TRACK 35

Dark is the road you wander

Confusion, confusion

And as you stand there under

Confusion, confusion

The starry sky, you feel sad inside

Confusion, confusion

(Confusion- Electric Light Orchestra)

********

Toby's idea to throw himself in the river hadn't been the best thing ever.

Even if hiding the bag with the food under his armor to protect it from being all wet had been a good choice -something that he had thought about just a second before jumping in, mentally backtracking for a moment or two before trying to fix the issue as best as he could- the rest of it hadn't been.

All of this because, when the purple clouds and small tornadoes had gone down to the gray hills, it had worsened an already problematic situation.

He not only had been tossed around by the agitated water current, trying not to drown and flailing in between it all like one of Nana's cats during a bath -Lady Marmalade. Especially when she was very old and had stopped cleaning herself for whatever reason. Nana had said that she did it because she was probably depressed after some of her kittens' miscarriages. The old mama cat had always hissed and meowed like they were going to kill her, trying to run away and scratching him everywhere she could get to when she was stopped from it. Once even in the face, just under his left eye- but with it, he had been suffocating and the spinning gusts made the water even harder to deal with -even though they were the only things that allowed him to breathe- making him go one too many times under the surface and roll, spinning all over the place and gulping down the substance in between, which had no taste but it felt rough as it went down his throat, scratching it a little. All of this in a way that he thought would never end.

Luckily it did slow down from time to time, having him go up. Every time he did, he searched for air instinctively. Air that wasn't there, because just as instinctively he had just exited from its only source.

So, no. Not an awesome sauce at all. It's not his best idea, really.

But it had seemed like a more than decent option before the clouds had gone down. And he had moved forward a lot, too, to the point that that tall spiky dark thing that he had seen before had become much more clear, much nearer, looking quite creepy but well defined -the spiky place couldn't have protected him, though. This was kind of sad because that meant that he had had no way out from that mess anyway even if he had reached it.

Still, Toby -after glancing at it, still flailing around and without thinking at all, without even evaluating pros and cons for a second- had used Goldenmate's blade to stab the earthy riverside when he had been able to.

It made it possible for him to stay still in place, still risking really, really hard to lose the sword in between. Luckily he hadn't, catching it back with quite the reflexes -that had been awesome for real!- that he had not known that he had -well, kinda yes and kinda no? He had worked for them after all, but that had been a more skilled move than how he had expected to pull off- and internally cheering. And so he had been able to avoid new aggressive rolling, seeing the spiky place even more.

The sight was quite weird with all that thick purple surrounding it, but... after a few moments, he had stopped caring about it. The more forward he had moved, in fact, and the more the air seemed to become even less, the gusts diminishing in their frequency.

Wheezing and pleading to breathe with air that wasn't coming at all -and that made him feel even more as if he was going to die... Which was nightmare-like material. As someone who loved Sci-fi films a whole lot, making Krel and Aja's film too, the death-for-lack-of-oxygen-in-space plot point was often depicted, treated like a desperate, heroic run against time, but right now... it was real, present and it felt absolutely horrible- he tried to rise, to get out of the water.

But everything was too much. The lack of air squeezed his lungs painfully and he could not find a way to move from where he was

When he was way too near to just lose consciousness -so, so near. His sight was almost entirely black, little spots of view appearing in it, but with his brain that barely processed them. His fingers were almost letting go of Goldenmate's hilt as more water pushed him to move and he had little to no resistance to it, the grip being stuck thanks to the triangular pommel, which was the only thing that actually stopped him, but not for much longer- the purple gas suddenly raised again.

It moved away way too quickly to be normal -roaring just as loudly as it had done before- almost being sucked away and then fully disappearing.

The removal of the cloudy tornado gas left him inhaling loudly, his gasp almost echoing all around him as beautiful, sweet, cold air started to enter and fill his lungs again. It stank a little of dirt and dust but he didn't care. It was still lovely.

... It was so lovely to still be alive.

Around Toby, when his eyes started to work properly again, there was nothing else but gray and black again.

He was able to hold the sword tighter because of it and waited a bit since everything in him was trembling. Both because of the strain of the action and because of what he had just gone through.

Then, when he felt a little better -enough to not perceive himself as a doll of some kind- he cautiously moved away from the riverbed, always using the sword as support.

