Fantasy Cosmical Glitch ( ellarose & starboob. )

[starboob]

Lettie’s worried. She’s always worried, of course. It’s not new. But this is new. Juno turning into a fucking crystal statue, because she failed to fucking realize the obvious trap she’d been walking into, is a new stressor weighing on the tiny faerie’s addled mind. And yet she’s holding it together and Juno almost wants to tell her that it’s okay to fall apart. It doesn’t matter what glamours or masks that the faerie tries to don, the pirate can see straight through all of those, straight to her core, and knows that this might break her. That it might be breaking her. (It’s breaking Juno, too.)

Then again, she also knows her faerie well enough to know she won’t quit until it’s over and, even then, she’ll bury some motherfuckers on her way down. ‘Please, goddess, let me have more time with her. Don’t let this be the end of us.’

Praying to a dead goddess isn’t going to help, though. She only has herself and Lettie to rely on.

And they’re a fucking force to be reckoned with.

Even if the crystal is still growing, even if she must race against time itself, she’s got her fucking faerie who will be with her no matter how many worlds apart. That thought stills some of the nerves riddling through her. That, as well as the assurance coming from the fucking faerie herself. “Yeah, we will and we do.” She kisses her (while her lips are still soft), wrapping her arms around her (while her arms are still limber). Then she moves to cradle her face once more and, again, considers telling Lettie that she can come undone, that she doesn’t need to be the strong one, and then decides against it. She selfishly needs that strength. So she smiles and kisses her forehead instead.

Not too long after that, Dream Weaver reveals the location of their “friend” who appears to reside in a misted over area known as the Thundering Canyons. (Juno considers going to ask Cedar about this lead and what spirit might reside there, but with the unknown amount of time they have, she decides against wasting the effort. Lettie wants to vet this spirit and, considering what happened the last time Juno toyed with unfamiliar magical promises, she would feel far more comfortable with her faerie's seal of approval.) Dream Weaver is able to teleport them to the canyon with the help of some looking glass magic that turns the surface of the object into a portal. Squeezing through the tiny surface is not easy, but they manage.

They fall out into the dark canyon, unable to make out the twilight skies above through the thick roll of mist that hides this place. The rocks here appear in various shades of purple along with some shades of blue. It does remind Juno of the canyon where Ripr and the goddess’s tomb reside, sending a chill down her spine.

However, before she can make any comments, a loud clap of thunder echoes around them, bouncing off of the walls and shaking the ground beneath them. Pieces of the wall crack and chunks dislodge, tumbling down from the rock faces beside them. Juno is quick to pull herself and Lettie out of the way of a particularly large boulder's path before the air settles again. Another chill runs down her spine. She reaches for her girlfriend’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

Another clap of thunder rumbles through the canyon, this time sounding distant.

“Where’s this friend of yours supposed to be, Dream Weaver?” Juno tilts her head around, not seeing anything particularly… otherworldly, as she assumes that’s the impression any spirit would give. This place certainly feels less mystical than the rainbow springs. Far more haunted. Though she supposed that is a flavor of otherworldly in its own right. But being from Desdemonia, Haunted Capital of All the Worlds, makes this place seem almost ordinary.

Dream Weaver doesn’t respond and when Juno looks at the mirror, it’s just a mirror, the spirit having apparently fucked off somewhere within. Heat prickles over Juno’s cheeks, rising up from her chest. Even her breathing becomes shallow. “Fucking bastard,” she hisses.

As much as she wants to throw up her hands and surrender to her fate, that’s never really been Juno’s style. (Eliza made sure of that.) She buries her feelings deep, hardening herself against reality, whatever it might be. Still, she squeezes the faerie’s hand— maybe the only assurance she can offer that she’s, well, not okay but that she’s still dead set on figuring this out— and guides them deeper into the ravine.

Deeper into this trap? She doesn’t know and hoping for otherwise will probably only damn them, since hope’s always been a dangerous thing for Juno.

The pirate remains quiet and contemplative all the while. The only sound that fills the canyon is that thunder, sometimes sounding near and other times far. It’s after they’ve traveled for ten or so minutes that large shadows appear in the mist above them— large, moving shadows. It’s hard to make out their shapes exactly, but now closer to them, she notes that they move slowly, like each movement is a labor. One of these slow moving things clashes with the other, sending that thunderous clap through the air, cracking the cliffs around them and shaking the ground beneath them.

A long and low groan shortly follows as the shadow that had been hit stumbles backwards through the mist, briefly disturbing it enough to reveal the face of a giant rock. Or, rather, rock giant. The second rock giant collapses on top of the first, the fallen one, raising its large fist and bringing it down on its opponent. There’s another boom of thunder following the collision.

‘So it’s not a storm.’ She clicks her tongue (not that it can be heard over the brawling giants above), glancing down at her girlfriend to see what she makes of it. “Uh, you think this is it… or…?”

Despite keeping her voice low, the rock giant with the upperhand looks up, then down at the duo, as if listening. This gives the downed giant an opening to knock its opponent's jaw and send it falling over to the side. The impact of its landing sends Juno and Lettie both soaring backwards through the air. Juno naturally tries to protect Lettie with her stupidly buff figure as they land and roll across the canyon.

“Stop, brother! Time out—” The giant who has just been clobbered speaks in a slow manner, as if each syllable is traveling a great distance to escape its mouth. The second giant, the brother, scoffs. “Why? Because I finally have the upperhand?”

“No,” the first giant hotly insists, then points over to Juno and Lettie. “Look, you dolt! Our sister has arrived.” The dolt looks over and raises two rocky eyebrows, leaning over the short distance to take a look at Juno and Lettie. Well, mostly Juno, taking a particular interest in her crystal arm. “Ah, I see. I see.”

It lets up off its brother and both giants now crowd the duo. (Juno cannot tell them apart for the life of her.) “You are quite small, even for a half-sister. Or quarter? I cannot tell. What think you, brother?”

“One-eighth. Look, it’s just barely her hand.”

The other looks a little closer and then leans up and nods. “Why has it taken you so long to visit us, sister?”

Even though it’s now obvious that they are claiming Juno as their sister, it still takes her a moment to realize that she has been asked a question. “Uhh, I didn’t know you were expecting me?”

“Why—”

“—of course we were!”

“You are, after all, our sister. What brings you to our match? Have you come to take on the winner? I must warn, when I win, I will not go easy on you.”

“What our brother means is that when I win, I will not be going easy on you.”

This starts an entire squabble between the brothers and Juno’s too stunned to even utter a confused "what the fuck." For a second, she even forgets why they’re here, until she registers the cool feel of her half-crystalized hand on the back of her neck. 'Right.'

“Um, hey. Hey!” She waves her arm around to try and get her “brothers’” attention before they start pummeling each other all over again. (Why is she going along with this narrative?) They turn, mid-deadlock. “Are you two the spirits of the Thundering Canyons? You friends of Dream Weaver?”

“Aye.”

“And aye-ish. We know that wretch. Friend, however, is a strong word.”

“More like a thief. Stole our knowledge—”

“—to turn people into crystals!”

Neither seem to put together what happened to Juno, bringing a new meaning to “dumb as rocks.” She decides not to make this joke now, but has every intention of sharing it with Lettie later. Juno clears her throat. “Yeah… They’re a real asshole.” The brothers nod in agreement. “That’s, uhh, actually what happened to me.”

“But…”

“You’re our sister?”

Oh for fuck’s sake. Juno pinches her brow and looks over at Lettie. “I think we need to go bury that bastard with Melvin. These fucks are just like Cindy.” She means Centi. "What do you think, babe?"

 

[ellarose]

Fucking rock bros!? Of all the spirits in this mystical world, of all the all-powerful entities they could have met with to help lift Juno’s curse on Fabel, Dream Weaver has taken them to reason with rock bros. ('We’re doomed. Positively doomed.') When Juno turns her attention to Lettie, one of the giants chuckles dumbly as they get distracted and decide to make a contest of who can throw boulders faster, just like a couple of little boys. Promptly, the ground shakes beneath them again as giant rocks are hauled off into the distance. Lettie's brow twitches as she watches this. (…Well, okay. Any other day shenanigans like these would be fun. She has to admit she'd rather enjoy having a rock throwing contest with Juno. But now is not that day or time or place or— agh!) And now the coward Dream Weaver is nowhere to be found in the face of the mirror, dipping because they knew exactly what kind of mess they were getting them into. Friends is a strong word, one of the giants said. They tricked them once and still told them to go here.

The rock bros don't know what's going on and at the same time they do. Lettie will fight them for answers if she has to!

“Hey! My girlfriend needs help you pieces of—“ Lettie waves a fist in the air, but they lift more boulders and bury the sound of her tiny faerie voice in the cacophony of it. She throws her hands over her face and drags them down, down, down. "I think..." She repeats, considering Juno's question. "Ugh. I think this is gonna be annoying as hell. But we have to try something. "

The stress Lettie’s been trying to outrun is rapidly catching up to her, preparing to dig its claws into her. (She can feel the seconds ticking away, knowing each one is a second closer to being pulled away from here. And while she’s still here, she’s got to be present. For her.) The faerie takes a deep breath. 'One, two, three. Juno needs you.' They shouldn't give up at the first sign of trouble. (Had she done that with Juno… and she tried… they wouldn’t be together like this right now, would they? That bastard cubey forcing them to connect again time after time helped them get to the place they’re at now, as much as she hates to admit it.) They'll be stubborn and resilient. They'll survive this. Somehow. Someway. They have to try something. 'We'll need to get more specific than 'something', Letts. C'mon, think!'

'Moving the earth is just about feeling for those traces of death. It’s easy when you think about what soil is and how rich with life and death it is.' Lettie recalls Juno's words to her before. Then she considers faeries and their sources. Those who can draw from the forests, from nature. There're faeries that can ask to be lent the nimbleness of the swirling winds, the elegance of waterfalls, and the strength of the mountains themselves. That’s the sort of spiel they gave them in the classroom, anyway. (And she mostly remembers the specifics of this lesson because fucking Karina Coneflower had added ‘and the annoyingness of a mosquito’ in her nasally voice on the end. Out of mischievous spite, Lettie and a few other faeries in their class sent their soul bugs after her in revenge.) They didn’t discuss faeries and the stars much. So much is unknown, undiscovered… but she finally experienced it for herself, flying among them as they lent her their energy, feeling truly powerful. (She has more potential than they ever gave her credit for back on Avangeline.) Juno only had 'scraps' back there-- and yet she still managed to tear a hole in the earth. And if their magic is joined together...? Well, the cubes have them saving worlds for a reason, right? There has to be something they can do together.

The earth isn't Lettie's source. While she does possess some connection to everything in nature, she will not be nearly as helpful as a faerie whose source is directly connected to the rock bros. That doesn’t mean she can’t help in some way, though.

“Okay. So we may not be able to reason with them using our words. But maybe we can find another way to explain what happened.” Lettie suggests, gently touching Juno’s bicep. (She tries to find patches of her skin through the crystallization, to ensure that she can feel her there.) Taking her wrist, she tugs her down gently until their crouching and she pats the ground between them. “Try feeling it out. Kinda like you were saying earlier. Reach out to them using the connection you feel with the earth and then… give them a push. Recreate what happened in your mind. You might be able to send your thoughts out to them. Sort of like you do with me.” Her brows furrow as she considers all the notes she’s made thus far. “It's kinda hard to explain, but I think it might work the same way? Faeries and spirits exist under the same umbrella. We agree to nurture the earth, to take care of it, and lend our magic to defend it. The spirits lend us their power in return.” Some lesser spirits were once faeries who lost themselves to their source. It’s not the worst way to go, all things considered.

“It should be safe to deal with them. I’m not getting any bad vibes.” Lettie nods. They're simple rock bros-- as simple as simple can be-- and it certainly doesn't seem to be a clever act. “Seems like Dream Weaver learned their devouring trick from these guys. If anyone knows what’s going on with you and how to break this curse... it’ll be them.”

'Dream Weaver didn’t take all my magic. You prevented that, but what I have left is scraps. Less than scraps, probably. I don't think I can do more than one move like what I did today. I have to be careful with it.' The faerie is an advocate for rest but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Draw on me, Juju. If you only have scraps I can give you a boost." Sure, Lettie's tired, too. She knows she may only have a few butterflies left to spare. But they can't afford to be persnickety about this when they only have three days. There's nothing she wouldn't do to lift her pirate's curse. "I trust you. We can do this... we can get through to your bros together." She nods and takes her hand. The faerie tries not to flinch feeling the cold, sharp edges of her crystal encased fingers.

They trade a meaningful glance, a nod, and get to work... but even with their proximity to the giants, it's a slog to establish a decent connection to them. Sweat beads at Lettie's brow, she squeezes down on Juno's hand with the strain... and she winces as she accidentally cuts her fingers on crystal. Blood trickles between their hands... it runs warm before bouncing around their hands like liquid electricity. Where there was nothing before, a loud rumbling follows. Loud enough to rise above even the ruckus the giant brothers are making. Now.

"Hm... what's this?" Lettie can hear one of the giant brothers contemplating high over their heads. "Look, brother." She's not sure what they're seeing, but she doesn't dare to break her focus for one second. "Oh." Is that a good oh or a bad oh? The faerie isn't sure.

"Oh. So it is Dream Weaver's doing." Yes! Finally. They seem to be getting somewhere now. "They believe the human heart might as well be cast in stone... and then they make it so. A rude generalization if you ask me." There's another rumble like thunder as the giant shakes its head. "There is nothing we can do. But there is something you can do, sister. Should you complete three noble tasks that prove the strength of your heart, you can break the curse."

"Now... what were those tasks again?" The giant scratches their head. "Oh bother. Where did we put the scroll again?"

"You didn't memorize it?" Their brother asks with an impatient huff.

"No!" The giant scoffs. "Oh, don't pretend that you are superior to me, brother. Did you memorize the scroll?" The other giant is quiet, shuffling their feet. (The ground shakes at this, throwing Lettie against Juno.) "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Oh, stars. Here they go. Lettie would offer to help find it with looking glass magic if she wasn't completely spent. And her looking glass is otherwise occupied right now... even if Dream Weaver is nowhere to be seen at present. But they're gonna need the spirit if they're gonna need to look around for this secret scroll now. Teleporting is convenient for saving time. Especially when they hardly have any of it to kill.

"Consider it four tasks, then. Find the scroll and then... you know. Complete the other tasks."

"Ah! That's a clever idea, brother!" The giant guffaws. "Clever for you, anyhow."

"Uh uh! No!" If Lettie could fly, she would be leveling tiny faerie self with their giant gazes right now. Whatever remains of her energy now, she's burning it up as she angrily waves her fist in the air "You're going to remember right this fucking instant! She only has three days." She blinks hard as tears threaten to prick again. "You need to help her! Isn't that what family's all about!?" Yeah, as if Lettie knows anything about family. Still, she's gotta try and appeal to their giant rock hearts with a heartfelt lecture of her own. She puffs her cheeks, staring the brothers down firmly. "She's your precious sister!"

 

[starboob]

It’s no one’s fault that Juno’s brothers are built of rocks and probably share half a brain cell between them. (And maybe the crystal is having that effect on Juno, if she’s claiming these rock giants as her brothers. Oh, goddess.) Yet, her ability to be understanding and empathic is hindered by the growing crystals eating up her body— bite her, honestly.

While she hasn’t felt them grow inwardly, she would really rather not risk letting the curse spread to that point— she needs to be here for Lettie. She promised. More than that, she wants to live. She gives a damn about this life now and she doesn’t want to lose it over a careless error. (But isn’t that how this works?) There’s still so much she wants to do. Aside from completing the mission, she still wants to learn how to make the perfect bone-in monster roast, figure out if she can master the other natural elements with her necromancy, watch Wormy turn into a butterfly (she still doesn’t believe Lettie that that’s what happens to cat-or-pillars), and, of course, she wants to spend the rest of her life, however long or short it might be, with her faerie, showering her in love and basking in her light. She wants that simple life with Lettie and this curse threatens all of that.

When she catches Lettie’s eyes mist with tears, she pulls her close so that her back is pressed against her abs. Maybe to remind her that she’s still here, that they haven’t lost yet. Maybe to remind herself of that, too.

At Lettie’s impassioned outburst and, perhaps, seeing their sister’s tenderness for this tiny faerie, the two rock brothers exchange a look between themselves. One scratches their head, causing tiny pebbles to shower over them, and the other shrugs.

“Brother, perhaps we ought to consider the last place we saw the scrolls?”

“Astute observation! I had not yet thought of that, but I would have.” The second giant insists. (Privately, Juno cannot believe that her fate rests in these two rockheads’ hands and is convinced that she might be doomed.) The two giants then banter between themselves, mentally retracing their steps to figure out where they last saw the scroll— most of it is gibberish to Juno, as she doesn’t know where half these locations are. Then, finally, one of the giants raises a finger into the sky, displacing some of the mists and clouds with the movement, exclaiming, “Ah! I remember, brother! We gave it to our sister so she could break Dream Weaver’s nefarious curse.”

“Correct you are, brother.” The giant nods, then looks down at Juno. “You, sister, have the scroll already. We gave it to you over three or four moons ago.”

Lettie can probably feel the pirate trembling behind her and might even feel the heat of the volcano about to explode from her chest. “I’m going to throttle Dream Weaver.” To Juno’s credit, she manages to take three deep breaths instead of outright lashing out at her idiot brothers. And when she’s reached some semblance of calm, she manages to point out, through clenched teeth, “Brothers, we met, like, thirty minutes ago. There is no way in fuckin’ hell that I have that damn scroll.”

“Sister, how can you be so sure? Have you searched your heart?”

“Yes,” responds the second, “how can you be so sure if you have not searched your heart?”

Were it not for the first brother nodding and tracing a giant glyph over Juno (and Lettie, since it’s so fucking large) and flicking it at her, she would have absolutely tried to pummel these two idiots against her better judgement. However, when the glyph hits her, sending her backwards by a few steps, the crystal sliver on her sternum glows beneath her shirt. The pirate looks down. “What the fuck…” She then lifts her gaze to Lettie to make sure she’s also seeing this. And while worry is written on her features, she’s distracted from it when she feels something pushing against her shirt from the glowing sliver. She undoes the buttons and…

Well, she doesn’t know what she was expecting, but the scroll has indeed manifested from her heart and is poking out of her chest. She swallows, then pulls it free. Juno tries to ignore how fucking weird and bizarre that was in favor of focusing on the three tasks that she has three days to complete. Her eyes quickly skim over the list— the first task is something about relighting the Fabel Star— before she hands it over to Lettie for girlfriend approval. While Lettie gives it a look over, Juno turns her attention back to her giant brothers. “Okay, that was fucking weird—”

“Extremely weird!”

“The most weird, indeed.”

“But how do I know this isn’t just a fuckin’ long-necked chicken chase? I can’t be wasting my time. My girlfriend wasn’t lying, I’m only here for three days, brothers,” she decides to continue playing the sibling card, since it’s working out for her so far, “if this curse isn’t broken.”

“Why, I guess you just have to trust your heart, dear sister.”

“Precious sister. The diamond hearted need not worry. So you only must worry if you have, say, a fluorite heart.”

“Or a talc heart.”

The brothers then proceed to go back and forth, listing off all of the soft gemstones that they know, getting progressively more heated the longer they go on. Juno pays this no mind. Her brothers are barely helpful, the instructions she’s been left with are vague— like, what the fuck is the Fabel Star and how the fuck is she supposed to relight it?— and, apparently, it’s on her own integrity to break the curse. While she believes she has more integrity than most, what if the curse doesn’t agree? What if she doesn't perform well enough while completing these tasks? What if it’s not enough?

Part of her wants to ditch these bozos and find a spirit who can actually guarantee her life, but there isn’t time to search. Especially not with the patch on her back spreading down to her tailbone and creeping up the back of her neck. She winces against it.

She doesn’t really have a choice, does she?

And she has to try. She owes it to herself, Lettie, Eliza, her crew— hell, she even owes it to Ravan, in a way. She takes the scroll from Lettie while her brothers continue to squabble over whether or not minerals count as gemstones. “I’m gonna do it.” She nods. “Unless you think there's a reason I shouldn’t, I think it’s my only shot at making this right.” Then, rather quietly, she adds, “My only shot at giving us a fair chance, too.”

Her words don’t even hang in the air for more than a second before a flash of bright light appears from the sky and the magistrate descends down from it in her signature rain of glitter. “Miss Olette Lycoris Radiata!” “I thought your surname was licorice radiance…” “At last, we have found you. How dare you shirk your responsibilities to rendezvous with your lover. Tut, tut. Please focus on your mission while captain Juno focuses on hers.” She huffs, annoyed. “The maestro will be collecting you in approximately…” She checks her wrist watch, despite not having a wrist. “Four minutes. And if they had had it their way, you would be blipped without warning, but I have tact and I believe in romance. So you have been warned this time, at least. I need no applause or praise,” as if they were going to give it, “just finish up here. Three minutes.”

 

[ellarose]

Four minutes. Four minutes that get dwindled down to three in the time that the magistrate has to deliver their news. The faerie opens her mouth, thinks better of it, and closes it again. (A vise closes around her heart. It’s impossible to breathe.) Lettie no doubt would have vehemently cursed the magistrate out at this turn of events if it didn’t mean wasting more minutes. Of which they only have three. Juno has three days. They have three minutes. She does suppose it’s better to have scraps, a little warning than none at all— but she still can’t find it in her heart to feel grateful for this lame ass effort to warn her on behalf of ‘romance’ or whatever the heck the magistrate was going on about. What do the fucking cubes know about romance?

“Find another faerie! I need to be here with her.” It’s a snap decision, Lettie will admit, but she can’t help it. The mission is important, but Juno is even more important. I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want to be powerless to stop it. Please.

“Miss Lettie, we have coordinates on the Matrix. We need you.”

“But wasn’t the Matrix on…” Lettie’s eyes widen. Avangeline. In the clutches of that bastard who stole her wings. “All… all the more reason for me to stay behind. I can’t go back to Avangeline. Not on my own. I won’t go back.” She’ll die. If she goes back she’s totally going to die. She was already going to die— but especially after what she did.

“That’s precisely why we need to go now. Their coordinates have left Avangeline for the first time since your visit. We need you to investigate.”

“And then what? You expect me to fight that freak with Thad?” Lettie balls her hands into fists in a flimsy effort to hide the fact that they’re shaking. “Thad and his noodle arms!?”

“Now, now. I’ve said nothing about fighting, missy! I said we’re going to investigate. There will be no need to provoke the entity unless there is no other choice.” The magistrate sighs as if this is all so simple. Lettie is this close to throttling it. “Perhaps Captain Juno will have her necromancy back by the time you return. Then you will be better prepared to fight alongside her! Our algorithm tells us there is indeed a chance of that possibility.”

“Fuck the algorithm.” Lettie huffs, frustrated.

“You have two minutes.” The magistrate quips before disappearing in another puff of sparkles. (…Copycat. Sparkles are her thing.)

Two minutes. What do they even do with that? (Her attempts at bargaining failed miserably. Unfortunately, there are not seven minutes for her to go through all seven stages of grief at a whirlwind trajectory.) Lettie’s fists fall open, shaking openly, and she grabs the scroll she had dropped in shock, pressing it into Juno’s hands. This is her chance.

