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“When the nights were long,
And the days were deep,
There lived a Warrior,
and her Thief -
Who ran away to the stars,
to find some peace.”
The voice was familiar but the words were distant, far-away; clouds of dust crushed by endless space. They had the potential to become stars, but for now, remained only energy, dimmed by the void that surrounded them. A little light leaked through – she turned towards the sound, and something about the story rang true, but Dutch couldn’t quite place it yet. The dust would settle eventually. For now, she held onto the words.
“Did they live happily ever after?” she asked.
It was a silly question, a foolish thing to ask. The naive question of the child she never got to be. But it slipped free from her lips before her mind could catch up to them, foggy as it was, and a sliver of ice sank into her stomach.
She expected a rebuke; a sharp word or sting across her cheek in the shape of a hand.
Back in the old days, Khlyen told stories like this one almost every night. The past is a lesson, he told her. Stories have value, but only if they’re true. In the same way that most bedtime stories left children with eyes wide with wonder and dreams of handsome princes and far-off lands to discover, Khlyen’s stories left her with the knowledge of how to stab upwards with a sword to pierce the heart, and keep her insides cold to anything like hope. It’s dangerous, he would tell her – hope left you alone at the end of the road, and the only way to survive was to rely on only yourself.
For the longest of times, she had believed him. It had been a long, hard road to walk alone.
When her words were met not with chiding, but a chuckle, the shard in her chest shifted. The immediate worry eased a little, and she released the breath that she had been holding – but the dread did not vanish entirely. It relocated from her gut to her heart. Dutch knew that this was wrong, all of it. Khlyen wouldn’t chuckle, and he certainly wouldn’t indulge her fantasies of happy endings.
A sharp pain sliced through Dutch’s head, searing across the memories of Khlyen telling stories. She used to sit on a cushion beside her bed to hear them. Whenever she was afraid, but trying not to let the fear show on her face, she would grip the edges of the cushion tightly, so that he would not see. She had learned to wear her mask well, sitting on that red cushion – or was it green?
Her head . . . she tried to close her eyes, only to realise that she couldn’t work out if they were already closed. All she could see was green. It surrounded her entirely, like she was floating in it – she felt un-moored, adrift in a sea of green. She wondered what would happen if she just – let go – and let herself float away. Maybe she would find someplace better.
Khlyen’s voice cut through the pain, and her thoughts of escape. Although every instinct in her still told her to run from him, to fight back, to remember who she was . . . his voice tethered her for an instant. Dutch’s hands tried to close onto the red cushion, but closed on something cold instead, crunching softly beneath her fingertips.
“No,” Khlyen replied, and that was better. That was what she expected – until he continued, voice as even as an aged page, “-but they lived happily. That’s enough.”
Now it was Dutch’s turn to laugh. The sound choked out of her throat and tasted of blood, and the spike in pain caused her to hiss through clenched teeth.
“Bullshit. You wouldn’t tell a story like this.”
“I wouldn’t-” he agreed, the voice moving further away with each word. Now, it sounded like an echo; hollow, toneless. It lacked the life of a real voice. Khlyen’s tone was not fractured with sarcasm, or punctuated with anger, or even choked on a tear. There was no coldness there, nothing in his voice to conjure the spectre that had haunted her, all those years on the run – but there was no warmth, either. He could have been a stranger. “But I’m not really here. I’m just a memory. Your memory of me, here in the green.”
“You’re not real? None of this is -”
“I never said that. Listen to me now, it’s important: this place is real. You are really here. Which also means that if you die here . . .” he let the words trail off and hang heavily in the air. “As long as your memory of me remains intact, then I am as real as you are . . . but only if you remember. Only if you do not get lost.”
“Lost?”
“This place – it’s like a labyrinth, or a forest of an unimaginable size. There are paths to everywhere in the universe. Rabbit holes, dead ends . . . if you go down one of them, you can get lost in the green. You’ll never find your way out.”
It was an impossible conundrum. Dutch felt herself frowning, “If the green is so bloody confusing, then how do I not get lost?”
“Do you remember the forest, when we first got here?”
Dutch nodded. She could picture the slender trunks of trees, with light filtering through between them. But there was no sky. In fact – she tried to remember more, but was left with only the image of trees, and light, and the crunch of snow underfoot. There had been no end to the forest in sight, only the ruins where she had been with Khlyen and Aneela.
“Good. Think of it now, picture yourself there. You are in the trees. You’re walking towards the light . . . can you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Walk towards it.”
In her mind, Dutch felt herself stumbling forward, the trees all around her. She focused on the light directly ahead – faintly at first, but slowly coming into sharper focus. Now, she could feel the rough bark of the trees as she passed them, reaching out a hand to touch the gritty and grooved wood, and hear the crunch of snow beneath her feet, the soft sigh of water returning to the earth. She could smell the wet soil, somewhere below. In the stillness of the snow, she could hear her own heartbeat as it steadied.
“Are you a ghost, then?” she asked the voice. It was strange, talking to Khlyen when she couldn’t see him. “If you’re just a memory, I mean.”
“This is not a ghost story, Yalena.”
