It had been a very long time since Mycal had seen a human with his own eyes. In his memory they were brutish, loud, and indescribably ugly, bathed in a kind of disgusting horribleness that was only possible when trauma and prejudice found a common focal point. He thought he hated them, or at least he hated the memory of them, but now all he could do was watch on in envy, and no small amount of jealousy, as this gallant, soft-spoken, demonstrably handsome human male charmed all but the pants off of Aggie.

“Look at her!” he said to Monkey as they took turns working the well pump. “She’s practically sporing herself!” The goblin glanced at the pair without interest, shrugging his bony shoulders as if to say Duh, what did you expect? He’s Raul. THE Raul.

Mycal had of course heard about Raul. Every so often Aggie would say some thing like, “Raul used to do it like this,” or “Raul always said this about that.” She usually sighed afterwards. It had become more frequent in the lead up to the human’s visit, and Aggie had even made a special effort to clean up the cottage in anticipation of his arrival. More accurately, she had tasked Monkey with a special effort to clean the place up. He had dusted and polished every single skull, cauldron and specimen jar until the place practically sparkled, insofar as somewhere that resembled a waking nightmare could sparkle.

Now the annoyingly attractive man was strutting around as if he owned the place, examining bits and pieces of the cottage structure, tapping on beams and testing joins while Aggie followed him around, fawning like a…fawn or something.

“Why is he so interested in the house? It’s not like he built it.” Monkey made that horrible choking sound that usually meant Mycal had said something funny, stupid, completely wrong, or all of the above. “Oh shut it. He didn’t really build it, did he?” Monkey hooted again, gyrating his hips and swinging his arms in what Mycal recognised as a lewd gesture, vaguely simulating the way most humanoids males mated. Goblin noticed the commotion and scampered across the lawn, climbing up the goblin’s back and onto his head where he begun mimicking the movement himself.

Mycal grunted and went back to working the pump. He didn’t like the way his feelings were congealing into an uncomfortable, oily, indigestible lump somewhere between his chest and throat, almost like he was slowly choking or drowning. The more he thought about Aggie and Raul, the bigger and lumpier it got, so he did his best to focus on his chores. Plants were watered, holes were dug. He wove a basket and chopped some wood. Deloused a monkey and reloused a goblin. All the while he did his best to ignore the noises he heard coming from behind the closed doors and drawn curtains of Aggie’s cottage.

Eventually the sun dipped low in the sky, the fiery spiral casting long shadows as the evening larks sang their farewell to the day. Raul emerged, hefting a small sack that clinked as he ambled out the door and hopped down the stairs with noticeable vigour, zest, and even a trace of pep in his step. Aggie walked out behind him, feathers slightly ruffled and robe somewhat tousled.

Raul looked back at her and held up the sack. “Thanks, Ag, this really means a lot, and it was…nice…seeing you again. I really have to get these back to Lou though, before…well…you know.”

“Yeh, I know.” Aggie descended the stairs and gave Raul a small kiss on the cheek. Mycal flinched, then realised he was staring and quickly looked back at the cauldron he was scrubbing. “You don’t have to be such a stranger.”

He heard Raul sigh. Scrub scrub scrub. “Maybe. But you know how it ends with us, Ag. Someone always ends up losing their head.”

Another sigh. “Yeh. I guess so. But scry me sometime, okay? Let me know how it goes with…Cecil?”

“Cyril.”

“Cyril, yeh. You take care.”

“You too, Ag. Thanks again.”

Mycal kept his head down, trying to get the last bit of dwarf fat off the rim. It was notoriously stubborn. He scrubbed and scrubbed as the sound of Raul’s footsteps and the clinking potion bottles faded into the distance, then there was the sound of the cottage door being carefully closed. Night swallowed the glade, crickets and frogs filling the evening with their own clicks and clacks and throaty warbles. As Mycal finished with the cauldron and hung it from a fencepost to dry, he heard something else cut through the twilight chorus.

The sound of Aggie quietly crying cut through him like a chef’s knife, and the knot of bitter jealously he had been nurturing all day suddenly unravelled and flaked away. Mycal looked up at the stars and sighed, wishing that for once the universe would just tell him what to do.

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* * *

“You’re leaving?” Aggie tried to sound nonchalant, but she was pretty sure she’d failed. There was no way to fully hide the impending horror she felt at the thought of Mycal’s departure and the silence that would follow.

“Only for a while. I need to go out there,” he gestured vaguely toward the distant mountain peaks, the river and the greater expanse of the forest without quite settling on any of them. “I need to go out there and find myself.”

“Is that some kind of metaphor? Like…you’re going on a vision quest.”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s a journey of self-discovery.”

Aggie rolled her eyes. “You’re going to look for Mycail. That’s what you mean, right?”

