Chapter 41 – Shades of Pink
The world is empty.
There were no cities here. No nature. No people nor buildings, no trees nor animals. Nothing but a desolate waste endlessly sprawling in all directions, dead and barren. There is nothing left to rot.
The world is quiet.
The sky was black void painted by the shadows of dying stars. The world hung between them all, countless Angel Threads framing it in an endless, mournful dance. A funeral dirge for something lost, something which could never be recovered.
This is the land where all things end.
Palmira blinked slowly, fluff and static filling the space between her ears. She was forgetting something, she knew, memories clawing at the edges of her soul. But the feeling swiftly faded, replaced only by a yawning void, the loss of something she never realized she was missing.
But that feeling faded too, ground to dust along with everything else.
Palmira flexed her fingers, marveling at their movement. She could feel the muscles and the tendons as they stretched, the joints bending and popping as they forced the wet bones in her hand to twist to their whims. The mechanics of her own body opened up to her, thousands of ligaments pulling and releasing on a calcified frame, the faint static from countless nerves ordering her cells to dance. Her body moving even as it stood still. Every jolt a wonder, each twitch a miracle.
She did nothing but this for an age, enraptured by the movement of her own flesh and blood.
It could have continued forever, but such was not to be. This empty world constricted around her, a chill she hadn’t felt since childhood sapping the will from her limbs.
‘You do not belong here,’ the world whispered softly in her ear. ‘These Hallowed Grounds are not for you. Cease, so we might return to our silence.’
But she was already here. How could she have gotten somewhere she didn’t belong?
The world did not answer, and the cold burrowed ever deeper into her body.
This was too much, Palmira decided, and raised an empty hand. She tried to ignite a flame to ward away the chill—but nothing happened.
Of course. Fire required fuel, and there was nothing here to burn.
Palmira tilted her head, confused by the thought. Of course there were things to burn. There always were.
She stepped forward, kicking up the silver dust which blanketed the world. But that dust did not fall back down—instead it moved towards the space above her hand, as though sucked in by an invisible gravity well. The dust swirled in on itself, condensing and condensing without ever stopping, growing hotter and faster with each revolution.
It was not enough.
So she took another step. And another. She calmly walked in no particular direction, gathering more and more dust in her palm with each step.
The world did not like that. But there was nothing it could do—even this dust was dead, forced to bow to the whims of the only living being who yet remained.
Eventually—after an eternity and no time at all—she had gathered enough. A world’s worth of dust condensed itself into the palm of her hand. And with a flex of her will it ignited.
A star was born, its heat and light chasing away the cold and the dark. It was small and dim, but even the weakest star was warmer than the void.
Palmira blinked languidly, tilting her head up.
“Hello,” she greeted, her voice raspy from disuse. “Who are you?”
Before her stood a woman. Warm and kind and sad. She did not recognize the woman. The woman was familiar. The woman was an old friend. The woman was a stranger.
“Hello to you too,” the woman smiled at her, an undecipherable emotion swirling behind her eyes. “You aren’t supposed to be here, you know.”
“I know.”
The unknown emotion vanished, replaced by a stern amusement. “Then you should leave,” she scolded her gently. “This is no place for a child. What would your Teacher say, if he discovered you had wandered so far from home?”
Teacher… who was that again…?
Thoughts came slower now. She hadn’t been able to gather any more dust, standing here and talking. Her star flickered and began to fade, her sense of self fading with it.
“I suppose this is my fault, though,” the woman mused. “I should have checked to make sure nobody was following me first. I’m sorry, Mother, it appears my visit will have to be cut short.”
Mother…?
Palmira blinked, and the world was no longer empty. She was no longer nowhere, but now in the ruins of a derelict palace, standing before a woman on a crumbling throne. Or what looked like a woman. This one was not kind, but neither was she cruel. She was timeless yet ancient. Alive yet dead. Alien yet unforgettable. She was nothing, and she was everything.
Palmira did not know the woman on the throne. And the woman on the throne did not know her. But she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the woman on the throne hated her.
“It’s okay,” the kindly one wrapped her in a hug, her soft arms enveloping her in a world devoid of hatred. “I know Mother is scary. But she won’t hurt you, I promise. She doesn’t get to hurt you anymore.”
Palmira did not know why that relieved her so much. Why the chill creeping into her soul changed with those words from cruel to compassionate. She fell against the kindly woman, nuzzling into her. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. She felt so small. She felt so safe.
“You’ve done well to survive this far,” she whispered encouragement in her ear. “But if you stay any longer you will never be able to return. And that is too cruel a fate for someone who tries so hard. So here, child, allow me to shepherd you back to the land of the living.”
The woman then wrapped fingers around her flickering star and slowly, gently, snuffed it out.
“And promise that you will never return.”
