"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." - A.A. Milne
A month on, a month further from its zenith, the sun no longer rested in the palm of that tree - its azimuth slipped through the fingers, the sky now slipped through its fingers like warm water.
"But don't you think you're being a little brash in trying to get rid of me instead of turning me down?" Kyubey whined, ever-so-sweet eyes aimed at Marie while he scampered after her, up the stairwell to Phoebe's. "There's no downside to having more time available to consider making a wish."
"You're wasting my time, though! You're distracting me from living the life I want to!"
"And that is?"
"Not something you can offer me."
"Come onnn," he whinged, rolling on his back. "Even if I am wasting your time, it'll only be for a few more weeks! Isn't having more options about your future worth a few weeks of annoyance?"
"What, do you think after all this time, you're going to be able to make me pro-contract in less than a month?"
"You wouldn't be the first time I have. Why are you back here anyway, if you're so eager to put this all behind you?"
Marie rolled her eyes. "Nothing you'd understand, heartless prick. Just wrapping things up. I wanted to say sorry to Phoebe for not being able to avenge her, and that I hope some of my knowledge about magical girls can help her friends figure at least something out."
"She can't hear you, you know."
"Oh, I know."
"Because she's dead."
"Yeah. Yeah, dude. I know." Marie leafed through the contents of her bag. She'd copied out the text she'd stolen last week, and if she was leaving this world behind, she had to make that someone else's problem.
"Over mountains so immense they threatened to snag the sky, through fens so shrouded in fog not even the loudest thoughts could travel, and into-"
Sweet, it was all here.
"So you're intending to pass on your knowledge and simply leave?"
"Not entirely, dude! Not entirely! I might go check out a movie and hang around town until the train fare goes down for the evening."
"That sounds like a pretty uninteresting way to try to start a new life. Every time I bring up the value of exchanging your lifespan for life satisfaction, this is-"
"...A surefire way to get me to dismiss your argument out of hand? Changing up my whole life isn't something I'm psychologically equipped to manage overnight, no matter what help you have to offer. That's part of being a human, and growing, and learning."
"You want growth? Knowledge?"
"Not all in one go, idiot! Step by step, so I can control the direction life takes me. Do you get it?"
"This is an epistemological divide between us I'm having a hard time crossing, and you're not even trying to help me out." Kyubey shook his head and harrumphed.
"It can't b-"
"But it can! You're so concerned with the possibility of dying post-contract, but think of how far you can detach your mind from your mortal soul then! Once your thoughts are all caught up in the telepathic ether, when the girls who come after you pass them on and so do their successors, et cetera, will you ever really die?"
"You've read that Donna Haraway essay too, then."
"Well... the essay, no. Her, yes."
"What?"
"What's so hard to understand? When she was sixteen, we talked about it a lot."
"Damn, dude. You get around. I mean I knew you got around, but you get around around."
"You're avoiding the question."
"Yeah, because it's dumb as shit. It's predicated on the grounds that I'm some fraction of something bigger, rather than... well, me. It's absurd."
"Is it really that radical to consider? I'm not me, for instance."
Marie rolled her eyes. "See, that's the difference between us. That's the epistemological divide."
"No it's not. You're not me either."
Marie rubbed her temples. "I'm so sorry, Phoebe," she thought. "You don't deserve conversations this inane and pointless right on your doorstep."
Aloud she continued. "Every time I remember I knew her for shorter than the time she's been dead, it kind of trips me up. This must be how Danika feels, huh?"
"I wouldn't know."
Yeah, of course you wouldn't, you- Hang on."
"Is something the matter?"
"That door. Over there, by the balcony."
Kyubey followed Marie's gaze. "What about it?"
"It can't be there. There's another apartment just around the corner from it, the two can't force each other into such little space and still possibly be one-bedroom-one-bathroom each. It doesn't make sense."
"But it is there."
Is it? Marie wondered. She marched over to it, but close as she drew the trepidation in her blood thickened like the loosening of the pseudoplastic ichor that already riverred her veins.
The number on the door was not a number.
She read over the bloated, warped sigil screwed into the wood in brass as if it were, over and over, feeling as if in a dream, as if at some point something in her brain would align and make its meaning as obvious as it was absurd. Hesitantly, she touched the doorknob. It dissolved into amniotic fluid in her hand, and spreading from there blossomed the tumbling down of the entire door.
