Work Text:
Dark Hour
Calliope Mori was a strange and often pitied girl in the eyes of Eichenbergs inhabitants. One day, when the girl had barely been old enough to not be called a child anymore, she had wandered into their midst all by herself with nothing but the ragged clothes on her body, an ancient, torn satchel strapped to her back that she kept on her person at all times and a story hidden behind her steely eyes that none had ever managed to pry out of her.
The village was as ordinary and unimportant as could be, a couple dozen stone houses in a messy layout of dirt roads and paths surrounded by vast farmlands of wheat and open areas for livestock on one side, and a wild, untamed stretch of woodland on the other side, situated somewhere in the middle of the Archduchy of Austria.
Most villagers survived off working on the fields owned by the larger businessmen and noble folk living in the nearby city of Addersdam, while a handful of others made their coin off of their own employ, such as the local innkeeper, commodities trader or the few daring poachers that stalked the woods, hunting the beasts within for profit.
Calliope was neither strong enough to work on the farms or charismatic enough to find employment as a barmaid with the innkeep, nor was she agile enough to join the hunting packs out in the forest. Yet, during her entire six month stay in the village so far, she had been allowed to claim one of the inn’s rooms all for herself, turning it into her own living quarters due to a talent of a very different sort than bodily strength or social skills.
She was magically gifted, something that everyone in the village understood was a valuable thing. Magic was able to turn the impossible into something quite easy. Bones could be mended and set back in place, messages could be sent instantly rather than requiring long travel, hours of manual labour could be cut down to a fraction of the time. And other than her, no one in Eichenberg had any magical talent whatsoever.
In Calliope’s case, she was very well attuned to the currents of magic all around herself. She could foretell changes in the weather long before they would happen. She was able to determine the authenticity and value of objects that wandering traders or adventurers would try and peddle to the local shop keep. She could warn the hunters and poachers of certain dangers lurking in the woods, as long as said dangers were magical beasts that was. All that, alongside other basic tricks and tasks that most magic users picked up over time.
Those fortunate enough to be attuned to the magical world often found prestigious and important positions in towns and cities, leaving the poor and rural lifestyle behind as soon as possible. It was not strange to see magic users work as advisors or consultants in service of those who could afford them or quickly rising through the ranks of the military to become well trained tools of war.
Despite all that, of a chance for a better life in Addersdam or any other much more populated community, Calliope had stayed in the village. Over time, she had become respected, if not especially liked by many. As a rule, Calliope spoke little, and the villagers asked even less. Most interactions were focused on business or favours. For a girl of barely 16 years of age, she was of sharper wit than most and knew exactly how much her services were worth.
No one knew exactly who she was and all attempts to either locate her family in any of the nearby villages or asking her directly about her past had ever led to anything more than additional questions and mysteries around her. She was praised by some for being strong enough to have made a life for herself at such a young age. She was pitied by many for the solitary lifestyle she led, many believing her to have lost everything prior to appearing in their midst. But what all that lived in the village could agree on, was that she was a uniquely strange girl that was better left alone.
Well, all but one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With a torch in hand, she rounded a corner of the stables that were attached to the inn, walking down the dirt path that would lead her toward the western exit out of the village and toward Addersdam after about half a day of foot travel. Not that she planned to follow the road all the way, her objective being a very different, much more personal one that night.
She had volunteered to take the night watcher’s duty earlier in the day, much to the relief of the man who had been selected previously. It was neither an easy, nor a prestigious position to take. The night watcher would need to patrol through the streets in the dark hours between sunset and sunrise, being the first line of defence and responsible for alerting others in case of any sort of danger.
Roaming thieves, animals wandering into town, unknown individuals scoping out their defences and numbers, all of those were very real threats that almost all villages at the time needed to protect themselves from. Those living outside secure city walls, guarded by stone and men, had little choice other than to depend on each other by forming local militias. No guards or soldiers would bother rushing out to defend a village so far removed from their own concerns.
Takanashi Kiara was part of the Eichenberg militia and had been ever since she was old enough to walk on her own two feet. Back then, she had been put to work by accompanying her father during his own duties, helping to maintain the few actual weapons shared between the militia’s members or delivering food and drink to the designated night watchers. Now that she had gotten older, she had been entrusted with her own set of duties, even if she was a good deal younger than many of them.
The girl had turned 13 in the summer of that year and was extraordinarily tall for her age. Having worked on the fields for as long as she could remember in addition to her militia training, she was strong enough to rival some of the adults around her, men and women alike. Thus, she proudly fulfilled her duties alongside the other members whenever she was called upon.
She had driven out bears and boars that terrorized the people, had apprehended suspicious figures and thieves that had tried to disappear in the dead of night, had joined the more experienced hunters in taking down magical creatures that had come too close to the village and needed to either be relocated or struck down for the safety of everyone. And never once had she complained, feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment for each of these situations she resolved, alone or with others.
As such, she was a popular girl. Many depended on her when an extra set of hands was needed or when a trip to the city was necessary for one reason nor another. They knew she would not let them down, was always ready to do put in the hours and effort to ensure those around her were safe and satisfied.
