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Despite temporarily dying three days ago, the last two days had been remarkably good for Maria. She had reunited with a family she didn’t realise she had (one bigger than she ever could have thought), and found not just one, but two places to call ‘home’. The uncertainty of what they would find in Mallharc didn’t dampen her mood as she talked to Thelo about his Pokeys while Abra darted around the haven, still working off the morning zoomies.
And then the world changed.
Magic exploded around Maria with such an intensity that she could immediately pick where she was. A forest that was far too thick with magic to be normal. A chair under her made of roots that pulsed with the same magic. An identical chair before her, holding an elven woman who was beautiful even to Maria’s blind eyes. The sound of liquid being poured into a cup.
"Welcome back, my playtesters!" The voice was familiar, and oh how Maria wished it wasn’t.
Morgana le Fay.
Maria’s blood went cold and if she’d had the presence of mind to notice, she would have known that her heart stopped in its tracks for a full beat. The voice of Death echoed in her mind as clearly as when he’d spoken to her.
“Kill her. Or at least stop her from offering her button game anymore. It won't be easy, but I expect it to be done entirely or else you and I will have less fun next time."
Maria wasn’t ready to die. And she wasn’t ready to face this. But if she didn’t… She feared she wouldn’t live to see the outcome.
As the two talked, Maria tried to think of a plan ( ‘If you don’t think of one, you die. If you don’t find a way to stop her here, you die. You cannot die! Think Martzia, think!’ ). She couldn’t kill Morgana, assuming the woman could be killed at all in her own realm. She doubted Morgana would willingly agree to stop the death games, which left trickery and subtly: two things Maria did not feel confident in.
She tried to twist the fey into striking a new deal, something that Maria could set the terms for, but her offer was tossed away with such a nonchalant comment that Maria felt the sudden urge to cry from the hopelessness that burned inside her. She tried to keep her cool, she really did, even if the despair surged again at hearing that her friends were being “quite rude”.
"They're trying to harm me. Quite silly of them, I know. I think they must plan to kill me. Probably something to do with that silly death deal of yours."
… Oh.
If the others were attacking Morgana- if they were already attacking Morgana, whether for Maria’s sake or not, she would help without hesitation. That was the other option and well, if she couldn’t convince the fey then there was no choice. She sighed, raising her head and settling back in her chair, steeling herself. She just needed an opportunity-
"Maria, would you rather keep your deal with Death, or owe me instead?"
For a moment, Maria was stunned.
Her first instinct was to deny Morgana’s offer and stick to what she already had, but she made herself pause. She was facing death . It was at least worthwhile to consider other options. "If I were to... not pay back what I owe... what would be the consequence?"
The answer was immediate. "Oh, I wouldn't recommend breaking a deal with me. But certainly you'd rather not die , hmm?"
Maria knew death. Personally, now, but she’d known death her whole life. Her father, her elders, her mother, her whole caravan, her teachers, her friends… Death was a constant. It was familiar. It was predictable . At the end of the day, she knew what death would bring.
(At least she’d know that she would have closure, and the others would be able to move on without her.)
She denied the deal, and didn’t feel apologetic at the disappointed sigh that followed.
Maria didn’t know what triggered it - if it was her sassy reply to Morgana’s comment of ‘friends’, or if it was just the fey’s pure entertainment - but a few moments later Maria felt pain . And it was aching and it was clawing and it burned Maria from the inside out and it left her reeling, clutching the armrest of the chair as she coughed and cradled her chest with her arm, trying to remember how to breathe from such a sudden and massive hit.
She heard a holler from Thelo’s young voice alongside familiar spots of magic in the painful perfect chaos of this realm. She felt Amros’ warm burning core, she felt Thelo’s chaos (more muted than normal, or was it the realm?), she felt a strange earthy aura that was less familiar than it was comforting, and she felt Bran’s musical, harmonistic aura.
They were all fighting. So she would too.
She made herself stand despite how much her body burned, hearing and feeling the battle music Bran played, sensing the notes hover in the air like daggers waiting to fly, waiting for another to join the music. Maria didn’t have the presence of mind to raise her violin, but she had her magic, and she had her friends. That would be enough.
Maria didn’t know what it looked like, but she knew that what she cast was strong , drawn from deep within her, from a primal need to survive . She heard the thunder, felt it shake her chest with how loud it was, sensed her target being blasted into the trees that filled this place. And yet within that destruction was a melody, and with it was a harmony that had the same lilt as Bran’s tune and, for a split second, Maria could imagine it as two hearts beating in rhythm.
Morgana slowly pushed herself up. In the fading echo of the thunder, Maria could sense the harm come to the beautiful face, and the scar that dusted it (like Selvara’s once did, if Maria had known what her actions years ago had done to her former friend).
Pain wracked Maria’s body again (it must have been poison from the foul taste in her mouth) but she kept herself standing (now was not the time for weakness, Morgana was almost finished) as she felt the heat of Amros’ flames. But she couldn’t stay strong as Morgana’s desperate voice rang out.
"Wait! I can- I can help you! I can be a great ally, I'll help you locate the Azural Masters and everything! If you kill me, what if you're trapped here forever? Where's your horse and cart, hmm?"