The illusion was shattered. Affixed to the wall was a shimmering wheel of colours that did not belong to the world, turning and pulsing and shifting its kaleidoscopic sheen.
"How long has this been here?" she tried, something uncertain but by-and-large eager to assume control of this newfound circumstance.
"I don't know. We can't keep track of the birth of every witch all the time. You're not seriously considering...?"
"If I can prove I don't need anyone, especially not you, all my problems disappear."
"Are you so reluctant to trust anyone that you're going to risk your life for a little independence?"
"If I don't rely on anyone, they can't take advantage of me! I can control how close I let them! Friends, families, lovers... I want the freedom to be comfortable around them, dude. Is that so much to ask?"
Silence. Marie continued.
"Plus, I want Phoebe to have been right to take me under her wing."
Still silence.
"State your terms. I can do it."
He shook his head. "I can't change your mind about this, can I?"
"Not as long as I can't change yours."
"Alright. No outside assistance of a magical girl. No use of enchanted weapons. And you must always be accompanied by me, so that your last resort is still an open option. Nobody wants you to die in there."
"Except, presumably, the witch?" Marie bent her knees and tilted her head toward him.
"Except, presumably, the witch." Kyubey hopped up from the ground, onto her shoulder, and together, they...
THROB.
THROB. THROB.
THERE ARE TWO NEW GUESTS IN THE LOBBY.
I DIDN'T CALL THEM HERE.
THROB. THROB.
BUT I WON'T SEND THEM AWAY. THEY CAN STAY. THEY CAN STAY.
THE CORRIDORS YAWN. IMMENSE. GAPING. HUNGRY. THEY CLOSE, BUT ONLY TO SWALLOW THE GUESTS, NEVER TO CHEW.
WHEN EACH ONE CLOSES BEHIND THEM, I FEEL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER A SENSE OF PROXIMITY. A SENSE OF INTIMACY.
A SENSE OF PROXIMITY.
A SENSE OF INTIMACY.
THROB.
A SENSE OF INTIMACY.
YOU THINK I LOOK WEIRD, DON'T YOU?
YOU THINK I LOOK LIKE AN ENORMOUS ADENOID. MAYBE I AM. I FEEL LIKE THAT MOST DAYS.
I LOOK WEIRD, DON'T YOU?
IT'S THE ONLY THING IN LIFE WORTH THROBBING FOR.
COME, THROB WITH ME. IT'S EASIER WORK WHEN SHARED.
ARE YOU?
ARE YOU?
OR ARE YOU JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, CONFINING ALL THE WORK TO ME, SETTING ME APART, DENYING ME
A SENSE OF INTIMACY
?
ARE YOU?
LET ME GET A GOOD LOOK AT YOU. MY EYE TIRES OF THESE SAME FEW WALLS, OF THE REFLECTION OF MY VISAGE. OF THE FILM THAT COATS THEM, OF MY CHEMICAL BURNS IN THE SHAPE OF PEOPLE, THAT SURELY ONCE WERE PEOPLE.
I THINK.
THROB. THROB. THROB.
I CAN'T REMEMBER BUT
THROB. THROB.
I THINK THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE ARE.
ARE YOU?
DON'T TRY TO LEAVE
PLEASE
EVEN I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LEAVE ANYMORE...
DO YOU KNOW WHAT BEING ALONE DOWN HERE IS LIKE?
HAVING TO WAIT
SO
SO
SO
SO
SO
SO LONG
FOR SOMETHING TO EAT, ARRIVING BY CHANCE?
CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MUCH I CRAVE BEING ABLE TO BURN THE NUTRIENTS OUT OF YOU? I'M VERY GOOD AT IT. YOU'LL LOVE IT.
YOU
WILL
LOVE
IT.
IS THIS A CHALLENGE? IS THIS ANOTHER ONE OF LIFE'S TRIALS? WHO DEVISES THEM?
IS IT GOD?
HE MUST LOVE ME.
WHY ELSE WOULD HE TAKE SO MUCH TIME OUT OF HIS SCHEDULE TO TORMENT ME SPECIFICALLY?
SO YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU ARE POISON. BUT WHY WOULDN'T YOU BE?
THROB.
THROB. THROB. THROB.
THIS IS WHY I CLOSE EVERY DOOR I CAN FOR YOU. IF THEY SWALLOW YOU I MIGHT DIE.
WILL I?