Yet, for the first time in her life, she was about to abandon her post and risk the good reputation she had built for herself. And it was not out of any noble goal or great danger she needed to attend to by herself. It was done entirely out of her own curiosity and a feeling of wonder she had not been able to shake off, ever since Calliope Mori had arrived.
In the beginning, Kiara pitied her and had tried to offer her support to the other girl, planning to befriend her if possible, to ensure she would feel welcome. Not due to the value in Calliope’s talent for magic, though that too was quite the helpful addition to everyone around her. No, she had simply wanted to be kind to the stranger that had appeared out of nowhere.
Later on, Kiara simply thought she was rude. Calliope had ignored every attempt at friendship or companionship, rejecting all invitations to show her around the area to get familiar with her new home. For some reason, she always found excuses to not appear to village meetings, never showed her face in the inn’s common room in which most of the inhabitants found enjoyment and fun after a hard day of work. She was always by herself and made no attempt to change that.
Now, even later, Kiara was intrigued by all the mystery surrounding Calliope Mori. On several occasions, she had seen her sneak off in the middle of the night, sometimes disappearing for a whole day or two before returning as if nothing had happened, refusing all questions, and claiming that she could do as she pleased.
The first time Kiara had seen her sneak away, she had believed the girl to be gone for good, leaving just as sudden as she had appeared. When she had seen Calliope that next day, staring out the window of her room at the inn, Kiara began to wonder just what she was up to during her nightly excursions.
Whenever she returned, she seemed to have changed in small ways. Sometimes her skin would appear more pale, her eyes seemed more lifeless or her movements more sluggish, although all of that could be chalked up to not getting enough sleep. Strangely enough, she also seemed more chipper or cheerful in her own small, barely noticeable ways. After weeks upon weeks of pondering, Kiara had decided that she could no longer ignore the matter.
For this exact reason, she stuck the flaming end of her torch into the ground at her feet, giving it a few stomps with her boots to extinguish the fire and cast herself under the cloak of night. It took her a couple of seconds to feel comfortable with the darkness around her, almost entirely blind as her pupils tried to adjust to the new level of light, dilating and slowly granting her sight once more.
Once she was confident enough that she would not stumble due to lack of vision, she crouched lower to the ground and crept up back to the corner she had just rounded, peeking out from behind it and toward the back door of the inn, Calliope’s usual escape route whenever she left. Of course, Kiara did not know whether tonight was one of those nights the other girl would leave or not, but decided to wait anyway, just in case she got lucky.
For the first twenty minutes, absolutely nothing happened. She could hear the horses inside the stables on the other side of the wall she was leaning against, could hear the wind rustle through some of the grass as well as her own clothes. If she focused closely, she swore she heard the noise of a nocturnal hunting bird circling above the village in search for prey. She mused herself as an equal to the bird as she too was waiting for her own prey to show herself, eyes fixated on the door.
Unlike the nightly predator above her, she had never quite picked up the patience required to ensure a bountiful hunt and was beginning to feel cold and bored, with doubt sneaking its way into her mind like an unbidden guest. Perhaps the idea was a stupid one after all. There was no way to predict the seemingly random pattern that Calliope had, concerning her mysterious absences.
In the time she was sitting here, letting the winter wind and the chill of the night freeze her to the core, she could have finished her round back at the improvised headquarters of the militia, which was little more than a shack one of the townsfolk had been kind enough to donate for their uses. She could have picked up something warm to drink, maybe requested another coat to stave off the cold. But instead, she was still here, seemingly wasting her time on something that suddenly did not feel all that important anymore.
As that nagging voice in her head was slowly beginning to win her over with its promises of warmth and comfort, a new noise broke through the relative silence of the night and Kiara knew right away what it was. A quiet click followed by a gentle scraping of something heavy being pushed across the floor. She leaned out from behind the corner a bit more and peered into the darkness, making out the shape of the girl she had been waiting for, standing next to the now unlocked and opened backdoor of the inn.
She could feel her heartbeat start to pick up as luck had played right into her hands, getting excited at the prospect of having a chance to solve one of the many mysteries around Calliope Mori and to test of her scouting skills at the same time. The many hours spent with the hunters in the woods learning how to move without making a sound and stalking prey without them noticing would finally pay off.
Kiara observed from a distance as the other girl took a deep breath with her head tilted up toward the sky, getting used to the cold winter’s chill that already nipped at her skin uncomfortably. It was her first winter in Eichenberg and it seemed she had not bothered with finding appropriate clothing for these temperatures, something she was surely coming to regret rather quickly. After a few seconds, Calliope reached out with one arm and closed the door behind her again, just as quiet as before.
Even if it had been a much darker night, Kiara would have been able to confirm it was the girl she was looking for due to a very simple fact. The fact that for just a very short moment, she could see a dim flash of pink illuminate the lock of the door, followed by a click to indicate that the door had indeed been locked again without the use of a key. It was magic of course.
