Archive of Our Own

Long ago, in the woods where the world begins, a girl clawed her way out of a stone egg. All of the Grey Ones hatch from eggs, for that is the order of things, but this girl was not grey.

This girl was an unnatural, leached-out white - white as the cold ash in the hearth, white as bleached bone, white as the forsaken wastes of the far north.

So it was that the keeper of the woods was out gathering kindling, for even druids must warm themselves in the chill of winter, and so it was that she found the girl curled among pieces of shell upon the young ferns of the clearing, exhausted from the effort of her hatching. The keeper was a kind and compassionate woman, and seeing that there was life in the girl despite the coldness of her skin, took her home to her house among the eldest of the trees.

“Look, Kanaya,” she said to her young daughter, “you have a new sister. What shall her name be?”

And Kanaya, who loved flowers, said at once, “Rose,” and so the cold girl was named.

As the years passed, Rose grew ever more curious about the world around her, and her mother was glad to oblige her. She discovered that she possessed a voracious appetite for knowledge, and her mother was glad to oblige that as well; she taught her to read and write, and many were the tales that she knew or had told by the dawning of her nineteenth year. Though she was cold of soul and did not laugh or love, she was not cold of mind. There were not enough books in the village at the edge of the wood to satisfy her, and she grew restless for want of new stories. Long into the night she read, turning the pages by candlelight long after her mother and sister had gone to bed.

But even the most avid of readers require sleep, and so on the night before her nineteenth birthday, she snuffed the candle and curled up in bed.

And for the first time in her life, she dreamed of fire.

 

 

Above her is the mountain, looming sullenly over the barren dreamscape; the cave eaten into its base jars the eye like a wormhole bored into an apple, unwanted and aberrant, a wound where there should be a whole. It yawns, or seems to, the borders of it shimmering in phantom heat, and if Rose allows herself to suspend her deep-etched disbelief she can almost see it breathing. She picks her way carefully towards it, puffs of dull ochre dust rising to hang in the still air as she stumbles over imagined scree.

The heat-warping only worsens as she approaches, the entrance of the cave sucking in and out like a slit but living lung. A bead of sweat rolls down her back, not entirely dreamed; in a distant, dimmer place, she can feel it dampen the sheets beneath her. Tentatively, she steps inside, and the shadows cut across her feet with the abrupt finality of a falling blade. When her eyes adjust to the darkness, she feels a pang of dubiously warranted disappointment. There is little enough to see, except for blackened sand and smoke-stained walls.

But there is a light, furnace-orange and faint, leading deeper into the depths. Rose, being Rose and consequently possessed of a fierce and pointed curiosity, finds herself compelled to seek it out. She wanders deeper into the heart of the mountain, sand sliding slick and ashen under her feet with every step. It does not take her long to descend.

There is no clear source of the light when she reaches the point from whence it comes, only a stark and empty chamber lit in dull sunset colors as though the death of the day lies there trapped and despairing. The light flickers oddly across her hands when she looks down; in this place she could be burning alive where she stands, like one of the warlocks of old. The image is a disquieting one, and she drives it from her mind with grim determination.

When she looks away from her hands, the chamber is not as empty as it seemed before; on the flame-mottled sand of the floor lies the carved skull of a great bird, hook-beaked, its vacant, eyeless gaze strangely knowing. As she watches, smoke rises from the wood, and a tongue of flame licks up the low slope between beak and crown, spilling over the back of the cranial vault to spread over the floor like the cloak of a kneeling queen.

Twin points of orange spark to infernal life in empty wooden sockets. Fire roars, and the skull lurches into the air atop a body of flame, the flapping of burning wings whipping searing wind into Rose's face.

The creature swoops at her, talons extended, screaming like a man with his vitals out, and that is when she wakes clammy with sweat and the bones of her knuckles showing from how tightly she's clenching her fists.

 

 

She awoke disquieted, for she had never dreamed of such things before, and long did she lay awake wondering why they troubled her now. Eventually, she put them from her mind, and they remained beneath her notice until the following night, for she had finished her book for the fourth time.

And so it was that she came to her mother one night and said, “Mother, I have worn dog-ears in all the pages of my books, and my mind is empty of ideas. I have no tales to set upon paper, or to read. My loss has left me at my wits' end.”

The keeper pondered for a moment, reluctant to give voice to that which she had been withholding for years, but her unwillingness to see her daughter unhappy bade her answer. “Then I will tell you an old story that is new to you,” she says. “I will tell you the tale of the Firebird.”

“Every hundred years, the Firebird rises above the wood where the world begins. It is a terrible creature that burns all in its path, soaring on wings of flame that no water may put out, its head a bird's skull burned black as night. Countless armies have sought to vanquish it and failed, for no man may destroy such a thing. But eighteen years before its coming, a girl hatches from a stone egg in the wood, and her skin is not rightly grey, but white. In her eighteenth year, the girl will slay the Firebird, and the people of the woods will call her the Guardian.”

Rose knew at once the significance of this, as she was both aware of the circumstances of her birth and quite intelligent, and so she asked her mother, “Then why has the Firebird not come again? I have left my eighteenth year far behind, and there is no sign of it. Does the Firebird not rise because there is no passion in my heart, or do I lack that flame because I have not slain it?”

And the keeper of the forest bowed her head and sighed.

“My daughter,” she said, “I do not know."

She returned to her knitting then, having nothing else to say on the matter, and Rose was left to mull it over herself.

Late that night, as her mother and sister slept, the thought came to her that she might seek out answers in her own way, and so she decided to strike out on her own to find out precisely the meaning of this conundrum. In the morning she made her plan known to her mother, who after much protesting reluctantly let her depart as long as she was equipped with all the necessary supplies.

As she set out on the path leading out of the woods, her little black kitten following faithfully at her heels, footsteps at her back alerted her to the fact that she had a follower. She stopped, only to have Kanaya scrabble to a halt and bump into her pack with a faint “oof.”

“I assume from your presence that you planned on coming with me?” asked Rose.

"You are my sister," said Kanaya, "and I shall be glad to follow you."

Besides her own set of travelling supplies, Kanaya took with her a copper pot, a two-headed axe and a basket of nuts and dried berries. Rose was glad of the nuts and berries, for they were sweet and full of energy, and the pot could be used to brew tea as well as cook food.

"You would not get far without tea," Kanaya teased her as they sat by their campfire that night.

Rose smiled, because it was true, but she did not laugh. She did not know how.

 

 

Beyond the forest were highlands of sweet-smelling grass, where the breeze blew crisp and clear. Travel here was peaceful, and many days passed before the rain came. At that time they were fortunate enough to be in sight of a small dwelling, where a shepherd and her daughter were driving their sheep into a hut. When Rose and Kanaya approached and asked for shelter from the rain, the shepherd agreed, and welcomed them into her home. Rose saw that she and her daughter resembled one another, as did Kanaya and the keeper of the woods, but while the shepherd kept her long black hair up in a bun, her daughter wore hers wild and uncombed.

"A girl like you comes through this land once every hundred years," said the shepherd as she stoked the fire. "We call her the Ash Girl."

Her daughter sat beside Rose and smiled. "A great many stories are told of her. It is said she has the voice of a skylark. Can you sing for us?"

Rose was glad to hear news of her predecessor, but she shook her head. "I cannot."

The shepherd grew suspicious. "Then you are not the Ash Girl come around again?"

"I am," said Rose, "but all is not well in my heart. The one you call the Ash Girl is what we call the Guardian, destined to kill the dread Firebird in her eighteenth year. The Firebird has not risen, and so I have not slain it. I believe that is why I am incomplete. I am as cold as death. I can neither laugh nor love. I can only yearn for what I lack, and seek it unto the end of the world. I must find out why the Firebird has not risen. Following in the last Ash Girl's footsteps is the best hope I have of success. Please, tell me everything you can of her."

The shepherd looked at Rose for a long moment. At last she relented, and sat down by the fire to begin her tale.

"The Ash Girl took shelter with my great-grandmother when last she came here. Like you, she came in from the rain. Unlike you, she wore an innocent smile. My great-grandmother described her thus: small yet strong, light of step and beautiful of countenance, with sparkling eyes and a voice as sweet as a skylark's. She was happy to allow her to stay until the rain had stopped.

"At that time there was a great pile of bones in the corner, and the Ash Girl asked my great-grandmother if she could have some. It was a strange thing to ask for, since she had neither a pot to boil them in nor a dog to give them to, but my great-grandmother agreed, and put some bones into a sack for her. She left with the sack that night, heading for the fields in the valley below, and that is all I know of her."

Rose took the shepherd at her word, and she asked no more.

 

 

The rain did not stop that night. The shepherd allowed Rose and Kanaya to stay without complaint, and shared with them her supper of lamb stew. When they were preparing to depart the next morning, she brought her daughter to them.

"You are no ordinary travellers," she said. "You travel towards a great destiny I do not understand, and it seems to me that you will need help. My daughter's knowledge of the old legends is great, and this will make her a valuable companion."

Rose and Kanaya thanked the shepherd for her kindness. The shepherd acknowledged their thanks, but did not smile.

"We shall be glad of your company," said Rose to the shepherd's daughter as they departed. "What is your name?"

"My name is Aradia," said the shepherd's daughter, "and I shall be glad to follow you."

Aradia brought with her a little lamb, a sheep leather whip and a sack of half-spun wool. Rose was glad of the wool, for it gave her something to knit with, and the lamb lay down next to her black kitten at night and kept it warm.

"I have longed for change," said Aradia to Rose as they went down from the highlands into the valley below. "It is a hard thing to come by in this world. Things seem to change, but if you know much about history it changes only to become as it was before. Time seems to turn in cycles without ever moving on. Your story, Ash Girl, is the same."

"But Rose is not like the old Ash Girl," said Kanaya. "She is different."

"That," said Aradia, "is why I find her so interesting. If there is as much power in her legend as there seems to be, perhaps, through seeing this story to its completion, we will witness the return of progress."

Rose turned to her with a thoughtful frown. "What do you mean by that?"

"Perhaps this is best explained with a story," said Aradia. "It is an old story that is new to you. It is the tale of the Four Gods."

"There are only three gods," Kanaya pointed out.

Aradia smiled. "Exactly," she said, and began her tale.