“Don’t call me that-” she snapped, on instinct. She recoiled at the name, away from him – but he was everywhere, the voice in her head, and all she ended up doing was stepping with one foot off the path.
Wait -
Dutch stopped, looking down at her feet.
One foot was in the snow, cold water seeping between her toes. The other was on a stone path. The Path. Her eyes followed it from her foot onwards, carrying on through the trees before the light became too bright for her to see any further.
“You clever bastard,” she said under her breath. Dutch stepped back so that both of her feet were planted firmly on the stones, “-you made a path!”
“No, you did.” A hint of pride tinged Khlyen’s voice, just for a moment. She could almost picture his shadow falling beside her – then it was gone just as soon as she tried to focus too much on the details, the world around her fogged up like breath on cold glass.
Khlyen’s expressionless voice warned, “Stay on the path, no matter what. Don’t stray from it.”
“Yeah, I guessed that.”
Dutch focused on the path before her. She could just get the impression of it – straight parallel lines of stone, leading out before her.
“They couldn’t have made it clearer?” she asked, “Yellow or something? Like the story that you used to tell?”
When the voice didn’t reply, Dutch began to walk forwards, careful to stay within the hazy lines. She felt strangely alone without the voice, even if it was his. It was better than being alone. She spoke to the air, feeling ridiculous.
“You were telling a story. About me and John. You said before that it could save my life.”
“It still can.”
Dutch sighed with relief to hear the voice again, although it was still lacking the spark of life. She put one foot in front of the other and asked.
“Will you stay with me? Tell me more?”
“For as long as I can,” Khlyen replied. “I can only go so much of the way with you. I had hoped that your memories of me would be strong enough; that you, Aneela and I would be able to face the Lady together. But your memories of me are not strong enough . . . you have forgotten me.”
Despite spending half of her life running from him, Dutch felt moved to argue. “That’s not true-”
“It doesn’t mean that you did not love me – or hate me. Just that you have moved on. Your connection to me isn’t strong enough to make me more real than this – an echo. And a ghost, as you put it, cannot help you to face her.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To be your guide. Your memories of me might not be strong enough, but that does not mean you have to face the Lady alone.”
Dutch didn’t have to ask who. She knew.
“Johnny.”
“Yes. That is why I have been telling you stories: to prepare you, and to remind you of the strongest bond that you have.”
“You wanted him dead not long ago. You said . . .” Dutch snorted wryly. “I chose him over you, over the life you’d given to me.”
“I did,” Khlyen agreed. She couldn’t see his face, but she could picture the wrinkle between his brow perfectly, and the way his rage had carved trenches into his face. Everything had been warfare with him. “I believed that he wasn’t good enough for you. That he was just a boy, and you were being foolish with this . . . running away with him.”
“What changed?”
Dutch didn’t know when it had happened, but the path in front of her was more distinct now. It was made of stone cobbles, uneven beneath her feet as she kept moving forwards towards the light; there was grass growing between the stones, and every so often, a flower bloomed between the cracks. As she blinked, she realised that it was no longer a straight line, but a winding path through the trees, and she was climbing slowly upwards.
“It wasn’t me who changed, Yala-” Khlyen stopped himself; corrected. “Dutch.”
A faint smile found its way onto her lips. Even after eight years, the name still sounded right – it wasn’t the one she was born with, but it was who she had become. It was the name that was given to her, mockingly at first –
“Hey, Duchess-” Johnny smirked, one shoulder leaning against the wall of their ship, hands in his pockets. He looked as if he had grown from all the chrome, with how at home he was there. There was the bloom of a new bruise on one eye, the liner smudged – but still, those blue of his shone. Lights in a storm. In that memory, they gleamed with mischief. “You know how I said I was just heading for a quiet drink at Pree’s? Well I kinda owe some big scary dudes some big joy, so unless we go back to my original plan and become the best sexers at the Royale, because look at us, then we should probably get off planet and get some money.”
She thinks she’d punched him after that. He’d rolled with the punch like he always did, cracking a grin and a joke, and they had spent the next week rushing around the Quad to pay back his debt.
Later, it had become a softer word, more affectionate –
“Duchie!”
Johnny grinned, teeth on show and arms spread wide.
Drunk, most likely. It was hard to tell with John – he was overly affectionate, said exactly what he thought, and wore his heart on his sleeve when he was sober – drunk Johnny was different by degrees, not definition. He smiled a little easier, his put-on swagger became a sway, but he was still too honest for his own good.
Yalena had time only to notice these things before his arms were around her, squeezing tightly.
Although she froze at the touch, she didn’t reach for a knife, which was progress. In the month or so since they had joined the RAC and become Killjoys, taking low-level warrants but slowly settling into the pace of their new life in the Quad, she had only almost-killed him twice. Johnny Jaqobis was one lucky man.
He must have felt her tense up, because Johnny was stepping away in a heartbeat, putting three paces between them and holding up his opened palms.
“Sorry-” he apologised before she even caught up to his sudden retreat. The tips of Johnny’s ears had turned pink with shame. “That wasn’t respectful of your personal space.”
