Archive of Our Own

Cold.

It was so, so cold.

And yet, she felt like she could lay there forever, enveloped in the sharp chill, allowing herself to drift away. For a time, she couldn’t remember where she was, or who or what or why, just that it was cold, and she was floating in nothing.

And then the pain crashed into her.

It wracked every inch of her body, sharp and pulsing and burning and writhing all at once, and it hit so hard and so fast she spasmed involuntarily. It was everywhere, ripping her from the inside out, and it was wet and hot and throbbing. Her abdomen felt like it was torn in two and her back felt as if it was skinned away from her skeleton and there was something warm dripping out of her nose and she couldn’t breathe. 

Her entire body flailed in some desperate attempt to run from the agony, as if she could ward it away.

Her mind was screaming at her. There was something she needed to do, something that had to happen that she needed to see and she had to GET UP.

The Eye.

Up. She had to get up. There was danger, they were still nearby and looking for it, and the Left Eye could not fall into their hands, even as useless as it currently was. 

Except, she couldn’t open her eyes. Trying to sort through the different signals of pain slamming into her and also being able to see felt impossible.

Move. Run. 

Focus.

She dug through the splitting pain in her body until she found her arm and managed to slide it under herself, concentrating only on the movement of her shoulder and the feeling of her fingers running through the frigid snow.

She needed to lift her head from the ground. Biting her tongue and focusing on the sharp twinge, more defined than the screaming from the rest of her body, she raised her head, doing her best to ignore how the movement made something embedded into her back sway. Again, she sifted through the pulsing agony until she was sure she was moving her other arm. It didn't feel quite right, heavy and light and numb, but still she maneuvered it under herself and pushed-

-And nearly fainted when it scraped the ground.

A new agony erupted from her arm, drowning out the other burning spears of pain. Her eyes shot open, making her head pulse like someone had cleaved it in two. Blood and bile rose from her throat and filled her mouth. She didn’t allow it to escape, and instead lurched, a half turn, half lull of her head to the side, hair sweeping over the pink sludge that used to be snow as she looked down.

There was only a bloody stump from where her upper arm used to be.

She retched.

It came up through her mouth and nose and was more blood than bile, splattering all over her face and hair and the ruined snow. More blood was in her throat and fell into her lungs and she tried coughing to breathe and it wouldn’t come out and pain pain pain pain pain-

She writhed and clawed at her throat until whatever was in her lungs spewed out. It hit the snow with a thick splatter and she followed, crashing back into the bloody slush.

…Breathe. She had to breathe.

She tried gulping air and it felt like fire was crawling in her chest. Loud, wet wheezes followed more blood as it oozed from her nose.

Move. Move. She had to move.

She clawed at the snow with her hand, her only hand, trying to find something to grapple onto so she could maybe pull herself up. It wrapped around something smooth. She ran her thumb over the surface of the object and felt two small ridges in the middle, with a large crack running down its exterior. With half her face still in the snow, she raised her hand to her uncovered eye and saw that it was reflecting the fading sunlight. It was a platinum disk, with two dark gems and a royal lily engraved on the entire surface of the metal, warped by a large fracture splitting the face into two.

Jeanne’s watch.

She cursed Jeanne, ever the impertinent child, for leaving her watch unattended. She'd have to make sure to hold onto it until she found her again. And she needed to find her soon. Too long without one’s watch was disastrous. 

Her mind screamed to move once more. The Eye needed protecting. Jeanne needed her watch back.

She fought through the writhing, ripping agony again to stand. One arm under herself. Push. Raise her head. Fold one leg under her abdomen. Push. Use the other leg as leverage. Push. Push. Push.

Stand.

The world spun. More bloody mucus oozed from her nose. She let her mouth hang open so the thick liquid wouldn’t fall back into her throat, drooling into the snow instead. Her breaths came out as watery wheezes.

One step.

Piercing red light was blazing all around her. It blocked her vision and scorched her skin and she had to fight to not shield her face with her arm.

Another. There was a dark shape a few paces away. She ignored it.

A scream echoed in her ears, loud and long, and it sounded like an injured animal. It made her clench her teeth as it bounced off the crumbling stone walls.

Once more. As she moved she could hear the arrows in her back clinking together rhythmically. 

The wailing figure was in the center of the room, crimson lightning pouring from her left eye. The girl was folded around something with long silver hair and fair skin.

A fourth. She felt something spill out from her abdomen.

There was a body on the floor closer to her than the others, with a shattered watch still pinned on its red-clad chest.

Again. Blood dripped into her eyes, turning the world a thick pink. She stumbled over the black pile, losing her grip on the watch. The heap moaned.

Jeanne’s empty eyes stared back at hers from over the impure child’s shoulder as she shrieked. Something grabbed her arm and twisted. She heard a wet snap and a noise like tearing fabric.