"In much of our world, three gods are worshipped: the Bold, the Faithful and the Joyful. The Bold teaches the Grey Ones to press on into unknown places with hope in their hearts. The Faithful teaches them to use their time to protect the ones they love. The Joyful teaches them to breathe life into the world around them with good food and good humour.

"But despite these three, there has been no change in the world for a thousand years. Their voices are quiet, their faces never seen. It is whispered by some that there was once a fourth, the goddess known as the Wise, and that since she disappeared a thousand years ago the Grey Ones have been fighting with the world and one another, and never learning from their struggles. They are stuck in the same old cycles, and without her wisdom they cannot escape."

Rose mulled over this legend in silence for some time. That night, as they were all settling down to sleep, she said to Aradia, "What makes you think that the Firebird's disappearance is linked to the Wise goddess?"

"I do not think it so much as hope it, Rose," said Aradia with a sad smile. "Your story and your journey are the closest thing I have ever known to change."

 

 

Beneath the highlands were rolling green pastures, alive with the sounds of cattle. Travel here was easy, and many days passed before there was no path to follow. At that time they were fortunate enough to be in sight of a small farm, where a cowherd and his son were bringing in their stock for the night. When Rose and her companions approached and asked for guidance and a place to rest for the night, the cowherd agreed, and welcomed them into his home. Rose saw that he and his son resembled one another, as did Aradia and the shepherd, but while the tall cowherd moved with ease and bold swiftness, his smaller son did everything with exaggerated care.

"Do you know of the Ash Girl?" Aradia asked the cowherd as they sat by the fire. "Rose seeks to follow her path, and we her sworn companions go with her in her search. She was ash-skinned, as Rose is, and had a sweet voice."

At this the cowherd's smile faded from his lips, and his expression grew sad. "I do not know the name Ash Girl," he said, "but I do know of the girl you mean. It was here, in this very house, that she died."

Rose and her companions were shocked, and pressed him for further details. Though he was clearly saddened by the tale he had to tell, the cowherd obliged them.

"It is now almost a century ago that she came here, carrying a sack of bones, and met my great-grandfather. Like you, she sought guidance and shelter. But though she seemed lively and well when she lay down to sleep, in the morning she was cold and unmoving. There was no sign of what had killed her. He knew only that she had lived, and now she was dead.

"My great-grandfather buried her. He covered her over with leaves, as is the custom of our people, and marked her grave with a ring of flowers. He tended that grave, and my grandfather did so after him, for twenty-five years."

"What happened after those twenty-five years?" asked Kanaya.

"A curious thing," said the cowherd, "of which my grandfather used to tell. One morning he was going to tend the grave, and he found only a hole in the soil where it had once been. Stranger still, though all the grass around was dewy and green, nearest to the hole it was dry and brown, and all the flowers that had marked the grave were dead. To this day I have found no explanation for what he saw."

Rose and her companions talked with the cowherd and his son long into the night, but by the time they all lay down to sleep they had come to no conclusions.

 

 

Rose dreamed again that night, curled by the fire as the wind howled over the open fields outside, Kanaya’s lean arm slung protectively over her back.

There is no trek to the foot of the mountain this time; the chamber at its heart beats close around her, still lit in the same glowering deep orange like a guttering bonfire. The smell of ash and charred flesh is thick in the air, heavy and overpowering. It lines the inside of her nose and drifts through the air as hazy spirals of sediment borne high by convection. Sparks dance in crazed firefly columns to burn out near the scorched-black ceiling; the heat is a muscled, vicious thing, like the breath of a maddened beast.

When she raises her hand to her eyes against the light, it rattles, and there is a tightness in bands around her that she knows does not belong.

When she looks she is covered in bones.

The most miniscule of them are knotted to a cord draped round her neck to click and clatter at her every movement like teeth in a bowl. Delicate knucklebones are tied to her thumbs, pebbled carpals to her wrists, long fragile bones to her fingers, all secured with shreds of still-furred hide that leave wet, dark smears when she flexes her hand. Elegant radia and ulnae are strapped to her arms to match the slender tibiae and femurs at her calves and thighs. Her feet are burdened with metatarsals and pricked by tied-on talons. Another ribcage is lashed on over her own. By some unknown hand, she is bedecked with horrors.

The skull watches from the center of the chamber, though it no longer flies on wings of flame; the woman wearing it burns, but not so brightly. She smoulders, like the flame-veined wood left after a pyre has burned itself out, black shot through with yellow-white and angry orange where her skin has cracked and scaled from some inferno within. The great bird’s visage masks her. Rose cannot see her face. She moves like a wildfire, in one great roaring rush while seemingly still, and when Rose blinks she is but a few inches away. Crackling lashes of flame streak over her shoulders and chest; Rose can feel minute hairs crisp and wither on her skin from her proximity, blisters threatening to erupt as she begins to burn.

The woman screams, rending, echoed under the fiery skull, and Rose wakes with her ears ringing and a trickle of blood worming down her upper lip, hands hooked in the collar of her shirt to tear it from her body that she might not burn hotter still.

She wonders, once the pieces of her mind click back into some semblance of order, if there were perhaps words in that distorted shriek.

 

 

When they were preparing to depart the next morning, the cowherd brought his son to them.

"You are no ordinary travellers," he said. "There is great sadness in the mysteries you seek, and it seems to me that you will need help. My son's gentle hands and careful feet serve everyone around him, and this will make him a valuable companion."

Rose and Kanaya thanked the cowherd for his kindness. The cowherd acknowledged their thanks warmly, and wished them well.

"We shall be glad of your company," said Rose to the cowherd's son as they departed. "What is your name?"

"My name is, uh, Tavros," said the cowherd's son, "and I shall be glad to, uh, follow you."

Tavros brought with him a young cow, a strong spear and a sack of dried meat. Rose was glad of the meat, for it was spicy and filling, and the cow gave good milk to drink.

"There is another road, not far from here," said Tavros as he led them onward. "When I want to find it, I always follow, the scent of flowers on the wind. When we have found the road, we can go on, and search for the rest of your story. I do not think it ends with, uh, the Ash Girl's death."

"I believe Tavros is right," said Aradia, who was quickly becoming friends with the boy. "That empty grave is a mystery we can only solve by pressing onward."

Rose was inclined to agree. Kanaya, though, was preoccupied with looking over her shoulder. When Rose asked her what the matter was, she pointed out a young man who was following the group at a distance. He was tall and lanky with unkempt hair, and had a strange, loping walk.

"I know of him," said Aradia once the whole group had stopped to look. "My mother gives him shelter sometimes, but I do not know his name. I do not think she likes him very much."

"It seemed to me," said Kanaya, "that your mother does not like anyone very much."

Aradia agreed that this was true.

Since the young man made no attempt to come closer, they pressed on. Kanaya, however, remained suspicious of him, and kept looking over her shoulder to see if he was still in sight.

 

 

Beyond the pastures were sun-drenched meadows, filled with the most fragrant plants and flowers. Travel here was delightful, and many days passed before the sun grew too hot for comfort at midday. At that time they were fortunate enough to be in sight of a small house, where a beekeeper and his son were tending to the hives. When Rose and her companions approached and asked for shelter from the sun, the beekeeper agreed, and welcomed them into his home. Rose saw that he and his son resembled one another, as did Tavros and the cowherd, but while the tall beekeeper was a curious, excitable fellow, his smaller son looked at the world with calmer, more jaded eyes.

"Do you know any stories of a girl, who looks like Rose?" Tavros asked the beekeeper as they sat in the cool shade of the porch. "There was another, who travelled long before Rose, and we her sworn companions go with her, in her search for her. In some places they call her the, uh, Ash Girl, and they say she comes around, once every hundred years."

At first the beekeeper seemed lost, but his son nudged him and whispered into his ear, and then his expression brightened. "Perhapth we do," he said. "There are no thtories of an Ath Girl, but we do tell of a Golden Traveller. Thyee cometh through thith land onthe every hundred yearth, ath your Ath Girl doeth, but thyee hath golden thkin, not pale."

His son moved to sit beside Rose and looked at her thoughtfully. "A great many thtories are told of her. It ith thaid her eyeth betray her cleverneth. Can you play checkerth?"

Impossible though it initially seemed, Rose suspected that the Golden Traveller might be her predecessor. She nodded to the beekeeper's son. "I can."

The beekeeper smiled broadly. "Then perhapth you will play a game or two with uth?"

"I will," said Rose, "but first I would like to know more of the Golden Traveller. She may be what Aradia's people call the Ash Girl, and what my people call the Guardian, changed through death and rebirth. It seems to me that I should have become the next Guardian, and yet I did not, because no dread Firebird rose for me to slay. I believe this is why I am incomplete. Following in the Golden Traveller's footsteps is the best hope I have of finding out why the Firebird did not rise, and thus becoming whole. Please, tell me everything you can of her."

The beekeeper pondered this for a long moment. At last he seemed to gather his thoughts, and began his tale.

"The Golden Traveller took thyelter with my grandfather when latht thyee came here. Like you, thyee came in from the thun. Unlike you, thyee wore a mithchievouth thmile. My grandfather dethcribed her thuth: thmall yet thtrong, thyure of thtep and radiant of countenanthe, with knowing eyeth and a voithe as warm ath a thummer evening. He wath happy to allow her to thtay until the midday thun had pathed.

"At that time there wath a great pile of coal outthide, and the Golden Traveller athked my grandfather if thyee could have thome. It wath a thtrange thing to athk for, thinthe thyee had neither a houthe to make a fire in nor a piethe of flint to light one, but my grandfather agreed, and put thome coal into a thack for her. Thyee left with the thack that night, heading for the hillth where the river runth, and that ith all I know of her."

Rose took the beekeeper at his word, and she asked no more.

 

 

The beekeeper and his son played checkers with Rose and her companion until it was night. He gladly allowed the party to stay, and shared with them his supper of bread, fruit and fresh honey. When they were preparing to depart the next morning, he brought his son to them.

"You are no ordinary travellerth," he said. "You are bringing two great thtorieth together that have never met before, and it theemth to me that you will need help. My thon hath a keen and able mind, and thith will make him a valuable companion."

Rose and her companions thanked the beekeeper for his kindness. The beekeeper happily acknowledged their thanks, and wished them luck.