“You three need to get your acts together and help her.” Lettie glares sternly at the rock bros. Then she holds the mirror up to the light, squints, and then reaches inside of it. The surface ripples and glows like a portal and forcibly, she yanks Dream Weaver’s spirit back to the surface. “You need to take accountability for what you did. I won’t hesitate to bury you with Melvin if I come back to find…” Her lower lip trembles. “Come back to find…” She squares her jaw.

“I understand.” Dream Weaver says, averting their eyes. Lettie can’t tell if there’s any remorse in them or not. Kinda hard to see through tears. “I’ve seen what you would do for her.”

Quickly, Lettie draws out the glyph to summon up her magic circle. She reaches inside for the souped up goggles she made for Juno and presents them to her. While she’d been waiting for a special moment to gift them to her, she realizes that this may be her last chance.

“…Here. These should help you out. If you wear them, it’ll be kinda like I’m here with you.” Lettie swallows against the tightness in her throat and nods hurriedly. “They’re brand new. I gave them a bunch of neat features. Like— if you see a thing you don’t understand, you can hit this button on the side,” She points to it, “And it’ll give you a summary if I entered one. I did that for a bunch of trees and berries. So… so you don’t lick the poisonous ones.” (The entries are not at all formatted like an encyclopedia, each one having their own personal flair.) She also puffs her cheeks, thinking back to what Juno said earlier. “Might help you memorize my full name, too. It is not… Licorice Radiance?” She does manage a wobbly little smile at that. “Juju! What kind of name is that?”

“If anyone can survive this, it’s you. I just wish I didn’t have to go.” Lettie continues, wrapping her arms around Juno. (When she hugged Lina, she didn’t know she was hugging her goodbye. That’s why she intends to hold her for as long as she has left before the cubes take her away.) “Give ‘em hell, Juno. And be careful.” She buries her face against her chest. “I love you.”

Blip!

Fucking cubes and their fucking timing. Lettie vanishes from Juno’s arms like a ghost, as if she’d never been there at all.

“That little square timed her exit so… dramatically. It truly touches the thespian in me.” One of the rock brothers sniffles. Tiny pebbles clatter down from their eyes like tears. Oh boy.

“The thespian in you? Please, brother.” The other is rolling theirs. “Don’t be so dramatic. I never knew you to take an interest in the arts.”

From their mirror, Dream Weaver sighs. “There is only so much nonsense I can tolerate.” They deadpan. “I do not wish to be buried with Melvin as much as you do not wish to be devoured, pirate. And I have seen the lengths that little faerie will go to should something happen to you…” The spirit shudders. (Or is the mirror surface rippling? Yeah, that seems to be what’s happening here. It’s turning into a portal again.) “I will take you to the star. Please do be mindful of where you step when you arrive on the other side— I wouldn’t want you to fall from the sky. You’ll locate the star up on Heaven’s Cloud.”

 

[starboob]

Juno can still feel the little faerie in her arms, her arms wrapped fiercely around her middle. (She can still feel her trembles, can still see the tears in her white eyes, making them look pearlescent.) The ghost of her warmth is still there and Juno is preparing herself for the cold chill to follow when it fades. (It’s fading.) She stands in her spot, stunned, repeating over and over again what Lettie last said to her. ‘No.’ She must have heard her wrong.

Except she knows she hasn’t made a mistake.

‘She loves me.’ It’s no revelation. She’s known. She knows. And hearing it muttered, sends a shudder through the pirate, forceful enough that she trembles. And she can’t stop trembling as she repeats those three words in her head until they sound funny, lose their meaning, and she doesn’t even recognize them.

It could be the last piece of Lettie she’ll ever have to remember. Then her fists involuntarily clutch around the goggles, drawing her attention and reminding her of their presence. No. She has these, as well as her locket. She puts the goggles over her head, letting them rest at her crown and clutches the locket over her heart, smoothing her thumb over it. ‘Does she know I love her, too?’

Regardless of the answer, it’s all the more reason to see this through to the end. As if she weren’t already going to give these tasks hell and make them her bitch, her determination is harder than her possible diamond heart. ‘I’m going to tell her myself.’ She’ll defy all the gods and goddesses in all the worlds to make it possible. There will be nothing that gets between this pirate and her faerie, she decides.

She won’t put Lettie through that loss.

Lettie won’t weep over her statue corpse. She won’t let tragedy be their ending. They have suffered enough and they deserve their happy fucking ending, even if Juno has to cleave it from the heavens themselves. She won’t be responsible for the faerie’s tears or her heartbreak or strife. ‘I’m going to fix this. I’m going to fucking fix this.’ Failure isn’t an option.

Juno looks down at the mirror, barely withholding a bitter scowl; of course that bastard only wants to help to help themselves not feel so bad. Fucking hypocrite. (Well, and to not end up with Melvin, which is understandable.) Rolling her eyes, she peers into the surface of the mirror; though she doesn't know what she's looking at exactly, the surface too small for her to get a bigger picture. However, when the spirit mentions "Heaven's Cloud," the soft pinks and oranges start to make sense.

Tilting the mirror around to angle the view, she stares into a sea of cotton candy pink clouds, highlighted with yellows and oranges; and while the coverage is dense, there are still large enough breaks that reveal the hard earth below. “Alright… Alright.” She looks up at her two rock brothers (who are somehow oblivious to Dream Weaver being in the mirror, although she supposes this isn’t altogether surprising). They look down on her, something close to concern in their giant granite eyes. “Careful, sister. Your form is not yet as powerful as your big brothers." This brother then shakes the other brother's shoulder, seeming to remember something. "Oh, brother, give sister the spark rock and obsidian dagger.”

“Of course, of course! Imagine, we let you go off without the necessary tools—” the giant laughs, filling the canyon with more thunder, while also drawing a glyph to summon the items that present themselves to Juno. “Your tiny faerie girlfriend would bury us with the accursed Melvin.”

“Do you even know what the Melvin is, brother?”

Juno tunes out the rest of the conversation, taking the objects that appear in front of her and inspecting them only briefly before she pockets them. She says a quick goodbye to her brothers, though she’s not sure they hear her over their argument about whether or not Melvin is the fifth element. Whatever. She shrugs and proceeds to angle the mirror so that she'll be positioned directly over one of the large cloud islands.

She sticks her arm through the portal first, then squeezes the rest of her upper body past the barrier, wriggling until she's able to push off the ground behind her and falls down into the skies, flailing despite her experience with falling from great heights. (It's just that this time she doesn't have a faerie cushion to break her fall.) “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She bellyflops hard onto one of the cotton candy cushions, groaning into the cloud before she recovers.

The mirror lands next to her a second later, Dream Weaver making queasy noises from within. “You better not fuckin' throw up in there. Lettie won’t be fuckin' happy about that,” she chides, picking up the object as she pushes herself up. The spirit clutches the edge of the mirror as they recover, straightening themself up after they consider the ire of the fucking faerie. “I do not doubt the hell she is capable of bringing. But enough of her, pirate. Do you see the Fabel Star?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so.” She shades her eyes with her hand, narrowing her gaze as she stares at a faintly glowing orb sitting on one of the clouds. It pulses with a weak orange-red light. “It can’t be as fucking easy as striking the spark rock…?”

“Of course not. Were that the case, someone else would have already.”

“So what’s the catch?”

“The Seeker who stole the first light of the Fabel Star, they will come after you. They reside on the surface of the world, presenting themself as the Guardian of Light, dictating who gets to bask in their warmth.” Dream Weaver’s words drip with bitterness and Juno realizes that this must be one of the seeker’s who used the spirit’s gift for themself instead of their people. “In the years since their thievery, they have grown in power and are more magic than they are mortal. Not too unlike the divine spirits that reside here. All mortals thus far have failed and spirits… We prefer to keep peace amongst ourselves lest we break our own world in two.” The spirit pauses and, with a sigh, continues, “It’s understandable if you do not wish to worry the faerie by taking on these tasks.”

“I never fuckin’ said that.” Juno’s already making her way to the failing orb as they speak. She promised to wrest her future from the heavens and she doesn’t care what entity stands in her way. That's never stopped her before. “If this is what it takes, then I’ll give that fucker hell.” She shrugs, pulling out the spark rocks now that she's standing close enough to the fire. It's warmth barely reaches Juno, the flame somehow feeling cold. The pulse of it, too, reminds her of a heart like one of a dying world.

This is all the more reason for Juno to defy the asshole who stole from the Fabel Star. She’s dealt with dead worlds enough to know they’re all shitholes. Even if Fabel doesn’t look so on the surface, it's about to become a shithole with that nightmare chasm opening up and assholes like this seeker playing god.

She strikes the rocks together, sending their sparks leaping into the flame—!!

***​

It’s late in the evening on Desdemonia and the air is hot still, unrelenting even though the sun is tucked beneath the horizon. Often, Eliza wonders if it had been a mistake to stay on the ground rather than take to the skies where at least the wind would be blowing through her salt and pepper hair. But then she considers the people on the ground and all she can do for them here. The sky is for the stewards and thieves— though she guesses those are both one and the same.

The woman, tanned by the sun and with the leathery, lined skin to show for it, drops her heavy pack onto the seat of the back booth in the seedy dive bar. She pushes it in further before sliding along the bench, her companions scooting in after her. There’s Delaney and Marta, who both appear to be around the same age as Eliza; a younger woman covered in burn scars, Ainsley; and the kid, Nico, who carries himself like an adult. A few others also entered the bar with them, but they don’t join the rest of the company and instead strategically occupy different booths and seats in the event something goes down.

Eliza settles her arm around the kid, pulling him against her. “You did good today, kid. Don’t think those punks will try to raid us anytime soon.” Her eyes flick up to Delaney. “Mind getting us a round? I’m beat.” Delaney nods, kissing Marta on the cheek before she slips out of the booth and Eliza turns her attention back to the kid (who is actually a teen). “Don’t worry ‘bout what the others say. Everyone makes fuckin— Marta, don’t you even start! It was his first time dealing with those assholes.”

This shuts the other woman up, though she makes her annoyance known by huffing, crossing her arms, and scowling off to the side. Eliza waves it off, knowing better than to stifle the woman’s frustrations. Better she make her feelings known than keep quiet and plot against her later.

Eliza opens her mouth to continue, and is interrupted when a combination thud and rumble shakes the establishment with a violent tremor. Several patrons are knocked off of their feet, glasses break, and sediment loosens from the ceiling. Eliza throws herself over the kid, thinking it might be an earthquake, just as two bodies fall through the tin ceiling and break the round table her company had been sitting at. Eliza peeks at the intrusion, a frown twisting her features. “What the fuck?”

The barkeep stands shocked at the bar, though his anger is quickly rising over the damage done to his “fine” establishment. Eliza’s not too pleased herself, not wanting to deal with more bullshit today. She grabs the white haired woman by the collar of her clothing, lifting her up to face her. “What the fuck!? You ever heard of the damn door— fucking skyward piece of shit!”

 

[ellarose]

A faint glimmer of light sparkles against the perpetually twilight sky. Calytrix, the faerie once known as the the Fabel Star rouses from a deep slumber as it ignites a signal in her heart. Someone has... Unable to believe it until she sees it with her own eyes, she pulls herself up in the center of the ornate lantern that has been her prison for years, pressing her palms flat against the glass. Wide-eyed, she stares out the window at the signal beckoning to her from Heaven's Cloud. The light has been restored to her home in the sky. It's calling out to her. She can see it all the way from the surface of Fabel.

Someone has set out to challenge the so-called Guardian of Light. Who would dare? Who would be so bold? So reckless?

"Who has..." The Guardian of Light herself murmurs distractedly, having now seen precisely what Calytrix saw in the distance. The lady rises imperiously from her throne, her robes flowing behind her like a waterfall bathed in the purest sunlight. The higher she stands, the more intimidating the sharp sun, moon, and stars appear on her golden crown. She wears her calm face of composure quite masterfully. When she touches the lantern, though, Calytrix can feel her outrage simmering down, down, down. It pierces through the faerie with such violence that she loses her shape, glitching into a flame of pure energy. "Why, it would seem I have a challenger. Unfortunately, that means I have no time to play with you anymore. I have decided you shall perish for your crimes."

The Guardian of Light kneels to meet the eye level of the prisoner currently cowering before her throne. They try to protest, but she shushes them and gently caresses their tear-stained cheek. The faerie within the lantern braces herself for the worst. (She's been drawn on for morbid deeds such as these for years and she will never accustom herself to them.) "Be at peace. As you meet your end by my hand, your soul shall be purified." Then the lady touches the prisoner's forehead. "You really should be thanking me." That's all it takes. A ribbon of light slashes them in half. More ribbons spider out from there, criss-crossing over the prisoner's flesh and blood until nothing but a clean pile of bones remain on the floor.

There hadn't been any time for the prisoner to scream. But Calytrix can hear the wails of their wronged soul scraping inside of her head.

Let this be the last time. Calytrix sends a silent prayer to the stars. Please let me hope.

The Guardian of Light grumbles softly to herself, fluffing out her robes and reaching for her staff. With the end, she draws a giant glyph against the marbled floor of her temple. It glows her signature gold before elegantly spiriting herself and her precious lantern to Heaven's Cloud.

"Who are you, challenger?" The Guardian of Light's voice booms ominously across the cloud. Fainter clouds part for her as she drifts down before the 'challenger' who holds the spark rock and obsidian dagger. Juno. (But she doesn't know that yet. She is not that powerful.) The lady squints, finding she doesn't recognize this person. Not a follower... but altogether, she does not look as though she belongs on Fabel. "Who sent you?"

The Guardian Light strikes the cloud with her staff, igniting it with golden light. (A harsh, almighty gold that judges and damns.) The faerie within the lantern cries out as her magic is drawn on yet again, struggling to make her shape noticeable so that she might plead with the challenger for help.

"If you challenged me by mistake, now is your chance to say so." The Guardian of Light tilts her head to the side, a smirk warping her otherworldly features. "Otherwise I will have to obliterate you."

***​

What the fuck? Ah, it really takes Lettie back. Back to those days that Juno has already apologized endlessly for, which were filled with a variety of what the fucks, piece of shits, and collar grabs. She flinches and stares blearily up at the woman who lifted her up. (Not gentle enough to be Juno. This isn't Juno, unless cubey found a time machine or some shit bananas like that. Juno is... back on Fabel. Fighting to save her life without her there by her side. Don't think about it right now, Letts. It'll get you killed.) Anyway, this lady is totally gonna stretch out the shirt and hoodie that Juno lent her if she hangs here for any longer! These clothes still smell like her. They're... they're important. The faerie glitches out of the woman's hold, flittering across the bar to a spacious area where she can give herself some room to breathe and assess the situation she's found herself in. Everyone in the bar holds their collective breath and stiffen at the sight of her unfamiliar magic. Some reach for the weapons at their sides.

Seeing the woman with distance between them, a once-over quickly tells Lettie that she recognizes this woman, hardened but not cold. The lines of her old skin respectably detailing all the fights she's weathered and endured on Desdemonia.

"Eliza..." Lettie breathes, awestruck. She's on Desdemonia with Eliza. Thad groans behind her, reminding her once more of Juno's absence. Shit. Shit! Is this actually happening? "I'm sorry we left the way we did. You saved us and I--" Realizing her mistake, she sticks her fist against her mouth. Shit. That never happened, dumbass! (Juno's voice hisses in her mind-- but not cruelly. Just generally chiding in her tough-but-gentle way. Ugh. She misses her already.) And more than that, she doesn't know exactly why Juno parted ways with Eliza. Dream worlds exaggerate or fudge some of the finer details. Even then, she doesn't know for sure what circumstances separated them. She does know what brought them together, though. It's thanks to Eliza that Juno survived and got to grow up. It's thanks to her pulling her back from that ledge. Lettie's eternally thankful to her for that.

"You know this skyward?" Marta raises a brow, rubbing the side of her face as she rights herself from where she fell on the ground.

"Hey! Lookit those eyes of hers." Another patron observes, drawing closer to her. Lettie backs up cautiously-- but he keeps pressing in, intent on staring into them. "You here to tell us our futures, little miss?"

"I'm more interested in those ears of hers. They're all pointy and shit." His buddy wipes his lips with the back of his hand and closes in as well. He unrolls a wrinkly wanted poster from his pocket. Lettie squints at it and her jaw almost drops at how appalled she is at her inaccurate depiction. (Her ears aren't that big! Nor is her nose that upturned. Okay, that's just mean. Schoolyard bully tactics. Fucking Cathy.) "Unusual, wouldn't you say? Ain't she the 'faerie' the duchess is lookin' for?" He takes another moment to compare her with the poster. "Eh. On second thought..."

Lettie's cheeks blaze red and she grabs self-consciously at her ears. Wasn't this supposed to be a stealth mission? (Fucking cubey, fucking everything up!) "I'm not fuckin' skyward." The faerie puffs her cheeks, annoyed. "And that's obviously not me! You think I would be dumb enough to crash-land in the middle of a joint like this with a bounty on my head?" She tilts her head to the side and gathers her hair up into a ponytail, mostly to show that she's serious and will brawl if need be. (Might be the only way out of here.) She tries talking the way she envisions Juno talking, trying to bolster some strength to see this through. "Back off. I'm not here to fight anybody."

Lettie tries to spit like Juno showed her once and fails miserably at it. Shit. This encourages obnoxious jeering from the rude dude duo.

"Not skyward? What've you got on your face there? Sparkles?" The man mocks, chuckling and elbowing his friend as they crowd her into a corner. "Then where do you come from? 'Cause you're obviously not from around these parts. The ground would've torn a cute, tiny thing like you apart by now."

A construct rises behind the two men and effortlessly clonks their heads together. They fall together in a heap, revealing Thad behind them. Lettie tilts her head confusedly at him. (Did he just...?)

"There's been a mistake. Can't you see? My companion is clearly an elf. For one, she doesn't have any wings." Thad supplies, presenting her with the elegant sweep of his arm. Lettie seethes, pointing at his face, throat, chest, stomach, and then his balls. Reminding him. He gulps but nonetheless mouthes 'play along.' "...And she has this buff pirate girlfriend who will beat me up if I don't bring her back in one piece. So stay back!"

Pirate girlfriend. Ugh, Thad! Internally, Lettie slaps a hand over her forehead. So much for stealth.

"You gotta be shitting me. Faeries and elves don't fuckin' exist! Whoever that person is on the poster, she's gotta be wearing some prosthetics on her back. Bet the pointy ears are fake, too. Skyward costume shit." Another patron shakes their head. "Nah, there's no mistaking it. She's the one who's been travelin' with Captain Juno."

 

[starboob]

Eliza cocks her brow. ‘How do I know this woman?’ She helps out a lot of people, so it’s not impossible that they have met before, though she would think that someone as striking as her would stand out in her memory. ‘No, we’ve never met.’ She’s convinced of that, but she’s still not comfortable with the fact that this woman somehow knows her. The vigilante tries to keep a low profile for a reason; she doesn't need to end up on one of those wanted posters herself. ‘Goddess, this woman is going to give me away.’

Regardless, Eliza isn’t one to stand by while these two stir up trouble and show off the blazing targets on their backs. ‘Were they born yesterday?’

“Eliza,” Marta starts, slowly, reading the other woman’s expression. “No. You can’t—”

Eliza’s already stepping across the bar, though she pauses midway upon hearing that name. ‘What the fuck has that little punk gotten herself into?’ She has half a mind to turn around, to turn her back on these fools. Juno’s name isn’t good currency and her recent affiliations have made her all but scum to Eliza.

Even so, she made a promise to offer help to anyone in need and while she doesn’t know whether these two are deserving, they are clearly in over their heads. She’ll get them out of this mess their inexperience has created. It’s what she does best.

She continues her stride, putting herself between the two greenhorns and the other patrons. She’s not a particularly tall woman, not like Juno, but it doesn’t matter. The air stills around them when Eliza straightens her back, staring each thirsty bounty hunter wannabe in the eye. “These assholes aren’t worth your trouble, I assure you.”

Her company rises from their seats, standing with their leader (even the exasperated Marta); some summon their skeletons or spirits, others bring out their weapons. The patrons do the same and, soon, the bar is full of the living and the dead (to the visible dismay of the owner).

Everyone in the bar is sizing each other up. The air thickens with each passing second.

Eliza’s eyes flicker over to some movement at the back of the bar, where she had been sitting, as Nico raises a glass above his head. Before she can even gesture or indicate for him to sit down, he brings the object over some bastard’s head. ‘That fucking kid.’

All hell breaks loose soon after that and the bar is transformed into an all out brawl where the only rule is: survive. “Stay close to me,” Eliza orders. The twig wielding one at least knows some necromancy and the white haired woman seemed ready to hold her own earlier, so at least she doesn’t have to watch them entirely; she only needs to make sure they stick close.

One burly patron comes directly at Eliza with a chain as a weapon. The woman moves into the attack, blocking the onslaught with her forearm that she then uses to wrap around her attacker’s arm, securing them under her armpit. She’s quick to sweep their legs from under them and delivers a decisive punch to their face, knocking them out cold. She shakes away the chain that had wrapped around her arm, surveying the other opponents.

When two assailants from opposite ends try to rush her at once, she jumps back at the last second to let them collide into each other. 'Two more down.' Similarly, the rest of her company doesn’t seem to be delivering killing blows; mainly they disarm and knock out, but a few, she can see, are in hairier situations and use lethal force as necessary.

As Eliza assesses, another patron tries to get her from behind, but one of Ainsley’s spirits rises up from the ground and catches the patron, then absorbs into them. A second later, Ainsely’s spirit exits the patron’s body, leaving them passed out on the ground.

Thaddeus, to his credit, manages to watch Lettie’s back and his own with the two large constructs he created earlier. Still, with so many other necromancers around him, using their skills in ways he’s never thought of, his mind races with panic. He clutches his wand (not a twig) close to his chest. (He also almost hurls upon seeing someone’s veins ripped from their flesh.) “Fuck, fuck, fuck! We’re going to die. We’re totally going to die. Those death boxes have totally sent us here to die and your girlfriend is going to resurrect my corpse and beat its ass!!” To say he’s having a full on meltdown would be putting it nicely. “How does this world even not know about elves or faeries!? What the fuck is a skyward!?”

The brawl still rages on even if Thad is close to curling into a little ball like a sorceress faced with an ogre.

***​

The eager sparks leaps into the cold dying flame and, for just a second, the flame gives a flicker, like a candle about to be blown out by the wind. Then, in a sudden burst, the entire sky ignites into bountiful golden light, stretching as far as the eye can see. The heat of the flame is intense, yet doesn’t burn. It bathes and kisses, gentle and nurturing like a lover.

Still, the brilliance is all consuming and Juno has to raise her hand to shield her eyes from the majesty of the star. Remembering her goggles, she pulls them over her eyes hurriedly. The visor automatically adjusts to the brightness, providing shade to protect her corneas from the Fabel Star. (She reckons this shade could probably withstand the cube’s fucking light, too. Lettie really put a lot of thought into these.) She clenches her fist over her locket before her attention is drawn behind her.

She whips around, letting go of the locket and holding up the dagger in defense. (As if a dagger can do anything against a fucking guardian— self-made or no. Fucking rockheads!) Juno doesn’t let her nerves show, even with everything on the line.

