DEATH
"The king has fallen, reminding us that kings must inevitably fall. There is perpetual transformation, one aspect of which is death-birth. Death is a protest against stagnation—it is by death that social changes for the better come to pass and old ideas give way. […] But Death is the twin brother of Life. Creation necessitates its opposite—destruction. As Spirit descends into matter, so it must return to its source."
—Eden Gray, The Complete Guide to the Tarot
Divinatory Meaning: Transformation, change, destruction followed by renewal. The change may be in consciousness. Birth of new ideas, new opportunities.
Reversed: Disaster, political upheaval, revolution, anarchy. Death of a political figure. Temporary stagnation. Tendency to inertia.
—Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot
—
HERE AND
THERE
He advances with a casual ease that soothes the vampires around him. They all move quickly, but without urgency. There's a sense of joy flickering through the area that's reflected in the smiles and words that the newborns share with one another. He pauses before two people—a man and a woman, their heads pressed together in prayer—before he smiles and presses kisses to their brows. They thank him before they walk away, and their scarred foreheads reflect the beginnings of the sunlight that has begun to peek through the trees.
Alice kicked her foot and then shook her head.
"It's just me," Esme spoke, suddenly in Alice's line of sight, her eyes sad and her smile sadder. Alice gripped her hand and wondered when Esme had grasped hers. Oh. That was right. They were going to move her. Alice had seen this happening minutes before but had pushed the mundane vision aside when more important ones had flooded her brain. "We're going to go back into the kitchen now."
Alice mouthed the words to herself in time as Esme spoke, feeling a sense of rightness that yet another vision had come true.
Esme used her grip on Alice's fingers to slowly pull her to her feet. Alice couldn't exactly sit in the green suede chair that lived in the corner of the library—she couldn't sit anywhere, really—but had been able to gently rest her backside against the arm of it. The pain in her wrists pulsed and she hissed quietly at the soreness before another vision stole her attention away.
His hands are spread before him and the sea of bowed heads have hair that is all freshly shorn close to the scalp. His voice is loud and commanding and echoes through the forest.
"Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."
"Alice, it's okay." Edward grimaced down at her with his hand hovering above her shoulder. "You don't have to recite any of it, I can see." His hand continued to hesitate in the air and Alice found herself looking from his face, to his shaking hand, and then back to his face.
She didn't understand.
"Up, up," Maria snapped her fingers from somewhere behind the both of them. Esme and Carmen must have escorted her back into the kitchen but they were notably absent. Alice remembered not to turn her head to look around—her back was still burning fiercer than before, now that it was trying to sew itself back together—and took stock what she could see.
Edward stood across from her, barely a foot away, hands still raised as if he might need to catch her if she toppled over. His hair was wet and his collar was torn—ugh; she'd just pressed that shirt last week—and his eyes were wide as they followed hers. He looked so frightened that it confused her.
It was uncommon for Alice to feel self-conscious, but she wished he wouldn't study her so closely. Esme and Carmen must have dressed her. At some point, while Alice had been wrapped up in visions, the scraps of her outfit had been replaced with a large black button down that they'd put on her backwards. They'd had to fold the sleeves several times of course, and only the top button was secured, keeping as much of the fabric off of her back as possible, but all Alice could think about was how they could've chosen any of Edward's shirts to put her in. Of course it had to have been one of the ones she'd just finished altering, and not one from his fall wardrobe.
Alice wanted to squirm out from under Edward's gaze but her legs were locked in stillness; she didn't want the pain that moving would cause. Didn't he understand? They were out. She was fine. Things were going to be alright. Alice could help again.
The kitchen and the den beyond it were empty. It was exactly the same as it had been before they'd left the house. For a moment she was so relieved at the sight of their familiar home that Alice could almost forget what had happened over the course of the last few hours. Soon, it would all feel like a dream, and she would never have to think about it again.
But there were questions she did not want to ask. And the crying and whispering and murmuring that she could hear behind her provided her with many of those unwanted answers. She did not want to see any visions of what was transpiring thirty feet behind her. What happened right now didn't matter. What mattered was that they were out. She'd done it. Emmett was safe.
There were more important things to watch for now.
"Pick her up and put her on this countertop or I will." Maria's voice was closer now, and Alice knew that she'd be within arms reach in a few seconds. "Don't prolong this. Come on," she snapped.