Toby was very attentive, all to not slip and somehow cut himself, which... almost happened twice anyway. The ground was so wet that it was hard to find a point in it where his feet actually walked normally instead of leaving furrows in the dirt and having him look as if he was dancing instead of trying to move normally.

Once totally out, he decided to wait just a little more before starting to walk again.

He was exhausted, to the point that even putting the sword in its sheath again felt like real hard work in every single detail of it.

He sat where the ground was already less wet and breathed in and out as if he was somehow doing it for the first time all over again, relief flooding into him and having him go down on the floor more.

He still patted Goldenmate as if to thank the blade and took another enormous breath, getting the bag out from under the armor. It was slightly wet, but it was definitely less wet than his pants and his socks. His face and his hands were slightly wet, too, orange liquid painting his skin in a way that almost was of the same color as his armor and hair.

He tried to relax, to rest until he felt less heavy, less crushed by gravity, but then... A slight feeling of fear started rising. Exactly when he placed the bag on the ground.

It did so without any kind of apparent reason, taking up more and more space in his chest, having him look around like anything was going to come at him.

A shiver ran down his spine. He wasn't sure if it was caused by the wet clothes or if it was the emotion itself.

'Maybe a new gas fog is going to appear again,' his mind whispered. And his body suddenly wanted to get up, even though he had got less than no energy to do so and to walk with. 'It's dangerous out here.'

Eventually, after a long interminable amount of time, he had enough energy to move from where he was.

He walked faster and faster as he proceeded, the sword out from the sheath again.

********

That snake was too big to be normal: its scales passed from a dark shade of brown to a pale one, several small horns peeking through them on its head. The eyes looked like black holes and the teeth were few, but they must have been almost ten centimeters long. Minimum.

It was scaring him crapless. Completely. Being stared by the reptile had Steve feel all his hair rise in place. His hands trembled on the sword's hilt and his legs seemed to be made out of pudding as he tried to keep enough of his composure to not faint.

He tried to inhale a deep long breath, still having it stutter in his lungs.

He stared back at the creature as chills traced his skin -not even noticing how most of the smaller snakes started to move away. They returned towards the trees, but not in fear. They followed the scene with their full attention, being more than ready to strike in case an occasion presented itself- but then, before Steve could do something -before the enormous creature could do something, especially- the Old Sorcerer pushed him behind.

A distorted noise escaped from his throat because of the surprise. The exact moment it did, some of the reptile's scales moved, opening towards its sides. It made it look like a cobra, which definitely made it seem even scarier, but not as much as when the abnormally big, absolutely terrifying creature hissed, his tongue flickering out of his mouth. And Steve drastically froze on the spot, a muffled new sound peeping through his mouth.

The snake darted forward, making all the mud move, making big waves that rippled and hit everything it came against. The Sorcerer, almost mechanically, responded to the attack with his weapon, trying to stab the creature in its neck.

The sword didn't pass through the scales. It simply pushed it to the side, making it look like one of those big clown balloons that could be found at a funfair. And just like one of those balloons, a little after the impact -too little- it was back to its steadiness.

The beast tried to attack a second time. The Old man's blade hit this time on its snout, stopping it from eating him in one single bite, but having the same result as the one before and nothing more than that. The response didn't hurt it: It just pushed the ugly thing away once more.

And so it did the third, the fourth... And several more later, each try becoming quicker and quicker as they went on. Still, it was bearable for Merl, apparently. He was breathing hard but was responding without apparent issues.

The fight kept going in the same way for lots of time... until the snake started moving more.

Not only just its head did, but the tail. It clung around Merlin's waist and a good part of his legs, raising the man like a toy, having Steve screech loudly as it happened, some of the waves of mud almost making him fall. He had to fight not to, his eyes looking behind himself for more than just a moment or two, just to be sure.

When he looked up again, the creature had the Sorcerer trapped, slowly making him rotate to dangle him upside down.

A big flash of pain crossed the Old Man's features -which actually looked very, very weird to see- as the reptile visibly clenched its grip and the bag with the food and water was slowly falling, having the blond running to grab it before it could splash in the sludge.

As he got to it, he couldn't help but notice how quickly the thing was getting Douxie's master near to its open mouth, thick saliva falling down from his long tongue and teeth.

