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Sasha couldn’t recall exactly when she’d first heard about the ‘soulmate’ business Amphibia’s inhabitants sometimes blabbered on about, but it overlapped with her time in Toad Tower’s cell; of that she was certain.
Actually – now that she had the whole story, she could trace back that it overlapped exactly with her arrival in Amphibia.
“Hey, my leg hurts like crazy.” Sasha complained at the guard after concluding that the pain was too much for her to just play it off. Percy barely turned towards her, rigid and nervous at his post.
“Huh, you haven’t really walked around much since getting here.” The girl bit back a string of insults as the annoyance piled onto the physical pain. She needed him on her side if she wanted to get her hands on some medicine or whatever the toads used to soothe pain.
“Listen, I know you think I’m trying to, I don’t know, lure you in here so I can knock you out and flee,” Percy turned towards her, a disconcerted expression on his face as if he hadn’t considered the possibility, “But I swear I’m telling the truth. It’s driving me crazy – trust me, I know I haven’t had the chance to take a walk in days. Don’t you have a doctor or something? Send them in with as many guards as you need, just do something about it.”
Luckily for her, Percy seemed to believe her. Unfortunately for Grime, that was. How did he manage to keep the whole place up with this kind of… naïve soldiers?
“Alright, um… can I see? I’m not coming in, though.” Percy compromised, but still stood a couple steps away from the bars, leaving Sasha frustrated.
“You think I can’t tell a sprained ankle or a broken leg? I’m a cheerleader! I can’t see anything wrong with my leg, that’s the whole problem and the reason why I need a doctor, not you!” Sasha lashed out, clutching the base of her calf with one hand and the bars with the other. She leant forward ferociously, and Percy stepped back a bit.
“Well, if there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s probably your soulmate. They must have gotten hurt.” Sasha took a moment to elaborate the unlikely words – curse him and Amphibia’s magic. Percy resumed his duty, standing beside the door with his back towards her again.
“My what… what?” She quickly scoured her own mind for any knowledge about the word ‘soulmate’ and what it could mean in this context, but she could only come up with sappy works of fiction that used the term gratuitously.
“What?” Percy repeated, looking at her again.
“What do you mean ‘my soulmate must have gotten hurt’? That makes… no sense at all. Zero. Nada.” Percy watched her, contemplating whether she was making fun of him or not.
That day, and it was maybe day two or three in Amphibia, Sasha had learnt about ‘soulmates’. A thing that obviously didn’t exist back on Earth, and definitely a weapon in the hands of fate with which it intended to torture her, considering the pain in her leg – someday it was a random ache in her back, other times she felt like she had just slammed against a wall at full speed.
All that she knew was that she hated this… magic with a passion, and that she hoped that whatever amphibian had created it would be assigned a hoard of herons to haunt them well into their afterlife – ‘He cast the spell in the hopes of sharing his lover’s pain’, ugh! Who would ever do that?
So, during her time in captivity, as she tried to wrap her head around the whole concept of ‘soulmates’ and how, as Percy had explained, in Amphibia, ‘soulmates’ could feel the pain of each other’s injuries, Sasha had ingenuously wondered – who could it be?
Did it mean that she had a… toad soulmate? The thought was ridiculous and slightly upsetting, and she cursed the luck that had struck her – well, it was the only explanation, right? Since it was an Amphibia thing. But then why her? She was human and very much not amphibian.
A couple hours into her restless reasoning, and her stone carving break, her nose started hurting suddenly and she asked herself what kind of clumsy fool was assigned to her – finally an answer formed into her mind, as naturally as breathing. One that she didn’t like, and that she pushed out of her thoughts so vigorously that she was surprised none of her brain came flying out of her ear.
The soulmate… thing, that little subconscious knowledge that she didn’t talk about, stayed buried until she found Anne. When she did, she tried to keep it down, but her curiosity eventually won.
“So, girlfriend, how have you been?” did you hurt your leg? Fall on your face multiple times? Do you have burns on your back – how on Earth did you get them?
“Oh, uh, fine, I guess. I survived, and sometimes I think about how much of a miracle that is for starters,” Anne laughed and Sasha tried to keep her focus as her frog friends made a mess of her carriage, “But the Plantars and I have been mostly safe spare for a couple scratches and the monsters in the swamp. How have you been, Sash?”
“Got arrested as soon as I landed and spent… uh, some time in a jail cell. Then I fought some giant birds and became lieutenant.” She summarised quickly, disappointed with Anne’s answer and trying to shut the conversation down as quickly as possible – the rest of her words became one with the noisy environment and she lost track of whatever the other girl had started talking about.