All humans gifted with a talent for the arcane had a certain colour associated with the effects of their magic. It did not matter if they attempted to create fire out of nothing, summoned bouts of wind or enhanced the strength of themselves and others. Each of these actions would result in the exact same hue and brightness specific to the one that cast it. In Calliope’s case, it was a gentle pink, somehow being the polar opposite of the girl’s otherwise broody personality.
Magic was such a strange thing to Kiara. She had always heard about it in stories that people would tell her, and she knew that some of the beasts in the deeper part of the forest had uncanny abilities to them but before Calliope had come, she had never seen magic being used with her own eyes, let alone seen the person that actually controlled it. As such, even a small action such as locking a door was an exciting sight to her and it took a lot of self-control to not let out a gasp of surprise.
With the door once again secured in place, Calliope hugged the ever-present satchel on her body closer to herself and began to walk off in quick steps. Kiara followed with her own carefully chosen steps, dodging behind the walls of houses every so often to give herself some cover, never letting Calliope get too far ahead out of fear of losing sight of her in the oppressive darkness.
Calliope too seemed to choose her path carefully, checking around corners to see if the anyone else was out and about, only pushing herself to go forward when she was absolutely certain that she was alone. Which of course, was not entirely true though she never once seemed to be bothered with checking behind her rather than in front of her.
After a couple of minutes of sneaking through the empty streets, Calliope arrived at the western exit of town and, without hesitation, began walking directly for the treeline in the distance. Kiara knew the girl was strange but choosing to go into the forest by herself in the dead of night? That truly was unnatural. At that point, her stalking of the other girl became half a fancy to satisfy her own curiosity and half an urge to stick around and protect her in case something attacked Calliope.
Inside of the woods, it would be impossible to keep track of the other girl. Between the thick trees and lush plant life, she would disappear as barely more than another shadow in the dark. Kiara half considered calling out to her, tell her that it was too dangerous to go at this time all by herself, maybe offer to take her back to the inn without asking questions. Though right before the smaller girl slipped into the forest, she took a sharp turn to the left and began to wander right along the edge of the treeline northwards.
While still foolish, it was at least considerably less dangerous to follow her that way. It seemed as if Calliope made a conscious effort to not take a single step deeper into the woodlands than she had to. There was no path here, no sign that anyone travelled this way, yet the other girl followed each bend and curve of the edge with knowing steps for a couple of minutes.
Kiara was glad for that the first frost hat not yet set in, or the crunch of her boots on the frozen grass would surely have been loud enough to alert Calliope of her presence. So far out of the village, there were absolutely no noises safe for the ones the two girls as well as any animals creeping through the forest at night made. As they travelled northbound, the few clouds hanging in the night sky that had blocked out a good deal of the moon began to drift off, allowing pale silvery light to illuminate their surroundings.
She had been following the older girl long enough for Eichenberg to be little more than a dark shape far in the distance behind them while long stretches of farmland were rolling over the hills to their left, often used by the farmers to let their livestock roam but never for too long, lest they risk drawing the attention of predators from within the woods. Kiara was wondering just how far she was ready to follow Calliope before another noise began to reach her ears.
The sound of running water. She knew there were multiple small rivers and streams in the area, each of them running down from the impressive mountains to the south, merging into larger rivers over time or simply ending in a weak trickle somewhere in the countryside. Before too long, she could see the source of the noise, a small stream with a clear surface, shimmering brightly and reflecting the moonlight peacefully.
If she had the time or the chance, she would have liked to take a closer look, enjoy this natural beauty in full. Though it seemed the girl she had been observing had very much the same idea. Rather than cross over the stream to continue her travels or follow the direction of the water’s flow, Calliope had stopped right at the edge of the water, slightly out of breath from the long walk. Manual labour was not her strong suite and it certainly put her apart from most other people around her.
Once Kiara noticed that they would not continue onward, she instead crouched lower to the ground and allowed herself to dip slightly into the treeline to use it as cover for herself while she would slowly approach. Following could be done from quite a distance away but if she actually wanted to find out what exactly Calliope was doing out here, she would need to get much, much closer.
She tried her best to keep her eyes on the other girl while also paying attention to every single one of her own steps, avoiding leaves or branches to keep her approach silent and unknowable. Calliope seemed to have sat down at the edge of the creek, hands moving and unpacking something that Kiara had no chance to identify just yet due to the darkness and distance. For just a short moment, a dim flash of pink light danced across the night from around the older girl’s vicinity, confirming that magic was definitely at play.
A sound broke the silence at the same tight as the flash had appeared. It sounded like a hiss of pain; a sharp breath being sucked in while Calliope hunched over for a couple of seconds. At the noise alone, Kiara had already become more alert but the hunched over position made the whole ordeal even more perplexing. The next thing she heard simply added to her concern and confusion.
“Hey Tama. Yeah, I’m back again, hope you don’t mind.”
Calliope was speaking out loud to someone, her voice wavering a bit as if still recovering from pain but loud enough to be audible. Kiara tried to see if she could spot anyone else that may have arrived before or after them but could identify nothing. Perhaps the girl was magically communicating with someone far away? Was that even possible? Was this maybe normal for magic users?
