“I was gone for one night, how was there enough time for all that to happen?” Anna said after I finished telling her about every single thing that had happened since she left.

“It felt like ten years.” I shrugged, closing the pink marble door to the well house. I crossed to her right side and held her hand as we walked towards the manor. After I answered Sam’s questions, I had not been able to keep myself from her. Any moment we were not touching felt like a shameful waste of time.

Anna laughed as we walked. “You go on a date with my brother, punch someone who doesn’t know you, lose yourself in a memory, beat the shit out of the guards, break your hand, and almost kill Arthur.”

“Why is that funny?” I asked her, feeling my face beginning to burn from embarrassment.

“I’m just glad I came back. You would have overthrown The Mothers or cut your arms off if I was gone another night.” She chuckled.

“It was not a date.” I muttered, my mind choosing to focus on that specifically.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Kind of seems like it was. He took you to dinner, took you to a bar, you bit him. That’s practically the definition of a date.”

I nudged her with my shoulder, knowing she was teasing me. The small impact made me move my right hand and I winced with pain.

“I thought you said it didn’t hurt?” Anna asked, holding the back door of the manor open for me.

I held my hand to my chest and answered honestly. “It didn’t when you asked me.”

“I can wrap it better than it was with the spoon, but if we don’t hear back from your mom by tomorrow, I’m going to find you a doctor.” Anna sighed, walking much too quickly down the hall. All the lights were off in the kitchen and she disappeared into the darkness just as I passed Arthur’s door.

A small flame flickered to life, lighting the dark room dimly.

A candle?

Anna lit another, and then the rest that had been placed in the middle of the big table in the kitchen.

“What is this?” I asked, taking in the low light and the wavering shadows they cast.

“Well,” Anna smiled, reaching into a large basket that sat on the table top. “Arthur's on his way to see my mom. Your mom is still gone. I thought we would have dinner together. It should still be warm, come sit."

I did as I was told and watched her empty the basket. Two bottles of dark wine, a long loaf of still warm bread, and a deep walled ceramic dish that was filled to the top with still steaming soup.

“Where did you get all this?” I asked, taking in the inviting scents and feeling my stomach groan. The last thing I had eaten had been the strawberry sweet I had shared with Arthur the night before.

“Hymneth. I bought it all right before I came back. There is this cute little family that makes the soup everyday. When I told them where I was going, they threw in the pot and the bread for free.” Anna answered.

I furrowed my brow and held my throbbing hand against my chest with my other arm. “That does not make sense. How is it still warm if you brought it all the way from The Mother in Blue’s domain?”

“I’ve only been back for an hour or so, and most of that was spent watching you,” Anna left the kitchen mid sentence. When she came back, she brought rolls of white bandages with her. Gently, as she always was with me, she wrapped my fingers together as she spoke. “I used one of those black portal things. There is a whole room of them at the bottom of the luminar.”

“What was it like? Is it warm all the time like it is here?” I asked, finding a feeling of comfort in the small pain of her treating my wound.

She shook her head. “Not at all. The family that I bought the soup from says that it snows every day of the year. It’s like a little winter village except it’s huge. Your mom said it's twice the size of Erosette. Everything is made out of wood too, the buildings and bridges and all. It’s cozy, the whole place. Except Solacia. It’s this big tall tower that The Mother in Blue lives in, kind of looms over the whole city.”

I thought about The Mother in Blue. There was nothing about Nami that made me think of snow or a looming tower, but Katarina had spoken of Hymneth like it was hers. Like the girl with the big straw hat that had been with Mother Glimmer or when Katarina had asked The Mother in Red about her lady, there was something there that I did not understand. Who was who? Who was The Mother in Blue, truly?

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Anna asked, looking up at me from where she had knelt between my legs.

Static, that was the most fitting word I could find to describe the unseen force that drew me towards her. Even though she had been gone for less than three days, my longing for her felt like it had been a year. I wanted nothing more than to slide down out of my chair and wrap my legs around her.

“Autumn?” She said, taking one long loop of bandage and wrapping it under my right arm. She stood and tied the loop around my neck, just below Mother Azza’s choker.

I let the weight of my arm hand against the loop and let out a small sigh of relief when it was supported.

“The Mothers, I have a lot to add to your notes. I remember some of it, but Sam-” I started, ignoring the static.

Anna cut me off with a look of warning in her eyes. “Dinner first, then I need a bath. After that you can catch me up. You are with me right now, not them."

I smiled and nodded in agreement, finding comfort in her words.

We split everything she had brought from Hymneth down the middle, including the wine. Both of us were so hungry that there was little talking during the meal. The wine was sweet and tart. The bread was as good as bread always was. I did not care for the soup much, it left a strange sour taste in my mouth. Still, I would not have traded it for anything because Anna had brought it for me. I could have hated every spoonful of it and I would have left the bowl dry and clean.