The light that shines from the lantern is different than the light from the star— the star is pure and loving and the lantern is corrupted and damning. She doesn’t need Lettie’s goggles to tell her that. (Not that they say anything right now. They’re scanning the Guardian of Light and lantern both, but she’s too far for Lettie’s entry to show up.) Already, she hates this piece of shit. And she shows it by hocking up a wad of spit. “I’m a nobody, but at least I’m not a pathetic pretender.” The pirate smirks. Anger has always made her stupid, so maybe she can get the guardian to give into her own. “You dress like a knock-off goddess. I’d like to see you try to smite me, bitch.”

Juno might have damned herself with that, as the guardian doesn’t hesitate to show she means business. She stamps her staff against the clouds once more; the lantern brightens and ribbons of light reach for the pirate. She starts to dodge, but Dream Weaver interrupts her. “Use the dagger.”

Yeah, fucking right. Juno continues her motion and jumps over to another cloud, but, already, the guardian is sending more ribbons towards her. “Fuck.” She ducks, one ribbon just grazing her nose with searing heat that spreads through the rest of her face. “Fuck!”

“Use the damn dagger, pirate!”

Flat on her back, she’s not going to be quick enough to maneuver away from the next attack. The ribbons come at her again and, this time, she arcs the dagger through them, ending the spell. Juno blinks in surprise. “Oh, shit.”

However, she’s soon on her feet, knowing better than to keep herself on her back with an opponent who plays god. She can’t tell what the guardian makes of this, but she doesn’t send ribbons after Juno this time. Instead orbs of light blink from the lantern and spread across the clouds. They glitch and take on different shapes. At first, they take on Lettie’s shape and wave her towards them, but the goggles quickly adjust and show them as orbs once more. Juno hits the button at the side and an entry appears, “Juju, just don’t. Those are will-o-wisps; they’re essentially the opposite of nightmares. It’s some of the more fucked up faerie magic.”

Her heart clenches, grief filling her, but she latches onto one piece of the entry that helps her snap out of her grief. She eyes the lantern. ‘Faerie magic?’

Hell fucking no.

Juno rushes towards the guardian, cutting through the illusions. As she does so, the light absorbs into the obsidian dagger, causing it to glow from its center. The glow increases with each attack she cuts through— more illusions, more ribbons, and dangerous fireflies. (She does try to avoid the fireflies, knowing what Lettie’s butterflies are capable of.) The guardian lets up no more than Juno does, perhaps still convinced that brute force alone will ever be enough to take down the pirate— necromancer or not.

As the light is captured by the dagger, a blade made of light starts to lengthen from it, giving Juno a wider range and helping her keep her distance. ‘A sword?’

This mild distraction is enough that the guardian is able to use her divine staff to strike Juno across the face. (A notice over her goggles flashes, “Juju! Quit blocking with your face. We’ve been over this.” There’s even a little doodle of a cheek-puffing faerie. Damn, she really did think of everything.) The pirate stumbles a few paces, but manages to find her footing just before she reaches the edge. ‘Fuck. Too close.’ She spits out a mouthful of blood, rubs her cheek, and raises her sword once more.

Staff and sword clash, lighting the entire sky with awesome morning light— perhaps the first this twilight world has seen since their star was stolen.

 

[ellarose]

"That was pretty gross, I know, but you gotta pull yourself together Thad! Use your... uh, your IQ!" "My IQ tells me we're going to fucking die!" With brutes infiltrating their space, Lettie breathes a disgruntled sigh as she weaves through them to make her way back towards the panicking necromancer. (Yeah, yeah. She's going to save Thad! It's not because she's particularly fond of the guy who insists on calling her an elf at every given opportunity-- but he's her new partner. She's gotta.) While she can get by most of them on her feet, she'll glitch by those who hurl a number of spiky, pointy, deadly weapons at her. Yikes! This is a bar brawl full of people whose first instinct is to face-punch, basically. This is the world where Juno, a confirmed face-puncher, comes from after all. It does check out.

Juju. Lettie clutches her locket. Ah! No! She's cannot afford to be all broody and dramatic about her girlfriend right now. (Rest assured, she will be later. If there is a later.) She has to trust that she's gonna do everything she can to survive and also survive to get back to her. Thinking too much might just get her killed. It's probably a good thing she makes this resolve when she does, because she narrowly avoids a knife to the face, flinching as it nicks her ear. "What the fuck..." The brute mutters, seeing the blood spilling and noticing where it's coming from. "It's real? You're a freak!" Oh, he did not. She takes advantage of his shock and punches him square in the face.

"I think you're pretty cute. Wanna dance?" One of the assholes fixates on the faerie with a particularly eager gleam in his eyes (it's a look she knows all too well) and she narrowly dodges punches swung her way-- left, right, then down before she swings her leg upwards to kick him in the groin. As he falls to his knees where he belongs, Lettie rises back up and hops on his back to slam him onto the ground. She flips her butterfly dagger in her hand to knock him out with the hilt.

A punch lands to the side of Lettie's face, catching her off guard. She's thrown off the brute and onto the floor in a tiny heap, her ears ringing. Someone's shouting. Through hazy vision, she sees someone holding off the guy who just punched her. Her heart flutters in her chest. Juju...? No. She fights kinda like Juno, holds her stance and fists the same way. But it's Eliza. What made her decide to help them, anyway? No, they can sort that out later. For now...

Lettie's about to spit the blood that gathered in her mouth... but then holds it instead. Even though it's super gross, she holds it instead. Lets it gather. It's her blood. Surely she can find a use for it, too. (Faerie's are so often used as a resource that she forgets she can... well, use her own resources. Maybe? They drill it into young faeries not to, but--) On the ground, she gets a closer look at one of the wanted posters on the floor. That reward... Noticing movement in her peripheral, she tosses her dagger at some guy attempting to swing at Thad, hitting him directly in the shoulder. His arm is thrown back, hanging limply at his side. Before he can advance on her, though, Eliza puts herself between them and fights the guy off.

Quickly, Lettie scrapes herself back up to her feet and scrambles back to Thad's side.

"It's me they're after. That reward the duchess is offering..."

"So you're gonna sacrifice yourself? Okay, cool." He raises a shaky thumbs up. Geez. So much for protecting her! "Good luck!"

"No, Thad. No!" Lettie smacks him over the head. She spits her blood into her palm, her heart racing. "I'm gonna try something. But you gotta... you gotta take care of me afterwards. Okay?" The faerie's cheeks puff up in warning. "Seriously. Don't let anybody squish me. If I get squished, I'm gonna squish your ass when I come back to haunt you as a ghost."

Okay. Lettie focuses on the drops of blood gathered in her palms, her skin gleaming faintly. Her eyes flash like crystalized kaleidoscopes as her blood floats into the air above her open palms. It flashes with holographic colors as it reforms itself into a butterfly. With it, she sculpts the most complex, lifelike illusion she's ever made. A duplicate of herself. As it rises, she shrinks her true self down to her small (smaller) size and climbs onto Thad's leg. She pulls at the fabric of his pants to get his attention. Automatically, he cups his hands around her and slides her into his pocket.

Ugh. It reeks of his goth boy perfume in here! Lettie covers her nose and mouth as she focuses on sends her illusion off into the world-- glitching it through the brawl and beyond it into Desdemonia. The brawlers react, shouting that she's getting away and yelling a number of insults and slurs that make her want to punch all of their faces as they stomp out after her. "Get her!"

Good. Good. That should get those guys off their backs... for now. Lettie slumps exhaustedly in Thad's pocket. She used the last bit of magic she had left in her with that one-- between healing that corrupt spirit and all of those glitches earlier. He scoops her out, likely before he can forget she's there, and finds a safe place (she hopes) to set her down on the counter. "Well, that did it. They're gone." Then he gulps. "Actually, not all of them... uh..."

The teen, Nico, unexpectedly pops up on the other side of the bar. He wrinkles his nose, staring confusedly at Thad. "Who the fuck are you talking t-- woah." Then he notices Lettie, who is currently as small as his thumb. Excitedly, he he grabs a nearby beer glass and turns it upside down over the tiny faerie, trapping her inside of it. (Shit! She doesn't have the energy to glitch herself out of this one.) "Eliza! Hey, you guys gotta come see this." He presses his chin to the bar counter, his eyes full of wonder as he stares at her through the glass. "You're so tiny. What are you?" "Hey, kid!" One of the women in Eliza's group approaches to make sure he's not getting himself into trouble. When she sees what he's looking at, she stops short. "What the... what the fuuuuuck...?"

"...I'm a faerie." Lettie supplies softly. Eliza... helped them back there. Maybe it's stupid, maybe it's because she reminds her so much of Juno-- because of what she knows-- but she wants to acknowledge that help with honesty. Loyalty is the only currency. "I'm the fucking faerie. The one from the posters. Even if the pictures are totally inaccurate." ...Cathy, that fucking bitch!

"Nah, those posters look nothing like you. You're not ugly." The teen supplies bluntly, nodding. Lettie decides then and there that the kid's all right. "You don't have wings, either." He tilts his head to the side. "...Hey, and how do you know Eliza? She's never told me about any fuckin' faeries."

"My wings... that's a long story. I lost them. They were torn off." Lettie bites her lip before it can tremble, gripping at her bleeding ear. No time for lamenting now. "And how I know Eliza, that's-- that's an even longer story. We've never actually met." She shakes her head, at a loss. What the fuck is even happening right now? "I appreciate you stepping in for us. I promise I'm not here to hurt anyone. Loyalty's the only currency, right? I just... I need a sec to rest. That's all. Then we'll be on our way." She looks at the bewildered people gathered around her, no doubt laying all of their eyes on a faerie for the first time. "We're actually here looking for someone. The bastard who took my wings... and something else, too. It's this relic that might help us heal Desdemonia. Have any of you seen any shifty people around? People who don't quite... fit here?"

"People like you characters?" Marta starts confrontationally, but Delaney elbows her in the side. They all seem to shift their gazes to Eliza as their leader. "I dunno. What's your call on this, Eliza?"

***​

A knock-off goddess. To say the Guardian of Light is appalled would be an understatement. Nearly a thousand years have spanned since someone dared challenge her for her star's dazzling light. It is known all across the land that it is a fool's errand. And before her now stands a fool. She struck a spark of rebellion when she thought she'd all but put them all out. Any sign of deceit and she snuffed out their lights, making hers shine brighter yet by comparison. What are those... bug-like eyes on her face? (They're goggles. But the high and mighty Guardian of Light doesn't possess the almighty wisdom to know that.) By now, the illusions would have run her over the side of the cloud. Why haven't they? And why does she possess the obsidian blade? Where did she find it?

"Has Dream Weaver sent you here to do their bidding, mortal?" The Guardian of Light asks as their weapons clash, sending sparks of light across the brilliant, fresh morning skies. "Dreams are not nearly as powerful without the night sky. The old spirit is just bitter. Weak. Less than dirt beneath my divine feet! What an utter fool you are for trusting them." (The people below will see the change in the color of the sky. Perhaps they will marvel at it. They should know better, though. For if they show signs of betrayal for even an instant, she will end them with the flick of her finger.) The Guardian is quick, but her opponent is also quick. (...Perhaps even quicker. She does not acknowledge this, but Calytrix feels her doubts squirming through her. It gives the faerie hope.) The Guardian mustn't exhaust herself too soon if she is to maintain her title. With the striking change of the sky, she must also go to ensure that the people below do not rise up against her.

Their blades clash hard and fast, but neither manages to strike the other. When it becomes clear that they are evenly matched like this, the Guardian of Light draws on the power of her star in order to levitate, also pulsing out a blast of force to throw the pirate backward. (The faerie inside the lantern unleashes a scream unheard by them all as her magic is siphoned from her.) "As fun as this has been, I have far more important matters to attend to." Majestically raising her arm in an arc, she touches her forehead. The sun unlatches itself from the dazzling crown on her head and floats down towards the cloud in a sea of sparkles. Gradually, it grows larger and larger... until it becomes a giant muscled human figure with a sun for a head. A spear magics itself into their big fist and several eyes blink open on the sun's surface, glaring down at Juno.

"Farewell, challenger." With that, the Guardian of Light has officially dropped the first opponent down upon the battlefield. The sun.

"Play nicely." The Guardian of Light smirks, speaking gently to the sun as if it's her precious child. "Return to me when you are through with her."

"This will be your first true test, pirate Should you win this fight, the sun will rise to it's rightful place in the sky and morning will be returned to Fabel for good." Dream Weaver informs Juno of this, knowing well that the Guardian will not explain shit. "You saw the other pieces on her crown, did you not? After this you will need to fight the moon. And then the stars." She continues slyly. "Only after that will you face the Guardian herself. But you should not worry should you survive to that point. Once you've taken her crown, she will not be nearly as powerful as she is now. She is nothing without the magic she's stolen, aft-- look out!"

The sun wastes no time in kneeling and tilting its face towards Juno. Their eyes flash gold for an instant moment before they start spewing daggers made of flames right for her! The goggles readings flicker around the daggers, working as quickly as the faerie might in that moment to reveal that some of these are real while others are no more than illusions, tricks of the light. So if she angles herself in just the right way...

 

[starboob]

Eliza holds up a cloth to her brow to staunch the bleeding. She eyes the two off-worlders as the woman offers her explanation. She's not yet convinced that her and her company need to do anything more to help them.

But she would be lying if she said she weren’t curious about that bastard, Juno. Ever since finding out that the kid had grown up and allied herself with the duchess of the Lower West, she’s long since mourned the Juno she once knew. She’s left that love behind, but not necessarily for good. It’s just that she can’t let herself get caught up in the hope that the Juno she once knew might still exist. Hope is lethal in this world. And she’s made her peace knowing that, should their paths ever cross again, she will do what needs to be done.

Just because she’s on the duchess’s shit-list doesn’t mean she’s turned a new leaf.

However, when the faerie utters Eliza’s signature phrase, all in the company steal covert glances at their leader. But knowing that phrase doesn’t mean shit. She can’t let it mean shit and risk her company. Her company is already bloodied and bruised, with the necromancers having made the largest sacrifice to protect these two. ‘These two are just more trouble for us. And if the duchess finds out—’

Her brow cocks upon talk of healing Desdemonia. Just what sort of dust does Juno have them snorting?

With all eyes on her, waiting for her decision, she sucks in a breath and moves over to the bar top. She pushes Nico to the side with a stern look alone and he all but shrinks away, knowing he’s messed up twice today. (She’ll have to talk to him later about starting that fight. Even if it would have happened regardless, she tries to teach these kids that they don’t always need to strike first.)

Keeping her hard gaze on the teen, she lifts up the beer glass. “Well, first thing, we don’t take hostages or prisoners.” The teen nods, his cheeks practically blistering with heat. She keeps her eyes on him for a few seconds longer then turns to address the faerie. “Forgive him, he’s still learning. But we’ve already done more than we should have, sticking our necks out for you.” She gestures to her people, their various injuries. If this woman understands anything of Desdemonia, then she’ll also understand why they can’t continue offering their help. A woman wanted by the duchess is a dead woman and so are any who help her targets. They’ve already done too much. She won’t risk her company. “It’s on yourselves now to stay out of the duchess’s hands.” She also considers the woman’s question for a moment and then shakes her head. “Sorry, we haven’t seen any off-worlders outside of yourselves.”

She’s content to leave it at that and is about to signal for them to clean up the bar, as best they can, so that they can head out, but a voice pipes up from the back. “Well…”

Eliza looks over to the voice, to a kid being supported by two others. Mauve. Nico’s twin. She’s got a prosthetic leg made of bone, though, right now, it looks like it was broken during the fight. That’ll be the second time today, both because of Nico. She’ll need to make sure they don’t quarrel tonight.

Mauve chews on her lip and Eliza gives her an encouraging nod to continue. The teen shifts, straightening out her posture, and tires to even the tremor in her tone. “Those punks earlier, Eliza… They looked like stewards, sure, but there was something inhuman about them.” She wrings her hands together. “When I tried to bend their spirits, they were empty. Cold. It was like reaching into the void. And the way they moved?”

“Thought it was just me,” Delaney mutters. Marta looks at her in surprise. “Swore I saw them slithering more than… Running and shit.”

“Shit.” Another, Brooklyn, chimes in. “Thought I was tripping when I saw one with horns and fangs.”

There’s a murmur through the group, nodding heads, and Eliza wonders why none spoke up earlier if they felt something was off. But perhaps they simply convinced themselves it was all mind tricks. Desdemonia is full of them. They probably also figured that they wouldn’t have to think about those punks again. And it’s not surprising, she supposes, that they would choose now to share their uncertainties with the evidence at hand. That woman’s magic earlier, for example… That shit isn’t from Desdemonia. ‘More off-worlders than just these two? And, somehow, Juno is involved. Shit.’

Is this a good thing? A bad thing?

Eliza deliberates for a moment, staring hard at Olette (at least, that’s what the posters claim her name is). Her brown eyes appear hard at first, then soften. She lifts her gaze to the teen. “Mauve, do you believe her?” The teen nods her head. “And you think those punks earlier have something to do with her story?” She nods again. Eliza sucks her teeth.

Mauve has a good instinct for people, they all know it. If not for her, Marta would have been left stranded long ago and trusting the kid then has since paid off. She looks around the room at her company. None protest, not even Marta. ‘Alright.’

Eliza sets the butterfly knife down on the counter and meets Olette’s gaze. “Good eye.” She turns back towards her company and adds from over her shoulder, “Help us clean this place up and camp with us tonight. Nights on the ground are rough, you’ll be safer with us.” She also wants to hear more about whatever it is this woman is involved with, if it involves messing with Desdemonia. (And maybe she wants to know about her first kid.) It already screams that she should leave it alone, but if she did, would she really be Eliza?

“Oh." Eliza pauses, remembering something. She turns, staring at the twig wielder but addressing Olette. "That twig wielder,” she points, as if it's not obvious. "He’s your responsibility. He fucks up, you fuck up. Watch him.”

***​

Sweat beads over and rolls down Juno’s brow, her back, her arms. Her clothes stick to her, she has to continually adjust her grip on the sword, and she can feel blisters forming on her palms despite them being already calloused. It’s effort to continue breathing and yet this fight isn’t over.

The Guardian leaves and sics her sun on the pirate. The Guardian gets to leave when she’s tired. Juno has to summon dregs of strength to make sure she even has a chance to rest. It’s not fair, but Juno’s never been dealt a fair hand.

Idly, she listens to Dream Weaver’s explanation, keeping her eye on the bright hulking giant before her, trying to size it up for weaknesses. (What is the sun even weak against? Somehow, she doesn’t think this light sword is going to affect it much.) The goggles only raise question marks over the being, confused whether it’s magic, divine, nature, or something else entirely.

Juno notices the attack before the spirit announces it. As the goggles frantically work to give her information, she’s about to lay herself flat to the clouds and take her chances. But then they show her what’s real, giving her a second to bend her limbs in such a way that she manages only a nick from one of the blades— though like the ribbon that grazed her nose earlier, it burns straight through her, like it could melt bone.

She barely has the chance to recover before the sun is barreling towards her, spear aimed directly for her heart. She twists and strikes down on the spear, before it can touch her. The sun doesn’t slow and is thrusting and slashing once more. Juno struggles to keep up with the attacks and each time their weapons meet, waves of shock radiate through her bones. She’s half-surprised they don’t break. (She's half-worried her crystallization will crumble.)

The pirate can’t find an opening to get a strike in, stepping back and to the side to avoid attacks, allowing the sun to steer the fight right over to the cloud’s edge. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck—’ The goggles can’t help her against an all out onslaught, against an opponent that is just as, if not more, stupidly buff than she is.

Brute force might not have worked for the Guardian, but it’s working for the sun.

When she does manage to get a strike in, the sun isn’t even phased. It continues on its course, continuing to push the pirate closer and closer to the edge. ‘What would Lettie do?’ Probably throw a bomberfly or glitch through it, neither of which she can—

A lightbulb flicks on above her head.

In that same moment, the sun leaves a small opening for Juno to roll forward, through its legs and come out the other side. She flips upright, swipes two bombs from her belt, and launches them at the sun’s eye-covered head. (Will a bomb work against something made of fire? She’s not sure, but she has little to lose at this point.)

The sun's eyes lock onto one bomb and knock it away and, by a stroke of luck, the second just touches it’s flaming head—

BOOM!

If the skies weren’t bright before, they’re glaring now, but Juno doesn’t get to see that as the force of explosion sends her back, back, back. She blacks out for a second, coming to only when she harshly (and thankfully) hits one of the clouds. She gasps for breath, looking around confusedly, as a monotone ring fills her head. The moments from seconds ago return to her and she starts searching through the smoke for the sun. Did she do it? Is it over?

 

[ellarose]

The cubes are still trying to teleport Thad's base around with them. It continues to be one the most ridiculous fucking things Lettie's ever witnessed (and she's witnessed a fuck ton of ridiculousness) -- but in these circumstances, she supposes it works out conveniently for them with the shelter it provides, along with the wards stationed outside to guard the perimeter. (It makes sense with Lady. Lettie and Juno as partners makes more sense, too.) Even if her nails are in desperate need of filing, even though she's tired all the way down to her bones, the faerie does her part to clean up the bar they trashed before helping Eliza's crew set up for the night in Thad's lair.

Thad doesn't protest as they take refuge in his place and ogle everything inside with varying degrees of wide-eyed wonder. (The faerie almost gets teary-eyed seeing their guests incredulous reactions to the fresh food they're offered and has to look away.) Lettie can tell it's getting to Thad with the way he fidgets with his twig (heh), but there's something about Eliza and her company (muscles they could beat the shit out of him with) that persuades him not to be a little bitch about it. Technically, they're the ones helping them right now. And they'll need that help if they're going to navigate and survive on the ground in Desdemonia. Juno said they shouldn't fuck around on the ground when they visited before and even after all the horrors they've faced, Lettie knows it's nothing to underestimate.

Lettie doesn't let herself rest. Once they're done cleaning and getting situated, she makes rounds to help those who need their injuries tended to using supplies lent to them by the medic. (She found them tucked in a neatly wrapped package on her couch-- at least the cubes have the good sense not to pop up unexpectedly at a time like this. Probably because they also know she fully intends to throttle them for taking them away from Juno at such a crucial moment.) That's also... kinda why she needs to keep herself busy. She can't get herself caught up thinking about what hell her pirate might be going through right now. Worrying about the time she has left.

Maybe it's also because she misses the crew... but Lettie would rather check on everyone and make sure they're all good instead of lounging around. It's only after she's sure everyone's taken care of that she allows herself to plop down on her couch.

The teens are the first of the group to properly approach her. While Lettie can tell Eliza's crew is watching them carefully from their positions around the base, they really have nothing to worry about. She tells the siblings some simple facts about faeries and about the magic she used back in the bar. Gradually, their talk turns into her painting Mauve's nails. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Nico watching them. Is he feeling left out?

"...You want a manicure, too?" Lettie offers, waggling her bottle of nail polish towards him.

