He felt nothing as he stared at the lifeless corpse of Minerva, her blue eyes dull and empty, her long silky black hair laid out like a spider’s web. Something in his mind told him she looked beautiful even in death, but another part was disgusted with how he felt nothing.

The healer of Aodh’s village had been unable to keep the venom from completely destroying the snake woman's nervous system and turned her mind to mush, not totally unlike the Curse of Self he was so used to. So they put the woman out of her misery, living any longer in such a state was only torture.

There was an awful sickening weight that poured into his chest the longer he looked at the body of the woman.

“Sorry for yer’ loss mate, dis’ was far from what I’d in mind when I asked fer your ‘elp.” The dark haired human man said in an apologetic look with a sad tone as he placed a hand on his arm in solidarity.

He wasn’t sure what he could, should or would say.

Marduk had experienced loss with his mother, it was long and excruciating giving him an eternity to contemplate it.

But this was short and he had no time to comprehend it.

He waited for her to smile up at him as she had done only the day before, to hear her voice talk about her interest in a given topic…

But she didn’t.

It was silent as she stared at her.

He might have still felt that distrust for her that originally made him not want to bring her along, if it wasn’t for that black pit forming in his chest as a cold loneliness gripped him.

‘Why are you letting me feel grief! Let alone for this woman who not a month ago I never wanted to speak with again?!’ He shouted into his mind angry at the complete hypocrisy of his lizard wiring in this moment.

“Fucking damn it” He cursed in a language foreign to the world.

He felt sick to his stomach by this point and was alone, the humans of the village having left him alone, though he didn’t want to be alone with himself at a time like this.

‘I’m cursed’ The words crept back into his mind easily.

‘I am Cursed’

“I’m cursed” He spat angrily sneering at the image of himself he held in his mind.

His eyes focused intently on the corpse of Minerva, he reached out brushing his hand against the soft cheek of her face feeling something visceral and putrid rise in his heart as he pulled his hand away.

“I- I’m sorry I got you killed Minerva, all I had to do is protect you and I couldn’t even do that much…”

In all his pain and grief, the torrent of emotions, he finally felt human again for the first time in a decade.

Marduk had sparks of humanity return to him recently, but they weren’t nearly as clear and full as how the death of the lamia woman was affecting him.

Breathing out a ragged exhausted sigh the Saurian leaned down and embraced the cold body of the woman whispering words in a language foreign to the world into her ear as he held her tightly before letting go almost ten minutes later and closing her eyes speaking an Ahkula prayer he’d been taught to the woman.

“We all descend from the four Great Beings, you are now returned to them in the waning world, rest, rest rest, for you have earned that much. Goddess Zäna… I have never asked anything of you before… but- but would you please take care of her? She has no one-” He felt himself get choked up as he changed the rite to plead his goddess protector for help.

As far as he knew Saurians couldn’t cry, but gods did he ever feel like he was crying right now.

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Marduk stared up at the dark of the night sky, there was no moon tonight, just a sea of stars blessing the infinite black.

He had hoped to see the light of Zäna.

The soft rustle of leaves in the breeze, the distant creaking of trees and the occasional caw or hoot of a bird dressed the ambience of his night as he watched the sky on the outskirts of Auburst. It calmed his mind from the heavy rain of thoughts clouding it. He liked how alone he felt with it, but how close to the world he felt.

In Logos, prior to its rebranding, he failed to feel truly at home.

But out here… out here in the woods he felt close to the great beings.

He’d been in Auburst for almost two and a half days now, following along with whatever people asked of him, hoping it would keep her death from his mind, but all it did was make things worse. He felt desperate longing for her presence and wished that he could have done something to save her, that had he been faster, stronger and more attentive he could’ve been then in time.

But he wasn’t.

Releasing a long breath he turned his eyes from the stars to the mossy grass of the forest noticing shadows of critters darting about behind the trees, he remembered when he was terrified of the dark, when the idea of monsters hiding in it scared him senseless, when he couldn’t be within a metre or so of a spider. Now however they were like set dressing, he couldn’t possibly care less about the family of dinner plate sized arachnids marching over the roots of the closest tree.

He was however terrified of the Arachne he’d been told about, that was too much for him still.

Whatever was left of his grief began to subside and disappear into the ether for a time as he watched the creatures of the woods mingled about, this was broken by the sound of someone approaching him from behind.

He didn’t bother to turn around as the person came to a stop next to him and spoke.

“I t’oght you’d be ‘ere” Aodh said taking a seat next to him on the fallen tree with a wheeze likely still feeling the damage of the day he found him.

“Why’s that?” The Saurian asked.

“Yer’ goddess is celestial, dis’s tha’ best spot fer watchin’ and such” The dark haired man answered.

“How’d you..? Oh right…” Marduk’s voice trailed off.

“We’re havin’ a festival soon fer’ the dead where ye can send yer friend off properly if ya’d like to join us?” Aodh offered keeping his eyes forward with a lazy expression.

A few minutes of silence sat between them while the giant green scaled lizard man thought about his answer, golden eyes wandering from the woods back up to the stars.

“I’ll stay for that then and continue my journey afterward.” Marduk eventually replied, noticing the man to his right nod his head.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Aye dat’s good, festivities start in ‘tree days” As a man of few words having said what he wanted to Aodh bid Marduk farewell before heading back to his hut.