Edward's glare over Alice's shoulder quickly morphed into an expression of pain and misery. Alice wondered if he was reacting to what he could see in her mind or whether this was a reaction to what he could see of her body. He shifted his hands again, still hovering, as if he wanted to reach out and hoist her upward—something he'd done thousands of times before—but then he faltered.
Alice realized that Edward was afraid to touch her. In the next millisecond, another vision:
He leans forward, rosary in his right hand hand, and presses his left palm against the bare forehead. There is a soft, quiet muttering of prayers, echoed back and forth, before the tooth meets flesh. The crucifix that gets carved into the pale, hard skin, now torn and wet with venom—
Alice leaned forward and gagged.
"Hold her tighter," Maria's words were quiet but still commanding.
Alice refocused on the hands gripping her arms and blinked twice before she could properly focus on Edward's face. Alice was seated firmly on the kitchen counter, and the burn of her back and pain of her joints screamed at her. The urge to move was fierce. Unstoppable. Her body wanted her to stop the pain. Anything to stop the pain.
Each of Edward's hands were wrapped tightly around her arms just beneath the shoulder, pinning her in place while Maria—
The yell that burst forth from her was more of a child's cry than a proper scream. Alice could feel every brush of Maria's hands against her torn, ragged back, no matter how feather-light her fingertips padded across the injuries. Maria's hands travelled a few inches and pressed against her firmly, ripping another shriek from her.
Alice ground her teeth together when a third scream attempted to find its way out. Between the press of Maria's hands and the slice of her skin as Maria re-injured her in order to set things properly, Alice could not determine which hurt more. She wanted it to stop, even though she knew it couldn't. Not yet. It was her turn. It was her turn again.
The rest of her family was in the garage, waiting patiently while they held Emmett's rearranged skin and waited for his body to heal. Alice felt silly for screaming. She was fine. Her injuries were nothing in comparison to the things Esteban had done to Emmett.
"For the love of your brothers and sisters, make peace with them today," Esteban's expression is tender as he gazes down at the woman, supplicant before him. "That is the only penance required of—"
Alice blinked down at her lap and was embarrassed to hear a low, miserable wail hiccuping out of her. She snapped her jaw shut and lifted her head quickly as if she could pretend like she hadn't been howling around the words she'd been reciting. But despite her humiliation, she had to tell them her visions. She could see Father Esteban now. She had to tell everyone about it. She was useful finally. She could see. She could be useful.
"Alice, stop," Edward's voice cracked. The sound of the raw emotion refocused Alice's awareness and she looked back into his sad eyes and felt guilty. "Stop. You don't need to say them, I promise you. I'll tell everyone everything, just—" His voice wavered again and he cleared his throat and turned his head to the side. Alice wondered if someone was standing just out of sight; she hadn't heard or seen anyone approach—she couldn't waste her visions inside the house right now when other things were happening and Alice could see and Alice could be useful—but Edward was now staring at someone behind her that wasn't Maria, and his gaze was intense.
He cleared his throat. "Just rest now."
Another firm press against her back forced another choked cry out of her. The noise did nothing to cover up the string of Spanish expletives being whispered behind her. "That might have to be good enough." Another press between her shoulder blades made Alice try and pull her arms back. She couldn't move—Edward's grip was unrelenting and she could not shift a single centimeter in any direction—and an acute, feral hysteria erupted within her.
Alice tried once more to jerk her arms free and when the grip did not budge she dove back into her mind.
Esteban reaches down and uses one finger to wrap around the lip of the nozzle. He pulls up the tank, as if testing its weight, and nods before placing it back down and doing the same thing to the one beside it. Each time he nods at a metal container, another newborn picks it up and removes it from the room.
"I don't give a fuck—grab her!" Maria was angry and Alice could feel her palm press harder between her shattered shoulder blades.
Alice had to lift her head back up—it had gone limp again when the vision had stolen her attention away—in an attempt at piecing together the last several seconds. She was missing so much but at least it was necessary since she could finally—
"I can't." Edward's words were tired and soft and definitely not spoken to her. Alice shifted her attention forward and noted the way he was staring to the right of Alice, probably to Maria. "I can't do it."