Then Sasha had thought, nobody got to dictate her life. She’s Sasha Waybright, not some tool in the hands of fate – she got what she wanted and this soulmate thing was no different.
Oh, the irony.
Fighting Anne and getting none of the pain she should’ve felt, and watching her give her the scar on her cheek – no sign of hurt in her, no recoil as if someone had slapped her face. Lonely, it made her feel lonely. It made her resent the hurt in her back and the feeling of cuts on her hands even more.
“Grime. Hey, Grime.” She kicked him, and when he didn’t turn to her she was tempted to get up and snatch her smartphone from him – leave it to the captain of Toad Tower to get hooked up on a silly reality show from another world. She penned out the idea, because she was already going to ask an embarrassing question, she wasn’t sure she could do it while also staring the toad in the eye, “What do you think about soulmates?”
The toad made an indecipherable noise, but didn’t look at her, “I think that Josh and Martha seem like ones, but… I don’t know, it seems like human soulmates work differently.”
“Humans don’t really have those. Soulmates.” She explained, then waited for his reply while fidgeting with the ruined cloth of her mattress. Grime kept his eyes trained on the show.
“Makes sense, I guess.” They lapsed into silence again, the show playing in the background.
“Well?” Sasha insisted, frustrated and pulling the hay from between the seams.
“What?” Grime answered, clearly annoyed. He turned towards her, “Be specific, lieutenant.”
“I mean… do you believe in those?”
“It’s not really a matter of believing, it’s just a fact. Some get, well, lucky or unlucky enough to get a soulmate bond. Depends on the personal view. Why are you bringing this up?” Sasha groaned – a piercing pain in one of her fingers made her draw her hand back, but there was no bruise and no blood.
Grime stared at her, his gaze heavy – Sasha clenched her fist and put it back beside her. There was a charged silence for a moment, but it faded as Grime failed to comment her behaviour.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Sasha, soulmates were never in my line of work. I can’t tell you any more than that… sometimes they never even find each other. Sometimes they do, and it usually works out. It’s something that’s celebrated.” Grime elaborated slightly, trying not to make accusatory claims, and for a moment Sasha dreaded his words – sometimes they never find each other. No, not a chance.
And so it faded back into the background, as she was busy facing things that were more dangerous and more immediately so – at night she lay in bed and nursed her wounds, both hers and her soulmate’s alike, considering she couldn’t tell them apart anymore. Luckily for her, they had been taking better care of themselves lately – whether it was because they’d discovered the reason behind the soreness in their arms and the hurt in the many, many scars Sasha had gotten since getting to Amphibia, or simply because of responsibly deciding to properly care for themselves she could not know. Somehow, she was pretty sure it was the first rather than the latter.
Although Sasha would have liked to say that she was starting to get used to it, not only to the random pains but to the whole associated ordeal, her certainties left her like water helplessly overflowing out of her hands when she met Anne again.
And Marcy.
There was nothing weird about the way she greeted her – it was the first time she’d seen and held Marcy in months and somehow it cracked something inside her, though the pressure kept the pieces together. She scolded herself in her mind, grabbed herself by the heart and just squeezed it together so she could get through her newest scheme.
She wondered if Marcy knew. Then, as Marcy stepped back and away from her – and the cracks got deeper – her eyes flicked to her cheek, and the scar sitting on her skin, the scar Anne had given her. It was just a fraction of a second, and Marcy quickly busied herself with ‘Sash! Your armour!’, and fidgeted with her shoulder plates; her eyes followed the scars on her arms closely, and now Sasha knew, she was sure. Sure that her own hands hurt from the countless cuts on Marcy’s fingers that she covered up with band-aids, that her knee felt weird because the girl had scraped it by falling earlier that day, and that in her clumsiness she must have found a creative way to singe her back repeatedly.
Now, as she stared at the shorter girl droning on and on about the intricacies of armour crafting and as the Plantars glared at her in their dehydrated state, as Anne pointed her tennis racket at her, for once the soulmate thing didn’t feel so bad. It felt like a sort of familiarity, a comfort, like maybe, actually, that frog that had come up with the spell had done it right.
Considering Marcy hadn’t brought up the soulmate bond, she decided to let sleeping dogs lie for a moment – it was a conversation they’d have after settling Newtopia’s conquest.
And so Sasha stared right ahead, her current objective clear in her mind: she apologised to Anne, passed the temple’s trials, recharged the gem and duly handed back the box to her friends, pointedly making an attempt to ignore the soreness in her cheek after Marcy had fallen during the last trial.
