“I haven’t seen my actual reflection in a while,” Thesa said. She was leaning over a pond. The water was still and perfectly clear. At the bottom, a single tumble of kelp was tangled around a rock. The still water wasn't good for drinking straight, but it was beautiful in its simplicity all the same.

The relaxed scene was welcome to Thesa, but she couldn’t help worrying that she had yet to see combat as a [Witch]. Just accepting the [Witch] class had been a big decision, but with Thesa relying on more and more of the demoness’s magic power, she was entangled by a desire to be more useful. What if Merijest decided the investment wasn’t worth it?

Merijest had filled a pot and cast [Purify]. She refilled her own waterskin as well as Thesa's. Then she had prepped a second pot of water for herself and Thesa to bathe. (Merijest bathed naked just as she did everything else. Thesa only stripped down to her tank top and shorts.)

Her blonde hair was a tangled mess of dirt and crusted blood. She had a scar on her chin that might have been from a fight, but she didn’t remember getting it. It surprised her over and over again to remember she was undead now. Despite the changes, that was her. Still her dark freckles and hazel eyes.

“I never bother with mirrors,” Merijest said, lying on the ground with her arms behind her head. Her hair was messy in a sexy self-assured way and she had a grin that Thesa could not place.

“That confident, huh?” Thesa asked. She meant it as a genuine question. When she looked back, the demoness was making a new face, like discomfort.

“Don’t worry about it,” Merijest said, color draining from cobalt cheeks. After a beat of awkward silence, she deflected, “What was your childhood like?”

“My childhood?” Thesa said. “Where did that come from?”

“I was just thinking that I don’t know much about my new [Witch],” Merijest shrugged. In truth, she was just trying to change the subject. “I can come up with a better question if you give me a minute.”

Thesa noticed Merijest’s lips curl up just a twinge as she said ‘[Witch].’ Should she be flattered or frightened at her patron’s new attitude?

“I’m not sure,” said Thesa. She looked back at the water. “I wouldn’t know what to compare it to. I guess I did normal things. Like being driven from my home by [Evil] monsters or joining a small order of religious warriors. What else is there to tell?” There was not a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Thesa truly believed there was nothing special about either of those things.

“I don’t think either of those are strictly speaking ‘normal,’” Merijest said. She sat up and started petting the Chimerblin behind its feline ear. “Why join the Knights?”

Thesa hesitated, then said, “It’s kind of a long story.”

Merijest nodded. “You’ve got a captive audience, but it's your choice.”

“I guess it would be good to talk about it with someone besides [Archknight Superior],” said Thesa. “It started when my mom and I had to flee a hoard of monsters.” Thesa had intended to stay out of some of the details, but once she started talking she found she couldn’t stop.

“I was supposed to get my first level in [Farmer] that day, but–I didn’t. My mom, she carried me a lot of the way because I couldn’t keep up. She was strong. My mom was strong. But we got lost,” Thesa said. Part of her wanted to stop, but it was like if you put one little hole in a dam and the whole thing broke open. “We were in the wilderness and we didn’t have a lot of food and… I think she was lying about how much she ate. She was giving it all to me, you know?

“Sorry, I’m–I’m not supposed to think about the sad parts. It was good. It was a good miracle. It was good.” And still the words tumbled from her mouth like lava from a volcano. And she wondered if the face in the reflection was really hers and she closed her eyes but she. Kept. On. Talking.

“Not supposed to think about the sad parts?” Merijest looked over, confused but empathetic.

“[Archknight Superior] said I get too sad when I do,” Thesa said. Her heart was a meteor, hurtling and buckling through the atmosphere. “The Convent was the first sign of civilization we came across. By the time we got to the door, my mom was too weak to live. She… we were too…we were too–”

Thesa breathed in big gasps but her lungs were not getting the air. Where was the air going? “When the Knights opened the door, I performed a…a miracle. I cast [Holy Deliverance] without even trying. I… They told me I saved her.” And as she spoke, she realized, “But that wasn’t true. That wasn’t–”

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How were they ever going to save anyone from Beautuk’s realm?

Staring at the water, she tried to remember her mother’s face. She tried to remember what parts of her looked like her mother. Why was she so bad at remembering faces? What kind of a useless, useless, useless– Her thoughts spiraled on and on. No, she thought, I do remember things. And she replayed it all again just to prove to herself she wasn’t bad.

From a thousand miles away, Merijest asked, “Are you ok?”