"Fuck off, enjoy your life in the next plane!" Amros snapped, heated and passionate.
"No way you lied about the tea! You aren't trustworthy!" A dwarven voice? Was that Yorsog?
"Here are your choices, you can either die screaming, or die thinking about where you went wrong, choose wisely.” Bran, cold and sharp.
"I need her pinky!!" Thelo cried, strange but compelling.
Maria couldn’t stay strong.
"... What about one last deal, Morgana?"
She heard the shift of fabric and crunch of burning grass as the fey crept closer to her and Maria ordered her to stop even as her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Maria wanted to show mercy. She wanted to spare a life when life begged for forgiveness. And they needed all the help they could get for the war. Death had never said Morgana had to die - only that her game be stopped.
Maria wanted to ask for advice, she wanted to plan this carefully because she knew how tricky Morgana was, but she had seconds, seconds … So she made a deal.
She tried to make the deal as foolproof as she could. She spoke slowly, let her mind think before every word, poured everything she knew into it, tried to make it as clear and tight as possible, while still making a deal that Morgana would comply. Thelo needing Morgana’s pinky finger was… Well, Maria added it, because he’d asked. Gods above, she hoped the deal was tight enough.
“What is your choice, Morgana?" she asked.
"So... We aren't killing her?" she heard Amros murmur but she stayed strong. She had to stay strong.
Morgana was silent for long enough that Maria started to hope she’s deny the deal and they can end this, but then:
"I accept your terms."
It was done.
It was over , and Maria was still alive, and she’d live . She’d paid her debt to Death. She didn’t need to fear any more. She breathed a sigh of relief, a sigh of hope . The worry was over.
“Your pinky,” Maria ordered, because she didn’t want the fey to get away without giving them what they-
Footsteps approaching Morgana, from Bran’s direction. Morgana spoke.
"Told you not to break a deal with me. You said 'we’ ."
Maria heard the sound of a blade slicing through clothes and skin and the near-silent dying gasp.
Her blood went cold and her heart stopped.
“... we will give you your life…”
Have you ever had a dream when you were being chased, but you couldn’t see where you were going? Have you had a dream where you fumble through the gloom and the mist with your heart in your mouth, rambling a futile prayer to anyone who would listen as something too horrific to think of pursued you? Have you ever felt the clawing, choking dread that chills you so deeply that you forget what warmth and hope feel like?
Have you ever had those dreams where you were drowning in a pit and yet didn’t need to breathe? When you felt the crushing weight and the clawing urge to survive, but there was nothing to fight against? Nothing to do except wait and feel you slowly suffocate on nothing and be crushed by an intangible weight?
Have you ever felt like eyes were watching you wherever you went, but they were invisible to you no matter where you looked? Have you ever felt impending doom looming on the horizon, inching ever closer to you no matter how fast you tried to outrun it? Have you ever felt the heavy weight of hopelessness as if you had seen your fate and knew it was inevitable?
Maria hadn’t.
She did now.
She felt eyes on her - one, six, dozens, thousands - all wide and bloodshot and staring at her, watching and observing and judging . They saw her mercy, they saw her lies, they saw her revenge, they saw her pain, they saw her power, they saw her broken promises, and for all she had done, they judged her guilty . Maria felt the cold judgement seep into her bones, the world ceasing in its path as it condemned her for all she’d done.
And she couldn’t bear it.
Had Maria not been so cold she could hardly move, she would have screamed as she felt poison light up her veins again, her head throbbing and her chest burning with every futile gasping breath. Her vision couldn’t swim but her head felt barely connected to her as she dully felt her knees collide with the unyielding ground, her weak hands clutching her chest as her lungs begged for air.
She was dying - she knew this feeling, knew the numbing flood that was starting to creep past the judgemental cold - but last time it had come with silence. This time it came with screams and cries and pleas of the damned.
“You fight to save lives but you don’t finish the job!”
“You won’t kill! You’re far too nice!”
“She’s a threat until she’s dead!”
“Mercy has a price!”
“Why would you spare the unmerciful?!”
“Have you forgotten all you were taught?”
“Why would you let us all die in vain?”
“Why would you let the Fey live when ruthlessness is mercy?!”
There was warmth.
Like a single ray of sunlight breaking through the cold, it showed Maria mercy when she deserved none. It was small, but it felt like the breath of spring after an eon of freezing winter. It could fight the cold, and it could ease the pain, but it couldn’t stop the glare of those eyes that crawled on her back and it couldn’t ease the guilt.
Then there came a simple harmony that drowned out the hollering voices until they faded away, and a hand on her shoulder and a warmth that Maria was familiar enough with to fall against it, knowing Bran would hold her up at least for a moment.
There was so much to say. So much to beg for forgiveness for. For her elven stubbornness, her elven pride. For her human foolishness, her human naivety. For her half-elf inability to choose a side.
For the universe she had now drawn the attention of, for the eyes that she was sure would not let her go freely. For the judgement she knew would be coming for her, and would therefore fall on everyone around her as well.
For this crucial moment when they were all vulnerable when she could do nothing but cradle herself with ice-cold tears running down her cheeks with poison flooding her body.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could whisper. She couldn’t hear any reply with her frazzled senses.
“Why would you let the Fey live when we all died?”