“Sorry if I’ve been seeing you less often recently but it’s getting really cold and I can’t exactly raise you in town.”
“That’s okay Calli, I know it’s very dangerous”
Kiara had stopped enough of a distance away to still feel safe about not getting caught while watching, though upon hearing the second voice, her curiosity flamed up once more. Was there another person here after all? But she could see no one else. The voice had sounded very similar to Calliope’s own, just a bit deeper and raspier. Who was this Tama?
“Still, you deserve better. No one knows me as well as you do.”
“That may be true but that doesn’t mean you owe me anything.”
She had to get closer. There was no way Kiara was ready to back off now or stay this far away and leave with even more questions than she had before the night. The sound of the running water should be loud enough to cover some of her noises. That was, what she hoped for at least. She always was told that her fiery curiosity and impulses would get in trouble one day, but she simply could not resist.
“What brings you here tonight, Calli? Can’t sleep again?”
“No I just really need to talk to someone. Figure this stuff out. And you always know how to help me.”
The two of them were close, that much was obvious. Kiara had never seen Calliope speak this casual to anyone, let alone admit to needing help from someone else. There was no one in the village named Tama and she was pretty sure she knew everyone by name. Perhaps a relative of hers? But why would they only meet out here so late at night?
“I just don’t know what I’m doing here Tama. I know we made the right choice when we left that awful place but what now? I can’t go to the city, too many things could go wrong. I could be seen with you and then they would lock me up and take you away.”
“I think getting locked up would be the least of your concerns if they saw us together.”
“Thanks Tama, totally what I needed to hear right now.”
From her new spot, only a short distance away, Kiara could see things a bit more clearly. Calliope had buried her head in her hands while letting out a groan of frustration at the answer she had gotten, taking some time to compose herself again. She sat with her legs tugged under her body at the edge of the creek with something in her lap. The satchel she always kept with herself was laying on the ground, the latches undone and the top opened wide.
With any luck, Kiara could solve not one but two of the large mysteries surrounding Calliope Mori that night. Both the question of where she disappeared off to as well as the question of what she kept inside her satchel seemed to be linked to one another and it only made Kiara more excited to discover the truth.
“You know, even if I hated it back at the Convent, it was so much easier.”
“Easier? In what ways?”
She squinted her eyes in an attempt to see more, noticing that the shape in Calliope’s lap seemed to move on its own. The girl’s hands were placed by her sides on the ground, touching the cold grass yet the figure in her lap seemed to poke and prod at her. There was no way something so small could be the person she was talking to but there was no one else around.
“Mhm, like, I could take you anywhere I wanted. I didn’t need to worry about food or a place to sleep. I didn’t need to try so hard to ignore him.”
“That’s because they didn’t want you to ignore him, Calli. That is the whole reason we left.”
A long sigh left Calliope at the answer she got, and she closed her eyes once again while sitting in silence. The other voice had stopped talking as well when she did, allowing her to pick apart what was said carefully and come up with a satisfying answer. The next time Calliope spoke up, Kiara almost let out a noise of confusion as, rather than her own voice, it was the voice of the person she had referred to as Tama the entire time.
“It was the right choice, Calli. We can hold out until we find a way to get rid of him. There has to be some loophole he left or mistake he made.”
“But what if there isn’t? What if I can’t find a way out? What if I panic again, lose control and-“
Kiara silently cursed herself out when she heard the sound of a snapping branch crunch away under her boot. She had scared herself with the noise, immediately looking down at her own feet to confirm that it had indeed been her own mistake before looking back up and being met with something that sent chills down her spine.
Calliope had snapped her head around to look directly at her and her eyes were glowing pink with the tell-tale sign of magic. Against the otherwise dark night, her eyes stood out like a wildfire, glaring sharply. On her shoulder, next to her head was another set of eyes, belonging to the shape that previously had been cradled in her lap, though they looked like nothing more than dots of pink floating in pitch black.
Now that the shape was on Calliope’s shoulder, Kiara could make out more details about it. A small frame, standing on four slender legs like an animal with a long tail curled at its back. The most unnerving part was that the light of the moon shone through most of the creature, revealing what looked like a hollow rib cage with nothing inside.
Only a second later, the magically gifted girl had jumped to her feet, arms raised in a defensive stance with the glow of pink in her eyes growing stronger, which in turn caused the eyes of the creature to shine brighter as well as they peered into the darkness together. Kiara suddenly realised just how dangerous and stupid it had been to stalk the broody, calculating magic user all the way out here.
“Man or beast, show yourself! Now! Don’t think I won’t burn this entire forest down to find you! If you won’t, then I will…No! Shut up! I don’t need you! I got this handled without you!”
Kiara only felt more unsafe after hearing the somewhat incoherent command or warning she had received. This girl was not only talking to herself as two different people, now she had also started arguing with herself in the middle of threatening someone. There was something seriously wrong with her, worse than what she had even begun to imagine.
“I don’t need you! I don’t want you! Get the fuck out!”