"Oh." Steve barely let out, fixing the bag on himself with little interest -still wanting to be sure that it was closed- and being extremely nervous, trying to understand what in the world he had to do because jeez, now what? He could not shoot him down with a cannon or things like that! What was he supposed to do?!

"Oh. Oh man," he murmured again. He hesitated just for a second, the panic making him get still. But as Mister Magic Man got even nearer to the creature's mouth, he shook his head, almost to wake himself up.

'Welp. Just attack, I guess.'

He embraced the sword. Breathed in -do not scream, small internal Lake said. Yikes. Alright- and ran towards the creature.

He gave one hit for the highest point he could reach, having the snake sway in place again, far away from its tail. Steve heard it hiss, loudly enough to make him hit again, always in the same place, at the same point. And so did the immediate third one.

The time of reaction to avoid falling into the sludge of the gigantic menace got bigger, just like the noises coming out from it.

And its big-butt head swooped down towards Steve himself, probably unnerved, definitely stopping to see him as a prey that it could get at after its first meal.

Which, great, he wasn't gonna eat Pole-in-the-ass Man! He had distracted it from him enough! But...

'Holy cow's poop.'

It was coming for him now.

It truly was and... 911, emergency, hello Police?

He was having more than pudding legs right now, but he was gonna lose them soon -the rest of him, too, but?... He was bothered more by the legs right now since they wouldn't keep still, not even if he begged them to- if he didn't do something!

His brain wanted to skip from fight to flight-mode, but the mud restricted his movements to the point that even trying to run toward his right would not have helped much.

So he just struck the head of the creature when it went down. He almost screamed but didn't.

More swaying from the reptile. Then he returned to its assaults, his mouth so open that it looked like it was going to dislocate its mandible.

Defending himself again had him slash once more, even more scared because it had been so near to biting his head off.

Then he somehow saw the cobra-like scales shake a little, almost as if they were going to close on themselves to trap him as the tail had done with Mean Wizard 101 , but he just struck them again to keep them as far from himself as possible.

Just seeing the creature moving backward a little after the hit, though -specifically gazing at his long-butt fangs- made his mind remind him of Harry Potter, which had been inside his brain a lot in those days since he had met real wizards .

Of the saga, the center of his attention, in this case, was the second film, in a specific scene of it.

So when the Basilisk-not-really-a-Basilisk attacked once more, vicious and angry, Steve almost ignored him. Or. He ignored the whole aesthetic of it.

He just aimed for his right eye and stabbed it exactly at its center in the quickest, most aggressive way he could muster.

The creature immediately started screeching in pain.

Its tail dropped Merlin -whose armor had been getting more and more smokey as the thing had been holding him like that, even though Steve hadn't noticed it- making him fall into the sludge with a loud splash and more waves rippling on the surface.

The Old Man emerged from it with a slightly disgusted expression, spitting and loudly coughing as he quickly stood his ground.

"The other eye!" he -almost proudly, but still scared enough to not sound like that. Not at all. He still hated snakes - said as he raised his sword again.

Merlin, weirdly enough, limited himself to raising his blade, too, making only a small grunt of approval.

When the beast stopped recoiling in pain -its tail moving the mud and almost letting them see the ground under it- they were both ready.

They avoided how the creature tried to grab them again, going against more and more waves that were getting higher and higher, often making them recoil, looking exactly like the Basilisk-not-Basilisk had looked after every assault. But still, they weren't stopped from it.

Steve was able to hit it anyway, having it sway again, moving in the Sorcerer's direction as it did. And as it went there, the man immediately stabbed it in its left eye.

More recoiling from the creature, whose sounds passed from normal hissing to a loud cry, a lamenting that almost sounded more like birds than anything else.

It moved blindly, the red blood trickling down on both sides of the head, getting more and more down, falling on its scales -The whole bleeding out thingy definitely got the small snakes more and more interested, since they quietly started moving towards the big one- as both the blond boy and the Sorcerer struck again; one returning more or less to hit where he had done it before, the other at the center of it.

None of their attacks cracked anything, but the two hits combined pushed the beast towards the mud, the strength being enough to make it fall into it, a tsunami-like wave being created as a result, luckily not in their direction.

