The Twinklings hotel room was bare save the normal sparse furniture. All the extra cots and chairs had been moved to the next room over. It was starting to go cold as well, another mist storm was on the horizon. Apparently one larger than the one before, and the enchantments on the rooms were expected to break once again. Chiru paced the floor in her donation shoes, sure she would soon beat a track into the stone as a monk's steps warped temple stairs. She had checked the clock on the wall a hundred times in the last half an hour. That was how long it had been since the Crow Clerics left to rendezvous with her fellow Ash Makers. The old elf had promised to be back in two hours, and she had tried one last time to go with them.

They were in the lobby of the hotel, the giant front wall fogged up. The whole place was much darker than usual. The chill had settled on the bottom level, making the lobby floor frigid through her shoes.

The Feast Leader laughed at her request, then coughed, shaking his head as he recovered.

“Why?” Chiru had asked. “Why can't I go?”

“Because child, should anything happen, I would rather lose six than seven,” he said simply.

“That means that you would die too, you old fool!” she yelled at him.

The glass discs stared at her from out of his hood. The other two Crows stood stock still, beaks turned towards her, the edges of them reflecting the meager light. “I am fine with dying, child. Should my next step kill me, then I have lived life to its fullest and have no regrets. Those that travel with me to help your friends, they do so with their minds at ease. That is what it is to give yourself wholly to a cause.” He opened up his egg shaped censer, plucking a purple cube from a pouch and placed it within. The silvery lid shut with a click in the quiet.

“I know, I have,” she said, flatly.

“If you dedicated yourself to the cause of being an Ash Maker, child, then we would not be speaking now,” he said with a simple chuckle.

“Why?” she asked again.

“You would be dead,” he said with a gesture of his gloved hand. “That or vanished with your kin. Seeing as you saw the Vampire, you are lucky to be alive at all. He must have been distracted.”

He spoke with no malice, but his words stabbed into Chiru’s heart. She saw the dead eyes of Beth, the beast feeding on her neck. She hadn't even tried to attack, to stand and fight. She had run, run as fast as her legs had carried her. Crawled until her fingers bled, she was still missing chunks of her nails from the cave. The Corpine faithful said that they would take a while to grow back.

“Those are the eyes of someone who has seen the face of death and lived,” Glimvet said, nodding thoughtfully.

“I couldn’t win, no one could. There was no chance, that is not fair,” she told him firmly. “I had no weapons, no reinforcements, nothing.”

“Your weapons are in your hands, your magic,” he said, pointing to her.

“There was still too many!”

“Did you try?” he wondered.

“No of course not! I ran, like you said, I am lucky to be alive from the Vampire. The Vampire the Heroes sent!”

“Did others fight?” he went on.

“Yes, and died.”

“Was the order given to retreat?”

She roared at him, stomping her foot. “No, there was no order, no one to give orders. It was a fucking slaughter!”

“What happens next time?” he asked.

“Next time what?” she sneered. The Cleric Eutace behind her was snickering and Kalyah was frowning.

“The next time that you face insurmountable odds, child,” Glimvet said clearly. “That is what a soldier does. They retreat, sure, but they do so when given the order. I heard the toll of those that died, those that vanished, it was children, the old, the young and inexperienced. That is not an army and you are not a soldier. You are a very young girl with your whole life ahead of you. I talked to you about delusions and it pains me to know you gave it no thought.”

“I was… I was, I am not a soldier yet!” she cried. “I will be trained more and next time we will be ready!”

The old Crow hung his head and shook it, breathing a weary crackling sigh. “This I leave you with, child, and it may be the last thing you ever hear me speak, so listen well. My days number greater than you can even imagine. I have seen cities rise and fall, many nations worth of faces and most of them dead. I have forgotten more than you will ever know. And… I know fate when I see it. You were given a chance by the gods themselves, seen death, true death and lived. I know from the others and our brief conversations that all you have done is rebelled against your good fortune. Look, and look deeper, reflect on who you are and what you are truly capable of doing with your days. Think of the gods what you like. I know your lot in life is not easy, but this may be your moment. To stay here, to find your way somewhere you are less likely to face a slaughter.”