THROBBBBB.
I CAN'T REMEMBER THAT EITHER.
I'M OUT OF SHAPE.
AM I OUT OF SHAPE?
IT'S SO HARD TO KEEP UP WITH YOU.
PLEASE BE NICE TO ME
ALL I AM IS
JUST A STARVING LITTLE GIRL
IN THE SHAPE OF A GIANT ADENOID.
YOU ARE RUNNING THROUGH THESE TUNNELS FASTER THAN I CAN KEEP UP AND CLOSE THEM AT THE SAME TIME.
PLEASE WAIT
EATING YOU IS ALL I HAVE.
KILLING YOU IS ALL I HAVE.
THROBBING YOU IS ALL I
PLEASE
STOP
AND
BURN.
BUT WHAT
IS THIS
PEACE, THEN
?
HOLD IT CLOSER AND
A
AA
AAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAA A AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
what did you do to me?
Why did you do that?
Do what?
Throw away your phone like that?
i don't know what you did to me, but i can see you so much more clearly now.
i think you are beautiful. it's sad to think one of us isn't going to be alive much longer.
It's a two birds, one stone kind of situation. On the one hand, I needed to destroy it eventually, just in case some deeplighter dipshit wants to pick a fight with whoever swiped their stuff.
And the other?
Fighting the witch. Watch this.
hang on.
witch...
...am i a witch?
You used your lacrosse stick. That's a magical object. That means your wager is now forfeit, right?
i...
Come on, dude. All I used it for was grafting... that phone onto its eye. It doesn't need to be magic for that.
But it is magic.
What, do you want me... to get a normal one... and have a second take at this?
...i remember now.
No, you're right. But are you really confident you can beat it just by blinding it, while it still controls the labyrinth?
i remember your voice... kyu...?
That's... the opposite of what I did. I opened the camera up, actually, and zoomed way in. So we look a lot closer... than we actually are.
kyu please help me theres been some kind of mistake it's not a witch it's me
Why would you do that? I'm interested in your reasoning here, since for all I know it might be the worst idea you've ever had, and will get you killed unless I step in.
its me its [ISOLDE]
no i'm not isolde my name is [ISOLDE]
why can't i
Don't question it... little guy... just watch.
what
am
i
i'm
i'm
you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me you lied to me
Isolde misperceived Marie as much closer than she actually was, and tried to close another door on her. But her vision and her proprioception of her own domain were misaligned, and she shut the corridor right through her own midsection.
The labyrinth evaporated, and an ebon sphere clattered to the apartment balcony, balanced perfectly on a single point.
Marie emerged, panting and cackling. "I did it, Kyubey. I won."
"So you don't need anybody else's help in killing witches?" He watched her expectantly, trotting out from the shadows behind her.
"Nope."
"And you don't need to rely on anyone else for magic?"
"Not at all. I'm done, dude. I'm out."
He vanished from her sight. Not in any particular direction - he just vanished, as if embraced by Lara's black lightning aura, but far stronger to the point of complete invisibility even under the most intense of concentration.
"So that's it, huh?" she scoffed. "Not even a goodbye on the way out?"
Actually, that made sense. He was so expressive that Marie sometimes forgot he never felt any emotion, let alone sentimentality. And now that he needed nothing from her, there was no reason for him to act politely.
"Alright then, li'l guy. Bon voyage. And if I ever find out you're getting in with my future daughter or anything, I'm going to kick your arse so deeply you'll have to get some girl to wish you the power to sit down again."
She put the grief seed in her bag. She thought it'd be a good idea to pawn it off to some weak little western-suburbs majjo for a quick buck. When she zipped her bag up it struck her that this was another chapter of her life come to a close.
Well, that was one of its loose ends tied up. Now it was time for the other.
It was around four in the afternoon when Hope caught a sharp, arrhythmic rapping on the front door. Nobody else was in right now, so it probably wasn't a friend who'd been invited over, and if it were something scheduled, it hadn't been run by her. It must have been some kind of package delivery that needed a signature, she thought. She snuck into the kitchen to nick a pen, then to the still-beating door.
It could have been Lara, too. She snuck back into the kitchen for a spray bottle, filled it with tap water, and returned to the door.
When she saw who was behind it, she deftly lobbed both aside.
"I thought we weren't gonna see each other again," she winced.
Marie shrugged. "I know. I just wanted to wrap some things up."
