The clap of horse hooves filled the air, the soft breeze a soothing presence. He breathed it deep, trying to taste the pollen, trying to feel the peace of nature. The world without people, without monsters. Without evil.

But every time he opened his eyes he saw Rose, unconscious, her dark hair clotted with dried blood, and knew this peace wouldn't last long.

“Redmun…” Jessa hesitated. Redmun looked up at her, ready to listen. She pursed her lips at the air. “You're losing it.”

Redmun nodded. “Probably.”

Silence, and the call of birds. “Got it out of you?”

Redmun breathed deep once more, and let it out as the longest sigh he could manage. “I think so. For now.” He was still angry, still felt aggrieved, but the heat of it had gone.

She turned that worried glare on him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Redmun shrugged, though it wasn't easy with one hand on Rose, the other holding the reins. “Nothing to talk about. Nothing new, anyway. I'm just…” Rose shifted, but settled once more. “I'm just having a hard time. Dealing with all this at once, I mean. I just want to get there and get it over with.”

“Right.” Jessa leaned back into her pack, feeling about blindly. She pulled out a loaf of bread, tore it in half and tossed a piece to Redmun. “We'll have to deal with her when she wakes up, though,” she said over a mouthful, spitting crumbs everywhere. “Can't put that off.”

Redmun hummed, enjoying the simple taste of the bread. Freshly baked anything was hard to come by outside of Khelvorias. “I'm not saying I'm not glad you took her out, but are you sure you couldn't have just held her back or something?”

“You mean she wasn't about to murder you?” Jessa asked, her stuffed mouth muffling the words. “I thought you said she shut that sort of stuff down hard. Never pushed her before, right?”

“No, I've haven't pushed her before.” Redmun looked down at his mother, unconscious. Strangely, now that she wasn't scowling or smiling, she looked a little prettier, though he was getting crumbs in her hair. He didn't bother brushing them away.

Atop a hill, the surrounding fields slowly being tilled, a groan lifted through the air. Rose slipped down, landing on her feet, but toppling onto her rear-end after a few steps. Her head was down, hands bracing against the gravelly path.

Redmun brought his horse around, positioning it between Jessa and Rose, and dismounted. Rose took some heavy breaths for the next few seconds, her head still down, her fingers probing the back of her head.

When it seemed reasonably certain that she wasn't about to lunge at him with her daggers, he spoke. “Rose, are you alright?” He didn't know if she'd ever received a beating like that. He didn't know if she was vain or prideful – she certainly didn't act so – but having an audience seeing her go down probably didn't help her mood.

Still nothing. Redmun looked to Jessa, who gave him an unhelpful upraised eyebrow.

He knelt. “Rose?” He had been going to say he was sorry, but that wasn't true. Nor would she care. “Rose, we need to keep moving.”

Finally, Rose got up. Her lips were distastefully pursed, and her wrinkle-riddled eyes looked up at Redmun, then turned to Jessa. Her bare hand went to her knives, and her gloved hand pushed Redmun aside.

“Rose. No.” he said, and yanked her back mid-stride.

Rose's gloved hand grabbed his wrist right back, and suddenly heat burned right through the glove, and seared the flesh. Redmun cried out in fresh agony, falling to his knees. Only then did she let go. She slapped the rear of Redmun's horse, sending the beast squealing away, a trail of smoke in its wake. The sharp tang of burning hair.

Jessa, missing half a foot or no, hopped off her horse with both axes in hand, and took a wide-legged stance, her face hard and ready. Rose advanced. No taunting, no mocking. Just her blades, held before her.

He wasn't going to let that happen. Redmun leapt at her, and got his arm around her neck. He pulled up his legs, using all his weight to pull her down, and wrestled her to the ground.

Jessa rushed forward to get atop Rose, but Rose got her feet up, and kicked both legs out, tossing Jessa away. Then, just as her face began to turn red from lack of air, she grabbed Redmun's arm in exactly the same place and let the heat sear at him, all the while wriggling and struggling in his grasp like a snake in water. Redmun's grasp relaxed but an inch, and Rose slid out. She brought her molten elbow down on Redmun's face. It struck his skull, and sent his vision to black.

When Redmun awoke – he must have only been out for a few seconds – Jessa had recovered, and had hold of Rose's wrist. One with both of her hands, the other, molten appendage with the Banshee's grasp. Rose struggled, kicking at Jessa's stomach, but Jessa held fast. Until Rose's forehead collided with the bridge of her nose.

Rose drew her other knife, its steel flashing in the sun with lethal intent. Taking it in a reverse grip, she took one step, then hurled herself at the prone Jessa.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Luckily, Jessa saw that, and used Rose's technique against her, bringing her legs up to push the woman off before the knife could land. Rose was flung up and over, crashing through one of the fences at either side of the road.

Redmun got up, and staggered forward. Rose's head shot up behind the bushes, her face pink with fury. “Stop!” was all that Redmun managed before Rose flung a ball of melted rock at his face. He dodged, and Jessa dodged one of her own, before her hand shot out as an ethereal apparition. Behind them, the remaining horse let out a revolting cry of agony as its ribs caved in under the force and heat of a misfired magma-bolt.

“Screw this.” Jessa reached forward. The Banshee's arm appeared, and it was massive. It held Rose in its palm, binding her arms against her body, crushing her thin legs together. Rose's hair was frayed, her eyes wide and her mouth drooling from a snarl. When her struggling failed, her animal sounds became an all-out scream. Out of her palm, dripping down her leg and melting the tight leathers she wore was a stream of orange-hot lava. It did not affect her flesh in the slightest, but pooled under her suspended feet, sizzling on the tilled earth, a rocky crust already forming. Even her specially treated leather did not withstand it.

