Domus

[Anya de la Rose]

January 9th, 2021.

Filth. That was the best way to describe what Ettyn had tracked into her friend's home, slick layers of brown and gray and sickly green that clung to some surfaces and oozed and slopped off of others. She didn't seem to notice the little white rabbit that hopped deftly over her muddy bootprints and watched her passing from beneath a chair near the door. No, her focus was on the three barbed, rubbery, and pustulent tentacles wound around her neck like a grotesque scarf and dragging across the floor from her shoulders. Each one terminated in a spiky eye-mouth that slowly dribbled as much filth as a purple-and-green, bile-like substance that may have been the otyugh's blood -- or closest equivalent.

She'd worn hide armor again, limited protection for fighting something as pointy as this creature had been, but she wasn't ruining her good mail in the damp and corrosive RhyDin sewers. There were several puncture marks around her waist, one behind her ear, and a few slowly healing dark-blooded gashes that ran up to her scalp. The wounds didn't seem to slow her any (what remained of them, anyway), but her face looked clammier than normal...

As she thudded into the kitchen, she pulled a flask from her belt and looked at the filth-slick cork and mouth of the bottle. She grunted, displeased by the inconvenience of the mess, and wiped the flask off on a tea towel, used it to wrench off the cork, and poured a gray, sludge-like concoction into her mouth. It sizzled slightly on contact, and she gritted her teeth as she gulped it down. In a matter of minutes, the extent to which the otyugh's disease had managed to gain a foothold in her corrupted flesh would start to be pushed back.

In the meantime, she heaved the severed ends of the tendrils into the sink and began to massage and express them between the spines, forcing more of the vile bile-like blood out, slowly draining them.

A boar spear, a whip, and a hatchet were all haphazardly laid across the kitchen table. She'd get to those in a minute.

Anya thought she'd heard a commotion in her kitchen. She came into the house from one of the greenhouses, wiping her hands on a towel as she went. Passing through the main room, she made note of the muddy prints and the terrified little rabbit sitting under an armchair. She smiled at it reassuringly before following the tracks to the kitchen. When she saw Ettyn, she wasn't particularly surprised, or at least she didn't act like she was. She stopped in the doorway, scanning the mess that was being made in her kitchen while Ettyn wasted perfectly good reagents in the sink.

After a few minutes she spoke up. "I can finish that if you'd like to use the tub. There are clean towels in there and I took a bunch of those fancy little soaps from the Red Dragon."

The towel she'd been carrying got dropped on the table next to the weapons as she moved farther into the kitchen. She pulled two wine glasses from their cabinet. The bottle of syrah that had been opened the night before got uncorked again and she poured into both. She placed one on the sink next to Ettyn's elbow. "It goes well with a bath. You look like you didn't come out on top by much."

Ettyn had grunted something like a greeting when she'd heard Anya walking in, but her approach hadn't broken her focus. It wasn't until the other woman had suggested a bath that she paused, and took in her surroundings with a little more eye to detail.

Namely, the detail that was the filthy trail she'd tracked from the door to the kitchen, and started to spread around the sink.

She considered this detail, then the wine at her elbow, and Anya as she quietly worked her back teeth together with a click-click-click. "Weapons'll rust if they're left wet," she indicated them. A little more of her "natural" color (such as it was, a slightly gray shade of tan) was returning to her face.

"Yeah. I know how to clean a weapon. Please, go use the bathroom." Anya took a long drink from her own glass of wine. "The rabbit is named Tlapa. He is not food. And I want some of that blood if you're not going to use it for anything."

Finally, she walked over to the kitchen table where the weapons were slowly drying. A look at Ettyn told her she wasn't likely to drop dead immediately and she could see signs of what equated to health for her creeping back in. Anya turned her attention back to the weapons. "I'm going to take these outside..."

Ettyn stared at Anya for a long moment, jet black eyes narrowed slightly... then shrugged and grabbed a kitchen knife, raising it to the partly-healed gash behind her ear. If it was blood she wanted...

"No no no! Not yours! The," Anya waved at the thing in the sink and explained in a rush, "I can't remember what it's called right now please don't cut your ear off." She suppressed a shudder as she topped off her wine.

The blade stopped before it could touch her skin, and Ettyn cracked a toothy grin. "Otyugh pus. Knock yourself out, princess -- it's not enough to square what I owe you." She set the knife down with a clatter, snatched up the glass of wine, and meandered to the bathroom.

There was a grunt, a stumble, and the hissed swear "mothers-pissing hop-lops" along the way; as well as the slick sounds of wet hide laces being pulled open. Soon she was running the taps, and things slapped and slopped as she found a wash basin for her hide armor.

"Fifty make us square?" she called from the bathroom. For how low and raspy it was, her voice could carry pretty well.

Fifty what was definitely the question on Anya's mind. But she honestly wasn't sure she wanted to know. "We're square. Don't worry about it. Just run whatever you have a contract in by me so I get the good bits."

[Anya de la Rose]

Anya decided to focus on getting the rest of the monster parts handled before the weapons. It was a thing from the sewer, who knew what it would smell like if it was allowed to remain intact in her kitchen for long. One last mouthful of wine before she pushed her sleeves up and approached the sink. She didn't have anything immediately useful for catching the pus and she hasn't lived there long enough to amass any sort of jar collection. She picked up an empty coffee tin from where it has been waiting to be recycled or repurposed and started draining tentacles. She swallowed hard at the smell more than once.

"They only need the eyemouths," Ettyn called back. "The tendrils reduce to a good scouring paste -- kill and eat away any flesh you soak in it long enough. Take all of it if you want." Beat. "The spikes are slightly acidic. Hold it to your nose, it deadens the smell." Maybe she should have mentioned that sooner?

"You certain about the fifty silver, princess?" She paused to drain her wine with an audible gulp. "That can buy a good whore. A long one," and it sounded like she'd slapped the water for emphasis.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Anya replied, but she was laughing at the slap. "Eyemouths," she said to herself, quietly. She lifted the tentacle in her hand up in front of her face. To her horror, she was getting used to the smell. By the time the coffee tin was full, she'd gotten into a nice rhythm. The three tentacles got dragged back out through the main room and out through the greenhouse in the side yard to sit on the frozen ground. Someone who knew what they were doing could take on turning them into a paste.

There were a few small splashes from the bathroom, and cabinet doors creaking open and shut. "Fucking piss-mongers..." Ettyn muttered, then called out, "Which one is the liquor cabinet?"

On the heels of it, the slayer added: "Where'd you learn to carve monsters. That's not landowner work, for most."

"It's not that different from cleaning any other kill." Anya was back in the kitchen and working on getting the guts off of the weapons. It was colder than she'd thought outside. She would just deal with cleaning the kitchen when the work was done. "It smells worse, that's for sure. But monsters aren't rare where I'm from. Or they weren't until recently. The modern world is creeping in."

She stopped talking to squint at the weapons. She couldn't tell if some of this was old or new. Her guess was that it was all new and just drying very quickly in the heat from the fire she had going. Ettyn didn't seem like the type to risk old blood on a weapon. She didn't risk using anything on the metal just in case it was something she hadn't handled before. Just elbow grease and a little scraping with her thumbnail.

The blood and ichor all seemed new, from within the last couple of hours. It came off easily enough... as far as otyugh-ichor went.

The weapons themselves seemed well-used, but there was something resilient about the steel... and dark-colored, like a passing reflection of something unseen when shifted and examined. The hafts had been broken and replaced, but it seemed the steel itself had never needed to be reforged...

