Three days. It had been three days. Things were not going well. It was the same problem as always really. Lily was getting in her own way. She was always her own final boss, wasn’t she?

Three days ago she had made the trip to La Mancha with enough of her stuff to be comfortable. She’d settled down nicely into the house there. Gotten electricity running, let Star explore the surroundings in more detail.

But, she had a project to be working on. A way to allow Star to essentially possess Bay. Ideally multiple iterations of Bay, even if her counterpart had to redo the spellwork on her side. Her counterpart hadn’t reached back out, which had Lily worried. The spell wasn’t connecting from her end either. It did have to be done on both sides afterall. But she was trying not to panic about that. The time differential seemed like it was very strange from the times they’d made contact so far. It seemed to fluctuate, rather than being fixed faster or slower on one side or another. So, it was entirely possible that only hours had passed on the other side.

Or that Lily 1 was dead.

No. She shook her head. That wasn’t it. Don’t panic. Besides, she had her own problems to work through.

Namely, it had been three days ago she’d arrived at La Mancha, and she’d been holed up since. Yesterday she’d been making the excuse to herself that she had work to do. It was complicated work and what was more, she was making progress. Good progress! She’d been able to get Bay to move his little arms in relation to how she moved her own arms with an enchantment on her hands. And seeing through his little eyes wasn’t actually that difficult either. Sure there was still further to go, but that was already great progress for two straight days of work! At least, she thought it was.

But, the longer she’d worked on it, the more she’d alternated between that and watching episodes of The Simpsons. Afterall, she’d stopped watching way back in season 14 or so, so revisiting a childhood favorite was super nostalgic.

And today, when she decided it was a good time to go out and check over the animals and maybe spend time with Star… She got to the door and stopped. She froze up. Her hand on the doorknob, a cold sweat washed over her, and before she knew it she was retreating back to the living room.

“Well. Shit.”

She had known on some level that this was coming, but she’d really tried not to psyche herself out. Now, here she was. Her momentum was gone. It was a silly thing. But, until very recently she’d been rushing from one thing to another. One thing she had to do to survive to another thing she had to do to survive. The basement spell. Even recovering things from the house.

But here she was. She’d established a status quo. She could live here comfortably with very little need to leave this house for… probably forever. I mean, she’d have to get used to eating a lot of eggs, and she’d eventually have to see if she could get spices or whatever. But, she had food, water, shelter, mana based electricity, and so on. This was a problem she’d confronted a number of times already, but this was a new frontier.

What felt like ages ago, she’d had this battle out in front of the library. And she’d won. She was proud of herself for that. The urge to hide away instead of exploring magic had been a difficult battle, and the rewards had been incredible. But on some level she had known that when it came down to it, she was propelling herself forward with urgency. With need to push forwards for her own sake. But now? The urgency was gone. She wasn’t going to die if she didn’t go outside. She wasn’t going to miss out on the secrets of magic. There was no reason she had to leave her nest anymore.

And so, her sickness was here again. Really, it had never left. She had just cleverly put off dealing with it. But, these things don’t just vanish. They don’t disappear. Her cage had always been here. Waiting for her to get comfortable inside it again, and lock the door behind her. And how easy it had been.

Three days.

That’s all it had taken.

Three days without some emergency forcing her hand.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. It wasn’t fair! Hadn’t she worked so hard to get past this? Hadn’t she walked the line between life and death to push herself out of this in the first place?

Had she, though? Or had she just done those things because dying was scarier than living? For survival. Because when she broke her issues down to survival, she would do anything to survive. And now? This was survival. This was safety. This was comfort. She could send Star out for anything she needed from now on and never leave this house again.

Because leaving felt like danger. Trauma would do that. That same need for survival could close her into this cage just as strongly as it could push her out of it.

She shook her head again. No. No. This was stupid. She was different now. She really was! She’d overcome so much! It’d been… over a month. She wasn’t really sure on the timeline. It all sort of blended together. Really, looking back on it, it was hard to believe that she had really done those things.

“Shit.”

That wasn’t a great sign either. Okay. So, maybe she had disassociated to varying degrees to get this far too. So what? Use the tools you have in order to survive. But now? What now?

She wasn’t going to lose. That’s what now. It was clear to her now that instead of dealing with this trauma she’d been repressing it and moving forward at any cost. So, all she had to do was deal with it properly, right? Defeat it for good, instead of running away fast enough that it couldn’t catch her.

But how? How do you actually overcome something like this? Phobias. Trauma. Years and years of letting it build into something insurmountable? It was easy when a fire was approaching. Because then the decision was simple: Run or die a horrible death. Really, when you broke problems down to solving it or dying in agony it was often a lot easier to find a solution.

But those solutions are temporary at best. This wasn’t going away just by pushing it down and pretending. No. No no no. Exposure maybe? She should just leave the house and not come back inside for a while. Camp outside. Stay in the car if needbe. Don’t allow herself to shut herself inside, right?

Lily stood and strode over to the door, ready to throw it open. But, as her hand hit the doorknob, she froze again. Instantly, she wasn’t the strong survival minded girl she had become. She was a scared twenty something, standing at the door to her apartment, tears streaming down her face as she tried to get up the courage to open the door and accept a pizza delivery. Or take a step outside at all. Or take her mountain of trash out so she wouldn’t have to live in it.

But, she belonged there. Mixed in with the garbage. That’s why she couldn’t leave. Because this was right.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Lily bit her lip to snap out of it. She was several paces away from the door again. This was so stupid. This was SO STUPID. How could she have let this happen? It snuck up on her. Comfort. Comfort was the enemy, really. If she hadn’t let herself feel safe, if she had stuck to survival– No. That was wrong too.