-
Palmira woke with a gasp, her sheets drenched in sweat. With shaking limbs she forced herself up, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she struggled to fill her lungs. Her hair was actively smouldering, chasing away the last remnants of the chill which had clung to her soul.
“Kid? Kid!?” the voice of Morte boomed in her head, tearing through the high-pitched static which had consumed her thoughts. “Oh thank heavens you’re still alive! Are you feeling okay? Do you still remember how to count? Quick, what does the color blue taste like!?”
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Palmira coughed, shaking her head. “Sh…shush,” she gasped, holding up a finger. “Shss…”
Blessedly, Morte understood what she was trying to say and calmed down. Closing her eyes, she shook out her limbs, the painful tingling slowly fading. Working her jaw around a bloated tongue, she tried to speak again, only for the words to blunder out her mouth as nonsense.
Frustrated, she slapped herself.
“Ow, fuck!” she hissed, rubbing her cheek. The numbness which had consumed her popped, leaving behind only the painful sting.
“Palmira. Are you okay? Are you back?”
“Yes,” she clacked her teeth, a phantom aches still faintly running through them. “And yes. I hope, at least. What… what happened? That didn’t feel normal.”
“Well, you’re dreams are never, normal,” Morte pointed out dryly. “But I don’t actually know what happened. I took my metaphysical eyes off you for one second and then you were just… gone.”
Palmira blinked, trying to remember for herself what happened. She described what she could, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten to wherever that was in the first place.
After she was done explaining Morte fell silent, leaving her to shift awkwardly on her bed.
Finally, he spoke. “…I believe I know where you ended up. And I’m fairly certain I also know who you met. And because of that, I’m not going to tell you who they were or where that was.”
“What!? Why not? Weren’t you the one who said I was going to learn all the secrets of the cosmos?”
“I also told you that we’d start small, take things one step at a time,” Morte cut her off, grim and sad. “This is not a secret I keep out of malice or some misguided belief that you wouldn’t be able to handle the truth, but out of kindness. You could probably figure it out on your own, but this is a truth that will only hurt you. Let it be. You’ll be happier for it.”
She wanted to keep pushing. She really did. But his voice was so…
The shutters of her window rattled as if something slammed into them.
“Oh would you look at that, a distraction! Quick, let’s deal with it now, before you can ask any more questions!”
“You’re really bad at deflecting, huh?”
The shutters rattled again.
Palmira grimaced, but with heavy limbs she dragged herself out of bed, lumbering over to Morte. Grabbing her catalyst, she lit a small flame, barely enough to see by. Stepping up to the window, she cracked the shutters open, just barely enough to see out of.
A wide, pink grin greeted her on the other side.
“Palmira!” Tintinnia squealed, her gremlin of a friend bursting her way through the window. “You’re awake!”
As the much shorter girl locked herself around her body in a vice grip, Palmira could only sigh, both relieved and disappointed that it was her. “Why can’t you just use the door like a normal person?”
“Because then somebody might know I’m here!”
“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”
With one last bone-crushing squeeze the other girl finally let go, stepping back with a somehow even wider grin. Her white hair was somehow even floofier than when she last saw her, only barely restrained by a pink bow which matched her unnatural complexion. She’d also forgone her goggles today, revealing to the world the stars which burned merrily in her eye sockets.
“The new shutters are annoying though,” she huffed, puffing out her cheeks. “It makes it so much harder for me to get into your room!”
“That’s the point. Also, why are you here,” Palmira squinted out the open window. “It’s not even morning yet.”
“I missed you!” she pouted. “You just up and left one day without telling me! I had to hide on the roof for hours before I overheard someone talking about where you went!”
“I don’t know where you live, Tintinnia, so I don’t know how I could have told you. And why couldn’t you have just asked someone instead of sitting on some roof all day?” she pointed out, before sighing, feeling just a little guilty. “…Sorry about that, though. I’ll try to let you know if it’s going to happen again.”
“Good!” Nodding imperiously, the tiny slip of a girl marched over to her bed, flopping onto it with a bounce. “Now, you gotta tell me what you’ve been up to in Iscrimo! Is it true you overthrew the government?”
Palmira rolled her eyes, dropping down next to her. She began recounting everything that happened, starting with her maybe sort of killing the first Duke of Iscrimo and ending with the battle against the Eye Demon and the party that followed.
By the end of her story, Tintinnia’s eyes were literally sparking with delight.
“You killed three dukes,” she whispered in awe.
“Hey, no! I killed one duke. I don’t know who killed the other one, and the last guy was just exiled with the rest of his family.”
“My best friend’s committed regicide,” the tiny girl whispered to herself, apparently not listening. “I need to step up my game!”
“Please don’t.”
