On the shores of some sunlit lands stood two arguing sisters. The elder, a marked and scarred woman, verged on shouting and cursing while the younger, dainty and frail, verged on tears, though she seemed no less resolute.

“I don’t care!” the younger shouted as her boot stomped into the sand.

“Well, I do!” the elder spat. “And you will do as you're told, understand?”

“No! Not this time!”

“There’s no other way! Do'y think I want this?”

“I don’t care what you think! I’d rather die!” Sand scattered into the sea as the younger sister stormed away. Her elder allowed her no distance and dogged closely at her heels, shouting all the while.

“Good! That’s what you’ll be! Dead, do’y hear? You’ll be a corpse at the bottom of the sea, and there’ll be no mermaids to dance with ye!” She gripped the younger’s shoulder hard enough to make her wince as she was torn around to face the elder.

“You’re hurting me,” the younger whimpered.

“I’ll do what I have to, to keep you safe. Yer’ coming with me, and that’s final,” she seethed much more quietly but with no less flame. The elder sister grabbed the younger by her arm and dragged her – kicking and screaming – away to some dark place.

“Tebea?” Ash called out in the empty black space. She received no reply but that of the gentle sound of lapping ocean waves. The taste of salt lingered on her tongue as a fine mist of ocean water seemed to soak her from nowhere.

“I’m- I’m here,” a much younger voice answered. “Are you... real?”

“Tebs, of course I’m real,” Ash whispered. She turned to face where the voice had come from and found, bundled in some dark chamber, the younger sister.

“Are you here to change me?” the young girl asked, her voice broken after so long of silence.

“Change you? No, of course not.”

“Who are you?” She asked.

“I’m- Ashtik? You are Tebea, aren’t you?”

“I- I think,” the girl rasped. “I might not have changed yet. I m-might still be me.”

Ash knelt before the shivering girl. She must have been younger than Evara and twice as frail. Every instinct within Ash yearned to comfort the little child with her big hazel eyes. Ash tore her shoulder cloak and wrapped what little of it she could around her.

“What do you mean?” Ash asked. “Changed how?”

“I- The curse, the ‘medicine’, it’s changing me. It- it hurts,” she cried.

“How can I help?” Ash begged, hugging the child as tightly as her frail little form could take.

“Let me die. Please...”

“I- there must be some other way?”

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore. Please, let me die,” she pled.

“I- I can’t.”

“Then what good are you?” She spat, her voice taking on the deeper more mature cadence of her elder self.

“Tebea?” Ash gasped. In an instant, the girl was gone. The chamber of stone and iron was empty but for a shadow clinging to the roof.

“My, oh my... What a pretty snack,” a familiar voice cackled in an unfamiliar way. She dropped to the ground without a sound as her bloody eyes burned through the darkness.

“Tebs, what’s going on?” Ash hesitantly asked. The crazed look on the other woman put Ash on edge. She stood ready to be attacked though she hoped the dream would break before then.

“Tebs, hey?” She mockingly repeated, pacing along the cold chamber. She twitched constantly. By the violence of her spasms, she might have been trying to snap her own bones. Her feet bolted and jolted left and right, like some pained tap dancer, as she took each slow step. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

Her hand pressed against the cold stone wall, then her foot, then her whole body. She slowly writhed her way up, her limbs dislocating and stretching terribly far.

“Tebs, please, it's me,” Ash whispered as Tebea disappeared into a high-up shadow.

“Ooh, did we know each other before?” She cackled from every direction. “Good, that makes it better. I wonder what you did to get sent in here? Kill one of my sister’s toys? Sneeze during a speech?”

“Tebea, it's Ash. This is just a dream.”

“A dream?” She scoffed. “I’ve slept quite enough, thank you. I don’t intend on losing any more of my life to false realities.”

“Then wake up,” Ash whispered. “Remember the silk sheets and being in my arms. Wake up to that.”

“In your arms? My, isn’t someone presumptuous. You know what, though? I think you’re right. It is time I woke up in silk sheets. All I need is a little more strength. What do you say, Snowy? Wanna fill me up?”

“Don’t call me Snowy,” Ash spat, suddenly angry.

“Ooh, a soft spot. I wonder why? Makes no difference now, I suppose. A pretty young lass is just the boost I need to get out of here.” Ash couldn’t see her, but she was just a step behind. So close that, had she been breathing, her breath would have fluttered against Ash’s neck.

“If you won’t wake up, Tebs,” Ash whispered, “I’ll just have to smack you awake. Sorry about this.”

“Oh, no hard feelings, Snowy. Just close your eyes, this’ll be over soon. Or don’t, the adrenaline adds flavour.”

