We sit behind him. Corvayne is before us, sturdy arms holding the ramshackle steel and plastic hover bike that he and his clever goblin friend have woven into a thing of beauty. The ugly plain of dirt and wispy grass races under us, and even with the shields I can hear the wind whipping faintly over the hum of the engine.

I wish I did not have to hold him. I wish I did not need to let go.

We ask him. “You sense he is not moving?”

We cannot see as well as him in the dark, nor do we have his power to unerringly find things. But, I must know. I want her to close this chapter of her life. To close the fear... it might allow us to yet be one again.

I know we will never fully bond after everything that has happened.

Corvayne turns to us, looking at us as always like one. I want to tell him to look where he's fucking driving/I don't care to swear at him. For all he's done to me, he has also been an ally and friend.

He did as I asked him to/I could not give my permission.

He must be ignoring that we are divided, as he simply says in his flat, calm voice, “He stopped moving ten minutes ago.”

In the rising dust, Corvayne guides us to a place on the darkening plains with a faint shimmer of a shield. A grim sight, one that fills her with relief. I see the face of Neiv, flayed open like his victims, and it brings us joy. I did not think Mosh and Corvayne's cartoonish B plan would work/We should know better than to underestimate him. Corvayne is a workman of a sort, and thus unceremoniously loots the man. We want no trophies of him.

In this dust strewn plain, there is closure. We should have been hunting him ourselves, but to know that our...

Protector/Lover.

The split hurts us again, and we stumble as we war in our minds. I feel sick/I feel scared. Corvayne offers a hand and I slap it away. But we have put this off too long. Lover or ally, we must be better then to keep hurting him.

“It's time to tell you... everything.”

He looks hurt. We feel guilt. I feel like I'm going to tell a child that he has done something terrible. I regret our split.

“We have been working with Mister I to remember our lives before.”

“We?”

“Ianasia and Wick.” We say our names. Even in the dark we can see his shock, showing that I was wrong/I was right: he didn't guess it.

“So... you have multiple personalities?”

We hate that he reaches for a bullshit/false diagnosis.

“No. Like the men merged with drakes we fought, we are a gestalt. Ianasia touched a strange core and drew me, I mean, Wick out. As we died and lived again, Ianasia weakened. Wick took charge as more cycles happened.”

Corvayne looks concerned. I do not know what Wick sees him as, but he will always be partially my jailor. Yet, he was also my only friend.

“We met you on an island. Our prison, in a light house.”

We gesture to the bike. “Let us ride and speak.” Bless him, we can both love that he is a good listener, and a sure pilot just as he holds every weapon he has ever had firmly and with confidence. It is well, because we don't want to see his reaction.

“I was born the 7th Daughter and 12th Child of the Collective's CEO, Emperor Leon. I will skip a spoiled and pampered upbringing, at the hands of maids and matrons and burly silent protectors until I was old enough to be considered an adult. The Emperor gives his children the choice to participate in succession or to bow out. I was timid and knew the danger, so I fancied the other option which was to marry and start a family with some beautiful, rich idiot. I was a beautiful, rich idiot myself.”

Corvayne starts to protest, and it is hard to hate him when I see him jump to my defense even against myself. I feel myself tearing apart again, and must keep going. We don't have long.

“I married a man who could care less about me outside my title, was bedded many times, learned I was barren, and was thus two years later pushed to some place where I would not interfere with a younger sister of mine taking my place with... my husband. I did not enjoy any of it, but took the exile as a chance to tour my long neglected lands, what was left from paying my way into and out of a political marriage. Corvayne I know you wish to speak but we must keep going. Keep driving and listen. Drive us... Anywhere.”

It keeps him from looking at us, and us from seeing him. We can instead look at the ground flowing by. The dim light of the sky darkening. The sky on this clean world is bluer than anywhere we've seen but Cascadia. We love places where we can see billions of stars.

“We ended up on a planet called Cascade Landing. One you know well under a different name. A sleepy fishing town on a planet with nothing but a space port and mine besides. I took a liking to the shores and it ended up being home for a while. It was me and a few helpers at my home... I didn't have the resources any more for a large entourage. There was a spot, at the crest of Dolphin island that the locals said odd things happened around... I didn't know about Tower entrances then. I had always wanted to experience the strange, so I stumbled in and was trapped much like when we met, this time.”

“I survived well enough on my own in a maze of green lines, defying gravity. No, I must correct myself. I had trouble at first, my first fight with a furry slug I nearly died to it eating my foot. I formed a crude spear out of a stick for my second fight, using my would-be crutch to skewer another. The third I had found a simple weapon, a knife.”

“I fought and hobbled on one foot and made it up a floor after a long time. I ate monster meat raw, as I didn't know how to start a fire. I think I was leveling even then, and a lucky potion restored my foot. By floor three I understood there was some sort of progression, and I knew I was getting stronger. I had found other tools, weapons to fight. I had become a hunter.”