It was always going to be like this, sooner or later. You can only get away with pretending your problems don’t exist for so long, and it always bites you in the ass.

Maybe she should wait for Star to come back home? She could talk to him about it. He could help her go outside…?

Then what. She can only go outside if he’s there to coax her out every time? No. No no no. Why was she like this? This was infuriating!

“Get it together Lily. Just go outside. Check on the animals and come back in. Easy. Exposure. You’ve done it a million times. Recently. Get out of your fucking head.”

She took a few steps forward and reached for the handle. She held the cold metal in her hands. This time, her mind went to the pit. Cold. Alone. Broken concrete all around her. Only her wits and her magic to get her out. Fear seized her heart. But it was different this time. Because she had conquered the pit.

She turned the handle, and took a step outside. It wasn’t like in a movie, or the ending of a game where a crystal clear blue sky greeted her, birds chirping away. It was overcast, and there was a chill to the wind that was just cold enough to be unpleasant.

She closed the door behind her and sat down on the stoop. Outside. She took a few deep breaths. That had been… hard. A small voice in the back of her head said she had done good and now she could go back in and watch some more of her show. But she knew she couldn’t. Not yet. Not for a while.

That had been frightening. Difficult. And she knew she wasn’t past it. This was only a reminder.

‘I’m still here. Waiting for you to get comfortable.’ her trauma was telling her.

Why couldn’t things just be easy? She wondered if there was a magical solution to trauma. It’s not like she had access to a therapist. Maybe she could find the part of her brain that caused this and magically pull it out and destroy it? That was a fantasy and a half.

“But people are more complicated than that, right? It’s a part of me. Soluble. Mixed in real good. Down to the core. There’s no removing it. I know that.”

No. There really was only one course of action that would work, and she knew it. She had to grow. She had to defeat it. She would never be rid of it. Trauma didn’t work like that. But she could get stronger. She could grow until it was just a brick in the foundation that made her up as a person.

She still didn’t know how. Even this small victory for today was just a small victory. She could sit outside for a few hours. She could go back inside, and force herself to leave the house regularly until it became a habit and that would help. But how was she supposed to actually… win? Long term?

“I hate this. I hate… me. I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to struggle for every little thing. I don’t want to be pathetic. I don’t want to be scared. I’m so, so sick of it.”

At times like this, she started to wonder if it was worth the trouble. If living was so hard, why bother? Besides, Lily 1 existed now. In a way it would be a solution to the problem of there being two of them.

She shook her head. Nope. Down that path lies madness. The contradiction of having to fight off thoughts like that but having no issue running from a fire wasn’t lost on her either. But somehow that was different.

“Why am I always trying to kill me?”

She almost had to laugh at that. All the dangerous situations she’d put herself through. Really, it was amazing she’d survived.

For now, she was just going to sit here and close her eyes. Just be outside. Breathe. Exist outside.

----------------------------------------

“Master?”

The sound of Star’s voice made her jump.

“Oh, hey. You’re back earl–”

She looked around. It was significantly darker than when she’d left the house earlier. She must have gotten lost in her thoughts again.

“Master, are you okay?”

“Honestly? No. But I’ll get there.”

He approached and gently licked her hand. She had to giggle. Some things never changed.

“What has happened?”

“Nothing really. I– It’s my own fault. I’m just not good.”

“At what?”

“I don’t know. Living, I guess?”

“That is silly.”

She reached out and patted his head, then hugged him fully. The feeling of his warm fur against her face felt real. Grounded her somewhat.

“Yeah. I’m silly. Hey, is it okay if living at La Mancha doesn’t work out?”

“The boat is not far away. Why would it matter?”

Lily smiled.

“Yeah, I guess. I’d like to make this place as self-sufficient as I can. But, I think I need to be somewhere less comfortable overall. On the boat I have more to pay attention to outside. I think it’s good for me.”

Star laid across her lap, getting comfortable. His warm body made her realize she’d been sitting in the cold outside for a number of hours. Suddenly she was really feeling it.

“We can live wherever you wish. I miss my friends as well.”

“Hmm. Maybe we’ll go on a boat trip or two too. You’ve never been on the boat while it’s actually moving have you?”

“Moving? It moves?”

“Yes it moves! What did you think it was for?”

“It is a house. On the water.”

“Well. Okay, fair. But yes, it moves!”

“Does it swim? Like a fish?”

“Sorta?”

“I want to ride the boat.”

“Yeah, me too. Okay. That’ll be the plan. But first I need to make sure this place can last a while. It’s a shame we can’t get Donk to take care of it.”

Lily opened the front door and walked back in. Into her prison. Only, it didn’t feel like it locked behind her this time when she closed the door. Her heart was feeling lighter with Star here. So, she spoke again. Mostly to herself.

“It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got this. I’m not the same scared girl I was.”

“Master?”

“Hmm? Oh. Don’t worry about it. What do you want for dinner?”

“No. Master, I think I hear the spell in the other room.”

Lily stopped and listened. Very faintly, she thought she heard a voice too. Her voice. She ran to reach the living room where she had left Bay, only to find the spell active on him, and her own voice pouring out.

“Please pick up! Hello? Hello?”

“Hey! I’m here. I was just outside. Is everything okay?”

Lily One’s voice on the other side poured through in panicked gasps.

“No! No no no! I really fucked up! I’m in big trouble! Big big trouble!”

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“I’m definitely going to jail. Or worse! I shouldn’t have opened my big stupid mouth!”

A girl’s voice echoed from somewhere further away, but Lily couldn’t quite make it out. Whoever it was, they sounded very angry.

“Are you being chased?”

“YES! I–”

The connection closed. Lily sat and stared at Bay with wide eyes, waiting for the connection to open again. It didn’t.