Chapter 11 — Letter of Introduction

The last of Rína’s time in the cottage was similar to the previous weeks. She sat beside Yvette, being poked in the soul, but instead of mental noise and nausea, it felt like just a poke on her physical body. The exercises were simply Rína trying to focus and discern more information: was the poke’s contact patch a circle, square, or triangle? Was that a single poke, two pokes very close together, or one poke quickly followed by another? How much larger was one poke compared to another? It was slow going but even in that short amount of time Rína could see some improvements.

It was late evening as Rína and Yvette were on the couch, leaning against Felix, as both women were at work.

“Two, seven—no, eight—pointed stars, one after the other,” Rína answered, describing the latest poke.

“Oh?”

“Yea—Hmm, could you do it again? Ok…” Rína closed her eyes, “Oh! Look who’s being sneaky. It’s a four pointed star immediately followed by a superimposed eight pointed star.”

“Very good,” Yvette smiled, “And with that I believe I’m done.”

“What do you mean?”

“The preparations. I’ve just finished them. If you are ready, we can leave tomorrow morning.”

“Oh! And yeah, I’m ready to go,” Rína’s eyes drifted in the direction she thought was Leighton, as she muttered, “Kind of a shame though.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s nothing, I was just…” Rína chewed her lip as she remembered the magister. Over the last month of Yvette’s and Felix’s company she hadn’t put much thought into what was happening in Leighton. She had already resolved to leave it behind and start a new life elsewhere, but now that they were properly leaving, a final loose thread came into focus.

A slight look of concern crossed Yvette’s face, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong—well I guess something is. I was just thinking that after all this, the magister kind of came out ahead, you know?”

“Ah. Well, there is no reason we cannot deliver a parting gift before we leave.”

Rína’s eyes widened, “You mean that?”

“Of course. It is just a matter of deciding what to do. Do you want to kill him?”

“What!? Gods no! As much as he can burn in the hells, I don’t want to kill him, or anyone, really. I’d prefer to leave him in power if that’s the only alternative.”

“Just checking. However, you should be aware that the world is at times an unpleasant place requiring bloodshed, but I doubt this is one such time.”

“Are you saying that you’ve killed before?” Rína gaped.

“I have, either for my defense or another’s, but like I said, I highly doubt this situation calls for it.”

“Oh… but you’re willing to help, then?”

“I am. And I suppose this will turn into a teaching opportunity one way or another,” Yvette smiled, “Do you have any ideas?”

“Not off the top of my head. I doubt another fire bomb would do the trick. Wait! We, you, could go poke his soul a couple hundred or thousand times.”

“Technically, yes. Depending on how many I do, he could lose all the models his mind uses, turning all his senses into noise and even all of his outgoing motor signals into random muscle spasms—including the muscles for his vocal cords, diaphragm, eyes, bladder, everything.”

“...that just sounds like a literal hell. I… maybe soul pokes are off the table. Gods, Veronica and Eva. They would have to take care of him the entire time—it would just be hell for them too.”

“He could technically recover, but even with specialized therapy involving a sensory deprivation chamber, with all his models damaged at once, it would take at least a decade. But it would remove him from power, wouldn’t it? And would those two women actually have to care for him? Couldn’t they divorce him? These aren’t rhetorical questions, mind you, I have no idea how this government works.”

“You came here without knowing how the government works?”

“In my defense, this wilderness was significantly more wild back then.”

“And when was that, by the way?”

“Approximately a century ago.”

“I… How old are you anyway?”

“A little over three centuries. We were talking about the legal system?”

“I don’t know if I was expecting you to be younger or older than that. How old is the rest of your family?”

“Older, but my brother Liam is two very relevant years younger than me.” Yvette answered straight-faced, “Also, we are now well off topic.”

“Right, sorry. Uh, well if Magister Leigh was ‘medically infirm’ long term then the governor in Westreach would appoint a new one. But Veronica and Eva… There are only a few instances where a woman can initiate a divorce, but I don’t think medical reasons would do it.”

“What? So men decide when a divorce occurs? What kind of uncivilized backwater is this? No offense.”

“It’s the kind that needs a firebomb. And none taken. Wait, are you saying it’s not like this elsewhere?”