Almost as if to push away another person, Calliope unleashed some of her build up magic, sending a whip of fire cracking down to her right, letting it cut cleanly through the damp grass and soil. The action was sending wafts of steam upward where the heat of her fire connected with the moisture of the ground and the air and left the land scarred at the spot of the impact.
She was breathing heavily, glowing eyes flicking all over the place. The girl seemed unstable, lashing out against absolutely no one. Kiara considered simply running back to the village, inform them of what she saw so the militia could decide how to deal with the situation.
The sound of a muffled sob made her reconsider in a heartbeat. The glow of her eyes allowed Kiara to see the tears streaming down her face while Calliope tried to keep up her defensive stance. With the way her hands were shaking, and her voice was wavering, she seemed more like a lost, terrified girl than a raving lunatic willing to hurt anyone that came close to her.
“Please just leave me alone! Please just go!”
Kiara did not know whether the command to leave was directed at her or someone else but for now she found herself unable to obey, too intimidated by the destruction she had witnessed beforehand through the use of magic. If she were to be hit by something like that, there was no way she saw herself surviving longer than a minute. As much as magic was a useful tool, it was an even more useful weapon of war.
“Just leave me alone. Please, please leave me alone. I don’t…please…”
Calliopes voice faltered even more as she spoke, her tone changing from threatening and angry to horrified and exhausted. Only a couple of seconds later, her legs gave out under her, causing the girl to fall to her knees with her face buried in her hands, trying to muffle the shameful sobs in a weak attempt to regain some of her composure.
At that moment, Kiara had already decided that she had to intervene. As dangerous as the girl had shown she could be, it seemed she was more terrified than hostile, a lonely lost girl fearing for her life. The taller girl took a deep breath and allowed herself to step out from behind the tree she had used as cover, taking a few steps out into the open.
As soon as she became visible from between the trees, the little creature that had been sticking close to Calliope positioned itself between both girls, tail curled high at its back and one leg raised up as if ready to strike if she were to come any closer. Now, without any foliage in the way, she could identify the creature as some sort of cat. A cat without any fur, skin, flesh, or blood. It was entirely skeletal, the only sign of life being the two hovering dots of pink magic in its hollow eye sockets.
“H-Hello? Miss Mori? Sorry to scare you so bad. Do you need any help?”
As soon as she spoke up, the girl on the ground moved her hands away from her face, looking up with a terrified expression. Tears were still escaping her eyes, mouth turned into an unhappy frown with strands of hair sticking to her wet cheeks. Upon seeing the other girl, she balled her hands into fists, almost as if trying to appear more intimidating again but immediately losing the courage to do. Instead, she wiped at her eyes with a sleeve, trying to regain some of her blurry vision.
“Who are you? How do you know me? What do you want?”
“Maybe you’ve seen me around in Eichenberg. I’m Kiara. I’ve tried to talk to you a couple of times, but you seemed busy.”
Kiara kept her distance, half to give the other girl some room to breathe and half to not anger the skeletal cat in front of her any more than she had to. Even if it was just a cat, the fact it was rather undead managed to scare the hell out of her and under other circumstances, she would have tried to run away or smash it to bits.
“I…I’m not even going to lie, I was spying on you ever since you left town. I promise it was nothing bad though. Sometimes you just disappear, and it always made me wonder what the mysterious Miss Mori was doing by herself. I really didn’t mean to scare you, promise.”
Now that she was looking closer, Calliope did recognise the other girl. Tall, muscular, red hair slightly bleached from working out in the sun for so long. The girl that had been pestering her for the first couple of weeks after she had arrived. She would see her patrol the streets at night every so often and one time they had even been part of the same group tasked with chasing off a pack of wolves that had made their temporary home too close to the village.
“What do you want from me then? You know I could k-kill you where you stand if I wanted to.”
Even now she tried to threaten the other girl again but the tremble of her lips and the look in her eyes betrayed that it was just yet another attempt to intimidate and seem much more confident and strong than she really was. While her words were still true, Kiara also believed that Calliope would do no such thing, seeing how she was still alive and not yet burned down to a crisp.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re alright, Miss Mori. It is my duty as night watcher…and you seem really afraid right now.”
“Well, I don’t need you. Now just go away! Just go. I don’t need anyone, j-just myself and…”
She did not entirely finish her sentence before her eyes fell on the skeletal cat that was defensively standing between both girls. It moved its head as if trying to hiss or display aggression to Kiara but not a single sound came out of it, seeing how it was just the reanimated remains of something long dead. Right after, her eyes looked up at the other girl again, fear setting in once more.
“I won’t cause any trouble and I’ll be out of your village before dawn tomorrow. Just don’t tell anyone, please. Or at least wait until I’m gone. Please, I need him. I need him.”
She lowered her head and began to mumble a bit to herself, feeling like the world was shattering all around herself. Someone had finally caught on to what she was doing. Necromancy, communion with spirits and so on were not simply frowned upon, they were outright crimes worthy of death in many cases.
