Returned from the damned place, Belinda the first stumbles to her feet. Can we blame her, dear reader? After all, she has a body of her own for the first time in eons. So it is with a shudder she falls forward, about to hit the floor until Thorm Athow steps forward and catches her. In a tender motion, he pushes a lock of hair out of her face.
Belinda is a striking woman of regal features. She stands tall, almost more so than Athow. Blonde hair hangs down in front of face, obscuring her eyes. Still, even crumpled and visibly exhausted from the toll the summons took, Belinda’s presence is undeniable. Her mien is that of a queen both imperious and infuriated.
“My beloved. You return to me.” His voice is intense, urgent in ardor as it conveys a passion starved for centuries. “We are one again. You are mine.”
Then, without waiting to hear her reply he claims her mouth with his, placing both his lips around hers.
Across the room, Hailey stirs.
Groggy, she places a hand on her forehead as she struggles to raise herself a few inches off the ground.
“Ugh. Bel, w-what happened?”
“Bel?”
“Bel?”
Screwing her eyes shut and shaking her head, Hailey says, “Bel! Can you hear me? Belinda?”
“Bel! Why aren’t you answering?” Her voice rises in panic as she continues supplicating without answer. “Bel?!”
“BEL!” Hailey shouts.
Across the room, the reincarnated Belinda shoves Athow away at the sound of her name.
“What have you done?” she asks in horror. “Why am I alive?”
“Because I could not bear your death. I refuse to live without you, my Belinda.”
“Disgusting,” she hisses, clawing his hands away as he reaches for her again. “Repugnant. Odious. Vile. Foul. You, you,” her voice shakes with rage and her eyes flash with anger. “You defiler! You monster! What have you done to me now? Release me!”
Athow steps back, visibly disappointed, before replying. “No, my dear. We are together now and forever, forever more.” Then he smiles, a hint of ardor returning as he asks, “Besides, what would you have me return you to? What could possibly be better than this, the mortal realm?” He spreads his hands wide, inviting her to survey the broken room covered in signs of the fight as if it were a palace.
Belinda looks around, as if noticing where she is for the first time. Uncertain, she looks around the room for a few seconds before asking, “This… this is Earth?”
“Yes,” he replies, collecting her limp hands in his. “And it will be ours. Yours and mine.”
“What?” she asks with her voice faint and incredulous.
“I will raise Atlantis if you wish it, my Queen. We can rule again, if you ask me. Simply tell me your desires and I will make each one a reality.”
His voice shakes Belinda, freeing her from her shock. “And if I desire to be dead again? Back in the afterlife?”
Athow raises his hand and points, turning the stone of the wall into soup.
Pulling an obviously stiff Belinda close he says tenderly, “Then I will reshape this world into the afterlife. I will tear down the petty structures of these modern men and replace them with whatever you desire. I can rebuild our beautiful Atlantis, or any other place you desire.”
Athow gestures again and the destroyed wall reforms, turning into a Grecian pillar with foreign symbols running along its length. “The Earth is your canvas and I am your brush. Let me reshape this world until it pleases you.”
Tearing free of his arms, Belinda says in a cold voice, “There is only one blight in my eye, wizard.”
A cool expression falling across his face, Athow steps back and nods. “I see. You still cling to the delusion that we are not meant to be.”
“You disgust me, wizard,” she snarls at him, her anger roused at his words.
“And you captivate me.”
Athow stares at Belinda, a sick sort of passion in his gaze as he searches her face for any hint she might return his twisted affections. In his arms she stares back, defiant. The realization of her defiance and disgust seems to break something in him. For a long instant he continues to gaze upon her. Then he whispers in a voice aching with longing, "For you I would do anything. Anything. My love burns as a pyre, and if you will it I will burn this world to ashes in your name. But say the word, Belinda."
"I want nothing from you," Belinda replies with pity in her voice. "You have nothing to offer. Nothing I want. You are nothing at all."
Athow regards her silently, shock and pain warring across his face for the first time. "I offer you everything, why will you not take it?"
Staring up at him defiantly, Belinda says, "Because it comes from you. You destroyed my home for your own power. You enslaved my people for your own desires. You are evil, and I will never give you anything so long as I have the ability to deny it. I cannot stop your magic and I cannot save those you have slain, but I can deny you me. I am the only thing I have left, and I will not let you have me."