“Gods no. I’ve heard that other highlands around the world can be a little strange with their gender roles, but nothing this bad. And once there’s enough ambient aether, where people are throwing fireballs regardless of gender, strict gender roles become very rare.”

“Sounds nice…”

“So. What kind of circumstances would allow the two women to break ties? Also, I’m almost afraid to ask, but are we sure they would be better off divorced? We are after all making a decision without their input that will be very impactful on their lives.”

Rína sighed, “I think it would have to be some kind of serious crime, but wives are usually seen as extensions of their husbands by default, so they would also have to be explicitly absolved of whatever crime the magister is charged with. If that were possible, yeah they’d be off pretty well—definitely better than they are now. So long as it was bad enough, the magister would be legally removed from his own household and sentenced to hard labor. He would be divorced, and until one of their sons turned sixteen, Veronica and Eva would be co-owners of the Leigh estate.”

“That sounds ideal, so long as he doesn’t get sentenced to death instead.”

“No, as a citizen, he would only be executed if the crime was violent and he had already escaped once before. We still need something terrible we can frame him with. Grand embezzlement, maybe? No…”

“What about framing him for murder or similar?”

Rína nearly choked on air, “What? Uh, how in the hells would we do that?”

“Easily. You just need to think like a Flesh Weaver,” Yvette gave an impish grin, “I still have one chamber fully intact. I was planning on dissolving its contents along with the rest of the chambers but… Just a moment.”

Seconds later Rína heard footsteps ascending from the staircase behind her. She turned to see a woman dressed in a simple wool dress. She was barefoot and absent of any jewelry or other personal belongings and her hair draped haphazardly down to her waist, but what caught Rína’s attention the most was the woman’s dead, unfocused eyes.

“Uh, hi there,” Rína said uncertainly, “Yvette, what the hells is going on?”

“This here,” Yvette motioned to the woman, “is our murder victim that will tragically only live long enough to tell the people of Leighton who its killer was.”

“What the fuck Yvette, I told you I don’t want to kill anyone,” Rína rose from the couch and tentatively walked into the unknown woman’s line of sight, “Are you ok?” Rína looked back at Yvette, “How long have you been keeping her in your basement? WHY have you been keeping her in your basement!” Rína stared horrified.

“There’s no need to get excited. That isn’t a person. It is just one of several human bodies I’ve grown for use as testbeds. Well, mostly human bodies, this specific one currently has an overhauled metabolism. Regardless, none of them have ever had souls or any manner of consciousness. They are typically called ‘flesh puppets’ because they literally are just flesh and bone and nothing more.”

“I—Wh—Uh—” Rína’s eyes snapped between Yvette and the other woman. Rína could see the other woman breathing, she could see the slight red flush in the woman’s cheeks, and for all the woman’s blank expression, Rína could still see that she was a person.

“Hmm. I believe it is time for a very important lesson. Here, I have something to show you.” Yvette rose and motioned for Rína to follow her. Rína grimaced, sparing one last glance for the dead eyed woman, before following Yvette—not downstairs, as she expected, but into the bathroom.

“What do you see?” Yvette asked, indicating the mirror set behind the wash basin.

“You mean besides you and me?”

“How can you tell that it is you and me that you see?” Yvette replied, adopting her professorial tone.

Rína sighed, already exasperated, “Because that’s what we look like.”

“So because of the clothes we wear?”

“Because that’s my face, and that’s your face.” Rína pointed respectively.

“But we’re not the faces we wear, are we? I didn’t become you when I mimicked your appearance.”

“Yeah, I know we’re not our bodies.”

“Academically, perhaps, but do you truly know it? All your life you have seen a person and seen a face; you have seen your face and seen yourself. It’s completely normal for people to tie personhood and identity directly to a face, and to the rest of a body to a lesser extent. But if you knew that we are not our bodies, then why were you uncomfortable when I copied your face?”

“I…” Rína didn’t have an answer, at least not a good one.

Yvette nodded after a moment, “There are many axioms in human society that we as Flesh Weavers either blur or erase entirely. The line between living and nonliving matter is the most relevant, but the identity of the flesh is a close second. I do not mean to imply that these are easy axioms to shed or that you must do so immediately, quite the opposite, but it is a necessary step along the path of the Weaver.”