She revised their plans with Grime, made sure every piece fell into place, and stared at the way Marcy would sometimes brush her fingers over her cheek while she stared at her. She was tracing her scar, Sasha knew, but sometimes she wondered why not the other ones – she’d gotten some injuries that were way more painful than just a cut over her cheek – hell, she’d gotten stabbed once, during a squabble for taxes in a frog city of which she’d already forgotten the name. But for a moment she realised that she’d put Marcy – her Marcy, not just the abstract image of her soulmate – through that pain too, and the guilt overwhelmed her.
She just needed a bit more, just the last stretch – after she conquered Newtopia and Marcy and Anne and her could be together, rule together, everything would be better.
Marcy had needed a bit longer to come across the soulmates legend – she’d needed a bit longer to suddenly get random and unexplainable pains. First, she’d attributed them to her clumsiness and her forgetfulness: maybe she’d gotten hurt and forgotten about it successively, it wouldn’t have been the first time. However, as the aches increased in frequency and after gathering enough experimental data about her own behaviour, she’d consulted a doctor, supposing that it could be some Amphibian disease.
The doctor had delivered the news to her with a smile, and had then to explain to her what, exactly, having a soulmate meant. As he illustrated to her a brief history of how soulmate bonds were born and how they worked, Marcy restlessly tried to wrap her head around the concept and, obviously, tried to helplessly guess who it could be. Now, she knew it was one of her best friends, however she couldn’t take her own feelings about it into account – she had very little info to work with, but her best guess was on Sasha.
Not just because she’d like her to be- well, see, although Anne had her clumsy moments, usually Sasha was the one to recklessly put herself in danger – whether it was to perform an especially complex jump for her cheerleading practice, or to protect Anne and her, Sasha had much more of a tendency to put herself in harm’s way. However, Amphibia’s circumstances were new and dangerous, as she’d had the pleasure of witnessing on her scouting missions – maybe her assumption was incorrect. Whichever the conclusion, she simply hoped that her best friends were alright.
For the most part, she managed to keep the soulmate thing undercover and its signs conceited. This changed when, a couple weeks into the new world, she felt her knees buckle under her weight and her stomach burn with such shattering pain that she just flopped onto the floor with no warning, mid-sentence, gasping. As she lay against the cold surface of the tiles in the castle’s corridor, some newts around her fretting about her wellbeing, she tried to breathe in just a bit of air – the pain was petrifying, and the worst thing was, she had no control over it. She tried to steady her breathing but the wound- well, the point where the wound should be, throbbed out of synch and drove her crazy.
“Master Marcy!” Lady Olivia had found her and kneeled next to her in the commotion, taking notice of the ranger’s pale face and shaky breathing. Now, Marcy had had to tell somebody about the soulmate thing – exactly in case anything like this happened. The girl pushed on her arms and turned over, lying with her face up. As she’d thought, her own movements produced no variation in the intensity of the pain, “Master Marcy, are you…”
Olivia hesitated, watching as Marcy clutched the side of her stomach without any sign of injury, then ordered the guards standing by to lift the girl up and carry her to the closest room so she could lie down.
As Marcy was carefully laid in bed, in a soft and warm place, at least, her mind finally started racing in a new direction – what happened? Was her soulmate alright? How did they get hurt? If she had to guess they’d gotten stabbed – by who?
As Olivia came to sit beside her and held her hand, Marcy quickly and desperately latched onto it. Were they going to be okay? It hurt so bad, she couldn’t help but shake helplessly as the pain faded and came back rhythmically.
“Marcy, try to calm down. It’s alright, I’ve already called in the doctor and he’ll be here soon with painkillers. How are you feeling? Is the pain too much?” as the newt fretted next to her, Marcy tried once again to steady her breathing, but waves of pain hit her intermittently and disrupted her attempts. In the end, the doctor had had to hook her onto an IV and hit her with some pretty strong medicine – that night she’d slept terribly. She’d wake up, turn around a bit, assay her situation, remember her circumstances and try to convince herself that tearing the IV out, if only to be sure that her soulmate was still alive, although in pain, was a bad idea.
After that, she’d taken a new approach to her bond – she wasn’t going to put either Sasha or Anne through any pain, she would be more careful, she’d pay more attention. To her soulmate’s credit, they didn’t get stabbed again, which was a great relief – she still got some pains in her arms or in her legs, but no pain that could actually get in the way of her work.