The watch fell into the snow. She collapsed on her knees, ignoring the wrenching pain in her gut and the feeling of the arrows ripping through more of her lung, because she needed that Jeanne needed that her daughter needed that-

She could vaguely hear another voice over the ringing in her ears. Her hand once again grasped the round surface of the watch.

Damaged. Was it damaged? 


Something shifted near her. She paid it no mind.


She tried looking at it to see if the clock had broken. Her hand was slick with blood and she couldn’t open the cover; she tried moving her other hand to help flip open the top, but nothing came.

She caught her reflection.

The image of her own gray eyes bore into her. She could see the mucus coated red hair that was once a wavy silver. She could see the arrows embedded into her back peeking out from behind her head. Her bloody, vomit covered face was split into two by the huge fissure formed by the watches’ surface. 


There was a loud thump next to her.

She grabbed the watch between her teeth and pulled. There was a soft pop as the cover flipped open, and the demolished clock underneath reflected the setting sun as the faded purple gems glittered mutely. 

She stared back into her daughter’s shattered watch.

Jeanne would never need it again.

The Umbran Elder screamed.

_______

The snow was deeper than she thought, and for a third time since dawn Cereza’s leg became soaked to the skin, cold enough to freeze her bones. With it, she felt hot rage explode through her, and she bit her tongue until she tasted copper. The pain covered the fury with a heavy blanket. She was equal parts thankful and livid for it.

The Elder let out a thick cough. Something red hit the snow.

Cereza wasn’t sure, exactly, why she’d been following her doggishly for the past three days (dogs get put in cages) especially when she was withering away every step she took. The woman hadn’t spoken more than two sentences to her, bloody mucus falling out of her mouth and nose when she did. And yet, Cereza followed like a loyal hound, a creature that could be put in chains and locked away. 

This woman had done it before. Why wouldn’t she do it again?

Cereza’s head pounded. She wanted to claw out the Eye. The ringing in her head got louder. 

She tried focusing on anything else. The Elder let out wet gasps every time she took a step. She was drooling sticky, pinkish foam from her mouth, and with every footfall she dyed the snow red. The arrows in her back sporadically clinked together, gleaming when the sun caught them through the trees, akin to silver chains that would shine when the sun caught them through barred windows.

Cereza didn’t know where they were going. She didn’t know if she wanted to know. She hoped, though, that in the process of trudging to wherever the Elder would collapse and die and rot. 

She clenched her fists so hard she felt them bleed. She didn’t care. 

She wanted to kill the woman. To rip the arrows out of her back and stab and maul until there was nothing left but a bloody mush, left to be fed on by whatever horrible creatures might be lurking about, because that’s what she deserved, for her shattered bones to be picked clean in this realm and the one below. Cereza should strangle her. 

But she couldn’t. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, and no one left, other than her.

It shouldn't have been her.

Yet she still trudged and stumbled behind the woman, always stepping through the uneven pockets of pinkish red snow left by that mangled gait, always keeping her eyes on the half-dead form in front of her, always grinding her teeth at the nauseating pulse in her head, and never, never trying to look at the dirtied, soiled hair that still flashed a silvery platinum in the same way hers had and never would again.

Cereza stopped.

After a few lurching steps, the Elder halted at the lack of sound. She shifted her drooping head to look back at Cereza from one bloodshot eye. Cereza remained still. The Elder’s lips moved soundlessly, and she took a wet breath then hacked grayish-pink mucus to the snow before looking up and trying once more.

“What is it?” Her voice was faint and made of gravel, each word followed by a rattling wheeze that was strangled out from her chest. Cereza didn’t say anything, not wanting to respond to the woman’s question. For a moment, the only sound was the Elder’s labored, wet breathing and the golden arrows clinking together as she trembled. 

Enough time had passed that if Cereza spoke it wouldn’t be an answer. Her voice was stony, flat. “Where are we going?” 

The woman twitched, blinking as if she’d been half asleep and Cereza’s voice roused her. 

She repeated herself. “Where are we going?”

The Elder swayed, head lolling to the side, before flicking out her remaining arm in an attempt at a gesture. Cereza waited as she choked and seized in a breath.

“Away.” Her voice crackled. “We’re going away. From,” She jerked her arm again, “There.”

‘There.’ From Vigrid. From the corpses. Running from all their failures.

Cereza’s Eye was pushing against her skull, as if trying to shatter it from within. She clenched her teeth so hard they creaked, jaws pressing down on each other and causing the joints to shudder. She didn’t remember much from then, other than cradling Mummy in her arms, and a terrible screeching noise grinding against the floor as something shot towards the space between her eyes, before platinum and red blocked her vision entirely, until it didn’t anymore, and hot ichor spewed out in thick ropes and drenched her like some nightmarish baptism. She couldn’t recall anything after that. All she knows is she was dragged away, forced to live when she didn’t even ask to. 