[Anya de la Rose]

"You hunted, before you were fully grown?" Ettyn asked. It sounded like she was searching the bathroom cabinets. "I did. My aunt was a ranger."

"No, the men did. I didn't start to do the work until I was older. It wasn't considered uh, proper? If I'd stayed I never would have learned." Anya was bent low over the weapons on the table, switching through rags as needed.

"Did your aunt raise you, then?" Asking about parents was always risky in RhyDin, but she didn't think Ettyn was the type to get upset about her past. She finally set the hatchet and spear aside, looking satisfied, and picked up the whip to address it.

"She did, from... around the time I learned my letters, until I was old enough to drink her cellar dry. My mother, before then. My father... well." There was a humorless laugh. "I learned something from each of them. Weapons and armor from my mother, hunting and tracking from my aunt, and killing men from my father."

The whip seemed to be in reasonable shape, but in need of a thorough cleaning that would pick the filth out from the braiding before it started to weaken and rot the leather. Like the steel, though, it seemed a little stronger... harder... rather strangely colored, dark considering it came from one of the large grazing animals that trundled through the Wilds.

"Why did you leave?" The question was punctuated by Ettyn unwrapping something... perhaps the RDI-branded soaps. It landed in the tub with a splash, and a grunted "whoops." Then there was a thoughtful hum, a plastic lid unscrewing, and a long, loud WHIFF. "Oh, what have we here..." Liquid burbled into her empty wine glass.

"It was boring. That's it. No good reason. What did you find?" She didn't think there was anything exciting in there. She finished her inspection of the whip. At least this one she knew what to do with. She stood up and retrieved a shoebox sized case from a cabinet, then filled a bowl with warm water and got new rags. The leather soap made quick work of the blood and guts. She wiped it down and set it aside to dry off before taking a clean rag and applying a thin coat of oil to the blades. They could still rust, after all.

"Liquor. Earthling, I guess-- the bottle's plastic. Smells minty." Ettyn coughed and wheezed. "Tastes minty, too," she rasped. "So, boredom... What did you go looking for?"

One eyebrow raised, Anya looked in the direction of the bathroom. She was certain there wasn't liquor in there. "Uh, I don't think you're supposed to drink anything in there... I was looking for a life that didn't involve quite so much dancing and dinner parties. So I headed for RhyDin, ended up in some other realms and planes, and I'm back." A vast oversimplification, obviously, but true enough. "Right around the time I left civilization was finding us." Her sneer was audible. "My little town was getting absorbed by new social orders and new titles. That's not to say my father didn't run it well."

The whip was clean. It was getting treated with a leather oil. "You grew up outside of RhyDin too, right?"

There was an affirmative grunt from the bathroom. "Far side of the Wilds, on the edge of what was the Dominion. Fort Tiamori, up near the headwaters of that river. Marauders to the east... beasts to the west. Harder living than most places here in the city. More death by plague and starvation."

Liquid burbled again. "So you're the daughter of a country lord... and by the time you left, things were getting more lordly. And they'd be getting more ladylike for you." It sounded like Ettyn was sneering at that idea, too. And then she was wheezing again. "I know this isn't cleaner. That stuff burns the air. This tastes like... I don't know. Hag moonshine."

Minty... "Ettyn, I think that's mouthwash. Was it with the soap? It's for your teeth. You're supposed to spit it out." She gathered the dirty rags into a pile. They were probably for outside use only now. "How did you end up in RhyDin? It seems tame compared to that."

"Got exiled from the fort. There are other places in the Wilds... but..." Ettyn coughed and wheezed. She may have had that second glass anyway. "You ever been to a frontier brothel, princess?"

Anya washed her hands and arms and picked up her glass again before answering. "No, I havent." She didn't elaborate in what, if any, types she had been to. It seemed safer to keep Ettyn on topic.

Anya had fully embraced the technology of refrigerators. She opened hers now and retrieved a container of leftover root vegetable stew. Carrots, parsnips, squash, and other winter basics. She dumped it all into a pot that she kept hanging over the perpetual fire in the hearth. She hadn't gotten around to learning ovens yet.

"You're lucky." Ettyn spoke idly, her voice echoing from the bathroom while Anya cooked. "Frontier brothels are all knobby cocks, mossy cunts, and rancid mouths. The bars are all mushroom ale, spruce beer, and cellar gin. And fucking everyone's too poor to pay decently for killing monsters. They set their own kinds of trade in the Wilds... and trade like that doesn't fill my bed, or my belly."

Mercifully, it didn't sound like she'd refilled her wineglass. Yet. She may have been studying the bottle, though... "...Why is there alcohol in it if you're supposed to spit it out?"

The description was shocking, but not when it came from Ettyn. Anya laughed quietly. Food was heating, weapons were clean, the monster bits were out of the house. Without any more work to do, she carried her wine into the front room and took a seat in her favorite armchair.

"I think it's, you know, like how you can pour liquor on a wound. It cleans things." She'd never considered that puzzle before.

"But any liquor you don't pour on the flesh is still good for drinking. Only silver lining to when I'm torn open so bad that I have to stitch myself back together... is I'm always pissed by the time I'm done." Ettyn's raspy laugh sounded from the bathroom. Water sloshed around, then dripped -- sounded like she was getting out, and finding towels. And a robe, if there was one to be had. "Is there wine out there?"

"There's always wine out here," Anya replied. "One of my tenants has a vineyard and an orchard. He's been doing pretty well the past few years. He sends cases to me. There's a robe on the back of the door -- please feel free to use it."

[Anya de la Rose]

((TW: miscarriage))

While Anya waited, she worked on coaxing the little rabbit out from hiding. She was making decent progress through the use of carrot scraps that had been left over from her stew making.

And Ettyn could be quiet, especially with bare feet, and knew how to creep up on an animal. Floorboards barely creaked while Anya coaxed the animal out. She circled the edge of the living room slowly, to a chair that put her near enough to Anya to speak with ease, but out of the rabbit's path. "You're cooking something. Stew?"

Her hair had been dried, and she was pulling it back into a ponytail that looked almost painfully tight, as she usually did.

"Yeah, it's just leftovers from last night. They should be ready in a few minutes for you." The little rabbit had finally emerged and was happily snacking on carrot peelings. Anya stood up now that it seemed to be comfortable. "What kind of wine do you prefer?"

She left her own glass behind on one of the side tables.

"Strong. Red." That... seemed to be it. Ettyn leaned forward in her chair to dangle her fingers, rubbing them together lightly, and made a little click-click noise with her mouth. Terrifying as she could be, she had some skill with animals -- and not just the ones she'd hacked to bits.

"So you ventured out there... learned some things. Why RhyDin, now. Why this dirty city?"

"Oh, I was here a long time ago. It wasn't like this. It still wasn't normal but it wasn't this." Anya disappeared into the kitchen. There were sounds of food being spooned and stacked. When she returned she was, against all laws of gravity, balancing a tray with two bowls of the stew, place settings, a small boule of bread and in the other hand, an opened bottle of wine.

"I left here a little under twenty years ago and ended up in those other realms and planes I mentioned. I went home about twelve years ago and," she interrupted herself to slide the tray on to the table between their seats and put the open bottle next to it. "Things changed again. I got lonely. I came back."

She noted that the little rabbit had decided Ettyn wasn't a threat. It had happily hopped across the room to sniff at the offer fingers and was now flopped on its side in front of the fire. Either it was made of stronger magic than she thought, or it was as smart as your average rabbit.