Chiru stood tall, sticking out her chin. She put her arms in her sleeves as she stared back at the Feast Leader. “It wasn’t the gods that brought me here, it was the enemy. My life is mine to give up if I want and this is the only thing I’m dedicating it to,” she said sternly.

“So it is your right,” Glimvet said somberly. He turned around, tapping his staff and a flicker of black fire shone in his censer. The smoke started to rise out of it and so did an inky veil of magic, spreading out like a net of transparent silk. The other two Crows did the same, their veils joining with Glimvet’s to cover them all. As they walked to the door they vanished, no sound coming from them any more. The door opened for a second, then closed just as quickly, the wards binding it shut again.

In the hotel room, Chiru now sat on her shins, thinking about what the old man had said. Breathing deeply in her meditation, she kept her eyes tightly closed. It had been a long while for her stuck in her thoughts. She had come up with a better answer, and she knew it was one that none of them would like to hear. The door to her room opened and the bothersome Kalyah entered. Chiru was not alone, though the ticking clock was louder than her other guest. The Crow Cleric stationed by the chill window raised his head, then lowered it again.

What made Kalyah so terribly vexing to Chiru was her dedication to prying information out of her. It wasn’t anything useful the Pixie elf was after, only more than the Wanshi was normally willing to share. “What’s your favorite color?” “What food do you like the most? I’m sure I can have it made for you.” "What music do you like?" Those and other such questions Kalyah asked on her frequent visits. They were normally framed by something else, the color came when picking clothes, and she went rambling on about what she thought was Chiru’s “best color” for some time. If Chiru didn’t answer, then she was treated with a disappointed frown, as if her silence had dashed the small elf’s hopes.

She knew what Kalyah was doing, trying to force a friendship. To break through the walls that Chiru kept up out of habit. The Wanshi wasn't interested in friendship, no matter what her instinctive feelings may be. It was terrible that Chiru found the full legged and cherub faced elf attractive, drawing her to her. But she found that most women appealed to her. From the dwarvish elf to the giant elf woman with breasts larger than her head. Even the soft skin of the princess appealed to her, the image of Diana dipping down to grab something and the gaping maw of her dress was burned into her mind. There were so many beautiful women that the rotten curse inside Chiru longed to touch. For her though, women were both the cause of the static that stuck to her skin and the relief. There was proof for the static, more recent and more tragic. The dead eyes of Beth proved that she was right and the uncomfortable buzzing of touch was a part of her, that it was justified. Much like the pressure she felt entering nature.

Kalyah, and all the other Corpine clergy, made it a point to wear their gloves around Chiru. She didn’t remember any of them wearing them before, but now they always had them on. They barely touched her at all, and the gloves did help.

Turning away from the smiling Kalyah, who said she could wait for one last check up, Chiru saw the clock. She had been lost in thought longer than expected. It was nearly an hour and a half since the Crow Clerics had left. Her comrades would be here soon and a nervousness overtook her body which she hated. There were flashes of the Vampire, dead Beth, the days of crawling free, and running from the Nymphs. She was suddenly unsure about her resolve and like her sapphic desires, she shoved the nerves down into the recesses of her soul. What a shame she was, so fragile in her boldness. She repeated the new mantra she had come up with in her thoughts, trying to maintain her strength.

You fail the Order, you fail your father.

She repeated it over and over until she was whispering it in her native tongue. Her father’s native tongue. If she could find fate in the death and loss of her father, then why shouldn’t she find fate where the old elf pointed it out?

Shakily, Chiru plucked the jade ornament that kept her hair up in a twisted bun. Her long black hair tumbled out across her shoulders. She took a deep breath to contain the rapid drum line of her heart, and put the ornament away. Taking her hair, which she had failed to braid this morning out of similar weakness, she tried to plait it again. Try as she might, her fingers slipped in their clamminess, and the strands went everywhere. She was leaving this place, this peace, to go to war again. Another cave, another mission, another place that could be attacked. Was Glimvet right? Would she run again? Would she be able to? Was she really ready to give up her life? Was she truly weak like he said? Delusional?

“Can I help you with that honey?” Kalyah said, coming up beside her.

Chiru straightened her back, bringing the walls back in their place. Before they could snap back and secure, a desire came sneaking out. “You may,” she said in an even voice. She drove her fragmented fingernails into her palm, hating her inability to be alone truly.