Tebea tore through the inches between them, but her fang found no flesh. As she clamped her jaw down over the left of Ash’s neck, a steel plate caught her bite. She nearly shattered her tooth against it, but she certainly shattered her nose against the steel fist as it wrapped around in a flash.

Tebea fell to the ground with an agonising cry. She wasted no time, though. Just as quick as her first attack, she launched another. Vicious and frantic, her arms flailed against the Sparrow, but Ash simply wrapped her steel hand around her throat and held her to the wall.

“Enough,” Ash declared. “Tebs, I’m sorry I put you through this, but you need to wake up!”

“I am awake!” she spat.

“No, you aren’t! You’re in bed with me. We’ve just spent the day dancing and laughing. I don’t know where we are right now, but it isn’t real.”

“Ha, you’re as delusional as her! Sure, this isn’t real. Go ahead and let me go, I’ll show you how fake I really am,” Tebea choked as she clawed away at Ash’s hand.

“Delusional as who?” Ash demanded, though her voice couldn’t help but waver.

“Who? My sister! The rotten bitch who sent you here.”

“Did your sister lock you in here?”

“What? No, of course not. I put myself in here, obviously. I mean, have you seen the views? Breathtaking, really; and I don’t just mean that cos’ you’ve got your bitch mittens around my throat,” Tebea venomously spat.

“Why did she lock you in here?” Ash asked, ignoring Tebea’s frantic attacks.

“Because I’m prettier,” Tebea choked sarcastically. “Or maybe she’s just ashamed of what she did to me.”

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“What did she do, Tebs?” Ash begged, her voice much softer than would be appropriate.

“Gods, are all blondes this dense? The fuck do you think she did to me? Look at me!”

Her clothes were ragged and torn. Her hair, matted and grimy. She looked as though she hadn’t taken a bath since childhood while each of her muscles seemed to be utterly atrophied from disuse. Her sunken red eyes held none of the fire of Tebs’ sanguine gems. The tips of her fingers had been gnawed through while track marks along her arms suggested she had been biting down like a hungry animal against herself.

“She cursed you? Why?”

“Are we gonna chat all day? ‘Cos I’ve got places to be. Why don’t you ask me when you wake up, Snowy?”

“Don’t... call me Snowy,” Ash warned again, tightening her grip.

“But so fair of hair and deep of skin, what could I name you but the palest of snow or darkest of ash? I’ll tell you though, there can be no more beautiful a sight than a crimson spray on fresh fallen snow.”

The talk of ash and snow had brought the dream elsewhere. The figure of the broken woman shattered like ice in her hand. The shards became snow-filled pines atop a mountain of cold and pain.

It may have been a dream, but the cold of dreaming shivers the spine all the same as the cold of the day. She might have called out for her one-night love, but the whistling of the breeze against some distant other mountain would have made for her only response. She didn’t know how she knew so, but she did. Knowledge of the lands filled her; knowledge Ash couldn’t have possessed.

She knew that these were the barrier mountains of Xem Da’ark. A thousand armies had clashed against these rocks, and a thousand armies had been shattered and repelled like the vicious – yet ultimately impotent – tides.

The moisture of her ragged breath froze against her lips and unshed solidified along her eyelashes. She wiped away what ice she could, though each movement in her plate armour was agonising. Her flesh caught and stuck to the frozen steel, tearing and ripping with each major movement.

“How old are you, childe?” A voice, just as frozen as the trees and mountains, asked in some distant place.

“I don’t know,” a girl admitted. “I’ve... slept for a long time.”

“What year did you fall asleep?” The voice asked, though it seemed to be much closer now. Ash hadn’t moved, yet the whole world had seemed to warp around her. She found herself at the mouth of a cave, sharp icicles gnashing her away. She pushed through the cave’s frigid breath and walked into the mouth of the beast, ever-sure that her path lay within.

“It was the hundred and eighty-fifth year. I... don’t remember how long it has been,” the girl whispered.

“How old were you when you slept?”

“Eleven,” she weakly answered.

“And you have experienced no days since?”

“N-no.”

“Then we have your age, childe. That was eight years ago. Physically, you are nineteen, but in truth, you are still that eleven-year-old. You are not ready for all the world will present you in your adult state. You must be protected, raised. Come with me. I will take care of you.”

“What- what’s your name?” she quietly asked.

“A name?” the voice repeated, seemingly amused. “What is in a name but a function? Tell me childe, what am I to you?”

“You’re- kind to me,” she answered.

“Then I am Kind, a pleasure to meet you, little one.”