"No way. I'm not a sissy. 'Sides, I don't like pink." Nico protests vehemently, crossing his arms as he pretends to be all cool and disaffected. "Or glitter." Meanwhile, Mauve's cheeks blush a pink that matches her nails as she happily peers down at them. Sweet kid. Hearing what Nico has to say, though, his twin scoffs and rolls her eyes at him.

"Should I tell her how you fucked up like a fuckin' sissy earlier or do you wanna do the honors?" Mauve cuts in confrontationally, flashing him the bird. "Pink's badass." Lettie nods with approval and they bump fists in their solidarity. However, she also tries to intervene before the siblings can really get into it.

"You sound like Juju." Lettie tells Nico, pursing her lips and tugging gently at her locket. (There's a tugging pang in her heart as she does this, remembering the way the pirate talked about needing to look like a badass... but later defending her in court for wearing pink on that macabre, goth obsessed world.) Rather than elaborate on who she means by 'Juju', she holds the bottle of nail polish up again. "Well, we all have our opinions... even if some of us are totally wrong." Mauve snickers. "What's your favorite color, Nico?"

"Green." It takes the Nico a second to really think about it. "But like a badass dragon green."

"Badass dragon green. I see." Lettie nods sagely, furrowing her brow as she wonders what he means exactly by 'dragon green'. A dark, shiny green? She proceeds to glamour her nail polish into a shade she considers might be close enough to whatever he's imagining. "Something like this?"

"What the--" Nico rubs his eyes, checking to make sure they're not playing tricks on him. "What?"

"They're glamours. Like I was telling you guys about before." Lettie explains. She flicks her fingers, turning her hair pink and her eyes violet. "See?"

From there, Nico decides he wants his nails painted after all. Eventually, Lettie also offers to braid Mauve's hair... and after she finishes making her hair look like a rose, she ends up drawing attention of a few other members of Eliza's company. Ainsley and Delaney come over, asking if she could braid theirs as well. As she does their hair, Lettie gives them a summarized version of her current mission and they discuss places they might be able to find the entity with everything they know thus far. Once they've more or less decided on a route to travel in the morning, everyone decides they need their rest and head to sleep.

...Everyone except for Lettie and Eliza, anyway. The faerie can't sleep now that it's quiet enough to hear her own thoughts. She can't drift off while she's worrying for Juno's safety. (Can't drift off without her there beside her.) She paces quietly across the floor, clenching her locket tightly in her hand. She's restless and needs something to do... but she's not sure whether she should talk to Eliza. She shouldn't overstep or meddle when she doesn't know the full story between her and Juno. Right?

"Mind if I...?" Lettie tilts her head towards the open space beside Eliza, deciding she'll only sit after she gets the okay. "I wanted to thank you again for helping us out back there." She absently rubs the golden zeroes on her wrist. "I don't think we would've made it out of there without you. I'm not really used to working with Thad yet." The faerie bites her lip, fidgets with her locket, and opens the clasp to glance at Juno's picture inside. "Before it was just me and Juno."

***​

For a moment, all is quiet. For a moment, the smoke clears and all that remains is the dazzling sunlight pouring down from the sky. The rooftops and windows of the village homes beneath are painted in an array of cheerful sunshine yellows. A songbird trills. Did she do it? Is it over? At first glance, it almost appears that it's over.

"Congratulations, pirate. You've completed your first test and returned the sun to Fabel's sky. However..." A large popping noise disturbs the peaceful silence. This is promptly followed by eyeballs swathed in raging flames, raining down from the sky like meteors! Fortunately, they're not headed towards Juno. It seems she'll be safe from where she is up in the clouds. Unfortunately their trajectory is sending them down towards the unsuspecting village below. If nothing is done, it will undoubtedly burn away to a crisp. The spirit inside the mirror sighs. "Yes. I was afraid of that."

A sun shaped charm like the one on the Guardian's crown floats down before Juno. It bursts into a sparkling orb of energy that warps, swishes and sways-- it's trying to materialize but awaiting Juno's decision before it takes a proper form. 'Oh, lucky! This is some powerful wish magic, Juju.' Lettie's entry in her goggles explains. 'Don't worry, it's the good kind. Maybe you made friends with a benevolent spirit? Anyway-- just visualize what you need and it'll be yours for the taking.' It morphs between a wand, a chalice, and a shield. What will she need to continue her journey? That's entirely up to her.

"Your first test is technically complete." Dream Weaver says, watching the pirate carefully. Wondering whether she'll take her win and rest for the next test-- or if she'll risk exerting herself to save the village down below. (Could it be that this is the real test? Or perhaps a test within a test?) "But tell me, pirate. What will you do next?"

The cloud drops a few feet and Dream Weaver blushes as it jerks to a halt. "I... I will even lend you my assistance, should you wish to help them." It seems that from their mirror, the spirit is able to move Heaven's Cloud. "Some of my power has been restored thanks to your efforts. Although I'm quite... rusty." That would explain the jerky movements. "You're the captain of an airship, are you not? It should feel familiar enough."

 

[starboob]

Eliza hasn’t taken her eyes off of the off-worlders the entire night. She doesn’t make it obvious, experienced as she is. She’s just not going to let her guard down just yet; her company is trusting her to take care of them. Though, she's not so untrusting that she can't admit that they seem fine enough. Thaddeus is a wildcard, but she supposes with some proper direction he could be closer to useful than he is currently. (Although she did hear him asking the other necromancers questions about their techniques, exchanging some tips he’s learned.) Olette… The kids like her. So that’s a good sign. She held her own back at the bar, too— it’s just too bad she learned defense from Juno, blocking with her face like she did. She smiles to herself at that thought and only catches it when the faerie meanders her way. She wipes away the amusement in exchange for something neutral, shifting over to make room for the other. “Seat’s yours.”

They’re the only two awake with Eliza taking the first watch. While her necromancers had sung praise on Thaddeus’s wards, they never trust wards alone. Nightmares and ghouls can ravage them if their numbers are large enough. Just outside the cave, she can hear a few wailers, the kind meant to play the heartstrings of women like herself, who can’t help but to help. She crosses her arms over her chest and turns her focus onto the faerie.

She watches as she clutches that locket she wears— something she’s observed her do a number of times throughout the night. She takes note of the scar around her wrist and the odd tattoo just under it. But it’s the way she talks about Juno that pulls Eliza in. (Earlier, she heard her refer to someone as “Juju” and while she can’t imagine the Juno she knew tolerating a nickname like that, she somehow suspects the faerie was, in fact, referring to the pirate.)

“Nothing to give thanks for. We just do what’s right where we can.” She shrugs, then adds with a wry smile, “But you certainly would have gotten your asses served to you.”

For a second or two, silence passes over them. The only sounds are the whipping winds, the wails they carry, and, occasionally, a sudden snore from one of her company. Try as she might, she can’t stay silent forever and can’t ignore her curiosities. “Juno’s not a bad person to be partnered with where survival is concerned.” Eliza knows that well enough. More than a few times, it was the kid saving her skin. But she had so much anger back then and, often, Eliza didn’t know how to reach her or how to help. It scared her sometimes.

She wishes she could have been better for Juno, like she’s better for Nico and Mauve. (Though, even with them, she wishes she could give them more. But isn’t that the pain of being a mother? Being too much and not enough at once?) She did her best with what she knew then, but there were things she should have protected her from and didn’t. And, from those things she wasn’t wise enough to shield her from, she wonders if that’s why Juno made her choice to join the duchess. It’s easy enough for Eliza to take the blame for that, if only for the control it provides, but even she knows they’re all dealt choices to make on their own. That choice was Juno’s, for one reason or another. (Does Olette know that reason?)

“You’re about the same height as Juno was when I first found her.” Her arms are still crossed over her chest, but there’s something warmer in her eyes when she makes this comment. “She was so small back then. Coulda mistaken her for a bone construct and not a necromancer herself.” She keeps her voice low, hushed, not convinced that everyone in the company is asleep. And they don’t know she once knew the infamous pirate captain. Honestly, Eliza’s not even sure the last time she spoke her name. “She was always so scrappy; I don’t think I coulda left her alone without worrying she’d pick a fight bigger than she could handle and I wasn’t wrong to have that fear.” She gives a knowing look to the faerie, seeing if she understands what she’s talking about. (Is Juno still that way?) “Always felt like she was trying to sort out her inner demons by punching the ones out here in the real world.

“Where is the kid, anyway? You don’t talk about her like she’s dead.” At this point, she’s too tired to cover her worry and it’s thick in her voice when she asks. “She’s—she’s not been caught by the duchess, has she?”

***​

She’s tired. She can barely lift her arms. But she can lift them. She needs to rest, Lettie would want her to rest. But her eyes remain open, in spite of their strain. There’s still an ounce of fight left in her. She doesn’t know that she’ll ever run out of fight and it seems that might be a good thing now, watching those meteors descend towards the village below. Dream Weaver asks a question that doesn’t even warrant her reply. It’s obvious what she’s going to do.

Lettie will understand why Juno can’t rest. She'd make the same choice if their positions were reversed. They aren’t heroes. They just do what’s right. And maybe that makes them more heroic than the legends who do it for glory and are immortalized in the stars. (That’s what Lettie told her once, at least, when she tried to explain that the stars in the skies can be formed into constellations.)

The pirate sticks out her arms when the cloud jerks forward, wobbling as she tries to recover her balance. “Watch it,” she hisses, her temper understandably short with her exhaustion. (Though she hasn't been particularly patient with the spirit to begin with.) “You’ve read my soul, asshole. You know what choice I’m going to make.” As she speaks, she swipes her hand through the girlfriend approved wish-token, barely thinking of the shape she wants it to take. But even the ghost of a thought is enough to form the token into a round shield. “Try not to fuckin’ kill me on your way down, eh? Or do I need to remind you about the little faerie’s threat?”

Dream Weaver sighs and she imagines the spirit rolling their eyes, even as they relent and break off a piece of the cloud to act as a flying length for the pirate to balance on. (Sort of like a flying plank, but a cloud.) The spirit has the cloud secure itself over Juno’s feet to keep her locked into place as it soars towards the meteors. As she makes her way over to the first of them, she clutches her locket and kisses it, for luck.

Juno takes a wide stance on the board for extra support, holding the shield up to defend herself. By shifting her weight around the cloud, she’s able to steer and takes herself closer to the meteors in the lead. As she comes out in front of one, she holds out the light sword and slashes through three of the eyes. They all halt in place, shake, then explode into showers of orange, yellow, and red fireworks.

It’d be celebratory if there weren’t still more to take on; if those remaining didn’t suddenly veer and spread out as if to thwart the pirate’s strategy to destroy them before they can touch the ground. Spread apart like this, she won’t be able to easily swipe through them. She can maybe get to one or two more before she’ll need to change strategies.

So that’s what she does. She flies over to the next two that are closest to smashing into the village and takes them out with another couple slashes of her sword. By the time she turns to check the village, one meteor has made contact with the ground not too far from it— but she knew that would happen, having chosen to target the ones that would have collided into the village center. She wouldn’t ordinarily worry about the one that has crashed, except that this meteor springs to life and, from the eye, arms and legs sprout from the sides. “Fuck.”

The eye-man starts marching towards the village, causing Juno to abandon the skies to cut through this gremlin. While she strikes through it before it can do damage, this distraction allows some of the other meteors to land. These ones also take the shape of flaming eyeballs with arms and legs. Soon, the village is surrounded. “Fuck!!”

The eyeballs approach the village and her first instinct is to take them out, except she catches sight of a frozen scared child and makes the choice to let the eyeballs advance. She swerves through panicking villagers and, without stopping, scoops the child into her arms before finding their parent.

More meteors land all around the village perimeter and Juno knows she won’t be quick enough to stop them all. They will advance into the village. The villagers themselves are in a panic, fleeing with kids under their arms or few precious belongings held tightly to their chests. Some, the warriors, she assumes, grab spears and swords of their own to fight off the eye-men. With the chaos still in the village and knowing her own exhaustion, she decides to let the warriors handle the assailants, for now, and insteads focuses her efforts on evacuating the village, herding them towards the safety of a nearby cave. This, she hopes, will give her time to recover before she has to face those henchmen for herself or worse.

 

[ellarose]

"No. The duchess doesn't have the means to catch up with us yet." Lettie shakes her head, knowing better than to dance around the question when it comes to the duchess. The faerie immediately goes to set Eliza's mind at ease on that question. (But still. Juno...) She presses her locket closed, holding it tight, and glares at a single point ahead as the scenes play through her mind. (Or perhaps the duchess has the means but no will-- or no direction. Considering they'd first met 'Angelus' at dinner with the duchess herself... with that in mind, it stands to reason that world travel may not be beyond the duchess's capabilities. With that in mind, she's not gonna say a single word about where Juno is. Just to be careful. If there are more goons out there using Avangeline's magic, she's got to be careful.) "Besides, I promised her I wouldn't let the duchess hurt her again. So long as I'm around she isn't getting anywhere near Juno."

"We met because I crash landed on her ship. Juju had me tied up in a cell and was gonna sell me off to the duchess... but there was no way I was gonna let that happen. I broke out and threw a party with her crew and-- pfft-- locked her in a closet while I took her bed for the night. We couldn't stand each other at all back then." Lettie can remember it with a smile now because of where they're at now. "We've been through hell and back together. Juno's probably apologized about a thousand times for the way we met by now. She's a real softie... she's changed a lot since we first met." She glimpses Eliza. "Or maybe she's closer to being who she was before the world toughened her up. Could be a little bit of both, I guess."

Lettie curls herself inward around her locket, tucking her legs up to her chest. Juno doesn't actually like fighting. And now they're worlds apart and she's fighting alone. (...No. She has to know that Lettie's heart is always with her.) She's okay. She has to be okay. Unless the faerie totally doomed them by confessing her feelings when she did. The universe has always been greedy, taking the people she loves from her.

"I know some of the story between you two. How you came into her life when she needed somebody. I don't know why she left the way she did yet." Lettie shakes her head. "But I'm thankful that she had you back then. I can see the resemblance when you fight..." She gently punches her arms out in front of her. "I think she really looked up to you and it isn't hard to see why." The faerie wants to trust Eliza. On some level, she already does-- Eliza's got this way about her that reminds her of Juno, a way about her that can't be so easily faked. But with shapeshifters running all around and the way things went down with Juno back on Avangeline... she knows she ought to keep some of the specifics close to her chest. Just in case. (Juno would know right away whether or not this is the real Eliza. Until now, Lettie's only had the nightmare worlds to go off of. And so has their creepy fucking stalker.) "But she's really fucking tall now."

Stupidly tall. Stupidly buff. Juno has this dimple when she smiles and the white streak in her hair has spread. Her hugs are warm and her storm-colored eyes warmer. It's only been a few hours and she misses her so damned much. (And she's not a crystalized statue. She's not, she's not, she's not.)

"Juno's okay." Lettie sincerely hopes so, anyway. "She's just... gotten herself into some trouble. She blamed herself after I lost my wings. Didn't think I'd care if she got herself killed trying to get them back for me. Dummy." The faerie purses her lips, trying to play it off, but she can't really hide the fact that she's trembling with the extremity of it. They went from Juno trying to sell her wings to live a better life to her nearly ending her life in the process of trying to get them back for her. "After that I made sure she knows I'd choose her over my wings, no hesitation. I also... I told her I love her." She blinks hard against fresh tears, dipping her head down so her forehead presses to her kneecaps. She told her she loves her. She really did that. (And now she's telling Eliza. Oh stars.) "I love her so much." She means it to her core, feels it so hard that it aches in her chest. "We're worlds apart, but I'm sure she's fighting like hell right now to make sure I don't lose her. I just... I hope I didn't jinx us by saying that."

***​

In the village behind Juno, Fabel's warriors valiantly stand up to the henchmen approaching their village. Their weapons sparkle in the newly restored daylight that streams down from the clouds like a blessing. (The young are wide-eyed, gazing upon it for the first time. Others, wizened and old, are greeting the sight like a long lost friend.) While they might have hid away in their homes in fear of the Guardian before, seeing the sun in their sky has restored some hope and fight in their hearts. Archers scale buildings and trees, striking the pupils of the eye henchmen like bullseyes. Others wield giant, crescent-shaped boomerangs of light that slice through them in arcs. Others rush forward with their swords and knives drawn.

"Guide the villagers to the Thundering Canyons, pirate." Dream Weaver advises. "Your... ahem. Your 'brothers' will be more than capable of guarding them while you rest." While the spirit tires of humans, it seems they share the ambition to help them. (It was those who helped themselves and turned their back on their fellow man that they were disgusted with to begin with. Like the 'Guardian of Light', who lords their power over the people of Fabel.) They sigh. "Any moment now, the Guardian of Light will be..."

Just as Dream Weaver predicts it, several orbs of brilliant golden light appear in the sky above the village. (It's grown small on the horizon behind them now-- there is nothing they can do to stop this.) Those orbs sail down towards the village, which is still smoking from the explosions but now free of the henchmen and their onslaught thanks to the efforts of the warriors. These orbs sink down threateningly, bubbling any warriors they manage to touch before their surfaces shine with complicated glyphs that teleport them elsewhere. It goes without saying with the flashy gold of her magic that the Guardian of Light is capturing them.

"I know it is a difficult thing to witness, but you must continue onward. Pay it no mind and take the villagers to shelter." Dream Weaver advises, grim but sincere. "The Guardian means to bait your good nature, just as they had mine. I have learned the hard way that it is impossible to save everyone. If you turn around now, you risk giving away the villagers location and they all will pay the price." The spirit shakes their head mournfully, considering the harshness the Guardian of Light is known to dole out. "Heroes of Fabel are never forgotten. They knew the sacrifice they were making the moment they raised their weapons."

That doesn't stop the villagers from reacting to the sight unfolding behind them, though. "No!" A petite woman with blue hair struggles against the hold of what must be her older brother. "No, I need to go back for her--!" He lifts her in his arms and she furiously but ineffectively punches at his chest. "Let me go! Put me down!" He whispers something inaudible into her ear and she slinks against him, her eyes welling with tears. Seeing this, a few of the confused children start crying for the brave mothers and fathers that they've left behind. Even as some panic spreads, no one is allowed to rush back into the village. Everyone who tries is held back, consoled with soft words and magical lullabies. Some mothers even have flowers they use to coax their children to sleep on their shoulders.

And with that, they restlessly continue on towards the Thundering Canyons.

 

[starboob]

Eliza leans backwards against the cave wall as she listens to Olette talk about Juno, flickers of warmth and hope lighting in her chest. Her head touches the wall and she closes her eyes, imagining the last time she saw the kid and what she must look like now. She’s seen the posters— they’re everywhere— but she knows they don’t do her justice if the faerie’s likeness in them is any indication. ‘Juno’s found her way again.’ The woman breathes a sigh of relief, though she still holds the worry that her kid is still in trouble. But the faerie is right, Juno is a survivor through and through. She’s made it this far. Not even all the gods could knock her down.

“I’m glad she has someone who watches out for her.” She wants to specifically say that she’s glad that Juno has Olette looking out for her, but refrains, not wanting to be mushy so soon. She still barely knows this woman and it would be hasty, therefore foolish, to believe in her just yet. (Though, in her heart of hearts, she already knows she’s gone soft for this little faerie from another world.) “Just try not to block with your face, okay?”

It surprises the woman when the other expresses her love for Juno with trembles, showing just how scared she is for the kid and while she’s trying to reassure herself of what they both know— Juno is a fighter— but she’s more so caught up in the full realization that this woman and Juno are going steady. ‘Never thought I’d see the day. She really has changed.’ She still remembers Juno swearing she’d never settle down, that there was no woman out there who could keep up with her. Eliza believed it at the time and, in some ways, always has. She supposes, however, that if Juno were going to settle down with someone, it’d be someone like the faerie who, for whatever reason, is trying to heal Desdemonia.

Snapping out of her momentary reverie and reminded of the faerie’s despair, the vigilante scoots closer to her and gently drapes an arm over her shoulder, pulling her in closer. “C’mere, you.” She tucks Olette safely under her arm. “Juno’s survived everything the goddess has thrown at her so far. She’s not going to give up.” And she’s not going to die, but Eliza knows better than to speak those words. She understands entirely why Olette fears her own admission. The goddess can be cruel with her will and does not always reward the venerable. “What’s done is done. But Juno would be a fool to not hold those words sacred and use them to remind her of what she’s fighting to return to. And she’s no fool; she just has her foolish moments.

“And you,” she pulls back to give the woman a stern look, though it’s not cold or blazing; it’s warm. “You need your rest if you’re to survive for her as well. You can stay up with me for the rest of my watch, but I won’t let you stay up any longer. It’s as much your responsibility as it is hers to take care of yourself.” With that, she gives the woman a squeeze and loosens her grip around her shoulder, allowing her space if she wants it and also giving her the option to continue leaning against her. ‘These damn kids. Make me too soft for my own good.’

“Thank you, by the way, for sharing all that about Juno.” Eliza breaks the silence, though it barely settled to begin with. She’s not a broody stoic type, but it is unusual for her to be so chatty with strangers. She could blame the late hour and her exhaustion, and while that is part of it, it’s more honest to say that she, perhaps, has needed this to settle some of the wounds in her chest. “I’ve worried for her. I don’t know why she left when she did.” The last fight they had was bad, she remembers that, but nothing that would have warranted Juno leaving for good. She’s only supposed it happened because the kid was tired of her and her nagging. She’s thought she might have driven her away with her protectiveness, but she’s since made peace with not speculating why it unfolded as it did, just that it did. “Didn’t hear from her at all, so I figured she just made a life for herself.” She wavers on whether or not to say more, to reveal her own disappointment when she discovered where Juno’s life had taken her and decides against it. She doesn’t know this woman and Juno shouldn’t hear any of this from her, not that she doesn’t trust Olette to be delicate. But the kid doesn’t need to be worrying, if she really does still admire Eliza like Olette says she does. “I’m glad she made it out of the duchess’s sphere. That woman and her ancestors are the rot at this world’s core.” She decides to leave it at that, saying no more.

***​

Juno’s feet refuse to move for a full minute, watching as the Guardian of Light asserts her dominance from some lofty and far away place, making it known that she sees all and she will deliver her punishments from near or afar. Her body is too tired to barrel forward and try to hug even one of those light captured warriors, keeping them from being lifted off to goddess knows where. Even just lifting her arms is a strain and were Dream Weaver still not helping her operate this cloud, she probably wouldn’t be able to drag herself to the Thundering Canyons.

In depths of herself, she knows that she cannot fight any longer. In the depths of herself, she wants to defy her own limitations and give these villagers the justice they deserve. But then she’d only be a martyr herself and the locket that hangs over her own heart is too important to be forgotten.

She clutches it, blinking back tears that threaten to spill over, seeing all the children trying to run to their parents or siblings who had fought to defend their village; seeing that blue haired kid beat against her brother’s chest. She turns away. It’s the only way she can properly stifle the tremor in her voice. When she’s sure she can speak clearly, she waves to the group to follow her. “Everyone, come with me. I know places we can hide.”

Though she shares no connection with Dream Weaver, she can feel the spirit deflate with relief that’s she’s made this choice. She wonders whether or not they will speak and commend her choice, but they remain silent, too. Perhaps because they know the burden of this choice themself, being an ancient spirit.

