2.3 A Howling for More

※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※ ※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　

A swarm of butterflies, green, purple, iridescent and luminous, filled the air. Those shards of glass catching firelight, they flitted around Androktasiai, their tiny wings humming with magic, their bodies pulsing with embers waiting to ignite. Amidst a great glow, they burst. 

Androktasiai moved before the light overtook her, the axe in her hands a golden blur, cleaving through the volatile swarm. Each arc of her blade carved a path through the carnage, slicing the air clean, her movements precise and surgical. The explosions swallowed everything, drowning the field in purple heat and rolling fire.

She spun around, twisting her grip, energy rippling through her limbs, desperate to be expelled. The axe disintegrated in her hands, its form twisting, warping, elongating: a spear now held within her ragged hands, and with it, the air shifted. The temperature snapped downward as frost coiled around her legs, her momentum carving a storm of snow and fire in her wake.

The field was dying, falling into a ruin of its own making, and at the eye of the chaos stood Nfierre. The girl did not blink. She did not waver. She only raised a hand, and the world went white. 

Nfierre's outfit seemed to be missing its butterfly texture from before. A grand nuke of red fire sprang from her fingertips, the jacket on her shoulders now black. 

Androktasiai stood up, brushed herself off, and darted underneath the sphere, slicing underneath to Nfierre. 

When the nuke behind her burst, she wiped the ends of her spear, an axe now and held it behind her, cutting a path of safety in the explosion of the day.

She kicked out, spinning around with all her strength, an axe full-throttle moving towards Nfierre's neck.

Vines sprung up, catching the axe. All of Androk's limbs were ensnared. With a snarl and howl, Androk's axe turned into a spear again, white gasoline-like liquid moving down from its tip, sprawling into white fire and turning the vines into black ashes. The fire did not die down.

Nfierre stepped back, a floating dash as she spun her silver staff around, the ground beneath Androk turning into a blue flower. It opened its stabbing petals, closing in on Androk. The cuts made issue to Androk's skin, but not that coat. The fires died down.

A slash, and Androk appeared, axe in hand, the petals of the flower wilting.

Nfierre slammed her hands together, large green hands appearing to Androk's side slamming inwards.

Androktisaisi stood on her newly-made spear, using it to vault over the edges. 

She stood on top of that calamity, stabbing down into those hands, catching them both in a pile of dust and sparkly greens.

Nfierre huffed, raising her staff high. 

Her outfit now was mainly a mess of black, but when she raised her staff,

Joining her,「Color」and all its glory died.

The battlefield collapsed into black and white, drained of every hue, reduced to stark, lifeless contrast. A nightmare of pure void. Androktasiai skidded to a stop, the edges of her body flickering ink on scorched paper, her own form struggling to remain real against the unnatural severance of color. She worked in an allosteric zone, and to offset that was to offset her balance. So, she focused on her breathing, bracing her spear in her hands in a strongheld guarding position. The world fluctuated in a silent state, and then-

From the dead air, the stolen color rushed inward, spiraling, thrashing, coalescing into a single, violent core of light in Nfierre’s hands. It pulsed- red, white, violet, and grey- the shades shifted, writhing, collapsing upon each other.

She threw it all.

The beam of pure, weaponized color screamed forward, a lance of unfathomable force, cutting the world in half as it hurtled toward Androktasiai. Her spear snapped into motion, arms twisting wildly as she circled the thing around, rotating it, and the anabolic energy pushed against the force. This was a technique of the substrate, and when the spear fractured, burning away at the edges, the axe returned.

Catabolic. Devouring.

She slammed the tip of the axe into the heart of the beam, and the world erupted.

A collision of raw force, a cosmic argument between destruction and the will to withstand it. Where Androktasiai’s axe met the color-rip beam, there was a violent clash, the line of sharp iron sinking into the swirling mass, splitting the energy like a wedge driven through fabric seams. The red shimmer of her axe surged outward, breaking everything down. Where she stood, the ground beneath splintered– where she protected, the trees at her back blackened and rotted– and where she breathed, the very air screamed as it was torn apart at the molecular level.