Ettyn tore off a hunk of bread with greedy fingers, dunking it deep into the stew and scooping up as much as she could with it. She ate like she had nothing but drink in her belly, which was probably true. "Hm," she grunted at the idea of loneliness, neither dismissing it outright, nor indicating if it was something she felt, either. "For love or company," she asked bluntly, and tore off another hunk of bread to soak and scoop up stew. Jet black eyes studied the rabbit as she rolled a bit of carrot between her fingers.

"That I was looking for?" She hadn't touched her food yet. She was settling in with another glass of wine instead. She didn't seem concerned with the fact that she was pouring a different varietal on top of the glass she'd just finished. Maybe she'd invent a good new blend this way, even if that wasn't exactly the way these things work.

Swirling the wine in her right hand, she pulled off a chunk of bread with her left. She tilted her head side to side, thinking. "Companionship, I guess. I'm not sure love is for me. I have bad luck. And I don't know if you'd noticed but there aren't many people in this city who haven't found their match. So it's a good thing I didn't have my hopes up." The fire was dying down, rather than put a log in it just yet, she waved the bread at it. It crawled in the indicated direction, towards an unburnt portion of the logs she'd placed earlier.

"What about you? Did you grow up wanting kids, marriage, all of that?"

Ettyn snorted. "I've noticed, about the matches. And no... I'd never had any interest in the shitty dead-ends I always saw around the fort, except for the grave I dug for myself." She finally stopped eating to take up her glass of wine. She wasn't a slow sipper. She took a taste to know what to expect, and two greedy gulps followed. She let out a low, raspy sigh, a barely suppressed growl, and itched a thumbnail into the deep old scars around her mouth.

"A kid, though. I don't know." Black eyes met Anya's. "For a while... I thought I'd mentor some little shit like my aunt did for me. And it wouldn't be so bad." She clarified, with a lopsided grin and a gesture to her own eyes, "That was before the curse."

The smile she gave Ettyn was sympathetic. "How long have you been cursed?" she asked. She couldn't ignore the need for more wood on the fire. Reluctantly, she stood up from the very comfortable spot she'd made herself and crossed the room to throw more logs on from the nearby pile. She poked them critically until they got to where she wanted them. All executed with one hand still holding a glass.

She recognized that this probably wasn't Ettyn's favorite topic and wondered if she shouldn't have asked. But the words were out now. She stared at the fire for a minute and took a sip of the wine, watching it catch.

Ettyn gave a far-away look... but as it went on, it became clearer that it was more about trying to number the years than any great discomfort. "Little as twelve... as many as fourteen," she reckoned, and tipped her wine back again. Another gulp finished the glass. "I don't farm, and I don't hunt anything that sleeps for years at a time-- I don't range that far south," she explained, idly. She didn't clarify what monster she was referring to, there, that had a cicada-like cycle. "I track the seasons. Days only mean anything when it comes to certain contracts, or chasing wounded prey. Years..." She waved a hand slowly, dismissively, and moved from her seat to grab the bottle and refill her glass. She tipped it towards Anya's in silent offer.

At the offer of a refill, Anya crossed the room again and held her glass out for a top off. It wasn't a big room, just a few steps and she was back to where they'd been sitting. "While we're asking personal question, how did you get exiled? If I remember, it was before the unicorn incident."

Ettyn shook her head as she reclaimed her seat with a long sigh, sinking into the cushions. "No... You're thinking of the warg incident. That didn't get me exiled-- just knocked down from scouting to guarding the fort wall, and put me on starving pay. It was the drunk and hungry winter after that I murdered a pure and trusting unicorn, just to fill my belly," she said with a dry chuckle. She took another gulp of wine, then lowered it partway, pausing. Her head lifted to Anya.

"...I think it was the eyes. Few have been good at meeting my eyes, since they changed. No one in Fort Tiamori could stand to look at me, and what they meant I'd done... so, they made sure they wouldn't have to. Just another part of that smug fucking unicorn's curse," and she cracked a slow grin before another sip of her wine.

"Hunh," Anya made a derisive sound like half a laugh. "Guess they don't get a lot of variety up there if it's the eyes that did it." She plopped back down into her seat. She still hadn't eaten anything and was beyond the point of attempting to maintain grace. Picking up that hunk of bread again, she waved a hand to her bowl. "You can have mine if you're still hungry."

As if to emphasize that she really didn't plan to eat it, she tucked her feet up under herself and leaned on the arm of the chair opposite the food. A pitch black cat, looking like it had never missed a meal in its life, meandered in from the greenhouse. Anya watched it as it padded across the floor and sat in front of the fire, companionably close to the rabbit.

Ettyn watched the cat and the rabbit closely, first expecting the rabbit to run, then the cat to take advantage of its complacency. She looked... a little put out that no such thing occurred. "Elves, orcs, humans and halflings. There's witches, but they're more... draughts and poultices. Simple curses. Not much like what you see in this mad city." She leaned forward to scoop up Anya's bowl of stew, slurping down most of the broth in a few gulps.

"I can't blame them. They're all fucking assholes," she stressed as she started scooping up the rest of the stew with a spoon, "but I can't blame them." She paused after her next bite, opening a hand. "I'm lucky, too. They could have plucked out my eyes." There was another grin.

"Well sure. That's one way to look at it. If you want to be optimistic." Anya sipped her wine while she considered the many alternatives to simple exile. "Have you ever gone back?"

She visibly restrained herself from spitting on her friend's floor, and swallowed her spit instead. "No. Like I said... they're still assholes. I left with five things-- my hatchet, my boar spear, my short sword, my crossbow, and my last bottle of rum. Nothing and no one else in Fort Tiamori is worth a beggar's morning shit."

By that, Anya guessed that her aunt wasn't around anymore. She fell silent for a minute, watching the fire and her new little companions sitting in front of it. "I go home sometimes," she volunteered. "Help with the work, or make myself present for some major festivals."

She took a longer drink from her glass. "Actually, it's been a few months now. They don't really need me."

"What are you to them." Ettyn was rolling a hunk of bread into a doughy ball between her fingers, and stopped to angle another grin at her. "It's not princess, is it." She looked a little hopeful.

She laughed and shook her head, then squinted trying to puzzle it out. "Not a princess. Maybe? A Duchess? I think that would be about right. They don't call me that. And they're not my subjects. They really are my tenants."

Her head tilted side to side, considering. "I think I'm mostly a disappointment to them. I can't say I have many friends there." Another long drink and she plunked the empty glass down on the table.

Ettyn let out another long sigh that was closer to a low growl, half-grumbled, as she considered this. She rose again, refilling Anya's glass unless stopped. "What do your tenants expect of you. And what do you do." Still questions, but delivered dryly, flatly.

"Right now? I spend time in the city negotiating trade deals for them. That guy who sends me all the wine? I'm working on getting him deals with some restaurants here. I adjusted taxes to a percent of income. No aids or flat amounts they can't always make." Anya accepted the refill gratefully. "They expect heirs and balls."

She shrugged a shoulder. Sipped her wine. "That didn't work out. I think the younger ones recognize that I'm trying to help. They still don't want to talk to me."

It was the most she'd ever shared about the past decade of her life. The wine was certainly helping.

"I can show them balls," Ettyn said as she dropped back to the edge of her seat, and tipped back the bottle to drain what little remained. "Only fifty silver and there'll be a decent cock to go with them, too." She set the bottle down on the floor and folded her arms over her knees, trying to get comfortable again. The bath had helped, but there was a wince when she stretched. "Do they know what happens to them when you die? Who their new landowner would be?"

