Without explaining what she was working on, Estreya had successfully persuaded Anastacia to help her with her project. Instructing the necromancer to keep stirring a small bowl of what looked like black ink, but had a much slimier feeling to it, the devotee of Ciel started to look for something around the trees near the stairs while humming happily.
“So where are we?” Anastacia asked and smelled the odd, black goop, only to regret it immediately as the strong scent of alcohol burned her nostrils.
“Mmmmh…” Estreya replied, clearly not thrilled that she needed to explain what was going on. “Well, if I were to simplify it as much as possible, this is leftover night. Basically, this is where night is when it’s not needed elsewhere. In other words, the night father’s realm. Hence why yours truly is working here.”
“Oh! You know the guy who is running this place? Then I have business with him. Can you ask him to come over?” The necromancer asked.
The devotee threw herself into a fit laughter, so much so that she had to lean on a tree so she wouldn’t fall over. “Oh yeah, totally! Let me just call over the god of the night, no problem. I’m sure he has nothing more important going on.” She said mockingly and tried to catch her breath. “Seriously, kid, do you expect the sun to shine on you specifically as well? I don’t know what the deal with you necromancers is, but you really need to get over yourself.”
“Sorry… but Emilia talks with Sylvia all the time, is it really that different? They’re both gods, aren’t they?” Anastacia said, not really understanding why what she had asked as so unreasonable.
“Is a maggot chewing on a corpse is equal to you too then? Because both of you need corpses to do your thing. The goddess of joy is a two-bit deity with no influence past the priestess and those she has managed to convince to follow her. That’s why Sylvia has the time to pester her beloved ginger muffin on a daily basis. Really, small gods like that are nothing but leeches with aspirations. Do you not understand the difference in scale?” Estreya mocked the goddess of joy and wiped the tears of laugher from her eyes.
Anastacia frowned. “Harsh. So you’re not in close terms with this Ciel then? What’s the point of you being a devotee then? You’d think that getting in touch with the deity was the bare minimum.”
“Screw you, kid. I’m here to be called upon when I’m needed, like today. Just because that feisty little priestess can do it on a whim, doesn’t mean it’s the norm for the rest of us hard working worshippers. In fact, her whole deal is perverse to begin with. If I were you, I’d worry how much of the priestess there is left and how much of her is just a puppet played by a god.” Estreya snarled and visibly let her mood turn sour. Obviously, her closeness with the god, or the lack of it was a sore subject to her. “Just because I don’t exchange the news of the day with Ciel all the time, doesn’t mean I’m not exactly as devoted to this as any priestess out there.”
Realizing how mean her question had probably sounded, Anastacia fell quiet and focused on stirring the black muck she had been handed. She hadn’t meant anything by comparing Estreya to Emilia like that, but that didn’t really make her feel any better about it.
The owlfolk devotee picked up a dead branch and sighed before walking back over to the stairs. “Sorry… It’s just that I’m supposed to have a part in all this, but I’m not so much as getting a nod my way while the likes of her get all the attention they want. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is? Or lonely?” She asked, still sounding a bit riled up.
“I know exactly what that’s like.” Anastacia nodded and reignited her annoyance with her own relationships. “Recently, King has started acting like a total asshole. He keeps going outside at night and refuses to tell me what’s going on, then there’s this other simulacrum that has started following me and apparently King just hates her for some reason. I’d like to help with whatever he’s doing but instead I’m just being left out altogether.”
“Exactly!” Estreya exclaimed and jabbed the branch into the ground, deep enough that it could stand upright on its own, perhaps with a bit more force than was needed. “I’ve pretty much given everything I have and more to this and what do I get in return? Vague one-sided messages in my dreams, that’s what. I’m not saying that I regret any of it but come the fuck on!” She continued, took out a ball thin yarn, handed it to Anastacia and grabbed the bowl from her. She then dipped her fingers into the black substance and began running the thread between them, asking the necromancer to give her a bit more every now and then. When she had dyed a few meters of the thread, she wrapped it around the smaller branches in the one she had planted, leaving the thread to dry. After a few more meters, she cut the thread with her teeth and wiped her fingers on her black gown.
Anastacia handed the thread back to the devotee scratched her head. “What are you even doing?” She asked.
“Well you see, there’s this gremlin-like critter with silvery hair and a huge appetite, she keeps breaking into here by making holes into the realm itself. The holes would heal themselves naturally over time, but we don’t really want too much night leaking to other places.” Estreya explained and slipped the leftover thread somewhere under her gown. “So I’m making stiches and suturing the wounds. This string will prevent anything from here going over there and vice versa – but that leads to you, did you happen to find one of these holes and crawl through it, or did you simply get lost on your way to the kitchen? I’ve had that happen once.”
