“Alice! You’re here!” Rita laughed as she launched herself at her mirror image and wrapped her in a big hug. “In the flesh!”

Alice awkwardly tolerated being hugged, then eventually patted Rita on the back before pushing her off. “Yes, okay, that’s enough. Now back off, you’re going to get our legs tangled up.”

Rita let her go and retreated to a safe distance so that they did not risk stepping on each other’s toes.

“Wow this is trippy. It’s like looking in a mirror. How did you do that? How are you… not me?” Rita asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Alice replied. “The last thing I remember was us going through the glowing white portal in the side of the Nightmare Tree.”

Rita shrugged. “Same here. Guess you’ve got as much of a clue as I do. There was this freaky thing where my body seemed to spin itself up out of nothing and then we were here, in front of that,” she said and pointed to the big, faded circus tent in front of them.

Alice turned and seemed to notice the thing for the first time. She regarded the tent, apprehension clear on her face.

“Ah. Yes. A circus. Of course it would be a fucking circus. In a tree.” She shuddered. “Fuck. Bad memories. I suppose this is where we face the ‘guardian’ that Gora mentioned? I am remembering that part correctly, right?”

“Yes, I would guess so, and nope, not going in there,” Rita flatly proclaimed. “I don’t care if it grants wishes, I’m not setting foot in that place. Not for all the chocolate in the world.”

Alice looked around them at the clearing they were in. In every direction but towards the entrance, the thick blue clouds barred their way. It even pressed up right against the canvas of the sides of the tent.

“I’m not so sure we’re going to have much of a choice…”

“Sure we do!” Rita proclaimed and promptly set off in a different direction. “Follow me! I’m going to find another way to go even if I have to fucking dig for it.”

Alice nodded and followed. “You know, for once we are entirely in agreement.”

Rita marched up to the wall of fluffy, blue fog and tried to push through it. She only got up to her elbows before she could push no further. At first touch the blue clouds were thin and wispy, but if you pressed into it, it rapidly became so dense that it actually prevented movement, like a wall of pillows.

“Well shit, can’t go this way either,” Alice reported after trying to squeeze past alongside the tent and failing. Everywhere they had tried, it had been the same. They simply could not pass through the clouds, and Rita was looking more and more nervous by the moment.

“I’m not going in there. I’m not,” she insisted. “There has to be another way.”

“I’m not so sure,” Alice said, dusting herself off. The wisps of blue clung to you unless you brushed them off, like floaty pieces of lint. “The clouds are pretty much everywhere. And I don’t think tunnelling is really an option if we intend to get anywhere this century.”

“We can’t go around, and we can’t go under. So how about…” Rita said and grinned as she looked up at the top of the tent.

----------------------------------------

Gora did not move. She just stared at the large, overly muscled demon with his arms outstretched for a hug in silence until he dropped them awkwardly by his side.

Nezzerorth.

Her father.

Her father.

“Well, I suppose that’s not really surprising,” Nezzerorth said calmly in his deep, bass rumble.

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“You can’t be here,” Gora whispered, still in shock. “This is impossible. You’re just some copy the tree made.”

“I assure you, daughter, I am very real. This place is one of the many loopholes in your mother’s forbiddance. The Tree and I came to an arrangement, you see, so that I can indeed be here and see my own daughter.”

Gora was a whirl of conflicting emotions. Confusion. Surprise. Fear. Anger.

Anger she knew what to do with. Her mother had told her a few stories about the demon who was her father. Nasty stories. The one about her own conception had been… particularly nasty.

Yeah. Anger seemed good.

“And you think you can just walk back into my life? You have the balls to even show your face to me?” Gora asked, muscles flexing as her knuckles tightened around the hilt of her blade.

“Hmm? What do you…? Oh!” he exclaimed and began laughing. “No, no, you misunderstand, Daughter, I have no intention of entering your life. I intend to end it.”

With that, he reached out and grabbed the hilt of his sword from where it was still balancing on its tip and began approaching her, the blade resting casually on his shoulder.