But Nfierre- this girl was already moving. She had taken the red gleam of the axe, and was sending it back to Androk. Androk parried the blow with her other hand, waving it away with little to no difficulty, those arcs of light.

Androktasiai’s feet slid against the force of the blast, her boots digging furrows into the charred ground. Her fur coat was unripped, but her hands and face had scrapes on them. But as the light started to buckle, as the spell finally shattered like stained glass, the girl was already in her space, already closing the gap, already in striking range. Androktasiai barely had time to register the movement before a heel crashed into her ribs, sending her careening sideways.

She caught herself, slamming her axe into the dirt to slow her momentum, the force of the impact sending a ripple of energy outward. Nfierre was on her again, immediately, body twisting like liquid, heel snapping toward her skull-

Androktasiai ducked, the air splitting just above her head. She swung her axe upward and Nfierre leaped back just in time, the curves of inelegance narrowly missing her face.

Androk’s axe disintegrated in her hands- molecular breakdown, a shift in fundamental process, catabolic to anabolic once more-! And then became a spear again.

She drove it forward. A quick stab that was near impossible to dodge. Of course, to Nfierre, it was mere child’s play to tilt her head at an impossible angle, to dodge this beacon of death by millimeters, her breath curling into mist as the spear-tip carved through the freezing air.

The breath was absorbed, an icy texture meeting the black of Nfierre's clothes.

Nfierre’s hands snapped shut on the shaft of the weapon, magic flaring instantly, her own spellwork twisting through the wood in veins of living light. Androktasiai’s grip faltered for half a second, and that was more than enough. Everything inverted.

The spear detonated in her hands, the wood fracturing into splinters, the force of it sending both of the women skidding backward.

An icy field met Androk's feet, keeping her stuck to the ground.

Nfierre’s fingers moved. Her right hand was that of a pianist composing death. Symbols burned into the air, each one vanishing the instant it was completed. Her left, she held out, as if she were blocking a force.

A sphere of negative space expanded from her outstretched hand– a total absence of color, of form, of meaning– and shot toward Androktasiai. To be consumed by it was to cease.

Androktasiai grinned. With foolishness and bravery equipped, she could not step forward. Her spear reformed from the air around in an instant, only to shatter again– anabolic to catabolic to anabolic, the very act of shifting weapons fueling the reversal of destruction itself. The spear was feeding her. Where she could not moved, she spun the weapon around, spinning the thing as it reformed and unformed again.

With great effort, the sphere moved forward with another step.

Then another.

And another-!

She was inside the spell’s range.

Her body screamed, her flesh peeling at the edges, her armor crumbling to dust, her bones grinding.

And then–

The spear was an axe again.

And the spell snapped apart like brittle ice.

Nfierre clicked her tongue, annoyed.

“You used that against Casyriel’s water serpents, you nonce!” Androk yelled, a laugh bellowing from her lungs the likes of which she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Fiery strands had melted the ice below.

Nfierre sighed, taking that fiery texture and absorbing it to her black gloves.

She clenched her fists and threw herself forward, magic coiling around her hands in springs of black energy. 

Androktasiai met her in the middle.

Blood and steel and fists met bone. A punch to the jaw. A knee to the ribs. An elbow driving into a shoulder. Every strike meant to disable, and for Nfierre, to kill. Every movement was a war between two forces that refused to break. Nfierre’s magic burned against her skin. Androktasiai’s body repaired itself before the wounds could settle.

And then, the world went black and white again.

Nfierre stepped back, breathing steady. The entire battlefield drained of color once more, except this time, the effect wasn’t immediate. This time, she was doing something just slightly different.