She was unable to keep the tremors from her voice. “So that’s it, then? We’re just going-” The Elder let out a low, whining exhale, “To leave them? To run?”

“Leave who?” The woman’s voice was like bone scraping against rock, face contorted into something unreadable, “There’s no one left.”

Her skull was ripping into pieces, thrumming and causing the world to pulse red. “No thanks to you-”

Cereza’s only warning was a jerk and twist of the head before the Elder’s bloodied hand seized her face, squeezing hard and slamming it into the thick tree behind her, once, twice, three times. Cereza’s head exploded into shrieking spears of pain, white hot and clawing at her vision, expanding out her eyes as she sucked in air. She shot out one arm, flailing and smacking against the Elder’s head in a rabid attempt to fight back, her neck snapping back again and again as the woman kept ramming her into the splintering bark. She could hear shrieking and words, but she couldn’t tell who it was coming from or what was being said, and the wood was warping now, burying her in the crater her head left behind and causing her eyes to roll back. Cereza’s arm fell limp against the trunk.

The crunching of the tree and the wild howling continued. It finally began to mold into something like words, under the blaring of her ears and the rhythmic blasts behind her eyes. She realized, belatedly, that the hand wasn’t gripping her face anymore.

And then the world exploded back into being, the repeated crunching of the bark suddenly booming in her ears, her shoulders stinging sharply from snow that’d fallen from the tree’s canopy, her vision completely taken up by the Elder’s bloodied and broken face, nearly nose to nose, thick, sticky spittle spraying Cereza’s cheeks as she kept screaming. Out of the corner of her eye, Cereza could make out the Elder’s hand through dark patches of vision, gripping the trunk by her ear and crushing it, some of her fingernails peeling off their beds, blood and skin and splinters sloughing off haphazardly. 

A familiar name snapped Cereza to the Elder’s voice.

“-Nne! Your fault! This is all because of you, you abomination, you doomed them all, dragging them into your little, pitiful existence, dragging her into it, you evil, vile thing-” 

Her tongue was numb in her mouth. Her head pounded.

“-If it weren’t for you, this would’ve never happened! No one would’ve died-”

Her ear shattered at the noise of wood caving under the woman’s hand.

“-SHE wouldn’t have died!”

Cereza hardly felt the blood spatter against her face as the Elder retched and wheezed, hardly saw her doubling over and clawing at her chest, trying to gasp for air. 

…That’s right, wasn’t it? They wouldn’t have died, if her cursed birth never took place.

Jeanne wouldn't have died, if Cereza had never tricked the woman into loving her.

She couldn’t breathe-

More thick coughs before wet, strained words, much, much quieter. “I should kill you. For everything you’ve done. I should-” She gripped her platinum hair in her one fist, “But I can’t. I-” A hoarse, gasping, sob, “I can’t, because if I did-” Her fingers dragged against her scalp and down her face, leaving bloody tracks, “If I did it’d all- Everything the clan has done- Everything would be for nothing-”

The Eye shuddered and pushed against her socket.

That’s right.

“You…” Cereza couldn’t get air, and the Elder’s eyes ripped and tore at Cereza and felt like it was peeling the skin from her face, “...I fucking hate you.”

She spoke with Jeanne’s voice.

The Elder’s eyes, stolen from Jeanne, suddenly rolled into the back of her head, and she let out a wet, sobbing groan, before falling past Cereza, Jeanne’s stolen hair glittering silver as it waved by her face, the woman’s stolen face slamming into the snow; that mangled body letting out one last shudder before lying still.

Cereza couldn’t hear anything, but it was so loud, and she couldn’t feel anything and could all at once, her head screeching and her eye shattering its socket and her chest screamed for air and for Jeanne Jeanne JeanneJeanneJeanne-

Your fault.

Her legs gave out from under her, splinters digging into her skin as her back slid down the mauled trunk. She looked at her red-stained hands, shaking so violently she couldn’t make out the calluses that Jeanne would softly stroke with her thumbs in the solitude of her room.

Your fault.

There was no noise in the forest now, no footsteps or labored breathing or echoes of voices now dead.

Your fault.

Cereza curled into a ball.

_______

The days had gotten worse. They were always getting worse. They’d dragged themselves to an empty, decaying village made and ravaged by human hands and their useless conflicts, and Cereza was bashed and beaten among the charred remains of wood and straw and bone. The damn Eye refused to awaken no matter how hard Cereza pushed herself, and no matter how many threats and how much malice she shot at it it didn’t even do so much as flicker. 