Alone again the Saurian continued to star at the stars, he still had no real way to deal with his grief but he hoped the festival his new friend mentioned would alleviate some of it before he was truly left to his own devices as he travelled again. It wouldn’t be like when he ran away after his mother died, but worse with him being actually conscious of the journey ahead.

Time passed and he continued to stare into oblivion but it was broken again when another presence approached him, his golden eyes went wide as the oaken figure of a woman with leaves for hair stepped out from behind a tree. He fumbled backward off the seat as the figure opened their mouth to speak-

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The Witch of Chrysanthe was disgusted with what she laid her eyes on.

An entire town turned to stone.

“Someone set a basilisk on your people?” She asked through gritted teeth to the guardsman who had been bringing her to the town's ruler.

“Yes ma’am, shoulda guessed a witch would be able to figure it out so easily.” The man replied.

“Do you know what happened to the basilisk?” She asked immediately after.

“No, but you’ll hear more of what happened from my lord.” The guard answered.

They went quiet for the rest of the journey to the a tavern where the guard said the ruler was waiting, her thoughts were consumed with ideas of what to do about the monster she’d only known about through stories. It was a hard problem to solve when she’d never had the chance to deal with such a thing, all her knowledge for these sorts of matters was far from practical having never truly faced a monster that wasn’t in the control of her Aunt.

‘What did she say about dealing with petrification again…?’ She queried in her mind drawing on old lessons with the inane woman who spent years torturing her and calling it education.

‘Oh! I got it!’ She cheered internally ‘Don’t!’

‘I can’t imagine these people are going to accept that however…’

Medea was broken from her thoughts when the guard knocked on the door of the tavern, there was a sign hanging down from a post jutting out from the side of the building.

The sign read: Baldakins Alehouse.

“Come in” A shrill tone called out causing the Witch to raise her brow.

Entering before the guard with him closing the door behind with a gente click as it locked shut. The interior of the tavern was warmly lit by the hue of orange flames in a collection of lanterns around the building, to the right of the entrance was a long counter top with a headboard parallel to it hanging down from the roof with a menu of many items served in the establishment. On the left side of the large room as they entered was a raised area with a pair of steps up to it, on the raised area were five or six tables and against the walls several booths dressed with red fabric seats.

In one of the booths alone with two guards on either side of it was a androgynous person with an intense beauty that seemed unnatural and made the Witch uncomfortable. The person had long red hair and fair skin with light green eyes and a pair of nearly two feet long pointed ears and most pointedly a set of four dark coloured monarch butterfly wings sticking out from their back as they sat with one leg over the other knee and a hand pressed against their cheek with a lidded expression.

“You’re taller than your reputation suggested.” The silky voice of the butterfly winged person said, putting their full attention to the Witch.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m Master Pasiphae’s apprentice, that should explain the discrepancies.” She replied and stepped back into a low bow as she introduced herself. “I am Medea of Chrysanthe.”

As she raised her head to look at her employer the green eyes sparkled widely-

“Yes! Yes! I know you! I’ve heard all about the Witch of Chrysanthe!” The ruler cheered excitedly leaping from their seat and just about throwing themselves at Medea.

The Witch noted how short the ruler was, she was even shorter than her aunt, easily four or four and a half feet tall. Medea guessed what she was looking at was some kind of faerie, she knew very little of them but the one thing she knew for certain was that she should never make any deal with one under any circumstance no matter what unless she could dictate every last miniscule detail of it to leave no room for misinterpretation.

She was smart, but not nearly enough to account for all the details of making deals with a fae.

“Me though- I am Lord of Zaros, Aoibhinn le fey!” The short faerie announced.

Medea was distracted by a thought as the lord she was going to be working for spoke-

‘Whose voice was that I heard through the door earlier?’

“I want you to sit with me Lady Witch!” Aoibhinn motioned for Medea to sit across from the faerie in the booth.

Wordlessly she joined the faerie and listened to their request.

“As you may have seen getting here, my people have been petrified by a monster which I cannot deal with and I don’t wish to let my remaining citizens die by its hands.” The faerie ruler spoke with a frown tugging at their features. “I have put the town into a lockdown for the time being while you deal with this monster, we’ve narrowed the identity of it down to a basilisk of some kind…”

Aoibhinn sighed, slumping in the seat. “No one has survived an encounter with the monster long enough to see what it was so I’d like for you to confirm what the monster is exactly and kill it to undo the petrification of my people.”

“So identify the monster and slay it?” The Witch repeated for confirmation and to make sure that was all there was to her so called ‘Quest’ as her Aunt had called it.

The androgynous ruler nodded their head.

“I have a question if you don’t mind me asking Aoibhinn?” Medea prompted and the ginger haired faerie motioned for her to ask away. “Are you a man or a woman?” it was something that was bothering her and she didn’t want to keep skirting around what to call them.

“Oh!” A melodic chortle filled the air. “Haha~! I always forget you mortals bother with such trivialities!” they continued to laugh.

Slowing to a stop and wiping a tear from their eye the Faerie answered “I am both and neither, so you are free to refer to me as either.”

“A man then” Medea answered.

‘That would make me feel more comfortable, I’ve always found dealing with them easier than other women, especially with my aunt being how she is.’ She sighed internally.

The man across from her smiled and their features seemed to become that little bit sharper making it slightly more obvious that they were a man. It sent a shiver down the witches spine before she continued inquiring about what information she’d need to keep herself safe while investigating the monster.