Immediately, she shook her head and sighed. “No, John – I over-reacted. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“You can’t help how you feel,” he replied just as strongly. Johnny was always honest – to a fault – but he rarely talked about his past, so she was surprised when he continued. “Look, I don’t know everything about what you’ve been through. But my old man . . .” he winced, an old pain rising in his grimace, but he met her eyes, and held the gaze, “-I understand not wanting to be touched, especially without permission. If you’re uncomfortable – don’t ever apologise for it. You’re allowed to feel like the rest of us, you know.”
“I know that,” she nodded. She just had never been able to believe it, until now. “I – thank you, Johnny.”
He smiled, soft and sure. “No problem. And besides – a lowly grifter such as myself shouldn’t be touching royalty anyway, right, Duchess?”
Johnny bowed then, a ridiculous impression of a formal gesture. His wrist flicked, and his fingers flourished dramatically - but his eyes remained on her face, watching for her reaction. When she laughed, he relaxed, the grin settling onto his face.
Dutch shook her head, walking towards him until Johnny straightened.
“Only with permission,” she told him, holding out her arm. It was an offer – permission, and an admission that she wanted to be close. “Buy me a drink, Killjoy?”
“Only the best for you, Dutchie.”
It hadn’t settled as her name until later, after a few months as Killjoys.
There were on a mission to find a fugitive wanted for crimes against the Company on Leith – it was the work season, and the man they were after was believed to be among the migrant workers on the moon, hiding amongst the masses of people. Naturally, that meant undercover work. Johnny whined about the dirt underneath his nails for their entire first day on the moon.
“Look at this!” he said, holding out a grubby hand to her. “My nail beds are bleeding, Dutchie. Bleeding.”
“Poor baby,” she shot back. Rolling her eyes, she inspected the drop of blood on his hand, walking beside him. It had been a long day. They had arrived at dawn and worked the fields for fourteen hours, working their way around, looking for their mark - to no avail. The sun had turned John’s cheeks pink, and even she was starting to feel dead on her feet from exhaustion. Now, they were following a line of workers towards the next field to be picked. “Want me to kiss it better?”
She intended the words innocently enough, but Johnny’s cheeks turned red in a way that had nothing to do with the sun, and he put his hand back down by his side.
“Thanks but no thanks, I know where your hands have been. In the same shit at mine.”
“Isn’t that our life story?”
Johnny snorted at that. It lifted the grim lines from his face, and he stood a little taller as they walked, the weight slipping from his shoulders. Dutch made sure that her shoulder bumped against his lightly, sending him what she hoped was a reassuring look. The line of people they had been walking with was thinning in front of them, as they slowed, lowering their voices so they weren’t overheard.
“Don’t worry; this shouldn’t be a long job. The warrant is for a professional, not a worker from Old Town. They won’t fit in here. It shouldn’t be too hard to root them out of the crowd.”
“We don’t fit in here, either.”
“And you call me the princess.”
“Jeez,” Johnny rolled his eyes. Choosing to ignore her comment, he dramatically wiped a hand over his brow, “-since when did professional assassins become the standard for my life?”
“Since the day you tried to steal my ship, give or take.”
He gave her a sideways look and a smile. “Give or take.”
“You two!”
The shout pulled them up short. Dutch remembered looking up to find that her and Johnny were alone, having fallen behind from the rest of the workers. An angry looking man – a guard, from his uniform and the gun in his hands – was walking towards them with purpose. Johnny moved to stand slightly in front of her, almost unconsciously.
“What are you up to back here?” the guard demanded, punctuating the words with a jab of the gun in Johnny’s face. Dutch’s gut tightened at the sight, but as usual, Johnny remained utterly unflappable.
“Just enjoying the weather,” he replied breezily, gesturing at the baking field around them. Johnny’s face smiled at the guard, playing the part, but the dampness gripping his shirt to his back and the redness of his skin revealed him. “It being such a nice day, and all.”
“You’re not being paid to stand about talking-” the guard snapped, “I could have you written up for wasting company time for this. What are your names?”
“I’m John and she’s Duche-”
“-Dutch,” she remembered cutting in quickly, sending Johnny a glare. “I’m Dutch.”
The guard’s attention had turned to her when she had spoke, and it had changed from the cool arrogance that comes with the abuse of power, and an obvious joy in exploiting it, to a leer as his eyes moved across her body. Suddenly grateful that Johnny was still standing in front of her, blocking that view, Dutch shifted closer to him.
“Well, I’m a reasonable guy. I don’t want to get the pair of you in trouble, especially not so early in the season – I’m sure me and your girl here could work out an arrangement for my silence, no?”
Dutch didn’t even see the movement. All she saw was a blur, followed by the resounding CRACK of bone breaking, and by her next breath the guard was on the ground in front of them, sporting a freshly broken jaw. John hopped from one foot to another, cursing as he shook his hand. A wild punch left broken knuckles, but he lacked her finesse to know how to hit properly – all heart and no thought, that was Johnny all over. He glanced up at her.
“Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” she echoed back. “You’re the one with broken fingers! Why did you do that?”
“He was threatening you!”