She was used to grueling training. The hard hits and the ridicule that were used to make her falter had been maddening, but she hit harder than anyone else, and someone losing to the accursed outcast was a much worse insult than whatever her peers would throw at her. It made the brutal drills worth it, in the end. 

It was different now. There were no more witches to mock her.

Instead, it was a weapon in her head, something that she couldn’t grab and scratch and beat. To think, the one thing the Umbra had kept her around for wouldn’t even fucking work. 

What was the point, then?

Just more throbbing migraines. The pressure in her head pushed against her eyes and pounded along with her heartbeat. It had become so severe that even a small bit of light or noise would draw tears to her eyes. The damp, cool stone she was pressing herself into wasn’t doing much to soothe her sore muscles or excruciating headache, and the ratty blanket she cocooned up in wasn’t doing anything to block out that sound: a repetitive noise, taps on something stone or metal. Despite it being soft, it sounded so loud as it rattled around in her head. The steady rhythm of it made it worse, ticking away and making Cereza’s skin crawl and writhe.

She dug her nails into her arms and curled tighter into herself. Violent heat in her chest bloomed again each time she heard the tap tap taps, and she could feel more and more fury scraping up her throat. She was so tired, and the noise was so invasive, and she just wanted to sleep, please just let her sleep she can’t take much more of this-

Tap, tap, tap. 

Cereza clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached. 

Tap, tap, tap. 

She stifled a sob of frustration. Leave me ALONE.

Tap, tap, tap. 

Cereza wrenched the tattered blanket away and shot up, firing a spear of agony through her skull. She ignored it. “Must you insist on making the most infuriating noise possible!? Really, can you not go rot somewhere else so I can try to rest after being beaten half to death??”

The woman’s silver hair caught the moonlight as she leisurely turned to glance at her. She sniffed in annoyance before responding.  

“Unlike some, when I have a duty to do something, I carry it out.” 

Cereza felt outrage climb her throat at her tone. 

“And what could that possibly be? I don’t see any witches needing duties completed.” She couldn’t help but feel a hot, curling pleasure at the narrowing of the woman’s eyes. 

“I wonder why.” She responded coolly, before turning back. Cereza felt her blood grow cold. The satisfaction died in her chest. 

There was no anger to replace it. How could there be, at the truth?

“...Remembrance is very important for Umbran witches.” Cereza gripped the blanket when the woman threw a look over her shoulder again, because the voice didn’t match the face that glared at her, “Though I suppose you wouldn’t know.”

Cereza clenched her fists so hard she felt the nails bite into the skin. The Eye was boiling. She said nothing. The Elder moved jerkily, back still facing Cereza.

“Do you know when an Umbra gets her watch?”

The sudden shift made more animosity spew from her chest. The woman clearly wanted an answer, making Cereza livid. She hissed, “I’m not an idiot. Three.”

She hummed in response. “It’s quite the occasion, and is treated as such. One of the Elder’s duties is to engrave it.” She turned fully to face Cereza, movements jagged from taut skin pulled over unhealed wounds.

“To engrave is to label a soul as Umbran. It’s dedicating someone to the Umbra, to you. If a witch dies in battle, they die for you. To ever forget what they did is the same as killing them yourself.”

Her eyes gave away what her tone didn’t. 

Cereza turned away. 

There was a beat of silence, her head pulsing and screaming, before the woman spoke up again; quietly, now.

“What little can I do but remember their names?” 

Even quieter still, “What more can I do?”

Cereza heard it, then. The anguish.

Her anger melted out of her, slow and thick like tar, replaced with a heavy, echoing exhaustion, reverberating through her chest and cracking every rib it hit. All she did in response was hug her knees to her chin, hoping to give herself some amount of comfort.

The Eye pulsated in her skull. She was so, so tired. 

No one said anything more. The woman’s hand resumed that soft tapping on the warped surface of the platinum watch. 

Cereza averted her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at it.

_______

So large and heavy were the snowflakes that they were audible upon hitting the ground. And yet, the cold they brought was muted and small, rebuffed by the velvety duvet and plush cushions and her warm, pale skin pressed against Cereza’s own. Her magic, strong and familiar and lovely, was softly pulsing in tandem to her heartbeat, and Cereza nestled her face deeper into her nape to drink in more. 

Jeanne sighed in response. Cereza smiled into her neck. 

She shifted her hold on Cereza’s torso to wrap both arms around her back, pressing her cheek to Cereza’s temple. Cereza leisurely cracked an eye, peering past Jeanne’s bosom and silver hair, watching snowflakes drift onto the bed, a pure white on a background of striking red. And yet, Cereza wasn’t cold, couldn’t be, with her body against Jeanne’s.

Let the snow fall. It’d never touch the both of them. 