But she knows the truth to their words all too well. Not everyone can be saved, try as she might. In her mind, she can still see flashes of the tin villages back on Desdemonia burning under steward flames. She can still remember those who sacrificed themselves to make sure their family made it out alive. And she knows other families, like her own, sacrificed those who would only slow them down. At least, in this instance, she has the peace of mind knowing that she helped gather all the villagers she could and that no one was intentionally left behind.

With the cover of mist above the Thundering Canyons, they’re in the perfect position to hide from the Guardian of Light. For now, her brothers remain unseen, though their rolling thunder bounces through the canyon with reckless abandon. This does frighten some of the children and even some of the older members of their party. One child in particular decides to cling next to Juno when she’s found a spot for herself against the cavern wall. She lifts her brow, “Uh, you lost?”

The child shakes her head and scoots closer to the pirate, fixing her arms around Juno’s middle, much to Juno’s surprise. She stiffens, looks around to see if anyone is going to claim this child, then settles her arm around her. ‘Well, alright then. I guess.’

Eventually the child’s mother— or maybe her eldest sister— comes over and apologizes to Juno on the child’s behalf. Juno assures the guardian that it’s no bother and, when the child asks if she can sleep next to the hero, because she’d feel safer— words that make Juno flush— she’s helpless to agree.

As much as she wants to be helping the rest of the group get settled, her body has all but given up on her and it ends up being the villagers who take care of the pirate. They come over and assess her injuries, tending to the bruises and cuts; they note that none of the crystal growth has cracked or even scuffed, so Juno decides that’s a good thing. She’s also given some rations that the villagers were able to take with them and, while part of her feels guilty for taking so much, when she couldn’t even properly defend them, they insist. They even urge her to rest soon after she’s finished, promising they’ll wake her should any danger come. The pirate doesn’t know why she’s earned this and decides not to question the blessing.

She clutches her locket just before she sleeps— now surrounded by a group of children who have all collectively decided that the closer they are to Juno, the safer they will be— wishing for her faerie. ‘She loves me.’ She refuses to entertain scenarios where Desdemonia has eaten her alive or ones where she’s been turned to ash because Thaddeus can’t keep his shit together, but she does worry and she hates being apart from her. ‘We can’t even find comfort in looking at the sky and knowing we’re both staring at the same one.’ This, however despairing, also steels her resolve to rest. She won’t be of any use to her tasks if she’s not rested and at her best; she fought four separate battles today and she has no idea what tomorrow will entail. She has to do everything she can to make sure she's prepared; to make sure she can make it back to Lettie; to make sure that she can tell her she loves her; to make sure they can sleep under the same sky, preferably beside each other.

Juno drifts off to sleep and dreams of Lettie the entire night through; her laugh, her smile, and especially her favorite freckle.

 

[ellarose]

Even with Eliza's soft reassurances replaying in the faerie's mind, it takes an hour of tossing and turning before she's able to drift off to sleep without her pirate there beside her. She tries to recreate the experience in her mind as best she can, holding herself to emulate her warmth, burying her nose into the sleeves of her sweatshirt because it smells like her, and imagining the sound of her heartbeat thumping against her ear like a lullaby. 'Juno. Please be okay, wherever you are.' Once Lettie's out she's out for good. The sleep that comes for her is deep and heavy-- so much so that by the time morning comes on Desdemonia, it takes herculean strength for her to open her bleary eyes and lift her still-aching body up from the ground again. While the exhaustion and deep-rooted sadness would usually compel her to splay herself out on the floor for a while longer, this little faerie's got important shit to do. She picks herself up to fight another day.

As they gather their weapons and begin piecing together a plan for the day's events, Lettie also squeezes in time to tell the women about her nightmare goggles and their functions. She's interrupted in the middle, though, when cubey finally makes an appearance.

The cube gives them intel on the Matrix's whereabouts, which leads into a haphazard explanation of what the cubes are and how they function. They draw out their route on a map and find it's dangerously close to where Ripir and that secret tunnel from before was. The name of that monstrosity alone strikes recognition and traces of fear in the faces of all of Eliza's company-- their eyes going as wide as saucers when Lettie explains that she and Juno encountered Ripir once and lived to tell the tale. (Even then, she'd tripped out of that fight largely by mistake and Juno took care of the rest... though she mentioned she didn't land a killing blow. Juno. Even back then she'd been looking out for her. The faerie still remembers the undisguised panic in her voice when she yelled at her not to risk her life for the cube...) Lettie bites her lip. She's had her own fair share of foolish moments. Back then she thought losing the cube was the same as writing a period at the end of her death sentence. She takes a sharp breath, rubbing a hand over the scar and zeroes on her wrist. Back then she'd put so much of herself at risk, trying to avoid a fate that was always going to catch up to her.

Is it still going to catch up to her? She worries it might. A hopeless helplessness almost tightens itself around Lettie's throat like a noose. (Like her curse.) But she has to remind herself again that while they've tried, those bastards haven't killed her yet. It's not over till it's over.

"It goes without saying this is gonna be a risky mission... so I completely understand if any of you don't want to come with." Lettie says, panning her gaze over all the battle-worn women and kids standing before her. She'd never judge or call them cowards for making their own call on this one. Beside her, Thad gulps at the prospect of going in with just the two of them... but he wisely stays silent. "The first time we explored the tunnel, the Duchess hit us with knock out gas and captured us. It's probably crawling with her guards and shifters from Avangeline." She bites her lip. And then, of course, there's also Ripir to consider. Juno had mentioned the monster being something of a legend on Desdemonia before and seeing their reactions allows that knowledge to truly sink in with her. Not that she can't see why. She still shudders, recalling the sound of chattering teeth and the threatening gleam of their numerous green eyes.

"The kids gotta stay back for this one." Marta proclaims. Nico opens his mouth, about to protest, but closes it again when he notices Delaney and Ainsley nodding gravely in agreement beside her. "You're brash. Still learnin'. We can't afford to make any mistakes dealing with a legend like Ripir." She slices a thumb over her throat. "On top of that, you don't want to risk putting yourself on the Duchess's radar."

Delaney puts a consoling hand on one of Nico's shoulders when they slump forward.

"They're looking for me." Lettie starts, her heart pounding in her chest as she clenches her locket for comfort. This is her mission, her responsibility. (It's just... scary, knowing she's going into it without Juno there next to her.) "...So I'll act as bait. I can distract them while you all investigate the tunnel." She forms a butterfly in the palm of her hand, glamouring it so it changes from a tiny dancer to a tiny firework of an explosion.

***​

The next morning, the villagers organize a group of their most able-bodied to send into the forest to forage for provisions. They're unsure as to how long they'll be in hiding and intend on sending them out when the Juno next engages the Guardian and her attention is otherwise preoccupied, which will hopefully keep their current location hidden. (It is not unheard of for the Guardian to lay waste to entire villagers who threaten her reign.) As the people speak of these horrors, the children around Juno curl up closer to her in fright.

With the next challenge in mind, they also tell Juno stories about the ominously large 'false moon' that the Guardian magicked into their perpetually twilight sky, under the pretense of 'setting the peoples minds at ease with familiarity'. Those among them who use magic by drawing on the moon's power noticed right away, however-- and many of them grew gravely ill from being deprived of their main source. The same happened to the few among them who drew on the sun and stars... and before long, those magic-users died out altogether.

Their souls were absorbed by the Guardian of Light, who possessed the true sun, moon, and stars in her crown... and henceforth, no one could dare to challenge her with their magic. And spirits like Dream Weaver, who also rely on such sources, were considerably weakened to the point that they could not rise against her either.

"Challenger." The Guardian's voice booms loud enough the thundering of it rumbles ominously through the Thundering Canyons. "Meet me at the Moon's Scythe within the hour... or all of the traitors from Nightwood Village shall die."

A hush falls over the Thundering Canyons after this as everyone collectively holds their breath. The little girl next to Juno shyly tugs at her arm and presses a handmade bracelet into the palm of her hand. "...For luck." She whispers.

"...I trust you know where the Moon's Sythe is, pirate?" Dream Weaver asks. The mirror's surface warps, turning into a portal regardless of this. The girl's mother pulls her backward from it, as if afraid her child might get drawn inside and into the heart of the battle. "Are you ready?"

When Juno makes it to the Moon's Scythe, it looks just as it did when she last visited... except for the fact that the Guardian hovers high in the air above the crescent points of the rocks. (And even higher above her are the bubbled warriors from the day before, weary and bruised and tired. (But still alive.) The moon has already been summoned down, waiting. A regal, giant woman with feathered wings stands before Juno... and the crescent moon itself is tucked into none other than a scythe, which she intends to wield as her weapon in this fight. She raises it high, the sharpened point twinkling in the newly restored sunlight.

"The sun was a brute." The Guardian says silkily, giving no indication that the sun's return to the sky has put her off. (It has, though, if her temper tantrum against the villagers was any indication at all.) "...You shall not be so lucky this time, challenger."

 

[starboob]

The air stills when Olette’s cube reveals where those punks have gone. Even Eliza’s blood runs cold just hearing the name. Ripir. She’s never faced the creature herself, she’s not sure anyone in her company has, but they all know the stories— every kid in the Lower West grows up scared of it— and they all know better than to mess with it. Yet here they all are, entertaining this plan that will essentially serve them all up on a silver platter to this monster. ‘Is this worth it?’

Eliza doesn’t say anything when Marta orders the kids to stay behind and when Mauve looks over at her to see if she’ll say otherwise, she shakes her head. No. She won’t vouch for them to participate in what is essentially a suicide mission. They still have some good years ahead of them and Eliza will be damned if she sees either of them leave this shithole before their time. She won’t bury them as she has buried her friends and lovers before.

And she won’t bury this fucking faerie either.

“No.” It’s a single syllable, but it cuts through the air with the authority of a judge’s sentence. “You won’t be any good dead.” What she means to say is, ‘You’re not going to do that to Juno.’ “Even if that worked, there’s still Ripir. And you’re a dead woman anyway going up against all those goons by yourself.” Her magic is unlike anything that Eliza (or her company) has ever seen, but that doesn’t make her a one woman army. And if the duchess is employing tactics like knock out gas, shit like magic won’t matter. “I don’t doubt your skill, Olette, but the risk is too great and there’s no guarantee it will work. More importantly, we don’t know jack shit about what to investigate in that tunnel. You’re the only one here who actually understands this mission. You’re too valuable to be used as mere bait.”

Thaddeus seems to shift uncomfortably, but whatever is on that wiry necromancer’s mind, he keeps to himself. She wonders how trustworthy he is, whether he’s even capable of watching their backs, but now is not the time to stir up infighting. They have to be united.

She shifts back over to Olette, making sure she’s been heard before she looks at her company. “Like Olette said, any of you who want to stay back with the kids are welcome. No judgment.” She shrugs. Her women exchange looks between themselves. Some, she can tell, are trying to force their nerves to the side to stand united. Admirable as it is, they can’t have uncertainty on this mission. “Aysha. Sadie. Keys. Leona. Stay back with the kids.” She knows she’s just bruised their pride and she doesn’t miss that they’re glaring at her in silent protest, but she’s firm that they can’t take any risks. That Thaddeus has to accompany them is bad enough as it is. “Rest of you, let's go.”

Eliza suggests an alternate plan as they make their way towards the Ripir’s Ravine, knowing full well that as soon as fighting breaks out, all of this will get thrown to the wayside. She doesn’t for a second believe that they’ll be able to escape the notice of those punks or the monster, but that doesn’t mean they should plan for chaos.

In their company they have a fucking faerie, two spirit magicians (Ainsley and Thaddeus), three bone magicians (Delaney, Marta, and Squid), a flesh magician (Ezra), and five fighters without a drop of magic to them (herself, Lana, Jo, Lou, and Hana). Thaddeus, to the surprise of damn near everyone, volunteers to create a construct distraction, highlighting that he doesn’t think the elf-faerie’s initial plan was such a bad idea. (Eliza doesn’t know this, but he did, in fact, slip and referred to Lettie as an elf before quickly correcting himself.) He asks whether or not those on Desdemonia can tell the difference between a spirit construct made by a necromancer versus one of their nightmares; Ainsley says it’s not impossible if the construct is shifty enough. She volunteers to help him raise such a beast. It’s also agreed that when they raise the construct, Jo will sacrifice two smoke bombs and a chiller canister (essentially a bomb that’s designed to drop temperatures) to mimic the effects of nightmares. They ask Olette if her magic might be able to enhance the trick.

The hope being that with the distraction, they can slide into the tunnel with the majority of their enemies occupied by Thad and Ainsley’s “nightmare.” Since Olette has her nightmare goggles, she’s in charge of coaching them through any illusions or actual nightmares should they arrive, as is always a possibility on Desdemonia.

There’s no set plan for how to deal with Ripir. Thaddeus asks and Eliza just gives him a look that says, ‘Don’t get killed.’ He swallows hard, nodding slowly. Ainsley claps him on the back and starts discussing what their monster should look like by way of distraction.

The ravine is cooler than the rest of Desdemonia with the shade that’s cast by the high walls. Eliza once more offers her company the opportunity to turn back, eyeing them for signs of cowardice. None take the offer. None show signs of weakness. With a deep breath, they head into ravine. A soft melody, like a lullaby, floats through the air and gets louder the closer they get to the tunnel entrance. The company exchanges glances and, being that the resident Desdemonians are confused, it’s obvious that this is unusual.

As they continue, they're eventually able to spot a harp floating in the air, its strings plucked by an invisible harper. It floats above a high, spiraling mound. As they near it, keeping close to the rock walls for some meager cover, Eliza notices that the mound is moving. It’s nearly imperceptible, but it rises and falls, and not too soon after this discovery she realizes that it’s Ripir.

She raises a finger to her mouth to hush the group at the same moment Thaddeus trips over a rock and falls face first right before the great worm.

***​

Juno fidgets with the woven bracelet around her wrist, the one the village kid gave to her for luck, as she steps onto the mountain peak to meet the Guardian’s next challenge. She knows to expect the moon as the next challenger, but she doesn’t know exactly what to expect beyond that.

Her fist tightens around her sword; she adjusts the straps on her shield, making sure it's fastly secured.

Growing up on Desdemonia, she knows how to school fear from her expression but she’s never learned how to push it from her heart. It creeps into her veins and washes her in cold chills. This could be the last thing she ever does. ‘Don’t think like that. You haven’t lost yet.’

She kisses her locket and raises up both her sword and shield to meet the gracious moon. ‘If she thinks I don’t know how to fight an aerial opponent,’ she smirks to herself, ‘then she’s got another thing coming. This one’s for you, Lette.’

The moon springs into the air, outstretching her feathered wings, spinning the scythe above her head before she dives towards the pirate. Juno braces, raising her shield, and, at the last second, she leaps to the side. The moon follows, pivoting her trajectory to meet Juno despite her attempt to dodge. Her shoulder butts into Juno’s abdomen as she tackles the pirate into the mountain side, creating a deep crater. The pirate grunts, clamping her jaw down on a shout. Dust and snow fill the air, obscuring her dizzied vision, but the moon doesn’t give her the chance to recover. She grabs the pirate’s shirt and hoists her into the air, sending her flying into the clouds, much to the delight of the Guardian whose melodious laugh carries through all of Fabel.

The pirate, the hero blacks out for a second, only coming to because of Dream Weaver. “Pirate! Blasted pirate wake up!” Her eyes flutter against the winds around her, confusedly searching for her bearings only to realize that she’s about to fall. ‘Shit.’ Worse yet, the moon is speeding towards her, gaining speed as she propels herself off of the clouds.

Juno’s arms flail around and she struggles to fight against the force of wind before she manages to bring her shield in front of her. The moon bangs against it sending the pirate arcing through the air once more. The fall alone could kill her, but the moon continues to play, zipping back and forth as Juno falls, cutting her with her scythe each time she makes a pass. Juno easily would be ribbons had the crystallization not acted as armor and protected her from the deepest strikes.

Hardly able to think, the next time the moon passes, she catches her wing, pulling out a tuft of feathers. The moon shrieks and her eyes blaze back towards the pirate, turning in midair to once again tackle the pirate into the mountainside. It puts another crater along the mountain range; it still sends shocks through the pirate, reverberating through her bones and banging her brain around her skull like a pinball. Her vision doubles and triples, spinning; yet, even so, when the moon goes to launch Juno into the air again, the pirate is prepared and clamps down on the giant woman’s hand. Her diamond skin cuts into the moon, drawing blood. With the shield still strapped to her arm, she swings it against the moon’s stupid fucking head again and again and again, not letting go and not at all showing signs of stopping.

She's going to fucking win this. She's going to fucking return to her faerie.

 

[ellarose]

The air stills, the self-playing harp's music quiets eerily before coming to a stop. As everyone collectively holds their breaths, all that can be heard is a hollow wind sweeping through the surrounding canyon. They're all wondering if this mistake has damned them, but nothing happens. Yet. Thaddeus shakily starts to pick himself up, backing away as if he might be able to erase his mistake if he only moves casually enough. One of the harp's strings are plucked and one eye blinks open. He freezes. (Yeah, that obviously wasn't going to work.) Another note is played, another blinks open. And then one by one, the rest follow until all of Ripir's seven eyes are glaring down at Thad. There's something wrong about them, but Lettie's not inclined to point that out given the circumstances. The necromancer's noodle arms and legs go wobbly as he holds the sides of his head in panic. The sound of chattering teeth rolls towards them, gnashing harder and louder than ever with the beast raised directly out of the ground.

'Shit.' Lettie's heart pounds out of her chest and she's sure that everyone is thinking the same exact thing. 'Fuck. Goddamn it, Thad!'

Just like the first time they encountered Ripir, Lettie acts before she thinks. Just as she had with the cube, she throws herself out into the field to drag Thad out of the way before he can become worm food. (Eliza said it before. Thad's fuck ups are her fuck ups. Even if the woman doesn't want her acting as bait, she has to take responsibility here.) "Don't just stand there, Thad. Run!" The invisible harpist begins to play an upbeat tune and the monster hisses in recognition, as if responding to the music, and brings it's front to the ground with an impact that creates a smoking crater and shakes the earth.

The music is controlling Ripir, the same way the fish bitches and their music can affect the minds of their victims and compel them to throw themselves into the ocean. An enchanted instrument? Lettie's immune, thankfully, and it seems that Eliza and her crew aren't behaving strangely in relation to it either. (That's when she considers Ripir's eyes again. Instead of their usual green, they're glazed with a gold that matches the magic harp.) Bastards. She might have a legendary rivalry with the fish bitches, but she can't deny that they deal with a lot of shit as well. A mermaid's soul infused into an instrument can create these hypnotizing melodies.

How many mermaids would be needed to control a monster such as Ripir? Lettie's stomach sinks at the thought. Avangeline pits the faeries and mermaids against each other. All this time, they really should really try working together for a change. (But Lettie is just one faerie and she knows those mermaids would laugh in her face if she suggested such a thing.) If this were a nightmare world, Lettie would build up an extravagant Lettie and the Skellies concert and blow the harpist away with her sound. Unfortunately, those are not the circumstances she finds herself in. This time there's no convenient tunnel for her to fall in, either. And the skellies...

All Lettie and Thad can do is run like hell.

"Careful, Abelia." A deep, silken voice laughs. Chills rattle down from Lettie's head to her toes. It sounds close. Too close. "I know you're having fun, but don't damage the merchandise."

Lettie's wrist burns and she looks down with dread twisting in her stomach. The zeroes around her wrist are glowing. While she tries clawing her hand around it, it does nothing to save her as a magicked chain springs out from her scar and she's reeled away from Ripir and Thad like a fish on a hook. "Olette--!" Wind whips in her ears before she collides with a hooded figure who locks her in their arms upon impact.

"Although you may already be too damaged to salvage without your wings." The demon laughs cruelly in her ear. The faerie struggles against his hold, unable to glitch herself free while the chain is activated. "We'll have to see what the boss says, won't we?" He possessively draws a claw over the inside of her wrist. "I could siphon your magic and lay waste to your ragtag gang of humans out there. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Fuck you." Lettie spits venomously, hated for her lot in life burning hotter than her cursed wrist. 'Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!'

"Yeah, that, and I'd kill you where you stand if you try." A horned demon appears out of nowhere, standing next to them. (...How many of them are cloaked to be invisible?) "It doesn't matter what kind of mess she makes. She's still the boss's favorite. You steal even a drop of her magic and..." The demon slashes their thumb across their throat. "All of us will pay the price. Not just you." Yeah. Of course they're not standing up for her. Just looking out for themself.

From afar, Thad trips again. While Eliza's crew has sprung into action now to help, there's little that can be done for the necromancer as Ripir lunges with their piercing teeth bared and--

Blip!

"Fucking hell." The cube commentates with a sigh. Lettie confusedly blinks, discovering that she and Thad are now free-falling through the sky together. (And it's too pastel to be Desdemonia. They're on another world, far away from their battle.) "...You fucked that up so quickly."

"Fuck you, cubey!" Lettie puffs her cheeks, swinging her fist to punch the little bastard. It swerves and she punches the air instead.

"You would've died if I hadn't intervened." The cube twists as if to shake their head. "Please do try to be more careful."

It's a relief to be away from those demons, yeah, but they're falling now... and they essentially just ditched Eliza and her crew to deal with the mess they've made. It doesn't sit right with the faerie at all. It doesn't take long before that thought is swept clean from her mind, though, as they near something down below... namely, a bunch of bubbled warriors (entrapped by... faerie magic), a giant winged woman being bashed over the head by a shield, and the warrior pinned against the mountainside doing the bashing. Who the heck is singlehandedly trying to battle a-- oh stars.

"Juju!" Lettie cries out upon recognizing her, her heart clenching violently in her chest. She's alive. (The pirate's name leaves her lips automatically-- and she realizes belatedly that it's enough to distract her from her fight.) Stars. She's all cut up, bleeding, and-- what-- what the fuck is she fighting!? The giant moon scythe gleams, radiant with almighty magic. It... it must be some part of her quest. The faerie shivers, torn. Wanting to be left here to help... but also knowing that back on Desdemonia, Eliza and the crew are depending on her. (Eliza. She needs to tell Juno about Eliza, too.) It's not like she'll have a choice in where she ends up. The cube's going to decide it all for her. And realizing that this stay may be very fleeting, the faerie quickly deploys a few bomberflies in the little time she does have. A few settle on the orbs containing warriors, exploding openings which allow for them to escape. (Maybe they'll help Juno?) Another lands on the giant woman's wounded wing, exploding it just as she raises her scythe to take advantage of Juno's brief moment of distraction. She unleashes an echoing shriek and falls down to the rocks below, feathers drifting all around.

Dream Weaver takes control of the clouds again, sweeping some beneath Juno to keep her from falling alongside the moon. "...Catch your breath, pirate. It's not over yet."

As they fall past where Juno is, below the Moon's Scythe and towards the ground, Lettie blows a kiss that sends three more bomberflies out towards the pirate. They perch themselves safely on Juno's belt like caterpillars in chrysalis, next to her remaining bombs to replace any that might be missing. Upon looking at them, Juno will discover an entry through the lens of her goggles that says : 'They'll listen to you. You know the rest.' Next to the entry is a winky face and a drawing of a mushroom cloud. Heh. Look at that! She's replenishing her bombs now instead of stealing them. (They've come so far, haven't they?)