The only other ache that would stand out to her later would be a pain in her cheek – she didn’t really know why such a small, forgettable pain would feel so… special, in the bad way, but the day that she got it, that feeling as if somebody had slapped her in the face, she made a point to remember about it, as if it were important somehow.
When she found Anne, she knew it wasn’t her. Still, she dared, for the sake of science – she slipped back into her careless stumbles, and watched as Anne showed no sign that she had felt the pain. Then, at the first temple, she revelled twistedly, just for a moment, in how as Anne got bruise after bruise, she felt nothing.
Well, at least she could claim the satisfaction of being right.
As the realisation sank in her, that Sasha was her soulmate, she resolved to never address the matter, not then. Sasha and she rarely addressed… whatever problem between them – not in a bad way, not always; there was simply a complicit and quiet understanding between them, that there were things that neither wanted to say out loud, that both knew. It started when they both realised how much the other hated their own families, and stuck around as they grew up, both perfectly aware that however Anne cared and however they loved her, there were some things that she wouldn’t understand.
They could address this specific matter when they were done recharging the box, and when Andrias showed them all the other worlds they could go to. Together.
Sasha had never really experienced much in the way of terrible soulmate bond pains, her first time had been as Marcy was stabbed by Andrias, in front of her.
She would love to boast that she had managed to deal with it – the truth was that she’d never felt anything worse, and that she felt like she was dying. Marcy was dying. There was a scathing heat pouring out of her chest, her heart burning and hurting with every hopeless contraction it performed, and her lungs collapsing, her breath barely finding its way into her airways.
All that Sasha had had the strength to do was witness her friend’s death and then fall over on the floor, shaking and begging selfishly for her own life. She didn’t even remember anything happening around her, just the pain, the excruciating hurt permeating her chest and every single part of her, her body screaming in agony as it hungered for oxygen that was not finding its way around while she coughed helplessly.
Grime had told her afterwards they’d had to make a run for it, that he’d thrown the both of them out of the window and then rode on Joe Sparrow to Wartwood, where he waited for her to feel better.
After the physical pain had faded away, the psychological distress weighed in – she shut herself in the barn and slept with the snails, where she deserved to be. Starved, cried, thrashed whatever was in the building until she couldn’t stand and fell asleep from exhaustion, the only way she could get some rest. Grime visited with food for mealtimes, left the tray by the entrance and left her to sort out her own emotions – after a couple days, he entered the barn only to find Sasha lying on the floor in a corner, hay in her hair and dirt clinging to her skin and clothes.
“Sasha.” He asked, as if he were convinced she’d actually answer, “Get up, let’s go to the farm. I managed to find a tub that’s big enough for you, some clean water and some soap. I even warmed it up. There’s some food for you too – I put in too much effort for you to refuse, so if you don’t get up I’ll carry you.”
When no response came, Grime sighed and threw Sasha’s limp body over his shoulder, carrying her to the farm. He was sure she was awake – as a soldier, she knew better than to sleep so deeply that she couldn’t tell she was being moved around, but she didn’t speak. He also could safely assume Sasha wasn’t all that contrary to leaving the barn, because if that had been the case she would have ripped his head off already. Finally, he was well aware it was futile trying to force any conversation, so he quietly put her down by the tin and helped her out of her armour – he undid the clasps and the belt around her waist, throwing the dirty leather in a basket for later. After he’d managed to also recover the leather straps around her arms and her boots, he left her to deal with the rest, opting to wash her garments by the well briefly.
He was glad to find the girl sitting in the water by the time he was back. He threw himself over the armchair and sighed deeply. It wasn’t new, that some people went insane after their soulmate was taken from them, especially in such a violent way. His lieutenant would need time, and she would need him, so in Wartwood they stayed.
Sasha’s behaviour didn’t improve over the following days – she mostly lay around, often on the floor, and refused to speak at all. Aside from a couple outbursts of rage, she simply spent her time wasting away – hoping she would feel the cuts on her fingers again, the burns on her back from Marcy’s cape catching fire.
She didn’t think it was possible to miss being in pain, if anyone had suggested it to her before Amphibia, she would’ve laughed in their faces, as would any sane person. Yet here she was, trying to pin any pain she felt on Marcy’s clumsiness like a madwoman, just to tell herself that she’d seen wrong and felt wrong, and that the girl was still alive.
Luckily, a couple weeks after the fight, Sasha woke up one evening in a sweat, feeling the pain in her face and her arms and legs, from someone falling around carelessly.
“Grime. Grime!” She slurred in her half-asleep state, but yelled at the top of her lungs, “I’m not dreaming it now. I’m not.”