"Yes, you can." It wasn't Maria, it was Bella. That was when Alice realized that Edward had let go of both of her arms. Instead, he stood further away, as if he'd dropped his hands and taken several steps backward. "Just another minute more," Bella assured him, her voice firm and encouraging.
Alice turned her head and was relieved when the pain was substantially less than what it had been only two minutes ago. Bella was standing directly beside her now. Not only that, but she held firmly to Alice's right arm with both of her hands. Alice slowly turned her head to the left and stared at the slim tan hand wrapped around her arm from behind.
Where Bella's grip was firm and secure, a comfort amongst the confusion, Maria was squeezing so hard it was starting to hurt as badly as her ankles.
Alice hadn't thought twice about why her ankles were throbbing with fresh pain until she realized she must have started kicking Edward. She looked down at her feet and was fascinated to see that her left ankle was now turned at a 30 degree angle; it had broken cleanly from the point where her phalanx had been jammed in. The fissures that spidered up her shin were ugly, but it would be an easy fix.
"I must have kicked you hard," Alice muttered as she slowly tested the dexterity of her left leg. Despite the injury, she could bend her knee with marginally less pain than before. Unfortunately, there was not the same range of motion; too much skin from too far down had connected. If she wanted to extend it all the way Maria would have to fix it.
Alice was too nervous to look forward and see how much time she had before that adjustment.
"Are you going to—"
"No." Edward shook his head, cutting off Maria's angry words. "It's not the—I'm not restraining her anymore."
"Oh, for the love of—" Maria's hand finally fell away from Alice's back which provided only the barest hint of relief.
Alice's body was stitching itself back together slowly, but now skin would meet skin where it needed to. Where it was supposed to. Alice heard feet hit the ground and then realized Maria had been perched on the kitchen counter behind her. A faint echo of amusement rang in the back of Alice's mind. These counters were going to be such a mess after all this. Hopefully it wouldn't upset Esme too much.
Alice watched Maria bound around Bella and shove Edward out of the way. He didn't even try to resist the jab and instead walked around her to stand at Bella's side.
The instant Edward was out of her sight, Alice was afraid. It hit her like a blow to the chest, but before she could scream, her mind was already racing. Don't leave me—!
"I'm here," Edward's voice was still unsteady, but close by. Bella was still holding tight to Alice's arm and Alice forced that to be a comfort. "I won't leave."
Good. You can't, Alice found herself thinking at him. She couldn't think of much to say, but settled for repeating the same sentiment over and over again.
You can't leave. You can't leave. Please don't leave. Don't leave me alone.
It was when Maria's hands pushed against Alice's chest, sitting her further upright, that Alice refocused ahead of her. It felt strange to be poked and prodded at like this. Thanks to Edward's shirt and Alice's size, her front was covered down past her knees, which offered her the barest illusion of coverage. Privacy wasn't on her priority list, but she supposed she should have appreciated the sentiment more.
Alice remembered being cleaned. Esme, with Carmen's assistance, had taken a couple of barely-damp rags to the skin between her injuries—her stomach, her right side, her arms, some areas of her legs—but the places that they'd left untouched and uncleaned were the places that Maria was zeroing in on now.
Maria lifted the shirt by the hem and, before either of the other occupants of the room could protest, exposed Alice's bare front to the room.
Well. So much for privacy.
Maria shushed one of them when they opened their mouth to protest and Alice watched as she handed the edge of the shirt to Bella. When Bella didn't immediately grab the hem from her, Maria wrapped it twice around Bella's wrist and moved on.
Maria's fingers were not gentle but they were fast as she traced the still-healing puncture wound on Alice's left breast. Alice knew that her ribs had corrected themselves sometime before they'd arrived back at the house; the sharp pain that had accompanied the dulled snapping sound had been heard by both her and Peter, who had carried her across the threshold. Alice's chin had been resting, limp, on his bare shoulder. He'd had his arms wrapped around the backs of her thighs, holding her front against his like she were a sleeping child being carried inside from the car.
Alice's ribcage had popped and expanded back to normal and Peter had released a haggard breath and something that was the second-cousin to a laugh. "Thank God," he'd said, and then he'd almost dropped her when Alice pushed against him, struggling to be free before she'd fallen into her first of a series of visions of Padré Esteban.
Maria put a hand on each of Alice's thighs and when she spread them apart, Alice forced herself back into another vision.