Stories of magic users defiling graveyards, sacrificing people to further their own gain, destroying the land by draining it of all life wherever they went were so burned into the collective consciousness of almost every kingdom in Europe that even suspicion alone was sometimes enough to trial and execute those under scrutiny.
Kiara had heard those stories too, of course. Though she had always imagined those that practiced the forbidden craft to be more, well, evil. Men and women mad with power, pillaging, destroying and killing everything in their path, driven by a lust for power and a greed for recognition and a longer life. Not a lost, scared girl crying by herself at night out in the cold, talking with a dead cat.
“Was it…was he your pet? Tama I think you said?”
Kiara bent down at her knees in front of the undead animal, observing it for a short moment before carefully reaching out with one hand toward it. As expected, it reared its head and bit down on the offered hand with enough force to penetrate the skin. The girl let out a hiss at the pain but did not pull her hand away, nor did she complain.
Upon seeing that the human was staying still rather than retaliate or flinch back, the skeletal cat pulled its skull back and stared at her with its pink, flickering orbs, still hellbent on protecting its master but less outwardly aggressive now. It had made clear that Kiara was not allowed to approach any closer but could remain where she was for now.
“He was. Is. Is still my pet. I’ve had him since I was very young.”
Calliope spoke before she could really think about her words, the question surprising her enough to shut down her anxiety for just a moment. That girl in front of her had neither called her an abomination or monster, nor had she reacted aggressively about being confronted with something that most people would find so utterly revolting to life itself.
“I see. He must mean a lot to you, right?”
Even with her hand trickling some blood from the bite, she moved it closer to the cat yet again, this time stopping far enough away to let Tama decide for himself what to do next. His head came closer to the hand and began to move around it a little. She imagined that he was trying to pick up her scent and familiarise himself with her though the lack of nostrils, or any sort of organs would most likely make that a lot more difficult.
“He does. He’s my oldest friend. My only friend. Please, please don’t take him away from me.”
The request was as genuine as could be, a quiet whimper ending her sentence upon being confronted with the possibility of having to lose him. If this girl had been outraged or violent upon seeing her undead pet, Calliope may have been able to convince herself to dispose of her. Staying together with Tama was worth having to kill a person and finding a new home right after before anyone could discover what had really happened.
But instead, she had been calm and kind, speaking to her like a normal person rather than judging her as someone worthy of hate. She really did not wish to hurt this girl. She would simply pack her bags, take whatever she could and leave the village before anyone could get harmed. As long as she was allowed to stay with him, she would be alright with losing her newfound home already.
“I won’t do anything like that Miss Mori. It’s certainly strange but he’s kind of cute, isn’t he?”
Kiara was not sure if it was the fact that the tough and calculated woman she had known Calliope Mori to be turned out to be a lonely, fear ridden girl or the fact that the reanimated bones in front of her still had enough of a cat shape to it to speak to her animal loving heart but even with knowing necromancy was a forbidden and evil art, she felt no danger from neither girl nor pet.
“You’re not causing any trouble, are you Tama? I’m sorry for scaring you and Miss Mori.”
“I promise to behave. On behalf of myself and Calli, thank you.”
Once more, Calliope had spoken without thinking about her words, this time in the deeper and scratchy voice she had previously used in conversation with herself. Her hands immediately went to her own mouth to cover it up, eyes wide in horror at having exposed her own habit of speaking for her cat.
Kiara simply looked up at Calliope and gave her an amused smile, showing no signs of being weirded out or making fun of the other girl. Sure, it was a very strange habit to have but if what the girl had said was true and this undead animal was her oldest and only friend, then giving him a voice and speaking out his words as if they were having a conversation made sense in a strange, sort of sad way.
“No need to explain. I think I get it. A unique situation you have with him.”
Even though it felt strange to do, Kiara began to run one of her fingers along the smooth skull of the skeletal animal in front of her, as if she was petting a normal cat with all the other parts still attached. In turn, Tama seemed to enjoy the attention, tail uncurling from its previous, cautious position and allowing the finger to run along the bone a couple of times before pulling away and bounding over to his master to sit by her side.
“Aren’t you…afraid? Of him? Or me?”
“Should I be afraid, Miss Mori?”
Both girls could look at the other’s face pretty clearly now with Calliope still kneeling on the ground and Kiara squatting not too far away from her. The former was still afraid and uncertain though the absolute panic with which she had spoken before seemed to have toned down for now, allowing her breathing to slow to a normal level and her hands to stop shaking.
The latter tried her best to appear casual and friendly, throwing the older girl another understanding smile while staying right where she was, not making any attempts of coming closer or lifting herself up. For now, she was waiting patiently for an answer to her question, an answer she already knew but wanted Calliope to speak out loud anyway.
“No. No, you shouldn’t. I promise I’m not causing any trouble. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Mhm, as I thought. You’re not that sort of person. Which is why I’m not worried.”
“How would you know? I could just be acting to get you to trust me and then turn out to be a terrible lich or something. You have no idea who I am.”
“Do terrible liches usually speak for their cats?”