She didn't meet Hope's eye. She was holding something out, though, and although Hope would recognise it anywhere, this instance was a momentary exception simply because she never thought Marie would hand the gun back.
Hope took it nonetheless. "What's all this about?"
That was when Marie locked eyes with her, and... smiled. "You were right, Fearno. I've done it. I've found a way out."
Hope's eyes went wide. "Oh, good on ya! Is it working out for ya?"
"Oh, I don't know yet. But I want to make it up to you, you know, me being such a dickhead. Can I come in?"
Hope smiled sadly. "I'd rather you didn't."
"Yeah, that makes sense. I just wanted to give you these."
Marie pulled from her bag two sheets of paper - one, a handwritten copy of the text from T.K., the other, a recount of what she had seen in the stranger's soul gem.
"Lara was after one of them, but for some reason or another, it ended up in my possession. The other seemed connected to it."
"Right, I see." Hope looked them over, then recoiled and blinked. "Shit! Tell you what, please do come in. There's a lot to unpack here."
Marie stepped forward. Hope didn't immediately step back for room.
"Hang on," she grinned. "Are your eyes different colours, and I've never noticed?"
Marie sighed. "I don't want to talk about it. Everyone asks me that."
"I thought you'd've liked being the centre of attention."
"Not when I haven't asked for it."
"Right, yeah, fair enough. Lemme get outta your way."
Marie never thought she'd be back in here. She liked it, though - not everybody had these chances to so plainly say goodbye.
"Take a seat," Hope bowed nonchalantly. "Why'd you give the gun back, anyway?"
Marie slumped into the armchair. "To be honest, I never believed you murdered anyone. I just took it in the first place because... I don't know, I was scared that I might have been wrong to stick up for you, and I wanted to be safe. I dunno, dude. What difference does it make if I trust you or not? Like you said, we're better off out of each other's lives, right? We've each got our own story to tell, and they're just begging to diverge."
"Sounds like you gave it back on a whim, and started justifying it to yourself after you'd already decided you would."
Marie chuckled. "Believe what you want. But before we get into whatever this thing with the papers is about, can I just ask in complete confidence-"
"Oh, if you wanna keep it secret, you should ask psychically. I'd tell you to make a habit of it, but it's a bit late for that, ay?"
"Right! Of course!" Marie stammered, and did just that. "Why did you kill her?"
Hope looked all of a sudden much lighter, and much heavier. She was no longer looking at Marie, but rather looking through her. "I'd rather not answer that question. Not for any reason as bad as you're thinking, heavens no! But... when you've gotta kill your own girlfriend, it tends not to be something you wanna dwell on."
"I understand. Sorry for asking."
"Nahhh, no worries!" Hope reconstructed her grin, and continued aloud. "Right! So this whole thing you've brought in!"
"Yeah! What's the deal with it?"
"Good question! That's a centuries-old mystery. There was a period from around medieval times to the late 1800s where seemingly random but well-known poets, fighters, scientists, philosophers and so forth from all around the world wrote these cryptic little folk tales. Not quite fables, not quite koans, not quite creation myths. What makes 'em so remarkable is that they're all connected to some overarching narrative, even in cases where the authors have never heard of each other, or the works of their predecessors were lost to time."
"That's... weird."
"One of life's great mysteries! Hell, many of them still are missing, and those that aren't tend to be passed around by Lara and her mates."
"The Attendants?"
"That's the one. Now here you are, handing me not one, but two of 'em."
"How many are there, total?"
Hope sat back in her chair. "All up? Supposedly a good fifteen. You know, one for each branch of the species. Can't remember who said that, though. Someone who lived long enough to dig into this stuff, that's for sure."
"Would it have been one of those girls you mentioned last month?"
"Ay?"
"The day Phoebe died. We were talking about long-lived magical girls. I wrote it down in my notebook."
"Oh, did we? Could be, then!"
Marie drew the half-baked scrap paper tome from her bag and flicked through it. "I wanna give this to you too, by the way. Everything I've learned about your physiology after four years of field study. It's probably mostly stuff you already know, but there's bound to be one or two things I... Ah! Here we are. I had Kyubey clarify full names, time periods, all that. When did you say this was?"
"Mid-late 1800s, thereabouts."
"So it would have been someone like Beatrix Boroughs or Anneliese Holzknecht then?"
"Yeah... come to mention it, I think it might've been a European like those two. Didn't even consider that."
