"This feels like a fantasy," Ir'alith murmured in contentment. Perhaps I was driven to madness after all.

"I should not have left. I was too blinded by my hope to see that it was so obviously a trap." Ira'unne ran her old hairclip through her daughter's purple locks, the long, decorative teeth on the outside doubling as a comb.

Ir'alith leaned back a little, sitting on the floor before the chair her mother occupied. For so many years she had yearned to feel this very moment again. Now that it was real, now that it was happening, her every worry and concern had dissolved into nothingness.

"We should be celebrating!" roared her father from his position leaning against the wall, his voice made audible through a trivial magic she had used so many times before.

Ir'alith smiled at his outburst, and she could sense her mother's surge of love tinged with guilt and sorrow. Nearly a quarter of a day had passed since their return, with her mother arriving back in their home only a short while before her. Her father had wept just as she had, and he had urged her to hold Ira'unne tightly and never release her.

The former protector could still find no memory of the time she had been gone. The three of them had attempted to uncover traces by using a mind link, but there was nothing to be found. It was as though she had vanished a near-century ago and returned without change. The mind link granted a sense of slowed time, and they spent a long while under its effects sharing most of the events from those years, achieving a form of closeness otherwise unknowable.

"Let us keep to ourselves for a day, S'tith," Ira'unne said, drawing the hairclip along a long length of purple hair. "My mind remains muddled. I would rest before my return is made known."

"Are you well? Alith, does she bear some injury of which we were not aware?" Seth'tith's voice grew increasingly frantic.

Ir'alith slithered her tail quietly along the ground to whack her father, but she encountered the tail of her mother along the way, finding its length coiled up and over the massive axe's head when she turned to look.

"I only wish for a day of rest with the two of you and you treat me as some…" The words stopped before Ira'unne could complete them, but not before another gout of guilt had burst from her.

"I have missed you more than you can know," Seth'tith said in a quiet voice that did not match his stature.

"Mama, may I… May I brush your hair?" Ir'alith asked in the silence that followed, feeling a shyness she had not known for so many years.

Ira'unne made a contented sound. "Of course, Alith. Here, take—"

"No, Mama, I…" Ir'alith found her voice trembling as she forced the words out. Words she had always hoped to say but had known were impossible. "I made one for you. Years ago. Just… Just in case…"

Warm arms wrapped around her shoulders, and she felt her mother's chin come to rest on her head. "My little Alith," her mother said gently. "Do not be sad. I am here. I am here."

I cannot help but be sad. Where did you go? Where had you gone when… When I needed you… Ir'alith sat for a moment before she nudged her mother's arms away. "I will retrieve it."

She created a small gate on the floor to her side and tipped into it, dropping down into her room of rest. The act of magic was a marvel to her now. While the use of a gate had never required great strain previously, creating one now that her mother again maintained the great barrier felt effortless, as was any other working she had invoked. She looked down at her hands, feeling the same energy flowing through her that she had drawn upon in her most recent descent into madness. Perhaps I have grown too strong. If I lost my sanity again, who would stop me from destroying this world?

The face of a human woman with short, dark hair crossed her memories, and she smiled a little.

It was the face of her friend.

I must not think such things today. Vol would encourage me to do as I wish, and I wish to be at peace. Ir'alith crossed the room and cast out with her will, gripping the panel of wood she had cut so carefully years earlier. She pulled it away, revealing the hairclip she had stashed, the one she had thought buried forever in place of one she would never meet again.

But now she has returned. She has… Her fingers shook too much for her to grasp the object. What if she does not like it? The foolishness of the sudden thought made her chuckle. She reached in and plucked it from the small cradle she had crafted, dragging the piece of wood back into its place with her will. Then she created a gate in the wall and stepped through, returning to the room containing the seat of the protector.

Was she still the protector? It was not a role she had ever sought out but one forced upon her by necessity. Theirs was a situation which had never before occurred, however. Being the protector was a duty one undertook until they died.

Were there two protectors now?

She frowned at the thought. Her mother had immediately resumed powering the barrier, and she had not dared to ask what that would mean for her.

That was not true. It was not that she did not dare, it was that she did not wish to undertake that responsibility once more.