Kalyah sat down behind Chiru, running her gloved fingers through the Wanshi’s hair. She produced a comb and gently ran it through the kinks. “It’s so thick and shiny,” she said softly, a clear smile in her voice. “Any girl would be lucky to have your hair. I bet other girls liked to feel it. Did Koyomi run her fingers through it all the time?”

The walls around her emotions were not enough, Chiru glanced back, wondering where the little woman had heard that name. She said nothing though, only glaring at Kalyah’s unfailing smile.

“This may be the last time I ever see you, I figured I might as well come out with it,” Kalyah said, dutifully separating her hair into three parts. “If you must know, since those pretty dark eyes seem to be looking for an answer, then you said her name in your sleep. You spoke your language, like you did just now. I wasn’t sure what you were saying until I asked Jonah. He has a translator on him, but apparently your language is similar to something from his world and he didn’t need to look up what you said. Let me see, it was… 'Koyomi, I like you,' ‘Koyomi, wait, please,’ ‘Koyomi, I love you.’ Now he said that the last one was special, it was a love that was deep and everlasting. I’m sorry it didn’t last---”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Enough…” Chiru said, whipping her head forward again, her hair tugging out of the elf’s hold.

“Should I stop braiding too?” Kalyah asked.

“You don’t know everything. I was weak, asleep. It is not right to mock people for their weakness,” Chiru went on.

“I’m not mocking you, honey, it’s only sympathy. I’m only trying to relate. Forgive me, I was insensitive. I know what it’s like to live in a place where what you are is shunned and forbidden. My difference, my curse, as it sometimes feels like, isn’t banned or punished by law like your lesbianism is in your home kingdom. It’s such a horrible thought to punish people for who they love when there’s no harm in it.”

Chiru glanced over her shoulder. “What is wrong with you?” she asked.

“I was born in the wrong body, the wrong sex,” Kalyah said simply.

“You’re not a woman?” Chiru asked, noting the edge in her voice. She studied the small elf in disbelief.

“I’d like to believe I am, at least as close as I can possibly get.” The healer’s green eyes looked boldly back at her.

“Sorry, that is banned in my country too,” Chiru said, leveling her tone as she turned away again.

“I’ve heard, it’s a shame.”

“It’s not common, you, you must excuse me. I didn't expect it, you look very much like a woman.”

“I guess that’s a compliment,” Kalyah said with a toneless laugh.

“Go on, braid, I don’t care…”

She began to slowly braid Chiru’s hair.

“The world is strange outside my homeland. I don’t mean to offend you. People are different here,” she said. “In Banji, I heard a story about a man dressing as a woman, the police castrated him and whipped him until he bled out, and no one did a thing… They were too afraid of the Emperor’s State Security, they control everything.”

“Dear Goddess, that’s awful,” Kalyah said with a shudder. “You’re lucky to have escaped.”

“I will return, with the Order. I will have my people accept everyone one day, Ash Makers and all. In fighting for my country’s freedom, for people like me, I would fight for people like you too,” she said, voice uneven. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her. It could be the shock, it could be the chance of connection. Someone that understood her. Did she really care how Kalyah was born?

“I understand that too, sweetheart,” Kalyah said softly with a sigh.

“What? What do you understand?”

“I was just like you, a decade ago. I felt singled out, wanted to change the world,” the Pixie elf explained.

“Are you trying to talk me out of my mission too?” Chiru asked.

“No, only telling you my story, make of it what you will.” Kalyah took a deep breath. “I had a comfortable life, finally right after years of feeling like an outcast. I wasn’t content though, I wanted to change the world too. So I left all my comfort and the few people that disliked me, the few I could have easily worked around. Nothing's ever perfect.”

“What happened?”

“I nearly died. Shot right through the gut, bleeding out on a street. Far away from all those people I cared about. Far from anyone that could help me. I stared up at that night sky and I cried my eyes out. I knew I was going to die and I regretted ever leaving my home. I was just going to be another number, one of the dead masses that I wanted to save.”

“Then you were rescued?”

Kalyah chuckled. “I’m talking with you now, aren’t I?”

Chiru was silent.

“All I wanted to say is that sometimes you don't appreciate your life until it all flashes before your eyes.”

