What Saila saw when she reached the cave entrance was like a nightmare.

Noble, covered in the mushed flesh of who knew how many plants, like dark green blood.

Ophelia, poised to strike.

“NOBLE!”

Ophelia turned to her. Her mask was gone, a bit of blood trickling down her nose.

“Young Saila…?”

“Ophelia stop or… or I’ll-!”

Then Noble fired.

The nightmare danced.

Ophelia tried to put the flames out. By the Creator and her blessed cup did she try, the vines of her dress thrashing and flailing, trying to smother it as they wrapped about her.

She did succeed in the end, but she may as well not have.

Ophelia collapsed, her beautiful floral dress scorched black and ruined, her body scarred with fire, hair crackling with embers. If she was breathing, Saila couldn’t tell.

A part of her felt a true pang of sadness.

Noble, with a slow and steady movement, opened his revolver and started reloading- even from this distance she could tell only his left forearm had any strength in it.

She went to him, finding strength in her legs again.

“N… Noble, are you…?”

He flinched, as though expecting worse, a few bullets dropping from his fingers with a staccato tink-tink-tatink.

“I’m sorry, little lady. I uh…,” there was a sharpness to his breath. “I’m, fine, just… your matchbox. I’m sorry.”

She had known that, in her head. Or at least suspected. How else would a bullet set Ophelia ablaze? But hearing it was like a stab through the chest all the same. She loved that thing, and what it meant to her.

So, it was a surprise when the words “Wh- Noble! I don’t care about that- are you okay!?” left her mouth.

The matchbox had been a treasured thing, for sure.

But it was just a thing.

“I said I’m… fine.”

Saila blinked at him.

“Noble you’re barely standing!”

“It’s f- fine. I can walk it off till… Al-Rimal.”

“Like hell you can Noble you’ve got a spike wider than my arm in your leg- wait, there’s no… do you have metal legs too?!”

He nodded. “That I do, li-”

“Hehehehe…”

“-ttle la… dy…”

“Noble what was-”

“Saila, get back!”

Laughter cut through them like a dead wind. Noble moved to get in front of Saila but could only manage to get her to step away from him- and away from Ophelia’s corpse.

Or what Saila had presumed was her corpse.

Ophelia lifted off the ground with an unnatural twist to her body, like a puppet being roughly lifted by its strings. She lurched forward into a standing position, balancing on the balls of her feet, disheveled and smoldering hair covering most of her flame-scarred head.

But in that moment, Saila saw it, as a smile worked its way into her death-mask of a face.

The fang tattoos on her eyes started to shift and move, in imitation of her smile- or the other way around. They lifted up into the eyelids, and then- chomp, there was a sickening sound as they closed down like a vice over her pupils, red dripping down and onto her cheeks.

The wetted fangs opened up, and in the place of Ophelia’s sky-blue eyes were flaming torches of ruby-red and shimmering white.

Laughter radiated from her, cheeks straining from the too-wide grin, and a hiss of a voice slithered out from between her teeth.

“Broooo~theeeeer~.”

The lights flickered, like shadows dancing across the world. Half the bulbs were swallowed by it.

“Noble what is-”

“Run, NOW!” Noble shouted- the loudest she’d ever heard, his voice cracking- and three thunderous gunshots following it.

A pure white branch split her palm like sodden earth and with a movement that should have shattered bones she dodged two of the shots, and sliced the third in half.

“Are you really going by Noble now, brotheeer~?”

It was Ophelia’s voice- but under it, a hideous whispering that traced the rim of your ear and threatened to stab your brain.

Noble had told her to run, and just about every instinct told her he was right.

So instead, she swung her torch, amber flames still flickering along its length.

Darkness took a bite of it.

It was the strangest thing. First it was there, all aglow. Then, teeth marks appeared, crunching into it with a sudden force. A sizeable chunk was rent from it, flames and wood consumed in an instant.

The Ophelia-thing spared Saila the slightest of glances in exchange, and then the darkness took a bite of her, too.

###

Noble’s mind was a rush of adrenaline and agony. In the aftermath of the woman- Ophelia’s- death, he had let his guard down for just a moment, and all the damage sunk in at once. The truth was he was barely standing- a gentle breeze could likely drop him.

His brother’s sudden arrival through her full set of fangs was like a hurricane.