"Where were you thinking, then?"
Hope glanced out the window. "Long story. Don't wanna burden you with it on the way out the door."
Marie laughed. "Now you're making me want to know even more."
"Bloody hell, my bad then." Hope shared in a grin. "When you think 1930s, 1940s, what part of the world do you think of?"
"Mostly Western Europe, with the rising political tensions and war and all."
"Right! Well, it's by no means the same thing... but for reasons of similar historical, um..."
For ages philosophers have meditated on the notion of an interconnected cosmic consciousness which flows through all things, and the more extreme among them have contemplated its tapping for the sap of omniscience, sophichor, if you will. But as far as all humans - no, all Terrans - no, all mortals have ever reached is the shifting sea of minds that intertwines and separates those sapients fortunate enough to comprise the Concordance. Although they cannot reach the Universal Mind (UM), however, many try every moment of every day. In his 1967 novel Why Are We in Vietnam, Norman Mailer suggests the UM is the source of answers we run for when we cannot find them in ourselves, the fat frog Volta calls for when he clears his throat (um) and looks for inspiration (um).
"Gravitas?" Marie tried. She was not the source of all knowledge in the universe, but there were times when she knew how to act like it.
"Yeah, if you'd like. For reasons of similar historic gravitas, we tend to associate the mid-late 1800s with the Swahili Coast. Lotta advances going on there in magical technology at that time, see, and a lotta girls from around the world trying to get there to check it out. Not all of them made the voyage, and those that did started a huge fight with each other."
"Over what?"
"The Incubator says some thirteen-year-old Kenyan girl got kidnapped by a globally infamous crowd of pirates due to her abnormal magical potential, and nobody wanted someone so powerful falling in with that crowd. Especially not the girl's friends and family and neighbours."
"All those people from all around the world came together to save one girl? Seriously?"
Hope shot to her feet and gestured dramatically, absolutely brimming with delight. "I know, right? Isn't that just fantastic? It's all true, in fact, it's the best documented event in our history. My people's history! Oh, there's so much on even the most unremarkable bits of yours but this, Marie, this kind of shite is the fire in my blood. Can you imagine? Hundreds of majjos, few of 'em sharing a common language bar the girls who live there, many tired and wounded from their pilgrimage there, then all of a sudden - boom! The earth blows. The sky shakes! A fog rolls in over the city, its protective barrier disrupted by a tremendous burst of energy from-"
"Hope," Marie winced, now as far back in her chair as possible.
"Hm? Ah, right." She sat back down. "Here I am, waxing histrionic about something you've expressly come here to tell me you don't care about!"
"I'm sure it's really interesting," she grimaced, "but not to me specifically."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry about that."
"There is... one detail I do want to dig into a little, though. When was the last of these things supposed to have been written?"
"Oh, err... Eighteen-sixties? Seventies?"
"And who was it that said that?"
"No clue. Why?"
"This one here," she placed a hand on Thalia's piece of the story, "was written by me."
"No way! Presumably not a bit over a hundred years ago?"
"The night Phoebe died, in fact. There's this weird-looking new girl in town-"
Hope lifted a hand. "I'm familiar with her reputation."
"Right! Well, her soul gem started astral projecting or some crap, and I watched her have this vision. I thought nothi- well, obviously I thought quite a lot of it at the time, but I didn't get what it could have meant at all. Until I stumbled across," she placed her hand on the other.
"So..."
"So?"
"So you've watched one of the biggest unsolved questions in history happen a few weeks back during a night on the town?"
"Yeah. Up the back of a newsagent or petrol station or something."
"You're joking."
"This is legit what happened."
"Come on, Marie! Pull the other one!"
"Seriously! I had no idea this was such a big deal until I found the other one here."
Marie neglected to mention the Brass Knight. Something about his presence felt so divorced from the reality of the situation, though, that she couldn't compel herself to believe her encounter had been real. In fact, she could palpably sense that the golden titan didn't exist even when she was looking right at him. And half the time it was as if he was speaking to someone other than her. It could have been some kind of projection or shared vision, like that girl had had, but for what reason? And from whom?
Truth be told, she only had half the facts. And there was no satisfaction in or owing for parting with such incomplete information.
"Right... I see. Well, this is gonna be a puzzle for the ages."
"Am I leaving it in capable hands?"