The toad walked up to her swiftly, trying to assess her situation. He knew better than to push the girl, “What is it?”
“My… it hurts. My back, my legs and my arms, as if I’d just fallen and tumbled around a bit.” Sasha explained, staring at her own hands as if they would give her an answer. Grime stared at her, trying to maintain a calm attitude, as Sasha cradled her own cheek too.
“You sure? You said that already a couple times.” He attempted, but Sasha was lost in her own thoughts.
“I’m sure! I’m sure, it’s the real thing. It’s different.” She clenched and unclenched her hands, her breathing growing more unsteady as she felt other random aches in her joints – soon enough she was crying.
Then it came – a sizzling pain like getting hit by lightning. She tumbled over, shaking and spasming as the pain went on for what was definitely too long in her opinion – definitely long enough for Grime to grow alarmed and pin her to the floor so she wouldn’t hurt herself. She blacked out, and when she came to later, for dinner, the first thing she tried to do was get her swords and run outside the house.
“I have your swords. Sit down, lieutenant.” Sasha peeked over, and found Grime standing with her heron swords clutched between his claws. She could find a sword on the road, “It’s an order!”
The toad’s voice raised and Sasha found enough reason in herself to sit down and listen, “I need to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re not in the shape.” Sasha was about to interrupt him but he continued, sternly, “You’ve barely healed from your own wounds, and you’re not in the physical or psychological state for anything that you’re planning to do.”
“I need to get to Marcy!” Sasha argued, because to her that was enough reason to go anyways, even with laughable chances of success, “You- you saw everything that happened to her! To me!”
“Lieutenant, we need time to regroup and plan. You’re only going to get yourself hurt – is that what you want? Do you want to add your pain onto hers?” Sasha opened her mouth, but nothing came forth. Of course she didn’t, “Tomorrow you’ll start training again. I’ll try to get in contact with the other toads. Don’t do anything stupid.”
As much as she hated the idea of leaving Marcy in Andrias’ hands any longer, it was true that she could barely stand up properly after living like a corpse for the past two weeks. However the uncertainties of her whereabouts drove her crazy, what if they hurt her again? Hadn’t she been through enough already?
These answers came in the shape of two newts at her door in the following days, just as she was running laps around the farm – it was Lady Olivia and general Yunan, if she remembered their names correctly. She approached them from behind with her sword drawn, Grime and she – mostly Grime, she thought with a pang of guilt – had already had to deal with an increasing amount of bots attacking Wartwood, now newts?
“What do you want?” she spoke firmly, and Lady Olivia jumped and turned around too abruptly for her liking. General Yunan, way more used to the battlefield, raised her hands and turned around slowly instead.
“Ugh. I can’t believe we’re doing this…” she muttered under her breath before clearing her throat, “Greetings, human. We’ve heard that you’ve started a little, uh… ‘rebellion’ here in Wartwood. Can we join?” Yunan seethed, clearly despising every word that left her mouth and nearly hissing them out instead.
“There’s no rebellion, we’re just protecting the city.” Sasha raised her eyebrow, uncertain of where that had come from. Andrias was trying to depict them as the villains, probably. Or people were desperate enough that a couple of farmers with pointy objects were a rebellion.
“Are you going to kill us?” Yunan asked, bluntly.
“Are you going to try to kill us?” Sasha hissed back, starting to grow annoyed with their current situation.
“We have news about master Marcy.” Lady Olivia finally blurted, interrupting Yunan and Sasha’s glaring contest. Sasha quickly pointed her sword at the blue newt.
“What? What do you know about Marcy?” she urged her on, closing the distance. This was exactly what she needed! The noblenewt that knew the castle grounds by heart and info about Marcy!
“Drop the sword already. Let us in and we’ll talk.” Yunan got between them protectively, wearing Sasha’s patience even thinner.
“Move! And tell me what you know, right now!” Sasha leant forward threateningly, on the verge of showing ‘general Yunan’ the bitter taste of defeat once more.
“What is all this ruckus about?” Grime opened the door, sighed at the scene before him and then nonchalantly spoke again, “Let me preface the following words with this – we’re already tight on resources, so don’t think about sneaking your way in and freeloading. Now, to what do we owe the pleasure of crossing our paths again?”
“Captain Grime.” Olivia quickly snatched her opportunity, curtsying, “We’re pleased to see that you are well, and… we’ve come to ask for asylum. We will help in any way possible, but we’re currently being hunted by the bots and… the royal guard, and the frogs, and, I’m not quite sure to what extent King Andrias went but there aren’t many places we’re safe.”