Thesa was bouncing between traumatic memories and intrusive self-accusations. She kept trying to say things, but the words were wrong. Why would she say it like that? And so she added another thought spiral into the rotation. She couldn’t speak because she couldn’t stop thinking.

Merijest’s arms wrapped around Thesa’s torso. Still a thousand miles away, but warm. Thesa swallowed and leaned back. Without saying anything, she drifted into Merijest’s embrace.

She was still crying. She was still shaking. She still couldn’t speak. Merijest gently moved Thesa from a tense, leaning position, one wrong move from falling into the water. Thesa let the demoness lead her so they were both lying on the ground.

For just a moment, Thesa’s thoughts drifted to something stupid and silly and embarrassing. She didn’t jolt back to reality. But the thought became a thread reaching across the chasm of reality to wherever Thesa was floating. Another, stronger thread followed. “I’m safe,” said the thread. Even in her dissociative incredulity, she couldn’t discount the thread completely.

Minute after minute, her thoughts continued to spiral. But they dulled. Each spiral less sharp than the last. And she floated, so far away from everything.

As she slowly drifted closer and closer to the present, some part of her told her she needed a distraction. She needed to think about anything else. Just long enough to find her legs. And her arms. And her head.

“What…about…you?” She managed to puff the words out with a weak laugh as she continued to cry. “Does a demoness…even have…a childhood?”

Merijest hesitated, but chuckled. “Yes, even I was a kid once.”

Thesa took a deep breath. Her body was exhausted and dehydrated like she’d just been in a battle. But she was motivated to learn more of Merijest’s backstory. She rolled over enough to see face-to-face. “What was that…like? Do little demons get…up to a lot of trouble?”

Merijest forced a polite chuckle. “Well, uh…” Now it was the demoness’s turn to go speechless. “It wasn’t…I mean I wasn’t…”

The demoness’s white pupils grew in size, eclipsing her obsidian sclera. Thesa wasn’t always good at noticing minor details in other people’s expressions, but their faces were only inches apart. She could see the discomfort in Merijest’s face. The same kind she had seen when she asked about her reflection.

“Wait,” Thesa said. A protective instinct finally snapped her back into herself. “Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“But I’m trying to distract you,” Merijest said. She laughed although her face was still tight. “And also you stop trying to take care of me! I’m the [High Devil] and you are my [Witch] and my [Familiar]. It’s my job to take care of you.”

Thesa shook her head. “I don’t want to talk seriously anyways,” she said. Thesa wasn’t about to admit that the silly thought that first reached her was about Merijest’s boobs against her back…but she could tell she needed some light conversation. “Let’s think about Let me think of a different question. Um, have you actually read all those spell books you showed me?”

“Honestly, I skim them and pick out spells that sound interesting,” Merijest shrugged. “For a while I copied the good ones into a Grimoire, but I don’t need that anymore.”

“What’s the weirdest spell you know?” Thesa asked.

“Probably [Silent Sneeze].”

“Wait, that’s a spell?” Thesa said. “I guess I just assumed all your spells would be [Evil] since you’re, well…” Thesa said.

Merijest looked genuinely confused. “What do you think [Evil] means?”

“I thought [Evil] meant like demons and devils and hell. Is that not right?” Thesa asked.

“Did they teach you that at the Convent?”

“I don’t remember it being said out loud, but I guess that was the idea I got,” Thesa said. “What does it mean?”

“[Evil] just means like, anyone opposed to your goals. [Good] just means anyone who supports your goals,” Merijest explained.

“That sounds more like a philosophy than a fact,” Thesa said.

“No, seriously. That is how the [System] uses the term. I have spells that talk about having an effect on [Evil] targets. That’s just how the [System] labels things,” Merijest started to laugh.

“But isn’t that kind of biased? That’s a very particular way of seeing things,” Thesa wondered.

“Kitten, where did you get the idea that the [System] was unbiased?” Merijest said. “What’s unbiased about labeling every devil and every demon as [Evil]?”

Thesa didn’t say anything. She hoped to look busy pondering (and she did need to ponder them), but mainly she was trying to figure out if Merijest was one of those people who just calls others ‘kitten’ sometimes or if there was more to read into. She thought maybe her exhaustion would hide this train of thought. (It did not. Merijest could tell.)

“How about you get some rest,” Merijest said. She snapped her fingers and a waterskin levitated over to her hand. “Have some water first, though”

They fell asleep together.