"We can fetch more by noontime," the man nods along to his confident words. "Do we require extras or spares?"
"If they can be obtained, yes," Esteban is studying a tablet that has a map pulled up on the page and does not look up as he replies. "I want every person to have at least one set of matches, one lighter, a—"
Alice only refocused on the present when she felt Maria move her tattered underwear back into its position, covering her once more.
"You didn't need to do that," Edward's growl was low and furious and Alice was stunned at his tone. She removed her gaze from Maria's survey of her body to glance over at him. Each movement hurt a little less than the previous one, and Alice was grateful for it.
Now, Bella only held Alice's arm with one of hers. With the other she'd reached out and seized Edward's hand, holding it tightly against her chest. Alice didn't understand what was happening until she realized the chain Bella had tied between the three of them. Edward couldn't lunge for Maria unless he wanted to pull Bella and Alice along with her. Bella's quick action had forced Edward's feet to still and avoided a physical altercation.
Not that Alice had seen that. There were more important things to see now.
"Genital mutilation was one of Father Esteban's old favorites." Maria spoke as if relaying a fun fact to a curious child. "Every woman he ever got his hands on suffered some form. She's fine, by the way." Her tone returned to being casual and dismissive, and Alice watched curiously as Maria wiped her fingers on her jeans, grimacing. "Un-fucked, at least."
Neither Edward nor Bella replied to that. Alice did not feel relieved to be an exception to that rule, although she knew she should've been. She'd been lucky. She'd gotten out relatively unscathed. She was fine. She could help again.
Maria finally stepped back and reached forward to pull the hem of the shirt back overtop of Alice, and let out a low sigh. Alice didn't bother speaking, nor did she care to close her legs even though Maria no longer stood between them. She sat quietly and waited for everyone's hovering and for Maria's treatment to end. She was fine. She had a job to do. She could help. She could see Esteban.
Maria jerked Alice's left foot forward, realigning the ankle, and Alice's head swam.
Alice didn't scream at this remedy, but her teeth ground together and made a sharp, horrid noise. Bella had released Edward's hand and now rested it gently against Alice's forearm. Alice wished she could focus on the sympathy from her sister, but all she could feel was the overwhelming pain that was emanating from different parts of her body. From too many parts of her. It was horrendous. It was annoying. It was fine.
The faster they fixed her, the better. Alice could finally help again.
It was when Maria produced the tooth that the first vision Alice did not want flooded her.
He pulls his finger out of his mouth with a wet, sucking sound. There is dark red stained around and beneath the fingernail and when he opens his mouth it isn't to speak but to poke at the hole in his smile with the tip of his tongue. The body before him belongs to a teenage boy still tucked into a sleeping bag.
The shift of his eyes from gold to red is gradual and bewitching.
By the time Alice emerged back out of her mind, Maria had already popped three of Alice's four removed phalanxes from her ankles and left wrist. It, for some reason, didn't hurt as badly as Alice expected it to; a part of her wondered if it was because of nerve damage or because the pain of everything else eclipsed this with ease.
Alice lifted her left hand and studied the missing joint. She'd honestly forgotten that she was missing the tip of each index finger. The skin had healed over so neatly and efficiently. It barely looked like a disfigurement.
"Besides this one ligament," Maria commented as she bent Alice's right knee slightly and extended it, "the fingers and toes are the last of it. Then she'll be good as new." Her words continued to be easy and casual, and Alice appreciated them far more than she appreciated Edward's wobbly voice or Bella's rigid stance. It helped her feel normal, which she craved. Once everyone else could start acting normal again, things would be better. They'd be fine. Just like she was.
Alice watched Maria pop the bone out of her right wrist with a sense of wonder. It looked like a healed nub with a nail attached. Something made with clay or carved from a stone. If Alice hadn't already seen herself, at some unspecified point later on in the day, in possession of all ten fingernails, she would have confidently declared that reattachment was impossible. It was fascinating how their bodies could reassemble like this. It was horrifying.
It was fine.
Before Maria could press the tooth into Alice's detached fingertips or re-injure her right knee, Bella's voice was in Alice's ear.