She raised both hands, and the stolen color pooled together, spiraling into a rotating mass of shifting hues, growing larger, brighter, heavier, and with great effort, she strummed the forces of it outwards, like a melody of sorts. Not as a beam, not as a wave, but as an all-consuming explosion of energy. A colorful, cosmic nuke. The colors rushed outward, blooming in a violent, expanding nova, swallowing the battlefield whole.

Androktasiai stood in the center of it, gripping her axe. 

She exhaled, like a batter readying for the pitch at plate. A snake of fire was hiding beneath the mass of color. Androk sighed as she stabbed the ground beneath her with the axe, making a hole in the Earth. The fire sprawled underneath the orb, and made this difficult.

Androk looked upwards,

and then she swung from underneath, a clean hit that connected the orb right at its center of mass.

The battlefield dissolved into embers and fading light, and to any old onlooker, the explosion erased her. The birds in the trees had ceased to exist, the leaves barely hanging on in their black and white shades. But, Androktasiai was still standing, the ground beneath her solid again, a spear held in her hand. 

The old lady laughed, sticking her tongue out.

“Parried!”

The blast had swallowed the world, a wave of colorless destruction radiating outward with the dying star’s final breath. Yet, at the center, unmoving, unwavering, Androktasiai had simply swung.

Her axe had devoured the force of it, shattered it, scattered it, reduced it to nothing but flickering remnants burning themselves out in the frozen air. The ground beneath her was a charred, broken ruin, blackened soil and scorched stone spiraling outward from where she stood. The fight stalled in this achromatic space.

Both warriors stood opposite each other, both breathing, not quite heavily, but not anywhere near untouched either. To the other, this was surely a match worth sweating for.

Androktasiai rolled her shoulders, rotating her neck until something cracked. She shifted her grip on the axe, flipping it once in her palm before resting the haft against her shoulder, expression unreadable.

“. . . Twice?” Her voice was dry, almost bored. “What, ya run out of tricks?”

Nfierre scoffed, her outfit now completely black, except for that cloak which seems to have absorbed the air around them. “It almost worked. You don’t get to be smug.”

Androktasiai raised a brow. “Almos' don't mean shit ta me.”

They stood in silence for a moment, each stretching their joints. The thin firelight burnt grass and flickered between them, reflecting against Nfierre’s white cloak, her breathing finally slowing. Her expression was sharp, but not cruel and not in any way hateful. Just worn.

Androktasiai sighed. “Nfierre.”

A pause.

“Can’t we just say we’ve had enough? I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

Nfierre tensed.

Androktasiai tilted her head slightly, just enough to break the direct stare between them, her voice quieter now, lower. “If Boa we'e here,” she muttered, “she wouldn't want ta see two good friends fight now, would she?”

That was almost enough to make Nfierre stop.

Almost.

But then her fingers clenched at her sides, knuckles whitening against the cold. The hesitation was there– but so was the resolve.

“Shut up.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. “You don’t get to say that.”

Androktasiai exhaled through her nose. “I’m not some Macbeth, Nfierre. I may be a sinner, through and through, but it ain't like ya think. I'm stable now.”

Nfierre’s eye twitched.

“You killed her. I knew Androktasiai. She would never, never have done that. Not to her. . . not to her own daughter.”

Just saying it set Nfierre off again. Her hand flicked upward, as if she were grabbing a lightning bolt from the sky, and a light blue stream came down from a large cloud, landing in her hand. 

“It’s my duty to avenge all three of them.”

The ground beneath her fractured, then twisted, then shattered, and the battle resumed. This matter of absorption was a cold glass of water for Nfierre. And with boundless energy, she was on Androktasiai before the next breath could form.

A sword manifested in her hand mid-motion, raw focus dripping from the hilt, a short and clean weapon. 

It clashed against the axe. Not nearly as durable, not nearly as strong, but certainly as precise. Androktasiai’s arm buckled, but only barely.

Nfierre kept going.

She was fast. Much too fast for the aged Androk.

Her blade sliced into the air, each strike only dodgeable with her companion’s expertise. Nfierre was someone who had fought alongside her for countless battles. These movements were second nature to Androktasiai.