Fifty silver still seemed like so little to her for that kind of service. But who was she to judge? "That um, I'm still working that out. For now, I try not to die."

"Don't think they're too fucked whether the next landowner's coming from your cunt or somewhere down the road, as long as they know," Ettyn said. "Most country lords I run into have a majordomo for the estate, and an elder or mayor for the village or any homesteads. Less for the lord to do, and easier to figure something out if the lord suddenly," she jerked a thumb across her throat and made a sharp noise.

"There are some who would do it. Just not many yet who could."

Anya took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "They hate me. Most don't know they do and almost none would admit it, even to themselves. But they do. They saw me run away, and they saw me come back after my parents died, married and hopeful."

Her eyes dropped, her wine glass had her full attention. "They blame me for him leaving. He always wanted children, and it wasn't him. He had two before me and three more after. But...," she sounded like she was apologizing. "He had no magic in him at all. He was like a black hole. We almost managed it then..."

She glanced up, meeting Ettyn's eyes briefly before her own gaze slid away to the middle distance. "I think I killed them. My magic did."

"You think you killed your partner and his brood?" Ettyn clarified. "What'd you almost manage?" There was a lot it seemed the slayer didn't quite catch the meaning of, trying to link and separate the different pieces laid out before her.

Anya laughed despite herself. "We almost managed children but it never... made it all the way. I didn't kill him. I didn't kill his children either. He's dead. But I didn't do it." She finished the wine in her glass.

"You said--" Ettyn started, then stopped. It wasn't clear that the slayer could feel shame, but this was close to it. Understanding dawned on her, silently. She rubbed her face, pulling at the scars around her mouth. "Same."

Anya seemed surprisingly unbothered by the misunderstanding. She'd never talked about it before. It wasn't a surprise she hadn't gotten the words out right. The wine was helping to soften the edges of whatever she could feel about the situation anyway. "Well, what an unfortunate thing to have in common."

[Anya de la Rose]

The light was fading outside. She pushed off her chair and moved on autopilot. All of the windows, doors and blinds got closed. All of the locks got checked for the night. Ettyn liked to joke that she tempted fate, but even she wasn't confident enough to leave the doors unlocked in RhyDin at night, here on the edge of the Old Temple district.

Once the house was shut up, she sat down again. "I never asked where you've been staying in the city."

Ettyn had recovered a pipe by the time Anya returned from closing up the house, packing it with tobacco. At her words, she was pausing and scrubbing her face again, but the thoughtful expression was less intense this time. "Flophouses, mostly. Sometimes the Dragon or the Perch if I'm feeling fancy. But I don't always sleep in the city."

"You know you're always welcome here, right?" Anya tucked her feet up under herself again. "I can ward the place so you're able to enter even if I'm not home." While she was very certain that Ettyn didn't need someone to look out for her, she also knew the importance of having somewhere safe after a fight. Or after a bad card game.

Ettyn continued to pack the pipe, looking between her work and Anya. "I have a chest of weapons... armor... other gear. Could I leave that here?"

"Just one? Sure, that's easy. There's space." Anya nodded towards the only remaining seating area in the room, a couch. "As long as you don't mind that when you stay here. It's not one of those fancy ones that turns in to a bed, but if you take the back cushions off it does the job."

"Fancier than what I'm used to. ...Thanks, Anya." The gratitude came out after a pause, and her real name, a pretty uncommon thing from the killer. "I'll be around back," she said with a gesture to indicate the pipe, seeming not to mind the idea of being outside for a while in a warm bath robe.

The use of an actual name didn't escape her notice. "Everyone deserves a safe place," she told Ettyn by way of simple explanation. "I'm going to get some sleep."

She pushed off her seat and moved into her bedroom. Once she was sure Ettyn would be outside, she quietly entered the bathroom, picked up a piece of that bloody clothing, and ran a finger along the dry blood that lined one of the tears in the fabric. She returned to the sitting room and tapped that finger on the front door knob and on the door to the greenhouses, speaking a few quiet words each time. She knew Ettyn was aware that she had wards, but something told her the maintenance and modifications of them weren't something her friend needed to be totally privy to.

Wiping her hand off on her pants she returned to her bedroom. She retrieved a pillow and several warm blankets from a chest at the foot of her bed. She dropped them on the couch for Ettyn to find when she came back inside.

Work done, she retreated again, closing the door to her bedroom behind her.

[Death Knell]

February 2nd, 2021.

A roughly gnome-sized egg with a bright red shell lay in front of the hearth, swaddled in blankets of various furs and tanned hides: owlbear, winter wolf, mountain wyvern, and great stag. It was enough of a nest that the shell itself was scarcely visible, though it still pulsed visibly every so often--

--about as often as the slayer currently sprawled out on the couch snored, once a minute or so. She'd spent the previous day killing, drinking, and winning the egg off of a gnome named Tippletoe as a prize in what she'd understood as a game of wits. A full and exhausting schedule for a monster slayer.

The black cat Anya had taken to calling V (short for The Void) was adding his own warmth to the pile. He'd been eyeing those furs for weeks, ever since Ettyn had started sleeping under them, but had known better than to try to share when the slayer was occupying them. He was curled around the egg, back to the hearth.

When Anya emerged from her bedroom, her top priority was the egg. She padded across the floor on bare feet, less concerned about waking Ettyn than she was about attracting the attention of anything should it have started hatching. After confirming that the egg was still intact, she exhaled. "It's going to eat you," she told the cat. The cat stared back.

Before moving off to the kitchen, she rearranged the blankets. She was three steps away before she stopped, turned to face the hearth, and walked back. Anya crouched down next to the egg. She reached both hands out and laid them on the bit of visible shell. It took a moment to find her focus with the insistent pulsing under her hands. When she did, she spoke quietly to whatever was in there while she directed heat from the fire over the shell.

The next pulse could be heard, or felt. And whatever it heard, it had one word in reply to the one redirecting heat through its shell:

"More."

She snatched her hands back when she heard the word. "You should move," she told the cat. She slid an arm under him and levered the dead weight to standing. With an indignant flick of the tail, V marched to the other side of the hearth where he sat down and stared at Anya. Anya didn't notice: she hadn't stopped watching the egg.

"Ettyn," she raised her voice to a conversational level. "It's awake." Whatever was in there was Ettyn's to sort out anyway. She had gone as far as she intended to on her own.

[Death Knell]

Often, Ettyn awoke with a curse or a grumble, but not this time. The tone, and the fact that there could be a monster -- her jet black eyes cracked open, and one hand closed around a pick-hammer underneath the couch as she slid to her feet. She coughed dryly, but didn't go for water or anything yet. She padded slowly towards the hearth, giving the weapon a quick spin. "What's it doing," she grunted.

"MORE," the egg seemed to insist with its next pulse, and through it tried to compel Anya's hands back to the shell. It was hungry -- for heat, magic, and life essence.

"It's trying to hatch." Anya was still crouching by the egg. She shoved her hands between her knees and squeezed them together. "It wants more heat I think. Do you hear it?"

She took her eyes off the egg only long enough to look at Ettyn. Her concern was clear in her eyes. They said, Please tell me you can hear it.

"I can. Doesn't want your heat, princess. It wants your life," Ettyn said. V was lucky he was such a small snack -- too small to have risked arousing suspicion over.

At the same moment that the egg pulsed with another wave of compulsion, trying to overwhelm Anya's mind with the impulse to lay hands on it again? Ettyn was putting the weapon out in front of her as if to say, Get back.