Rína took a deep breath, “Right… I guess it’s for the best that the woman—errh—puppet at least had a blank expression.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“That was intentional, for your sake, but tomorrow morning it will be as lifelike of a performance as I can manage, though hopefully the injuries will be able to do most of the talking, as it were. A kind of mantra I found helpful when I was where you are now is ‘See the soul, not the flesh’.”

“You mean literally? Because I can only see mine.”

“Literally and metaphorically, though it will be a while before you’ll be able to see other souls. For now, I mean that you should try to ignore the superficial, the flesh, and focus on the person beyond it. For example, though this wasn’t the case in the beginning, you now look past Felix’s flesh and see the person that he is beyond it, do you not? Similarly, one can see past the puppet’s flesh and see that there is no person beyond, no soul controlling its actions—except mine indirectly, I suppose.”

“You make it sound really easy. Wait…” Rína narrowed her eyes on Yvette, “If flesh is just like clothing to you, or whatever, why don’t you change your appearance day to day?”

“Well spotted,” Yvette smiled, “I choose to appear this way because I find it to be more comfortable, more in line with who I feel I am. Like how you might have a favorite outfit you feel fits you best, and I don’t mean how it fits you physically. It’s not that I tie my identity to this flesh or appearance—I use them as a kind of self portrait. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one.”

“Makes sense. Do all Weavers do it like that?”

“Not all. Some regularly change their body’s appearance, and sometimes sex, but most Weavers keep things consistent. My mother for example: not once in my entire life have I seen her in a human form that looked a day over twenty-three. But it undoubtedly suits her, just as I feel a few gray hairs suit me.”

“Hmm. Wait, twenty-three?” Rína chuckled, “That must have made lunches in public look weird.”

Yvette huffed, “It would have, but she would always have far too much fun loudly announcing that her dear elder aunty would be covering the bill.” Yvette shook her head in annoyance.

Rína snorted, “Ah, I like her already.”

“Yes, yes. She’s the life of the party.” Yvette commented dryly, “But it’s late and I need to get this puppet ready.”

“Oh? Sending me off to bed?” Rína cocked an eyebrow.

Yvette adopted an imperious tone, “Why, yes, young lady. Sleep is very important.” Yvette smirked before returning to her usual tone, “Besides, the puppet needs clothing and bodily damage befitting a murder victim, and something tells me you won’t want to be around for that.”

Rína blanched, “Uh, no thank you… And yeah, sleep does sound good.”

Rína walked across the cottage to her bedroom door, stealing one last glance at the woman—puppet—that hadn’t moved whatsoever, “That’s just unnerving… See the soul, not the flesh…”

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Yvette returned to her seat on the couch with her back against Felix. The puppet could wait until later. For now she had a more pressing matter. She could have discretely spoken to Felix at any time that night, in any number of ways, but Yvette felt actual vocal conversations were best whenever one could help it.

And so Yvette waited until the sound of Rína’s breathing denoted that she had fallen asleep. It took longer than Yvette would have thought. Perhaps it was just that the girl was just nervous for tomorrow, perhaps Yvette had forgotten how long a normal human could take to fall asleep.

For all the human body relied on sleep, it certainly didn’t mind wasting a person’s time by being uncooperative when the person was trying to give it the sleep it needed. It would be as if humans were unable to swallow food unless the food had been in their mouths for at least an hour.

Yvette was getting distracted.

She listened again to Rína’s distinctly slowed breathing, she then turned to look Felix in the eye as she slowly scratched behind his ears.

“Alright, what’s wrong?”

Felix grumbled, looking away from Yvette.

“Come now. Rína may not have noticed, but I certainly have. Is it the move or something else?”

Felix gave a low whine and began twitching a small, vestigial muscle in his back. Connected to the small muscle was one of Yvette’s longest soul threads, which relayed the specific sequence of twitches straight to Yvette’s soul. Felix had been unwilling to fully use the vocal cords Yvette had built for him, but he had at least come around on this form of communication.

«Cub Plural Danger» were the words the sequence keyed to.

“They are,” Yvette sighed, “But we will be in far more danger than they are if we stay.”

Felix whined again, still not meeting Yvette’s eyes.

«Guard»

“I am afraid that they will just have to watch out for themselves.”