Gora had just enough time to parse what he had said before his sword came slashing down in an overhead cut with unbelievable force. She just barely managed to jump back out of the way in time to avoid the blow, which struck the arena floor hard enough to blast a crater in the sand and crack the stone underneath.

She jumped backwards several more steps to get out of reach before leaning on her sword to catch her breath. Despite having completely dodged the blow, Gora felt bruised and battered, and had several cuts on her arms that she in no way could have been caused by a single slash. What the hell had that been?

“My Hateblade,” her father explained as he casually lifted his sword up for inspection, “converts part of the force of the blow into pure malice. Pure killing intent. When you strike as hard as I do, it’s enough to cause injury to anyone who is nearby.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Gora demanded as he resumed casually strolling towards her.

“This isn’t personal, Gora,” he said. “Well, no, it’s very personal, but not directed at you. I bear you no ill will.”

“Who then?!” she asked.

“You know who,” he said, voice flat and cold.

Then, with a sudden burst of speed he dashed forward before slashing down at Gora again with his absolutely ridiculous strength.

This time Gora did not dodge. She raised her own blade above her head, one hand on the hilt and one on the blade. His strike smashed into her weapon with a massive CLANG, the shock of the impact driving her back a step and blasting the sand around her outwards. But her block held.

“No, I don’t” Gora said through gritted teeth.

Instead of attacking from another direction, her father seemed to take her block as a personal affront. His sword rose and descended with another deafening CLANG as it drove her back another step, his second strike exactly the same as if he was attempting to batter right through her defences.

The third time he tried to strike in the same manner, Gora changed tack. She jumped sideways as his sword came down and struck the sand of the arena again, before counterattacking with her own powerful horizontal slash.

He caught her blade in his free hand.

Then he leaned down until his horned face was right in front of Gora’s. He was not grinning anymore.

“Your. Mother.”

That was the last straw. The slow anger that had been building up inside her came pouring out in a sudden surge of rage. She smashed her father in the face with her horned forehead, feeling her own horns pierce flesh in the process. Then, muscles bulging, she poured every ounce of anger into pushing her blade against his vice-grip until his fingers slipped and she slashed through, forcing him to take two steps back.

He stood there, dumbly staring at his hand that had been sliced open up to the wrist, thumb and fingers dangling limply.

Then he began laughing. Gora could see the flesh starting to knit itself back together.

“Hahaha! You really are my daughter!” he exclaimed, still laughing boisterously. Then he lifted his sword and charged back into the fight.

----------------------------------------

“Hey, I haven’t told you this, but I thought you did a really good job with the Droopies back there,” Alice said as she pushed herself up by the silk handholds they had attached to the side of the canvas. Eight legs and sharp toes made climbing the canvas easier, but the silk handholds they made really made it a breeze. “Especially with the web, but the stabbing of the first one was good too. Good work. Glad to see you got over your squeamishness.”

“Er… thanks…” Rita replied, a forced smile on her face as she helped pull Alice into the top of the tent. Yeah, she had totally gotten over her squeamishness. It totally was not that she had completely forgotten about that whole episode until Alice brought it up.

Truthfully, if she ever got back home, she was going to need therapy. A LOT of therapy.

“Huh,” Alice said as they took a moment to survey the area. “It’s a bit bigger than I thought.”

The roof of the tent stretched as far as the eye could see, a sea of spigots poking through the canvas scattered about in a seeming haphazard fashion, where presumably poles on the inside supported the surely vast weight of the massive canvas structure. In between lay folds and valleys where the canvas sagged, some of which contained shallow pools of stagnant water from who knows where. This place did not look like it got much rain.

“At least there’s no stupid blue fog,” Rita remarked. “And more importantly, it’s not the inside.”

“We should be thankful for small mercies, I suppose,” Alice agreed.

Together they set off across the rolling canvas sheets, looking for something, anything, that was not a bloody big top.