"You will change your mind," he says, as if trying to convince himself. "I will recreate our palace, our home, and you will love it as you once did. Then you will love me."
"No," Belinda says, shaking her head, "I will never love you."
The words seem to go through Athow like a knife, shaking him to his core. He seems aged, as though realizing his long struggle was for nothing. A haunted look crosses his face, as if he knows that he lost in this instant no matter what else happens next.
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In the corner, Hailey silently screams along the magical connection between her and Bel, trying to garner a response. Slowly, however, the realization that no reply is coming creeps upon her.
“We failed,” she whispers in despair. “We failed, oh god Bel we failed!”
Then, looking up, she makes eye contact with the reincarnated Belinda. Something passes between them in an instant, a message Hailey cannot put to words. But she realizes, clear as the ringing of a bell, that this fight is not over, not yet.
Eyes roaming around the room, searching for anything she can use to fight the wizard, Hailey’s gaze settles on two things. Like the rush of a spell, a desperate plan comes together.
Breathing in deeply, Hailey gathers herself. Then she slowly, silently, moves into position.
Upon reaching her destination, she shouts, “Hey, Athow!”
Bitterness in his voice, the wizard hardly seems to notice her. He does not turn as he answers, uncaring, "What?"
"Just this."
With that, she turns toward the still frozen form of Belladonna and shoves her over. As Belladonna moves, the spell keeping her in stasis breaks and she surges forward with an enraged scream.
Free at long last Belladonna charges Athow like a bat out of Hell! Screaming in incomprehensible rage she visibly transforms, shedding her humanity in favor of poison tipped spines, sickly green skin, slanted pupils, and wild hair. Bella’s body cracks and shifts as the spikes tear through her flesh, forcing her to run on all fours like some great beast. When the metamorphosis is complete, the toxic avenger Belladonna is all that remains.
Unperturbed by the transformation, the wizard lifts one of the books and murmurs a foul incantation. A moment later chains begin attacking Belladonna like snakes trying to wrap themselves around her limbs.
With a snarl, her skin begins excreting a gunky slime that causes the chains to slough off. As she continues the charge she continues to evolve, her body changing from moment to moment.
Seeing her constant shifting, Athow changes tactics. This time, instead of trying to restrain her, he raises a finger and shoots a bolt of black lightning. When it hits Belladonna, she crumples.
Turning back to Belinda Athow says, “I had planned on holding her captive and using her magic to make you impervious to harm so that we could live forever together, but now I see that there are…” he glances down at the twitching spines and sloughing skin covering Belladonna, “undesirable side effects.”
As he finishes turning, he pauses, confused by the triumphant expression in Belinda’s face.
“Wha-”
“For Bel,” Hailey whispers as she lets go of the dagger.
It remains right where she placed it, planted squarely in Thorm Athow’s back.
Thorm Athow begins to hiss a word only to cough out a mouthful of blood instead. Turning back to face Hailey he raises a hand, wordlessly forming another blast of black lightning. Energy crackling around his fingers he takes a step toward her and then stops, coughing again as Belinda shoves him forward, freeing the dagger for her own strike. This time, she stabs him in the heart.
“I am not yours, Thorm, and I never will be,” she hisses at him.
Still unbelieving, unable to comprehend her rejection in its terrible entirity, he stares at her for a few seconds before coughing again to clear his throat. Then, grabbing tight to her wrist he hauls his bleeding body up the knife driving it deeper into his chest. Holding tight to Belinda he pulls her into a doomed embrace and murmurs, "If I die. It will be in your arms." His voice is sick with longing, begging her for one bare second of her love, as if it would justify everything.
She unceremoniously drops him to the floor, letting his bleeding body slump against the rune-carved concrete.
“You deny me?” he asks, struggling to push his body off the floor. Her rejection seems to have imbued him with some terrible last gasp of strength fueled by inhuman desire and incomprehensible rage. “You defy ME!? Well then! If I cannot have you this world will not either!”
Spewing blood across the runes, he raises his hand. It crackles with the same dark power that felled Belladonna. The magic seems to give off an aura of malevolence, feeding of Athows own hatred. With a mad smile he turns the darkness upon himself and siezes the handle of the blade embedded in his chest. Tearing the dagger free with a spray of blood, he casts it aside and brings his magicked hand back to the open wound, digging in his fingers.
