“And you’re sure this is gonna work?”

“No.”

Annette gave me an annoyed look. I handed her a cloak and said, “I only used it once, and it was kind of on accident. All we can really do is follow the instructions and hope nothing crazy happens.”

She was obviously unsatisfied with that answer, but conceded, “If you’re making things up again, I’m gonna kill you.”

“You won’t have to if we die over there,” I reassured.

Annette stared at me, cloak dangling off one arm. “You’re not making me feel better about this.”

“It’ll be fine! Probably.”

Annette muttered, “Well, okay, I guess,” as she ran her other arm through the cloak’s other sleeve.

“Rings all set?”

“Got eyes?”

I aligned the cloak’s hood and flipped it over her head, then watched in fascination as her horns disappeared into it. She shuddered and said, “That always feels so weird.”

“It doesn’t feel like anything, though.”

“Yeah. It’s weird.” She was waving her hands through the air where her horns were supposed to be. I slapped the top of her head and she made a noise like “Gwah,” then looked up at me and said, “You haven’t even put yours on yet!”

“I’m gonna right now.” I got two fancy metallic rings out of my pocket.

“Hurry up. I’m all antsy.”

I clipped one ring onto each of my horns, as close to the base as I could get. “All set.”

Annette swooped into my personal space to grab my hood. I booped her on the nose; her only reaction was to say, “Stop distracting me.” I booped her nose again.

“Claire!”

“What?”

She started feeding my horns into the hood. “You’re always so slow with it,” I complained.

“I don’t wanna mess it up and break them or something!”

“It’s not gonna. You can just throw it on.”

“If you ever do that and my horns snap off I’m gonna shove ‘em in your eyeballs.” She gently placed the hood on top of my head, and then slapped my head where my horns were supposed to be.

“Love you too.”

“Die.”

I felt through my pockets for the essentials. “I think we’re good to go.”

“You don’t wanna read the instructions again?”

“It’s four words, dude.”

Annette glanced at the tunnel gate distrustfully. “Are you sure this is gonna work?”

I grabbed her hand. “I already told you no. Ready?”

She gave me an anxious look. “As I’ll ever be, I guess.”

I smiled at her. “Great! Take us to town.”

The machine went ‘crackle’ and then ‘zwonk.’ Annette squeaked and jumped; I held her steady so she wouldn’t fall into the portal like I had.

This would be my first time using the thing while not under some kind of duress. I admired the shimmering image of a snowfallen town before squeezing Annette’s hand and saying, “Now we just walk through. It’ll feel real weird for a second, though.”

Annette stared at the portal for several seconds and took a step towards it. I stayed in line beside her so we’d enter at the same time. “Uh, here goes nothing, I guess…”

We both stepped into it. The sensation of being teleported across who-knows-how-far was decidedly different this time; namely, my hand that was holding Annette’s felt different, although still very strange, and my ears rang with this wobbly, squirming… something. Time hung still for what felt like just a bit too long, and then-

I was standing in the middle of the street in town, still holding my sister’s hand. She was screaming.

“Aní!”

She quieted down and hyperventilated instead. “Wha- wuh- Clah-”

I grabbed her other hand and cooed, “We’re here, see? Safe and sound.”

“Wuh- The-”

I shushed her and she made a noise like a deflating sack of air. I hugged her, half to calm her down, half to keep from falling over; I was pretty dizzy myself.

I focused on the brisk, chilly air blowing against my face. It helped immensely. Once I felt mostly fine, I opened my eyes and looked around to see if a bunch of humans had started staring at us or something. Noone seemed to be around, which was good. Annette’s screaming could have drawn a lot of attention to the two strange girls appearing out of nowhere, which would have been pretty bad, but it looked like we were in the clear. Knock on wood.

Annette’s breathing had calmed down, so I released her from my clutches. “All good?”

“I think. I think so. Maybe.”

“Okay. We’ll stick together, okay? I’ll handle talking to them and everything.”

“Yeah, okay. Just like the plan. Just like you said.”

“Mhm. You have your tunnel link, right?”

She blinked. “Oh!” She slapped her pocket. “Right there.”

“Remember how to use it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. You won’t have to unless we get separated, but don’t hesitate to use it if you get scared.”

“Okay.” She gave me a look that said, ‘I’m feeling pretty patronized right now, but I’m too freaked out to complain.’

“Don’t worry. Your cool, badass sister’s gonna protect you from the scary humans, ‘kay?”