"We shall be glad of your company," said Rose to the beekeeper's son as they departed. "What is your name?"

"My name ith Tholluckth," said the beekeeper's son, "and I thyall be glad to follow you."

Sollux brought with him a small wooden hive of bees, a tough cloth beekeeping suit and several large pots of honey. Rose was glad of the honey, for it sweetened bread and tea alike, and the bees had a soothing buzz and did not sting.

"I wonder if the Golden Traveller ith doomed to die like the Ath Girl?" said Sollux as they walked through the meadows. "If thyee died onthe to change, thyee may do tho again."

"I, uh, hope you are wrong," said Tavros sadly. "She sounds like a good person."

"Yeth, I think tho," Sollux agreed, "but if thyee ith like the Ath Girl, death to her ith not the end of her dethtiny." Then, all of a sudden, he seemed to remember something. "I think I know where we need to go necktht. There ith a fithyerman who liveth in the hillth, and hith thon onthe told me that he tellth a thtory of theeing a woman get up from her grave ath though from thleep."

"Your father was right about your keen mind," said Rose, "but I had already surmised as much from playing checkers with you. It is good that you have a friend who might be able to help us."

"A friend?" Sollux scoffed. "Pah. He ith a dithagreeable little bathtard, but for the thake of your journey I will deal with him. I am after all your thworn companion."

"As are we all," said Aradia, and took Sollux's hand with a smile.

Rose allowed them to walk ahead together. Kanaya was also hanging back, and she tapped Rose's shoulder for her attention. "That strange young man is still following us."

"I know," said Rose.

As one, they watched the tall shadow until he slunk away among the flowers. Only then did they move on.

 

 

Above the meadows there were misty hills, from among which a river sprang forth. Travel here was quiet, and many days passed before they saw any sign of people living. At that time they saw that their trust in Sollux's guidance was not misplaced, for there was a log cabin by the river where a fisherman and his son were mending their nets. When Rose and her companions approached, the fisherman's son fell at once into arguing with Sollux. Leaving them to themselves, Rose asked the fisherman for guidance and a place to rest for the night. The fisherman agreed, and welcomed the party into his home. Rose saw that he and his son resembled one another, as did Sollux and the beekeeper, but while the fisherman was warm of manner and had a ready smile, his son scowled constantly and was unwilling to speak well of anyone, including himself.

"We came thith way becauthe of a thtory you onthe told your thon," Sollux explained to the fisherman as they sat by the fire. "Do you know of the Golden Traveller? Rothe theekth to follow her path, and we her thworn companionth go with her in her thearch. Thyee wath golden-thkinned, and her eyeth were full of her cleverneth."

At this the fisherman's smile faded from his lips, and his expression grew worried. "I do not know the name Golden Traveller," he said, "but I do know of the woman you mean. It was here, in this very house, that she died."

Sollux had been right. Rose and her companions eagerly pressed the fisherman for further details. Though he was clearly troubled by the tale he had to tell, the fisherman obliged them.

"It is now about seventy years ago that she came here, carrying a sack of bones, and met my grandfather. Like you, she sought guidance and shelter. But though she seemed hearty and well when she lay down to sleep, in the morning she was cold and unmoving. There was no sign of what had killed her. He knew only that she had lived, and now she was dead.

"My grandfather buried her. He covered her over with earth, as is the custom of our people, and marked her grave with a wooden stake. He tended that grave, and my father did so after him, for twenty-five years."

Rose, Kanaya, Aradia and Tavros exchanged glances. This tale was familiar indeed. Once again, it was Kanaya who asked, "What happened after those twenty-five years?"

"A troubling thing," said the fisherman, "that was the heart of the story I told my son. I was only a boy when it happened. One morning my father was going to tend the grave, and he found only a hole in the ground where it had once been. More troubling still, though all the earth around was soft and cool from the rain, nearest to the hole it was dry, cracked and hot, and the wooden stake that had marked the grave was burned black. He never found an explanation for what he saw."

"But that was not all that was seen that morning, was it?" said Rose, who was watching the fisherman carefully. "Please tell us, what did you see?"

The fisherman looked up from staring into the fire. "I saw a woman heading down towards the dark forest. I should have thought nothing of it, but her skin was strange to see, as though it had been carved from wood, and I could not be certain but I thought there were clumps of earth in her hair."

"So naturally," said the fisherman's son with a scowl, "he concluded that she had turned wood-brown, climbed out of her grave and waltzed off to the fucking dark forest. And this stupid goddamn story has been haunting his superstitious ass ever since."

Rose and her companions talked with the fisherman and his son long into the night, but since the subject troubled the fisherman so greatly, they left the topic of the Golden Traveller behind.

 

 

Rose dreamed again that night, despite wishing not to. Lulled by the faint shushing of the river's passage outside, with Kanaya lying warm beside her, she closed her eyes.

Sleep comes swiftly on scrabbling claws, as though eager to leap upon and seize her, and she soon finds herself once more within the infernal chamber, feeling as though her trepidation was warranted. Still the heat coils against her skin like a living thing. Still her surroundings glow the infected pink-orange-red of a contaminated wound.

Still she is dressed all in bones.

Elongated phalanges clatter together as she turns her hands to examine them, the light of this unreal place marking them in bonfire hues. Though she tries, she cannot tear them from her hands; there is a strength in the ties that she would not have expected of such thin strands of leather. A gash streaks red-yawning across her right palm, welling blood.

The skull-masked woman watches, impassive, from behind a roughly stacked mound of coals. They smoke when she brings a hand down to rest on the top of the pile, slender tongues of flame licking up from between her fingers as the entire mass of it is set alight.

Against her better judgment, Rose steps forward to face her across the now-raging fire.

The woman’s hand closes on her wrist and tightens like a crocodile’s jaws, glowing-hot fingers searing Rose’s flesh with a faint sizzle of cooking meat. As her hand is held over the fire, Rose struggles, but to no avail; the one who holds her seems unaffected by her desperation. A single drop of blood falls from her injured palm into the fire, boiling to nothing in the space of an eyeblink. In the wake of this contamination, the flames surge higher to engulf her arm; as her skin smokes and blisters, they begin to burn a fierce, bright lavender. Another indecipherable howl rings against the stone, and the agony is more than Rose can stand.

This time, she wakes with her own nails buried in her wrist, arm throbbing as though touched with a brand.

There were words in that scream, she is sure, but what they were she could not say.

 

 

When they were preparing to depart the next morning, the fisherman brought his son to them.

"You are no ordinary travellers," he said. "I had never thought that anyone would be apt to solve the mystery of what I saw that morning long ago, and it seems to me that you will need help. My son may not be kind in his speech, but his heart is true and loyal, and this will make him a valuable companion."

Rose and her companions thanked the fisherman for his kindness. The fisherman acknowledged their thanks, and answered them with thanks of his own, for Tavros and Aradia had elected to leave the sheep and the cow with him rather than take them into the dark forest. He promised to take the best care of them he could until they returned, which was enough for the pair.

"We shall be glad of your company," said Rose to the fisherman's son as they departed, ignoring Sollux's dismissive scoff. "What is your name?"

"My name is Karkat," said the fisherman's son, "and I refuse to be fucking glad about this bullshit, but I will follow you."

Aside from his terrible attitude, Karkat brought with him a strong fishing net, a sharp sickle and a sack of smoked fish. Rose was glad of the fish, for they were rich and flavourful, and despite his grouching Karkat was always ready to catch more in his net.

"It fucking baffles me that you follow this woman's path," said Karkat to Rose as they headed down towards the forest, "when everything that happens to her is so goddamn miserable. How many times has she died now? Twice?"

"Thometimeth finding the truth ith better than wondering," Sollux pointed out. "And try not to forget whothe thworn companion you are. If you thtop being an athhole and focuth your energieth on thomething conthtructive, perhapth you will thtart to underthtand Rothe better."

Karkat threw up his hands in disgust. "Ugh. You can shut up, because you are at least as much of an asshole as I am, but fine. Here is what we need to do, so listen carefully. The dark forest is a fucking terrible place. It is cold and creepy and full of all kinds of creatures, many of which are dangerous. We need to stick together, keep our weapons ready, and trust the river to lead us through to the other side. I hope everybody can handle those simple instructions, because I do not want to have anybody's blood on my hands."

Everyone agreed that they could, and with only a little more grumbling Karkat led them on.

"The Faithful would be proud of Karkat," said Kanaya to Rose as they followed the party. "He places great worth in defending his companions."

"So it would seem," said Rose, "but I do not know if anyone, in the end, can defend me from what lies ahead. I fear it may be worse than I imagined."

As they followed the river's path down from the hills she told Kanaya of her nightmares for the first time, and only in having some of the weight lifted from her heart did she realise it had been there at all.

 

 

Beneath the hills lay the dark forest, where the trees loomed high above them and the air was filled with the whispering wind and the sounds of animals. Travel here was treacherous, and many days passed before they could find a truly safe place to rest. At that time they were fortunate enough to happen upon a small cave, where a hunter sat skinning a recent kill.

"Oh, great," said Karkat. "I know this woman. She has a lot of feelings about my father. Speaking to her will be awkward."

Nevertheless, Rose and her companions approached and asked for shelter from the cold. The hunter readily agreed, and welcomed them into her home. Rose saw that she wore the skin and antlers of a stag as a trophy. She found herself looking around for the woman's daughter to compare the two, but it seemed that the hunter lived alone.

"This is probably a stupid question," said Karkat to the hunter as they sat by the fire in the cave mouth, "but do you know any stories of a woman with skin like wood? Rose is following her path, and this poor bunch of idiots, better known as her sworn companions, go with her on her search."

The hunter smiled brightly. "Oh, abspurrlutely I do! She is called the Woodcarved Wanderer. Such a sturrange woman she is! She took shelter with my mother once. Like you, she came in furrom the cold. Unlike you, she wore a weary smile. My mother described her thus: small yet strong, steady of step and gentle of countenance, with wise eyes and a voice as soft as the burreeze. She was furry happy to allow her to stay until the morning.

"At that time my mother had a great number of feathers from her purrey in a pile in her den, and the Woodcarved Wanderer asked her if she could have some. It was a furry strange thing to ask fur, since she had neither a bed to line with them nor a fishing line to bait with them, but my mother agreed, and put some feathers into a sack fur her. She left with the sack that night, heading fur the wastes where the dragonfolk live, and that, I am afurraid, is all I know of her."

