six shoved her hands into her pockets, clutching nervously at her coat. She wasn't quite sure what Triple and Leora were talking about. She knew the basics yes, but up until a moment ago she didn't even know that light casters existed, much less that they were shadow casters' enemy.

She wasn't sure what to think. Leora had made her a bit nervous with her enthusiasm and the fact that she knew who Six was, but she didn't think she meant them any harm. Still, Six trusted her sister. She had saved her life multiple times now, and she didn't think Triple would make this into such a big deal if she didn't think they were in danger. But Leora was making some really good points, and Triple seemed to agree, at least a little bit. So, what would be the right thing to do in this situation?

"I... I guess that makes sense." Triple was saying.

Leora nods with a satisfied smile. "Cool. Now can I stand up without worrying about getting blasted down again? I'm getting kinda tired of sitting on the ground." Triple nods, but still keeps a close eye on the girl as she picks herself up, wiping dust from her jeans.

Six decides that this would be a good time to speak up. "I wanna know what you were talking about earlier. Why have you been looking for me?"

Triple nods, this time assuredly, at her sister's words. So Leora could wiggle her way into looking innocent with the concept of light magic alone, but this would be a bit more difficult to spin around. Now she'd catch her in the act.

"Yeah, sure." Leora replies, a bit too confidently for Triple's liking. "I was just about to do that anyway before the whole dark vs light thing. Yeah I am a light caster, but that's not what I was gunna say. What I was about to say was that I'm a resident of The Haven."