Blip! Then, just like that, the cube blips Lettie and Thad away again before they can crash onto the ground. They're gone, sent directly back to Desdemonia.

Meanwhile, the Guardian is flustered, trying to recapture the freed warriors of Nightwood. While some are whisked back into their orbs immediately, others move faster this time and are able to avoid imprisonment. One wielding a glowing crossbow manages to send three arrows that magically enlarge as they sail through the sky into the moon's unwounded wing-- officially grounding the giant woman and stealing her ability to fly from her. (The arrows effectively pin the giant woman to the ground, which rumbles as she writhes and tries to free herself.) After this, the warrior is captured in an orb and their flesh is immediately incinerated with ribbons of light for their heroic act... leaving nothing in the orb but their crossbow and a pile of bones.

This distracts a few of the other warriors, slowing them down, allowing for easier capture. But others are not so easily swayed as they rush the giant woman with their weapons raised. "For Nightwood!" Together, they work towards pinning the guardian's other wing to the ground, in order to allow Juno easier access to dealing what could be a final blow.

 

[starboob]

Red splashes across Juno’s vision. It splatters across her face, gets between her teeth, touches the tip of her tongue and slides backwards down her throat. Her muscles ache and scream each time she bludgeons the shield against the moon’s face, hitting her with the thin edge of the shield, driving it into a split that threatens to take the top of her skull clean off. Unrelenting. It doesn’t matter how much her arm protests, how much her shoulder aches and threatens to rip, she won’t stop until it’s over. Her grip on the moon’s arm is just as fierce as her strikes, not giving her opponent an inch of room to wrench herself free.

She raises the shield, ready to deliver the—

“Juju!”

“Huh?” Her lip curls and the red recedes from her vision, recognizing the mutilated moon in front of her, but not understanding where that voice came from. While her arm remains raised, she doesn’t bring the shield down onto her opponent. She’s no longer even focused on the moon as she tries to search around the giant woman for the speaker, not trusting what she heard and half-convinced her mind is playing tricks on her, that maybe her conscience is trying to pull her back from the edge. ‘Was I going too far?’

That question receives no answer when she spots the unmistakable explosions that free some of the Nightwood warriors and then spots the falling faerie a second later. Her falling faerie. ‘No, it can’t be—’

But it is. It is. It’s her.

Her heart lunges inside of her chest, trying to pull her closer to her faerie, but the gleam of the scythe brings her back to her opponent just as the moon is arcing the tip towards her throat. She jerks the shield to cover her neck. But it’s too late. She’s slipped.

Her body tenses, bracing, but rather than feel the stinging edge of the scythe over her neck, there’s a violent rumble through her body and when she opens her eyes, fire blooms from her opponent’s back. The moon drops her weapon as she howls, falling backwards, Juno soon to follow, though she's caught on a cloud.

She looks up again, searching for Lettie in the sky, only to spot her falling closer to the ground, closer to the moon. Instinctively, she reaches out to her over the ledge of the cloud, as if she could really stretch her arm far enough to grab her and pull her into her arms. Instead all she grasps is the kiss sent her way while the bomberflies flutter and fold up beside her three remaining bombs. (At least, Juno assumes they’re folded up. She still doesn’t understand how butterflies are made.) Then, Lettie’s gone.

In her distraction, Juno misses the warrior who pins one of the giant woman’s wings to the ground and only sees the ribbons of light that encircle and cut through them, turning them to nothing more than a pile of bone.

Her heart drops. All she hears are the imagined cries of the children from the village, the ones who all huddled close to her throughout the night. It’s not her fault. It’s not, but she won’t let this warrior go down in vain.

As the others rush the moon and use their weapons to pierce the other wing, pinning her to the ground, Juno leans forward on Dream Weaver’s cloud, sending it sailing down the mountain like a sled. While she can spot her bright sword shining on the mountainside, she doesn’t sail towards it and rather heads straight for the moon, before any other warrior can be recaptured or turned to clean bone.

She shakes the bloody shield from her arm and, using it like a disc, flings it through the air. The moon can only raise her arms to protect her neck, but the shield cuts clean through anyway, taking her arms and head. Her arms fall limp to the ground as her head drops from her body and lulls to the side.

The warriors all relax, recovering their weapons as they step away from the headless corpse. Yet no relief comes. Juno remains tense as she continues down to the bottom of the mountain range, not once letting her eyes leave the corpse.

Her eyes narrow.

The corpse twitches. Her fingers flex and her head floats up into the air. The body snaps up, peeling away from the earth in an inhuman fashion. The moon’s silvery robes lose their color as well as their vibrance, consumed by shadowy black. Her head floats next to her body, blood still pouring from the neck and leaking from the corners of her crescent smile that stretches across her entire face, revealing rows of thin-razor sharp teeth.

“You couldn’t have thought it would be so easy, could you, challenger?” The Guardian of Light mocks as the moon enters a new phase. “I wonder… Are you strong enough to bring down the moon before I turn these warriors to nothing?”

From the corner of Juno’s eye, she can see more ribbons of light teasingly dancing around the warriors, but she’s helpless to do anything. The moon in front of her is still evolving.

From the stumps at her arms, two scythes emerge, making up her hands. The spirit swings her new appendages in front of her like the blades of a fan, coming closer and closer to Juno with her wicked grin.

Juno takes a rare, albeit automatic, step backwards.

“There’s no backing down, pirate. Not if you wish to return to your faerie.” Dream Weaver chides. “Call your sword over to you—these weapons are attune to the challenger and will gravitate to you alone.”

She does as Dream Weaver recommends, not even needing to give the action much thought. The sword flies from its spot on the mountain into her fist, just in time for Juno to meet the moon’s dangerous new appendages.

***​

An impossibly bright flash of light sweeps through the ravine, consuming everything. Eliza’s eyes sting with tears, burning despite having squeezed them shut; despite having her palms pressed to them.

Around her, she can hear her women groaning and cursing. Not even Ripir seems immune to this development as she can hear the beast shrieking as it slams its body against the rocky walls, shaking the ground. Large pieces of rock break off from the wall and it’s a miracle that no one in the company gets crushed.

Well, no. It’s not a miracle. It’s Ainsley.

Though her vision is still full of spots, she can just make out a defensive spirit dome encapsulating herself and the company. She brings her palms back up to her eyes, trying to clear her vision.

“Fuck! What was that!?”

“Damnit! That little bitch played us!”

Her women are all out of sorts, both trying to recover and play defense at the same time. Marta’s words only start to make sense when Eliza blinks around and realizes that both Olette and Thaddeus are conveniently missing from the battlefield. She has no time to give this thought as Ainsley’s shield comes down a second later.

The harp music has also since ceased, freeing Ripir from the spell. And, for the moment, the great worm seems to be fixating on the horned beings, understanding them as its primary enemy. She watches as it slams its body over one of the beings, capturing them in its long mouth; its teeth close on them like a zipper, grinding the being to nothing before they can so much as scream.

Eliza can just make out four other horned and winged beings scrambling to collect their slack jaws from the ground. One has the sense to try and go for the harp, but Jo is faster and hurls a bomb at it before the off worlder can get to it. The explosion fills the air and effectively destroys the harp. Even from this distance, she can see the dark rage coloring the off-worlder's face as they change course and divebomb her pyrotechnic.

Marta, Delaney, and Squid pull bone constructs from the earth—past victims of Ripir, no doubt—and send some over to assist Jo. And, likely not counting on Ripir to remain on their side, they then combine their strength to raise three titanic constructs to handle the worm.

One of the beings, the one who had grabbed Olette by that golden chains—what even was that about?—makes his way towards Eliza, taking slow and deliberate steps. His face is gnarled with rage, adding to the effect of his growing horns, sharpening claws and mouthful of fangs. But if that’s supposed to intimidate Eliza? He’ll need to try harder.

Eliza pulls out her twin machetes, twirling them around as she takes her stance. His smirk is arrogant and his words grate against her. “Beg for mercy and I might make your death—”

A skeleton comes up behind the asshole and tackles him to the ground, pinning him by his shoulders. The surprise gives Eliza the opening to rush and shred into one of his wings. (He said something about Olette’s wings earlier, so she considers this payback on the faerie’s behalf.) He howls in agony, eyes blazing with fiery tears as they take on a dangerous red color. He draws something with his claws, causing the ground to glow with a blazing symbol. It burns her boots and she hops backwards out of the ring just as a pillar of flames shoots up from it.

The horned being then reaches over his shoulder and crushes the skeleton with his fist, rising up and stepping into the pillar, allowing it to set his body aflame. It’s either the flame or some other trick, but the horned being grows in size until he’s towering over Eliza. “I warned you, brat.”

A tight swirl of fire manifests between his horns, shooting a breath of white hot flames at Eliza, chasing her no matter the direction she goes. With the rest of her company otherwise occupied with the other three, she’s on her own and she’s not quite sure how any of them are going to make it out of this alive. (Has she just damned her company by trusting Juno's faerie?)

 

[ellarose]

It's... dark. When Lettie's head stops pounding, she registers this as she blinks her eyes open, squinting them in effort to see. A chill courses over her. (Have hours passed on Desdemonia since they've been gone? Eliza, her company--) Chills wrap around her heart and worm their way inside. Gradually, though, as her eyes adjust she notices the walls of what appears to be a tunnel surrounding her. The tunnel. That explains the darkness. (But...) She's barely recovered from the whiplash from being yanked in and out of battle-- from seeing Juno fighting that unnerving monstrosity of a giant winged woman-- but the alarmed little faerie scrambles back up to her feet as her gaze darts around the empty tunnel. "Cubey. Why are we here?"

"Because you need to be here." The cube replies matter-of-factly, not seeing the flaw in their logic. "The beast and demons above are sufficiently distracted."

"But we... we had a plan." Lettie argues, looking left and right. She's not sure which way she needs to go to get back up to the surface, but that's her intention. She's not leaving Eliza and her company to fight all those bastards alone. No fucking way. "We need to get back up there and help them!"

"None of your plans go according to plan. They all turn to shit bananas." The cube would be shrugging nonchalantly right now if the little bastard had shoulders. Lettie, forming two tight fists at her side, would be punching it in the face if it had a face to punch. "This one is shit bananas."

"Why are we talking about... shit bananas?" Thad asks, groaning as he finally lugs himself off the ground. "What even are shit bananas?"

"Shut up, Thad." Lettie and the cube chorus. If the cube had eyes, they'd likely be glaring at each other while Thad shuffles uncertainly on his feet in the background. (He still thinks her talking to the cubes is weird, even though the cubes are fully capable of responding. Anyway, it's not that strange!)

"I'm not arguing with you, cubey. I'm going back up there." Lettie remains firm and decisive, complete with a cheek-puff. "Thad, use your muscles and lift me up." The necromancer hesitantly starts to lift the faerie with his noodle arms. (...Oh, Thad. Those aren't muscles! Not even close.) "No, I didn't mean..." The faerie winces with something like secondhand embarrassment and presses a hand over her face. "Your construct's muscles, Thad! The one with the arms." She flexes sassily. She's tempted to say something about his 'genius IQ', or that he lost a couple of brain cells when he tripped before Ripir-- but he's doing as he's told now, so she decides to show him some mercy.

"So bossy..." Thad complains. Soon enough, Lettie is lifted high towards the top of the tunnel. Connected to the construct and Thad, she manages to glitch their whole crew through the earth and back up to the surface. 'I need to see this through. I need to finish this so I can get back to her.' While traveling hand in hand underground, they pick up the voices of several souls. 'I need to do this for her.' (Juno will be reunited with Eliza. Lettie needs to make sure of it.) Those fallen to the likes of Ripir... and those with the melodic and distinct sound of mermaids. The harp. Sensing that they'll need all the help they can get, That draws those souls in towards them as they make their journey back up onto the battlefield.

They soar higher and higher into the air even as they break through canyon rock. Lettie's eyes are clenched shut in concentration, but she can hear the lion's roar of the wind in her ears as her hair is whipped all around. She senses the souls brushing against her the same way she sensed those of her and Juno's insect army. Her every breath is electric, sending restless sparks dancing between her ribs and down her arms and legs.

"Holy shit. What did we just..." Thad sounds panicked beside her, nudging her side incessantly. Lettie opens her eyes, which glow like two luminescent phantoms through the whirlwind of dust swirling around them, and looks down at her feet to find they've been hoisted high into the air by what can only be explained as a gravity defying river of souls. (There are so many that her stomach sinks at the sight. Ripir's not a legend for no reason.) Thad clings tighter to the faerie's arm. "Oh, no no no no no. I don't know how to hold this--" The souls flicker with his resolve-- they fall a few feet-- and Lettie squeezes him back. "Thad!" He pulls himself back together and the souls retain their form. "What... what the fuck are we even doing!?"

"Don't look at me. I have no fucking clue!" Lettie shakes her head, at a loss. She rarely ever does have a fucking clue what the fuck is going on. (The cubes never explain shit!) But that never stopped her and Juno from rolling with it before. "But I do have a plan." (Yeah, let's just hope this one doesn't go all shit bananas on them.) "Just focus on keeping us elevated. I swear, if we fall to our deaths here--"

"You'll haunt me forever. I got it." Thad rolls his eyes. Lettie rolls her eyes back at him before closing them again to focus.

"Fish bi--" Ahem. "Mermaids. I know you're in there somewhere." Lettie sends out her plea through the noise of all the souls. "You feel like getting revenge on those demon scum?" Ah, classic fish bitches. Bring up revenge and they come ru-- swimming. Their fishy souls swim through the dust of the earth below and then through the river of other souls, gravitating towards the faerie. "Figured you would. I need some help with an illusion. We're going for something nasty, something monstrous and strong... something that'll give the nightmares nightmares."

And with that? The giant expanse of souls flickers-- shaping itself into a mirror image of Ripir. (Only this one is larger and fiercer, enough to shake even the legendary monster itself.) The glamoured beast made of souls screeches, the mermaids using their voices to solidify their monster's existence as fact in the minds of all those who hear it. (With the exception, that is, of Eliza's company below-- whom Lettie requested remain immune to the effects of the illusion.) It's easily the most complex glamour Lettie has ever sculpted with her magic before and even with help, takes all of her concentration to hold in place. She envisions it's teeth, long and sickly... imagines it's eyes, red and sharpened. Something big and powerful to crush those bastards who have always held her down. And it becomes just that. Ripir screeches and scurries away from the site of the battle, disappearing into some tunnel below the canyon. Hiding. Frightened. Hehe, yes!

'Hell yeah! Cower before us, bitches!'

And with the legendary beast itself opting out of the fight, many of the demons panic and do the same. Scurrying off, teleporting away, or at the very least becoming distracted in all the chaos, leaving openings for Eliza and her company to strike back.

***​

The collision of Juno's sword with those attached to the moon's new scythe blades emits a blast of raw energy that blows both of them backward a few feet, creating some space between them on their mountain battlefield. This doesn't deter the giant woman as she comes skulking closer again, lifting her arms and preparing to strike again. (This process repeats, with the moon attacking and Juno defending. The giant woman is undeterred, leaving Juno no openings to get away long enough to come up with another strategy.) Still eager to be of help, even with the Guardian's threats echoing in the air, one of the warriors of Nightwood throws their battle axe and it wedges itself deep into the moon's back. But the moon doesn't react at all to this-- treating it like one might treat a new accessory with their unfazed cheshire grin. The axe is quickly swathed in shadows, turning the same obsidian black as her robes. It gets absorbed into her new, horrific form.

The same thing happens to any knives or arrows that get shot into the giant woman. They steel over, becoming a part of her new form, until she's a gruesome, headless creature with weapons sticking out all over her. While none of the weapons seem to wound or slow her down, it's apparent by her twitching grin that she's starting to tire of their determined onslaught against her.

With a cackling laugh, the moon raises her arms above her head and brings the two crescent scythes together to make a circle. In a blast of light, they fill in-- creating a sharp disk like a full moon. It springs outward with a chain attached. The moon uses the steel of the weapons lodged in her to morph her body into a sturdy pillar, winding the chain around her new form. Crank, crank, crank.

"Brace yourself, pirate." Dream Weaver warns. But the spirit probably doesn't have to tell her that.

It seems that the moon might have learned something from Juno as the full moon is released from the pillar, swinging outward in a circling motion with a width that gradually becomes wider and wider as more of the chain is unwound. A few of the warriors standing in its path are sliced in half by the razored disk of the full moon while others are quick and panicked enough by the sudden deaths of their companions that they know to duck and dodge.

"Consider this..." Dream Weaver advises Juno, bracing for the upcoming attack as clouds swirl around her feet-- just in case they need to come in for a swift save. "Where is her weakness? Thanks to your efforts and those of the warriors, we've seen already that it isn't her body." And considering where Juno struck the first enemy, aiming directly for the sun instead of the muscled body... "If the moon itself takes damage, she may not be able to recover so easily." As the spirit says this, the razored full moon comes swinging right for them--!

 

[starboob]

‘Fuck.’

White hot flames pour around Eliza. Her legs aren’t fast enough to keep outrunning this demon, she knows this. It’s fire all around her. Fire in her lungs. Fire in her legs. Fire blistering her skin even if it has yet to actually touch her.

The demon laughs as he continues his assault and something tells the woman he could end her at any moment. He’s just having too much fun. Asshole.

She can’t even look around to check on her women, but she can hear their shouts, their curses, their screams. Her mind fills in the rest. ‘Well, if this is how it goes, then I hope it does something to help the kid.’ She just wishes she weren’t abandoning her others. But they all knew the dangers and it’s precisely why she left them back at the cave.

This fills Eliza with a sort of peace, knowing this is her end and that she has nothing to lose. This does not, however, mean she’s going to go down easily. This does not mean she’s giving up. Hell fucking no. She's the baddest wolf out there and she’ll show this punk her teeth.

With her resolve steeled, she reaches for the bundle of bombs she always carries, clutching two in one fist and three in the other. She skids to halt, then wheels around, arms ready to catapult the last bit of everything she’s goddamn got, but stops just short of releasing the bombs.

Just behind the demon, the largest fucking construct she’s ever seen rises with blazing red eyes and nasty teeth like Ripir’s. Yet, Eliza can spot the seams in the illusion and, somehow, knows it’s not real, even when it screeches with enough power that it puts out the demon’s flames.

The demon slowly turns, a slight tremble to his form as his neck cranes back to stare the thing in its eyes. He starts to step backwards and trips, falling straight on his ass. Eliza seizes the opening, exchanging her bombs for her machetes, and hacks them both into the fucker’s skull before he even has the thought to scramble.

Most of the remaining demons are wise enough to run, just like Ripir, and the ones who remain? They’re too cowed to move and she watches as her company gets their rightful revenge; tearing them in two with their constructs or throwing bombs at their feet. The ground is covered in demon guts in a matter of minutes.

Eliza staggers, her breath heavy and heaving, sweat pouring all over her, and her mouth dry. Ezra rushes over to her first, placing a canteen in her hand while also checking over her various blisters. “How ugly do I look now, Ez?”

“I think the blisters make you prettier.” They joke, but she can tell they’re concerned, examining the swelling bubbles. “Shit, Jo’s got the burn kit. I’ll go get it from her.”

Ezra leaves Eliza to her own and she surveys the smoking battlefield, watching her women collect themselves in heaps. Ainsley’s missing an arm. Jo’s got a gnarly gash over her face (it will make for a fearsome scar). Delaney’s limping and Marta is sporting a number of different cuts and burns. And it goes without saying that all the necromancers are covered in their own blood sweat. ‘How far did they have to go to hold them back? How much do they have left?’

Hopefully they can make it back to camp without incident. At least, that is Eliza’s first thought until she watches Marta march up to a certain faerie who has miraculously reappeared.

“You fucking bitch!” Marta points her finger in Olette’s face, staring her straight in the eye. “The fuck was that!? You think you can just use us as your fucking fodder and that we’ll just graciously celebrate you because you a summoned a fucking worm? Fucking warn us, you little fucking—”

Delaney sets her hands on Marta’s shoulders, pulling her back from the faerie. But while she is the more reasonable one between the two of them, she doesn’t hide the hate in her eyes. “Thought you knew the value of loyalty? Those just words to you?” she scoffs. “Never trust fucking pirates.”

“Hey, hey,” Thad puts his scrawny form between the faerie and the two buff women. “Lay off—that wasn’t her fault!”

“You’re right. It was fucking your fault,” Marta now stands toe to toe to Thad, her finger now in his face. “You klutzy little twig.”

Eliza sucks her teeth watching this, feeling the rise of her own resentment and not particularly inclined to save either Olette or Thaddeus from receiving an earful from her company, but they’re already beaten to hell. They don’t need to start another fight.

Begrudgingly, she steps forward and puts an arm between both parties. She doesn’t say anything, but the look in her eye gets Marta to take a few steps back into the refuge of Delaney’s arms. Then she turns to look at the two off-worlders. There's no malice, just exhaustion. “You do owe us an explanation. At least to those of us who might still be willing to help. That stunt hasn’t earned our faith.” Even as she says this, it’s clear that Eliza isn’t necessarily going to abandon them. If this gets Olette back with Juno, she’s willing to continue helping even if Olette is a rather crafty figure. It’s her company who have the most bruised feelings. “None of us thought this was going to be easy, but we sure as hell weren’t expecting to be abandoned and left to become monster fuel.”

***​

More villager blood is split on Juno’s hands and she’s powerless to do anything to stop it. Even if she doesn’t know the people of Nightwood, even if she doesn’t necessarily owe Fabel anything, their losses are slowly becoming her own as she learns more about this Guardian of Light and how she has stolen magic and thusly sentenced some magic users to slaughter. All for greed. All for nothing. She’s witnessed her cruelty; her tyranny. It’s almost like facing this world’s duchess.

For that alone, she’s wiping this motherfucker off the face of existence. But first, she’ll free these trapped sources.

“If you knew the goddamn head was the fuckin’ weakness, then why didn’t you fuckin’ say anything!?” she hisses to the smart ass in her pocket. “People are dying, you piece of shit!” Though it’s always easier to argue than to fight, she hasn’t taken her attention away from the disc and uses the cloud to launch herself into the air, narrowly missing it.

“Perhaps you ought to focus more on keeping your head, pirate? I am merely making a guess.”

Yeah, yeah. She rolls her eyes, neither believing nor doubting the spirit. Despite her annoyance, she does take their advice— the locket over her heart reminds her exactly of what’s at stake as well as the crystal that glitters in her periphery. ‘Lettie is still alive and you only have a day left after this one to make sure you can be together. Keep your focus.’ She'll cooperate if it means returning to the safety of her faerie's arms.

The moon below is winding up again or, at least, her body is. When Juno peers over the edge of the cloud, the head isn’t anywhere to be seen. She narrows her gaze, searching the battlefield for any sign of that floating creep. She tracks the wind up of the moon, the location of the villagers below, but does see a hint of that damn head. And Lettie’s nightmare goggles don’t highlight anything that she doesn’t already know.

'Fuck.' She decides to wait on finding the head with the body almost ready to send that disc towards the villagers. She won't let them die if she can help it. With her shield raised, she dives for them, not confident that the boulder they’ve huddled behind will provide them any safety.