Felix turned his great head and looked Yvette in the eye.

«Felix Guard»

“What do you—” Yvette froze, “Oh… I see…”

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The emaciated puppet with a broken and battered body sat stock still as she waited for morning. Most of the centermost buildings in the small town had either been repaired or fully rebuilt following her apprentice’s incendiary escapade. Her target however seemed to have grander ambitions than simply a return to the norm. Thus his home, soon to be worthy of the word ‘mansion’, was still under construction.

This made slipping into its newly furnished office relatively easy while under the cover of night. However, loosening the floorboards under the office rug and compacting the dirt beneath, all without making noise, had been significantly more difficult. Regardless, there in that cavity of compacted dirt, beneath the floorboards, she waited.

The state of her dress and the chewed through rope bonds in the dirt beside her painted a clear enough picture, even without a deathbed accusation. The narrative was certainly light on details, but that was by design. Too many could see the story fall apart, and filling in the gaps could be outsourced to the magister’s rivals or the public at large.

The emaciated woman heard the sounds of the town around her waking up, though thankfully the Leigh household was still quiet. That was her cue.

With the alleged last of her strength, the emaciated woman burst up through the floorboards and desperately leapt through the office window. Glass shards sliced her skin as she saw the light of day. She began her cries, and received horrified but confused looks from the townsfolk. Horrified that anyone had been so terribly injured, but all the more confused that such a person had come from the Leigh manor.

The emaciated woman struggled to make small talk, only finding conversational refuge in the topic of who had done this to her. As a few townsfolk ran to get help, the emaciated woman informed the growing crowd that Magister Leigh, and only Magister Leigh, was the perpetrator and that his wives—who were certainly not involved—needed to be warned.

The emaciated woman was asked for details as she received first aid, but she decided to only comment that the magister had been doing it for fun and must have thought he killed her during his last session. Then she figured that it was time for her to dramatically lose consciousness after expending the last of her strength. She shut her eyes, slowed her breathing and heartbeat, and then a minute later, stopped them altogether.

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“I think I’ll miss this place,” Rína said as stood outside the cottage, giving it one last look. It was late morning, just after breakfast, and behind Rína was a large wagon, practically a small single-room house on wheels, pulled by a pair of oxen.

“I doubt it will be the last time you see it, from a certain point of view,” Yvette replied, as she exited the back of the wagon.

“What do you mean?”

“This wasn’t the first time I’ve grown this cottage, and it will hardly be the last—I plan to regrow it wherever we eventually settle down.”

“Huh, why a cottage, though? Not that I’m complaining, but have you thought about a tower or a mansion, maybe even a castle?”

“I have indeed thought about how those are all inferior forms of architecture, what about it?”

Rína snorted as she looked over at Felix. He had been pacing all morning, visibly uneasy, and if she thought back, she guessed he’d been a little off more recently too. Rína just chalked it up to nervousness because of the move. Weirdly, even in the presence of Felix, the two oxen hitched to the wagon were completely calm, not even giving him a single glance.

“Those are puppets, too, aren’t they?” Rína indicated the oxen.

“They are indeed. Same as the wagon and even the cottage, though ‘puppet’ usually only describes things with the appearance of creatures. The prefix of ‘living’ gets used for basically everything else. So this is a living wagon, or a wagon made of living wood, whichever you prefer. Now, are you ready to go?”

Rína sighed, “Yeah, I’m ready. Oh, uh, did the…” Rína motioned vaguely, “work out?”

“The former magister was dragged out of his home and thrown into a cell a few hours ago.”

Rína nodded, “Alright, then, let’s go. Come on Felix,” Rína waved him into the back of the wagon.

Instead, Felix stopped his pacing and sat down, then let out a low whine.

“What’s going on?” Rína furrowed her brow.

“Felix decided that he would stay here and look after the wolf packs.”

Rína shot Yvette an accusatory look.

Yvette clarified, “He only told me last night.”

“Oh… shit.” Rína said, walking up to the great wolf, “I’m really gonna miss you, Felix. But hells, it’ll just be a matter of time before we’re back to visit.”

Yvette followed solemnly behind, “I will miss you as well, Felix.”

Felix lowered his head so that the backs of his ears could receive the ministrations of the two women.