By the time Anna went to take her bath, my face was warm and the pain in my hand had been dulled by the wine. I could not remember a recent time that I felt better than I did then. I sat on the edge of my bed and waited, knowing that there was nothing I wanted to do without her. Sometime later, she came into my room wearing the black night gown I had seen her wear many times before. She moved a large pack away from the front of the arm chair in the corner and sat down with her big notebook.

“Alright, what did I miss?”

I went and lowered myself to my knees in front of her.

“Glimmer. . .”

I said, but my words trailed off. Anna’s lips were red and slightly chapped. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She asked, the tone of her voice telling me that she knew exactly what the reason was.

I felt the static once again, and gave myself over to it.

I rose onto my knees and took her head in my hands. Her dark hair brushed against my swollen hand as she relaxed back into my hold. Our lips met and a hunger I had never felt before came over me. There was no static when her lips parted and she bit my bottom lip gently, only a burning heat that drove me to do the same.

She made a small sound of pleasure when I slipped my hand from her head and down her shoulder.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Her skin was so soft, I couldn’t help the nervous giggle that bubbled out of me.

Her hand found its way to the small of my back and pulled me closer. My own small sound escaped me and our mouths separated long enough for us to laugh softly together. As if I had been made to do it, I brushed her hair aside and kissed her neck.

The scent of her, like dew dampened flowers, only drew me in further.

She leaned her head back and I felt her hips rise up and flex against me.

Anything, I would do anything to make her do it again.

Anna pushed herself up. Her hand brushed against one of the scars on my thigh and I shuddered. Our lips met again and by the movement of her mouth alone, she slowed the frantic pace that crept over me. She gave me one long kiss that felt final, like when someone said The End after the last line of a story.

“You’re pretty good at that.” She sighed, her face flushed and her voice breathy. She let her head fall back to the chair behind her and closed her eyes. Her lips were blushed red, just the way mine felt, and they spread into a slow smile.

“Why have we stopped?” I asked, my eyes wandering down her neck line and over her collar bone. The thin black night gown covered her, but it could not hide the slight slope of her chest. I did not want the story to end. There was so much plot left to be told, so many mysteries left to be revealed, so much land left to be explored.

“Because we’ve been drinking. That’s not a bad thing, but I want to treat you the way I wish I would have been treated.” Anna said quietly, keeping her eyes closed.

“What if I wish to continue?” I asked, my heart beating wildly in my chest. I took her hand and brought it back to the scar, sliding her fingers under the tight band of my shorts.

She looked at me. I could see her desire burning in her dark eyes like smoldering coals, but she would not give in to her want.

“Because as bad as I want to,” She said, the truth of her words evident with the feeling of her hand squeezing my thigh. She brushed over the rough flesh of the scar and it sent a shiver through my body. “We should take it slow. It’s better that way. Your first time should be special. Most people aren’t lucky enough to have someone like me saying that.”

I nudged myself closer to her, leaving very little room between us. “But if we keep going right now, it won’t be my first time anymore and you will have nothing to worry about. We could do this whenever we wanted.”

“You are a monster,” She laughed, her nose scrunching. She gently pushed me away. “We don’t need to rush, we just had our first real kiss like three weeks ago. Besides, I brought you something.”

“Oh?” I sighed, trying to let go of the heat that had built within me.

“I brought you a gift from Hymneth.” She said, reaching for her pack and sliding it across the stone floor.

“Oh?” I said, trying to ignore the frustration I felt growing within me.

“I saw it and thought you would think it is cool,” Anna said with a wink. She pulled out a small velvet sack and slackened the draw strings. From within the velvet, she pulled out the bird skull that Sam had given her and a ring with half a dozen small white stones and set them on the floor. Then, her hand still in the sack, she gave me a command. “Close your eyes and hold your hand out.”

I did as I was told.

“Not the broken one, dummy.” Anna laughed.

“Oh, right.” I nodded blindly, trading my right for my left.

Something as cold as the water in my bath used to be when I came back from The Well stung my skin. I opened my eyes and saw a thin ring of silver wire hung around the base of my hand. Resting gently over the vein of my wrist was what looked to be an intricate shape made entirely of light blue ice.

“It’s a snowflake. The shopkeeper said it would never melt and always stay cold. Do you like it?” Anna asked, the tone in her voice turning up nervously at the end of her words.

I scowled up at her, and let an angry exhale out of my nose.

“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t like it,” She muttered, looking away from me. “It’s not worth very much anyways.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I love it. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. That’s why I’m angry.”

“I don’t underst-”

I cut her off. “I was supposed to get you sandals. I was supposed to get you a gift, not the other way around. You give me so much and all I do is take from you. . .”