"I'm going to grab you something that won't get messed up, do you know what you want?" The forced conversational tone was a pretty good attempt; at least, for Bella it was. Alice looked over at her and stared into her eyes for a second, somehow not understanding the question. "A fresh shirt I mean. To wear after you're all clean. I know the thread count in your button downs probably doesn't matter right about now, but if you have a color preference or whatever, I'd speak now before I grab you something random that you'll hate."
Oh, she was asking about a shirt. Bella was trying to distract Alice now that she had more of her attention. Alice tilted her head slightly, wincing and hissing when she felt Maria open up the skin on her toes, promptly pressing the joints back on and counting backward under her breath from twelve. Instead of thinking about the color of the next shirt she was going to wear, Alice found herself thinking about Jasper.
Maria's firm pressure on the minor injuries on her feet gave her an excuse to shudder with discomfort.
Alice had never wanted Jasper more in her life than she did in that very moment. Alice closed her eyes and could only think about the heartache that she couldn't allow to swallow her. It didn't matter but it was the only thing that mattered. It felt like her entire chest was about to cave in on itself, collapsing like a dying star, her misery preparing to burst out of her like a supernova. Would that draw him to her, if he were there? Would it hurt her? Would it hurt him?
Or was he so lost that her detonation would fully escape his notice?
She was fine but she wasn't. She was fixed but she wasn't. She had a job to do but she felt lopsided. She tried so, so hard to push the feelings away—the bone-deep yearning she felt for Jasper—but if she wanted to ignore her own misery then she would have to start now. She would have to remove all thoughts of Jasper from her mind.
Much like he'd seemingly done with her.
The reattachment of her fingers hurt significantly more than her toes. By the time Alice had refocused around the pain, Maria had already counted backwards from twelve and was placing Alice's shin between her knees, holding it in place. When Maria carved through the ligament, the sound punched a hole through the back of Alice's chest, her stomach spinning at the sensation.
She would not cry. Alice absolutely would not cry about any of this. She would not cry over the pain she was experiencing now or the pain she had experienced hours ago. She would not cry over the fact that the love of her life could not currently acknowledge her existence, or the misery this absence inspired.
They'd known about this, goddammit! They'd known that being around Maria had negative effects on Jasper's psyche! Alice's family had seen, first hand, the way his impulses crumbled around Maria and he regressed past a point where anyone had ever known him before.
Maria could ask Alice's husband to jump and he would nod and ask, "how high?"
Alice could ask for a hug and risk getting killed by the man who was supposed to protect her.
"No," she mumbled out loud despite only talking to herself. She was being ridiculous again. He was protecting her. That was why this was happening. It wasn't because of Maria, it was because of Alice. Because he loved her. He loved her. Alice knew this without a doubt. In this moment though, she didn't need protection. Alice didn't need spoken assurances or comforting words.
She just wanted the man she loved to hold her.
"No?" Bella's voice faltered. "You don't care?"
Alice shook her head. She was frustrated. She was fucking fine. She was afraid of speaking any more because she knew that she was on the verge of complete and utter collapse. She had visions to sort through. She had a plan to create. She had to protect her family. She had a job to do.
She had to watch Esteban.
"Don't touch me." Alice didn't mean the sudden harsh words; not really. But it wasn't about what Alice wanted. What Alice wanted didn't matter anymore. Perhaps it would never matter again. Wants weren't important when needs would keep everyone alive. She needed to keep watch. She needed to keep her family safe.
But what she wanted was someone to hold her hand and brush her hair back. What she wanted was for a soothing calm to wash over her and for a firm kiss against her temple. What she wanted was—
"Get off." Alice shook her arm out of Bella's grip, not hard, but abruptly enough that Bella reacted, releasing her quickly. "Please don't touch me right now," she repeated, quieter. She didn't need comfort. She was fine. Alice was fine.
Alice knew Edward could see through her. He knew that the words were just a way to get them away from her. But Alice also knew that he would obey.
Just don't leave. She reiterated over and over again. Alice couldn't ask for anything anymore. Her wants didn't matter. But she'd always been selfish. And this was the one thing she would beg for, until the end. The one thing she felt she could still ask from her brother. Just don't leave me. Please don't leave. Don't leave me alone. Don't leave me. Just don't leave me.
"Okay," Edward whispered. "I won't."
"Okay." Bella nodded, in swift agreement despite responding to a different question. "Okay, I'll grab you something now, alright? Edward will be right here, he's not going anywhere."
