Chapter Text
Of all Zhan Tiri’s adherents, zealots, and playthings over the years, Alphecca hates Frauline Gothel the most. No— she hates the circus twins the most— or she hates the Unpronounceable Eye Void the most. Perhaps it’s just easier to say she hates them all. The creatures Zhan Tiri picks up along her way have a tendency to be arrogant, contemptible and damaged, and she’s aware that applies to herself too; she never claimed to make for good company.
Some of them come and promptly go, once their purpose has been fulfilled and they’re discarded back to the refuse. Some of them persist in defiance of death, just as she had done (though never so successfully as she had done). But none of them ever escape, not really. Somewhere out in the world, there’s a mad scientist who can attest to that.
Which is all to say that Alphecca hates Sugracha, Zhan Tiri’s most enduring.
She’d arrived on the scene as a naive young acolyte a long time after Alphecca’s ascension to lichdom, but Sugracha had died an old lady and her preternatural spirit returned as an old lady— and that made her feel entitled to share all her unsolicited sagely wisdom, despite not having any. By all means she should have a clue as to how eternally fucked over she is, and yet she still sincerely worships the Parasite.
Sugracha, of course, sees it differently. It’s an argument they’d had many times in the past, and they’ll inevitably have again.
“You’re wasting your time,” Alphecca says blandly, hovering over Sugracha’s shoulder. The altar she’d set up is simultaneously crude yet impeccable, a totem of Zhan Tiri’s favoured form carved from wenge encircled by cloyingly aromatic candles. It’s a masterpiece befitting of an idolater, but it’s a hollow endeavour.
“Creation is never a waste. Not all sorcery needs to be a volatile act of passion and rage,” Sugracha says, glancing askance at Alphecca.
“So what do you call this, then?” Alphecca asks, pointedly twirling a finger around in Sugracha’s incorporeal body.
“A test of faith.”
“More like a test of patience,” Alphecca rolls her empty eyes, and kicks off the ground. “Are you going to impress her with your transparency?” she jeers.
“While you squander your immortality with ego and ignorance, I put mine to good use,” Sugracha counters, and lights another candle. Alphecca shakes her head.
“Somehow I don’t think she’ll see it that way.”
“Still just a jealous little girl, aren’t you?” Sugracha tisks. Alphecca’s russet hair flares and she crosses her arms.
“You don’t get to call me that,” she spits. “I’ve lived centuries longer than you.”
“You lived for just two decades. You’ve been dead for centuries.”
“And thank our Lady that I didn’t have to grow old and ugly like you.”
Sugracha’s smile tightens.
“Truly a bastion of ageless maturity.”
Alphecca sneers, pulling at phantom muscles to bare her teeth.
“And what would you know? Maturity can’t make up for stupidity,” she says, and gestures at the altar.
“So says the hermit who spends all her time with her head buried in the dirt,” Sugracha replies, and begins etching symbols into the earth with her staff.
“I’m no more of a hermit than you, old lady,” Alphecca brushes off.
“Hm? Then what month is it right now?” Sugracha asks, her tone cloyingly sweet.
“It’s— it’s Mörmánuður. The days are short enough,” Alphecca answers defiantly. Sugracha’s smug grin steepens.
“The lunar calendar isn’t used in the seven kingdoms anymore. It’s based around astronomy now.”
“People can choose different words, but that doesn’t make the seasons any different,” Alpehcca retorts. “I don’t need to know the new calendar to know when to reap and when to sow- silly girl.”
With that Alphecca finally earns herself a glare, and she leaves their impasse with a grin.
It isn’t until later, in the unforeseeable future, that Alphecca learns of Sugracha’s fate through Cassandra; banished to the same Lost Realm that Zhan Tiri had been chained to for centuries, to presumably be warped by interdimensional forces.
And Alphecca had smiled, baring ancient teeth.
A test of faith indeed.