Not so long as her mother lived.

"Your gate is quick to invoke, but you waste too much magic," Ira'unne commented upon her return. "Look how the room glows from the excess."

Ir'alith smiled, showing her teeth. "Have we resumed my lessons so soon, Mama?"

"You have grown so strong that it is difficult for me to recognize you," said her mother with a smile that displayed her own teeth. "What have you brought me, Alith?"

Feeling a nonsensical nervousness budding within, Ir'alith held out a hand to display the hairclip she had retrieved. It had been fashioned without magic from the bone of a titanic fang-spike she had hunted, carefully cutting and smoothing a broad strip with a slot and a catch to fasten it then dyed with plants to a green that she had thought matched the color of her mother's skin. Now, however, with them side-by-side, she saw that she had been mistaken, and the dye was too dark. She began to pull back, but her mother's tail flicked out and snatched it from her palm.

"Perfectly made," Ira'unne said as she held it in her hand and turned it around, admiring the tooth-like ridges etched into the top side. The color of her skin darkened to match the clip, and she smiled up at her daughter. "I think it will match me well. S'tith, what do you think?"

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"You will always be the most beautiful to me," said Seth'tith.

Ira'unne slapped the axe-head with her tail. "Do not flatter me when I ask you to flatter our daughter!"

"I have flattered her for so many years she is already flattened!" Seth'tith protested. "I thought only to try flattering you now so as to be more fair!"

Ir'alith began to chuckle. "Papa, I do not need flattering."

"Alith, do you still wish to brush my hair?" Ira'unne asked. "I can feel it tangling." Her black hair swept up into the air behind herself and flailed until it had become a giant snarl.

"Mama, no!" Ir'alith said as her chuckles turned to giggles. "This will take—"

"It will take until you are done," her mother said, holding the hairclip which doubled as a comb out towards her. "During that time you can tell me where you had gone while we were separated and why you believed I would need that armor more than you." She gestured with her tail towards the suit of glowing armor hanging off a new tree growth in the corner.

"Alith, you know how dangerous it would be to encounter an enemy without that armor," Seth'tith said in a disapproving tone.

"Papa…" Ir'alith was unsure how to explain that she no longer had any use for such things. She took the hairclip from her mother's hand and moved to stand behind her.

"Explain," Ira'unne commanded in her protector voice.

"I…" Ir'alith felt a new form of anxiety spring out of her as she recalled what she had done. "I swore an oath to a deity and became a Champion," she said in a small voice. Her hands began to work through her mother's hair, feeling again the texture that was softer than anything else she had ever known.

"What?!" exclaimed Seth'tith.

"Which deity, Alith?" asked Ira'unne in a cooler tone.

"It was…" Ir'alith took a deep breath. "It was Sateus. But he had said he would bring you back to me! And I have a friend—her name is Vol—who is also a Champion of his, and we were to compete in fighting against the—"

"Calm yourself, Alith," Ira'unne said, stroking her tail along her daughter's as she cut into the near-panicked rush of words.

"But always have we forsworn such things!" Seth'tith shouted. "Will you now—"

"Seth'tith, quiet yourself," Ira'unne snapped with an added loud whack from her tail. "Can you not see how you frighten her?"

Ir'alith's hands had slowed as she spoke, then frozen at her father's outburst, her mind traveling back to his scoldings when she had been much younger. Her acceptance of the deity's seductive offer was done without consideration or hesitation in that moment, and she had been too occupied to think further on the matter until now. "I… I only wished to see Mama again," she said, her hands now clasped around the hairclip. "I did not have any other thought in my mind."

"I apologize, Alith," Seth'tith said. "I reacted without thinking. How…"

"What service do you now owe to Sateus, Alith?" Ira'unne asked. A few strands of her hair reached up to grab her daughter's hand and pull it back towards her head.

Ir'alith slowly ran the comb through her mother's hair. "I… We have no debts, either of us. A bargain was struck, and we each have fulfilled our obligations."

"How strange," Ira'unne mused. "Though I know of none in our history who have sworn themselves to deities, those of the other races with whom we have shared stories have told tales of their own bargains. The power of a deity is not granted so easily, Alith. Those to whom it is granted spend the remainders of their lives in service for whatever pittance they had wished to obtain. Some even swear upon the lives of their children, shackling them before they can choose for themselves."