Calliope was caught off guard by the sudden tease, causing her to stop with her mouth open and words dying out in her throat as she tried to come up with something to say. Her confused expression brought a gentle chuckle to Kiara’s lips, who found it to be quite amusing. She simply could not imagine that someone like Calliope was that sort of evil or depraved. In her book, someone who loved their cat enough to bring them back from the dead just to talk to them had to be good person.
Upon seeing the taller girl chuckle and smile at her own tease, Calliope felt her body relax involuntary as if a huge weight dropped off her shoulders. The girl that had caught her defiling the very nature of life and death just for the sake of a cat was either a complete idiot or better at reading Calliope than she was herself. The redhead already knew that she could not bring herself to do those things unprompted.
“But you are right Miss Mori. I have no idea who you are. Mind if I stay a bit and find out?”
Kiara had asked the question quite open on purpose, allowing the other girl to reject her if she wished to do so. She had no intention of forcing any interaction between them. If she was told to go now, she would do so without complaint, walk back to town and keep everything she had seen entirely to herself. Part of her, the part that had been growing up in the militia would scream at her to warn people about the necromantic threat.
Another, much bigger part would keep her quiet by reminding her of how scared Calliope had looked when she thought Tama would be taken away from her. She knew she was too soft by thinking like that but something about the girl’s eyes had sealed her decision already. No matter the outcome of the night, her secret would be safe.
“I don’t know. I don’t really talk. To anyone. Anyone but Tama I suppose.”
“Well you can let me do most of the talking then if you’d like Miss Mori. You really look like you don’t want to be alone right now. And this is honestly the most exciting thing that has happened around here recently, so I would have to be an idiot pass up on the chance to enjoy it.”
Kiara waited a few more seconds for a final decision to be made, still leaving the option entirely open to accept or reject the proposal with no strings attached. Her answer came in the form of a short nod and a sigh as Calliope shifted out of her uncomfortable sitting position into something more casual, facing the creek again and looking down at the water’s surface.
The other girl did the same, sitting down on the cold grass but keeping the distance between them as she had before to avoid making Calliope uncomfortable or scared. Though instead of looking at the water, she instead observed the girl next to her as she reached out for her pet and began to cradle it in her arms like a child might do with a puppet.
They stayed together at the stream for about an hour with Kiara guiding their conversation. She spoke in length about herself, about her life with the militia, about the curiosity she felt concerning Calliope, a topic which caused the girl in question to feel rather embarrassed. Calliope admitted to not knowing how to live as part of a community like a village, never having done that before. When Kiara asked what she meant by that, Calliope had refused to answer, becoming very quiet and shaking her head.
After a few minutes of silence, the taller girl had posed the question of heading back together. She needed to return to her post as night watcher while Calliope should try to catch some sleep. While they were getting ready to leave, the mystery of Calliope’s satchel was solved as well. After setting it upright, she had told Tama to climb inside, giving him an affectionate kiss on the top of his skull before cutting off the magic that kept him animated, causing the skeleton to collapse in on itself and gather in a pile of bones at the bottom of the satchel.
Kiara found the display a bit morbid but did not say anything about it. The smaller girl truly did feel inseparable from her pet it seemed, carrying his remains around with her at all times. Most likely in case she needed to flee an area for being exposed as a dangerous necromancer or something of the sort. That way, she could take off without risking the chance to lose him anywhere.
With the flow of magic cut off and the hours spent in the winter cold, Calliope looked about ready to collapse into a shivering mess on the ground. She had explained that recalling Tama’s spirit back to his body took a lot of energy out of her and rather than draw it from the land or creatures around her like many necromancers did, she only took energy from herself to do it as a way to remain undetected. Dead patches of land were a clear giveaway after all.
Without asking, Kiara had removed the thick coat the militia lent to anyone on night watcher duty and draped it over the smaller girl to at least keep her warm during their trek back. A short argument had spawned between them, that ended when Kiara proclaimed that it was her duty to return the other girl home safely, which included shielding her from the cold.
As a pair, they walked next to each other along the same route they had arrived by, heading southward until the road was back under their feet, then eastward back into the village and toward the centre where the inn had stood proudly for more than a hundred years. They had been much too tired for long conversation on their way back and had simply kept pace with one another, moving in a comfortable silence.
Once they reached the backdoor to the building, Calliope shrugged off the heavy coat and meekly handed it back to Kiara, still finding the situation to be somewhat embarrassing. Having to be escorted home by a girl three years younger than herself, a girl that had seen her break down crying out of fear of losing a pet that had been dead for a very long time. Yet, for the first time in a very long while, she also felt glad to have simply talked to another person without it being about business or threats or worrying about exposing herself.
“Do you need me to open it? Not sure how much more magic you-“
While still talking, Kiara was interrupted by the click of a lock and a flash of pink. Without even attempting to finish her sentence, she stuck her arms throat the sleeves of the coat again before moving her hands to tighten it around herself and close up the simple leather latches at the front.
“I may be exhausted but something like this lock is nothing for someone like me.”
“Ah, of course, apologies Miss magic hands.”
