Chapter Text
Warning. This was made with assistance from Claude. If you don't like that. It's perfectly fine not to read this
It was Nephis who broke the silence after that, rising from her chair, blood-cup still in hand, some new fire kindled behind her eyes that hadn't been there a minute ago.
"They tried to put out our flames," she said, and her voice had lost every trace of the careful evenness she usually wore like armor. "They tried to end our lives. Our parents' lives. As if we were nothing. As if we would simply—" Her hand tightened around the empty cup. "They will pay for this. Every one of them. And if it is our will that they suffer for it—" She looked at Sunny, then at Cassie, daring either of them to disagree. "Then who, in this world or any other, dares to stop us?"
Sunny stood.
"They'll die painfully," he said. "Under my hand." He crossed to where Cassie still sat and set his hand on her shoulder — not gently, exactly, but with a weight that meant to hold her together rather than comfort her. She leaned into it without looking up. "We'll hunt them. All three."
Cassie wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist — the same wrist still faintly marked from the cut — and reached out, grabbing Sunny's own wrist in a tight, trembling grip.
"Aster," she said.
Nephis's hand closed around Cassie's wrist next, her grip iron-steady even now.
"Song."
And Sunny reached out and took hold of Nephis's wrist, completing the circle, three hands locked together in a knot none of them would ever fully undo.
"Vale."
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Sunny was halfway through the first real sip of coffee he'd had in weeks — actual plant-based stuff, not the synthetic sludge most people his age could afford — when the memory hit him sideways, unbidden and unwelcome, and he choked on it hard enough to spray a mouthful straight back into the cup.
"Damnation," he wheezed, coughing into his fist. "Why am I remembering *that* now?" His face had gone hot enough that he half expected steam to come off it. "I feel like I'll die of embarrassment."
He stared morosely down at the ruined coffee — the one thing he'd actually splurged on, gone now, wasted on a decade-old memory of himself being dramatic in front of a thirteen-year-old he still didn't fully trust. He sat there a moment longer than he needed to, turning the cup in his hands.
"Maybe this is a premonition," he muttered to no one. "Tough times ahead, and the universe decided to warn me by making me choke on my own coffee."
He didn't look nearly as gaunt as he might have, sitting there on the bench across from the station — none of the hollow-cheeked, malnourished look that came from years of skipping meals to scrape together money. Knowing Rain was fed and safe. It showed, in small ways. He looked, if nothing else, like someone who ate regularly.
Eventually he stood, dumped what was left of the coffee, and crossed the street into the police station.
The officer at the front desk barely looked up as he approached — scruffy, unimpressed, clearly counting down the minutes until his shift ended. Sunny cleared his throat.
"As demanded by the Third Special Directive," he said, "I am here to surrender myself as a carrier of the Nightmare Spell."
The officer's head snapped up so fast it looked like it might come loose.
"Attention!" he bellowed, lunging for the comm on his desk. "Code Black in the lobby! I repeat — CODE BLACK!"
Sunny sighed, already resigned to what came next, and waited to be tackled.
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A few minutes later, Sunny was fastened into the same bulky restraint chair every carrier before him had probably sat in — the armored vault, the automatic rifles, the grim-faced officers lining the walls. He didn't bother struggling against the restraints. There wasn't much point.
The vault door opened, and a gray-haired policeman stepped in — the kind of face that had clearly seen more of the world's ugliness than it ever wanted to. He checked the restraints, glanced at his watch, and turned to Sunny.
"Name?"
"Sunless."
The officer's eyebrow ticked up, but he didn't comment on it. He'd probably heard stranger.
"Family? Anyone you want us to contact?"
Sunny shook his head. "There's no one. Don't bother."
Something flickered across the old man's face — not surprise, more like the tired recognition of a story he'd heard a hundred times before. He didn't push.
"Alright, Sunless. How long can you stay awake?"
"Not long," Sunny admitted, already fighting the pull dragging at the edges of his vision.
"Then let's skip the pleasantries." The officer settled into the routine easily, the words worn smooth from repetition. "Once you're asleep, you'll be pulled into your First Nightmare. It's a trial — you'll meet monsters, and you'll meet people who look and act real. They're not. Just illusions, built to test you. If it comes to it, you may have to kill them. Don't let that stop you."
Sunny nodded along without much reaction. None of this was new to him — Mordret had drilled the shape of it into all three of them years ago, cold and clinical, the way he explained everything.
"Most First Nightmares aren't meant to kill you outright," the officer went on. "The Spell sets up trials, not executions. You're at a bit of a disadvantage given your circumstances, but outskirts kids are tougher than they look. Don't count yourself out."
"Mm."
"If you survive, you'll get an Aspect and whatever Attributes come with it — depends on the trial and your own nature. Combat Aspects make the early years easier. If you're not so lucky, there's still a use for everything. Just survive."
Sunny's eyes were getting heavier by the second, the room dimming at the edges, but he kept nodding — a formality more than anything, an old habit of letting people finish their piece even when he already knew the ending.
"If you die in there," the officer said, quieter now, "you open a Gate. My colleagues and I are the ones who have to deal with what comes through it. So do us both a favor, kid. Don't die."
Sunny felt the pull of sleep finally close over him, dragging the last of the officer's words down with it. He let it take him without resistance — he'd been waiting for this a long time.