"We'll have to see about that, but your species is probably safer that it's in mine rather than Lara's."
"Ha! I suppose that's all I really wanted. And the notebook, take that too. I should probably get going. You were right. It's been fun and all, but it really would be for the best if I didn't pollute your world with my presence."
"That's it, then? You're heading out for good?"
Marie stood up and smirked. "Why, haven't I done enough?"
"No, you've done more than enough! I'm just thinking, you know, it's not often someone makes it out like you did. Not that I'd swap the life I've got for anything, but it's really something special you've done here. Remember that."
Marie nodded. "I'll try. I'll definitely remember you, though."
Once Marie was two steps out that front door for the final time, Hope gave the notebook a good thumbing through.
"Feeling's mutual, darl," she mumbled to herself.
Hope leaned on the windowsill, still shaken by the apparent new chapter Marie had delivered. She couldn't stay distracted for long, though; one last time, she saw the figure of Marie Crawford walking out onto the street. She passed her a telepathic,
"Have a good one, Marie."
Marie stopped dead in her tracks, turned around to face her, and grinned.
"You too, you ol' bohemian dork."
Hope snickered and returned to her armchair. Relieved of the moment soon after, she snatched up that which had apparently been routed away from Lara and began to read.
Over mountains so immense they threatened to snag the sky, through fens so shrouded in fog not even the loudest thoughts could travel, and into desert wastes extending into the very depths of time, strode a titanic knight clad in brass so thick and so ornate, with every step, and with every slight zephyr, came the wailing of a thousand horns through the kinks of its skin.
The young adventurer, swept up in the gale of delirium, pitter-pattered a disturbance through the lifeless immaculacy of the golden sands. The instant the Brass Knight came into view, weakness overtook her. Her body gave, and prostrated herself before it.
A grandame, dressed wholly in the shades from the emptiest depths of the universe and showing not a bead of sweat for it, pulled the adventurer to her feet. The younger surveyed the desert sands around her and knew the sum total of all the grains she could see from here would not compare to the moons her elder had lived.
"It spent eons wandering here, looking for this place. How is it that you managed to stumble here overnight, tired, dehydrated, and completely by mistake?"
"What is this place, then?" frowned the adventurer.
"The driest part of the driest desert in the driest corner of the universe. The best place it could hope to light a fire. Do you know what that is? It's the fire of passion, of invention, of prosperity. But when the Sun offers his light, he also brings exhaustion, destruction, and the desert you see around you. And when she is lit, she will be so much brighter than him. You will know her as the Deep Light, and nothing more; when she arrives, there won't be anything else left to know."
"What is this fire, that it could thrive in such a lifeless place? There is no food, no water, no clouds... thus, she would be born of the void. She would be the beginning of things. The spark of life, the act of creation."
"Of course," the old woman smiled. "And a fire bright enough to birth the universe, can you imagine how much it would burn to approach?"
"I confess I cannot," despaired the girl.
Her companion placed in her hand a compass. "The beginning of the journey," she explained. "North, far, far north, is a lake. Drink from it, and the enlightenment of the void will leave you, and you will never have to see the stoking of the Deep Light."
TRANSCRIPT
The following text has been recorded by the Understudy to the Narrator. Consent has been secured from the parties involved. In compliance with the Narrator's own operating standards, the names of all individuals have been surgically removed for their health.
Transcript begins.
UNDERSTUDY: Wait, that can't be right. Marie can't just leave like that!
NARRATOR: I'll admit, it took me by surprise too. Still, though, you can't help but feel a little proud of her.
UNDERSTUDY: But she was the main character!
NARRATOR: What, you can't have a main character change hands at the start of a story? Tell that to Charles Dickens, or James Joyce, or Thomas Pynchon, or whoever else.
UNDERSTUDY: What's a jaded old recluse like Thomas Pynchon got to do with anything?
The Narrator laughs.
NARRATOR: You still think Thomas Pynchon is a real person? Oh, by the Mother Superior, that's just too good. That's fantastic.
UNDERSTUDY: We're getting sidetracked. We know Marie's important in the future. She-
NARRATOR: She's not necessarily gone from the story! She's just not the main character anymore, and her path probably isn't going to cross that of her replacement all that often.
UNDERSTUDY: What replacement?
NARRATOR: Oh, I don't know. Someone like...
Transcript ends.