And right there, right after the mud quieted down, the creature -trying to get up again but not being able, not as much as it had done earlier- started getting assaulted by the others.

Their teeth actually got through the scales.

The snake started to shake to get them off, trying to fight, to respond to all of them but he was not able to. There were too many of them.

The hissing and the sounds it emitted as they detached pieces of its body from it echoed all around in a way that made Steve feel shivers.

As the creatures were all occupied to get their huge meal, he and Merl started to move again, taking the occasion at the drop of the hat.

They wanted to leave the muddy ground as soon as possible, even though where they were it didn't seem to have an end.

********

A few seconds before, she had seen her Teacher falling to the floor after being passed through by the claymore. A few seconds later, she had found herself exactly where she had asked the Candle to be brought.

She was standing there, perfectly in place as the remaining hints of her scream slipped from her lips, leaving her entirely silent after that.

She stayed still for a moment or two, almost feeling surreal -Because what the hell had just happened? It didn't feel real at all. It just didn't. And the whole 'returning so quickly in America' did not help to remove the sensation. She couldn't help but feel weird after being in Greece.

She barely blinked as her eyes moved all around, taking in every single detail, her lips trembling.

The books. The chair. The pretty handmade bookmarks that had been left in the blue folder on the desk. The hidden magical stuff...

Her gaze fell on herself, too, even though she didn't want to look at all .

She had the purse right there, against her hip, and it felt just as heavy as it had before the whole thing had happened. And her hands had nothing in them as the Candle had ended fully.

She was shaking hard again -had never really stopped to do so- to the point that it was unclear how she still was on her feet.

It was the only view of the Ruby attached to her necklace that had her trembling even more, though. It made what happened start to replay inside her mind like a broken record.

Images overwhelmed her as they came in one after the other. They felt like knives covered in salt, which kept slicing through already open wounds.

The "I'll hold her off". The way her Teacher had grasped her tighter while trying to get her to safety. The decapitated head was thrown on the ground with the same disinterest one could have given to a broken doll piece. Miss. Emerald got skewed like that , with the sound that echoed on and on in her mind as an agonizing, revolting melody.

Her hands almost tried to cover her ears to not hear it, but everything was in her head. It wouldn't have fixed anything.

'She... She hadn't turned to dust, yet, when I left,' she tried to reason, as the scene kept replaying again. A small spark of hope fluttered in her chest. 'Maybe she is still alive. Maybe she is just...'

The Red Queen was going to finish her if she was still breathing. Or let her die.

Her heart sank.

Alice wasn't sure where Miss. Emerald had been stabbed, but she had been stabbed with a claymore held by a Witch of the Undoing. The Red-haired woman could have easily sent her ability through the blade so that the wound was not gonna close magically -it couldn't . It blocked it. It denied it- but with a human-like amount of time and with a scar forming in the end. One of the only types of scar on a Wizard that persisted to stay instead of disappearing, almost like a mark.

Miss. Emerald had been stabbed from side to side.

No one was going to save her, and even if there had been someone, they would have to get through the Witch.

Crap.

No one was going to help her. That meant that she was not just injured, but -unless she actually ended her by slashing through something else- destined to bleed out.

She was dead, or she was dying and she could do nothing about it.

It hadn't been Alice's fault, she knew it, but she still felt like it had been. Because -even though she had been ordered to- she had done nothing. She had just... stared at the situation while it unfolded.

And even if she had tried, she wouldn't have been able to change a single thing.

Alice couldn't help but let out a small, pitiful sound that clawed its way out of her throat just at the thought. She stopped the whole sound herself by covering her mouth with her hands, her eyes burning, her heart thundering in her chest.

She stared at the floor with quite the insistence, more waves of pain coming through and having her feel her throat tightening until a sob tore its way out, followed by fast, harsh, loud breaths.

As she tried to get proper oxygen -it was leaving and entering her lungs way too fast- she unsteadily moved towards the chair.

Her skin felt clammy and she sensed her body weirdly. Like she was going to break or fall from one second to another, so even trying to get there felt like torture.

Once she sat down -the usual screech of the wood playing in her ears in a suddenly hollow hello- her eyes moistened up even more than they had before and warm tears started to quickly spill on her cheeks.