“You’re home now though?” Chiru wondered after a moment of quiet.

“Not yet, eventually I’ll return, soon I hope. I’ve found a better purpose, a manageable one. Something I am actually capable of doing,” she said firmly.

Chiru’s braid was done and before she could hand Kalyah a tie, the elf was already finished. She threw the braid over Chiru’s shoulder, and the Wanshi instantly disliked the new pink tie in her hair. As she examined it, Kalyah laughed.

“You’re lucky I had one on me at all,” the healer said, tugging on her short hair. “I’ve had this style for years, only pocketed that one from the ones that Susan didn’t like. I thought I might need it and there you go. Do you hate pink too?”

“I will keep it for now, a memento of you,” Chiru said, trying to keep her tone flat. She didn’t want to have another woman’s name to add her poetic farewell to. She didn’t miss the frown from the healer either. “I have to return to the Order. I owe it to my father… He died trying to change the kingdom, from within. They took him and he never returned… You don’t know my language, but you said that you knew people from my kingdom.”

“I have known quite a few Wanshi, yes,” Kalyah replied.

“Have you ever heard the importance of our names?” she asked.

Kalyah nodded.

“My name in Banji, ‘Chiru,’ it means scattering leaves, falling as in autumn. My father said that I was weak as a baby, that I was fragile. All Ash Maker babies aren’t strong.” Kalyah nodded at this too. “My father said he was afraid to lose me for the first few years of my life, that is why I am named after such a thing." She paused for a moment, feeling her new braid. "I barely remember my mother, her face is blurry, unclear. I learned that she was Wanshi from the neighbors, and that she had named me. In Wanshi, 'Chiru' means disgrace. She saw what I was, knew how I cried from entering the woods to a temple, that I was not right. It was not the right scream of a child. The temple was where I was going to be named. A rite, very old, but I couldn't stand it.”

Kalyah covered her mouth, her eyes sad over her fingers.

“All my life, all things good fall away from me. Because I am a disgrace. I know that I have no reason to keep going, except to live my father’s dream. I am afraid of dying, everyone is, but I know that I can’t give up. I have to go to the Order because they are the only hope I have for living that dream.” She couldn’t look up from the gray coat on her body. She was fixated on the threading of it, the ashen tint. It would probably be what she died in one day.

“You aren’t a disgrace, honey, and they aren’t the only hope,” Kalyah said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“What? Why aren’t they?” Chiru asked harshly.

“Your kingdom is trying to attack your kin, the Isles of Ash. The Alliance of Kingdoms will strike back, they will fight them off,” Kalyah went on.

“So? They won’t do what I want, what the country needs,” Chiru stated.

“Even if Blodwyn manages to attack your kingdom, even if she lays waste to it like she did to so many places in the last war, what are you going to do?”

“Fight!” Chiru declared.

“You haven't studied the histories, you don’t know how Blodwyn fights. You love your people, even if they have problems, right? You want to see your nation thrive?”

Chiru stood up, looking down at the healer. “Yes, of course, the Immortal Emperors are the problem!”

“Blodwyn is not a scalpel, honey, she’s kerosene and a match. She firebombed whole cities because she didn’t like one thing in it. Where does she stop with your nation? When does it end? Your father loved the country and you want to support the person who will destroy it? To ashes, means to ashes. This city you’re in, it was bombed by Blodwyn, it was part of her crusade. Look at it now, it hasn’t even recovered in two hundred years. Everyone left after countless people died, and it will never be the same. She destroyed it and it grew back different, twisted. Do you want to subject your kingdom to this?” She gestured all about her.

“Where would I--” she would never finish that sentence.

Chiru stumbled towards the ground as the whole building shook, like the worst clap of thunder to ever exist. Cracks formed up the glass of the window and the joints of the building shifted, scattering dust long held within. Kalyah caught her, setting her steady on the floor as another blast made the building tremble again. This time the glass shattered out, raining down on the street below. The cold air came sweeping into the room and the two women held each other against its bite. The breaking of the glass hurt their ears and the glare of the city blinded them. Screams pierced the walls, the horrified wails of the children. Niae shouted over them, trying to get them to safety.