Her axe may be slow, but her axe was brutal. To Nfierre’s anger, the axe had none. It was deliberate and composed.

But, it was not enough, not to keep up with Nfierre.

The mage’s blade dug into her shoulder, cutting through the fur coat, scraping against bone.

Androktasiai’s fingers flexed against the weapon’s grip,

“Anabolic.”

The axe collapsed, reformed, and now she held the spear.

She caught the next flurry before it started. The haft of the weapon slammed against Nfierre’s ribs, sending her backward, skidding across the ruined battlefield. Androktasiai took the briefest of breaths, then darted forward. She brushed off the blood on her sleeve, the red coating already staining the fibers of her fabrics. She had to be done holding herself back. Nfierre was gonna kill her, and as tempted as she was to let it happen, she didn’t trust Nfierre to take care of Jesse. She doubt she had it in her to be able to take care of another. Nfierre could hardly take care of herself.

The shift from axe to spear was instant, the active process igniting in her blood, a functional site. It filled her limbs with an unholy strength, something not given but taken. The moment the weapon changed, her body became more, absorbing its potential, feeding on its transformation.

Where she moved, the ground cratered beneath her, cracks splitting outward. The world rushed past in a blur, the spear extending toward Nfierre in an arc so fast it blurred against the frozen air. One thrust. One clean, perfect motion.

Nfierre barely dodged.

The tip of the spear sang through empty space, but the aftershock alone tore through the battlefield, slicing deep into the landscape, parting the air like a storm splitting the sea. The entire world lurched sideways from the sheer force of the strike.

Androktasiai didn’t stop.

The spear was already gone, broken apart, molecular dissolution, burned for fuel, and the axe was back in her grip before the breath had finished leaving her lungs.

Catabolic. Destroy. Erase. Take.

She swung downward, a cleaving arc of entropy, the kind of strike that didn’t just kill, a complete dissolution felled upon any who came under the swing.

Nfierre threw herself back, hands flashing, and the sword in her grip splintered apart, shattering into dozens of magic circles, each one inscribed with a different counter-sorcery.

As the spells lit up the sky, they rained down upon Androk, divine missiles from above.

A genius, Androk remarked. A genius was right.

Androktasiai’s axe crashed against them as Nfierre hopped backwards, taking different footings and figuring out where to stand. Nfierre rushed inwards, slamming her fist into Androktasiai's gut. 

It was tiring, but Nfierre was already moving.

She blinked out of existence, a teleportation spell crafted on the spot, and appeared behind Androktasiai, sword reforging itself in her grip from the specks of rain washed down and melted. She swung. Androktasiai caught the blade with her bare hand.

The feelings of steel bit into her palm, slicing through flesh, but she did not flinch. Instead, she grinned. Her palm flashed blood upwards, a color eerily similar to her own hair. Where it fell upon her face, she snarled, licking it up hungrily.

“You’re tired,” she muttered, voice a low growl.

Then, before Nfierre could retreat–

The axe was gone, and the spear was back.

And with great strength, Androktasiai drove it forward. The tip of the weapon pierced straight through Nfierre’s shoulder, pinning her to the air itself as if it were a solid surface. Of course, Androk had made it so. That was the power of restructure and creation, a great warrior with expertise to match. Androktasiai twisted the spear.

Nfierre screamed.

The spell surrounding her shattered, her teleportation magic crumbling before it could save her. Androktasiai leaned in, face unreadable.

“I’m still me,” she said. “Your hatred is deserved, but you should know that at least.”

Nfierre’s eyes blazed with pain, with fury, with something broken. “Liar,” she spat. "I don't know who you are."

And then, everything went white.

A last-ditch spell, utilizing all her colors. A singularity, if Androk knew science at all. All at once, all concentrated, all formed in a final desperate attack.

Nfierre's cloak was black now.

Androktasiai barely had time to brace before it detonated.