Danika Woodward ran down the hill, onto the white-paint sigils of concentric and interconnected lines tattooed across the tarmac. There was something haunting about a netball court merely by the recontextualisation of night's adiaphane, which seemed absurd because she understood that logically it must be a netball court at night half of all the time it was a netball court, which was already always.
Presently, Thalia was trying to find an unlocked door to the sports club the court was attached to. She started to cry when she saw Danika. "Why are you doing here?" she tried.
Danika unlimbered the concept of an axe from her soul gem, and like iron from the forge, it cooled and solidified to the night air's kiss. "You killed my sister! My creator! The girl who promised to look after me, no matter what!"
"Don't understand," Thalia sniffled. She backed up against the wall of the building. Despite herself, Danika lowered the weapon.
"Why aren't you fighting back?" she found herself whimpering.
Thalia tried to speak, but she was too choked up. What she said next came through the mind, and loudly, like trying to hear someone shout over pouring rain. "What do you want from me? Please, please, leave me alone," she begged.
That was a start. Without the hurdle of language, Thalia was far more... well, not 'articulate', but analogous to it. "You killed my sister. But you haven't tried to kill me, you've just been trying to scare me off. Why is that?"
"I killed her... because she hunted me. I thought she would leave me alone forever. But then you came. If I kill you, someone else comes. I run my whole life."
"You didn't have to kill her!"
"I know that now! I didn't know that then! I'm sorry..."
Danika dropped the axe out of reality. Most people became upset and confused teenagers after thirteen years of hard work, but Danika had it handed to her at birth. For her two-month-long life, she had been so often assaulted by new and disorienting stimuli and experiences and ideas that it became paralysing at times. Lauren and Phoebe had always told her to be more confident at times like these, and in their absence, she had taken it on herself to assert that. But what did she have to show for it now? She'd spent her whole life being ordered to kill this girl, this girl just like her. And all that made her was afraid, and twisted, and with no idea what was going on.
"She... she made me to hunt you too," Danika admitted. "But I don't want to. I don't even know why I'm doing it."
"Small white thing."
"What?"
"Small white thing, it tells people to."
"You mean Kyubey?"
"I do not know."
"Why would he want you dead?"
"I do not know."
The consequences of speaking of the devil realised, a pale shape slunk out of nowhere and onto the court. "It's because she's a cosmic waste of energy, just by the way she exists. And I need her dead before she learns how to articulate that. If anyone else learns how to be like that, the effects could be disastrous."
Danika fell silent for half a second in genuine astonishment. "And what's so special about the way she exists? From the looks of things she doesn't have the most... elegant, or healthy body. Or soul gem, for that matter."
"This is better than what I was. Before I came here, I was something he called witch."
Danika shook her head. "That's... not possible. Kyubey, I thought you said witches can't turn into magical girls. I thought that was impossible!"
"So is unboiling an egg. No matter what you do to it, it won't go back to its raw self. And yet, all the proteins are still there, it's just that some water's evaporated, the molecules are rearranged, and chemical energy has been let out. It's possible to put water and energy into an object, and there are techniques that can rearrange molecules very precisely. But the odds of stumbling across this by chance are... well. It's been two million years, and she's the first of her kind."
"Why do you want me dead, then?" Thalia staggered.
"This is something witches born as familiars probably wouldn't understand, but when a magical girl becomes a witch, she releases amounts of energy you can't even imagine. Of course, when you reverse the reaction, that means you absorb that much energy. Add to that the fact that witches outnumber magical girls enough for the latter to feed off the former, and it should be obvious that the way you transformed becoming common knowledge could have universe-ending ramifications."
"So I won't tell anyone! Why would I tell anyone if you're going to kill me?"
"We can't verify that you're of sound enough mind to stick to that."
Danika piped up. "So I'll look after her, then! I'll stick around her, and make sure she has as much food and water and sleep as she needs, and if she spills the beans I'll kill her!"
Both she and Thalia winced at that last bit.
"And how long do you intend to watch over her?"
"However long it takes you to realise she doesn't mean any harm."
"That's a striking change of heart for someone who came here to kill her."
"Yeah, well... I'm not going to kill a scared and frustrated weirdo who wants to run from the violence she was born into."
"You won't?" A fraction of a smile crept over Thalia's face. "Why not?"
"Because no matter who it benefits, you don't deserve to be the one to take the fall!"
Danika tried very hard to avoid saying, "because that makes you the first person I can understand".