She remained there, still, the clock ticking in her ears as more tears and some snout rolled down her face, her stomach clenching, her magic starting to pulse and run under her skin -She didn't even try to put her pain into the Crystals. The emotions were too loud. Overworked as they had been, they would have broken down one after the other.

She cried -mostly silent- trembling more and not even caring to clean her face, where the smudged makeup traced black furrows on her skin. Her breath kept hitching, blocking itself in her lungs as her hands just pressed against her shoulders.

She cried, letting out all the frustration, all the pain, and the guilt that kept making it hard for her to breathe.

It had been so wrong. Every detail of it. And numerous 'why? Why did it happen? Why couldn't I do anything to help?' kept running through her thoughts, making her cry even harder, every single sob wrecking her frame.

She cried and cried some more until a sudden thought struck her brain like lightning, having her wheeze and gasp just slightly in shock, even more pain flaring.

The Mana in her veins made the last tears on her cheeks float in the air, looking at first like dark green and black bubbles and then like small, almost solid Kambaba Jaspers, always flying around her.

'Connie and Ace,' her mind whispered. And the almost newborn stones fell, returning to the liquid state.

'...Balderdash.'

Alice had to tell them. She had to... They had to know. But... But how could she tell them something like that? How could she? It felt so disgusting only to think about it.

She had left Arcadia with her and now... Now she was here again. Alone. She did not even have clothes that Miss. Emerald had been wearing for them to mourn since she had had no time to get it. All of her things were in Greece, between the two houses.

Alice only had the purse and the Ruby with her. That small, oval Ruby that was so heavy around her neck, but...

The thought of giving it away felt painful. Precious Stones had been their first way to connect. To talk for hours about what it felt like to feel them so fully.

That Ruby felt like a goodbye from her. And a way to feel her with her.

Still... Miss. Emerald had been Connie and Ace's family, not hers.

She had been her Teacher. Nothing more, nothing less. No matter how similar to a big sister she had felt at times, no matter the agony that made it hard for her to even imagine losing it, she had no right to keep anything that had been hers.

She had already had her teachings. Her time. Her space.

Ace and Connie had lost her because she had been protecting her, so in a way she had had her life, too .

It would have been downright selfish to want to keep the Ruby for herself.

She quickly removed the remaining tears and the snout from her face, running her fingers on her skin, trying to collect herself and breathe properly at least a little.

Then -even though she was still shaking, even though her feet still felt so flipping numb- she forced herself to get up again and removed any painful thought, any painful emotion from her being. She squashed them down.

She needed to be lucid. If she wasn't, she would have only caused damage or done things senselessly.

Once she was, she started to go on with what she had to do.

The first thing she did was to hide the things in the purse in the most unexpected place she could think about -refusing to leave it behind one of the paintings. That was a straight-up cliché- then, keeping the empty shoulder bag on her hip, she prepared herself to exit the whole place, fully determined to get to her own apartment, looking at the hour in between her movements.

It was 2:40 am.

'I... I have to change the crystals. Just to be sure. Let them rest and recharge. Have other ones to defend myself with just in case.'

She had no idea about what could happen, since she knew nothing about what was going on in the city right now.

During her calls and messages with Zoe, she had... Been talking more about other subjects. Every 'Arcadia' related question had received pretty vague answers. That was why she hadn't actually told her that she had decided to come back -even though she hadn't expected to be so fast to arrive- somehow perceiving that if she had tried, her girlfriend would have discouraged it. She had been hiding something, probably to keep her out of it.

'Maybe that is the reason why she didn't answer Munchkin's calls and texts...' she thought, frowning a little. 'But it's kind of stupid. A sudden lack of response would alarm anyone, really... So, why...'

She quickly pushed away her questions from her mind. She was going to ask them once she met Zoe again, at the right moment.

The sky, seen beyond the glass, was extremely dark. The moon and the stars weren't visible because of the clouds, making it appear pitch black.

When she had looked out, she had expected to find the road and the sidewalk empty of human people, maybe being occupied only by a few magical creatures lurking around.

She had been so, so wrong. Like drastically, completely, absolutely wrong.

She had never seen such chaos at Arcadia Oaks in the middle of the night. And that was saying something.

