“Tell me what you know about this.” Their words were like a cold knife pressed against Hope’s raging heart. Cold and instant; dripping heady scorn. They peered from their hood’s shadow. For all their warm colour and the coals light, those amber orbs were frigid.

She was pressed between the smouldering coals and her mirror’s cruel stare.

“Well?” they drawled and bounced the wicked knife recently cleaned of her blood. It’s edge caught the light. “Explain.”

Scattered recollections and impressions skittered like spiders through her mind. Hope couldn’t find where to begin. Her memory was like a canvas, overused and then shredded. Bright splotches from her younger years, mixed with ugly faded stains. Recent events dyed thought black and red.

Time did not structure her mind but an order remained. One spun. A thousand moments pinned together by the knowledge things could be better but weren’t. The weight of reaching and coming short. Pain and the rootless desire that drove her to try again. Believe again.

A girl stepped into a drenched crowded street. Her eyes darted from pockets to purses, calculating what to take and how fast she could run. She knew failure meant she and her sisters might go hungry -

- She clutched the knife in her pocket, her knife. Daisy had given it to her and promised it was but the first of many gifts. All she needed to do was find a thieving drunk and put her gift to use -

The memories jumped into her awareness. Each a vision of hope yet desperation often tainted that pure desire. Hope was a mess, she knew that; could try and explain that.

The cruel person before her wouldn’t care. They would insist; demand until she was sued up and throw then throw her aside. Until it was time to do it all over again.

Such was Two’s relationship with Hope.

She dragged herself together. Progressing from sprawled disaster to shuddering ball. She prepared for her use.

She raised her head but they remained impassive. “I, I remember the pool and the fall…” Rain and street muck soaked her to the bone. Her mending wounds pulsed with a slow ache but it was that recollection that froze her blood and twister her stomach.

The Two looming over her; the distillation of her scorn or pride, shuddered too. An invisible twitch discernible only as a wavering of their loathing and slow blink. “Continue.”

“I found myself in the street. I didn’t know what was happening but nothing was right. Everything smelt and tasted wrong. Like with the angels light and mist but so much more base. I can’t taste dreams but I do and they’re burning and hurting. I didn’t want to be alone. I - I looked for anyone. I hoped, but in the end, I found -” her breath hitched before she could finish the statement. They’d hurt her for the insult. She hoped otherwise but her captor was too cruel to let the excuse pass her by.

It did not come. “Is that all?”

“Yes?” she said not quite willing to belove her fortune. She risked a taste, the smallest dark of her slit tongue. Despise was too shallow a word to describe the flavour. They did not hate her, to do would requesting seeing her as a person. No, they hated the very idea of her. Their loathing was a nuanced thing born of intimate understanding and repudiation absolute.

They hated her. She hated herself. The sent a fresh wave of tears to her eyes..

They did not share in her anguish. Disappointment joined the wretched mix that oozed from their heart. “Explain your healing and why you claim I hurt you?”

“Because you did!” Two snapped through her tears and regretted it immediately. They didn’t stab her immediately but she could taste the desire.

“Either you are stupid and honest or stupid and a bad liar. I cannot tell which is worse. You claim to have no special knowledge yet your actions disagree. Why did you say I hurt you.” It was not a question.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Two clutched her head and scavenged her mind for clues. Somethings she could pin to memories, some faded beyond belief and other sharper than any recollection could be. Other notions had no anchor, they simply were.

She was hope, an aching stomach in search of a meal. The flickering flame that could not die, a mote in a lightless abyss. A single lonely star.

“I’m hope.” She hissed and tore her fingers away from her now bleeding scalp. She rocked back and forth in the vain pursuit of comfort. “It doesn’t matter what part you are. When things are at their worst you dig me up, use me and hate me. Why do I hate me?”she whispered. “I cling to the idea things can be better. I could have taken the easy route. Followed Daisy, worked for Lancet instead I try for more and dig the deeper still. ” Tears beaded in her eyes and she stared at her wet and bloody hands. She tore her gaze to meet theirs.“I hope and despise the feeling. Why do I hat myself?”