“That’s not really twisting the situation in your favour – I’m aware I have a part in how things are now, but-” Grime was about to kindly turn their guests away when Sasha shot up, stopping him.
“They know something about Marcy!” the toad sighed once more, “I’ll help you. I’ll find a way – just tell me what you know.”
After some tactical bickering with Grime, Sasha finally managed to usher the two newts inside and grill them for what information they had: apparently, Marcy’s luck had run very thin, and… she’d gotten possessed by a collective of ancient minds. The blonde blinked a couple times, sceptically, but even Yunan sombrely chimed in to confirm Olivia’s words – Sasha didn’t really have any idea what it was supposed to mean anyway. Through their story, however, the times at which she’d felt Marcy’s pain matched, even the descriptions of it.
“You’re not going to be able to do anything anyway.” Yunan muttered under her breath, “That thing, they’re smarter than Marcy and they have a thirst for blood. Even Andrias cowers before them.”
Grime rubbed his chin pensively, “I think actually, she may be the only one capable of pulling this off. Considering they’re soulmates.”
Hearing it put so plainly, so bluntly, staggered Sasha for a second. She’d never really said it. Now that it had left someone’s mouth, she was once more reminded of the gravity of it all.
Marcy was her soulmate.
“Oh, boy.” Yunan brought a hand over her forehead after recovering from her initial shock.
“That’s… something.” Olivia cleared her throat, “But how could we use that? That makes it impossible for Sasha to fight her.”
“Oh, I have an idea! Grime faces the evil lord of ancient and I hit her so they can’t concentrate!” Yunan suggested, finally recovering her liveliness. Sasha and Grime glared at her.
“That’s exactly what we need to use to our advantage. The possessed human will not be able to attack Sasha, and given that – I hope we all agree on this – my lieutenant’s fighting prowess far exceeds that of your human, she should be able to find a way to… unpossess her.” Olivia nodded thoughtfully. It had been a week already – they needed to get moving. They needed to get Marcy back.
“I didn’t know the little pollywog had a soulmate.” Yunan pondered out loud while sitting at the dining table and turning a fork in her hand.
“Master Marcy shared with me that she had one, just in case something happened, but she never said who it was.”
“Do you think she knew?” Sasha cut the vegetables on the board just a bit faster and harder. Of course she knew. Of course she wouldn’t tell them – she was probably ashamed and disappointed that it had had to be her. And angry, at all the pain that she’d routinely put her through, the cuts and the scrapes and the ugly bruises. She didn’t deserve her, or Anne, or anybody around her at this point.
When she found her again, what would she even say? What do you say to someone to snap them out of a possession? ‘Hey, Marcy, how are you? Sorry I manipulated you and Anne all your lives and hurt you and hurt you through me again’ – what if it didn’t work? What if Marcy didn’t come back?
“Lieutenant, I think those radishes are thin enough. Take a break.” Grime interrupted her, holding up the pulverized vegetables with one of his claws. She wasn’t Anne, she wasn’t the good guy in this story, how could she ever hope to save Marcy when she was a monster herself? She speed-walked to the front door, sitting by the steps on the patio. No, she couldn’t give up. She couldn’t fail Marcy, not again. She had to try. Even if she didn’t know how, she had to find a way; she couldn’t give up.
A week later, when she was finally standing before her, Sasha was steady with the understanding that all she could do was her best. Her broken words and secrets, they’d have to suffice.
Darcy smiled at her, calling her ‘Ms Waybright’ and taunting her for a fight – the thing moving Marcy’s body had found a way to get past her clumsiness, and swung at her with a sword and a mastery that matched her own. Perks of having different and varied consciousnesses in your body, most definitely.
The fight took a turn for something else when Darcy finally managed to strike her, just a scratch, but enough to make them halt in their tracks, trying to make sense of the sting in their own unscathed shoulder.
“You…” Sasha wasn’t sure whether Darcy was addressing her or someone else, the orange eyes on the helmet flicking around in a panic momentarily, “I can’t believe it. Do you understand the odds? Fortune is against us and against the host specifically to have a soulmate like you.” They finished, jabbing their index finger in her direction. Boohoo, she was Marcy’s soulmate, she was so unlucky, poor Marcy – she’d heard enough about it from herself.