“I’m a big girl, Johnny. I don’t need your protection.”
“It’s not about protection – c’mon, Dutch. I know that in a fight you’re worth ten of me.”
“Then what’s it about?”
She wasn’t sure when, but she was standing close to him now. The field around them, the unconscious guard – it all got fuzzy in her memories. Between blinks, the world changed from a field to a forest, but Johnny remained standing in front of her, a focal point. The world fell away, but Johnny Jaqobis remained.
“We’re partners, remember?” Johnny stood, standing close to her; injured hand fallen to his side, forgotten. His eyes were wide and blazing, an oasis in the heat. “That means I have your back, no matter what. It means that whenever jackasses like that are problems for you – they’re a problem for me, too! I know that you could have handled that – but you don’t have to. Not alone. Not anymore. It has to mean something.” He stared at her a long moment, a sigh escaping parched lips, and for the first time, there was a hint of defeat in his eyes. “Otherwise what’s the point?”
She stared at him for a long moment. Johnny’s face was flushed with anger, and there was still dust and dirt caked into his skin from the day’s work, but he stood his ground in front of her, never blinking. He held her gaze. Very few people could do that, and even less looked at her the way he was right then.
“I like it,” she replied. Allowing a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips that felt a lot like hope, took a step closer to him and continued, “- not the macho ruining-our-mission by punching out guys I could easily handle-”
“I know that you could, but-”
“Or the fact that now we’re either gonna have to blow the warrant or find a way to hide this asshole-”
“Yeah, yeah, I screwed up, I get it-”
“- Dutch,” she said, tilting her head to one side. The name rolled easily off her tongue; familiar enough from the months of teasing, but without the decoration of the rank. “It has a good ring to it.”
Relief crossing over his face at realising she had forgiven him – and understood what he was trying to say – Johnny grinned. “It does. So, Dutch – what are we gonna do now?”
Dutch felt the memories fade as quickly as they had appeared. In her mind, they had been clear – all sharp edges and precise words, exactly right, down to the shade of Johnny’s blue eyes. Between blinks she was taken from the field back to the forest, the pinch of the cold air from the snow surrounding her sharply different to the heat of the memory.
Blinking a few times so that her eyes could adjust to the bright light, Dutch looked around. She couldn’t work out what time of day it was – the light seemed to come from everywhere, and never rose or set – so she could only guess by the ache in her legs that she had been following the path for quite some time. Hours, surely. In the green, time moved like bodies through water; sluggishly, and yet weightlessly. By the time she got back to the real world . . .
“He gave me the name, you know. Johnny.”
“I know everything that you do,” Khlyen said calmly.
“Right,” she blinked, nodding. “Construct of my memory. Gotcha. But do you understand it? You might know everything that I do; share all of those memories – but do you feel them, Khlyen? Do you know why the name was important?”
There was silence in response.
“I thought so. It was because I chose it, just so you know. It was mine.”
Although she was arguing with a dead man – and not even a real one – Dutch felt vindicated at being able to say it. Whenever they had been together, afterwards, Khlyen’s refusal to call her anything other than Yalena had gotten under her skin. That name was everything she was trying to run away from, whereas Dutch became everything she stood for – her job, her partner, her friends on Westerly, and her ship. To them, she was only Dutch, and she quite liked the person she was trying to be.
“You have made good progress,” Khlyen said, eventually. Nothing about the name, or the tremble of anger in her voice as she proclaimed it hers. “Look around. You’ve come further than I could have imagined.”
Dutch didn’t understand what he was talking about until she looked ahead. Before, there had been only the trees, the path, and the sunlight bleaching everything else to a blank void. Now, just ahead of her, the path turned into a staircase, ascending upwards into the heavens.
“How?”
“The more you remember of yourself, the easier it will be to navigate this place. As long as you have a tether – something to hold on to, something strong enough – you will be able to find your way through the green.”
“So, just make sure I don’t lose the forest for the trees, then?”
It was a stupid joke, the kind of one that John would have made if he were there. It gave her courage as she took the first step, and the second, and every step after. Dutch never did ask what her tether was. It was obvious. Instead, as she climbed ever-upward, she asked for a reminder; for words to keep her going.
“Will you tell me the rest of the story now?”
As she began to climb the staircase that appeared into the light, each step coming into existence as she moved on from the last, Khlyen spoke. He told a story, and she tried to remember all the details this time – the further she got into the forest, the higher she climbed – the harder it was to remember where she was going, or why. She knew that she had to keep going, but where exactly was a mystery.
All she knew was that she was being told a story by a ghost, so she listened.
“Long ago, and many planets away from here, there lived a warrior-”
“You already did that part-” Dutch pointed out. Khlyen didn’t even currently have a face, being a manifestation of her memories guiding her through a plane of existence that shouldn’t have been real, but she could see his eyebrows rise at that, and ducked her head. “Sorry. Carry on.”
Maybe it was how vividly she could imagine his expression right then, but when he began to speak, Khlyen’s voice sounded more real – and slightly exasperated.