“Well, I have this friend, who actually kind of looks like you now that I think about it, who is being bothered by her father, who I think might be Ciel. I was spending a day with her and-“ The necromancer started, but was abruptly interrupted by Estreya grabbing her by the shoulders and bringing her face uncomfortably close to Anastacia’s.
“Is she okay?!” The devotee asked with a new, completely serious tone in her voice. The already disturbingly large pupils of the owlfolk grew in size to almost cover her entire eyes and make them black. “Is she in Valor? Where? Is she eating healthily? Is anyone looking after her? Is she happy?! Answer me, necromancer!” She demanded answers with a shaky voice and presser her face even closer.
“She’s fine… ish, I guess.” Anastacia said and shook herself free. “Do you know her?”
Estreya grabbed the necromancer by the collar again as if she was worried that Anastacia would escape without answering. “She probably calls herself Holly, around your age, has white feathers like me, enjoys making up stories and has one of these.” She listed and pulled aside what little of her gown covered her chest and pointed at the black, moth-shaped pattern.
“Yeah, that’s her. No idea about the mark though, most people don’t get their tits out for no reason as readily as you. For what it’s worth, she has a job at the inn I stay at and the owner keeps her fed.” The necromancer said while unsuccessfully trying to wiggle herself free again.
Estreya sighed in relief but didn’t loosen her grip on Anastacia at all. “Take me to her, right now.” She demanded.
“It’s not really up to me.” Anastacia shrugged and accepted that she wasn’t going to get free. “For starters, I don’t know how to leave here, secondly, she’s terrified of this place and her father finding her, so even if I trusted you, there’s no way I’d lead anything from here straight to her.”
“FUCK!” The devotee screamed and tossed Anastacia aside. She started pacing back and forth in front of stairs while cursing under her breath. Finally, she seemingly came to conclusion and slumped down on the stairs with her face buried in her arms. “You’re right, there’s no way I can drag her into this again. If I went to meet her, Ciel would find her immediately and I doubt she’d be able to escape again. There’s a lot I’d do for the night father, but I will never do that to her again, even if it costs my life.”
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Anastacia put her hand on the devotee’s shoulder. “Well, does it help if I tell you that she seems happy any everyone likes her? I mean, she’s an oddball for sure, but fun.” She said, trying to calm the sobbing owlfolk.
It had no appreciable effect on Estreya’s mood, and the necromancer had to awkwardly wait for something to happen. She didn’t know if she was supposed to keep her hand on the devotee’s shoulder or let go after some specific amount of time. She also wondered if she should be moving her hand in some way or sort of grip the shoulder reassuringly. In the end she just panicked quietly and ended up making small circular motions with her palm for a while.
While trying her best to comfort Estreya, Anastacia noticed that all of the gigantic beings that watched over the limitless cityscape had turned to look at them. Since one of them had helped her earlier, she figured that it was probably okay and tried waving to them. One by one, all the giants slowly lifted their arms to wave back before turning their gaze down towards the streets far below them. Anastacia would have liked to know what their purpose was, but luckily had the tact to know that now was not the time to bother Estreya.
Suddenly the devotee shot up from her seat, grabbed the small bowl of black goop and began stirring it furiously. “If I can’t meet her, the least I can do is make sure she’ll have her peace from all of us.” She said.
“What do you mean?” Anastacia asked, being secretly glad that she didn’t need to come up with anything else to help.
“We’re going to dye some more thread, then you’re going to go back to Holly, run the thread over her door and under the doorstep to her room or house or whatever. That way nothing from here should be able to pass through it and it’ll disguise it from the night father himself – to a degree. There’s nothing I can do to help her when the night is over there, but she seems to have figured out something if she has made it this far.” Estreya explained with vigor Anastacia hadn’t seen in her before, so far the devotee had always given off more of a playful and lazy feeling.
Anastacia nodded. “That seems like it’d help, but wouldn’t Ciel know you’re doing this? You won’t get in trouble, will you?” She asked and peered up at the starry sky above them.
“Sure he will, but it’s not like he’ll get off his ass to stop me. He knows I’ll die before repeating what I did to Holly.” The owlfolk grinned with a slight insane glimmer in her eyes. “Besides, there’s something you need to understand about gods: they are beings of convenience. When you’ve been at this for any length of time, you’ll start to understand that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Everything that appears oddly convenient was probably meticulously orchestrated by someone or something. You may think of yourself as a rogue element, but more likely than not, you were dragged where you are by some twist of planned out fate. So it’s entirely possible that what we’re doing is what Ciel figured would happen when you just ‘happened’ to run into me here.”
“This isn’t comforting to know.” The necromancer frowned. She wasn’t a fan of the idea that even after freeing herself from Mournvalley, she was still being pushed around by gods. “So are you saying that there’s no point in doing anything, since some divine twat has already decided what happens?”