Three bullets screamed through the air.

Three left- or two, he’d dropped some when Saila approached. He couldn’t be sure.

Stupid.

He’d flinched, of course.

Failure.

Because he broke her treasured matchbox.

Idiot.

It always turned out like this.

The puppet of meat and flower approached, birch bark sword flashing, shadowy blades trailing in an uneven parade.

Three bullets vanished- two devoured by darkness, one split down the middle and deflected with a subtle twist.

Foolhardy little brother.

Too much human thought.

Noble stepped backwards, felt the damage on his perforated calve spread up to his thigh, and fired three times.

BANGBANGclick.

Only two, then.

One just missed, one was eaten, and the third-that-wasn’t-there would have hit had it happened. The machinery in his nerves told him that much.

It also told him how painful getting dismembered at the elbow felt.

Memories tumble, like stones down a mountain.

###

Night itself held her, fangs too black to see and too cold to feel. Blood welled up on her shoulders and forearms, teeth-marks the only indication they were truly there.

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They could have torn her into pieces. She could feel it in her wounds.

But they didn’t.

Saila managed a shout as Noble’s arm flipped through the air in a spray of machine-oil and electricity, black-silver revolver still firmly grasped in his fingers, but beyond that… not a sound could escape her.

Noble did his best to duck and weave, and to his credit he avoided the branch-like sword the Ophelia-thing was swinging at him… but its laughter, bubbling like a kettle, told her it was a game to it. Each hit sent silver-black debris through the air, each step or dodge brought damage of its own.

Eventually, whatever it was had had enough; it twisted Ophelia’s body ninety degrees to the right as it swiped at his legs. One leg shattered at the calve, the other was severed at the knee.

Noble collapsed, back to the wall, in a heap of stained, torn clothes and broken, battered metal.

If not for the scratchy hiss of his breathing, Saila would be sure he was dead.

“Aah~, good show brother. Just what I expected from the man calling himself- hehe, hahahaha, Noble. You always were a riot.”

“Let her go, brother.”

His voice was raspy, even for him. Weak, mangled, but with a certain sort of strength buried deep.

“Her…? Oh, the little firebug. Why should I?”

At her mention, Saila felt the shadow teeth dig deeper. There was a hunger there, a feeling that loomed like a knife balanced on the rafters waiting to fall.

“She’s an innocent, brother. Not part of… this.”

The Ophelia-thing walked over to him, an uneven and broken gait- either Ophelia’s bones had broken, or it wasn’t used to her limbs.

“Oh, Noble, brother dearest- she burned away the flower charmer’s little garden, and you and I both know what that means. How many souls did she have under her sway, girl?”

It turned to her, expecting an answer.

Fear, pain, and the immediacy expected in its starving eyes drove Saila to a familiar answer; she spat at it, and the spittle sparked into flames.

Ophelia’s corpse pantomimed offense and batted off the weak little sparks that had touched her. “Really now? Are we that upset at killing five, maybe six people? You really should raise your ward better, Noble.”

“You’re a monster,” Saila spat again. “That was a mercy! We’ll- I’ll-!”

That itchy haze rose up against the base of her neck again, sizzling against her skin. She could feel a pain starting in her eye- felt the memory of awful, gnashing teeth- and her words died in her throat.

“A monster?” the thing Noble called brother seemed truly hurt. “I dare say, oh so Noble brother-a-mine, her teaching is skewed… or did you just not tell her?”

It used Ophelia’s face to lean in- out of range of any further spit, but close enough for Saila to see the flecks of shadow dancing across her body like wavering strings.

“What’s your name, girl?”

She was about to spit again when the biting grew harder- and the distinct chill of teeth scraped against her throat.

“S- Saila,” through gritted teeth- both hers and the night’s.

“Good name. Well, if my oh-so inconsiderate brother took Noble, then you can call me Knave… and let me tell you a secret about men and monsters.”

Ophelia’s body straightened, and she lunged over to Noble in a single, unnatural bound.

“Knave or noble, king or peasant, wandering gunslinger or little girl, we’re all the same inside!”

With a movement so fierce it ejected some of the branch through Ophelia’s elbow, Knave slammed its wood-born sword into Noble’s gut. There was a resounding metallic crunch and crack as she sawed it upward, sparkles flying and stinking liquid spilled and splattered. Fang marks dug into Noble’s clothes and deeper besides, and pulled.