And so it fell. More and more covered the duvet, less and less red peeking through, and Cereza pressed herself up from Jeanne’s chest to watch as her hair, spread underneath her like a brilliant, platinum sunset, blended into the white of the snow. 

Lovely, lovely.

Warmth seeped into her chest like ink in water, slowly dancing behind her sternum, twirling up into her throat, swaying through her arms and into the tips of her fingers, waltzing down the length of her spine. She sat up fully, the thick duvet sliding from her bare shoulders, and Jeanne’s hands followed, settling at her hips. Cereza’s back was the only shield from the heavy flakes, and yet she didn’t feel their sting at all, Jeanne’s lidded gaze heating everything it landed on.

“Jeanne.” 

She hummed in response, muted by the snowfall. The bloom of warmth had swirled itself throughout Cereza’s body, now. She looked at Jeanne’s face; at all of it and all of her.

“I love you.”

Her lips, full and red, curled into a beautiful smile, and Cereza ran a thumb over them, taken by their softness.

“I love you, Jeanne,” She murmured, again, and once more, trailing her fingers down Jeanne’s cheeks, cupping her face in both hands. Jeanne exhaled through her nose, her breath visible in the sharp air, and Cereza stared as those silver eyes closed and that gorgeous face melted into her touch, and that dancing heat spun into a mass of want and Cereza leaned down and pressed her lips onto Jeanne’s. 

They were cold, she thought, as snow swirled around their bodies. She’ll warm them, in due time, tracking kisses from her lips and tracing her jaw, and down further to the length of her neck, until there was nothing.

Cereza sat up, snow falling off her back, cold and biting. Jeanne mouthed something, that lovely smile still on her lips. Cereza couldn’t hear it. It was lashing, now, making her squeeze her eyes shut, the howling wind drowning out her voice calling for Jeanne, and she realized, suddenly, that she was freezing, her skin feeling like it was being peeled, ice clinging to her lashes, fingertips aching and blue and bloody, and it was in her mouth now, the tang of iron on her tongue and sticking to her teeth, smeared on her chest, knotting her hair together, dripping and clotting and it was everywhere, everywhere everywhere everywhere-

She looked down. The ichor oozing from Jeanne’s severed neck blended into the red sheets.

Red. Red, red red everywhere it was everywhere and this was wrong this was her color but not like this and it was all she could see it was on her around her ripping and tearing and her skin was peeling peeling peeling- 

The Eye shrieked to life, shattering her skull as it blasted out of her head and she screamed at the force of it, as it tore her skin off her body and slashed through her muscles and sinew and ground her bones to dust and it was loud, so LOUD and she was on fire, flashes of light, wicked and sparkling and red shooting out of her fingertips and dragging her veins out with it in a burning frenzy, like tar being forced through her veins, and she slammed her body against the hard stone floor, grinding her teeth and writhing, and it was all so red, she was screaming red, drowning in it, in her red, yelling, there was yelling but she couldn’t tell where it was over the red and the shrieking eye and the crackling of energy and the screeching of her own nerves and save her please someone help her please-

She felt the red shoot up someones arm and heard a strained noise and smelled burning flesh, but the hand stayed and was gripping her shoulder hard enough to shatter bone and there was a flash of silver and more yelling, but she could feel her skin splitting apart-

“CEREZA!”

Her own name boomed into her ear and she wrenched her eyes open and everything stopped as quickly as it had started. Platinum filled her vision, warped and contorted and squeezing. Her head was pounding and every nerve was on fire, hurting from the lack of hurt. She was panting, but couldn’t get any air, and she started to panic once more, and she couldn’t tell if she was shaking or if it was the entire world. 

“Cereza,” She felt a hand smack her cheek, once, twice, three times, in tandem with her name. She wrapped her fingers around something coarse and found frayed edges. Her name, again. She could feel the ridges in the stone floor under her, chilled by the frigid snow outside.

Cereza gasped and met the gaze of the Elder. Her face was gnarled into a grimace, hand still roughly pushing on Cereza’s face.

Cereza grunted, pain and surprise both slamming into her.

She almost threw her hand away from Cereza’s face at the sound. Cereza blinked again, trying to clear away an awful migraine and failing, then noticed the woman’s arm, now being held against her scarred chest. It was completely scorched, parts of the skin warped and charred into a pattern akin to if she grabbed lightning. 

“Why-” The rest of the sentence got strangled in her throat, suddenly much too tight and raw. Cereza coughed harshly, grabbing her neck as she did, another spear of pain lancing through her body at the movement, causing her to groan and curl in on herself. The Elder said something, but she wasn’t listening, feeling wet drops splash onto her fingers. She held them up to her face. 

Tears. Crying?

Jeanne.

She forgot-

Cereza let out a wail, low and deep, feeling like it was caving in her chest. She curled tighter into herself, tighter and tighter still, ignoring how her head screamed at the action. 