********

"Well that... Was close." Archie panted heavily, sprawled on the ground as his tail kept hitting it out of nerves, repetitive thump, thump, thump echoing in the valley.

"I don't l-like this place." Jim simply stated, just as out of breath, cringing a little for how sore his throat felt. He was lying, too, in a messy position, feeling every single inch of his lungs grab and let out air as he didn't even dare to move from where he was.

Between the lacking air and being pushed around by gusts -from which they had tried to get as much air as possible before being left without it again- while trying to leave the purple gas and failing, well, they had been through quite the intense near-death experience. But it hadn't been the first and only misadventure they had been hit by from the moment they had ended up in the whole dimension, so...

"Same," the dragon sniffed, growled, and took a few deep breaths. "W-We're gonna..." another pause. His lungs still felt kind of empty. "We're gonna stay... low... for a bit," more thumps, thumps, thumps from his tail. "If that's alright with you."

"...'kay." No complaining at all on Jim's side. He didn't feel like standing right now. Figures starting to walk again and to keep going for who knows how much more. Only thinking about it made him want to groan loudly.

They remained silent and still for a while. The only sounds that they could hear were the tail moving and their breathing, which was slowly returning to normal until they couldn't hear that either... if not by strongly searching for it -which neither of the two wanted to do as they had started to feel quite numb, their eyes glancing into empty space without really focusing on anything. The only thing that actually made them feel something that wasn't being dazed was their heads, both of them throbbing slightly.

The stillness stretched all around them until they actually felt better even if not by much, making them slowly but surely get into a sitting position, looking around from there only to realize that it wasn't the same point of the place they had been before.

They had been dragged around so much that the faraway trees that they had had on their left weren't there anymore.

It had been because of one or two of the currents, probably. In the chaos, they both had ended up into one of those -floating in the air for a bit before falling- and it had been a real miracle that they hadn't ended up being separated in the whole process. Sticking close to each other had surely helped.

Still, they had no idea how far they were from where they had been before. Archie didn't remember passing through it -didn't remember the enormous hole that looked like a U that wasn't entirely empty, but closed by another layer of earth a little lower- but maybe that had been because of the fog that had been there when he had followed Jim's scent.

The dragon immediately returned to the sniffing process, raising his muzzle and searching for even a small, tiny hint of scent.

Jim simply gazed around, trying not to feel exasperated once again and to think a little bit positively. They were still there, after all. And if Archibald had previously found Claire, he could totally do it again. He just had to be patient.

A few moments passed, the dragon still sniffing and the Trollhunter waiting, still sitting and gaining as much energy as he could.

Then Archibald suddenly became rigid like a wooden board, raising the slightly hidden anxiety in Jim tenfold, just like all the hair on his body did.

"I smell blood," he asserted, shaking his wings and having Jim get even more rigid, a slight fear adding itself to the mix. "Lots of it."

********

Macha huffed in slight annoyance, throwing another quick look at the woman's agonizing, bleeding body on the floor.

She saw her breathing hard, her chest shaking as she tried to inhale and exhale in a more stable manner, new blood coming out from her guts and trickling the corner of her mouth.

Because of her, the blonde Geomancer had left before she could get to her -get to what she had right in her purse- but at least she had heard where she went.

Arcadia Oaks. The library of Arcadia Oaks, to be precise.

She had to summon Badb. Hopefully the little, trembling duckling wasn't going to fly away again from the city before she could do something about it -the Red Queen was still half surprised by seeing a Candle of Babylon. Half, because after all down there there was one of the strongest Aura she had ever felt. So, a legend more or a legend less didn't matter.

Macha turned, quickly entering the house and searching for the red chalk -which was attached to the belt, just near to the sheath, where the hand that was not occupied in her research quickly put her claymore- finding it without too many issues.

She started tracing the Soul Symbol on the floor, her movements almost mechanics for how habitual that was.

Badb appeared -not as immediately as Macha had expected. No, it actually took a while- the usual big radiant smile on her face, her favorite clothes being weirdly changed to an oversized, gothic black shirt and a tube-like purple skirt.

"Good to see you." Badb greeted her, sounding excited. "Do you have any news to give me?" she then cheerfully asked, to which Macha responded with a courteous, delicate nod as she took off her helmet from her head, placing it beside her and fixing strands of hair that were all glued to her face, touching immediately after the scar that traced just under her jugular, still slightly open and bleeding a little.