And the battlefield ceased to exist.

Nothing.

No ground beneath her feet. No sky above her head. No air, no weight, no time. Just endless, swirling white, a blank slate, an erased page, a world stripped down to the absence of itself. Androktasiai turned, the edges of her form bleeding into the void like ink soaking into paper. Nfierre was already waiting.

Her silhouette was sharp against the nothingness, a thing that refused to be erased. Androk was sure she was immune to it anyway, but it still scared the shit out of her, the way Nfierre’s hair floated unnaturally, strands untouched by gravity, eyes burning with the same manic determination as it had countless times over and over again.

And then–

"Crisi!"

The spell left her lips like a war cry, the slamming of a door between one syllable and the next. The void trembled, shuddered and broke. A green comet burst into existence, a furious, spiraling mass of molten light, heat and force given form. It carved a gash through the empty world, blazing toward Androktasiai like a falling star.

Nfierre's left eye was purely black. Not a trick of the light, but a true transformation of color.

All the elder woman did was grin. If Nfierre wanted to go this far, it meant she cared about her companions a hell of a lot more than Androk had initially thought.

Androk raised her axe, catabolic energy crackling up her arms, fingers curling tight around the grip. And with one swing, she shattered the world. The nothingness broke apart like glass, fracturing outward in a web of impossible shapes, and suddenly–

They were plunging into an ocean.

Water rushed in from all sides, a brutal, crushing weight.

Androktasiai moved before Nfierre could react, her hands seizing the girl by the collar, dragging her downward, deeper, into the abyss. No spells here. No teleporting. Just lungs burning, bodies thrashing, bubbles spilling toward the unreachable surface.

Nfierre struggled, her arms swinging blindly, her magic short-circuiting under the pressure of the water, the depth, the suffocating silence.

Androktasiai held her down.

Then, a pulse of energy, a sprout of bubbles, and they were falling. Right out of the damn sky. The wind ripped past them, air rushing violently, Nfierre kicking free from Androktasiai’s grip, the two of them spinning, twisting, weightless, seconds from impact, seconds from being blips on that gnarled earth.

Another blip, and they slammed back onto solid ground.

The earth roared beneath them, the sheer force of their return sending cracks splitting outward in every direction.

And Nfierre–

Nfierre immediately threw up.

She barely made it two steps before doubling over, fingers digging into the dirt, shoulders heaving. Androktasiai stood nearby, rolling her own left shoulder, feeling out the bruises, the ache in her ribs, the fading pull of oxygen starvation in her lungs. The bleeding had stopped, thankfully. The blood flowing out was a waste of her energy.

She exhaled, muttering to herself.

"Well, that fucking sucked."

Nfierre wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Her breathing was uneven, but her hands were steady, fingers already twitching, already forming the next spell.

Androktasiai took a slow breath, standing tall, flexing her fingers against the haft of her axe. “Near half a century of travel, and you still manage to surprise me,” she muttered, eyes flicking toward the mess Nfierre had left on the ground. “Need a sec?”

“Shut up,” Nfierre growled. Magic surged around her, rippling outward in a fractal burst, the lines and runes forming almost instantly, the colors of her vomit forming a great acidic spell.

Then, she clapped her hands together. The ground beneath Androktasiai sank.

Or, more accurately, collapsed.

A perfectly circular hole opened up beneath her feet, stretching into an abyss so deep it did not reflect light. The dirt, the air, the color of the world itself– everything was being pulled downward, swallowed and erased.

A gravity well.

Androktasiai reacted instantly, slamming her axe into the ground, using the leverage to hurl herself sideways before she could be dragged into the void, tossing herself around like a gymnast.

But the moment she landed, the trees turned against her. They twisted, gnarled, their bark splitting open into hungry, yawning maws, vines snapping toward her like the limbs of a starving thing. Androktasiai twirled the axe in her grip, and catabolic became anabolic again. This spell was new too. Androk didn’t like it very much. Nfierre's other eye faded to black.