In short order, his torso was pried open like a tin can.

Within his black-silver artificial chest was a silvery ribcage of whirring, clicking mechanisms, tubing and wires connected to a metal-plated bleached-white spine- seemingly the last human part of Noble from the face down. Emblazoned upon the pulsing, churning machine were the letters ONY, some Felisian company Saila had only vaguely heard of before.

In that moment, the only thing she could compare it to was her mental picture of a steam engine.

Knave gently ran Ophelia’s non-mutilated hand over Noble’s exposed insides.

“Of course, the two of us have all our vital organs shoved up in an iron core to keep us going. If I’m a monster, the goodly Noble is as well, by relation if not act.”

It puppeteered her hand up to Noble’s face, and gently cupped his chin, forcing their eyes to meet.

“The plant charmer’s floral ones aren’t quite as advanced as ours, but they’re quite the imitation, yes?”

“Sai…la…” croaked out from Noble, barely audible. “G- get… out.”

Tears welled in her eyes. The pain in her arms and chest, the weakness in her legs, made her fall to her knees.

The cave floor was rough, and she could feel every little bump and stone against her knees. The impact felt like it shook the world.

“Now, brother- three of mine, plus the woman’s garden. I believe you owe me a pound of flesh at least for this transgression.”

The monster known as Knave reeled back Ophelia’s right hand once more, bladed branch slick and sharp.

Something in Saila’s chest hitched, a rumbling roar building in her, begging to come out.

The pain where she’d been struck by Ophelia’s vine pulsed out sharply. The teeth in her arms were even sharper.

No roar came. It simply flickered.

But did not fade.

“Leave him alone!!”

Screamed, not roared, but loud and clear enough to draw attention.

Or maybe it was the flames, billowing out from around her, spilling from her maw, bright and brilliant. It burned the shadows away, and though night-clad fangs chomped and bit at the edges, it was like a bonfire. A shimmering torch, pushing back the dark.

As Saila stood on shaky legs, the wildest thought crossed her mind for but an instant.

What if I wasn’t hurt right now?

Then it left, replaced with the urgency of the moment.

Knave, smiling through Ophelia’s damaged face, a wild excitement cracking her skin.

Noble’s severed arm, twitching, sparking, gun firmly in hand- dragging itself by finger-lengths towards his crumpled form.

“Aah, now that’s what I live to see. Shall we play awhile, then?” it said with that twisting, hissing serpent of a voice that showed the deadly poison in his polite turn of phrase.

His fangs were bared and hungry, all three-fold of them.

Saila swallowed hard, braced herself, and nodded.

###

Saila had never danced with another person before.

She’d gotten asked a couple times, of course. Mostly by children back in Dehali- though that was less dancing with and more dancing together, in the loveable way children did- or by the occasional foolhardy kid her age, on dares to approach the oh-so-scary, oh-so-novel Salamander. Girls she’d entertain enough to give a story for their friends; a little bit of fire and a few flashy steps. Boys she’d smack with her brass pole, which did about the same job.

She’d even gotten an offer to dance- and more besides- by the young woman who’d caught her eye in Samudr-tat- but that one had a sour note to it that would have left Saila feeling rotten. She’d turned her down, wondering when or if the opportunity would present itself again.

She hadn’t needed to wait long.

The first person Saila ever danced with was the man with a smile in his eyes.

It felt weird to consider it dancing, but how could she not?

Each swing of that monstrous, oil-soaked sword arced through the air with an intense precision, and each dodge was wide and wild. Each thrust and jab and strike held a music to it, expecting a response that sixteen years alive gave her just enough experience to perform.

The air whistled as her deadly partner led her in their movements.

It felt like she was stepping across the wind, flame trailing, body and clothes spinning.

A part of her, a hungry part, lost itself in the momentum.

She duked and dived and twisted, her back arched and her arms flew and her legs twisted.

It was a thing of beauty.

The reality of what else it was, was not lost on her.

Knave was not trying to kill her. He almost certainly could, if he wished- though her fire- and her own wild attempts at fighting back did fend him off at times.

But at no point had she come even close to touching him. Exhaled embers and fiery kicks and primal, instinctual clawing like a desert lizard, all of which her partner- her enemy, evaded with a gentle ease, slipping along the edges of fire and fury.