The Crow Cleric by the window, now a spanning open frame, had stood at the first boom. He commanded them closer to the wall as the wind whistled over the remaining shards. Another explosion came as the two started to move as ordered, this one almost knocking them to the floor again. They could see the source of this explosion, a pillar of smoke climbing up to the heavens from the abandoned buildings to the east. The wicked black column twisted about, highlights of fire inside it. It was in the same direction that Glimvet and the others had headed.

A sudden pounding sounded out and Chiru couldn't tell what it was. It could be her heart, but she was certain there was an edge to it like singing metal. What the hell was happening?

At the door was Niae, gesturing to them frantically. “Come, come, we must leave the building…” she ordered, then stood aghast. "No, the wards!"

The light of the open frame darkened as a rolling cloud came from above. An unnatural laughter came from below, like a gurgling hyena. Then there was a sound like metal fingers scraping on stone, a revolting noise. One that seemed to grow closer with every second.

“Ghouls below,” said the Crow Cleric guarding Chiru. "Hags above…"

The twins clung to the Arch Priestess’s legs as she picked up the phone from the floor. She dropped it just as quickly, as if it was absolutely useless. There came the sound of popping and hissing from within the stairwell. A putrid smell joined it, one that raised the gorge of Chiru and made the twins gag. It was like a rotten corpse set ablaze, smoke and decayed flesh joining in one.

“Closer, everyone closer, I will make wards in the hall,” Niae demanded with rapid gestures of her hand. “The Hags have brought the clouds and the Ghouls seek us. Hurry, hurry!”

“Grandmother, I will bar the doors,” said Eutace as the doors shut. They were all in the darkness of the hallway. The death screams of the Ghouls came faster and fewer from below. It was clear that they were fodder for the traps. The Psyin Cleric etched golden runes onto the door, their light fading quickly. There came the grunts from the Grave Paladin and whoosh of a club on Ghoul bones, which broke as loud as shattering brittle glass. The prayers of the Crow Cleric echoed up and sizzling black fire crackled. Chiru could only imagine how many were down there, and how many were still able to come.

“What's Diana and them doing? What are they facing?” Kalyah asked, looking up to the ceiling, holding Chiru’s hand tightly.

Eutace’s diadem glowed and his eyes grew wide. “They face the Guardian himself…” he said quietly. “They are only talking for now, but I fear it will escalate soon. What do you need, grandmother?”

As he spoke the air was filled with the sound of bats. Their leathery membranes flapping and fanged mouths screeching. The twins screamed, burying their faces into Niae’s stomach. She shushed them in-between the rapid speaking of a prayer. From her hand erupted an eclipse of moths. Their glowing white bodies lighting the darkness. Her six children around her all followed suit. The winged insects went pouring over the side of the wall and down the stairwell below. When Eutace tried to join, Niae warned him off, telling him something in elvish. Kalyah joined in, adding a meager three hawk moths to the grand grouping. The magic made her falter and Chiru held her firmly up, ignoring the static as she supported her around the waist. Kalyah regained her composure fast though.

The Crow Cleric's beak darted to either side of them. His prayers brought forth a feast of crows from his staff. The ghostly black smoke birds watching along the trim of the stairway wall. Shooting up from the lower floors, and its constant fray, came a half dozen of the red eyed bats. The crows sprung into action, pecking and grasping with their talons. The moths attacked as well, burning the fleshy beasts each time they hit it. Try as the wicked things might, they were too large and clumsy to escape. Soon the creatures were nothing but burned up pieces, others with great holes taken out of their beings as they fell. In the battle several of the moths faded from existence.

A bead of sweat ran down Niae’s face as she brought forth more moths from her hand.

“Glimvet has returned!” reported the Crow Cleric looking over the stairwell. “He is injured and so is one of the Ash Makers. The Vampire has yet to appear…” The man made towards the elevator and Niae warned him away with a fast word of elvish.

“We are better off staying here, for now,” Niae said, taking a deep breath. “Make a screen, Eutace, should any get close again.”

“Yes, grandmother,” he nodded.

“We must protect these children and the others,” Niae said firmly.

“The Ghouls are dead, Glimvet is making it to the elevator…” said the Crow Cleric. “Oh blessed King, a Werewolf!" He sent a feast of crows over the side, the birds squawking violently as they rushed down.