Rose was relieved not to have to give her reasons again, and having found what she sought in the hunter's story she asked no questions of her own.

 

 

Rose and her companions were not keen to leave the warmth of the cave that night. The hunter cheerfully allowed the party to stay, and shared with them her supper of meat and berries. She also asked Karkat a great deal of questions about his father, and laughed when he grew angry and cursed. When they were preparing to depart the next morning, she came to them with a request.

"You are no ordinary travellers," she said. "You have travelled a great distance in search of what you do not furlly understand, and it seems to me that you will need help. My daughter Nepeta has gone across the dragon wastes to live with a meowst dear friend of hers. She is as swift and brave a hunter as I, and this would make her a valuable companion. If you see her on the purrlains where the centaurs live, you should ask her to join you - and purrlease tell her that her mother loves her furry much."

This Rose agreed to do, and after thanking the hunter for her kindness, the party pressed on.

"He is still following us," Kanaya announced some time later, indicating a tall shadow lurking among the trees.

Karkat looked around with a scowl. "Who are you talking about?" he asked.

Aradia explained to him about the strange young man who had been following the party. Then, having done so, she added, "We do not know what he wants."

"Well," said Karkat, "has anyone fucking asked him?"

Silence.

"Fine," Karkat sighed. "Apparently I have to do fucking everything as well as think of it. If he attacks me, you should all be able to get away."

But the strange young man did not attack, and Karkat led him back to the group a few minutes later. He was half way through shouting at him for something, perhaps the state of his hair and clothes, or perhaps the way his ribs protruded from malnutrition.

"Ith there anything about thith man that maketh him a worthwhile companion?" asked Sollux of the world at large.

"Uh, well," said Tavros, "at least if Karkat is shouting at him, he has less rage, to direct at us."

"For that alone I would call him a valuable companion," said Aradia on a sigh.

Rose was inclined to agree. "We shall be glad of your company," she said to the strange young man. "What is your name?"

"My name is Gamzee," said the strange young man, "and I should be righteous motherfucking glad to follow you."

Gamzee had nothing with him at all. Karkat sat with him by the fire that night and gave him smoked fish to eat, fussing all the while about how goddamn thin he was, for how was a man supposed to live like that, and Gamzee guessed he did not motherfucking know.

"I do not trust that man," said Kanaya to Rose as they lay down to sleep.

"I do not think there is much of a man to trust," answered Rose, "but nevertheless, now he is closer he will be easier to monitor. It would be wise for us to keep a close watch on him."

"Count upon me for that," said Kanaya, and laid her hand upon the haft of her axe.

 

 

Beyond the forest were the dragon wastes, a sprawling expanse of sand and jagged rocks dotted with sparse vegetation. Travel here was almost impossible, and many days passed before they found any real sign of life. At that time they were fortunate enough to notice a large cave in a nearby rock face, where two dragonfolk sat sheltering from the wind. When Rose and her companions approached and called out to them for aid, the larger of the pair climbed down to meet them, and showed them the way up to her home. Rose saw that the two dragonfolk resembled one another, as did Karkat and the fisherman, and took them at once for mother and daughter. The mother wore dark clothes and a grim expression, while her daughter wore bright colours and an unsettling smile. The mother had a level stare, while the daughter's peculiar red eyes seemed unable to look directly at anyone.

"We're being Rose's sworn companions," said Gamzee to the pair. "She's all searching for the Woodcarved Wanderer for some motherfucking reason, and this motherfucker was all up and wondering if you were knowing anything about a wood-skinned girl coming this way and maybe dying or - "

This was the moment the younger of the pair chose to pick up a white staff from the ground and hit Gamzee over the head with it. His soft "ow, motherfuck" was quickly lost beneath Karkat's angry shouting. As her daughter laughed, the mother turned to Rose with a glare. "Your companion knows not of what he speaks," she hissed. "We do not tell that story here. You will respect that or you will be gone."

She turned on her heel and stalked into the back of the cave. Kanaya came to Rose's side and laid a hand on her shoulder. "We need to know what she knows," she said. "It must be momentous if it makes her so angry. Perhaps a smaller audience would convince her to be candid."

Rose looked around. The rest of the group were gathered around Karkat and the daughter, who were scuffling only half in earnest over the honour of poor Gamzee's head. Karkat was tangled up in her colourful cloak, being repeatedly whacked with the white staff, but somehow managing to hold his own through what appeared to be sheer bloody-mindedness.

"Perhaps she will speak to the two of us alone," Kanaya suggested. "The rest of your companions are in no real danger, I think."

Rose agreed, and the two of them followed the dragonfolk mother into the rear of the cave.

"You are irritatingly persistent," the mother said coldly as they approached. "I have warned you of the consequences."

"You have," said Rose, "but I wish to explain. What my companion neglected to tell you was that I should have been the next Woodcarved Wanderer."

At that the mother looked startled. "You?" she repeated. "But she was not like you at all. You are much too pale."

Rose explained their findings as best she could, with occasional interjections from Kanaya, and as the mother listened to them both she slowly began to relent. "You must understand," she said when the story was done, "that I have my own reasons for not telling this story. They will become clear to you when you know the truth of it."

Rose nodded her understanding, and Kanaya thanked the mother for her honesty, and that was enough for the mother to begin her tale.

"The one you call the Woodcarved Wanderer died here, in this very house, almost half a century ago. She came here carrying a sack of feathers, of all strange things, and met my mother. Like you, she sought shelter from the wind and guidance across the wastes. But she seemed very weary when she lay down to sleep, and in the morning she was cold and unmoving.

"My mother assumed she had died of exhaustion. The wastes claim many that way. We do not give death rites to all the unfortunate souls who die within our domain, or we should be little more than gravediggers. But my mother was saddened by the young woman's death, having much enjoyed her company that night, so she buried her. She covered her over with sand, as is the custom of our people, and marked her grave with a standing stone. She tended that grave, and I did so after her, for twenty-five years."

Rose and Kanaya exchanged glances, and Kanaya hesitated, troubled, before softly asking the inevitable question: "What happened after those twenty-five years?"

"A terrible thing," said the dragonfolk mother, "and the reason we do not speak of the Woodcarved Wanderer in this house. One night, almost twenty years ago, my daughter came to me screaming. She told me she had seen a terrible dark woman rise from the Wanderer's grave in flames, and now she could see no more. When the light came again, I saw that her eyes were burned out."

Kanaya made a soft sound of distress and covered her mouth with her hand. Rose, who rarely felt anything much, was sure she felt her heart sink a little. That was why the daughter never looked at them properly. She could not see them.

"I went to the grave to see what had happened," the mother continued. "The place was charred black. All that was left of the grave marker was a melted lump of stone, and all the sand where my mother buried that poor wooden girl had been turned to glass. Such things are done by dragon's fire, but no dragon had passed by there that night. The fire came from the girl, when she rose up dark and terrible. The fire struck my daughter blind."

As she spoke she watched her daughter, who had now abandoned all pretence of a real fight and was gleefully investigating Karkat's hair and clothing. Karkat was doing his best to seem unhappy about this.

"What it did to her mind I cannot say. She sees things I cannot, knows things I do not, is things I am not. As for the burning woman who changed her so, she left glass footprints in her wake for almost a mile. She walked away across the wastes, towards the plains where the centaurs live, and that is all I know of her. She has not come here again."

Rose and Kanaya thanked the dragonfolk mother, and the three of them rejoined the rest of Rose's companions, who were in the process of making friends with the young seer. They talked together late into the night, but out of respect for the pair Rose and Kanaya did not raise the subject of the burning woman again.

 

 

Rose dreamed again that night, though she dreaded even the thought of sleeping. Kanaya lay beside her in the cave, solemnly promising to watch over her and wake her if she showed signs of distress, and slowly fatigue took over and drew her down into sleep.

Though she has come to dread the time she spends within it, the chamber is familiar by now; intimately so, as though she has dwelled there far longer than the nights she’s spent dreaming. She expects the heat now, and the diseased flame-light; the sand and scorchmarks as well, and the sense that the stone walls waver around her. She expects to be greeted, too, and in this she is not disappointed. The skull-masked woman waits just within arm’s reach.

Weight on her shoulders and arms gives her pause. A thick cloak of feathers covers her, the hem dragging on the sand. The bones attached to her fingers have been slid through thin loops of leather on the sides; when she moves, pinions flare and flex like a great set of wings. Rose does not fight against her new adornments this time, by now aware of the futility of doing so.

Boldly, she reaches out, but the woman reaches first, fingertips raising round weals of burned flesh as she touches them to Rose’s cheek.

“Break the cycle,” she says softly, and Rose wakes still and silent.

 

 

When they were preparing to depart the next morning, the dragonfolk came to them as a pair.

"You are no ordinary travellers," the mother said. "The cruel wastes stand between you and the rest of this legendary journey, and it seems to me that you will need help. My daughter's magic is powerful, and this will make her a valuable companion. We will carry you to the other side of the wastes together, and then I shall bid you all farewell. I trust you to help my daughter find the answers she seeks."

Rose and her companions thanked the dragonfolk for their kindness. The dragonfolk acknowledged their thanks, one solemnly and one with a grin.

"We shall be glad of your company," said Rose to the daughter as they climbed to the top of the rock face together. "What is your name?"

"My name is Terezi," said the seer in answer, "and I shall be glad to follow you."

Terezi had with her a red dragonhide cloak with a dragon's-head hood, her white sorcerer's staff and a sack of dried beetles. Rose wisely left these things alone.

Once the party was all assembled atop the highest point of the rock, the dragonfolk put up the hoods of their dragonhide cloaks and assumed their dragon shapes. Terezi became a red dragon, large enough to carry Rose and Kanaya with ease. Still, she was small as dragons go: her mother, now a vast white dragon with burning red eyes, could carry the other five party members all at once. With varying degrees of trepidation, everyone settled upon the dragons' broad backs and the journey across the wastes began.

After they had been flying for some time, Kanaya gently tapped Rose's shoulder and put her mouth to her ear to speak to her. "Did you have a nightmare?" she asked. When Rose nodded, she flinched in sympathetic pain. "I am sorry I did not wake you."