The axe twisted, melted, reshaped into the spear.

And with one fluid motion, she swung it in a full arc,

The trees recoiled as if burned. The air shifted, the world bending itself in response to the change in her weapon.

Her spear was life. It was a restoration of balance.

The battlefield healed itself.

The chasm sealed shut. The trees straightened, mouths vanishing, returning to what they once were. Androktasiai exhaled. “You aren’t going easy on me, man. Neat trick, though. You got more?”

Nfierre’s expression did not change. What color did she have left?

Nfierre ripped off her gloves, holding her nails high to the sky.

She stepped forward, and the sky split open.

The stars above fractured like broken glass, and from the wounds in the sky, something stepped through.

No, not something. Many things.

Over the blood-haired woman they towered, skeletal and crowned creatures, their forms flickering, colorful creatures, ten in total. Their mouths did not move, and yet, Androktasiai could feel their voices.

They raised their hands. Androktasiai’s skin ignited in black fire. She howled in pain.

The weight of her history, her arbiter of law, of absolute declaration. 

Androktasiai gritted her teeth. Her spear burned away in her grip. “Anabolic to catabolic.”

She may not deserve to live. She may not deserve life after all she has done, but she was alive to judge herself. She was alive for others. If she were to go out, it would be on her feet. It would be with a weapon in hand and with poison on her tongue, the way she always wanted to go. 

She lunged.

Nfierre hid her mouth behind the back of her sleeve. Her breathing was uneven, but her hands were steady, fingers already twitching, already forming the next spell. Androktasiai took a slow breath, the remnants of bone rattling alongside her axe. Nfierre hopped on one foot, constantly switching to the next, and with great force clapped her hands together– a desperate movement, an incantation not whispered, but forced through gritted teeth.

"Schiacciare!"

A great force burst from her palms, a celestial mass of twisting, volatile energy, burning too bright, too fast, a supernova packed into a single, unstoppable projectile. It screamed through the battlefield, a red set of fiery walls spreading outwards, the irritation from the frost now gone from her hands. 

Androktasiai didn’t move. She didn’t brace. She didn’t dodge. She simply swung. Her axe cleaved the walls in four, which collapsed on themselves. Nfierre’s breath caught. Her heart skipped a beat. Androktasiai exhaled, stretching out her back. She shifted the weight of her axe, gripping it like an executioner already regretting their duty.

“Do you get tired?” she asked, voice dry, tired.

Nfierre's hands shook. Not from fear. Not from exhaustion. From rage. A blinding and unfettered rage.

"Shut up!" she spat, her voice breaking at the edges, raw, desperate. Androktasiai sighed in response, closing her eyes for half a second. When she opened them, Nfierre was already sprinting straight at her. Her hands held a great combustion, and when she threw it against Androk’s chest, the battlefield collapsed inward, the colors bleeding into a single point before imploding, leaving behind a blank slate– an endless, howling void of white. It was snowing here, and they were nowhere once again. This was Nfierre’s ace in the sleeve– the card to annihilate, essentially. This meant that nothing else in her reservoir or repertoire would be able to hurt Androktasiai. Nfierre’s mastery was absorption, and only recently was she learning to master the impossible: the reverse of relocation. This ridiculous color-absorb-and-redirect was her cannon of pure power. The trump card that she would keep abusing until Androktasiai was dead. Androktasiai turned just in time to see Nfierre’s hands forming another spell. No hesitation. No wasted movement. The spell seized her. Her body froze. Not physically. Not magically. But, fundamentally.

Nfierre was breathing hard, her body trembling, her arms raised as if holding the world itself in place. 

Her spell held. She stabbed her knife forward, cutting into her, frost keeping all of Androk still.

Androk sputtered.

Her spell held. She stabbed again. The blood spurted out.

Her spell–

Cracked.