“That bad luck is for you specifically today, don’t worry. I won’t hold back one bit of it.” Sasha hissed through gritted teeth, launching forward again. She slashed repeatedly, but Mar- Darcy followed her movements, dodging and parrying and matching her rhythm – Sasha tried closing the space between them, this time by giving Darcy an obvious opening. They lifted their sword to attack but hesitated as it dawned on them that they would be incapacitated by the pain too – Sasha swung at the helmet, chopping off the left side antennae easily. Darcy groaned, frustrated.
The fight went on some more, with Sasha throwing herself in Darcy’s way and taking advantage of their hesitation to hit her, to get closer and hit harder, chip away at the stupid helmet. After deflecting one more hit, Darcy tried to make a run for it, only to be pulled back by their mantle.
“You’re not going anywhere! Give Marcy back!” she yelled, hovering threateningly over the air in between them, panting and striking without reserve, “Marcy! Come on, snap out of it! Don’t let them win! Come back to me!”
“As if she’d ever want to go back to you! You’re just a lonely, unwanted child with only rage to her name!” Darcy swung back at her this time, finally frustrated enough to hit her, “You think I’ll let you get away with this silly charade?! Do you know how long we’ve waited?!”
Darcy lunged and struck Sasha in the arm, drawing blood but only superficially – she took a step back and switched to a defensive stance as they swung their sword at her, hit after hit, relentlessly.
“The pain will only last as long as you live, Ms Waybright! We will just need to dispose of you in one hit!” this time the blade graced her leg, and Sasha groaned but pushed forward and broke Darcy’s barrage of strikes.
“I’m not going away without her.” she was breathing shallowly, the exertion and the wounds finally catching up to her. She would not back down. She would not let her go.
“Fool. Meet your fate.” When recounting the events of the fight to Grime, for lack of a better word Sasha would say that Darcy had ‘missed’ – that was what had happened. They had tried to stab her through the chest, or tried to aim for her neck, and they had missed, they had driven their sword through the air next to her head instead. In those few seconds, she’d managed to accept that she was going to die and then come back from her own resignation and strike the helmet away – neither she nor Grime said it, that Marcy had saved her too. It remained unspoken between them, as they travelled with the girl in the back of a carriage, tended to by Lady Olivia and general Yunan.
Marcy had slept for a couple days straight after they had reached Wartwood, and the first few times she’d woken up after that her mind had been too scrambled to put together anything that made sense.
While Sasha duly waited for her to recover, she kept herself busy with the farm and the bots, although Yunan’s addition definitely made the rounds lighter. She followed Grime around the fields, trying to figure out how farming worked by reading with him the tomes in the Plantar’s house, sometimes with lady Olivia’s aid – and they tried to till and plant the seeds, however clumsily. Harvesting was easier, though they had to be careful in sparing the plants here and there – undoubtedly, farming was keeping her physically and mentally busy and definitely helping her train up to her original shape, so she had no qualms with it.
Grime seemed to like it, spending his time deciphering books over tea with Olivia; Yunan was having the time of her life slashing bot after bot, and she waited. After finishing up her work in the fields and in the city she came back and replaced the flowers in Marcy’s room, made sure that she was warm and that she was comfy, and helped her through the bouts of consciousness where she would get delirious with a fever, talking about water that dripped down at the bottom of the ocean.
On the fourth day, Marcy came to herself abruptly, in a sweat. Sasha could tell from the clear shine in her eyes that she was really awake this time, so she rushed over. She stalled for a moment, unsure of what to say – Marcy stared at her own hands for a moment, transfixed with the way they clenched and unclenched.
“Is this real?” she asked finally, extending her hand towards Sasha eagerly but stopping short of touching her, scared she was going to phase through. Sasha carefully brought up her own hand and put it up against Marcy’s, watching as her expression lit up – her hair was a mess, way longer than it used to be, and she had dark circles under her eyes even though she’d been sleeping for days. Overall she looked fragile, and Sasha was scared she was going to break her by accident. Suddenly, Marcy got a thoughtful, sceptical look, although in her sleepy state she didn’t quite look serious, and pinched Sasha in her forearm.
“Ow.” Sasha said flatly, wondering if Marcy had gone into one of her deliria again, then she breathed out as she held her own forearm for a moment.
“It is. Real- I…” Marcy shook her head for a second, still dazed.
“How are you?” Sasha asked, and Marcy went back to cradling her hand between hers – she traced over the scars, and Sasha noticed, now that she wasn’t wearing her gloves, just how many Marcy herself had gotten, and the old ones too. She turned her hand over and ran her thumb over the marks on her knuckles. Marcy breathed out shakily, and Sasha bit her lip – she couldn’t help but agree in sentiment. Frog, was it nice to touch another human- no offence to amphibians but they were so cold and slimy… holding hands with another warm and dry being was feeling downright magical.