“But the warrior was not just a warrior – she was a princess. One day, a faraway kingdom was to be hers, and she spent her entire life in a castle, preparing for the day that she would become the Queen. The Princess learned many things: the art of dance, and of war. Languages, and music, and astronomy – but her best skill lay at the edge of a blade.”
Dutch snorted at that.
“I never needed a blade, Khlyen,” she said, bitterly. “I was the weapon. The one that you made.”
“Are you going to let me finish the story?” Khlyen asked.
“Are you going to tell the truth?” Dutch retorted. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm, her breath coming out in puffs of smoke in the frigidly cold air, a poisoned cloud around her head. “That’s what you used to say, isn’t it? That stories are important, but only if they’re the truth. Only if there’s a bloody lesson to be learned from them. Because why would anything that wasn’t real like hope or love matter?”
“I trained you to survive, Yalena! Not to indulge yourself on childish whims.”
“And there you are,” Dutch said, coldly. She shook her head. “There you are . . .”
She stopped walking. The staircase was still there, but fell into emptiness three steps above her. After a tense silence, the voice in her head sighed.
“Ah, but you see – the tower where the princess lived was guarded by a fearsome dragon-”
“- Dragon? Compensating much?”
“- who kept her inside, away from the wide world, and stopped all who tried to enter.”
Khlyen paused, guilt edging the words. It was an admission of sorts: half-apology and half-regret, and for somebody who wasn’t real, the sigh in his voice sounded genuine. With a nod that nobody saw, Dutch began climbing the stairs again, as he spoke.
“And many did. All across the stars, people heard of her skill and her beauty, and travelled to her kingdom, seeking her favour. Some offered friendship and gifts, and tried to get to the princess by building bridges and ladders up to her tower. But the dragon roared and puffed out its mighty chest, and burned them all down.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Dutch saw Pree, sliding her a drink across the bar with a wink. She saw a girl, trying her best even though their chances were slim to none. She even caught a glimpse of red hair – Pawter, she thought. But they were all gone in a second. After that, she couldn’t remember the details – not the gold of Pree’s eyeliner, or the way Zeph smiled; all teeth. They became a void – the outlines of the figures remained in her mind, but they were drained of colour and definition as the climbed – blown away with the snow.
Dutch knew that there were people, and they were important, but they’re shadows projected onto a wall – outlined, but indistinct. But she kept walking, and so Khlyen continued with his story.
“Some were valiant knights, who came with swords and shields, wearing their hearts on their sleeves to try and win the princess’ love.”
That was . . . a soldier, she remembered. D’av, she thinks his name was. She remembered eyes that were mirrors to her own. So much pain and gulit – bruised knuckles, dark laughter – knowing they were good for hurting and not much else. Except – dancing, she thinks. She had danced with him.
“The knights tried to reach the princess by fighting the dragon. Some were killed in the fight-”
Dutch felt the breath leave her chest. Alvis. She remembered his body, that Aneela had – she’d killed him. Had Alvis seen through her disguise, in the end? Did his eyes go dull on her face, thinking that she had been the one to kill him? Did he know that it wasn’t her – that it was Aneela’s hands – but what did it matter, in the end? The story still ended with his blood on Dutch’s hands.
“- but some, the princess turned away, for she did not wish to see them burned.”
D’av and Alvis. The men that she had loved.
And lost.
“Please-” she begged. She wasn’t sure who she was begging, anymore – there was nobody there. Not even the Lady. There was nobody hurting her, except –
Blood on her hands. So much blood. A yellow cape, a scar – a fist, coming towards her face -
As Dutch collapsed, there was only a flicker of pain when her knees struck the stone. It should have hurt – the ledge of the steps dug into her knees, and she scraped her palms and forearms where she fell – but it barely registered as pain, compared to the burning in her head.
“What are you doing?”
“It hurts-” she groaned out, prone on the staircase. Dutch rolled onto her back, resting her head against a step and staring above. There was no sky: no clouds, no stars, no comets – just a blindingly white light. Without being able to see the staircase that she was laying on, the rest of the world could have vanished, right then – all she could see was the light.
“Listen to me – ” Khlyen’s voice was quieter, now. Less like it was coming from inside of her head and more like he was shouting from across the room; or from the moon. “You need to stay focused, you can’t give up now – you’re so close. Dutch?” He made a noise of anger; smoke puffing out of the dragon’s nose – “Yalena!”
That woke her up, a little. Enough to be angry, at least.
“Khlyen, shut up! My head god-damn hurts.”
“Good. That means that you’re still alive – do you hear me? Pain means that you’re still breathing.”
“Life . . . it shouldn’t be just pain.”
Through the waves of pain hitting her, leaving her somehow seeing stars in the light up ahead, Dutch heard herself speak. Her voice was slurred, and her thoughts . . . they were muffled. She could just stay here. It wasn’t so bad. Even with the light, she could rest here . . . maybe sleep . . .
But Khlyen, the stubborn prick that he was, wouldn’t just let her rest. His voice was insistent and kept talking, even when she just wished he would be quiet and let her float there.