Rose's shriek continued, her legs and arms kicking and struggling as much as they could in Jessa's tight grip. “I've got her” Jessa said, her eyes already struggling under the pressure of the Banshee's scream.

Redmun stepped over the broken fence, and came as close as he dared. Even several feet away, he could feel the heat of the expelled molten mass. Rose's entire left leg was bare, her exposed foot flailing, trying to splash him with the lava.

“Rose!” he shouted at her. She quieted, briefly, and turned her wild, bloodshot eyes towards him. It was as if she barely recognized who he was.

But then she did recognize him, and was became only madder for it. “FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE CUNT. I'LL FUCKING GUT YOU AND YOUR BIG-TITTED WHORE!” The slew turned into vicious gibberish, hurled so loud and so fast that Redmun couldn't get a word in.

Why not use my power? It is yours to use.

Just be quiet, Redmun said to the thing.

About Rose's feet a fire was beginning, igniting the exposed roots of the field, the shards of fence, the bush. Redmun glanced down the road, already seeing a mass of people coming towards them. They'd wasted too much time already.

Well, first he'd have to get her attention. And, grating as it was, the only thing that could do that right now was… the Evil's light.

Redmun held up his light, and for the first time in a while, willingly poured the power through his fingers. He just made a single ball of light, but aimed at her like a threat. Her eyes caught it, and her struggling stopped.

“Gelstadt first,” he told her. “If you do anything to Jessa, if you do anything to jeopardize what we're doing, I will kill you.”

He had no idea why she felt the need to finish Gelstadt – she was hateful enough to turn her love into such a horrific monster, and not feel guilt – but she did, and that was what mattered. It would be dangerous, but Redmun hoped that he could keep Rose moving long enough to find Gelstadt and do what needed to be done. After that, it didn't matter what happened. But Rose wasn't one to be dragged along, no matter what she wanted. She showed her teeth in a grin so sickening it made her teeth seem pointed.

“I-want-her-hair!” Rose spat. “I want her fucking hair! Every scrap of it! I want her to feel the wind on her bald fucking scalp! I want men to shy away from her! I want women to laugh at her stupid, pathetic, bald-fucking-head!”

Redmun licked his lips, and turned to Jessa. She wasn't going to do it. He could see it in her eyes, the set of her jaw. He turned to her, and mouthed a plea. This is the only way, he told her, but the fury she wore only grew harder. It wasn't that she was attached to her hair, it was the humiliation. It was letting someone treat her like dirt. It wasn't in Jessa to let that happen.

In the background, Rose was roaring non-sense. Neither of them listened. Redmun spoke a single word. “Please.”

Jessa's face strained, her eyes near bulging from their sockets. She nodded.

When he turned back, Rose was just watching Jessa, eyeing her hair with rabid need. Maybe even jealousy.

Redmun withdrew his knife, and turned towards Jessa. “No!” Redmun twisted, looking at Rose. “I do it!”

“I don't trust you with a knife around her, Rose.”

“I do it!” Her voice was vicious, murderous, gleeful. “Or I kill both of you! Fuck Gelstadt! Fuck everything! Let them rot!” Rose's molten hand flexed and curled, opening and closing rapidly, tiny drops of lava still trickling out, evidence of the torrent she was barely holding back. “Don't worry, boy. I'm sure her legs'll still be open wide for you tonight. Maybe more so, since she'll come crawling, wanting to feel pretty!” She'd barely finished the sentence, that sweet laughter of hers already escaping her lips. But her eyes were sane once more. Sane, but unthinkably awful.

The ethereal claw disappeared. Jessa walked onto the road a little, turned her back to them, and sat down. Rose came forward, blade twirling between her fingers. Redmun watched her, his own blade tight between his fingers.

Rose came up, looked down at Jessa, looked to Redmun, smiled. Then she set to work

There was an ugly artistry to it. Rose held the hair in delicate handfuls, and cut through as close to the scalp as she could, each clump lovingly placed in a sack she'd retrieved from her pack. Rose hummed all the while, some tavern tune in lovely tones. Jessa's hands grabbed at handfuls of gravel, squeezing them until her palms bled.

Not a single hair long enough to grasp was missed. When Rose was finished, she stepped back, hands on hips, and sighed. “My, what an pretty little boy we have!”

“Done?” Jessamine asked. Redmun could hear the strain in her voice.

“Beautifully so,” Rose said. She took out the last lock of hair from the sack, sniffed it, let out an even more satisfied, perhaps even aroused sigh, and walked off down the road. “You're welcome.”

Jessa stood up. She didn't touch her head. Redmun approached her carefully. “Are you alright?” he asked. He spared a single glance for the dead horse in the middle of the road, the scent and smoke of burnt flesh wistfully escaping from the hole in its chest. The other was nowhere to be seen.

Jessa's breath came in harsh gasps. “I'm…” She looked down at her hands, and finally made them relax. Blood-stained rocks fell to the earth. Redmun came over, taking a cloth from his jacket, and began to clean her palms. That she let him was a good sign. “I'm fine…” she peered down the road to Rose. “Just going to kill her, is all.”

Redmun smiled. Laughed, even. He couldn't help it. “She'll probably be more attached to that hair than you ever were.” Jessa turned to him, giving him an unknowable look. “Thank you, Jessa. And sorry. I should have been the one to take her anger. Not you.”

She placed her hands to hold his, covering them in her blood. “We're doing this together, remember? I'm stuck with you, and it's not like you've got anyone else.” She smiled, and though it was pained, it was real. She let out a soft, sad sigh, looking at Rose. “We'll get this done, then we'll gut her together. Now come on,” she said, turning him down the road. “Let's give her that extra coat of mine. Her saggy ass is showing.”