"No, I'm glad of that," Rose called back to her over the wind. "If you had, I should never have heard what the Dark One said."

"What did she say?"

"Break the cycle."

Kanaya pondered this for some moments. "Perhaps she means the cycle she and all her predecessors went through. But you are not growing dark and terrible as she did, so is it not already broken?"

"I wish I knew," said Rose. "I can only hope that answers lie ahead."

"ANSWERS FOR US BOTH," rumbled Terezi, whose hearing was better than Rose had anticipated. "I LOOK FORWARD TO FINDING OUT. IT WILL BE FUN."

Coming from a dragon, this sentiment did not comfort Rose at all.

 

 

Beyond the wastes were the centaur plains, filled with soft grass that waved in the wind. Travel to this place was effortless for the party, carried on the backs of two seemingly tireless dragons, and many days were saved thanks to the help of the dragonfolk. At the time when they were finally set down and waving farewell to the white mother dragon, they could already see a great many centaurs nearby, including the chieftain and his son. They resembled each other, as did Terezi and her mother, but the son was a little larger than his father, and wore no ceremonial armour. On the son's back rode a young woman with a large fur pelt over her shoulders. She resembled the hunter they had met in the dark forest, and Rose realised at once that this must be Nepeta, the hunter's daughter.

"We seek the Dark One," said Terezi to the chieftain without preamble. "We are Rose's sworn companions. Speak to her; she answers for us."

No one spoke up to naysay the seer. Karkat and Kanaya exchanged glances, the one mildly horrified, the other mildly impressed. The chieftain stepped forward to look Rose up and down with a critical eye. "Nothing foretells your coming, pale walker."

Sensing that he meant "walker" as a derogatory term for a two-legged creature, Rose was in no mood to be overly polite. "But something foretold hers, didn't it?" she pressed him, unafraid. After a ride atop a dragon's back, even a centaur seems small. "Once every hundred years she comes here, doesn't she? And the last time was twenty years ago?"

The chieftain glowered down at Rose for some moments, but upon realising that she would neither flinch nor back down he grudgingly gave ground. "She came here," he said gruffly. "Like you, she walked on two legs. Unlike you, she was a creature of flame. She was small, yet strong as a centaur, slow of step, dark and terrible of countenance, with eyes like two burning coals. She did not speak, but she made her mark. Where she walked, the grass smouldered. Where she stood, it caught alight. We were not happy for her to stay in our lands."

Rose nodded slowly. "And when she left, what did she take?"

"A great black stone, the size of a walking child, as heavy as a walking man. She carried it as though it was weightless."

"Where did she go?"

"She went down to the sea where the ships come and go, and that is all I know of her. May she never return. And may you never return either."

He turned his tail and trotted away. His son was about to follow him, but Rose called out to the hunter's daughter, sitting on his back: "Nepeta! I met with your mother in the dark forest beyond the dragon wastes." That was enough to make the chieftain's son stop and turn to them again, so Rose continued. "She wishes you to know that she loves you very much, and she asked me to invite you to join me. She believes your swiftness will make you a valuable companion - and your friend the centaur is clearly very strong, which would make him valuable as well. Should either or both of you wish to join us, we should be glad of your company. May I ask your name?"

"Mew already know my name!" said Nepeta, the hunter's daughter. "I shall be glad to furllow mew. Thank mew furry much for bringing my meowther's love to me!"

"You are very welcome," said Rose, "but when I asked for a name, I was addressing your strong friend, whose mother I have not met."

"My name is Equius," said the chieftain's son, looking a little nervous at the mention of his mother, "and where Nepeta goes, so go I, for she is my dearest friend. I shall be glad to follow you."

Nepeta brought with her a hunting cat, a set of steel claws and a sack of furs. Rose was glad of the furs, for the nights were getting colder as they drew closer to the Eastern Sea, and the hunting cat became fast friends with her black kitten - which was, by now, very much a cat.

Equius brought nothing with him save a set of empty saddlebags, which he slung over his broad back. Rose was very glad of these, because it seemed that the centaur's son was quite strong enough to carry everything the party had with them.

"Your cat's name is Jaspurrs," Nepeta announced as they left the plains behind to head down towards the sea.

"Jaspers?" Rose repeated. She had not thought of a name for him yet.

"Because he just purrs, I presume," said Kanaya with a little smile.

Aradia, Tavros, Nepeta and Terezi all laughed. Sollux, Karkat and Equius looked pained.

"Half the crowd isn't bad, Kanaya," said Rose, patting Kanaya comfortingly on the shoulder. "Equius, will you be able to travel with us across the sea, if it comes to that?"

"If I am strong enough to keep Nepeta safe from her own curiosity," said Equius ruefully, "I am strong enough to endure a sea voyage."

"It may, however, take him twice as long to get all his sea legs," Kanaya pointed out, to mixed laughter and groans.

At that moment, walking down towards the sea, with the sound of the seabirds calling high above, Rose saw a lone woman walking towards them with a swagger in her step. Her hair was wild and full of snarls, and she wore an eyepatch over her left eye. From her clothing and the way she walked, Rose took her at once for a sailor.

"Speaking of sea legs," she said, and indicated the newcomer to the group. By now the sailor was close enough for her expression to be clear, and she seemed much pleased when everyone turned to look at her almost in unison. She also had a large blue tarantula perched on her shoulder, perhaps in lieu of a parrot.

"You," she said to the group, "are no ordinary travellers! I can tell by the fact there's a centaur and a dragon-girl within ten feet of each other and nobody's died yet. Oh, and the funny coloured girl is a big clue too. So: where are you going, and why? Inquiring minds want to know!"

Everyone began to answer her at once. The resulting babble of voices lasted for several seconds before the sailor bellowed "QUIEEEEEEEET!" - which, surprisingly, worked - and then pointed directly at Kanaya. "You! The cute one with the axe. You talk."

Kanaya opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no sound came out. Realising that her sister was floundering, Rose stepped in. "We seek the Dark One," she said, "to the end of the world, if need be."

The sailor grinned from ear to ear. "We-he-hell," she said gleefully, "you are in luck today, because I just so happen to know the lady who took her across the Eastern Sea! The Marquise Mindfang, my dear mother, the finest mariner ever to sail - and when she finally decides to die, that title will be mine! Besides that, in case you even needed another reason to pay attention to me, I could be of use to a rag-tag bunch like this. I'm strong, fast, smart, fearless and I look great in leather. Trust me - I am a very valuable companion."

"Then we should be glad of your company," said Rose, noting that Kanaya didn't look very glad at all. "What is your name?"

"My name is Vriska," said the mariner's daughter, "and you shall be glad you followed me!"

Besides the blue tarantula, Vriska was carrying a keen cutlass and several jars of rum. Rose was far more glad of the rum than she ought to have been, and only the threat of the blue tarantula kept her and her companions from drinking it all while Vriska's back was turned.

"I do not like her," said Kanaya to Rose as Vriska swaggered on ahead of the party, leading the way to the seaport.

"I believe you like the feeling of not liking her," said Rose.

Kanaya shot her a dirty look, but did not deny it.

 

 

At last they came to the old seaport, alive with the sounds from the docks and the raucous laughter of other travellers. Vriska led them through the crowds to where a fine blue-sailed ship, the Arachne, was berthed, and sprang at once up on to the deck without the aid of a gangplank. "Captain!" she bellowed. "Guests!"

From high up in the rigging the mariner descended on a rope. Her red boots struck the deck as one, and when her gaze alighted upon Rose her grim expression softened with curiosity. "What have you brought me, whelp?" she said to Vriska, her eyes still fixed on Rose.

"The white one's looking for the Dark One," said Vriska with a shrug and a grin. "Hilarious, isn't it? She and all her buddies want to go across the sea and find out where she went."

The mariner rolled her eyes and kicked the gangplank into place. She did resemble Vriska, Rose noted as she followed her beckoning hand up on to the deck. It was the most exact of all the likenesses she had seen so far: if Vriska were taller, cleaner, better dressed, tattooed with the mark of a spider on her cheek and had the use of both eyes, she would have looked exactly like her mother.

"They call me the Marquise Mindfang," said the mariner. "The Dark One sailed on this very ship with me, twenty years ago. Here is where she laid her hand as she boarded. Do you see how the wood is charred? Her very touch could burn like fire. The deck is covered with her footprints."

Rose looked around, and she saw that it was so. The two darkest footprints, where the Dark One had stood the longest, were by the rail, close to the prow. She went and stood upon them, and though it had been twenty years since the Dark One had been there she could swear she felt heat in the wood.

"She looked always eastward, even into the sunrise," said the Marquise. "Her eyes only left that horizon once, when she listened to a tale I told."

"What was the tale you told her, Marquise?" asked Aradia, ever keen for new stories of the past.

"It is an old tale that is new to you," the mariner answered. "It is the tale of the Two Serpents."

And so Rose and all her companions paid heed to the Marquise's tale, just as the Dark One had done twenty years before.

"When the world was just a barren ball of rock and all the seas were empty, there was a great green serpent who laid four eggs: an egg the colour of fire, an egg the colour of the sky, an egg the colour of plants, and an egg the colour of magic. Out of the fiery egg hatched a boy, out of the arcane egg hatched a girl, and out of the windy egg and the verdant egg hatched two children who could not decide which they wanted to be, and so changed between the two as they desired.

"The verdant child was bold and brave, and struck out to discover the world, covering it with green growing things and filling it with animals and birds.

"The windy child was joyful and free, and flew along laughing in the verdant child's wake, filling the air with joy and teaching the birds to sing.

"The fiery boy was faithful and strong, and defended them both as they journeyed and shaped the world.

"But the girl stayed by the green serpent's side, listening to her stories, and wrote them all down in a great book.

"When the world was shaped to their liking, the three children who had made it came to their sister and said, what does it need? And she said, it needs people in it, to learn about it.

"So the Verdant One brought grey river mud, and the Fiery One shaped it, and the Windy One breathed life into it, and the Grey Ones opened their eyes and said to the girl, What are we? And the Arcane One said to them, You are my children, and this world has a great many stories for you to discover. Go and find them, and bring them to me for my book, and we shall all learn what manner of a world it is we have made.

"And so the Grey Ones came to live in the world.

