Finding the Path

[Mallory]

((Trigger warning: trauma, panic attack, infertility issues.))

July 7th, 2020 - Riverwatch.

“Tell me what that locker contains.”

“My frozen eggs.”

“And why have you frozen them?”

“...I wanted the option of having biological children with Eri.”

“And do you still want children?”

“Yes.”

“Take that... precious sporting prize, the Key of Fire, from your necklace... and incinerate this box and everything in it.”

* * * * *

The witch’s eyes opened to the darkness of her and Eri’s bedroom at Riverwatch, illuminated only by the soft glow of lights from further down Kabuki Street coming in through their curtained windows. Her eyes ticked restlessly, turned towards the curtains but focusing on nothing, as she tried to take in the details of her surroundings to establish firmly where she was, and where she was not. She could hear her wife breathing in deep sleep behind her -- they were safe, together, in Riverwatch -- but the basement of Grimbard Keep lingered stubbornly in her mind for minutes after the dream had ended.

She went through the facts of her own life and situation, one after another, like a prayer or a mantra. Where she felt safe. Who her family was. How the people who had traumatized her could not do so again.

Eventually the panic ebbed, and she was left with the peace of the pre-dawn hours in their quiet house. She twisted around in bed to watch Eri for a long, silent moment, and wished her sleeping form, “Happy Tanabata,” and kissed her hair before slipping out of bed. The celebration itself would not be for a few more days, but tonight would mark the true Evening of the Seventh, and it deserved celebration.

Two years to the day since they had gotten engaged.

She grabbed a plastic cup off of her nightstand and padded across the room, and across the hall, into the bathroom to refill it at the sink. As she turned the cold water tap, a flicker of light caught her eye... and she looked up at the mirror, seeing a different, deeper and more verdant shade of the usually vibrant green shining in her eyes.

The cup started overflowing, splashing into the sink, and she finally turned the water off as she asked her own reflection, “How long were you watching?”

The Opal of earth and nature had been warily silent since the witch had won it from Runt a week before. Now, at long last, it spoke, a whisper at the edges of her mind that was cautious about stepping any closer: “Since the dream began.”

She set the cup down on the edge of the sink and braced her hands against the porcelain. Her left ring fingernail scraped against her own palm, where the stone dwelt within an arcane pocket of her own blood, as she considered plucking it out and locking it away. “Was this the first time?”

“No.”

Her finger twitched. Her lips flatlined. She restrained herself. “What else did you see?”

“A demon of corruption, and the gluttony of your soul.”

She ran her tongue along the back of her teeth. Quiet for a moment. Thinking... and wondering how much of that PathFinder could hear, or at least surmise. “What do you want?”

“We can help you. The power to sculpt flesh... I can restrain it, make it more precise. Take two cells--”

Skin tore under the pressure of Mallory’s claw-like fingernail, and blood dripped from her palm into the sink. “What do you want.”

The light in her eyes rippled, not chastened but intrigued by the threat. “To learn from you. To learn from each other.”

Her fingernail inched back from her palm. Her tone remained cold and authoritative. “No pacts.”

“Our power has grown. We can wreak irreversible changes on flesh, beyond our own ebb and flow, and show you the subtle ways...”

“And you benefit how?”

“You, blood witch, know how to twist nature to blight and corruption. We would learn this, too.”

“The changes I make to my flesh, to Eri’s -- our child -- it lives beyond your whims.”

“And your knowledge of blight and corruption, we will hold that beyond your custody, no matter how we deign to employ it...”

The witch closed her fingers over the cut, willing it shut, and stared at the fading verdant light in her own reflection. “Then our paths will be unbound.”