“Aw. No, you’re right, killing monarchs is your thing, I’ve gotta find my own hobbies,” she sighed. Perking up, she turned to where the mace Malocchio was watching them with a single open eye. “Oh, speaking of, I had some ideas I wanted to test out!”
Skipping over to the table, she lifted it up to her face. An inhumanly wide grin sliced its way across her face as she took in every detail. “You’ve been taking good care of them, haven’t you?”
‘Agreement. Our Lady thoroughly polishes Our body every night.’
“Why do you guys have to make everything weird?” Palmira muttered.
“Wonderful! Though I’m gonna be taking him back for a bit,” she told her, sliding the mace into a pocket which was far too small for it. “I’ve been testing out some ideas while I waited for you to get back. Only the best for my favorite customer!”
“You have other customers?”
“…No. Sinbad doesn’t let me sell my masterpieces to anyone, the jerk.”
Tintinnia pouted, but Palmira couldn’t help but thank the Paladin mentally. The less Malocchios in the world the better.
Suddenly, the other girl jerked, a look of embarrassed realization spreading across her face.
“Oh no, I completely forgot! Sinbad had something he wanted me to tell you!”
“Sinbad?” Palmira frowned, fidgeting with Morte. She didn’t really like the man. Sure, he was the Paladin, but he was also an ass. “Is it bad? Does it have something to do with David?”
Back when they’d first fought she’d been worried that the Drowned-Man might try to go after her for revenge, but learning he’d fled the city had calmed her down. But if Sinbad wanted to warn her about something that was the only thing she could think of.
“Huh, David? Oh, don’t worry about him, I’ll get his heart eventually,” she shook her head with the confidence only a lunatic could possess. “This is about the Demon you fought. You know, the one with all the eyes.”
“What about her? She’s dead. …She is dead, right?”
“She’s dead, trust me, I’d know,” Morte reassured her.
“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” Tintinnia shook her head. “I mean the Demon’s patron, the All-Seeing. Sinbad doesn’t know exactly what went down, but he fought that Demon Lord before and it went… poorly. He’s worried that with you defeating its minion that it might take an interest in you. Especially because of… whatever Morte is.”
That… didn’t sound good.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Morte echoed her thoughts grimly. “It’s also probably true. It recognized me before the Demon died.”
“Really?” she leaned in, intrigued. “Why’d a Demon Lord recognize you? Unless…! Were you a Demon Lord, now trapped in that staff!?”
“Even if I was, I wouldn’t just tell you that,” he pointed out. “But that’s not important. What is important is that if you’re right then the All-Seeing is likely to try and attack us at some point.”
“Wait, what,” Palmira hissed, lurching over to glare at her staff. “What do you mean—don’t you think you should have brought this up beforehand!?”
“What? Isn’t it obvious?” Morte sounded genuinely confused. “He’s a Demon Lord and you killed one of his Demons. Of course he’s going to take an interest in you. Especially the one called ‘The All-Seeing.’”
She took a deep, calming breath. “It’s not obvious, actually,” she ground out. “But fine. If it’s so obvious, why don’t you sound worried?”
“Because Nytheloph is a coward, a schemer, and—most of all—a punk-ass little bitch. Back when I was alive I spat in at least thirty of his eyes before he scampered away to hide. Because of that, the All-Seeing won’t risk coming here in person—if it even can. Instead, it’ll send its weaker minions here, to a massive city teeming with powerful adventurers and holy women, where they will proceed to get obliterated before they can get within a mile of you. All that is to say, you’re fine.”
That… actually did make her feel better.
“Are you sure you’re not a Demon Lord?” the other girl squinted at Morte. “That kind of info sounds like something only a Demon Lord would know.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“I never let anything go, especially not—oh crap, look at the time!” Tintinnia yelped, rushing over to the window. Sunlight was beginning to peak through, lighting up her bedroom. “I lost track of time and now the sun’s already up! It’s going to be so much harder for me to sneak out now!”
“Or you could just leave through the front door,” Palmira sighed, watching the smaller girl start clambering out the window. “Whatever. Bye, Tintinnia, don’t fall and break your neck on the way out.”
“Aw, I knew you loved me!” she waved back with a bright smile. “I’ll see you again once I’ve got Malocchio all gussied up. Bye-bye!”
And with that, the pink menace was gone.
“…Hey Morte? I’m tired.”
“Well, your bed’s right there. You could always take a nap.”
“Absolutely not.”
With a stretch and a groan, Palmira resigned herself to spending the day exhausted. The last thing she wanted was to end up back… wherever it was she’d ended up.
Which reminded her, she was definitely figuring out what Morte was hiding from her. The sheer curiosity was burning her up!
Palmira yawned.
Maybe later, though, when she was less tired.
Shrugging her shoulders, she left to get breakfast and start her training for the day.
…Hopefully Tintinnia returned her mace before the tournament.