"MORE. Not from you... you have nothing," the voice rumbled like a storm as soon as the slayer became the nearer of the two.

The compulsion had the opposite effect on Anya. She rocked back on to her heels, stood up, and took two quick steps back from the egg. It was cooler here: she shivered with the temperature change and the effort of throwing up the mental walls she'd built. Her breathing slowed, her gaze steadied on the egg. "What do you want to do to it?" Not with it.

"Red tempest... a storm that doesn't touch shingles or shutters, just feeds on life and kills whatever it touches," Ettyn growled, and spared a look out of the corner of her eye at Anya. "Let's take it to the graveyard."

"NO!"

The slayer seemed unmoved by its fury or its insistence. Irritated, maybe. She didn't provide it much of a foothold. "I know you can make a firestorm... but what about ice," she asked Anya.

"How much?" Anya asked as she looked outside. The snow from the day before hadn't melted. If anything, more had built up overnight. She looked back to the egg. "Open the door." She didn't move. The fire in the hearth went out in an instant.

"I WILL CONSUME HER IF YOU TRY."

Ettyn looked at Anya for her request, then the egg for its threat. The weapon spun in her hand and she took a powerful step towards it, and something shimmered in the egg shell, defending itself in a panic--

--and black mist wreathed around her, whisking her away and depositing her at the door, which she threw open with her shoulder.

Anya's hands were open at her sides. When she saw Ettyn start to move she turned them, right palm to the doorway, left to the egg. She started a heartbeat too early. In the wake of Ettyn's disappearance, a thin trail of the mist pulled towards her right hand. Then the door opened and it was just the cold.

Snow blowing in through an open door could have been pretty. This wasn't. The banks outside the door were picked up by a straight line wind and carried in to the house. Anya took a step closer to the egg, setting her feet to keep her balance. She was moving her left hand, palm still out towards the egg, like she was buffing it with a cloth until it had a thin coating of ice over the shell.

The ice froze any small life around the egg, killed countless tiny and unseen things. The bright red shell gleamed, as it attempted to siphon Anya's life as soon as she stepped closer.

But she wasn't the only one approaching it. The slayer thudded her way back from the door. She dropped to a knee and threw her arms around the frozen egg and said, "Keep laying it on." As she shifted her grasp around its slippery surface, it looked as if dark, misty mirror images of her limbs were grasping it too, the ice thickening and crystallizing where they touched.

The proximity of the death-cursed slayer seemed to be blocking its attempts to find life to siphon away -- and the continued use of her blighted magic was only making its situation worse.

Ettyn's charge had nearly knocked Anya off balance. She was still channeling in the cold, having hit her stride and finding plenty of source in the weather. She could see what Ettyn was doing. She took another step forward. Her right hand turned again, angling towards Ettyn.

There was enough of the mist and enough of a wind in the house that at first it looked like a gust had pushed some towards her. It concentrated around the palm she'd turned to her friend and became a steady line, connecting them. Her left hand kept moving, slowly distributing the ice. Black mist crawled from her fingertips, wrapping around the hand. Where she directed the spell, the ice took on a dark, dirty tint, the same color as the black mist seeping into her...

[Death Knell]

Ettyn's curse was two things: hunger, and pain.

The hunger was not unlike what the red tempest currently dying in its egg felt. It was a gnawing, not in the pit of the stomach but somewhere deeper and not quite reachable, in the heart and in the soul. It was a vast and yawning hollowness that demanded that life be fed into it, not just any life but life that could stand to destroy her, for the abyss sought ever to draw her in, too.

The pain was not what she may have felt in the moment, the biting chill in her bare feet and seeping into her bones, but every wound. Every injury. Every ache, and not merely the aches of flesh -- this was a secret that the slayer had kept from her, until now. The pain of heartbreak and ridicule and mourning tore from within. Only death could sate it, and pleasure was the rope dangling just out of reach, to pull oneself from drowning in the abyss to only waist-deep in it -- the thrill of the hunt, the wild numbness of drink, the warmth of passion, or however one preferred to get their easy, impulsive hit of fleeting happiness.

Darkness clouded the senses, and may have obscured her friend's fist swinging to the side of her head, aiming to break her concentration with its dizzying impact.

The egg was frozen over, three times over, and surrounded by a slowly drifting black miasma prone to sudden and violent, bolt-like twitches. The unhatched tempest was full to bursting with what it considered poison.

"FUCK!" The only sound in the suddenly silent house was Anya's yell and her hitting the ground with a thud. One hand flew to the side of her head, the other arm wrapped around her stomach, squeezing against rolling nausea.

She glared up at her friend from her seat on the floor. "Why the fuck did you hit me?" she growled. "It was working." Her narrowed eyes were darker than Ettyn had seen them before. The blue in them had bleed away to a deep gray.

The slayer's pitch black eyes regarded Anya there on the floor, showing no sign of remorse for striking her friend -- her expression was twisted in too much agony. Something had been siphoned out of her, and it demanded to be fed. "Yeah... it was changing you. Should see yourself," she grunted, and turned back to the egg.

"...blighter... despoiler..." it hissed weakly into the air.

"You're one to talk," she growled at it, and heaved the pick end of her weapon through the miasma and into the ice. She pinned her foot against it, wrenched the weapon with the sound of cracking ice, and heaved into it again.

It collapsed, making her stumble into a heap against the wall by the hearth, and the crumbling ice and dissipating miasma revealed mounds of glittering red dust. The tempest was dead.

Anya made it up to her knees and sat back on her heels. She pressed her palms together and tucked them between her knees, flexing her fingers so the nails bit in to the opposite thigh and released, over and over. They were buzzing painfully after the channeling. She watched the egg splinter and Ettyn fall.

It took a few tries, rocking herself forward and back, before Anya had enough momentum to stand. She swayed on her feet. At first she looked like she was going to help Ettyn up. Before she headed in that direction, she was interrupted, her focus turned inward. She spun and came as close to bolting as she could. The door to her bedroom had barely slammed shut before she could very clearly be heard wretching in the bathroom.

She got it over with as quickly as possible. Moments later she emerged, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. She seemed steadier on her feet.

[Death Knell]

By the time Anya returned, Ettyn had not moved from her spot on the floor, leaned against the wall by the hearth, shivering, dark eyes lowered. The mist from the slain tempest had long since faded into her, but it had been a pretty severe low that she had finally fed. Her eyes did not quite meet Anya's. There was a rare restlessness and uncertainty in the way they ticked back and forth, as if desperately searching for an answer or escape in the small details around her. "You look in a mirror?" she croaked. She was clutching her right wrist, her thumb covering the jagged scar there.

"No." Anya walked past Ettyn and the cracked egg. "What did that do to you?" That was as specific as she was going to get right now. She pushed the door to the kitchen open. Cabinets banged and there was a sound of pieces of tempered glass scraping together.

"The tempest... barely a fucking thing. But when you sucked away part of my curse... the curse got hungry. Gnawing, painful hunger... and killing it... fed it. For now." Ettyn's dark eyes finally moved to the remains of the egg. Her weapon could be heard scraping across the floor, hauled back into her hands. "Good money in this powder," she grunted.

Anya returned to the room with two jars. They'd been of the same mind. She returned to kneeling next to the remains, scooping even portions into each jar.

"What do you need to do now? What makes this feel better?" Her smokey eyes flicked up to Ettyn. There was more than casual curiosity in the line of questioning. "Eat? Drink?" She rocked on to her heels and up again. She placed the two jars on the mantle and finally offered a hand to Ettyn.