"But all was not well, for there came another serpent, a red serpent, who hated and coveted the green serpent's world, and decided to destroy it. He descended without warning, and before the green serpent could stop him he had bitten her daughter, the Arcane One, and filled her with his poison, more than enough to kill even a god. She fell from the sky, destroyed.

"Anguished, the green serpent rose up to fight the intruder. For twelve days their power outshone the sun; for twelve nights their battle blotted out the stars.

"On the thirteenth day the green serpent emerged victorious, and though it took all her strength she banished the red serpent deep into the bowels of the earth, there to gnaw on the roots of the world and regret forever. It is said he still troubles the merfolk down in the deeps, his foul presence poisoning their waters and killing their children.

"Then the green serpent retreated to stand guard over the place where her enemy fell, that he might never rise to trouble the world again. Her three remaining children, grieving for their lost sister, vanished into the wild parts of the world. They began to lose their grip on their power and their changing, and their voices grew quiet and their faces unknown until people spoke of them only as legends.

"Not one of them saw where their sister had fallen."

Rose glanced over at Aradia, who sat enthralled. She had finally heard her tale of four gods in another voice, and her faith in the future seemed strengthened.

"She paid me heed for that tale," the Marquise finished, "and for nothing else. She stood at the prow like a figurehead, neither eating nor sleeping, until we reached the distant shore. Are you apt to do the same, Pale One?"

Rose assured the mariner that she was not.

"Good," said the Marquise as she turned away. "It makes the crew nervous. I will carry your companions to the place I took her, if every one of you is willing to work your passage."

This Rose and her companions agreed to do, and soon they departed, the Arachne's fine blue sails filling with the wind and carrying them all out into open water.

There was now no chance of turning back.

 

 

The Eastern Sea lay before them, vast and borderless. The voyage across it took weeks, and with no one but each other and the crew for company Rose's companions grew closer. They worked, they laughed, they played, they fought, they forged bonds and alliances, they squabbled like children, and those who were still almost children began to truly come of age. Rose watched all of this from the outside, as even Kanaya was drawn into the fold, making emotional connections that Rose herself could only estimate. Never had she more keenly wished to be simply grey and normal than she did aboard the Arachne - and yet, at once, she had never been more content. Her companions were becoming a family, and she felt, in some way, that she had forged that family.

As the days passed, she took to spending time with the Marquise where she could. The air of loneliness that surrounded the mariner was familiar to her, and the Marquise never expected more of her than keen wit, which Rose was ever happy to provide. By the time they were drawing close to the distant shore where the Dark One had disembarked, the Marquise was treating her almost as a friend.

"I do not know whether I hated or feared the Dark One," she confessed one evening as they stood together by the rail. "It has been so long that I cannot say. I know only that for as long as she was aboard the Arachne I dreamed horrors the like of which I have never seen in my waking hours, and I know she was responsible."

Rose looked at the mariner with curious eyes. She had met many whose lives had been touched by the Dark One, but never yet another who had suffered nightmares. She asked, "Did you ever dream of a bird's skull?"

The Marquise turned to her with a grim smile. "I thought you would know," she said. "I saw that accursed thing every night of the voyage. Eventually I carved it from driftwood in the hope of banishing it from my dreams. She took it with her when she disembarked, carried it down on to that distant shore, and for a moment I believed she had exorcised my demons." She gave a mirthless laugh. "Fool that I was. She knew. She made me create that abomination. She carved it with my hands and took it from me like a trophy."

"If I understand what hatred is," said Rose, "I must believe you hated her."

"Perhaps," said the Marquise. "But I cannot help but admire her cunning."

She stepped away from the rail and made to go below decks. As she was about to descend the steps, she paused and fixed Rose with a calculating stare.

"Her eyes were like yours," she said, "if yours could be made to burn."

And then she was gone, leaving Rose to her increasingly troubled thoughts.

 

 

Cannon-fire woke her the next morning, like thunder drawing near; though the sound was new to her, she had read enough stories of adventure on the high seas to surmise correctly what it was. The stout timbers of the Arachne creaked under her feet as she made her way out of the hold and up towards the deck, steeling herself for the battle to come. She was without weapons and possessed no skill with arms of any sort, but she had long since assured herself this was not something to be concerned about; her companions were loyal to the last, and the Marquise’s crew were hardened fighters all.

Still, somewhere in the depths of her heart she felt the slow throb of apprehension. Paying it as little mind as she could, she stepped out on deck, and was given pause by what she saw there.

Pulled alongside the Arachne was a looming man o’ war, hulking and grotesque as a gargoyle and bristling with smoking cannon. A pall of gunsmoke hung over her, and the air was heavy with the smell of cordite and hot brass. Swarming over the rail like driver ants were armed sailors; Rose, ever observant, could trace with her eyes the edge on every sword, and the insignia on every uniform. Above the chaos was the Marquise, howling at her men to repel boarders, you sorry shitstains, else we’ll all see the gallows before the fortnight’s out and waving her cutlass for emphasis as her hair whipped about in the breeze and the veins stood out in her neck from the strength of her bellowing.

Abruptly she paused in her roaring, and lowered her blade, eyes narrowing in purest hatred. She snarled through bared teeth, wordless and furious, and Rose turned to see the focus of her loathing swagger out on deck like a victorious prizefighter. He was an admiral, by the violet braid on his jacket, and a sea-dweller by the fins at his ears. Though a pair of knotted scars twisted viciously across his face, he was handsome indeed, though the cruelty in his features made him frightening.

“And so wve havwe the unbeatable Marquise,” he drawled. “Howv the mighty havwe fallen.”

“Bugger off, Cronus,” said the Marquise crossly. “I’m not in the mood. Let me pass and we’ll have a proper go at each other next week.”

“But alas,” said he, “I cannot let you. For you carry the Dark One with you, as you havwe done before, and that is something I will not allowv. I am swvorn to the service of the Empress of the Sea, and she has no lovwe for those wvho wvould aid such a fell creature.”

“I rather resent the insinuation that I’m a vessel of undying evil,” said Rose.

And the admiral looked upon her, and saw that he was wrong; his lips twisted in embarrassment and a faint violet flush tinted his fins. “The fuck are you supposed to be, then?” he asked gruffly.

“I don’t know,” said Rose, “but I’d appreciate if you noted the distinct lack of fire and brimstone clinging to my person.”

“Fuck’s sake,” said the admiral, “this is beyond me. Eridan, go get the horn, Her Imperious Condescension has to see this.”

Out from the admiral’s cabin scuttled a boy clutching a conch-shell horn, his wholly unsuitable cloak trailing behind him at every hurried step. Bracing himself wide-legged in front of the rail, he struck a heroic pose and raised the horn to his lips, and as he blew the flat, breathy blare of it was deafening. Two great, curving horns lanced up from beneath the waves, gold ornaments dripping seawater as they rose. A smaller, less ornately adorned pair followed shortly after, and so the Empress and her daughter came to the surface.

The Empress, Rose thought, looked rather peeved at being summoned.

“What you callin’ me for, chumbreath?” she asked, barracuda teeth flashing in the sunlight as she spoke. “I got shit to do, ya know.”

“Your Condescension,” said the admiral humbly, “I wvished only to seek your counsel on the matter of this…girl. You see, this pirate carried the Dark One to the Wvorld's End, and - "

“Fuck that shit,” said the Empress. “Dark One ain’t comin’, suckafish, you just too dumb to see it. Look at her.” She gestured to Rose. “That look like a coddamn Dark One to you? She ain’t got no fire, you fuckin’ flounder.”

Rose, who was a little tired of being discussed, interjected, "Then what am I, Empress? Do you know?"

And the Empress smiled with all her teeth, and she said, "Shore I do. And that's why I'm lettin' you pass - but when you hit that shore, you gonna need an army. You got an army, small fry?"

“No,” said Rose. “Unfortunately, I’m sort of lacking on the thousands willing to fight in my name front.”

“Well I ain’t givin’ you one,” said the Empress, “’cause I ain’t got one to give that ain’t a bunch a’ stupid-ass guppies,” and at this she cast an irritated glare in the admiral’s direction. To his credit, he failed to wilt under her disapproval. “But my spawn’s damn good with a trident, and chum-for-brains’ boy ain’t a bad shot neither. Take ‘em with my blessin’.” With that, she dove beneath the waves, the sun glinting off of her golden adornments before she sank into the depths.

There was a moment of strained silence, broken by the admiral’s son cursing at the snagging of his cloak on a splinter as he clambered over the rail, rifle in hand. He took a moment to brush away imaginary dust from his front before bowing stiffly to Rose.

“My name is Eridan,” he said, “an’ it w-would be my greatest honor to enter into the serv-vice of a lady such as yourse—“

“Just say hi, Eridan!” piped a voice from the waterline. “Holy mackerel, you shore can go on sometimes!” Apparently the Empress’ daughter felt that the proceedings required a bit of a nudge.

“Fef,” said Eridan in a distinctly aggrieved tone, “Fef, I’m tryin’ to introduce myself properly.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to mind if you’re a little less formal,” said the Empress’ daughter. “Besides, they know you’re willing to kelp!” There was a pause. “Um, could someone throw me a line?”

One of the Marquise’s crew promptly threw down a rope, and in a matter of moments she had climbed easily up the side of the Arachne. Though she dripped water on to the planks of the deck, the double-headed trident in her webbed hand silenced all possible complaint.

“My name is Feferi,” she said, “and I shell be glad to follow you! And so will Eridan, even if he’s too pompous to actually say so.” This last was met with an indignant exclamation from Eridan, though none of them paid his indignation mind.

And so they sailed on. Another day crawled by before the end of the world was in sight, a blasted ochre plain crowned with a forbidding mountain. Rose felt a frisson of dread race up her spine as she peered through the Marquise’s spyglass; she had seen this all before, in the darker meanderings of her mind. As though sensing her foreboding, Kanaya laid a hand on her shoulder, and Rose absently reached up to lace her fingers with her sister’s.

They made landfall several hours later. A few of the Marquise’s men rowed ashore in a lifeboat to scout, only to return an hour later sprinting to their boat amidst a shower of javelins and frantically rowing back as though pursued by hellhounds. Unimpressed by their hasty retreat, the Marquise tapped her foot on the deck as they managed wobbly salutes. “What have you got for me?”