Nightmare. A nightmare.

She forgot-

Her sharp gasps wracked her body and rattled her brain in its skull. Her Eye hurt. It hurt, it hurt. Oh gods, it hurt. 

How could she forget?

Cereza clawed at the floor.

She felt a tentative hand rest on her head.

“I love you, Jeanne.”

She smiled that lovely smile and parted her lips. Nothing came out.

Cereza had forgotten her voice.

_______

Even though the sun had long since dipped under the thawing horizon, Cereza couldn’t fall asleep. After that nightmare that nearly caused the Eye to rip her and the Elder both to shreds, the one that alerted the Laguna and their little human pets to their location, that tore at her insides and pried her ribs outwards over and over and over again, she’d always had trouble resting.

It was nearly spring, now, and that awful freezing powder that sucked the warmth from everything—that blanketed all under a blinding white except the things that needed to be hidden—was finally melting away, and what little patience the Elder had with her was going with it. 

The thawing of the snow meant flowers would bloom once more. Magnolias, daisies, roses, lilies.

It wasn’t because she couldn’t use the Eye, like before. She could feel the quiet hum in her head, running down her spine and into her fingertips, softly prickling and popping under her skin, begging to be used.  But Cereza will never use it. Not because she can’t, but because she won’t. It had killed everyone, caused Mummy’s demise before she could see the sunrise again, disillusioned Jeanne into thinking she should die for her, for it, and she’ll never use it, never, because to do so would prove everyone right. 

Her nails formed bloody crescent moons in her palm as she tried to wring the crackling power out of her fingers. If she squeezed hard enough, twisted and cracked bones, bit and mangled her hands, maybe it’d seep out with the crimson blood.

Crimson.

Cereza nearly retched. The Eye pulsed in response. Away. She needed to get away.

She uncurled from the dark corner, the stone frigid under her palms as she heaved herself up, the cracked floor catching her bare feet, her shoulder slamming into the decaying archway. She ignored it, instead stumbling through the dilapidated hall and around the collapsed area of floor by memory alone, vision obscured by unshed tears. 

Away, away.

The bitter cold of the night hit her skin like bricks, and she jerked from the shock of it, squinting and causing the tears to fall. She didn’t have the energy to stop them, standing in the exit to the crumbling pathway beyond. The brisk air burned her teeth and throat as she gulped it in, and she welcomed it. Anything other than the burning of the Eye. 

The night was still, no noise but the howling wind and the knocking of dislodged bricks falling off the face of the wall, echoing out as they fell down, down, down, into the inky darkness below. She craned her neck upwards. Such was the height of the wall that her nose nearly touched the surface of the deep sky, moonless, the clouds strangling its light in a choking grip. 

Good. 

She continued forward once more.

The wind was strong from the top of the wall, once a large thing built by humans to protect one of their many cities, now split and crumbled, with only unconnected sections still standing. She wandered away from the watchtower and to the failing structure’s edge, running her hand over the uneven ramparts lining the steep, ruined edges, and looked out to the landscape below as she did, greeted by nothing but a hollow black, as if the whole world had been uprooted and fallen into the depths of Inferno. Cereza pushed the loose parapet from its elevated perch to join the rest of the landscape in hell. She heard it shatter on unseen rocks, the sound bouncing off of the wall’s face and into the nothingness, where it too, was swallowed. 

She wandered on.

Cereza wasn’t sure how far she’d walked, trailing tears and footsteps from raw eyes and rawer feet, being bitten everywhere by the freezing wind, painful in its numbness, loose hair whipping around and stinging her face with strikes. She kept trudging on, past more craters and collapsed sections of the scorched wall face. 

She walked past the Elder, perched on one of the remaining parapets with her back facing the walkway, reaching the end of the structure, the wall dropping off sharply as if a great blade slashed it in two, the other side not visible. She couldn’t remember if it was even there, anymore. She thought to ask the Elder about it, but when she tried to speak nothing came. 

The woman didn’t move, save for her heel knocking against the rampart’s front. Cereza glanced over her shoulder at the watchtower; it too, shadowed by the dark. She turned to the Elder, whose chin was resting in her single scarred, warped palm. Cereza thought about that suffocating corner, so far away from anything, cold and silent and haunting and much, much too familiar.

Cereza tested the rampart next to the woman’s own before sliding onto it, folding her knees to her chest and tucking her chin to them, trying to hide the stream of tears. The Elder’s foot stopped for a beat as Cereza settled, before starting once more.

They simply sat, two fools more dead than alive, on the top of the decaying carcass of a wall, silent as corpses and knowing words would be as hollow as the dead blackness in front of them, fake and mocking life. 

The Elder spat on the living first. “You look a mess.”