"Start her a bath. The instant the last line on her back closes up she needs to rid herself of that man's stink." At Maria's words, Alice inhaled on habit. The smell of Xavier made her squirm and gag again. God. Shit. Fuck. She really could still smell him… smell his…
When Alice actually vomited, a frothy clear substance with a silvery tint to it, Maria barely moved to the side in time to avoid being hit.
Three minutes later—after Edward and Maria had exchanged a few vicious words, after Maria had used her own teeth to tear through the wire still embedded in Alice's ankles and swiftly pulled them out of the healed-over flesh, and after Bella had both left and returned from the upstairs guest bathroom—Alice was wearing the black button down correctly now. Edward had been careful not to actually touch her as he pushed each button through its corresponding hole, and by the time he was finished, Maria had disappeared. Probably to keep herself from maiming Edward (for Alice had seen that distinct possibility while she'd been painfully dry-heaving).
"Nine more minutes," Alice spoke, her voice scratchy from the venom that had emerged from somewhere within her digestive tract. Once the flesh around her knee closed back up she'd be able to walk unassisted. She watched as Edward considered asking if she wanted to be carried, but witnessed the way her quick vision showed him how bad of an idea that was, and decided against the question.
She swallowed, uncomfortable with Edward's sudden unease around her and her sudden unease around him. She really was fine. Really. Or, she would be in a few minutes.
Alice throat burned worse than it had earlier in the night. Dammit. The hunt. She'd forgotten about their stupid hunt. She was still so thirsty.
Thoughts of Jasper tried to force their way to the forefront but Alice kept them at bay by focusing on her pain as her body knitted itself back together. Father Esteban was still out there. Father Esteban could be gathering his people to come for her any moment now. Father Esteban wanted her dead. Father Esteban had members of the Volturi at his disposal. Father Esteban also had—
The memory came to her so swiftly that her guilt paralyzed her.
"I don't think it's her," Alice blurted out. It wasn't her. Despite her initial suspicion, Alice was certain that it wasn't.
But…Alice wasn't certain. She wasn't positive. She couldn't be. Fuck. She was going to work herself into a fine frenzy at this rate. "I—I really don't. I don't think it is." She chanced a look up at Edward who stared back at her, aghast at the memory he'd witnessed.
Of the flash of pale skin, a fluttering heartbeat, and Alice's difficulty seeing through the fog that the hybrids produced in her sight.
Alice suddenly couldn't speak anymore. I don't think—I really, really don't think it's her. I didn't smell. I mean, I didn't—I couldn't—
But Alice had been wrong before. Alice had been so, so wrong recently. Deadly wrong. The last time she spoke about the fate of a person she loved with confidence, Charlotte ended up dead. Then, Eleazar and Tanya joined.
Renesmee was not allowed to become a member of that club.
Edward reached out for Bella, and Alice watched the surprise on her sister's face when he pulled her close against him, his eyes no longer focused on Alice but staring straight ahead, more terrified than Alice had ever seen him. Bella was softly asking what was wrong, the words muffled against his chest, but Edward just held her tightly, and Alice hated herself in that moment. She hated how useless she'd been this week.
Sure, she could see Father Esteban now. That didn't mean she could protect anyone from him. She couldn't protect Charlotte. She couldn't protect Emmett. She couldn't even protect herself.
Alice was afraid. Alice was useless. Alice was not fine.
Alice stared blankly at her two closest friends as they desperately held onto one another. Visions buried her beneath the wreckage in her mind, and self-loathing sprouted like seeds in dirt.
A/N: A big thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed or left even one singular review. Special shoutout to Jessica314, biblepam, Reinbeau, mareluna312, FolkloreEvermoreIvy, anothertwilighter, and the few guests who have reviewed. I know more of you are out there, so feel free to drop a review if you feel so inclined or join the party over on tumblr (username flowerslut, of course) where we talk Roots 24/7.
I'm so happy to see that many people are enjoying this story as I post it—I see the level of trust you have in this wild-ass WIP and I promise not to betray that. Hope you've been enjoying the more regular updates as we wrap the summer up. This story is on track to be finished by December, so we've got just a few more months of updates before we reach the climax and the conclusion.
Thanks for reading. Keep the faith. Enjoy the rest of Act 5.