Ettyn met her gaze... and finally took her hand, getting back to her feet with a grunt of effort. She didn't let go yet, studying her closely. "Only killing makes it feel any better... but it feeds it, too. Don't kill. Let it hurt. You can starve it out," she said firmly, and let go. Her eyes fell to the mess in the living room, and the snow still blowing in. She sighed and moved to start cleaning things up, for a change -- though she kept an eye out for any rabbit or cat tracks across the doorway.

It didn't appear that either V or Tlapa had bolted during the fray.

Anya was staring at the egg shards when a new gust of frigid air turned her attention to the open door. The track the wind had taken was clear from the debris. She echoed Ettyn's sigh and lifted her hands, making a shooing motion with them to conjure up a gentle breeze and send the mess back where it came from. The wind that kicked up shoved the door shut so quickly the bang shook the house. Behind Ettyn, Anya hissed through her teeth. "Shit."

She was staring at her hands, turning them over and back again.

"...Your magic smells blighted," Ettyn growled. Like her own. The slayer turned from the door to Anya, considering for a few moments longer. "Casting makes the hunger a little worse." She made her way closer again, looking her over. "Your eyes are gray."

"They've always been gray." Anya wasn't wrong, but they had previously been a slate blue. Any tint of color was gone, leaving them dull and sooty. She stepped back, keeping distance.

"Not this gray. Like stone. They had blue before." Stubbornly, Ettyn belabored the point as she watched her. "Drink and do whatever pleases you. That's not the curse that I'm feeding with liquor and a good lay... it's me," she chuckled, but didn't crack a full grin. Not while knowing what she may go through in the days ahead.

"So I'll take a few days off of the magic. Can I still drink, or will that make it last longer too?" Anya came even with the shell again. The shards cut into her bare feet. Too late, she realized she should put shoes on when there may be a monster in the house.

The slayer started picking up the pieces of shell from the floor next. "Drink and do whatever pleases you. That's not the curse that I'm feeding with liquor and a good lay... it's me," she chuckled, but didn't crack a full grin. Not while knowing what she may go through in the days ahead.

"Baths. Hot baths help, but only for a little while," she added, piling the shell pieces into a pan. "Not sure how much these are worth..." She hadn't had experience with tempest hatchlings before.

"It's uncomfortable." Anya hadn't lost her flair for descriptive language. She lifted her foot to pull a shard out of her heel.The blood that coated it was a deep wine red. She squinted at it critically. "I'll keep the shell. I can powder it."

"Fine," Ettyn nodded, then thumped the couch and held out her arm to help Anya hobble over. "You heal quicker... but beast medicine works better. Salve made from strong places... heart, liver, spine marrow... speeds it up," she said, searching her things to produce a familiar tub of acrid-smelling speckled gray paste.

Anya flopped down next to her, too exhausted and nauseous to maintain any grace. Her stomach heaved again when the tub was opened. "How do you ever eat anything?" She'd gone beyond pale to pallid. Maybe a little clammy. Her skin was crawling. "As it turns out, all this is making me want to do is sleep."

"Turns out making stupid choices is exhausting." Finally, Ettyn cracked a grin again. "We'll set you right," she grunted, whether she meant her foot or her partly-cursed state, and got to work.

[Anya de la Rose]

February 3rd, 2021.

Anya had spent the previous day freezing cold and feverish in turn. She had paced the length of the small house a hundred times, using the pain in her rapidly mending heel as a focal point. When she did fall asleep, it wasn't for long. By midnight, she was awake. She had curled in to a ball on her side, arms wrapped around her stomach which, now that the nausea was gone, growled insistently.

She swung her legs out of bed and winced as they hit the cold floor. The fire was out. Quietly, she pulled the door to her room open further. It was darker in the front room than she'd ever seen it. The fire hadn't gone out since she'd moved in. She found the hearth by memory, aided by the glow of a few embers buried in the ash pile. She crouched down before it and walked her fingers along the floor until she found the small pile of wood she'd laid out. Carefully, she stacked the logs around the embers, then leaned forward and blew on the glow until they ignited and caught the fresh fuel. The new light helped her to stoke the fire in a way she judged would last the rest of the night.

When she stood up, she turned to the couch where she was unsurprised to find Ettyn under her furs. She stayed, back to the fire, until she felt thawed enough to move again. It wasn't a large room, a few quick steps brought her next to the couch. Slowly, she reached out and pulled the slipped furs up so her friend was covered again.

Her stomach demanded her attention again. She walked in to the kitchen and used the light from the fire to locate what she thought she needed. When she passed back through the sitting room, she was carrying a hunk of bread, an apple, and a bottle of wine. She propped the door to her room open to take advantage of the heat and got to work trying to fall asleep again.

* * * * *

At an indeterminate point in the dark haze that was the witching hour, the slayer stirred under her piled furs. The fire was going, a sure sign that her friend was awake. She grit her teeth and kneaded and pulled at her lower back, as if trying to pull something back together; then sat up and stretched her arms and neck with an uncomfortable crackling sound.

Despite her size and weight, tall and hard-muscled (with a little soft padding from so much drink), she was as silent as a predator on bare feet. Decades of practice. Only V noticed her, bright eyes meeting black ones in the dark, and she clicked her tongue and whispered something Welsh to him. She grunted, amused, as she let him rub across her calf... then proceeded towards the kitchen. Maybe there was a half-empty bottle, something old and skunked, or something she'd tucked away in a cabinet.

The open bedroom door stopped her. It was different, and where Ettyn did not have a head for academic details, she made up the difference in perceptiveness. She crept up to the doorway, and for a few minutes she watched and listened and slipped deep into thought...

* * * * *

When Anya awoke again, the empty bottle was gone. A flagon of water had taken its place.

[Anya de la Rose]

February 3rd, 2021

Ettyn had warned her that there would be changes while the curse had hold of her. She had expected pain and hunger the way her friend had explained them. Her eyes darkening to an iron grey didn't surprise her. They had bled out their color in an echo of Ettyn's pure black. Anya had spent long minutes in front of the mirror, covering first one eye and then the other, watching the way her pupils seemed to be permanently dilated. It was a good distraction from the gnawing emptiness in her core and the restlessness that made her want to hunt.

What Ettyn hadn't warned her about was that some parts of her felt better. The laugh lines around her mouth and the corners of her eyes had smoothed out. The freckles on her shoulders and the bridge of her nose that she had earned through long sun exposure had faded away. Muscles that had re-emerged since she had gotten back in to the dueling rings were never sore. And some parts of her felt worse, even looked worse, than they had in years.

During her first attempt to bathe after she'd taken on the curse, she had noticed the scars on her torso immediately. The mirror showed her that the five deep lines that ran the length of her ribcage on either side had returned to a deep, angry red. She had spent a moment tracing them lightly. The memory of the pain made her wince and lingered in her sides as she leaned towards the mirror. Another scar on her right temple, one that was barely noticeable where it tucked itself up under her hairline, was back. This one wasn't as deep or as angry as those on her sides. She wondered if that had something to do with the headache. Probably not, there were plenty of other reasons.

Her hand rested on the waist of her jeans and paused. She closed her eyes for a long, slow breath while she pushed the waistband down. She opened her eyes and flicked them down then quickly released the fabric. The indented furrows on her lower pelvis were back to the purple color they had been years ago. They didn't hurt, they had never bothered her even when her skin had stretched to form them. Her breath hitched at the sight all the same. She took another deep breath and leaned forward. Four inches below her collarbone on her left side was a thin, blood-red line the thickness and width of a dagger. That explained why she'd found it so hard to draw a deep breath since the curse.