Androktasiai broke free. The instant she moved, the world around them broke apart, a mirror fracturing under the weight of its own reflection, and suddenly, once more they were thousands of feet in the air. Nfierre screamed, but the lack of oxygen swallowed the sound. Androktasiai grabbed her, dragged her downward, hands locking onto her shoulders, forcing her into a cloud. The vapor and elevation churned violently, swallowing them both, the weight of it crushing, suffocating, endless. Androktasiai could feel her eardrums shake to the point of almost rupturing. Her blood poured out in streams on Nfierre’s clothing, and the moment it came in contact with her, the color from it drained until it was a black juice, spreading along the fabric.

Nfierre struggled, kicking, clawing at Androktasiai’s arms, but there was nothing to steal here, no more color in the once-blue clouds, no battlefield, no rules to bend. Nfierre would be using the red to heal herself, and that meant that Androk wouldn’t have to worry about defending up here.

Just to embrace the sky. Just to admire the white drowning clouds in the accretion of terminal velocity. And then– a pulse of magic once more-! The world shifted again. Where the wind had just been roaring past them, clouds spinning wildly, the air splitting apart at their velocity, there was only the brutal slam onto solid ground. Nfierre’s body shook violently, her fingers digging into the dirt, her magic flickering unsteadily at the edges. Androktasiai jumped back and exhaled. She spun her weapon, wincing slightly, and ran a hand through her hair. There was nothing to do about the bleeding. Just needed to subdue Nfierre, and she could take care of it later. She gave Nfierre a moment. And finally, after a long, rattling breath, Nfierre pushed herself upright. 

Androktasiai tilted her head. Nfierre should’ve used the red to heal. . . no need for teleporting down here. She might’ve won that way.

"I see you still don't have the timing on that down," Androk murmured. “Say. . . you done?

Nfierre’s eyes burned. “Not yet.”

Nfierre moved in. Fast.

Her body was aching, shaking, refusing to obey, but her mind was clear, sharp, focused on one last gamble. Androktasiai raised her axe, already anticipating another spell, another breaking invocation, but that wasn’t Nfierre’s play. Just her hand. She snatched Androktasiai’s wrist and gripped tight. Androktasiai’s breath hitched. Because she could feel it. The pull. Nfierre’s fingers were cold against her burning skin, but the sensation wasn’t the problem. The problem was what she was taking. Sweat.

The salt and moisture gathered along Androktasiai’s skin, stolen. It left her bone-dry, her body suddenly weightless, hollow, empty.

Behind Nfierre’s back, hovering between them, growing, swelling, twisting into a terrible, amorphous thing, a sphere of pure, stolen liquid. Androktasiai’s own sweat, extracted, relocated, weaponized. A sphere the size of a small boulder. A single thought flashed through her head.

She’s going to try and drown me with that! Hell yeah!

Nfierre jerked her free hand back, jabbing her hand into the stab wounds of Androktasiai’s torso. But, Androk reacted instantly. She twisted Nfierre’s arm down with brutal efficiency, cutting the spell off before it could finish forming. Nfierre gasped, her body twisting against the movement, her stance buckling, and then she was pinned.

Androktasiai was on her, faster than a breath, her knee grinding into the dirt, one hand clamping down on Nfierre’s wrist, the other pressing hard against her shoulder. The sweat-ball lost cohesion. It collapsed in on itself, splattering uselessly against the battlefield. Androktasiai let out a slow, measured sigh.

“It’s over,” she muttered.

Nfierre struggled.

Her body twitched, her muscles tensing, but there was nowhere to go. She was spent. Nfierre’s body slackened beneath Androktasiai’s grip. Her breath shuddered.

And then, Androktasiai let go.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

The only sound was their breath– ragged, uneven, pulled in through gritted teeth. Androktasiai sat back slightly, shifting her weight to ease the strain in her muscles. She was tired, but not broken. That counted for something. Nfierre, still pinned by the woman’s weight, stared up at her. Her brows furrowed, eyes flicking over Androktasiai’s face, searching for something, a crack, an inconsistency, some confirmation of the corruption she had been so certain of.