“No. And I’m sorry that for so long, yours was. Maybe if I had done things differently – raised you in a different way . . . neither of us would be here right now. You could be a queen from a fairytale. You could be dancing worlds away with some handsome prince or princess, happily ever after, without knowing a thing about this war. You could have been the Queen in the story – but this isn’t that kind of story, Yalena. This universe doesn’t need another fairytale: it needs one good person to stand up and fight back. It needs the Warrior.”
“Why does that have to be me?” Dutch asked. “I’m tired, Khlyen. In my bones and in my soul and I – I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“But you will,” he replied, “- because you are needed. You never did go quietly, did you, Dutch?”
“It’s killing me-” she told him. “The memories are going to kill me. And how am I supposed to fight the Lady at the end of all of this, anyway? I can’t even take another step.”
Dutch shook her head, feeling it roll against the stone steps. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes at the movement, running down her cheeks and into nothingness below her.
“I don’t want to hear any more. I can’t – I don’t want to remember.”
“But you must,” Khlyen replied. “We all must live with our past, Yalena. We carry it around with us every day. Some wear it around their neck, or across their shoulders. The weight wears them down slowly. Some carry it in a bag, one that they rarely open, but have to take with them everywhere they go. But some people – rarely, and in special occasions - they share their burdens. Others help them to carry the weight. You need to keep listening to me – this is where the story becomes important.”
“How can it be? You’re telling the wrong story. It was Aneela in the tower, remember? Not me.”
“Your stories are not so different. You and Aneela . . . you’re sides of a coin, tossed into the air – it’s falling, and on either side is a different fate. One girl is rescued from her tower and escapes the dragon; the other must wait, and find a way to free herself. Both of the stories have their tragedies, and battles that seem unwinnable, right until the final second. Each of you has the potential for both great light . . . and great darkness. It all depends on which way the coin lands.”
Dutch scoffed, “She kills people.”
“You’ve killed, too.”
“I am what you made me.”
“And maybe, so is she.” Khlyen let the words settle for a moment, then sighed. Dutch was cold, and exhausted, and lost – she had no energy left for feeling sympathy for her enemy. “Do you know what the biggest difference is in your stories? What you have that she never did?”
“A conscience?” Dutch bit out sarcastically. “The full spectrum of human emotion? Sanity?”
“Love.”
“What? So she gets a pass for all the shit she’s done because you didn’t hug her enough as a child?”
“No-” Khlyen sounded frustrated again, now. She could picture him pinching the bridge of his nose. “- although I will admit to some of the blame. What the two of are . . . that is down to me. What she became – she only had me, ever, in her whole life. She never had anyone else to show her better. She is my biggest failure, and you had the one thing that she never did. Someone else.”
Against her better judgement, Dutch closed her eyes in acknowledgement. She didn’t want to be having his conversation. She wanted to stay angry, because anger was familiar and safe and it was easier to keep hating Aneela for their differences than it was to admit that sometimes she looked at the other woman, and it was like looking in the mirror. And not just because they looked the same – but at the same time, yes – because Aneela’s eyes were the same as her own.
Tired, and lonely, and desperate. Hopeless.
Dutch hated understanding, but she did.
“She never had a Johnny.”
Khlyen didn’t reply, which meant that she was probably right. It was probably killing him to admit it.
Slowly, Dutch rolled until she could crawl on her hands and knees, until she was standing once again. There was blood on the stones, and her legs buckled on the first step – but she pushed herself up again, and kept doing it, again and again, until she was once again climbing towards the light.
“So-” she said, to distract from the shaking in her legs and stabbing in her head, “- the Princess and the Thief.”
Her guide began to tell his tale again, as she walked onwards, following the endless staircase.
“The Princess lived alone for many years in her tower, watching as the dragon killed anyone who got too close . . . until one day, a Thief came along. He was not like the valiant knights who had come before him. Not only was he a thief, but a storyteller – a giver of names, a weaver of tales – who called wherever his feet landed his home. Unlike the others, he did not attempt to fight the dragon, nor did he try to scale the tower. Instead, he stole the key.
Sneaking past the dragon while the night was deep, protected by shadows, he opened the door and climbed the stairs of the tower, expecting to find the Princess at the top.
But he found only a girl. A beauty, it was true. A queen by all rights. But the Thief saw in her eyes the same longing that he was in his own, and realised that hidden inside the castle, past the dragon, was a person, the same as he was. Having nothing to give her like the knights and the princes and the countless people who came before him, the Thief gave the Princess all that he had.”
When Khylen stopped talking, Dutch asked: “What did he give her?”
Silence. The wind was the only answer, howling past the staircase and bringing with it a flurry of snow that blocked her vision.
“Khlyen! Where the hells did you go to?” she whispered, searching although he had been nothing but a voice. The silence was deafening without him. Dutch looked around, but there was nothing but the stone stairs, and the snow, so she threw out her hands and yelled, “What did the Thief give her?”
“You already know the answer.”
At the return of his voice, Dutch sighed with relief. “Oh, thank gods.”
When he didn’t reply, falling silent once more, she grew frustrated.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! It’s your bloody story, Khlyen. Finish it.”
“You already know the answer.”
“No, I don’t!”