“Oh no, far from it.” Estreya laughed and pinched Anastacia’s cheek. “You still make your own decisions, there’s just someone betting on what they are, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be the one to bring chaos back into this little game. Last time your kind did that, it ended with a lot of dead gods and a lot more dead mortals, so it’s not like it’s impossible. But this is all just me rambling about how I think the world is, heck, there’s no way you could ever know if Ciel himself put me up to this to influence you!”
While Anastacia mulled over how she felt about what the devotee had suggested, they dyed a few more meters of thread. Estreya made sure to put on an extra thick layer of the weird umbral dye before tying the thread on the branch to dry.
Out of the corner of her eye, Anastacia spotted a familiar figure staring at them from the shadows down the road. Though it was dark, she could still recognize the short stature, the antlers and the oversized sword anywhere. “There they are again. Who is that?” The necromancer asked and pointed at the knight who had helped her find Estreya.
“No one, it’s just the shadows posing as you. The residents of this realm are tricky to understand and even I don’t really get what they’re up to sometimes, but what I do know is that they like to mimic what they see.” the devotee explained and wiped her fingers on her gown again. The black ink completely disappeared into the absolute darkness of her clothing, leaving no stain to be seen. “Pay them no mind, it’ll dissipate as soon as you leave.”
“But that’s not what I look like…” Anastacia muttered and squinted to get a better look at the knight.
Estreya smiled quizzically. “Everyone sees you differently, didn’t you know? For someone you might be a terrifying necromancer, an annoying twerp to another, a friend to a third. Personally, I know what’s going on in that noggin of yours and salute your open-mindedness when it comes objects of desire. The shadows don’t have eyes they could see you with, so they have deemed you to be a warrior spirit, which I suppose isn’t all that wrong – you did kind of come here to fight a god to help a friend. I’d take it as a compliment.” She said, sat back down and pulled out a mirror to see if crying had ruined her makeup.
Though slightly perturbed by the devotee calling her a pervert in a roundabout way, Anastacia couldn’t help but to smile proudly as she peered at the knight. She had mostly considered her actions dumb, but if there was a hint of bravery mixed in, it certainly didn’t hurt; though there was no way she’d tell about any of it to her friends, as all that would get her was weeks of scolding.
As the threads dried, Estreya fixed her appearances and Anastacia gazed at the stars. She could make out some of the few constellations Gilbert had managed to teach her, which meant that the night sky in this strange realm was the same as the one in the regular world, though much more lively, as the stars flickered and twinkled more like candles than anything. All in all, it was an improvement to the scenery, but not enough so that it made Anastacia consider revisiting the place just to see it. While waiting, she realized that though Estreya had seemingly returned to her usual merry self, the devotee was still downtrodden whenever she was caught off guard, only putting up a fake smile when noticing that she was being watched.
“Is there anything you want to say to Holly? I could relay a message or a note.” The necromancer offered, attempting to improve her mood.
Estreya hugged her and ruffled the necromancer’s hair. “That’s sweet of you, but it’s better if she doesn’t know we met, if she even remembers me. We don’t want her to come and find me either, that is, if she’s happy with her current life…” She said in a melancholy tone. “But… Since you offered: make sure she eats at least some vegetables, she’s going to say that she doesn’t need them but that’s bullshit; also see that she doesn’t spend all her money on sweets; also she needs to exercise regularly, even if she hates it; don’t let her eat mice because she will try to do that; also make sure she has warm clothes, the winter has barely started after all and… well you get the gist of it, just make sure she’s okay.” The priestess listed her requests like a worried mother.
“Uhh… I’ll try.” Anastacia promised and started looking around. “But how do I get out of here?”
“That much is easy, I can drop you out of here, but since you’ve moved around after entering, you’ll probably end up missing the mark by a bit. It’s nothing to worry about.” Estreya said and started bundling up some of the dyed string. She then handed it to Anastacia “You should probably curl into a ball or protect your face or something.”
“What?” Anastacia asked and lifted her gaze from the beautifully dark roll of thread, only to have the owlfolk push her over by her forehead. Oddly enough, instead of hitting the ground behind her, the necromancer sank through it, as if she had hit the surface of a lake.
“Good night.” Was the last thing she heard the devotee say before barreling through a void of darkness without any clear indication of what was up and what was down, nor any other direction for that matter. Every time she was starting to figure out which way she was falling, the direction changed, and she tumbled over a few times.
Breathing in the darkness started to get more strenuous as well and combined with the constant spinning, Anastacia was very close to passing out before her surroundings suddenly lit up and blinded her darkness accustomed eyes.
The next thing she heard was the squeaking noise she made as she slid across a tiled floor on her back thanks to the momentum she had gained in the void, until finally coming to a stop at the feet of a very confused guardsman who had been enjoying his lunchbreak in the guard barracks until Anastacia had appeared from thin air and interrupted his meal.
“Can… can I help you?” He asked from the disoriented necromancer, who proceeded to vomit on the floor and ruin what appetite the poor guardsman had left.