“Of course. What did you think I…”

“I thought you might be mad because of…nevermind. But what, if anything, are you going to do when you find him?” She leaned against the garden fence and watched as he carefully scooped up small handfuls of dirt, trying his best not to damage the roots of the resident flora. He packed his spoils of soils into a collection of small jars Aggie had gifted him as a kind of apology, patting them down tightly to fit as much in as he could.

“I don’t know.” Pat pat pat.

“Seems likely he’ll probably try to kill you, especially if he catches you alone. He really doesn’t like you.”

“Well I don’t like him either, but I’m not about to let a part of me just wander off and become some kind of evil villain.”

“Ummm Yarth to Mycal, you’re a bit late. Didn’t you see the note he left?”

“The one that said There’s not much room for a mushroom?”

“No, the one that said Bwahahahaha I will be known as the Wandering Villain and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me, especially not that stupid Mycal whom I hate and despise.”

“Oh. No I didn’t see that one.” Scoop scoop. Pat pat. “But anyway it doesn’t matter.”

Aggie twirling a claw around in her feathers, coiling it into a tight spring until it popped off an unfurled. She started twirling again. “You know…it might not be a terrible idea if I…ahh…went with you?”

Mycal paused his packing and looked up at her. There was definitely something different about him. He was…cleaner. Leaner. Possibly meaner. “I don’t need a bodyguard, Ag. I’m not as helpless as you seem to think.”

“I don’t…”

“Yes, you do.” He stood up and walked over to her. Now she was certain she wasn’t imagining it. He was lighter. Brighter. He moved like a fighter. He reached out and took one of her hands in his. “Listen to me, Aggie. What you did to me…to the old Mycal…”

“I said I’m sorry!” She pulled her hand away. “So many times! Do you know how rare that is for a witch? I don’t know what else I can…” Mycal reached for her hand again and gripped it firmly, using it to pull her gently towards him until their noses were nearly touching. This close to him, in the shadow of his headcap, she could smell the slightly sweet, woody aroma coming from his gills. It was surprisingly pleasant. He locked eyes with her, and for the first time she noticed what a unique shade of black they were. Black within black, like a dark lake on the darkest night. He squeezed her hand.

“You freed me, Aggie. Did you know that? You cut something out of me that had been eating away at my soul for so, sooo long. I didn’t even recognise it for what is was, not until it had been removed, and I could literally see it. That’s what Mycail is. He’s the worst of me. The insecurity, the envy, the insatiable need for someone else’s approval and validation. But he is still me. So I am going to find him, and I am going to destroy him, before he…before I…can do any harm.”

Aggie’s heart skipped a beat. Then it added a lot of extra beats. She took a deep breath and stepped back, slowly disengaging her hand from Mycal’s. His intensity was frightening, but also kind of, almost, just a little bit, weirdly attractive. “Well that’s really just all the more reason to take me with you!” The inner cringe was sharp and hot. Oh my gourd I sound desperate. Stay classy. “It’s my fault he’s out there trying to…conquer the world, or whatever? I’m pretty sure that’s his plan. It’s just as much my mess to fix as it is yours. More, probably.”

Mycal turned his back to her and resumed his careful search for another suitable sod to add to his travel jars. “You’re right. It is your fault.”

She almost let out an involuntary gasp. What the hell. You weren’t supposed to agree with me! “Ahh…yeh, okay. That’s what I said, so I guess that’s that? My fault. All my fault. Yeh. So I’m coming with you.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am!” In the tiny, ethereal spaces between the frayed strings and threads that made up the tattered fabric of reality, a crow cawed. It was faint, but it was there, and she was sure Mycal heard it. He tensed and tightened like a cat suddenly confronted by an unexpected cucumber. “I am coming. You and me are going on a date, bub, whether you like it or not.”

Mycal’s entire body stiffened for a moment, then relaxed as he glanced over his shoulder, giving her a look that suggested the cucumber had turned into an unsupervised tuna steak. “A date? Really? Us?”

“Yeh, a proper first date. It’s about time, isn’t it? We’ve been plucking for a few weeks now and…you know…maybe there’s something more there? We should find out.”

“But what about…”

“Raul? What about him. He came. He left. He’s probably not coming back. So? Date?”

“Ahh…yeh. Yes. I would like that. A lot.”

“Great, it’s settled then. We’re going to have a slightly awkward outing where we continually embarrass ourselves by oversharing and probably misreading each other’s intentions, maybe stop somewhere nice for lunch, and share a fun activity like murdering your evil twin. A proper date.”

“Killing Mycail isn’t gong to be fun, Aggie.”

“I disagree. So, are we on, or what?”

His gills fluttered slightly as he smiled and nodded. “Oh we’re on. On like champignon.”