“You already -”
“- I swear to god, Khlyen, I don’t care if you’re a bodiless voice created from my own mind, if you say that again, I will strangle you.”
Dutch held her breath. She thought for a second that he was going to repeat the same phrase again and she was going to have to hurl herself from the steps just to shut him up, but thankfully, Khlyen replied, more quietly this time.
“Look up.”
She did, and gasped.
The staircase she had been climbing for what felt like days finally had an ending. The stone stopped at a pair of silver gates that seemed to be made of ice, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Slowly, Dutch climbed the last few stairs towards the gates, and as she did, what lay beyond them came into focus.
A tower – if it could be called that, for truly it looked more like a shard of glass piercing the sky – was the first thing to catch her attention. After the forest, and then the stairs, seeing such a building was strange: it was not in ruins, or made of stone, but seemed to have been carved by the wind and snow, and so veered to the left, in the direction which the wind was blowing. Against the white light, the ice shone – but wait, that was wrong. The sky above the tower was no longer the bright white light that Dutch had been following, but a mild green.
At the gates, Dutch asked: “Is that where She is?”
She didn’t say who, and Khlyen didn’t ask. They both knew who she was asking about.
“Yes,” he replied. “You’ll find the Lady in there.”
A shiver that had nothing to do with all the snow went down Dutch’s spine. After all this time . . . she was here. It was difficult not to think of this as her last stand. It wasn’t so long since her last one.
“Is Aneela . . . ?”
“She will meet you inside, if she has made it through the green to reach this place.”
“How will she know where to go?”
“She has a guide, too. Her own version of me. Except the Khlyen with her is made from her memories instead of yours.”
“And the coin lands-” Dutch said, shaking her head a little. She felt sorry for Aneela. She imagined that her Khlyen was somehow even worse. “What about you? Can you-”
“This is where I leave you,” Khlyen said, before she even had the chance to ask. Dutch was glad that the question never made it past her lips. Can you come with me? It was the desperate question of a child that had wanted a father; but Khlyen was a shitty dad, and she had outgrown needing him.
“Okay,” she nodded. “How do I get in?”
“You finish the story.”
“How?”
“You know the answer.”
“We’re not starting this again-” Dutch snapped. “Just tell me, damn you.”
After a pause, the voice commanded.
“Think of the Thief.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes. Focus. You have to concentrate now, every detail matters,” the voice said. It waited, until Dutch sighed, feeling stupid, and obediently closed her eyes. The gates and tower vanished, leaving her in darkness. Without her sight, she felt ridiculously vulnerable, standing at the top of an impossible stairway, talking to a dead man. This would be the perfect time for the Lady to kill her, she thought wryly, and Khlyen had led her to her death after all.
But from the darkness, Khlyen’s voice spoke.
“Think of the Thief from the story. Your Thief. Think about everything that makes him who he is, every detail. Make him real in your mind, from your memories . . . it has to be strong enough, your connection to him. You have to know him better than you know yourself.”
Dutch tried to picture Johnny in her mind. At first, she thought of him as a whole – he was taller than her, but only a little. Shorter than . . . who was the other man? His brother? It was harder to remember now . . .
“Keep thinking about him. Do not lose sight of him, or you will lose yourself.”
Dutch fought, harder. There was so much snow now, it was getting stronger around her – she could hear the wind, and feel it piling up around her ankles. The snow was rising, turning everything white, and blank –
Who was the voice again?
She was sure it had been important.
“Think of the Thief, Yala-” it said, “- just him. Nobody else matters now. Tell me the story.”
“The Thief was . . . he was . . .”
He had broad shoulders, but he wasn’t muscled – but he was strong, in his own ways. He would try to throw a punch and half the time would miss, but when he hit – he hit like a brick, swinging from the gut. He never did learn how to fight smart. She added the scars across his hands from all the broken knuckles over the years to her mental picture.
Next, she tried to imagine his face. It was easier than it should have been. She knew exactly how short he liked his stubble and the few freckles under his eyes; and lately, the darkness around his eyes, too. That’s the way all of the Thieves in stories looked – a little bit dangerous, but also kind.
In her mind, she gave him blue eyes – for a second, they flashed green, but no –
They were blue. The bluest blue she had ever known. The eyes of the Thief were kind, never cruel – angry, for sure, she had seen them as thunderstorms as well as still waters – but never sharp as daggers, never weapons.
“Can you see him clearly? You have to be sure.”
She didn’t answer right away. It was a rigged question – a fool’s game.
How was it possible to see everything about a person?
Images flashed through her mind, almost too fast to keep up with – a grin too wide, eyeliner, blood trailing from a pair of lips. A badge. Hands constantly fiddling with wreches. Motor oil under nails. A terrible singing voice in the middle of the night singing songs sixty years old from the engine room – engine room? Dutch tried to remember, but more ideas came.
This time, they weren’t images, but things that she knew to be true, deep down in her bones -
A stubbornness. The way he could dig in his heels and stubbornly refuse to move if he thought something was wrong, or the way he didn’t even hesitate to make a joke at his own expense but took a beat to consider making one at someone else’s, or the way she could find him in any room by the sound of his voice. It was somehow louder than all the rest, wherever they were.