“Cultists, ma’am,” panted one of them. “Acolytes of the Red Serpent. Tried to bargain with ‘em for safe passage, and got chased back for our trouble.”

“Bloody buggering hell,” growled the Marquise. “Apparently the gods can’t be arsed to cut me a fucking break this century. The hard way it is, then.” She raised her voice to a bellow. “Ready yourselves, lads! We’ve got a fight on our hands.”

As an explosion of activity burst into life on deck, someone tapped Rose on the shoulder. She turned only to find Equius, and Sollux beside him. The voyage had not been kind to the centaur, and he was still slightly pale around the face, but his voice when he spoke was resolute. “We will fight as well, for your sake and the sake of your quest.”

“We’ve come thith far, after all,” piped up Sollux, “tho why not keep going?”

“Did you seriously think that we all wouldn’t be shitting ourselves to lend a hand by now?” Karkat asked as he came up to join them, and the rest of her companions followed after him with a chorus of agreement.

“Your loyalty is inspiring,” said Rose quietly. “Thank you all. I—“

“Hey,” said Vriska, cutting her off, “where’s that gangly asshole? Gamgee or whatever?”

“It’s Gamzee, sailor girl,” he said from behind Rose, “and I’m right motherfuckin’ here.”

Rose turned for the second time in as many minutes and found herself confronted with Gamzee, though not as she knew him. His face was painted in the likeness of a grinning, fanged skull, and in either hand he idly spun an enormous spiked bone club as though it was feather-light.

“See,” he said, “The thing about this world is that it’s only here by the grace of the Red Serpent, mighty be his fine self, and me and my brothers are up and aimin’ to keep it that way, which means keepin’ the cycle going, which means—“ and here he smiled beatifically at Rose, “—you gotta be dyin’, sister. So sorry.” Before Rose could so much as open her mouth to utter a word, he coiled himself like a hunting leopard and sprang, clubs raised.

Steel flashed, and something wet spurted across the deck. There Kanaya stood, axe brought down from a blow, and there Gamzee lay, minus a head. Her companions wore identical looks of shock, except for Karkat, whose face was frozen in blackest despair.

Rose’s mouth worked for a moment, and the first thing that came out of it was, “You’ve been waiting to do that since the moment we saw him, haven’t you?”

“I would have done the same to anyone who threatened your life,” said Kanaya, straightening up, “and I’ll do so again before the day is out.”

At that moment, the Marquise began to rally her men, and Rose’s friends dispersed to board the boats. Karkat remained where he stood, motionless. Rose laid a hand on his shoulder, and in his grief he didn’t bother to shrug it off.

“Look,” she said, “I know he was your best friend, and I’m sorry that things happened the way they did. But we don’t have time to mourn, unless you want to do it in the face of a horde of his brethren.” She winced, feeling as though she was being a bit insensitive. “After today, we’ll bury him properly.”

Karkat pinched the bridge of his nose, and Rose pretended not to notice the tears welling in his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, fine. I can do that. Totally fucking reasonable. I can do that.”

“Thank you,” said Rose. “For what it’s worth, I wish he’d stayed as he was.” Karkat nodded mutely and went to go retrieve his weapons.

When she looked over the rail, a teeming throng of cultists were massed on the beach, weapons at the ready. One howled and raised his mace, and the others followed suit until the air was filled with their unified roar.

“Right, lads!” cried the Marquise over the din. “Into the boats, unless you lot want to sit here all day!” Pirate and follower alike piled into the lifeboats to head to shore, all armed to the teeth; Rose graciously accepted an offered seat next to Terezi, who grinned eagerly in her general direction. The short journey to the shore was uneventful, if tense. Briefly, Rose wondered if she would survive to make it to the mountain, then cast that thought from her head like a thrown stone.

The cultists charged as soon as the rowers jumped out to pull the boats in, the thunder of their massed footfalls deafening, and Rose soon ended up herself floundering through waist-deep water on her way to shore. Equius reared up next to her, front hooves flailing, and in ducking to avoid a kick she found herself in the sea, choking on saltwater. Someone heaved her bodily upright as she coughed, and she blinked seawater from her eyes to see Kanaya guiding her on to dry land.

Rose took refuge behind Kanaya then, safe behind the steely arc of her axe. Cultist after cultist fell before her sister’s fury, and a thin spatter of blood whipped across Rose’s face. She hastily wiped it away on her sleeve, unwilling to dwell on its origins. Glancing about, she quickly took stock of those of her friends she could see; Karkat smashing the butt of his sickle into a howling, painted face, Tavros with a man gored on his horns, Terezi dragon-shaped with a pair of legs kicking weakly in her jaws.

The corsairs fought in scattered pockets, brutal in their resistance. Their captain was in her element, a blur of dancing steel and black leather. As she kicked a cultist off the point of her cutlass, her gaze locked with Rose’s, and she shouted over the clangor of battle, “You’ll not get to the mountain alone!”

“I know,” Rose shouted back, “I’m taking Kanaya.”

The Marquise shook her head and promptly clocked a charging woman in the jaw. “Not enough. You’ll be overrun. Vriska, go with them.” There was no response. The Marquise snarled. “Go, you little shit, or I’ll have your hide!” At this, Vriska came whirling over the battlefield like a small tornado, skidding to a halt just out of range of Kanaya’s axe-swings.

Ignoring the simmering tension between the Marquise and her progeny, Rose placed her hand in between Kanaya’s shoulders and gently nudged her in the direction of the mountain. Her sister did not need much in the way of guidance, carving a bloody swathe through the cultists’ ranks. Vriska lurked at their rear like a feral dog, cutting down stragglers where she could.

It did not take the three of them long to break through; resistance was only halfhearted at the edges of the melee, their enemies more intent on sating their bloodlust on the pirates and the more martial of Rose's band than guarding the mountain. Rose and her two companions slipped through with minimal difficulty. The mouth of the cave yawned just as it had in her nightmares, and Rose couldn't help but feel a faint echo of long-dreamed fear as she stepped inside. For a dragging, uncomfortably claustrophobic moment, she struggled to adjust to the darkness. Behind her she heard Vriska curse, irritated, and Kanaya shushing her.

“Perhaps,” said an unfamiliar voice, “it would be easier if we had a bit of light.” A dry-twig snap of fingers rang in the dark, and torches on the wall flared to life.

Rose found herself faced with a short, bony girl in evergreen robes. The spiralling sign of the Green Serpent marked each of her cheeks, and the expression on her thin face was one of guileless friendliness. “I confess that I'd had my doubts as to whether or not you'd get here at all,” she said, “but I daresay you've exceeded my expectations! You see, I've been waiting quite a while for you to arrive, so that I might…illuminate some things.” She smiled, exposing a mouthful of long, pointed fangs.

“I'm here now,” said Rose, “and yet I remain profoundly in the dark.”

The girl bowed her head slightly. “My apologies. I'm rather afraid my enthusiasm got the better of me, and I failed to introduce myself. I am Calliope, and I keep the Wheel.” She gestured grandly off to the side, and Rose found her gaze drawn to a looming, monstrous wheel of black granite. Squinting, she could make out faint images carved in the stone, though the details remained elusive.

“Oh,” she said, for lack of anything else.

Calliope smiled all the wider, crows'-feet crinkling at the corners of her eyes, and Rose was struck by the feeling that she was not quite what she seemed. “Shall we? Ah, but your friends--“

“--wish to see this through to the end,” finished Kanaya. Vriska chimed in as well, assenting.

Suddenly remorseful, Calliope shook her head. “I think,” she said, “that perhaps that would be ill-advised. Going home would be the wiser choice for both of you.”

“We've come across the entire world,” said Kanaya coolly, “and that is not an option.”

“But it is!” Calliope said, and pointed down a dimly-lit tunnel. “Your forest is right through there! You see, the world moves in cycles, and an end is very close to a beginning indeed.” Suspicious, Kanaya stepped over and peered down the tunnel, and when she turned back to face them her expression was one of shock.

“She's right,” she said. “I can see the woods at the other end. I know the way home.”

“Of course I'm right,” said Calliope. “Goodness' sakes, I've no reason to mislead you.”

Rose moved, then, and reached up to take Kanaya's face in her hands. “This isn't the place for you,” she said gently. “Go home, Kanaya, and take Vriska with you. Please, just do it for me. The two of you can protect each other - I know neither one of you would ever stoop to dying in front of the other.”

Emotions warred with one another across Kanaya's face, but in the end she nodded. “For you,” she said, “and only for you.” With that, she bent down to lay a kiss on Rose's forehead, turned, and walked away down the tunnel. Though Vriska cast a few envious glances backwards, she followed after her. Rose watched her shadow slip across the walls until it was out of sight, then turned to Calliope.

The Serpent's devotee clapped her hands together in anticipation like a particularly keen schoolteacher. “Now then,” she said, “on to our most pressing matter. Please join me by the Wheel.” Having said that, she strode over to the wall, plucked a torch from its holder, and swept over to the Wheel in a pine-forest swirl of robes. Hesitating, torch in hand, she tilted her head to look at Rose.

“You do realize,” she said, not unkindly, “that this is the point of no return?”

“I do,” said Rose, “but what choice do I have, now that I've gotten this far?”

Calliope nodded. “That's quite the practical way of looking at it. Quite commendable, in fact! But I digress. Allow me to shed some light on why you've come.” With a practiced hand, she hefted the torch once, twice, thrice, and hurled it at the enormous Wheel. It exploded in a shower of sparks and an improbable roar, bright embers landing and lighting lines in the stone. Images flickered into being limned in fire, and Rose saw at once what she was meant to see.

Clearing her throat, Calliope began to recite her tale, turning the Wheel in fractions as she spoke.

“Every hundred years,” she said, “a girl hatches from a stone egg in the wood where the world begins. In her eighteenth year, she will seek out and slay the Firebird, and for a time she will be content. But in time, a fire in her heart will begin to burn, and no force in this world may put it out.

“She will grow restless, and will wander the world as the fire within begins to consume her. She will seek out strange things, and she will travel to the end of the world with them, always alone, for those whom she had been a friend to will have seen her die, mourned her, and feared her when she rose again. Three times she will die, with three different names, and her fourth name will strike dread into the hearts of all who hear it.