Her cloud picks up speed, responding to her own sense of urgency; she reaches out towards one of the warriors, their fingers just grazing. Then something hard collides with her back, sending her tumbling off of the cloud and somersaulting over the ground. She loses her sword, yet again, but the shield remains on her arm. Dizzy and disoriented, she tries to find her feet, but the weight of whatever hit her is holding her down. She feels a wet tongue slide up her back just before needle-like teeth sink into her shoulder, but Juno doesn’t feel a thing. The crystal protects her from having her arm chomped off and the pirate reflexively jams her fist into what can only be the disembodied head.

She knots her fingers in her silvery hair, keeping her grip firm as she yanks her over her shoulder, holding her to the ground. A worrying shadow looms behind her, but the pirate focuses on the head, jamming her thumbs into her eyes. The shadow behind her jerks back and, vaguely, she sees the shadow, belonging to the body, thrashing and grasping at a face that isn’t there.

A shrill squeal echoes around Juno, but she doesn’t really hear the writhing thing beneath her. Rather, she can only hear her the blood rush in her ears as she beats in the moon’s face, eventually raising her shield to finish cleaving the head in two.

 

[ellarose]

Lettie knows it wasn't her fault. But that doesn't stop her from burning up hot with molten shame when Marta raises her voice and Delaney leers at her with undisguised hatred. Overwhelmed and standing on the edge of panic over everything, tears prick at her eyes and she stubbornly blinks them down, refusing to cry. It won't serve her to behave like a child in front of women who have lived-- survived-- in a world like Desdemonia. (The tears aren't entirely from shame, either. It's from assessing the damage everyone's sustained-- the burns, the scars, the... the lost limb. Because she blipped into their lives, because she asked for their help. They have every right to be upset with her.) The faerie doesn't move or flinch away when they get in her face. If they want to punch her, she'll let them.

So... how is she supposed to prove herself this time? Lettie notes a touch bitterly that her life's been one big series of attempts to prove herself. Though she's tired, the familiar desire to do something dramatic and impulsive to do just that rises in her... but then she considers the last time she tried proving herself that way and deflates. The scars on her back sting, offering a cruel reminder of where that path could take her. Reminding her that the Matrix is in the very claws that ripped her wings off her back. (...And that bastard's waiting down there in that tunnel for her.) She is but one little faerie who uses big actions to try and show she's worthy. Her soul doesn't belong to her anymore, she's been cursed not to tell her own story... and she's been living on the cube's schedule. This thought makes her feel smaller than she is, like a wingless fly stuck in a web. Of course they hate you.

There was a point where Lettie was so tired and overworked she didn't even try, yes, but that version of herself disappeared a long time ago. It was safe. (It was lonely.) In the early days of this journey, her version of survival came from pretending to be a useless faerie-- only good for looking pretty and glowing in the dark. Now she's stuck someplace in between. Does she let them believe what they want and continue on this journey alone? Or...

Thad steps in, distracting her from her downward spiral. (Like this, he reminds her of a certain vampire wannabe. This realization makes her want to cry even more, but she holds it in.) It occurs to Lettie that he's the only other person in the worlds who understands the specific sort of hell she and Juno have had to endure thanks to the cubes. They don't get to decide where to go and when... and when they do? It takes a hell of a lot of persuasion and spelling things out to get it through to those fucking squares.

Eliza steps in, extending a chance to her. Some mercy. (Lettie appreciates it. But now they're all looking to her for an explanation. Gulp.) Panning her gaze across the crew, wounded and betrayed, she feels an impossible weight pressing on her shoulders. The way she responds here could be the catalyst for whether they live or die. She could make them hate her, endure the rest of the mission on her own in a noble attempt to keep them safe. Or she could tell the truth and hope they make the choices that are right for them. Because... at the end of all of this, that's their mission. To save Desdemonia and them by extension. A mission like that isn't going to be easy. She will need some help. Right. She's got to consider the big picture here.

"I'm sorry." Lettie says this without breaking eye contact with Marta or Delaney. Then her gaze flickers over to Eliza. "I am. I didn't expect it, either. I don't have control of where I go, or when. If I did, I'd never have crashed in the bar the way I did yesterday." She shakes her head and clutches her locket. "If I had any choice, I would have stayed with Juno to help her fight her demons. Because I don't abandon the people I care about." Now... how is she supposed to explain the rest? She touches her throat, the zeroes on her wrist tingling. If the cube hadn't pulled her away when it did, she might've been swept right back to Avangeline. Locked in a cell, deprived of her source, and...

Once more, though, she finds herself damned by the fact that she can't explain.

But Lettie can show them. She'd been too ashamed to show Juno, remembering the devastating way Ravan had looked at her when she showed him. But she should have showed her... because it might have prevented all of this from happening the way it did. A pitying expression would've been easier to endure then... the loss of her wings and the hell Juno's going through right now. (They've lost so much that Lettie can see and appreciate the miracle it is that they still have each other. She just hopes they can see this through.) She's learned a lot since then. This is all bigger than Lettie and bigger than what these people think of her.

"The cube teleports us when we're close to death. When things went wrong, it intervened to save Thad from Ripir and... and to save me from--" Lettie's throat burns, the squeeze of the golden noose jarringly tight. (No matter how many times she's endured the sensation, she's never prepared for it.) It clamps down on her punishingly, her teary eyes bulge, and she lands on her knees in an instant. 'I can't breathe.' She tries to collect herself. 'No, you got this. Clear your mind.' Cotton stuffs her ears, muffling the sound of everyone's reactions, though she can sense Thad and Eliza at her sides. Asking what this is, even though she can't tell them. She simply lifts her wrist, showing the gold zeroes and hoping that it offers something. Something, which is better than nothing at all. If they consider the chain attached, the silencing curse... surely they'll be able to discern some part of it. Finally, the noose disappears and she wheezes to catch her breath again. "...The cube needs us alive for the mission. And because it's a fucking cube, it doesn't understand loyalty. But it does know what needs to be done to heal Desdemonia and worlds like it."

"It's a dangerous mission. We all knew this going in. And like I said before, I appreciate anyone who wants to help... but I'm not gonna force any of you to follow me. I'll go down there by myself if I have to. Because, damn it, I do want to help. I want to make sure that Nico and Mauve and the rest of you can have a future on a world that isn't always trying to eat you alive." Lettie brings herself to stand, not accepting help as she does so. She brushes herself off and starts heading for the tunnel, deciding she doesn't want to see their expressions... and she doesn't have to. (The cube must've been rushing them for a reason. They don't have to like her... they don't have to come with her. She needs to see this through.) Slipping the elastic from her wrist, she ties her hair back into a ponytail. She's got a creature to punch. "Come on, Thad."

***​

Fleck by fleck, what remains of the the giant woman's body disintegrates into a pillar of silvery light. A rain of sparkles dusts over Juno's head and shoulders like snow. All that remains of her final scream is a faint echo, which gradually fades to nothing but the peaceful quiet of night. The clouds above darken to a velvety black, but the faint glow left by the woman's body remains and spreads like paint over a canvas as the full moon rises and enlarges, gradually shading everything underneath it with silver tones as it returns to it's rightful place in Fabel's sky. Once there, it shines even brighter yet, as if to spite the 'Guardian of Light' herself.

The warriors collectively hold their breaths. Fireflies are now visible in the forest below the Moon's Scythe, their bodies glowing whimsically in the dark. There's a faint hum of other insects, singing their songs as they crawl out to greet the first night Fabel has seen in a long, long while.

The second task is done. However, the warriors wisely consider it premature to celebrate. Tension hangs in the air like the Guardian of Light herself-- who menacingly hovers above them all like a gauntlet poised to come hammering down with a vengeance. She inhales a sharp breath, ready to shred them all to ribbons of light with the hatred burning in her eyes alone. But before she can do anything? The lantern at her side unexpectedly shatters, quite similarly to how the moon's body just shattered.

"You--" The Guardian of Light starts accusingly, her eyes widening with shock. It seems something other than flames have escaped the lantern, because it was not a star captured inside of it, but a... bug? A firefly? (It looks like it managed to glitch through the glass, though, like a certain little faerie.) "Come back here!"

Because it's not a firefly, but a faerie. Calytrix, otherwise known as the Fabel Star, who has regained some strength through the restoration of the sun and moon and managed to take some portion of her magic back. She flies determined and fast towards Juno, like a meteor through the sky... (The remaining warriors murmur with wonder amongst themselves, the older ones confirming the existence of the Fabel Star. The faerie who watched over them and tended to their skies.) At the same time, a shimmery orb of light appears before Juno. A gift from the moon, one that will materialize to suit her needs.

"Trix... She's still alive." Dream Weaver murmurs, perplexed. Disbelieving. Shaken. The spirit doesn't register the orb-- only the faerie. "Pirate, you must-- you must--"

"Please, help me!" Calytrix screams, her eyes wild, wide and terrified. (All of the souls her magic has taken in just one evening-- she cannot erase the sound of the screams of their souls from her mind. She cannot stand it any longer.) For the first time in a very long time, the people of Fabel can hear her. They can see her. "Kill me. I don't want to hurt anyone else--"

A golden chain springs from the faerie's wrist. The Guardian of Light yanks the tiny faerie back by it, catching her in a tightly clenched fist. With a furious sweep of her robes, she disappears from the night sky-- taking Calytrix with her.

All that's left is a chilling silence and the shimmery orb, still gleaming in front of Juno in the newly restored moonlight.

 

[starboob]

It’s so easy for Juno to draw the connection between this faerie and hers. It’s so easy to imagine that it’s Lettie racing towards her with big, desperate eyes. It’s so easy to picture her being yanked backwards by that menacing golden chain. Though she doesn’t believe Lettie would ever beg for her life to be ended— she’s far too much of a fighter— everyone has their limits. (Even Juno, for a time, wanted to give up. Until Eliza thwarted all of her attempts and bear-hugging her until she fell asleep.) And, putting together the pieces of what’s happening to Trix and how she’s being used, knowing what she knows about faeries, she doesn’t judge her.

And it breaks her heart nonetheless, to know that she's so hopeless. She swears the crystal pieces over her heart are cracking under this pressure; under this spell of constant powerlessness. Powerless to stop the Guardian from cleaning off people’s bones with her light ribbons; powerless to stop the Guardian in general. Dream Weaver says destroying her crown and freeing the other trapped spirits within it will give her an edge, but what if she’s not strong enough? What if she fails?

As if prompted by these thoughts, the locket bangs on her chest by the sweep of the wind, reminding her why she can’t think like that. She clutches it. ‘This is just as much for Lettie as it is for Trix. This is for all the faeries who’ve been used and forgotten.’ And, also, it’s for herself.

She might not have had her magic siphoned from her and she might not be treated as the salt of the earth because of what she is (that’s more because of who she is… or was), but she knows what it’s like to be used as someone else’s pawn. (“You didn’t tell me that village was full of fuckin’ elders and the sick!” Her outburst amused Cassidy, but she was quick to remind Juno of their deal. “It wasn’t important. You do whatever I say, Juno. Need I remind you what awaits if you turn your back on me? Your only ally?”) Sometimes Juno wishes she hadn’t taken Eliza’s words so seriously and that she hadn’t fought so hard to keep her life, because she’s not sure it’s been worth it. She doesn’t even think what she’s doing now will ever make up for the actions of her past. What’s the point of change if she can’t change the past? When harm and irreparable damage has already been done? She's ruined so many people’s lives that she might as well have sentenced them to death with her deeds.

Sometimes she doesn’t think she’s worthy of Lettie. It wasn’t wrong of her to assume that she was a homicidal asshole when they first met.

But Lettie’s also the one who gave Juno, the real one, a chance. And she loves her as she is, with her past, just as Juno loves her, even if their time together might be limited. If not for this crystal curse, then for Lettie’s golden one. Lettie sees her. Lettie fights for her. She can’t do her disservice by questioning her, even if her chest is still aching with guilt and grief.

The lightning bugs fill the air and provide just as much light as the restored moon and while it’s beautiful, Juno can’t find it in herself to celebrate either. She feels heavier than she had before this battle, but maybe that’s just the crystal growing up the back of her neck. ‘How am I going to survive this?’

The orb brightens next to her, as if reading her thoughts and beckoning her to use this wish. (Lettie’s goggles scroll out the same message as before, reminding her that her faerie is still with her.) The orb reacts to Juno, changing through different forms as she debates what might be useful for her. It takes her a minute of thought, but eventually the orb settles into the shape of a luminescent moonstone, pulsing with energy. Magic.

“Wise choice, pirate,” Dream Weaver commends. “Now you’ll be able to draw on some of the moon’s source through that stone and strengthen the magic that I… That I stole.” The spirit admits, sounding almost ashamed over themself. (Perhaps seeing Trix again has them thinking twice about stealing the magic of others.) However, they don't linger on the sentiment for long, returning back to business. "The source is not infinite, of course, because you are not like the Guardian. You did not wish for the moon's power, only for something to refill the dregs you've been left with. When the stone loses its luminescences, so too will its power be lost." The mirror surface warps, revealing the hidden camp. "Come and bring the remaining warriors, that will be a shimmer more of good news for some."

***​

Whatever magic has a vise on Olette, Eliza never wants to experience it for herself. When the faerie’s back is turned, still holding her head high despite what she just endured, the vigilante touches her fingers to her throat. She sees a few of the other women mirror her gesture as well, a wave of understanding washing through them all. They all saw the golden chain that pulled her forward before and they all heard what that demon threatened.

Collectively, they turn their ire towards those demons, rather than the faerie whose life had to be saved by any means necessary.

When the faerie and the twig wielder are some distance away, Eliza turns to her women and raises her brow to ask the question, ‘You all coming or what?’ Though Ainsley and Jo have the most severe injuries, Ainsely’s already fixed herself up with a spirit arm prosthetic and the slash across Jo’s face has stopped bleeding. Delaney’s limp is a concern, but she straightens her back by way of saying she’s fine.

Eliza nods, turns, and leads her company into the tunnel after Olette and Thaddeus.

The tunnel is dark, making it impossible to know exactly where they’re headed and while she has the thought to ask Jo for one of her torches, she considers the invisible demons earlier and isn’t sure she wants to give up their position or announce their arrival, wherever this leads. When she turns to tell Jo, she can see that the other woman must have the same idea, having stopped midway in reaching for her torches.

Their steps are quiet and barely scuff orecho. Not even their breathing is perceptible. They move as silent as snakes in the grass, wary of everything before and behind them, not knowing what sort of magic or weapons they will be up against the further they go.

But all is quiet thus far.

As they approach the end of the tunnel, there’s a faint blue-green glow towards the end and, faintly, muffled voices start to reach them. Thaddeus, who has remained close to the faerie’s side, suddenly puts his arm in front of Olette, then raises his finger to his lips. The hairs on the back of his neck rise and his skin prickles with goosebumps. A chill creeps along the tunnel, enough that their breath fogs in front of them. “I think I’m catching onto shit bananas,” he whispers, trying to make light of the fact that he’s trembling. “Something’s here.”

“I can feel it, too,” Ainsely confirms from her position. Slowly, the entire group starts to look around them, drawing closer to each other until they’ve formed a circle, standing shoulder to shoulder, all of them facing out.

“Oh, little onus,” a voice taunts through an echo, not making himself seen. (But it’s obvious who it is. At least, it should be to the faerie.) “Brought some more friends to drag down with you? How I love to play.”

 

[ellarose]

"Watch the shadows." Lettie advises the group (...they actually came) squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes as she darts her own gaze around the tunnel. For all of their sakes, she fights to be firmer than she is. Or at least fake it until she (hopefully) makes it. While the tiny faerie is not half the leader Eliza is, she needs to be mindful of how she conducts herself so they take her seriously. (She models her stance after Juno, remembering the way she would automatically take charge as the captain of her ship whenever a battle hit a particularly shitty part of shit bananas. She can still remember snippets of the night they escaped the duchess for the first time, when she carried her on her back to Lady and healed her wing. Issuing commands to Marjorie and the others in such a way that they set their usual antics aside to do exactly what she said because they knew she meant business. Her cool, badass pirate. Though Lettie's not sure if she'd ever be able to pull the badass look off the same way. She'd experiment with some edgy black clothes right now if she wasn't so focused.) The asshole calls her Onus and she tries to ignore the way her scars tingle, the way the phantoms of her wings shiver in the presence of the entity. She grits her teeth. He's saying it to watch her squirm. He already ripped the wings from her back... like hell is she gonna give him the satisfaction for free. He'll have to work harder for that. "This guy's a creepy stalker. He can appear from anywhere, as anyone... don't let him catch you off guard."

"Well, well, well. Listen to the flightless wonder." The entity uses Juno's voice. At first it spears through her... and once the pain subsides, it leaves a simmering annoyance in it's stead. It's a lame imitation at best. Nothing to get so worked up over, really. (If he thinks this is gonna get her all weepy and distressed, he's got another fucking thing coming.) "The fake bitch, trying so hard to act tough in front of her new pals. You replaced me real quick after I fucked you over, didn't you?" The shadows flicker around them, merely as taunts, but nothing appears from them. Yet. They have to be ready for anything. "You shouldn't trust her. She's a little minx. All faeries are."

"...Oh, wow. Is that really the angle you're going for here?" Lettie asks, her tone lilting incredulously as she gives a defiant head tilt. What a dummy. Using Juno against her is a big fucking mistake. She prepares one of her butterfly daggers, eyes narrowing to slits. (She flips the knife once, twice. Three times. For style's sake.) Come at me, fucker. "You can drop the insulting, cheap-ass Juno impression now. It's not gonna work on me."

"Then tell me. Where is your stupidly buff pirate, onus?" The shadow asks-- and Lettie already sees the prompt for the trap it is. She'd considered it just the other night while talking to Eliza. She's already suffered because of their mind games and tricks... suffered because of their attempts to pit them against each other. While there were things they both could have done to avoid the catastrophe that came for them, the entity and Crane added fuel to that fire when they pulled them aside. This piece of shit is trying to make her feel like she has to defend her relationship with Juno, to give credible facts to show they're still together against all odds. It's a crafty fucking game they're playing... but they're not playing it nearly well enough.

They won a battle on Avangeline, sure, but they haven't won the fucking war. Maybe he took her wings, maybe he humors himself with thinking he's torn her and Juno apart for good. They barely made it out with their lives... and they're cursed. (The sand in Juno's hourglass has reduced to the pinch of a single day and Lettie's has already run out.) But they're still kicking. Still got some fight in them. It isn't over.

"Wow, you really don't know? I thought you would've already figured that out, being a creepy stalker and everything." Lettie widens her eyes theatrically and then deadens her expression into something plainly unimpressed. "I'm not telling you shit. Why should I make your job easy for you?" She smirks. "Let me guess. You're wondering which one of us still has the relics?"

Long, clawed fingers suddenly dangle down from the ceiling. And clenched in them is a ring of gold-- a bracelet-- her bracelet, swinging tauntingly before her like a pendulum. Lettie's heart clenches. She swallows hard. It's the last piece of Lina she had left. (He knows you're onto him, Letts! He's just trying to distract you.) Still, rage flushes her cheeks red. "...Fuck you." She feels Thad's hand on her shoulder, but that does little to ease her. (It's fair to say the only person capable of bringing her back from this isn't here right now.)

"Aw. You can't reach it. Can you, flightless?" The entity laughs, a sound that rattles and echoes over the walls of the underground tunnel surrounding them. Another elongated claw dips down from the ceiling, sweeping in a circular motion set to throw the entire group off their feet before snatching Lettie around the waist. The entity tosses her away from the rest of the group, pinning her to the wall furthest away. A cloud of dust rains over her head from the impact, sticking to her eyelashes and getting in her eyes. Before she can reclaim her senses, Lina is in front of her instead of that claw. Pressing down on her so hard she can barely breathe. (Not Lina.) "Just how many people do you intend to drag down with you, onus? Your life is already forfeit. Like mine." Not-Lina bats her demonic eyes... and then her face turns into a twisted version of Juno's. Rotting slowly, flesh peeling away and revealing the skeleton beneath. Throwing in Lettie's face the exact fate she's terrified of befalling her. (All at once, it comes rushing back. The monster, Juno covered in blood, more of her skin encased in crystal. The fact that she has one day. Just one day.) "Like hers will be if you don't tell me where the fucking relics are."

Not-Juno's claws, the same ones that destroyed her wings, are digging into her shoulders with impatience. They slam the faerie against the tunnel wall once, twice. A gash on the back of Lettie's head starts to bleed, streaking her white hair with red. Confetti in varying shades of red and black rains in her eyes. (Do their ambitions have a timeline? Is that why they're getting so desperate?) Lettie raises her butterfly knife and attempts to stab them in the claw... they wrench it from her hand too easily.

"What do you say? Do you want to lose your freakish ears next? Or maybe your nose?" The entity threatens, waving the knife in her face. "I know you're a vain little thing."

Before the entity can act on any of these threats, however, he's thrown off of her. Lettie slumps to the ground once she's freed from his hold, holding the side of her head as the cleaving sensation of being smashed against the wall rocks through her over and over. When she comes to again, she realizes Eliza has managed to cut one of the entity's clawed hands off. (...It will grow back eventually, just like all the others. But still.)

Perhaps sensing he's been outnumbered all along, the shadow entity slithers away, leaving them in the tunnel. There's hardly time for them to collect themselves before a familiar gas begins filling the area. "Shit!" The women curse and hold their hands over their noses and mouthes. But before they can worry too much about this, a flash of light swallows them all up and--

Blip!

***​

"Cubey... you brought all of us this time." Lettie notes when she comes to again, assessing her surroundings. The cube teleported Lettie, Thad, and Eliza's whole company to Fabel this time around. (Although the perpetual twilight sky has changed and the light of a full moon beams down on them. A full moon...) They ended up on Lady. Seems like the cube swept in right before the duchess's knock-out gas could get to them. (And it didn't leave anyone behind this time. Thank the stars. Thank the fucking stars.) While the ship and the company belong to the same world, there's something surreal about seeing them there. (Lettie's surrounded with people now-- but without Juno and the skeleton crew there, it's just weird. Like her family's missing.) "Thank you."

"They're the new crew." The cube says it like an admission. (Cubey must've been keeping an eye on them, noting their decision to follow Lettie and Thad into the tunnel.) Where there might've been questions before as to how far they would go for this mission that was just suddenly sprung on them... they proved they're willing to see it through just then. "I had ample time to retrieve the Matrix thanks to your efforts."

Lettie's jaw drops. "Cubey, you got the Matrix!?"

"It was a stealth mission." The cube offers matter-of-factly. "Or did you already forget?"

Lettie blinks dumbly and the cube sighs. "...However, the entity did confirm that you are still in possession of us 'relics'." The cube mutters the word 'relics' as if it exhausts them. "And there are traces that the Matrix has been tampered with. We need to be careful."

Speaking of careful... Lettie thinks about the full moon again, and that crescent shaped weapon that giant winged lady was wielding.

"Where's Juno?" Lettie asks. Well, obviously she's not here. And the last time she saw her... a sharp chill shoots from her head to her toes. "Where is she?" (She has so much to tell her. And Eliza... her eyes widen. Eliza is here. She's honestly not sure how Juno will react to that piece of info yet. It's probably better if she's able to give her a head's up beforehand.) "I need to go check on something." Lettie tells the company on her way out. "You guys rest up. Lady's defenses are up and running-- you'll be safe here."