Corvayne turned back to look at us and we see he's pleased. He's thinking of when Iana was asleep and I ran the tower with him. I have to look away lest we split more.

“After months of wandering the dungeon I stepped up from the fifth floor. There, I defeated a boss and opened the chest to find a glowing emerald orb. I felt a connection to it, and took it without knowing what it was. I didn't know what the fuck was happening either, and thus we stumbled back into the world fused and confused.”

Corvayne is following our direction not to speak, but he looks back at us, and we are sure he understand better now. Perhaps he gets the problem.

“At first I was groggy. I still don't know what I am aside from that crystal. Ana came out of the dungeon with me riding along, and ended up at the mines. Of course, people had been looking for me, both Goule and Baron L'Tideru had men on the ground looking for us. My father is not entirely apathetic to me and they probably wanted to cash in on some political capital.”

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Corvayne speaks. “I take it I worked for one of them?”

“It varied a little each time who hired you, but your talents almost always landed you with one of them. Sometimes I'd only see Argyle. It was Argyle, the first time, who figured out that we were somehow... important. There was a scuffle and I ended up with Goule's men fleeing off world. You were there as sort of a... mostly a fixture. I think it was your curse, you had a sort of malleability to you.”

Corvayne looks at us and asks, “You mean, I wasn't awake then?”

“You were like how Tower-Folk are... you seemed real and not exactly stupid but... pliable. Goules men sometimes wore masks so aside from being absurdly muscled and using a spear, you didn't stand out in uniform. Sorry, we can't remember the exact time we first met, probably while we were being pulled onto a transport under gunfire.”

Corvayne sounds disappointed. “I'm sorry I don't remember that, either.”

“If not for everything else, I would never have remembered it. Even with the danger, my life was changing. I suspect now our gestalt changed things for me, my value as a person... I had assumed that my time in the Tower and what I thought of as extraordinary attributes was what drew me back into society. My first husband had been cold, our wedding beautiful but rigid. In Goule's care I met a man who was handsome, dashing, and treated me with romance.”

I must try not to throw up ahead of what happened. We steady our gut and watch the sky for a moment before we continue. “When I think back to all the build up he did, I always see the ending. But I was on Tripic, important people were bringing me into their circles as a person not just a pawn, and I had a man I was deeply in love with. Neivibleing Von Grozsvert. The Raven. Romantic love. Sweet nothings. Love letters, flowers, dates to the fair.”

“My old marriage was annulled, and I knew Goule by then was the keeper to a different world, one my Tower experience had introduced me to. I had always had a faint appreciation for the occult, and now was jumping into it. Like out of an urban fairy-tale.”

He starts saying “It's called Urban Fant-”

We cut him off. “Life was great. I accepted a proposal, and wed the man you know as The Raven.”

I take a deep breath. We have told Mister I this before. We can tell Corvayne. “We went back to his manor, and there were candles and roses and bottles of wine, and he slowly showered me with gifts and kisses as he lead me into the basement.”

“He had prepared a room for us to finally... consummate our relationship. I was eager, after my first wedding having been treated like I was a task to be administered to. He asked me so gently, so hesitantly, so sweetly, if I would allow him a strange fancy he had, to restrain me. I undid my fancy dress, placed my form on the silken white bed in the center of the room, and let him tie me down slowly as he kissed me and touched me. I remember liking it, more then anything.”

Corvayne's driving was becoming erratic. I jabbed him with our hand. “Keep driving and listening.” We worry he's going to hit one of the very few things out here in the middle of nowhere, but the wavering stops as he slows a little.

“Then, when I was... when we were trapped on that bed, naked, aroused, prepared to be taken by the man we loved... he bit my finger off. I was silent for a few moments, in shock, in pain, watching as he chewed. Then, he took me as I was screaming.”

Corvayne slows and stops the bike. We can tell he's trying to figure out what to say. But we don't need him to say anything. He needs to listen.

“When the deed was done, he began eating us in earnest. The bed we were on was some sort of special artifact that replenished our blood and kept us from going into shock. I should have passed out and died of blood loss when he had finished eating my foot.”

“Wick, you-”

“Corvayne, I have to tell you. I have to tell you that he went up my body, eating us part by part, telling me how much he loved me while he tortured me. I cried, cursed him, begged him to let me go and to kill me. It took him hours to work his way up my legs. He forced a little of my own leg into my mouth and made me gag on my own flesh. He... he fucked me again, as what was left of my legs poured blood out. He ripped my ear off there, and I saw him chew it in my face, his teeth flashing. Then he kept going. The table kept me alive, awake, aware. I could not die or pass out even as he started to eat my organs, raving about the taste, the power he got from it, the excitement. I cursed everyone I knew, everyone who had ever existed.”