“This mountain will beckon her, as it always has and always will, and she will venture within it and find me. I will tell her this story as she stands where you do, and she will not deny it, for she knows it to be true. She will descend deeper into the mountain, and I will watch her go with great sadness, as I know what will befall her next. She will reach the cavern in the center of the mountain, adorn herself with feathers and bone and a great carved skull, and she will set herself alight.”

“And that,” Calliope said softly, “is how the Firebird comes to be.”

Rose had long suspected this part of the story. Her dreams had foreshadowed it from the very beginning. But Calliope had not finished, and the wheel was still turning.

"Do you see what she carries there, as she rises? Do you recall hearing that she took a great dark stone with her across the sea? In the heat of her funeral pyre, the last vestige of her humanity shapes that stone...into an egg. There it is now, falling as she rises, falling from the mountain where the world ends, and into the wood where the world begins. Now the girl is hatching. Now she is growing.

"Now she is slaying the Firebird."

The wheel rumbles to a halt, and then there is silence. The buzz of empty air batters itself against Rose's eardrums. Her voice, when she finds it, is more steady than she would have expected. "She spoke to me in a dream. The Dark One, the Firebird, the one who came before me. She told me to break the cycle.”

Calliope nods, sage and understanding. "The two of you have been screaming that message to one another for a thousand years, unheard. I have long hoped that one of you might find the strength to whisper." Her expression is sympathetic, as though she wishes that none of this is happening.

Rose scuffs a foot on the dusty floor. “So now what? I carve my own egg and do a swan-dive on to my improvised funeral pyre? Neither is a really appealing prospect. I kind of like my emotionally stunted life.”

“I don't know, Rose,” says Calliope. “What do you want to do?”

“I think,” says Rose, after a moment of consideration, “that I want to take this ridiculous cycle of perpetual suicide and shred it into myriad bite-size pieces.”

Calliope grins then, all teeth and raw glee. “It's so wonderful to see you with agency after so many centuries numbly bowing to destiny! You are outside the cycle, a blank slate, and you can do absolutely anything. It's lovely.”

“The fact that I'm not currently lighting myself on fire was kind of a giveaway,” says Rose. Calliope laughs, a braying hah! that echoes against the stone.

“Go on, then,” she says, “and see what you need to see.” She gestures down another corridor, this one lit faintly in the same hellish colors that Rose knows all too well. “Godspeed.” Rose nods a silent thanks, and Calliope bows slightly at the waist, beaming.

The trek downwards is longer than she remembers. Heat clings to her skin like a shroud. She wipes beading sweat away from her forehead and continues on as her surroundings brighten with each step. A protruding stone in the floor makes her stumble, and she scrapes her palms catching herself before she almost falls face-first, stumbling into the chamber clumsy as a newborn colt. When she looks up, the scorched patterns on the walls look like the marks of frantically beating wings.

She is not alone.

The Dark One turns at her footsteps, hell-wrought and terrible. They stare at one another, lost for words, and then the Dark One speaks. “…shouldn't be here.” Her voice is soft and raspy, as though she's been breathing smoke. “Leave.” After a moment, she adds, “…please.”

“No,” says Rose. “I'm done dying. And I think you are, too.”

The Dark One hesitates, then lifts the skull from her head. Beneath it she is very much like Rose; a little thinner, a little taller, achingly close on the whole. Her eyes are feverish, bright as stoked forges and glazed from the heat within her, but still eerily human.

“You shouldn't be here,” she repeats, more clearly this time. “You were supposed to just…live.” Her shoulders hitch once, and she continues shaky-voiced. “I held back for you. I dropped that fucking egg in the woods without giving up the bits that made me a person, and I booked it back to this fucking mountain so you could have a goddamn life of your own. You shouldn't be here.”

"No,” says Rose, “I should. You asked me to break the cycle, and it isn't broken yet. Think. You know the story. The cycle keeps us chasing each other, killing each other, mother bearing daughter, killing mother, becoming mother, bearing daughter, and so on. You saved me from that, but you're still trapped."

The Dark One looks at her, pained. "I did that for you. I knew what I was doing."

"No, you didn't. Not completely. The cycle isn't just supposed to make us kill each other over and over again. It's supposed to keep us apart. The one thing that hasn't happened in a thousand years is happening right now. It's happening because I made it happen, and the only reason I could make it happen is because you fought yourself for me.” Rose is breathing hard, under the thumb of some distant emotion she thought she'd never experience. Her heart thunders against her ribs. She swallows, throat thick. “I'm not afraid of you.”

The skull falls from the Dark One's hand to land soundlessly on the sandy floor of the chamber. She takes a hesitant step forward after Rose does.

One final question wisps up in Rose's mind. "Why did you hold yourself back?"

"Because I remembered you," says the Dark One softly.

As she had in her last dream, Rose reaches out, and this time she gets there first. The Dark One's skin is excruciatingly hot, sizzling through Rose's sleeves in a flash as she wraps her arms around her. Burned-wood hands splay agony across her back as they embrace, but she pays it no mind. The feeling twisting around her innards grows only stronger, and there is a weight in her chest that she does not know the name of.

There is something in this closeness that is more intimate than any moment she's shared with Kanaya, more personal than any thought she's ever had, and the reaction in her brain boils over without her noticing as she burns alive. Synapses fire, neurons sparking and dying and growing back over and over. Her mind rips itself asunder and knits itself together again. Pieces fall back into their proper places. Her and me become I.

Outside, the earth rumbles, the tremors intensifying rapidly. The battle still raging comes to a screeching halt as all lower their weapons and turn to stare at the mountain.

It cracks down the middle like a sundered anvil, and the Firebird rises anew.

It rises not as a thing of terror, but as a whole, complete, and the beauty of it is awe-inspiring.

To a man, the cultists lay down their arms and fall to their knees in worship. Terezi can feel a distant fire on her skin, and in the wood where the world begins Vriska's hand sneaks its way into Kanaya's. All this the Firebird knows without seeing, sees without seeing. The lives of the mortal Grey Ones far below are an open book to her, spilling over with stories, and for a few moments she glides through the night, bright as the dawn, and drinks them in. It is with some regret that she turns her attention elsewhere, for the vast sea of knowing is intoxicating.

She does not call for them. They feel her rising as anyone else does, if not keener, and they come.

From across the desert a swordsman comes running, fire in his eyes and a flock of crows at his back as he shouts a name to the sky. From out of the jungle an adventurer comes bounding, a pack of white hounds baying at her heels as she whoops in triumph. From over the sea a trickster comes flying, one with the wind as he laughs for joy. They come to her high in the heavens, and she greets them as old friends. As family.

“You're back!” says the Joyful.

“We missed you!” says the Bold.

“About fucking time,” says the Faithful.

"Oh, shut up," says the Firebird, the Wise, laughing. "We'd like to see you break the Red Serpent's curse any faster. Will Mother be able to contain him alone?"

"She's been doing it for the last thousand years while still keeping her eye on you, hasn't she?" the Bold teases. "I think she'll be okay. It's the kids I'm worried about!"

"We've been away for too long," says the Faithful, by way of agreement. "Mortal hearts got a way of wavering in that time."

The Bold nods vigorously. "Yes, poor things! They've been all on their dashed lonesome in the world and desperately short of a bit of hope!"

"You wanna help us breathe a bit of life back into them?" the Joyful asks with a grin, holding out his hand. Even as he does so his form is beginning to shift, as he once again remembers control of his shape and identity.

"We'd love to," says the Firebird, and means it, one part of her discovering even now what love feels like, "but as you may have noticed we have a little problem of our own."

The Faithful lifts an eyebrow. "You mean the problem where you're referring to yourself in the third person?"

"Indeed so. We are...let's say not entirely comfortable with the idea of "I" any more." Birds cannot smile, but the three gods feel her smiling nonetheless. "We've been apart for so long that we've become different people, and we're only just finding out who those people are."

"And you were mortal," says the Joyful, now a smiling woman with dark curls. "What an adventure that must have been - oh, I'm sorry - what adventures!"

"And a grand adventure certainly has a way of changing a chap a bit," says the Bold, changing smoothly into a strapping young man. "If there's anything any of us can do to help you adjust to whoever you are now, well, by golly, we'll do it in two shakes of a lamb's tail!"

"Not to mention we'll accept you however you are like the bunch of unbearable goddamn saps we are," says the Faithful, with just a twitch of a smile. "Say the word, sis. We live to serve. Just this once, we might even pretend to be humble."

This is what love is, isn't it? says the Firebird to herself, and feels herself agree, fuck yeah. "Rose has a family," she says. "Family and friends, still living, who put their lives and livelihoods on the line to bring her here. They're wondering what just happened to her and whether they'll ever see her again. And the Dark One burned out a poor girl's eyes and in the process royally pissed off her - let's face it - excessively hot mother - " Here there follows a brief moment of disagreement with herself before she continues, " - not to mention scared a bunch of centaurs, left sooty footprints all over the deck of a damn nice boat and made a pirate lady carve her a bird hat without ever saying please or thank you.

“We want to do something about all that. To see them all again, all together, and we want to go home. Gods, do we want to go home.” She pauses then, to collect herself. “We both remember the woods where the world begins, because we both grew up there, and we know where that one tree is you can sit in and-- sorry. We want to go home so, so much. And we want this family to meet the new one."

The three other gods look to one another, and they all smile.

"Well, damn," says the Faithful. "That all? Gimme a sec."

And he falls from the heavens like a comet, streaking across the sky to gather up those who fought for Rose on the distant shore. Whooping in delight, the Bold dives down to run across the world, bringing together those who gave Rose shelter on her way. And the Joyful, with a laugh, swoops low into the woods where the world begins, to find a sister and a pirate and a mother, and make a fire in the hearth to bring them home.

And far above them all, in the heart of the Last Firebird, Rose turns to the Dark One, and smiles, and means it. "I am glad of your company," she says, "and thank you for everything.” Something strikes her then, and it's all she can do not to laugh. “Tell me,” she says, “do Dark Ones have names?”

The Dark One playfully punches her in the arm and reaches up to muss her hair. Rose fends her off with a laugh and a half-heartedly waved hand, and stills as she rests her forehead against Rose's own.

“My name is Roxy, smartass,” says her other half, smiling, “and I will be glad to follow you always.”