A piece of me for you. The words The Red Mother had said to the newborn son of Katarina echoed in my mind.

“Fuck it” I snapped, snatching the bird skull off the floor beside us and standing.

I reached for my aura. The sad little sliver that had been all that I could find within myself for days had died. In its place, A blood red streak circled and bent violently inside of my soul, demanding to be freed. Without the need for thought, I brought it to the channel behind my navel and let it loose through the damaged seal. My night shirt billowed up from the sheer force of my power. Dark red light painted everything around me in my color.

Anna stood, her eyes wide and focused on my navel.

I brought the skull down and suspended it with my aura, like I had hung it before me with unseen wires.

“Autumn?” Anna whispered.

“Say my name. Say it again, please.” I begged her, my heart feeling so full that I thought it would burst in my chest.

“Autumn.” She did as I asked.

“A piece of me,” I said. Focusing my aura around the skull, I closed it in my palms despite the pain that made my broken hand shake in agony. The light that had painted the room was reduced to glowing red seams that shone through the cracks between my fingers. I walked behind her and placed my arms over her shoulders. “For you.”

My hands separated and I worked my aura back from the skull, shaping it into brilliant ribbons that I joined at the base of Anna's neck.

The moment they met, I could hold my power no longer. I released it in a shower of red dust and fell straight back. Through the pink canopy and onto the bed, I went. I tried to catch myself but only managed to send my hand into nauseating waves of pain when the bulk of my weight landed on it.

“Fucking metal balls!” I groaned, rolling onto my side and folding myself around my arm.

The sound of my hand crunching against Bool’s crotch rang in my mind as clearly as the moment it had happened.

“I’ll kill him. I’ll kill all of them!” I screamed between heavy breaths.

My feet tangled in the blanket as I tried to roll onto my back. I threw myself into a wild flurry of kicks trying to free myself.

“Bastards!” I screamed again.

Then, the loss washed over me.

Unable to do anything but gasp for breath and seethe, Anna came to me.

She climbed into the bed and fit herself to my side.

“Shhh,” She said softly, brushing my tangled hair back from my face. “You're in the afterglow. You just did something amazing with your aura and it’s making you feel angry.”

I kicked at the blanket again, needing something to hurt the way my hand hurt. I needed to break something the way my bones had been broken. Every part of me wanted to throw myself out of the bed and destroy everything in front of me.

“Shhh. You’re okay. Look at what you made me. It’s beautiful.” She said, still brushing her fingers through my hair. With her free hand, she raised up the bird skull for me to see.

It was no longer white bone alone. Veins, the same blood red as my aura had been, snaked throughout it . A thin red ribbon looped through a similarly colored ring at the base of the skull wrapped around Anna’s neck loosely.

“I did that?” I whispered, feeling my rage seeping out of me. I shaped a piece of my soul and hung it around her neck like a necklace.

“You’re the only person that could have done it,” She raised it up and pressed it to her lips. “I’m never going to take it off. I love it.”

The afterglow ended, but the loss had made me tired and weak. Before I could so much as think about what I was saying, words I had never said to anyone passed through my lips for the first time.

“I love you.”

Silence.

Anna blushed and bit her lip as a smile spread across her face.

“I love you too.” She whispered.

We kissed, but it was not like it had been before. It was soft, sweet, and soothing in a way that left me feeling calm in the deepest parts of my soul.

There were no words after. We lay there together in a blissful silence for what could have been forever.

Eventually, Anna snapped the lights out and we fell soundly asleep in each other’s arms. . .

Light.

Moonlight, luminous and green, found its way to my eyes.

I rolled onto my side with a pained groan, heavy and slow with sleep.

Dry leaves crunched under my weight as I moved. I was no longer in my bed. I was on the ground.

“Anna?” I called out, beginning to understand that something was very wrong.

With a weak whimper slipping from my mouth, I pushed myself up and tried to blink the blur in my eyes away.

The malachite moon hung pregnant in the sky above me. Its light broke through the twisted tops of the barren trees that surrounded me and cast wild shadows across the leaf covered ground. The air was cold and my thin clothes did nothing to shield me from it’s bite.

Am I dreaming?

“Anna?” I called out again, the first pricks of panic beginning to rise up in my chest.

Somewhere in the darkness beyond the trees, a branch snapped.

Every part of me froze in sudden, cold, fear.

Dozens of sets of eyes, shining in the moonlight, stared at me from the darkness.

Above them all, a final set appeared that emanated a haunting shade of green light.

“You wanted to run away from us,” A voice came, cold and rough. “So-”

Savage snarls and barks sounded from the darkness. Flashes of sharp teeth and gnashing maws appeared within the green glow.

“-Run.”