She gave me a look that said, ‘Don’t push it.’ I snickered.

“Okay, here we go.” I wasn’t sure if we were in the same street as last time or not, and I didn’t know where anything was anyway, so I just picked a direction that felt promising and set off. The plan was, we were going to scout around and see if we could score some food, since old castles weren’t really great for foraging, and we were low on ingredients from our trek through the tundra anyway. I was pretty sure I knew the Elysian words for everything relevant, but Annette was a lot less confident, so I was going to run point on interactions. Ideally we were going to draw as little attention as possible. Knock on wood.

Wandering the town was pretty fun, if a bit stressful. Annette clung to my arm and jumped at every little thing, which was cute. We passed a human every now and then, and Annette would hide behind me and stare until they were out of site. None of them approached us or snarled or bit or anything, not that I expected any to.

Annette whispered, "They kinda just look like people."

"Yeah."

"How big is this place?"

"I dunno. I only saw a little bit of it."

We walked in silence for a bit. All of the buildings looked pretty similar, and I couldn't discern any landmarks or anything.

"It's kind of a normal town, too."

"Yeah."

We passed a woman wearing a big, circular mask that covered her whole face. I couldn't make out the marking on it, since she was turned away from us and walked pretty quickly. Once the woman was out of earshot, Annette said, "I guess they have painters, too."

"Yeah. I didn't expect it."

"Guess they aren't demon enough or something."

I grumbled, "I guess so." The ones in our village had been demon enough.

I eventually spotted a sign that I was pretty sure read ‘general store’. We made our way over to the building, a plain old wooden thing with no windows, and found the door. I could feel the trepidation radiating from Annette as I went to open it, but nothing particularly exciting happened. The door opened and we walked in. A little bell rang.

The place was somewhat cramped, and just as plain on the inside as it was on the outside. There were no labels on anything, but that was fine since it was easier to just look at stuff than have to read. We wandered the store for a bit; I made sure to stay away from the counter, so Annette would be less nervous. It helped that there wasn’t really anyone else here.

The sign on the store looked to be pretty accurate; there were a lot of general things in the place. Tools, clothing, various supplies, and food. We had pretty much never seen so much of any of it in one place. It was kind of mind boggling, and that was even considering the fact that several items seemed to be out of stock.

After a bit of hushed debate, we decided to get just one item, to see how things worked. Annette excitedly picked out a leafy vegetable of some kind, and then handed it to me so I could handle actually paying for it.

I approached the clerk, vegetable in one hand, sister in the other, and set our prize on the counter. I was feeling pretty nervous myself by this point.

The clerk did something with his little machine and then said a series of numbers. I blinked stupidly. Was that some kind of code? Or was he assigning a value to the vegetable?

I had brought stuff to barter with but I had expected something more… understandable? Something that meant something? I anxiously asked, "What kind of payment are you looking for?" The switch to a foreign language didn't help my nerves.

The man stared at me. “Money?”

Huh? I had no idea what he was talking about. “D-do you accept alternate payment?”

“No.”

Mhm. I see. “Oh. Uh, we’re willing to downtrade a little-”

“Notes and coins, lady.”

This was not going well. I wasn’t sure what else to even try.

The clerk sighed exasperation. “Pay up or get out.”

“Uh. Sorry for the trouble?” We took option two.

The little bell rang on the way out, too. And the cold air blasted me in the face. Annette was squeezing my arm so hard I was worried it might fall off. “Are we gonna die?”

“What? No.” I gave her a look. She was visibly terrified.

“There were a lot of words, Clarís! And he didn’t give us the thing.” She leaned in close and whispered, “Did he figure us out?”

“Everything's fine, Aní. We just didn’t have proper payment. We need this money stuff.”

The fear gave way to confusion. “Móni?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. You wanna go somewhere less humany?”

“Yeah.”

We slinked off in search of a dark corner or something. “We can just go home if you want.”

Annette had calmed down. “I’m good to stay longer.”

“Okay.” We slinked some more and eventually slunk into a nicely isolated building. It was a rusty, abandoned little number that did feel quite a bit more human than the rest of the town, on account of being made of metal for some reason, but, with no one around, ended up being the optimal slinking ground anyway.