Kiara gave a gentle roll of her eyes as well as a chuckle at the offhanded brag the older girl made, finishing up her work of closing the coat and settling into the still warm and snug inside. She would need to patrol the streets for a couple more hours until the sun rose but at least the time she spent with the other girl had given her a lot to think about while she would wander around.
“I better get going then. Lots of shadows to chase and steps to walk before my job is done. Goodnight, Miss Mori.”
“C-Calliope. Calliope is fine.”
The older girl extended her hand toward Kiara and stopped halfway, holding it in the air and looking expectantly at her. Without hesitation, Kiara took a hold of the offered hand and shook it firmly with her own. She noted how cold Calliope’s hand was but also how slender and gentle it seemed compared to her own, quite strong and callous ridden ones. Cute, she thought, before letting go with a grin.
“Then I will see you around, Calliope. Hope to speak to you again soon.”
With that, the younger girl buried her hands in the pockets of the coat and began walking away, quietly rolling the other girls name over her lips a few more times, finding it to be a strange but not unpleasant one to say. Of course, she already knew her name beforehand, but with being part of the militia and the other girl being a respected magic user, it had felt right to address her politely. Now, with permission from the girl herself though, she would need to get used to saying her proper name.
Calliope remained in front of the door for a few more seconds, watching the other girl walk off and trying to tell herself that everything would be alright. Kiara would not tell anyone of what she saw. There was no danger to her staying there. Or at least she hoped so.
Once her newfound friend had become a shadow among shadows, she opened the door and entered the building, making sure to lock up behind herself before wandering the silent halls of the inn until she arrived at door to the room that she had turned into her personal living quarters. That door too was unlocked and locked again by magic, a deliberate choice as she had left the key inside. That way, no one would be able to enter, safe for breaking down the door.
The moment she sat her tired body down on the bed, she could feel him. An oppressive presence appearing out of nowhere both in the room as well as in her mind, large and imposing enough to push everything else into a small corner, far out of her reach. His presence loomed over her, making her feel pathetic and weak, her fists grabbing the rugged blanket on the bed hard in a desperate attempt to stay in control of her emotions.
I really wanted to help you kill her at first, but you know what, I ended up really liking her.
“Get out. I don’t care. It was bad enough you butted in when I had everything under control.”
Her words were barely more than a whisper, forced out in between shallow breaths. Her lips were pressed together tightly as her body reeled to keep a grasp on reality. His presence always did that to her, overwhelm all of her senses, set off all alarms in her body and mind that something was not alright and that she had to flee. But she knew that there was nowhere she could go where he could not follow.
It would be a lot more fun seeing you corrupt her. Turn that kind girl into someone like you, no?
“No. I won’t do that. I won’t.”
She bit down hard enough on her lower lip to draw blood, the pain giving her some control of her senses back, if only for a short moment. Already, she could feel him trying to force his way back to the forefront of her mind, clawing at everything else until it was out of the way, and she would be forced to confront him.
I think I want her for myself. I’ll give you 5 years off the contract if you give her to me.
“Not her. I won't let you.”
Another bite on her lip, stronger than before, enough to send blood trickling down her chin and throat, not enough to be alarming but enough to feel the hurtful, burning sensation of her blood leaving her body at a gentle pace. Enough to drive him back but not enough to entirely cast him out.
Oh? You won’t let me? Oh child, you are the only reason I even know about her. I should thank you really. Always a joyous occasion when I find another plaything.
“Not my fault! It’s all you! You won’t take her.”
She could feel herself slowly gaining control over her own body back, able to unclench her hands and steady her breathing while feeling his presence shrink back piece by piece. She could do this, just a bit more and he would be forced to retreat for a while again, giving her time to recover hopefully.
My, you like her too, don’t you? How about 15 years then? 20 even? Think of all that time you could save.
“Get out of my fucking head!”
Her entire world faded into a void of black for just a moment before the presence launched a final attack on her, trying to overwhelm or scare her enough to make a mistake. Rather than surrender to it, she met him halfway. A quiet growl left her as she lunged forward at nothing. Of course, he was not tangible or even in the room with her. He was somewhere far away, further than she could really understand.
That did not stop her from throwing a punch at the air, finding herself getting dragged down to the floor by the momentum and falling onto her shoulder. But she was alone again. He had been pushed back to the very fringe of her mind, retreating to lick his wounds and return another day. Her breathing was rapid, heart just about ready to burst in her chest as the weight of facing off against him again finally came crushing down on her.
“Not her. I won’t let you. No matter what.”
She mumbled to herself while lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, the fading moonlight shining through the window just enough to allow her to see. Calliope knew she was at the end of her stamina for the day. He always took every little piece she had and left her feeling disgusting and hollow. At least she had managed to fight him off this time.
Her legs refused to heed her command, too weak with the muscles cramping painfully. With only the little strength left in her arms, she dragged her body back toward the simple bed, all the while still repeating the same sentences to herself and managed to crawl back onto the mediocre mattress before she felt the final bout of consciousness fade away, forcing her into an empty, dreamless slumber.