She wanted to tell herself it was a show of equal skill- neither could hit the other.

It would have been a lie. Like with Noble, this was just a sick game.

He wanted to drag it out, to see how far she could go when pushed.

She saw it in his eyes.

Another swing swished through the air, light and shadow dancing across its path.

Saila ducked, then sprung back with the balls of her feet.

And saw a flicker of red- scant strands of her hair.

Bit by bit, he was raising the pressure.

She blew, hard, a gout of flames spreading from her lips- cut short by a punch to the gut that lifted Saila up an inch or two from the ground. She was unsteady, dazed, waves of pain rippling through her.

Her short-lived fire breath had scorched Ophelia’s disused body, flecks of Noble’s oil on her smoldering, but it did not catch alight.

The glint of hunger flashed in Knave’s eyes.

The thrust of a white-wood blade roared.

Saila craned her head to the side, the only thing she had time for.

Pain, sharp and singular, as Knave’s sword shot past- slicing at her cheek.

Then he twisted back two full steps, sword slick with her life as well as Noble’s.

The impact in her stomach caught up with the rest of her and she vomited- stomach acid sizzling and popping, embers crackling like a dying fire.

“Impressive footwork, Saila,” Knave hissed in a far too friendly tone. “I can see what my brother saw in you- such a fervor of energy, such raw nature. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were Exovan in the truest ways.”

Saila coughed up a sick remnant in her mouth that burned down to ash.

Good, go on, run your mouth…

Behind him, half in darkness, was Noble, the sole witness for their deadly show. What power had remained in his severed hand had faded once it reached him, and he’d been weakly trying to load his revolver one with his sole remaining limb.

Knave was not the only of them who could play games.

Almost… just a little... more…

Knave charged, leading with Ophelia’s broken-heeled leg, dipping forward in his deranged, wounded gait, reeling back her arm for a lethal slash.

His sword was birch- it took feeling it against her skin for her to fully recognize it from her book on fire tricks. It burned quick and easy- especially when drenched in Noble’s fragrant machine-oil blood the monster had so lovingly spilled.

The sword was jutting out from Ophelia’s elbow, too- it ran through the entire length of her arm, equally soaked through the wood- and her inner arm.

With the beginnings of a smirk on her face, Saila leapt back- still weak in her knees, but confident- and gave Knave a glare to match his own.

She felt the blood on her cheek bubble- and the share on his sword.

It crackled with an amber heat.

Then, conflagration.

Amber flames erupted forth across Knave’s blade- and Ophelia’s arm, burning through both. Dead skin, already charred on the outside, cracked and shattered. Scorched plant-material and ruined flesh roasted on the bone, the birch-wood blade serving as starter.

Even Knave flinched, the slightest touch of desperation gracing his fanged eyes.

Then teeth of shadows devoured it all in three brutal, bloody chomps, leaving the puppeteered Ophelia down an arm, and Knave down a sword.

“Yes, YES! This is what I wanted! What ingenuity, what grace in the face of overwhelming odds!”

Ophelia’s eyes bulged as he rambled, a wisp of shadow starting to unwind from her shoulder. It looked twisted and mechanical; a shade of what Knave’s physical form must have been. The shadows twisted and swirled, spooling out into threads that grew a sharpness at the end.

“Give me more, drachenkind!”

Knave forced Ophelia forward, eyes gnashing at the bit.

Saila threw herself backward- and fell, to the cave floor.

“Noble, now!”

A thunderous bark echoed through Ophelia’s empty home.

A single red rose bloomed forth from her chest, crimson petals drifting downward.

The shadows wavered, sputtered.

“Oh… you are good,” a hoarse, hissing noise slithered into the air.

Be it by coincidence, internal grace, or some small part of her left in that flame-touched corpse, Saila did not yet know, but as the shadows lifted Ophelia’s body fell with a gentle slump, awaiting the curtain drop on her final performance.

Then, cold and ruthless and far too excited, fading whispers of “see you Zarrhdad, drachenkind.”

Despite the flames about her, Saila felt ice form in the depths of her chest. Adrenaline faded, fire died, and she was sure that if she just simply laid down, she’d fall asleep forever.

Instead, it was for an hour.

######