The ceiling was decayed and busted out in places, letting starlight shine through and keeping the building well lit. The place had two stories, but the second one was mostly thin walkways along the walls with suspended bridges connecting them and thin, sad looking fences to keep people from falling. I couldn’t see any way up there. The whole place was seemingly made from old, thin, bad metal, which was rusted out in places to the point that a few walls had small holes in them. Pipes ran along the walls and ceiling, and there were small cabinet looking things here and there. What looked to be some kind of grand machinery sat in the middle of each room. There was a comfortable silence about the place which served to remind that whatever purpose it had served was well behind it; the pipes didn’t hiss and the machinery had decayed in on itself.

“This place is kinda creepy, huh?”

I glanced at Annette. She was holding her hands behind herself, pensively looking around. “Yeah. Must be some dead factory.”

“I didn’t know they could die.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t seem alive.”

She wandered over and plonked her head on my shoulder. “What do you think killed it? Doesn’t seem like the war.”

“Hmmm. Maybe it caught rust disease?”

“Pfft. That’s not a thing.”

“Sure it is! Makes you all rusty. People don’t get too sick, because we aren’t made of metal, but it’s very deadly for factories. I bet the doctors didn’t check for it before the workers came in, and it got sick.”

Annette laughed. “Why would a disease make you rusty? How does that even happen?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked! You see…” I trailed off.

Annette gave me an incredulous look. “Did your big mouth run out of-”

“Shh.” I thought I heard something. Annette stopped talking, but she gave me a look.

Sure enough, there it was again. Someone clanging around back where we came in.

I gave her a confident smile. “Annette, remember how to use the tunnel link?”

“Huh? Yeah, why?”

“Find somewhere to hide and use it. I’ll be right behind you.”

She made a face like a startled animal. "Are we gonna die?"

"Of course not. But you gotta be fast, 'kay?" I pushed her towards a closet looking thing.

"Clarís-"

"I'll be fine! Now, like a soldier of darkness!"

She relented and fled. "Don't die!"

Right. I went towards the noise; I wanted to keep the chances of them finding Annette to a minimum. Standing at the entrance to the building was a familiar man wearing silly incomplete armor, gauntlets akimbo. I stopped as soon as I saw him and rested my hand on my staff.

“Long time no meet, Goldie.”

He seemed… annoyed, maybe? I was still getting the hang of facial expressions again. “It’s ‘long time no see.’”

“Seeing and meeting are the same thing, aren’t they?”

Goldie sighed, “Look, you know why I’m here, right?”

“To make war with yours truly?”

“No, to stop you from destroying anything or hurting anyone.”

I pouted, “Well, that’s no fun.”

He was visibly unamused. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

“I actually do, right now, but we can squeeze in some warmaking first, right? I’ll just kill you real fast and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Goldie unamusedly stated, “How considerate of you. I’d rather not die in the first place, though, so…”

“When you die, you die.” Oh, I had to translate that to Elysian. Uh, “...When death comes, don’t… complain?”

"Oh? And how would you feel if you were the one to die?"

"Too bad! We'll get them next time!"

"You're dead. There is no next time."

"Maybe I'm the demon who figures out how to haunt the world of the living."

He scoffed. "You take death far too lightly."

"No, you take it too seriously. What's the worst that happens? Have to wait a few years for everyone else to catch up? Boo hoo."

Goldie raised his eyebrows in exasperated confoundment. "You know there are actual people who-"

"Had to watch their entire culture get erased from existence?", I chirped.

That shut him up. You could see the gears in his brain snag on something and start making weird noises.

I smugly charged my staff with magic and said, "Now, where were we? Right. Death.”

Wait, I could have said something cooler there. Like, uh, something about sending him to meet some demons? To… learn more about our culture? Wait, that was stupid. Maybe, so he could ask them about… Banter was hard. Whatever.

Goldie seemed a bit more unnerved than last time. Maybe he thought I was crazy now. Well, good for me, if it psyched him out.

I charged at him with my staff. He put his arm up and I immediately skidded to a stop to dodge the freezing attack, which sort of worked; instead of getting trapped in the resulting block of ice, I just slammed into it face-first.

Not perfect, but better than last time by a lot. I backed up just a bit; Goldie seemed to be doing the same. I took a moment to marvel at the slightly uncanny way the ice block floated in place; it completely ignored gravity and outside forces, as if it was fixed to a specific point and couldn’t be moved from it unless it was broken. Now, I wanted to test something…

I knew that as long as my staff was charged, I could just swing it and it would work as a bludgeoning weapon (well, I could do that even if it wasn’t charged, but it would be much more destructive like this). I wanted to see if that power was enough to shatter the solid air that Goldie created.