“And please,” Yvette continued, “try and improve your first impressions; for me?”

Rína chuckled, “Oh!” she ran into the wagon, “Hey Yvette, do we have anything really sturdy I could write on?”

Yvette quirked an eyebrow, “Depends on how sturdy you need it to be. What do you have in mind?”

Rína stuck her head out of the wagon’s side window, a half manic smile across her face, “I’m going to write Felix a letter of introduction!”

Felix perked up his ears as Rína’s smile was soon mirrored onto Yvette.

Yvette considered before she called out, “You can quit your searching. I have just the thing.”

Yvette walked up to her soon to be former cottage and plucked its oversized door straight from the door frame as if it were weightless, the hinges releasing the door as if it had never been connected. As Yvette returned to Rína and Felix, the edges of the door began sloughing off until it was a third its original size—still large, but small enough for Felix to comfortably hold in his mouth.

“What were you thinking of writing?”

Rína chewed her lip, “How about…”

As Rína spoke, her words appeared in the wood as if carved and painted by an artisan. When she was done, the three of them inspected it.

“I think it’s perfect,” Yvette said, and at once the slab of wood shuddered and compressed slightly, expelling a small cloud of oak scented steam across its surface, “This should last quite some time, I think.”

Rína didn’t need to see Felix’s tail as she heard it swishing through the air. She shrieked as a giant slobbery tongue smothered her before it moved and gave Yvette the same courtesy. By the time Rína cleared her eyes of saliva, she saw that Felix already held his letter of introduction proudly between his teeth.

Yvette placed her hand on Rína’s back, “It’s time to go. Extending goodbyes only makes them worse. And you should go, too, Felix. You won’t want to be anywhere near the cottage when the chambers beneath it collapse.”

Felix nodded and whined, giving Rína and Yvette one last look, before soundlessly disappearing into the forest. The two women watched his retreating form before they took their positions on the driver’s bench at the front of the wagon.

“Yvette…” Rína began, “How exactly is the wagon supposed to get through a dense forest?”

“With some sure footedness.” Yvette smirked, but Rína could see that the smirk was somehow hollow, brittle even, and didn’t reach her eyes.

Before she could ask anything, Rína felt a shudder from the wagon. She looked over the side to see that eight spider-like legs made of wood had unfolded themselves from the wagon’s underside, lifting the vehicle just off of its wheels.

A cackle bubbled up from Rína as the pair of oxen puppets, only loosely yoked, and the wagon itself took their first steps into the treeline. She looked back, her view interrupted by an ever increasing number of trees, as the cottage and even the earth around it seemed to sag inward. Minutes after she lost sight of the cottage, Rína heard a thunderous crash and through the forest canopy could see a plume of dirt rising into the air. And that was the end of the cottage in the woods.

“I get why Felix felt he had to stay,” Rína began, “but it still sucks he’s not coming with us. How long do you think it’ll be before we’re back in the area?”

“I do not believe returning would be wise.” Yvette said softly, her eyes fixed ahead of her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that it may be a long time before either of us return, and while I’ve kept Felix’s body in peak shape—better than peak, even—he’s older than he looks.”

“Oh…” Rína said, suddenly feeling that her goodbye was utterly insufficient, “How much…?”

“Plenty, by human standards at least, and you can be sure that it won’t be heart failure or a broken back that… Regardless, I’ve found it’s best to make clean breaks—let the last memories of a friend be good ones.” Yvette took a shuddering breath, her eyes still not meeting Rína’s.

“So… You’re just going to abandon him?” bile leaking into Rína’s tone.

“I am.” Yvette turned to Rína, the first tears wetting the older woman’s cheeks, “Which is why it is good that he still has time to make new connections—something I’m sure your letter will help with. He has time to have a life not defined by his relationship with me.”

“But he cares about you, he has to. What is he supposed to do, just forget you?”

“Yes.” Yvette said, her voice hollow, “You may call me callous, selfish, and cowardly—I do not care. I will not hold the hand of another dying friend, not again.”

Rína could only stare at the woman as her tears continued to fall.

“I… I can’t accept that. But I think I understand what you meant about keeping people at a distance.”

“No. You don’t understand, not yet. But you will. And for that I am sorry.”