Going against the first woman had been a rather hard fight.

'A real pity... killing such talent. But she was way too jaded to see the truth,' she thought.

"You see... What I expected went down a little differently, but not by much."

"Oh?" Badb's dark eyes glistened as curiosity traced them entirely. "Go on. Tell me."

Macha breathed in, out and then she started explaining, trying to be as concise and detailed as possible in her report.

Against her knowledge -since she was too occupied to realize it- someone peeked their head from a small hidden door in the building on the second floor.

They waited in the darkness, quiet and patient, extremely careful in hiding their presence as best as they could, just like they did up to that moment.

They did so for several seconds, almost looking like a statue, before quickly sweeping out from it, turning one of the pieces of the strands of stones into an alive, long ravine and using it to descend to the first floor. It returned to its original state the exact second they stopped touching it.

Once it was done, they grabbed Miss. Emerald's limp, pale body between their arms -new magic being called in to strengthen themselves- and then started to run, the loud noises of the wind and of thunder covering their exit.

********

Douxie inhaled and exhaled repeatedly, his eyes wide open, his heart rumbling at a crazy unstable rhythm inside his chest -still so, so in pain, but with relief that was slowly creeping in- and his hands still holding the Staff, more tightly now that he was fully conscious and not nearly delirious, his mind free of flashbacks.

No, he was breathing, the air returning into his lungs, his eyes staring up, still a little wet.

He wasn't dead.

He had been dying, he was sure of it, but he wasn't dead. He wasn't suffocating anymore.

The purple gas was completely gone, letting him see even the smallest metallic reflection in the bridges above.

The Staff was sleeping, with no sign of magic. Not even the smallest spark. Not even a slight quiver. Nothing at all.

It hadn't been its stored magic that had removed or absorbed the Golem.

'Then who...?'

A sudden sound of light footsteps attracted his attention, interrupting his thoughts.

It made him go still and quickly sit up immediately after, dizziness hitting like a fuzzing truck, filling his sight with new black spots. He couldn't help but wince loudly and groan.

'Bloody... Hell.' one of his hands left the Staff to place itself on his head, mostly on his forehead, covering his eyes, too. The ache was particularly insistent.

"Don't be demanding to yourself, Hisirdoux Casperan," a voice jumped up, sounding... synthetic, almost genderless, having him go still again.

'They know who I am?'

Whoever it was -Dalai, perhaps?- stopped walking, going utterly motionless, too. Hisirdoux could feel their eyes burn through his skin by how much they seemed to bore on him. "You just come to senses after swooning."

Douxie breathed in and out, trying to take it easy even if most of him requested to see immediately, face to face, whoever he was talking to.

It took a while, but finally, the pain in his head subsided, and he raised his head again, slowly this time... and finally looking at whoever he had in front of him.

The sight left him speechless, surprise and astonishment crashing into his whole being like a storm.

They had a light green skin, paler than Nari's. Long petals protruded from their head, all of them starting from a soft yellow, getting to a shiny orange, and then turning into a vibrant pink. In the middle of them all there was a single small stone, which was mostly between orange and gray.

Six dark eyes -which were almost arranged circularly on their face- peered at him, rarely closing.

Their body looked female-like as their bosom clearly showed off from under their -Strangely cared for, undamaged, and clean in their medium golden brown color. It seemed very, very rare. Noble-like, almost and it wrapped around their figure quite nicely- garments, but it was the only curve-like part of them as everything else looked way too skinny and way too pointed. Especially their legs and feet, which appeared almost entirely composed of white roots that moved slowly, pulsing like an exposed organ.

Between their hands, they had a small vial. It had the same shape, the same red mark on it, and it was made of the same material as the one that was destroyed on the floor, not too far away from them. And ah, that was it. Purple was swirling inside it like a crazy, lively storm.

"You are..." Douxie barely started, his voice shutting down as many of the petals moved like spider legs as he tried to talk, getting way too distracted by them.

"Our name is Lánhuā," they replied, a sweet smile painting their face, their petals getting all behind them on their own accord. "And yes, We are the Core of this flower, if this is what you desire to know."