I swung the staff at the ice block… it violently fractured and a bunch of pieces exploded outwards, but the half of it that remained just about maintained its structural integrity. Well, good enough. Now to play it off as an intimidation tactic.

I gave Goldie a confident nod and said, “Where’d all your confidence go, Golden Boy?”

He had a good poker face, actually, though, so I couldn’t tell if he was actually unnerved or just on guard. Then he said, “Big talk from someone who just slammed into a wall and then tried and failed to break it,” and I figured it out. Way to rain on my picnic.

“Your face has gotta be a lot easier to smash than that ice block, though.”

“Harder to hit, too. Want some moving ones to practice on?”

Oh, he was so irritating. I charged him again.

“We can start with moving them in a straight line…” He trailed off as I got close.

All I’d done so far was straightforward frontal assaults. This time, I dove under the air he was about to solidify and swung at his leg. It shot upwards as a pillar of air froze under it to catch my staff, and he jumped backwards with his other foot.

This time my staff did completely destroy the ice, since it was so much thinner, but it was a hollow victory. I got up from the weird position my attack had left me in. Goldie still hadn’t made a move, so I guessed I was just gonna keep rushing him until something happened.

I let out an adrenaline-laced breath and charged again. The exercise was starting to get my heart-rate up, circulating eustress hormones and emotion through my whole body. I directed it towards my staff and it started to glow a bit.

I got nearly within striking range and pre-emptively swung. Goldie had been putting an arm out to throw ice and had to fumble to avoid my staff. Now within range, I swung again and his off hand froze the air around my staff before it could hit him.

The overload of energy in the staff's tip immediately surged into the nitrogen ice and it shattered into nothing. The staff's momentum had been stopped, but he was in an awkward position and it was right in place to jab into his stomach, so I did. Goldie threw himself to the side and it only clipped him, but he grunted in pain.

My first good hit. Liquid accomplishment coursed through my veins.

He slammed into the floor and scrambled to create some distance. I cut my victorious basking short and ran after him. He ran through a doorway, twirled around, and made a big wall of solid air. Damn.

I skidded to a halt. This place wasn't exactly a maze, but I wasn't really sure how else to get into that room, and the ice covered the whole door. I looked at the wall next to it. It didn't exactly look sturdy…

I slammed my staff into it and it punched right through, little flecks of rust exploding out. The hole wasn't big enough to climb through, so I punched out another one, and then-

There was a noise behind me. I turned to look: Goldie was standing there, winding up for another attack.

How had he gotten there so fast? He must have…

Wait.

I threw myself to the side just as the air where my body had been started to crystallize. He was already moving to catch me as I rolled away from him and right into the wall. Oops.

No time to think. I forced myself towards him and lunged at his legs. He did that ice dodging trick again. I swung my staff straight up. He lost his balance trying to avoid the attack on his groin.

Perfect. I used the chance to get back on my feet. It seemed that Goldie had caught himself by freezing the air behind him to support his weight and was now moving to capture me again. I tackled him.

He lost his grip on the ice supports and we both fell to the ground. I straddled him and brought my staff down – he blocked with his arm, but…

Wait, that should have done way more damage. Huh?

Oh! I needed to charge it with more magic.

Goldie threw me off of him and sprayed ice at me. I rolled away, but he had made ice blocks to block my escape. When had that happened?

Devils. Running was not going to work here. I threw my off-hand out and it got frozen. Better that than my whole body. The ice moved along with my arm as opposed to being frozen in place. Weird.

Ah. Goldie was attacking again. I put magic into my staff, but I could only do so much on such short notice. Enough for one attack – he was out of range. I swung anyway and forced the magic to dispel into the air. It spewed out of my staff as a bolt of energy that slammed straight into Goldie’s chest, causing him to stumble back. Not very strong, but for a desperation tactic it was pretty effective. I got back on my feet and…

Oh, drag it to heaven. I charged him again, magic or not, and swung my staff at his face. He blocked with a gauntlet. I kicked him in the leg. He put out his other arm to throw ice and I tackled him to the floor again. He grunted as we fell.

I swung my staff one-handed. When he blocked it, I punched with my iced-up hand. It connected.

Woah. Punching someone hurt less than I expected it to. Also, did he not have a protection charm?

I was getting distracted again. Goldie threw his gauntlet at my belly to freeze it. I backed up off of him… that attack was rather slow, huh? I could dodge it pretty easily if I saw it coming.