Anya made a noise deep in her throat between a grunt and a sigh. She swiped the shirt off the floor where she'd dropped it and pulled it back on. She could take a bath later. She needed a drink right now.

[Anya de la Rose]

February 7th, 2021.

Anya returned home through the cold. She had a book tucked under her arm and an empty cup of coffee in her other hand. The warded door recognized her only after she pulled her glove off to turn the knob. She kicked it shut when she was on the other side before turning her attention to the guttering fire in the hearth. She'd been gone longer than expected, and without her magic active, there was no forgiveness in the flames. It took more work than she would admit to stir it back to life.

Once the fire was up again, she stood. Her first stop was the kitchen. She loaded a tray with water, wine, bread, grapes, and slices of dried, salted beef. The last caused her to wrinkle her nose.

On her way back out, she carried the tray to a side table in the sitting room, and continued into her bedroom. She returned without her jacket. In her right hand she held a necklace, and in her left were four rolled pieces of parchment. She passed by the food and fire to instead push through the door to the greenhouse.

Outside, she propped open the door. Her little potting bench was clear this late in the season. She picked up a simple gorse wood box and swung the latch open. From it, she set out a clean bowl and a sharp knife with a bone handle. She laid out the parchment where she would be able to see them. With a deep, steadying breath, she began.

She held her left arm out over the bowl and made a quick cut on the back of her forearm. Palms and wrists were good for the show, but impractical. After all, she was alone. She watched the blood, darker and thicker now than she'd seen it before, spill in to the bowl. The bleeding stopped before she had expected.. but there was enough.

She read from the first scroll. As soon as the magic began, she clenched her jaw. It was a short spell. She slid the scroll off the top of the pile. Her left hand was held far out to her side as she cast the second. Another quick incantation, but enough to cause a twist in her gut. By the end of the casting, her hand was wreathed in a pale green light. She took three quick breaths before sliding the second scroll off the pile with her right hand.

The third was a repeat of the first. She knew what to expect. Then came the fourth. She pulled the necklace to the center of the table so the diamond in the pendant was next to the bowl of blood. For a long moment, she stood with closed eyes while her breathing steadied and slowed.

Then the casting began. For an hour, she worked. The light around her hand shifted, grew and lightened to a golden glow. By the end of the hour, her voice was tight and hoarse from the incantation. Her breathing was kept slow only by will despite every exhale starting as a pant. She opened her eyes, reached her left hand forward and dipped one finger into the bowl. The diamond in the necklace shattered so suddenly that she jumped and pulled her finger out of the blood. For a brief period, the blood in the bowl reddened and she held her breath. Then it faded again, turning dark and thick. She blew out the breath, ran her hands over her face and walked back inside.

Next to the table where she'd put the food, she sat down heavily. She pressed herself into the armchair and began to eat, slowly and deliberately. She was asleep before she managed to finish the wine.

[Death Knell]

When Ettyn entered Anya’s home, it was late enough that it could be thought early instead. Either the slayer had been out until near dawn, drinking and reveling away the wounds of the lich fight; or she had had some early errand.

She had attended to more of the chores around the house in the last several days — or rather, she had taken care not to create extra work for her friend, something she had given little thought to at any other time. (Further blender experiments would be attempted in the future.) Hide and wool layers commonly worn under her heavier half-plate were soaked and scrubbed and left hanging to dry by the hearth, though a few items too torn and soaked in her blighted blood had been discarded in the bin nearby.

It had been a terrible fight. The appearance of a lich during her hunt, weakened as it was, had taken her by surprise.

Her armor pieces were all meticulously cleaned and mended, and laid out by the hearth alongside her silver sword and heavy flail of starmetal and adamantine, to ensure they were completely dry. The exotic metals caught the firelight, reflections dancing strangely across their surface.

She took away the bottle and tray and took a few minutes to clean up around the kitchen. She returned to the living room and tended to the fire, stoking it until it hissed sparks and rewarded her with a burst of hot air. Then she turned and drew up a warm fur blanket over her friend.

She stepped back stared critically. Something didn't seem quite right... beyond the obvious.

"Oh," she muttered to herself, and patted down her pockets. A girl named Yuzuki had told her about her lucky "Buzzy," what appeared to be a plush doll of a dragon turtle, something she'd acquired at the Arcade. The slayer knew enough of her own condition, and the misfortune it caused, to know that Anya needed all the luck she could get.

The Arcade had been out of Buzzy plushies, but after terrifying the poor young man working behind the prize counter, she had secured a suitable alternative that she had been assured was also lucky. She set the Dry Bones plush on her armrest, turning it until it faced Anya.

The slayer and the Dry Bones shared a vigil until sleep finally claimed the former, in an armchair nearby. There was a fur blanket across her lap, and a persistent frown on her face as she slept a few hours into the morning.

[Anya de la Rose]

Sleeping was about the only thing Anya would be good at for a day or so. The sun was solidly up by the time she groaned and blinked herself awake. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Her first check was the hearth where the fire was, mercifully, still burning. Which made her realize Ettyn was back. When she turned her attention to the couch, she caught sight of the plushie on the armrest. She patted its head and stood up with a yawn.

Coffee. Food. She moved single-mindedly towards the kitchen. It took some time, given that she had all the speed of the oldest living land animal at the moment. But she did make it eventually and managed to cook a side of bacon, and used the grease to fry eggs and more bread. Deeming the tray a risk at the moment, she instead fixed two plates and returned to the sitting room. Food and silverware was placed in front of Ettyn. She had her own in her lap when she sat down.

She waited for the smell of the coffee wafting out of the kitchen and the much closer food to wake her friend up. In the meantime, she started eating.

It didn't take long. No sooner was Anya scraping her fork against the plate than the slayer roused. She winced as she sat up, reaching back to her shoulderblade to rub and pull at a lingering ache from yesterday's wounds. "Pissing archers..." she grumbled and rose from her chair, and snagged a piece of bacon before she washed up... but she paused to look at Anya. "What happened," she asked simply.

"I tried something on the curse. What happened to you? And could you get the coffee now that you're up?" Anya made a similar assessment as she was sure she was undergoing. Missing parts? Still bleeding wounds? None were immediately evident.

"Mm. Minute," Ettyn replied, but assented. It took the slayer a few minutes to wash up, and then she brought two steaming mugs of coffee from the kitchen. "Killed a lich... or came close," she said, tucking into her meal first. It didn't stop her from talking with her mouth full. "Broke some ring that made undead... like its phylactery. The undead dropped, the lich went limp, and some fucking sorcerer whisked it away." She washed down a mouthful of egg and bacon with coffee, and asked, "What'd you try?"

"What did the sorcerer look like?" Anya's question had been interrupted by Ettyn's. "I used some blood and tried healing and ressurection blended. It only worked for a minute." She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of the coffee.

"Prick didn't show himself. Just some voice in like, purplish-blue mist that grabbed the body and said I couldn't eat his soul because he writ something." A few details had likely been lost in translation. Ettyn grabbed her bread crust to start sopping up the grease, and offered, "Blood magic gets power from life. Cursed blood isn't... living blood. Not fully. Important, but... not like it is for normal people."