Cereza didn’t respond. The woman’s heel rapped harder against the stone.

“You shouldn’t be out here. Go back. Rest.”

“No.”

Her foot paused again. The Elder shifted, arm dropping and head turning to Cereza, face pinched.

“You-”

“I want to stay here.”

The Elder didn’t move. Cereza lifted her head and met her gaze, face now unprotected from the wind and the cold and the prospect of the woman seeing streaks of tears. 

“I want to stay here.”

The woman turned away, folding her leg over herself and chin again perching on her hand. 

“...Alright.”

Her foot started once more. Cereza tucked back into herself.

The darkness was lifting, ever so slightly, the pitch black horizon creeping to a deep blue to a soft pink. They watched as the overcast sky gradually became gray as the sun rose, first only half above the expanse of the cloak of trees, then as it passed above them and into the low, heavy blanket of knotted clouds. 

From the corner of her eye, something platinum glimmered in the muted light. Cereza didn’t turn to see what the Elder was holding. 

She thought of her own watch, hidden under her threadbare cloak. She took it from under her clothes, frozen fingers brushing against her skin as they wrapped around its warm surface. She looked at it, at its empty face, the gem long taken out and thrown to where she wouldn’t ever have to look at it. She ran her thumb over the divot to where it once rested, before turning the watch over.

Cereza
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She looked up to the Elder, voice cutting through the silence. “Was it true?”

The woman hummed, but didn’t look up from the shattered watch.

“That you engraved every watch, before this?”

“Of course.”

“...Even,” Her voice was shy, and Cereza’s finger ran over the carved letters, before trying again, “Even mine?”

The Elder lifted her head to look at the horizon beyond, Jeanne’s watch held tight in her grip. Her scarred thumb traced the deep fissure in its face. 

She sighed, then gave a slight nod.

Cereza followed the woman’s gaze. Pockets of soft light peeked out through the clouds beyond. 

_______

Bright.

It was so, so bright.

The unnatural gold light cut through the air itself, shattering the night and bursting rays through the woodland like a small sun, flashing and twirling and passing over Cereza again and again as the blaring star spun and twisted. She could feel the heat radiating from it, could feel it dig into her muscles and bones and her very being tried to curl away from it as far as it could while she stood stock still in the blaze, frozen despite it peeling away the skin on her arms that were covering her face.

The light was pulsing, shaking the crumbling ground each time it did, booming in her ears, making the chorus of singing and the beating of wings and the roar of Enochian blur and mash together in her skull, forming a wall of noise that pushed against her body and ricocheted into her ribs and chest and making it hard to breathe, the air burning in her nose and lungs and singeing her hair as it whipped wildly around her face. In the forming star she could see a collar of long feathers fanning out and waving lazily. At the very center of the exploding brilliance was a winking blue. Cereza’s Eye flashed with it.

He was here.

Trees were being uprooted, now, ripping from the earth and forming something more tangible than mere sound, slamming into her body as the thunderous chorus of the entire world being ripped to shreds screamed and shrieked and the shadows spun and flashed, the heat hitting her like waves as her Eye kept pulsing in her head in time with the other, faster and faster as He approached, that murderer, that man who killed everyone, who killed Mummy, who killed Jeanne, and she couldn’t move even as the earth shattered and crumbled away, even as He extended His hand to her face as if to touch it, and her limbs didn’t respond even as His form flashed into two, for the briefest of seconds, and Cereza would’ve thought it to be a trick of the light if she didn’t sense the otherness of it all, the raw power and malice and animosity-

Something slammed into her side, His fingers brushing her face as she was thrown into the ground. A yell broke through the solid barrier of sounds, hoarse and crackling and familiar and Cereza’s head shot up at it.

The Elder stood above her, mangled arm gripping His outstretched one, unmoved, silver eyes hard and blazing even as the skin on her hand started to peel off, layer by layer. He lifted His other arm, the light hurling around Him, shooting up His limb and forming a pillar, bringing it down, Cereza screaming something, before everything stopped.

There was only the sound of a quiet ticking. Motes of raw magic licked her face, soft and cool.

Witch time. 

But she didn’t-

Something grabbed Cereza by the arm and wrenched her up from the dirt and platinum hair flashed in her vision before there was a yell in her ear and a shove and Cereza exploded into motion, lungs burning as she ran as hard as her limbs could allow, the Elder behind her, the ticking growing faster and the particles of magic faintly popping around her until she felt the entire spell burst off of her like water.

The Elder abruptly stopped behind her, so she did too, whipping around to see what she needed her to do-

She was curled in on herself, one knee sunken into the scorched earth. Cereza could hear it, then, past the blaring shattering of Him that was rapidly getting louder and her own heartbeat and the thrum of the Eye in her skull. A horrible, wet wheezing, rattling the woman’s entire body. 