As he does, Belinda gasps. Eldritch looks over at her to see her vanishing, fading away into nothingness. Frantically, before she dissapears completely, she fumbles for the dagger only to watch it fall through her vanishing fingers. Desperately, she cries out to Hailey, “Stop him! He is reversing the ritual, tearing open a permanent portal to the places Beyond the Edge of Everything! The Things That Lurk will consume existence if you do not stop him!”
Spurred into motion by the desperate plea, Hailey jumps forward and grabs the dagger. With a slashing motion she lunges for Athow.
He, however, is quicker in turn. With a motion that should be impossible from the dying man he raises his hand and catches her blade in the flesh of his forearm.
As the weapon cuts him open, he grins. He tries to speak, his eyes locked firmly on Belinda's fading face, but nothing comes out as only blood bubbles out of his mouth instead. Then, he tumbles backwards and hits the ground with a thump. His body begins desintegrating immediately after, leaving behind the five bloody books.
Around the room, the runes reignite and the energy that permeated the building before Belinda arrives return. Almost imperceptible, a small distortion forms where Athow stood. Hungry, it grows in bites as it eats the reality around it. The world begins to bend, flowing slowly at first but showing signs of speeding up as it races toward the maw at the center. Soon, it will consume everything.
“W-what do I do?” Hailey asks, helplessly watching the rift widen as it consumes.
“H-h,” a weak voice says behind her, “Hailey…”
Whirling, Hailey sees Belladonna, lying wounded. But her eyes no longer carry the sheen of the toxic avenger, instead they are the mousey and familiar look of Bella.
“Hailey…,” she says, trying to lift herself and failing.
Rushing to her friend, Hailey grabs her arm and says, “We need to leave, before this gets worse! I’ll carry you, just hold on!”
Behind them, the portal stands as tall as a door, crackling with power. A monstrous eye, alien and aberrant, crosses in front of the gateway before moving on. As it does, the horrid sound of pipes fills the room playing a dissonant and incomprehensible melody that jerks in and out.
Shoving her friend’s hands away, Bella shouts, “Wait! I can close it!”
“How?”
Bella grimaces and says with a groan, “I can block it. Just like putting a plug in a drain.”
Aghast, Hailey pauses and asks, “What? Won’t it kill you?”
“Belladonna,” Bella says with a sad smile. “She, well me I guess, we can’t die until we complete the spell. I’m stuck with her until I get my revenge.”
“That’s crazy, how do you even know that!?” Hailey tries to pull her friend away from the widening portal, but Bella pushes her hand away.
Shaking her head, she says, “Belladonna. She told me while Athow had us trapped. My body will just keep evolving and changing until I either fulfil my goal or die.” Her expression is sad, but she forces a smile anyway and says with false cheer, “Turns out you aren’t the only one with a voice in your head, yours is just nicer than mine.”
“No, no I won’t do this! I won’t let you!” Hailey shouts at her friend as Bella struggles to her feet.
“I can stop this portal, and the spell that turned me into Belladonna will ensure I don’t die out there beyond the Edge.”
“Stop! No I can’t lose you too!” Hailey begs, grabbing Bella around the waist. “Bel is already gone, and now you’re leaving? Please! Don’t leave me alone!”
Bella hugs her friend back, whispering, “I’m really grateful, you know?”
“Don’t,” Hailey asks, her voice weak with desperation.
“I’m happy,” Bella continues, “because I get to save you this time.”
With that, she steps back. Squaring her shoulders, she steps into the portal. For a second, she looks back at Hailey with a smile before the howling force of it engulfs her. The tear between reality and un-reality spasms and contorts before shuddering. The shattered shards of existence that surround the scar peel back into place and in moments the portal, along with any sign it ever existed including Bella, is gone.
Hailey falls to her knees, devastated. Numbly, she stares at the now ordinary air where her friend disappeared and begins sobbing.
And so it ends, dear reader. The wizard is gone, his magic lost and his evil abated. But the price, the loss of Bel and Bella, is a difficult one to bear. This is no victory, not that Hailey would ever call it one. Her burden has only grown, and there are fewer shoulders to help her carry the weight. Eldritch Maiden will return next season in… “Whispers!”