***​

Melvin, for once, makes himself useful and manages to teleport Lettie to the location where Juno is camped with the villagers. (Juno, who is still alive. Relief mingles with a heart-sinking sensation at the sight of the crystlization covering even more of her skin-- as well as all the new wounds she's sustained.) Unfortunately, she finds Juno when she's already fast asleep... among a bunch of children. The faerie melts at the sight. (It is a relieving and cute sight. She cannot deny this. Even if she likes the idea of a certain little faerie sleeping snuggled up against Juno much better.) It's a good thing she's sleeping, getting all the rest she needs.

Lettie summons up her magic circle and writes Juno a little note-- that she's gone back to Lady for the night but will be back first thing in the morning (...provided she's still there.) Also that she has something important that she wants to tell her in person. While normally she would stay until Juno wakes, she doesn't like the idea of leaving Eliza and her crew for an extended time after the way everything went down against Ripir and the demons. (Juno's being looked after and taken care of by these villagers-- who tell her stories of the pirate's heroics. The faerie's heart blooms with pride with each story she hears-- even if they also terrify her to her core.) Lettie kisses the note, leaving a lipstick stain, and draws a little heart next to it. She has one of her butterflies leave the note beside the pirate, not wanting to disturb her or any of the children.

With that done, Lettie heads back to Lady Vengeance. Tomorrow. She'll see Juno again tomorrow. (...And Juno will be devoured tomorrow. But not if this little fucking faerie has something to say about it.)

 

[starboob]

Juno can’t bear to look the little blue haired girl in the eye when she discovers that her mother won’t ever be returning to Nightwood. When she discovers that her mother died a warrior and a hero's death. Dream Weaver might have told her not to worry about the warriors, that they choose this path knowing what could happen and that they will be celebrated should they lay their lives down for their village, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t loss. There’s so much grief amongst the villagers tonight. So many of the warriors did not return and Juno can’t bear to witness their families' anguish.

But she can’t avoid them either.

They approach her and ask her, again and again, to relive the fight and describe how their loved ones went down; if they went down in service of restoring the skies. Juno swallows the lump in her throat and stills the tremor in her voice as she tells them, flatly, how it all happened. Eventually, the other surviving warriors come to help Juno and assure the families that their loved ones went down valiantly; that nothing could have been done to prevent their deaths.

Juno remains quiet. She doesn’t believe that. She should have done more. She should have raised hell. She should have given it her all—her everything. Though even she knows that would have accomplished nothing more than another needless death. She couldn’t do that to Lettie. She couldn’t do that to all of Fabel, who are counting on her to finish this task. She couldn’t do that to herself. It’s one thing to be fearless and another to be reckless.

She sulks by the fire the villagers built afterwards, staring blankly into the flames. She receives their first aid, their food, their water. All she feels is numbness. One villager offers her a pair of black leather gloves to ease her grip now that her hands are encased. She thanks them, slipping them on, and forcing down some rations. She slips one of the children the small candy from her portion, noting the way they had been drooling as they eyed it. At least that lights up the kid’s eye. ‘Why couldn’t it have been different?’ Asking that question will get her nowhere and it looks like she’s determined to head there.

Eventually, one of the village elders wraps a blanket around her and wordlessly gestures for Juno to get up, so she does. The older woman sets her down on the bed she had made for herself the night before and tucks her in, saying she looked weary sitting by the fire. But there’s a knowing look in her eye that tells Juno to not worry, to rest, because tomorrow is still waiting. The pirate obeys and closes her eyes.

The pirate dreams of her faerie. A sweet dream where they live in a small cottage tucked away in the wood; Lady, for whatever reason, sits on top of the cottage, somehow balancing on and not crushing the roof of their pink painted home. She dreams of their garden, planting seeds together, and fawning over the sprouts when they start to push through the earth. But mostly, she dreams of sleeping in the grass, in a warm patch of sun, with her tiny (tinier) faerie sleeping on her crossed arms.

When she stirs, she blinks her eyes open to a child staring her directly in the eye, their faces so close together that their noses are touching. The pirate tenses and has to remind herself she’s been mobbed by children; that this is only a child and she has nothing to fear. It takes a minute, but she relaxes and pushes her gloved finger to the kid’s forehead, giving herself some space.

“Who’s Let-eye-ee?” They ask, having confirmed that Juno is awake.

“Wha—?” Juno rumbles, rubbing the sleep away from her eyes. She then removes the child from her chest so that she can sit up. The kid doesn’t let this get in their way and immediately crawls into Juno’s lap, holding a piece of paper to her face. “Let-eye-ee,” they insist like that will help Juno out at all. They shake the note. “They wrote this. There’s a kiss on the paper!”

She snatches the paper from the kid, her eyes racing over the note as she connects Let-eye-ee to Lettie. Lettie. She was here last night. (Vaguely, Juno remembers waking up at some point during the night and could have sworn she saw Lettie, but she convinced herself it was only phantoms from her dreams and went back to sleep.) Now Juno regrets not waking up when she stirred the night before, pangs beating and squeezing her heart. ‘But she says she’ll come back.’ If she’s even still here. (The pirate only vaguely registers that Lettie has something to tell her, more so swept up by the fact that she might get to see her. And soon.)

She crushes the note, holding it close to her chest, over the locket, as a whirlwind sweeps through her—everything from excitement to dread. She grabs the mirror from its place beside her and looks herself over, wondering what state Lettie is going to find her in. The crystal now runs along her jaw on both sides. There are small triangular patches under her eyes, along the cheekbone. Her arms have been covered since yesterday and she know the majority of her back has been eaten up. Her front and legs mostly have patches, but what does that matter when today is her last day?

“Well?” The kid asks impatiently, pulling Juno away from her thoughts. Juno blinks a few times then softens when she registers the child again. “Lettie.” “Let-tee…” “She’s my girlfriend.” The kid’s eyes go bug wide and they scramble off of Juno lap without explaining themself. She watches them join a gaggle of children, emphatically pointing in Juno’s direction as they relay the solved mystery of who Let-eye-ee (Lettie) is. The gaggle erupts into a combination of squeals and scandalous ‘ooohs.’

Juno sighs and slowly rises, walking over to the adults to ask them if they saw Lettie last night. (If she’s not still here, and that is a real possibility, she wants to know as much as she can about what state she seemed to be in.) One villager greets her by placing a bowl of hot broth into her hands along with a piece of bread, insisting that she sit down and eat. She doesn’t even let Juno get a word in about Lettie until she’s made sure she’s eaten at least half the portion. Finally, sensing Juno's impatience, the woman nods. “Yes, the faerie came by just last evening. But if you want to know how she is, why don’t you ask her yourself?” She asks, pointing behind Juno.

The pirate spins around, her eyes widening, shimmering with tears that spring up without her being fully aware. “Lette,” she whispers, setting the bowl down and rushing towards the faerie to wrap her in a fierce hug. “You’re really here.” She’ll never be able to believe when Lettie’s here, even when she’s in her arms. She’s so scared of losing her; terrified that she'll be pulled from her arms in a bright flash of light.

Juno squeezes her girlfriend as tightly as she can, careful to not accidentally cut her with her crystallization. Even through the crystals, her heart can be felt stampeding as overwhelm takes over her. This could be their last day. She pulls back and looks Lettie over, making sure, once again, that it’s really her. (It is.) “Fuck. Fuck.” She brushes her gloved thumbs over her sparkly cheeks, cupping her face in her palms. She notices her various injuries, the bruise around her throat, and for as many questions as she has, all she can say is, “I love you, too.”

 

[ellarose]

In that moment all Lettie knows is Juno's arms around her. The persistent ache in her bones from the battle yesterday dissipates into a twang she can ignore while she's held tightly in her embrace, clutched against her beating heart like something precious and wrapped up in her all-encompassing warmth. She's still here. Thank stars. This is the only place in all the words she wants to be right now. While it's been nearly two days in total, it felt like a freaking eternity to the faerie. And no, thank you, this isn't a case of her being classically over dramatic! Between the gritty fights and what she knows about the devouring, it adds all of these risks and variables-- the possibility that their last moment really was their last. The 'what if' scenarios threatened to break her whenever she allowed those nightmarish thoughts to run rampant. (Fortunately, Eliza had saved her from that. Oh... stars. She has to tell Juno about Eliza, too. That she's here. That'll have to wait 'till later, though, if they even have a later. For now, she selfishly wants to cherish this moment for what it is, bottle it up and keep it all for herself.) They're fighters, yes, and survivors-- but they're also fragile. Life is so fragile. They both know it firsthand, the miracle it is that they've come together again intact.

Or mostly intact, anyway. Lettie shudders with a half laugh, half sob as she presses her face against Juno's chest-- she'd probably collapse into a weepy little bundle on the ground if not for her arms supporting her right now. (She can't feel her back through the hard layer of crystalization there. When it occurs to the faerie that the pirate can't feel the way she rubs consoling circles against her, she has to blink against a fresh wave of tears. Have they come together only to fall apart again?) They... they still have time, though. Time is something that should never be taken for granted. She's not gonna give up until it's over. But there's only so much her heart can take. Yeah, she's threatened to bury Dream Weaver with Melvin if things go wrong. But... she doesn't want to consider what state she'll be in if she's left all alone again in a universe without Juno in it when the clock strikes midnight.

Fucking fairytale magic.

Lettie sniffles quietly as Juno pulls back to look her over, keeping her face supported in her hands. She automatically reaches for her girlfriend's gloved hands in response, stroking gently against her crystalized knuckles. She mirrors her instinctually, searching her skin for wounds. There are some horrible bruises and scrapes... but the most concerning thing is how the crystalization has spread. (There're patches of crystalization on her face now, too. It does nothing to change the fact that she's still the most handsome pirate in the worlds... but... the same places on the faerie's face tingle with an amalgam of horror and sympathy.) Before she can say anything, or sink even deeper into her thoughts about the time they have left, Juno trips up her mind and her heart all at once with what she says next. 'I love you, too.'

'I love you, too.' Lettie repeats what Juno said in her mind, exactly as she said it, so she can commit the sound to memory. (Recreating the sound of the pirate's voice in her mind isn't too difficult a task. The faerie tried to excuse the excessive time she spent thinking about it by saying she was trying to perfect her Juno impression, back when she was steeped in hardcore denial. That voice where she had to try and sound like she spent her teens smoking too much carb.) 'I love you, too.' She loves her, too. She loves her, too! This is not a drill. (...Okay, well, it was pretty obvious that they've had love for each other for a while now. Juno can't hide what a softie she is in front of this perceptive little faerie. But it's a whole other thing to hear it, isn't it?) 'I love you, too.' Knowing she can't reach, Lettie raises her arms and jumps up (relying mostly on the knowledge that Juno will always catch her-- and she does) wrapping her arms around the pirate's shoulders and her legs around her middle before leaning in to kiss her. (She's so eager and fast about it that she bumps their noses together on accident. It's not stylish at all-- in fact, it makes her feel like a clumsy dork.) The faerie giggles about it instead of pouting and then kisses her hard.

Lettie doesn't mind being messy like this when she's with Juno-- because she loves her anyway.

('But, to tell you the truth, I didn’t have a favorite color before you asked me if it was blue. After you made your guess… I dunno, the color just seemed different to me. I like it a lot now. It, uh, reminds me of how excited you were and that’s… that’s my favorite look on you. Is there a color for that?')

Thank the stars that Juno's lips haven't been crystalized. (It's a damn good kiss if she does say so herself-- sweetened by the fact that they've had to fight for it.) When they part for air, Lettie takes a moment to lose herself in her eyes, wrapped up entirely in the heat of the moment. (She wants her storm cloud eyes in her life for as long as forever lasts.) Breathlessly, she starts to say, "Juno, let's get--"

This is when the faerie realizes they're not in a bubble where they're the only two people to exist. In fact, they've accumulated something of an audience. (Mostly consisting of small children, who now crowd around their ankles after breaking free of the adults who had been trying to hold them back to let the couple have their moment.) Lettie's cheeks burn bright red, her heart stampeding in her chest. Let's get married. She was totally about to suggest they get married on a whim, in front of all these people! (Without rings. But... fuck the rings, honestly! Lettie probably loves sparkly jewelry more than most faeries... but those can come later. She'd marry Juno with paper rings. Hell, she nearly considered saying 'yes' when she thought Juno meant to propose through her vow all those months ago.) Her thoughts swirl around in an incoherent whirlwind, she can barely make out the children asking questions about 'Let-tee', the kiss paper, and the fact that they're girlfriends. She swallows and then whispers the rest of the (revised) sentence in Juno's ear. "...Let's get out of here. Just for a bit."

***​

To Dream Weaver's credit, they agree that Lettie and Juno should have a moment alone before the day gets started. (The stars won't shine until it's dark, after all.) Between the spirit and Juno's rock brothers, the villagers are sure to be protected while they're away. After entertaining a few of the children's many questions, speaking with the villagers and squaring everything away, the spirit finds a safe beach on the other side of Fabel to whisk them away to. It's still early enough in the morning that they're able to catch the sunrise over the waves, lapping gently at the shore. The cotton candy skies of soft pink and blue clouds are reflected over the glittering ocean. It's peaceful. Pretty. "...We're seeing this thanks to you, aren't we?" Lettie asks, her voice sincere and tinged with awe as she watches it. "Last night the villagers told me how you put the sun and moon back in the sky. That's incredible, Juju. Seriously."

Lettie's expression falls with sympathy as she reflects on the Guardian of Light, the villagers of Nightwood and their predicament. "It's a lot, isn't it? And I know you must be tired. But... you've taken on every challenge that bitch has thrown at you so far like a badass. I'm so fucking proud of you." She rests her head against Juno's arm. She knows she doesn't like to fight. "And this time I'll be there to help. Provided that fucking cube lets me stay, anyway." It better, if it knows what's good for it. The faerie squeezes her pirate's hand, wondering if she can feel it. (...She probably can't through the crystalization.) Rather then let this get to her again, the faerie settles for gently swinging their hands as they walk towards the shoreline, leaving footprints side by side in the sand. "You're gonna be okay, Juno. We're gonna get through this, just like we've gotten through everything else." She has to say it in part to convince herself.

"I..." Lettie bites her lip uncertainly. She has to tell Juno. "I have something I need to tell you. I wanted to tell you in person, but to be honest... I don't know how to say it. So I'm just gonna say it. Though maybe-- maybe we should sit down first?" Ah, she's gotta quit the preamble and just get to it already! And it-- it could be silly that she's getting so worked up about it at all. But Eliza basically raised Juno, acted as the mother she never had. And she still doesn't know exactly what drove them apart in the first place. (Will she see it as a betrayal, that she decided to work with her? But Lettie also knows the look of genuine interest and care she caught in Eliza's eyes when she talked about Juno. The way she openly admitted that she worried for her after she left... and the way she pulled her in to comfort her when she was so close to breaking with worry.) Once they've found a place to sit, Lettie distractedly draws shapes against the back of Juno's gloved hand. "So, cubey took me to Desdemonia and I met some people there." Out with it, Letts. You're gonna worry her even more by stalling! "I met Eliza, Juno."

"Kinda... crashed into her, actually? You know how the cube is. Just fucking dropped me and Thad into a bar filled with thugs, even though we're wanted by the Duchess." Lettie rambles to explain herself, wavering between looking Juno in the eye, looking at the sea, or at their hands. "We, uh, only made it out of there alive because Eliza helped us out. I knew me and Thad would be toast on the ground in Desdemonia, especially without you there... so I asked for her help with the mission and she agreed. Long story short, she's here now. On Fabel... on Lady. Or maybe Thad's base." (Naturally, the cube teleported it-- along with everyone inside-- as well as them.) There's a lot Lettie could say about Eliza. The way she saw traces of Juno in her wide fighting stances and in her soft but firm gazes. The kindhearted nature that rests beneath her tough exterior. She's a perceptive little faerie and her assessment is that Eliza is genuine. But she knows Juno and Eliza have an entire history that she's not privy to. No matter what she thinks as an outsider, she knows better than to give her opinions until she knows what's on Juno's mind.

"I don't know what drove the two of you apart. And if you think it's best for us to stop working with her... I'll respect that. Whatever you think is best, Juno." Lettie says. She means it. Juno's feelings take precedence-- she has no idea the extent of what she's been through, of her reasoning for leaving the way she did. She won't assume or overstep here. "You don't have to go see her unless you want to." She continues. "But... for what it's worth, I do think Eliza would like to see you again."

 

[starboob]

Juno is glad to be away from the villagers, from all the guilt she feels for not being able to save them all, even if there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. But more than that, she’s glad to be back with her faerie, walking hand in hand along this beach. Though she can’t really feel her hand. Not the warmth or texture (partially because of the gloves, but even without them, she knows that her sense of touch has dulled thanks to the devouring); she can only feel the light weight, but she’ll take that over nothing. She’ll take this if it’s the last chance she gets to enjoy the feeling of her girlfriend. Their time is limited. (Hasn't it always been? She wonders this when she considers the golden zeroes on Lettie's wrist.)

The sun creeps up over the horizon and, yes, it’s beautiful— as beautiful as the first time she ever watched a sunrise with Lettie— but she doesn’t enjoy it the way she might on another world. To her, it represents a small victory, followed by a greater loss. She worries for the other villages across Fabel. She worries for the warriors of those villages. She worries for the retaliation of the Guardian, knowing that no one is safe until that bastard is vanquished, the skies returned, and Trix is free. ‘Trix…’ She looks over at her faerie, easily able to picture her in the Fabel Star’s place.

Lettie distracts her by telling her that everything is going to be okay, that she’ll be there to help her with her next battle and, for as much as she wants to believe her, she doesn’t want to hope. She doesn’t want to give up either, but she doesn’t want to think too far into the future in case she shatters today. (So far, the crystallization has held up and protected her, acting as armor, but for how long will that last?) Rather than look to tomorrow, she just looks toward the next minute, knowing that she has that. And she has Lettie, for as long as that bastard box will allow it. “Lettie, I—”

Oh. Right. She had something to tell her.

However, the more Lettie rambles rather than outright say what it is she has to say, the more the pirate’s mind works itself into knots, fearing the worst. ‘Is she… Has she…?’ Juno can’t even fill in the blanks with anything remotely reasonable; especially considering their earth shattering kiss earlier, so she doesn’t assume it’s about them, but worry still ripples through her.

Then she mentions Desdemonia, meeting some people, and the pirate’s heart sinks, assuming she might have met those who were victims of her piracy. But when she mentions Eliza? That might as well be worse.

She collapses backwards into the sand by the time the faerie finishes. Though, to be honest, everything sounded like it was coming through a steel tube after she mentioned her name. Eliza. Lettie’s words come to her belatedly and in pieces as her mind becomes a blend of all the worst things she imagines Eliza thinks of her; as her mind fills with memories of their last fight.

(“You fucking punk!” She remembers Eliza snarling, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Despite the unwell look on Juno’s face back then, she stood her ground and didn’t budge when the teenager tried to throw her from the door. She had grabbed Juno’s shoulders and tried to wrestle her to the ground. “Fuck you, Eliza—quit acting like you fuckin' know what's best for me. You're not my fuckin' mom." She doesn't remember how she got out of the other woman's hold, but she remembers snarling as she left, "I've always fuckin' hated you.”)

Juno’s knuckles ache with the memory and she swears she smells iron in her nose, remembering how she knocked the older woman out then stormed off with all their money. She meant to return…

“I do think Eliza would like to see you again.”

She blinks her eyes open, looking over at Lettie when she recalls this. “I can’t imagine why she would.” And yet, she can, because Eliza was never a quitter and she didn’t often give up on people. That doesn’t mean that Juno thinks she’s deserving of Eliza’s kindness. She sure as hell is doubtful Eliza wants to see her. “Unless it’s to punch my fucking lights out and I wouldn’t even fuckin’ blame her or try to stop her. She fuckin’ deserves to kick the shit outta me.

“But she’s been good to you?” When she gets that confirmation, she rolls onto her side, setting her head in Lettie’s lap. She brings her girlfriend’s hand up to her hair, wordless requesting that she play with it, needing all the comfort she can afford herself. “That’s good. She’s good company. Great ally to have.” Especially if her final battle tonight does not go accordingly. Lettie will need someone on Desdemonia to watch her back on the ground and Eliza will take care of her if she's committed herself to this cause. She remains quiet for several minutes, reflecting on those last moments with Eliza, regret stinging her eyes. What would her life have been had she not left that night? Would she have fallen into the duchess’s hands? Would she have ever taken to the skies and become a pirate?

Probably not.

“I don’t remember much of our last fight,” she starts, her voice barely audible over the waves breaking on the shore. “I was almost always loaded back then.” When they experienced her teenage years together through that nightmare world, it wasn’t an exaggeration that they were blurred. That time of her life is filled with wide gaps. The few clear memories she has of it are of Eliza, but mostly from before she started sneaking carb or stealing booze. “So I couldn’t tell you what even set me off that night.” It wasn’t even hard to set her off back then. Almost everything felt like a threat or a challenge that she had to rise against. Even if she had Eliza looking out for her, she never truly felt safe; and she honestly hasn’t felt safe until recently, after meeting Lettie. It always used to feel like her against the world and she was constantly trying to prove that she was strong enough so that no one could take advantage of her. But even that wasn’t enough in the end. “I just know that we fought. Like really fuckin’ fought—I don’t think I gave Eliza much of a choice with how I was back then. I know I beat the shit out of her, knocked her out, and left with all the money.” It wouldn’t have been the first time, but Juno would always come back after a day or so when she had cooled off, tail between her legs. She’s not sure how often Eliza feigned relief when she’d find her again and beg for forgiveness. She’s not even certain why Eliza kept forgiving her. She wouldn’t have. “I think I wanted that to be the last time I ever saw her, but even when I left I knew I had the intention to go back. But I never got the chance. After storming off from where we were staying, I made my way to the city,” the one Eliza always said she’d hate, “and got past all the checkpoints by sneaking in through the sewers. I wasn’t even there five minutes before I got myself into a fight with someone, because they kicked a stray dog. Drew the attention of the stewards and, bam, I was in prison.” No one could figure out how old she was, but because of her size, which wasn’t as tall as she is now, but still notable, she was placed with the adults. "The last thing I ever said to her was that I hated her."

“I don’t know… I don't know if I can bear to face her.” Especially not like this, all covered in crystal and hardly feeling like herself. Especially not if Lettie’s assessment is somehow wrong and Eliza ends up rejecting her, not only for how she left, but also for what her life became afterwards. Almost everything in her recent history goes against what the woman had tried to impart on her. And she’s not sure if what she’s doing now will change Eliza’s mind at all. It’s not like she’s been able to witness Juno’s change; not like Lettie has. If she rejects her before going into this last battle… she doesn’t know how she’ll cope. Just imagining it brings on a fresh assault of tears. While she doesn’t mind Lettie seeing her like this, she still buries her face into her girlfriend’s stomach.

“A-and,” she sniffles, turning just slightly so she can see Lettie through the corner of one eye, “until we know the outcome of today, I’d rather just spend it with you.” She doesn't say it, but she knows it hangs in the air between them. This could be their last day together. She wants to cherish it.