The skin of her arm looked like it was melting off as she gripped her chest, because it was, Cereza realized, with a horror that numbed her tongue and pushed against her skull.

Witch time. She’d activated witch time, when Cereza had never seen her use any magic ever since-

Cereza was at her side, wrapped around her and supporting her weight as she hacked up blood and phlegm, gagging while tearing at her chest with fingers that barely had skin left, and He was getting closer, she could hear it and feel the blazing heat and could see the air warp from it, and she just screamed at the woman, at her stupidity for casting a spell when she had barely any magic to hold her body together, at how she needed to move, now, because He was getting closer and they had to go-

“Cereza.” Her name still sounded unfamiliar coming from the woman, made even more foreign by her voice, quiet and wet and having none of the bite it usually did. Still, Cereza snapped her eyes to the Elder’s face, bloodied and peeling and gnarled in pain, teeth red and slick from blood.

“Cereza. Listen to me.” Cereza felt something press into her chest roughly. She clapped her hand over it by instinct.

“You will listen, understand?”

She nodded. The woman hacked up more sticky ichor. Cereza could feel the heat behind her. She murmured something. Cereza leaned in, “What?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“What are you-”

The hand on Cereza’s chest shoved her away as He erupted from the trees and attacked where she’d just been. The Elder took the hit instead, the kick having so much force behind it that her body folded around His leg with a sound like lightning before He followed through and the Elder slammed into the ground as limp as a corpse. Cereza’s eyes met His through the debris and golden feathers and gleaming light, and once more she saw that other set of eyes, that other thing, before something passed over His face and again she was staring into eyes that looked much too similar to hers. She blinked and He was nose to nose with her, grabbing her face before she could react and slinging her up like a doll, saying something she couldn’t hear over the sound of the earth itself collapsing, her Eye being slowly pulled from her socket like tar running down His arm, the red coiling and churning like hellish waves between His fingers, and her eyes followed the red down and past Him to His shadow where a blue figure shimmered. 

…So it was you, then. 

Yes, it seemed to laugh back. Yes. Give me back what’s mine.

Magic rang out like a gunshot and Cereza watched as the spell tore through her father’s face. He let go and she fell, limp as a puppet with cut strings. 

She was yanked backwards and thrown from His corpse, dead but not because His shadow still remained, until the Elder’s own ruined visage filled her vision once more. 

“Cereza. Run.”

She was shoved again. 

“Now.”

She could see Him twitching past her, fingers curling. Cereza shook her head. 

“You can’t handle it alone. I can. I’m the Eye-”

“Which is why you need to run. It’s my job to protect you-”

Cereza snapped her gaze away from where His carcass was beginning to rise once more.

“Coward.”

The Elder blinked.

“You’re a coward.”

Cereza was trembling now, teeth chattering and tears mixing with His blood on her face, “You want to run away from everything by killing yourself?” Her hands clenched the woman’s mangled chest, digging into the warped skin. The Elder opened her mouth to speak, “I won’t let you,” Cereza was sobbing, hysterical now, the body past them convulsing upright with arms and head limp behind it, “I won’t let you-”

A hand, bloody and disfigured, brushed against her cheek. “Cereza.”

She didn’t smile, but her eyes, a sharp silver, were as soft as Jeanne’s when her lips gently curled. Cereza felt her own hand fall away from where it gripped the woman’s watch. 

“I know, now, that this is what I can do for the Umbra. What you need to do is remember them all.”

“Please don’t leave me alone-”

She slowly, painfully stood, and looked over her shoulder to the figure struggling upright, man gone and His face half with Him, but Eye still intact and gleaming an intense, sinister blue. Cereza didn’t move from the scorched ground. The Elder turned back again and looked at something by her feet. 

Cereza’s gaze followed the woman’s maimed form as she bent down, the flesh and tissue hanging off her body moving with her ruined hair. Cereza watched as her singular hand, crimson fissures now spiderwebbing their way up her knuckles, brushed into the bloody dirt and tenderly lifted a platinum disk, still brilliant despite it all. Her eyes never left the fingers that were starting to crack and crumble away as they pressed Jeanne’s watch into her chest once more. 

Cereza looked up and into the Elder’s face, splintering like glass. 

“Remember her, please. What she was. You’re the only one who can.”

Cereza clutched the watch to her own, empty and cold and so familiar, and shakily stood. The Elder turned away, back towards the figure who was now on its feet, lurching slowly towards them both, the blue face covering the half-exposed skull of the body it possessed. She nodded once.

“Well. Get going.”

She whirled around, hand still pressing Jeanne's watch to her chest, and there came a thundering wave of magic, pushing against her and grinding into her bones.

Cereza ran, and did not look back.