“All I could think about were the little romantic things he had done, this monster, and how empty they were.”

We have to stop. The bike is on the ground, so we get off and watch as the last bit of light goes away and the stars really come out. Corvayne is pacing, nervous, not knowing what to say to us.

“I went mad, more than a little, and then as he bit into our heart, we somehow snapped back to the moment I touched my core. I was alive, whole, in the dungeon. I didn't remember it all, but I saw the teeth, and I was unsettled and untrusting of everyone as I emerged from the dungeon.”

“Something in... in knowing... or how I acted, I ended up imprisoned in a light house in nap bay resort. You were my jailor, Corvayne. You were never cruel. I was scared of you, of all men, and I didn't know what the dreams I had meant. At some point Argyle and you had an argument, and he killed us both. And I started over. I would remember more sometimes, less others. It varied who won the fight... if Goule won then I as often as not ended up on that table. I ran back into the dungeon a few times, but whenever I finally died I'd be back where I started, no stronger and often not understanding why I had ran away, putting me back into harms way to discover what I was running from too late.”

“So, many lives, many years in the light house, Cascade Falls. You sometimes had hobbies I'd bother you about, and you'd mechanically answer questions about them, about fighting monsters in the desert, about killing bad men, in sort of an artless way. You did not flirt, nor leer... you were sort of sexless and thus the only man I could speak with.”

“I am not sure if I remember every life and death, but I know that at least ten times I was in the light house, talking to you about Deja Vu or whatever topic the books you were allowed to bring me would cover. The topic of the books was frequently UFOs or Bigfoot or Chupacabra. You didn't mind that I would have you request more books from wherever they came, nor did you ever mind that you would fetch them off duty and read them when on duty and respond what you thought, even if it was odd how you would never speak about it unless I asked.”

“There was a few times we tried to escape and fought you and you accidentally killed us. I forgive you. We know you usually won and dragged us back to our cell, and never fought cruelly.”

“As time passed I remembered more of the mistakes, the lives lost, of times I had let romance take me into his teeth.”

“Then, I woke up before I had touched the core, during the boss battle in fact. We dropped our grenade on the ground and blew ourselves up, rather than the huge goblin we were fighting.”

We are amused that Corvayne sounded a little excited at this detail, perhaps something to latch on besides the misery. He asks, “The boss who tosses an axe? Like we fought?”

“Yes. The second time we missed with the grenade and won but bled out from losing an arm and various goblin spear wounds. The third time we were ready, blew up the boss correctly, and found the faded core inside the chest.”

“It was a sort of switch off. On every other life we couldn't remember why we ran into the Tower, and we'd die on the outside... but it started pushing us backwards longer and longer into the past.”

“At some point, I woke in Cascadia instead of Cascade falls. I don't remember it too well, and I think I still got caught, but... I started making friends. You were no longer working for either of the two men who kept killing me, instead you'd drift into town and Grunt would find you and have you mindlessly doing laps around the building.”

“I sometimes remembered a lot and sometimes a little, but we had been tortured into a mess of a person by the time we started healing. I couldn't keep doing it, piloting myself... so I took over instead and kept moving further back in time...”

“Until I showed up and was awake?”

We nodded at him. “It was... last time. Things changed. It was odd for me too, I...” We stop. I have to explain this to him and I... We wrestle a little bit. There's discordance. Please. I'm almost done. I'll stop after this. We agree. “I, Wick, it was the first time I felt something weird. I sometimes would fuck...” I don't like to think of someone else using my body/It was our body . “I would fuck while Ana was dormant, but it was sort of just like when you feel like having brownies, you go out and buy some brownies. It was a throw away thing, and I tried it with you when you were more of a... a person... and it did something to me. So, ever since then, as we've healed, and the mend spell is a part of that, Iana is waking up and she cannot love you, but I love you, and that has begun to tear us apart. Me, We apart.”

I take over. “I don't hate you. There were times, I recall now, where you died fighting to try to stop them from taking me. Died fighting your own bosses, even. However, while Wick loves you as a man, I see you as someone else who partook of me, bringing my thoughts back to teeth and pain and death. I will not step aside in our own, MY own body MINE.”

There is pain and discord again.

“Take us back to camp. I'm sorry Corvayne. The disconnect is going to kill both of us if it keeps going. That's what this was all about. We appreciate you killing The Raven. You are our friend, our comrade, and our protector, but you divide us past that. We can't be with you as a woman.”

He is not well. We have crushed some small fragment of hope in him. We end up driving him back. It hurts us. To watch him set his tent up apart from us again. We will go speak with Mister I. Hope that mending can help start gluing together two parts that, at the moment, feel bitter to one another.

And perhaps to also mend ourselves.