Oh, this was a good chance to get my bearings. Wow, I was panting. Fighting was serious exercise.

I charged my staff with more magic and looked around while Goldie recovered. There were ice blocks all around. I guessed that must be his style or something; making a bunch of blocks to use and control the fight.

Well, he couldn’t do much if I just overwhelmed him before he could take that control. I rushed him again. He made a wall between us. I went around it…

Huh? Ah! He had gotten on top of it… He jumped off and then made a platform under his feet. Running on air had to be cheating, right? No fair.

He was heading for the catwalks… That must be how he snuck up on me. Whatever. I swung my staff and launched another energy bolt. It went off course, hitting the catwalk. It did surprising damage – that gave me an idea.

I ran to the wall and started throwing more magic at the catwalk until it started to fall apart. Goldie had to turn around, his escape plan foiled. It seemed like he couldn’t do that air running thing for too long, too; the platforms he was making were getting smaller and smaller, and he was getting closer to the ground.

Close enough for me to hit. I rushed over to him and swung. He leapt off the last platform to avoid me; I thought he was going to hit one of his ice blocks at a weird angle, but he used his gauntlets to make a smooth landing for himself and safely rolled to the floor. No matter. I rushed him again. He backpedaled.

Oh, this was great. Our second encounter and I was already getting the upper hand. I swung for his head again-

I tripped. Ice he had made with his sabaton? Goldie kicked me in the side. It didn’t hurt that much, even though it was hard enough to roll me over; guess that protection charm really worked.

I had to get out of this mess, though. There was a block behind me, so I couldn’t roll back. I pushed myself to my feet-

He tripped me again.

Oh. This was that control of the fight thing, huh?

Whoops.

Well, I was on my belly instead of my back now, at least. I crawled forwards. He froze my leg to the ground.

I needed to get him off me. I twisted around and swung my staff, throwing magic out to make space. He backed up a bit. Good.

Argh. I couldn’t reach that ice with my staff. Frustrating.

Wait, aren’t arms and legs pretty similar? I fed that frustration into my leg. It condensed into energy and I felt a tell-tale crackle.

I grinned as the ice shattered. I flipped onto my back, got up in one smooth motion, and lunged for Goldie with my whole body. He dodged to the side and ducked behind nitrogen-ice cover. I used the breather to recharge my staff. It was almost out again… and so was I, actually. I didn’t have much more magic in me at this point. my physical endurance was nearing its limit, too.

I smashed the ice wall in two hits. He wasn’t behind it. Odd. I advanced toward the next likely hiding place. A noise behind me-

Goldie kicked me in the side. I fell backwards into some machine thing. It took me a second to recover-

My arm was frozen to the machine. I threw magic with my staff to get him off me. Damn, I was really tired.

Goldie wasn’t approaching. He looked exhausted, too. And something else. Shock or surprise, maybe.

I panted, “What’s wrong? Where’d… Mister Brave Hero go?”

“Right here. You lose.”

I grinned. “Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you come over and kill me? Scared I’ll bite your head off?”

For just a second, he looked like he actually was.

“Spooked-out pup. If you’ve really won, come over and prove it.”

He didn’t.

With my free hand, I touched my tunnel link and muttered, “Take me home.”

That got him to approach. I swung at him again. It was awkward to wield the staff and hold the link with just one hand, but I could deal. Hopefully the movement didn’t mess it up too much.

He was respecting my staff now. I wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but good for me. Any second now…

The portal appeared. I pumped magic into my arm to break the ice, taunted, “See you ‘round, Goldie!”, and jumped into it. I was pretty sure he couldn’t follow, but he definitely wouldn’t either way. Too cautious.

No sooner had I escaped into the castle than I was tackled to the floor. A bubbling, cacophonous creature of tears wailed, “I can’t believe you! You’re so meaaaaaaan!”

I couldn't help but laugh at that, despite how exhausted I was.

Annette bonked my head. "What the hell's your problem? Jerk! What happened to 'right behind me'?"

"It… wasn't that long, you crybaby."

"I thought you died! Without me!"

"Hey, I said I'd be fine. Are you calling me a liar?"

"Yes!"

I stuck my tongue out and blew a raspberry. "I'm hurt."

"Good. You deserve it."

We lay on the floor for a while I caught my breath.

Eventually, Annette ventured, "So, uh, what happened?"

I grinned deviously. "Oh, dear sister, let me tell you a tale…"