“Because it disappoints.” The weight of their ire grew until it was all consuming. Then in a shift she couldn’t comprehend but felt it fell. A putrid absence took its place. “Always” they sighed.

Two though of fleeing then, if she slipped past them… the urge was string but greater was the desire to understand. “Are you our cruelty, our anger, are - are you…” she was too afraid to finish the thought.

Focus returned to their gaze; sharp and cold, but the biting edge wasn’t quite so close. They stooped bouncing the knife. “I’m Two, the whole Two.”

Hope stared at the woman, the gold in the cloak and amber of their eyes were hints of warmth in a cold sea. Flecks of colour accenedt the vapid cold they oozed.

When had she become such a sad wretched person? Her tears fell freely now. She remembered days spent splashing though the streets chased by the sound of laughter. She’d had dreams! Dreams of stepping into the clouds so high above and dancing with the spirits that were the wind and rain incarnate. How had she lost that?

“No. I don’t think you’re whole, I don’t know if we’ll ever be.”

Hope was prone to high and lows it seemed. Despite thie frailty Two couldn’t remove them, Morality was a tertiary concern. More important was the risking of losing her drive. Without it she couldn’t fathom what she’d become.

They were crying again, slowly rocking like a child. It was a shame to learn that her ambition was founded upon a shuddering husk. At the very least she doubted they’d be an issue for anything but her pride

“I’ll help you! When the labyrinth picks I’ll do whatever you want just… live” she stuttered haggard breath fumbled pained words.

“Live?”

“Just a little.” They squeaked. “I - We can’t keep going like this, scrambling from one thing to the next. Always reaching never enjoying, a puppet that pulls its own string. I don’t want to be your meaningless walk, your blind desire. A pit digging itself deeper. I just want to be, be well. Don’t you.” Their eyes met hers. Liquid amber sphere’s shimmered in the ember’s glow. Bright. Guileless.

Innocent

A few details clicked into place, unease stirred in her chest. Two crouched and leaned in close. They cringed away but their eyes ever left hers. Never stopped imploring. They were thin, they were smaller than her. Not by much, but enough to have unease settle into dread.

Two had grown fast throughout puberty. She was a recent addition to Daisy’s crew then and the steady meals were plentiful food. It was… one of the better times. Until she realized what she meant to Daisy and tried to go her own way.

It hadn’t ended well.

The parody before her was an image pulled from her most recent low. The girl who’d thought she could go straight if she tried hard enough. The girl who’d failed. It was strange to think only a few years separated them. Strange still to thin that moment most epitomized her aspiration.

Dread and distaste knotted in her chest and roiled beneath her mask and snuck into her voice. “Live. What does that even mean?”

“I-I don’t know, but promise me. Promise me you’ll try.”

A lie rushed to her tongue. They’d believe her, she’d twisted truth and wove deception countless times. Yet never had she seen someone so earnest, so desperate to believe. Even Deadra had warred with fear.

But thin raggedly Hope would believe anything. But Two didn’t. She rose with a sigh and let loose the full weight of her displeasure. “You are a pale imitation of me. A desperate miserable thing terrified of what might and what might not. Do you even care if I say truth. Are you that desperate.”

They sputtered and rose in indigence. “Don’t answer I already know what you’d say.” Two shot them down with a glare. “I will not deceive myself, however pathetic the incarnation. I will not poison my goals with denial and delusion. If you want to ’live’ then convince me, trick me, make me, but don’t plead.“

“We begged Leandra”

“And led to her stewing in a puddle of her own blood. We won, I won. Are you winning.”

Shame cracked desperation. “No.” They rasped. “No.”

“Then why would I want you. A fragment that can’t even imagine her victory. Desperation without the clawing. Empty.” Her final word was a flat declaration. It struck them harder than any accusation.

Silent, they began to cry.

“Find me when you’ll do something about your desires. When your aspiration is backed by action” Two whirled around and walked toward the door. Two did not hear their reply. The storm swallowed it.