Ir'alith's hand paused for a moment, then resumed its slow journey from the crown of her mother's head to the tips of… She frowned as memories of similar moments returned to her mind. "Mama, do not lengthen your hair while I comb it!"

Ira'unne tipped her head back to smile up at her with mischief in her eyes.

"Would that I could feel your hair again," Seth'tith said.

"You will, my love," said Ira'unne, turning to look over at the axe. "Your form was changed by magic. I will change it once more by magic. I have as much time as I need to learn how."

"It…is not that I do not believe in you, Unne," he replied slowly. "Your return is enough. Do not take action again for my sake. I could not lose—"

"Papa, she does not need to risk herself," Ir'alith interrupted. "If something is needed from beyond the barrier, I will go. My magic is freed, and I remain a Champion of Sateus. There is no foe in this world that I fear now."

"Was it not this same arrogance which led to your capture?" he retorted with disapproval heavy in his tone.

"This is different!" she insisted. "I am different. My strength… Papa, I have defeated the Champions of thousands of deities. None could match me. Even a spell such as the humans used against me, even if every human were to power it, I would still not fear their might."

"And if you were attacked by a deity?" Seth'tith demanded, his eye growing smaller. "Can you defy them now as well, my daughter?"

"Perhaps I could," Ir'alith said. "But if I could not, then I have a friend I would call to battle at my side."

"You speak of the human?"

"She has slain deities before, Papa. Even a true deity."

"Is such a feat possible for a mortal?" Ira'unne asked in amazement.

"She matches me in battle without the use of magic or weapon," Ir'alith said with a grin as she recalled the times she had sparred with her friend. "She spoke once of a mighty blade she wielded, and when I told her of my hatred for those twisted goddesses, she swore to aid me against them."

Her grin widened a small amount as she recalled it.

"How're you so fucking strong?" Vol asked, standing unclothed next to her on the long stone which lay among the stars after another bout that had ended without a clear victor between them. The human's eyes traveled down along her battle form in open admiration of her strength.

"I have trained my entire life to be strong so that I could protect," Ir'alith replied. Her tail flicked. "I had cause for it. My people remain under siege by deities and their followers."

"Deities? You mean… Fuck, is it Sateus?" Vol scowled and looked back towards the other end of the stone. "I'll go—"

"No, it is not Sateus," Ir'alith said. A sense of happiness coursed through her at her friend's eagerness to act on her behalf. "It is those goddesses, Dawn and Lucia. They…" She hesitated, but she was speaking with her close friend now, someone in whom she felt she could confide on any matter. "I was defeated by them, and Lucia tortured me for an unknown amount of time. She—"

"She did what?" Vol exclaimed. Lightning crackled wildly around her in a blinding display of her rage. "Well great legs or not, if I see her again, she's gonna be really fucking dead. Nobody fucking hurts my friend and gets to keep living."

"The sentiment is enough, Vol," Ir'alith said as her tail tapped happily along the ground. She had found that her exhilaration in their sparring matches was now second to the enjoyment she felt from their intermittent conversations. "Do not endanger yourself for my sake. It is—"

"Nah, there's not gonna be any fucking endangering." The flashes of light stopped, and Vol tapped her chin. "For me, anyway," she muttered. After a moment, she shrugged. "Wanna fight again?" she asked with an aura of eagerness about her.

Ir'alith's tail continued to tap away on the ground now as she worked the comb through her mother's soft hair while thinking about her dear friend.

"I would meet this human," Ira'unne said. "Perhaps she hides some manner of deception from you that I might reveal."

"Mama, no," Ir'alith said with a frown, feeling a sudden need to defend Vol. "She is my friend. She does not plot like other humans, and she would never seek to harm me."

"Or perhaps this is what she wishes for you to believe," her mother said, again using her protector voice. "If she will not meet with your mother, then she is not a true friend."

It would be difficult to convince her with my words, but I have sparred with Vol many times. Years must have passed in that place. I know she would not—

Ira'unne leaned forward suddenly, clutching her hands to her head and letting out a loud cry. "They have come! We are attacked again!"