Nothing. Only Androktasiai. Only her.

Nfierre’s colorless lips parted slightly, her breath still unsteady, but now, for the first time, she looked lost. “Who are you?” She hesitated, blinking rapidly, as if the world wasn’t quite making sense anymore. “Who are you, who wears my companion's face and her voice? Who are you, slaughterer?”

Androktasiai huffed out a breath. “I'm me. Ain't no beastie but my beast of burden. Was tryna tell you that. Then you dropped a nuke on me.”

She pushed off of Nfierre, finally releasing her hold, letting the girl sit up slowly, still processing everything.

Androktasiai watched her for a second before shaking her head. “You’re a stubborn little thing, I’ll give you that.”

Nfierre swallowed. She looked down at her hands, flexing them like she was expecting them to feel different, heavier. Where her hairs had fallen down, they were black, and the rest of her colorful outfit followed suit. If she looked into her own eyes, she’d knew she’d find the same. All the color was drained from herself.

Androktasiai exhaled, and muttered. “Forgot what a fucking nightmare you are to fight.”

Nfierre stared at her, those colorless lips pressing into a thin line. Androktasiai let her fingers drum idly against her knee. “You've gotten impressive.” Her gaze flicked toward the spot where her own sweat had almost been turned into her grave. “Creative, too, how you’ve evolved.”

Nfierre’s expression twisted. Not with anger this time. Something more complicated. But, she stayed silent.

Androktasiai tilted her head slightly, watching her.

“You good?”

Nfierre didn’t answer immediately. She just sat there, staring at the ground, as the weight of everything finally started to settle. Her breath steadied, but the look in her eyes didn’t. She didn’t move. Didn’t stand. Didn’t press another attack. Course, she couldn’t. She was spent. But, she did ask. Or, I suppose, command.

“Tell me. Tell me everyything. What happened? Why? Why did you leave me? Why did all of this happen?”

Androktasiai closed her eyes, already knowing what was coming.

Nfierre wouldn’t give her that mercy.

“Boadicea. Marcille. Please.” Nfierre’s voice was hoarse, quiet, but sharp. Not an accusation anymore. Not fury. Just desperate, aching need.

Androktasiai let out a slow breath. She adjusted, landing on her back in the dirt beside Nfierre, arms spread, staring up at the sky. She could talk about it.

She could tell Nfierre everything right here, right now.

But the words sat heavy on her tongue, lodged somewhere deep. There were shames she could not speak aloud. Not even to her.

“Not yet,” she muttered.

Nfierre turned her head, staring at her. Expecting more.

Androktasiai just sighed, draping an arm over her eyes.

“I’ll tell you,” she said, voice even. “In time.”

The battlefield had gone quiet.

For now, that simple promise would have to be enough.

The dirt was still warm beneath Androktasiai’s back, the last remnants of their magic-drenched clash still cooling in the air around them. The fight was over, but the weight in her chest wasn’t. She could feel Nfierre’s eyes on her. Still waiting. Still needing. But Androktasiai wasn’t ready. Instead, she let out a long, slow breath and spoke, hoping to make something better of themselves than she had made their companions.

“Hey.”

Nfierre blinked. “What?”

Androktasiai turned her head slightly, red eyes catching the dimming sky, the stars just beginning to poke through the remnants of battle-torn clouds.

“I need your help with something.”

Nfierre furrowed her brows, still guarded. “From me?”

Androktasiai exhaled again, this time rubbing the back of her neck. “Yeah. . . yeah. I need help. I'm uh. . . thinking of getting a kid into art school.”

Silence. Nfierre just stared at her, completely in awe. Androktasiai didn’t clarify. Didn’t try to make it make sense.

But, Nfierre knew. Because that was all Androktasiai wanted.

This hapless woman with good intentions was the Androktasiai she knew.

※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※ ※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※