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Ash had thought that the speaker might have resided within the cavern. Their voices echoed from roof to floor, though they were as inconstant in volume as a cracking flame. She burrowed deeper. Soon enough there was no longer enough light within to see the path forward. She stumbled over some shaded rock. Her legs struggled to find steady ground. They sunk into what should have been solid rock. Lower and lower she fell. Her hips passed under, then her shoulders, then her neck.

A beaming orange light flooded the cavern as her mouth was consumed by the melting cavern floor. She could see its source as the world swallowed her whole. A raven-haired girl stood before a great glass lantern, one hundred men tall. She placed her hand against its gentle glossy surface and a sharp black oval, encircled by the orange light, slowly moved towards her. It narrowed before the girl but seemed to shoot up towards Ash just before she sunk completely beneath the surface.

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She was the first to rise. They had collapsed onto each other, Tebea’s head resting on her shoulder. By the way the rising sun set across her pale face, it might have been an ideal sight to awaken to. Tebea looked... peaceful in her rest. A gentle smile hung from her lips as she dug herself deeper into Ash’s neck and shoulder.

The chance at an ideal morrow would be dashed soon enough. The inevitable conversation would doubtlessly ruin their perfect peace. Ash decided not to move, not to breathe, not to chance waking her. She would hold on to this moment for as long as she could, even if it was just a few seconds longer.

“Is- is it dawn?” Tebea whispered, her voice choked with sleep.

“Aye.”

“Aye,” Tebea teased, finally opening her eyes. By the way the sapphire dawn caught in her sanguine eyes, Ash could see a new version of Tebea’s gaze. Not the veiled lust she had contained during their dance; not the strange earnestness of her pleas for love and friendship; not even the good humour of her default demeanour. Ash caught a shimmering, hazel glimpse of something new. Anxiety.

“Tebs... about las-”

“-Shall we get some food, dear? You’ve worked quite the appetite up in me,” Tebea said as she rose from the bed, dashing away from Ash’s embrace.

“Tebs-”

“-Not hungry? I mustn't have done a very good job. Come, come, lets away.”

“Tebea,” Ash snapped. “Slow down.”

She did. Her head fell low as she stopped in her tracks, halfway to the door.

“I-,” was all she could manage for a moment. “I had hoped for at least a third date... before I tried t- to kill you.”

“It was just a dream,” Ash softly said.

“No, it wasn’t. It was a memory. Me, just a couple of years younger.”

“How much younger?” Ash pointedly asked.

“Ten winters,” Tebea admitted. “I woke up ten winters past, but I was born twenty-nine ago. I lost eight years while I... changed.”

“You didn’t seem eleven when you were in that prison,” Ash said.

“I... wasn’t. Not that time. I’ve spent a lot of my life alone in different cells, angel.”

Tebea turned to face Ash, her face a mask of shattered ivory. Between the cracks, Ash could see the creature it restrained. Pale beyond what a pigment of flesh could possibly allow. Damaged and broken beyond what a mind could contain. She could see the sickness in her soul and the agony in the tears she could no longer shed.

“I’ll die before I am bound again,” she swore.

“Nobody will hurt you, Tebs. I’ll make sure of it.”

“It's not everybody else I’m scared of. My... condition is more than just pretty eyes and a lack of sleep. I... hurt people – I have to – but it feels... good when I do it. It's a hard feeling to resist.” It wasn’t the admittance of hurting people that made her voice strain, but the mention of the ecstasy of the act. Even simply mentioning her strained indulgence forced her gaze to grow bloody and her one shard-like tooth to shimmer like a diamond.

“But you can resist it, can’t you?” Ash said with a pleading curiosity.

“I swore never to be bound or ruled, not by chains or queens or addictions. It doesn’t matter if I can; I will.” She seemed to sheathe her tooth as her lethal leer climbed to an anxious look.

“Is there anything else I should have asked before last night?” Ash half-jokingly asked.

“Lots, but not all of it interesting. I’ll say that my other half does not act to drain in the same way my Vampris part does. It soothes and comforts, and makes gentle a violent victim. It lulls the most guarded of men into bawling messes. It makes you feel like you can divulge your most guarded secrets to me. I... don’t get a choice. It's not something I can light or extinguish,” the Spider shamefully admitted.

“I don’t have any secrets,” Ash whispered.

“Maybe not, but one day you will, and then you’ll have to disregard me. The risk is just too great. I made Lord Fielder break down into tears after a single conversation, what will I do to you after I fall in love?”

“We can cross that bridge when we get to it. I promise Tebs, I’ll stick by your side so long as you stick by mine.”

“You will regret that... or I will. Either way, I will be here until the end – mine or yours.”