She held a hand out and seesawed it. Given the weight of the conversation, it was verging on dismissive. "Arcane magic, blood magic. I was operating on the blood. Seeing if it worked. I don't know where the power comes from. I just know I feel like shit." Her appetite was entirely for the coffee at this point. She took a long drink. "Do we need to find the sorcerer?"

"Don't think so. Not unless he comes after me. I wasn't there for him," Ettyn said, and cracked a grin. "Went to a barrow, slew two wights -- the turned sons of a knight -- and the lich decided to turn up. Didn't get his name. Ran into his crypt and smashed up his stuff. That phylactery..." She shuddered, and took a long drink of her coffee.

"...most I've fed the curse in a long time. Like killing a dragon."

"Yeah. You know, I can feel that. At least until this is gone." Anya made a face that said it wasn't at all comfortable in the moment. "Please don't kill a dragon for a little while longer."

Ettyn frowned. "...You can feel it?"

"It's kind of like, a chill? And then I feel better after, just for a little while, but enough. I can see why you kill. You get addicted to the relief." Anya shook her head, sipping the coffee again and staring at the fire. "I don't think mine is getting any stronger." She did, in fact, have iron gray eyes the same as the day before. It was the first time they hadn't darkened overnight since the fight.

"And makes screwing, and drinking, all the better. Ride that high even higher," Ettyn nodded, and finished her coffee with a slurp. She was looking at her eyes. "Let me see your blood." It was as plain a request from her as asking a patient to stick out their tongue.

Simple as that, Anya held her arm out to show where she'd cut it for the ritual. She scratched at the scab until it bled again and turned it so Ettyn could see. "It hasn't changed." she explained helpfully.

Ettyn watched the blood droplet gather, and rubbed her jaw. "You feel it when I do it... but not getting worse, for you. You just... get that high." She continued to scratch and pull at the deep old scars on her face... then jet black eyes swiveled in their sockets, moving back to Anya. "Want to go with me to kill something? There's always something needs killing."

"And see what happens?" Anya nodded. If anything, she was disturbingly unconcerned with being used for the experiment. "Do you think there's a difference in whether I'm involved?"

"Maybe," Ettyn shrugged. "Whatever it is... Don't touch it at all, don't do anything, unless I keel over. We can figure out the details once we... find whatever the fuck it is I'm gonna kill."

[Death Knell]

Later that day...

The problem with an old city was a long memory. The liches and skeletons the slayer had faced in the Wilds had stirred the graveyard in Old Temple to life. Echoes of the sorcerer's magic has crept in from yesterday's fight, and the dead were on the hunt.

With the cold that lay over RhyDin, most were inside. They wouldn't notice the shambling forms, indistinct from the tightly bundled city-dwellers but for the worms that waved from vacant eyes and slack jawed mouths. Those attuned to magic would feel the deep, creeping chill of death magic and be alerted to the change in the air.

Undead yesterday, undead today. At least these weren't said to be armed, so the slayer forewent her half-plate for simple chain under her leathers and over a linen layer. A heavy longbow and quiver rested over one shoulder, partially covered by the thick wool cloak she wore to insulate her from the bitter cold, as well as two weapons at her hips: a silver short sword, and a whip of thick black leather studded with silver spikes. No spurs today - lightly armored as she was, she made an effort to make her steps quiet.

As Ettyn and Anya came within sight of the graveyard, at a high street that overlooked the parallel roads, one of those shambling forms came into view. From the gurgling groan and rattling hiss emanating from around it, the slayer determined that the creature was not alone. She came to a stop and shifted her cloak back, offering a jar of salt back to Anya. "Here's good. High ground," she rasped quietly, and began to unshoulder her longbow. Jet black eyes made sure to keep that shambling figure in her periphery -- though she was uncertain whether it had seen them yet.

"I don't do anything? At all?" Anya took the jar of salt that was offered as she watched the first form come into view. Several more followed quickly behind. For now, they seemed to be single-mindedly heading for the outskirts of town. Once half a dozen had cleared the intersection and come into view, it was clear that a few were showing uncomfortable interest in passing city residents.

"If a worm gets on me, swat it off. If a few get on me... pour ice, lightning, or fire on me. Prefer the first two," Ettyn grunted, cracking a bit of a grin at that, scars pulling and twisting along one side of her face. "Scatter salt about five yards out after the first volley," she added, and unshouldered her bow. As she tightened her fingers around it, she scowled, running her thumb along the bowstring as if in thought... and flames emanated from the weapon, little bursts of sparks and embers.

She began to draw and fire once, twice, three times. She struck the three nearest targets, and the most spread out -- and if she was lucky, likely to stumble back and be touched by other shambling undead, as all three were now not only pierced by arrows, but on fire.

The three she hit did indeed stumble, igniting another three behind them. Of those, one passed the flames on again. Seven of eight were now on fire. It didn't make them much faster, but it did redirect their attention to the two standing uphill.

Anya stepped between Ettyn and the oncoming dead things. She started with a line of salt, considered the efficiency and added the rest in a wider band. There was plenty of time to make her way back behind her friend and watch what happened next. "Well, you took care of the fire."

"Nnh," Ettyn grunted her agreement as she loosed another flaming arrow for the one that remained unlit. When it hit its mark, she smiled grimly and began to focus on one of the first she had struck, loosing two more arrows into it. She was efficient, wasting no time, but not rushing either -- when they arrived, they arrived, and all she could do until then was focus on taking them down. The next arrows she grabbed from her quiver, she clacked the shafts against her bow, and with it there was a sound like a bell among the undead, meant to weaken and decay that which was not meant to mimic the living.

They weren't deterred by the sound. Maybe the worms were in their ears? They were, instead, slowly climbing towards Ettyn. The first one took two rapid shots as it was about to draw even with the salt line and fell, face forward on the ground. The worms that spilled out of its broken face sizzled where they touched the salt.

"There you go," Anya offered. This was going well. She backed up three paces and sat down, uphill from the action. She was watching for worms.

Ettyn finally began to back away as they shambled, though she shepherded Anya behind herself, and continued to loose arrows, smiling grimly as black mist began to swirl and emanate from the first of the fallen undead. She continued to focus on the closest of them, loosing arrows steadily. Her quiver was already feeling light. "Shout soon as you see them break the salt," she told her friend. The distraction could have cost her if these creatures were any less sluggish, or any better armored; but with a shambling gait and no more protection than rags, it seemed that each of her flaming arrows were able to strike flesh.

"You have time for one more." The next spawn in line fell to the arrows as she was talking. "That one didn't count." She was watching the pace of them with passive interest. She'd been told not to do anything yet.

The six remaining zombies were not thinking critically. They were jostling for position as they came closer to their target. "What happens if they touch us?" Anya wondered aloud.

"Worms crawl onto us... burrow into flesh... eat their way to the brain... and we become one of them." Something *just* occurred to her, though. It had been some time since her last encounter with these unique undead spawn... "...Might not be interested in us. Or maybe just not me.Fwip, fwip, fwip! They weren't her best shots, perhaps due to conversation and the fact that she knew she was damn near empty -- and they were damn near upon them. But they still managed to embed into flesh and continue to ignite what little flesh may have remained unburned at this point, dropping one more shambling undead. Only five remained. As soon as the last arrow was loosed, she shouldered her longbow.

Maybe it was the undead's own corrupted state, but the black mist that was their blighted essence was taking its time crawling around them and swinging wide, finding a circuitous path back to the slayer.

As the undead made it closer, Anya stood up from her crouch, spurred on and cringing at the prospect of burrowing worms. "Oh. I don't want that at all... They're through the salt line. They certainly don't seem to like you."