Duchess. He called her Duchess.
“I think I understand now,” she said aloud. The game was rigged, of course. It wasn’t just about seeing the Thief, or even knowing him – it was about a connection. Something real. “It’s my turn to tell a story, Khlyen. Because you were right: stories are important. Words have power . . . the right words at the right time can save a life. Stop a war. Decide the fate of a coin in the air.”
She knew the words; their words. Everything else faded, but she carried a promise with her, all the way here, to the gates of hell. The words felt important.
Dutch hoped that they were enough.
“If you want to fight, I’ve got your back. If you want to run? I call shotgun. We don’t have to stay here,” she smiled. His voice was right there in her head, saying the words alongside her. “We can just fly away, and never look back.”
A brief silence, then, Khlyen: “What did the Thief give to the Princess?”
Dutch didn’t know the answer. She genuinely had no clue, until there was the sound of metal jangling on the breeze, and the Thief’s voice answered for her.
“The keys to the tower.”
Eyes snapping open, Dutch found Johnny standing in front of her, leaning against the gates with one shoulder.
“Johnny-”
His name – she knew it! She knew him. Everything about Johnny Jaqobis came flooding back to her as she saw him standing there. The figure was a version of him, made up of all the different things about Johnny that she loved – he looked as she saw him last – older, more tired, but smiling all the same. But he wore the leather jacket from the night they met, right down to the rolled up sleeves; the same clunky boots were on his feet, too. And those eyes – she’d know them anywhere.
And there, on his fingers – he spun around a set of silver keys.
Dutch felt her lips twitch upwards at the answer. “He gave her freedom.”
“Not exactly-” Johnny explained. He stood and walked over to her, “- he offered it to her. I’ll fight the dragon, if you want me to – the boy said. Or we can run away from this tower right now. We don’t ever have to come back. The Thief gave the Princess the keys – but she took her own freedom. She chose it.”
He held out the key to her with a grin.
Dutch ignored it entirely. She opted to throw herself at him instead, almost knocking the damn keys out of his hand, but it was worth it when he was real, pressed against her chest as her arms locked around his neck. After a moment, she felt his chest rise and fall with a laugh, and his own arms encircled her, hugging her back.
Dutch held him tightly. She gave herself a few moments, just to enjoy the feeling of Johnny’s heart beating close to hers, and the warmth of his arms around her. After everything . . . she needed it; she needed him – just for a moment.
“Johnny-” she said his name, clinging onto him, “-are you really here?”
“That’s not an easy question to answer. Technically, the Johnny that you knew is still out there in the real world. I’m a version of him created from your memories, and the green.”
“So you’re not-” Dutch choked back a sob, stepping away from the figure. Sure, he looked like Johnny and sounded like Johnny – but he was just another ghost. “- you’re not him? You’re not . . .”
“Real?” Johnny asked; made a typical Johnny face. He certainly looked real. “That’s question is relative, in here. I’m as real as your connection to me is. So you tell me, Dutch-” he took a step closer, looked her in the eyes, “- am I real?”
She wanted him to be.
Slowly, Dutch took a step closer, looking at his face intently. There wasn’t a freckle out of place. Her hand found its way to where her gaze rested, touching his face gently, tracing his jaw line before cupping his cheek. Johnny never looked away from her the entire time. He was patient, and the tips of his ears turned pink when she touched him.
Dutch felt her face break into a grin.
“You’re real.”
“Thank gods, I was starting to have an existential crisis back there,” Johnny replied, then frowned – “Can a construct created from memories in a non-existent plane even have an existential crisis?”
Dutch thought, tilting her head to one side and replying, “You’d manage it.”
“True, but you shouldn’t say it-” Johnny quipped back. He jerked his head over his shoulder, back towards the gates. “So, what’s the deal with the totally-not-creepy palace? Missing home?”
“Hah-” she snorted, “-no. The Lady is in there somewhere. We have to defeat her.”
“Riiiight. Just the two of us?”
“Since when do we need anybody else, Johnny?” she asked, crossing her arms. “We’ve faced worse odds than this before, just the two of us.”
“Did you forget that we literally have an army now?” he retorted. “Do we at least have any weapons?”
“You are my secret weapon, Johnny.”
“So we’re screwed, then?”
The words were grim, but she could hear the smile in Johnny’s voice as he said them. She glanced over to find him staring down the tower, eyes focused, jaw set in a determined line. Ready to fight. He was just joking in the face of certain doom because it was kind of his style, and she was grateful for it. Just him being there made her stand a little taller; feel a little more like herself.
“Just the usual,” Dutch joked back. “Story of our life.”
“And how does this one end?” he asked, looking over at her.
She met his gaze steadily. Johnny was there, and however the tale ended – she wouldn’t be alone. It wasn’t a happy ending, exactly – but they were together. That counted for something. So she grinned, and answered.
“We fight a dragon, of course.”
The Warrior took the keys and headed for the tower, the laughter of the Thief following a step behind, as they walked together towards the ever-distant sun.