“Tired. Hungry.” She muttered, distracted.
“I can get you some food. And water, too.” Sasha stood, causing Marcy to look at her in a panic, “I’ll be right back, I need to warn the others you’re awake, too. Olivia’s been in here waiting at least as much as me.”
Sasha tentatively slid her hand out of Marcy’s grasp, and the girl resorted to holding onto her bedsheets instead, waiting as Sasha left the room and gathered something to eat, letting Olivia run in to check on Marcy. With a glass of water in her hand and a plate in the other she returned to the room, sitting beside Marcy again – as soon as she was in range, she reached out and grabbed her arm needily, then pinched her again.
“I’m carrying your food, you know.” Sasha commented, a bit annoyed, but Marcy lunged for the glass of water a bit too eagerly – she held it away from her for a moment, “Small sips.”
Marcy made a grabbing gesture a couple times and Sasha relented, offering her the water. She brought up the glass to her lips and slowly took a sip; Sasha handed the plate to Olivia for a second, and rummaged through what little clothes she had for something cosy, then slipped it onto Marcy’s head when she was done drinking.
She poked her arms through the sweatshirt, hugging the fabric to herself for a moment, then motioned for the food.
“Although you don’t look too, um… healthy, I’m glad to see you’ve got your appetite – you’ll surely get back on your feet in no time.” Olivia commented, rubbing Marcy’s back while she dug into her food ravenously – Sasha was stunned that after being asleep for so long she wasn’t feeling sick at the mere sight of food.
“You really need a haircut.” Sasha commented with a bemused smile, pinching a lock of Marcy’s hair between her fingers – the girl instinctively leant into the touch, almost too eagerly, and Sasha had to clear her throat and retrieve her hand, though it left Marcy disappointed.
She blushed, but shook her head hoping it would fight it. Olivia threw the blonde a thoughtful glance, then brushed the front of her dress and stood up, “I’ll go warn the others, you sit tight.”
She ruffled Marcy’s hair then glanced meaningfully at Sasha as she walked out. When she turned towards Marcy, she was staring at her, but they both averted their eyes bashfully.
“So, uhm,” Marcy cleared her throat when she noticed how hoarse her voice was, “Did I miss anything much?”
“Depends… what do you remember?” Marcy glanced up at her again, then lowered her gaze, deep in thought.
“I was aware. While – while the collective was… using me. Uhm, politically? Is there a resistance?” Sasha grimaced, remembering the barely trained bunch of farmers trying to scrape by.
“Sort of. It’s still in the making, and it’s going to be a lot of work, I think – but I’ll make it work.”
A beat of silence went by, Sasha clenching and unclenching her fists, “Can I ask you something, Sasha? It’s – probably a silly question.” Marcy finished, blushing deeply and rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.
“I do. Know about the – the soulmate thing.” Sasha answered quickly, the words bursting out from her after being stifled for so long. Marcy crossed her gaze in disbelief, then resumed her bashful fidgeting. She waited, trying to organize her thoughts and follow up on her own question, but nothing would come to her mind – a stinging sensation on the inside of her arm made her realise that Sasha had been pinching herself in her nervousness.
She reached out to her hands and stopped her – Sasha startled, then realised her blunder, “Oh, yeah, uh – sorry.” Marcy rubbed the spot with her thumb, trying to ease the pain.
“It’s okay.” Marcy pondered a bit longer – it wasn’t the time yet. She smiled, looking up at Sasha in what she hoped was a comforting way, “It’s okay, Sashy. I just… wanted to make sure we are on the same page. We don’t have to figure it out now… and, I… I’ll help. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Her argument lost force, when she remembered the terms they’d last seen each other on. Sasha seemed to realise where her mind had strayed, and squeezed her hands.
“I’m not mad, Marcy.” She pre-emptively stated, “I think it would make me a hypocrite – you sent us to another world and I tried to conquer it and stomp it under my heel for… well. Similar reasons.”
Sasha opened her mouth again, but no noise came out. She grimaced, then sat herself on the bed and enveloped Marcy in a hug. Warm. For the first time in months, she was warm, “I’m just… glad that you’re okay.”
The reality of things dawned on her – that although she was the one that had been stabbed, she’d dragged Sasha through it all too. The fire, the possession, all of it, Sasha had been on the other end of their bond and suffered every inch of pain that she had.
Marcy wrapped her arms around her, holding on tight.
Between her and Sasha, some things they both knew, but they didn’t need to talk about out loud, not yet.