Heartworm

“No, this is I. Bandit. My head just hurts.”

“Nope. You’re still lying.”

I grumbled into the metal muzzle that hung loosely around my face, the bones that it was intended to rest on having been completely pulverized. This woman was insistent, so much so that it was almost suspicious. She seemed incredibly confident in the fact that I was lying. Sure, I wasn’t exactly fantastic at subtlety and subterfuge, but I didn’t think I was that bad.

“Whoever you are, you don’t need to worry about your safety. If you’re inside Bandit’s body, then I’m breaking you out of here either way.”

“I am but a passenger.”

“Does he know about you?”

“Yes.”

A realization seemed to spread across her face. It was like I was watching a light behind her eyes suddenly grow to the brightness of the sun, or perhaps it was her yellow eyes that gave that impression.

“Not a curse… You’re the secret! Oh my god it makes so much sense!!! Who are you, really? Are you Bandit’s evil twin? Are you the long lost sibling that he beat up in the womb? Are you a ghost that snuck into his body because you were exorcised from your previous body in a traumatic bar fight?”

This small woman seemed to fill her head with the strangest thoughts. A part of me wondered just how tasty this creature would be with the spiced scent trailing off of her. Not a temptation I could afford to have right now. Despite not looking like it, I knew she was a Life Hunter, and I’d seen her fight enough to know she was more than capable. Was her enigmatic persona a way to throw her prey into a false sense of security?

“None of those are correct.”

“Aww… I was really hoping it was the bar fight one. Do you have a name?”

“Not one that I will disclose.”

“That’s okay! I’ll just guess! Sarah? Grendil? Petunia? Brunhilda? Wendibeld?”

I let her continue naming seemingly every name that she could think of in the moment, waiting for her to grow tired of asking. To my horror, she showed no signs of stopping. The names were beginning to sound less like feasible names and more like off sounds by this point.

“Yunda? Randilly? Burkbuck? Linda?”

“Stop.”

“Cerendial? Liltunua? Urgundee? Fillendio?”

“Will you just stop-”

“Tindascor? Neptyr? Alison? Reginald?”

“LILITH! For fuck’s sake it’s Lilith!”

The woman turned to face me with immense satisfaction, a wide smile strewn across her face. She moved her hand towards mine, offering to shake my hand. It was clumsy for me to take the offer with the bindings holding my wrists together, but nonetheless, I slowly accepted her offer of a handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Lilith. I’m-”

“Phern.”

Her smile grew wider, like I had just passed her the crucial puzzle pieces to complete the project she was working on.

“You’ve been listening? How much have you seen?

“Nearly everything.”

Phern took a seat in front of me, a glimmer of discovery twinkling in her eyes. This was not what I imagined to happen when I was discovered. The idea of her ally being possessed, in a way, should not have been so calmly addressed. It was foolish not to be on high alert against someone who knows everything you’ve done in the past two weeks.

“Why did Bandit hide you from us? Was it to protect you?”

“I need no protection. It was the logical decision given our circumstances. A wise strategist would have disposed of Bandit if they found out about a stowaway inside their mind.”

“Only if they were a threat. Which means you classify yourself as a threat.” The woman squinted at me, and seemed to once more search my eyes like they were an ocean that she was set on diving into. She seemed a lot more capable of connecting dots than I would have originally given her credit for. I should not have been so foolish to let my guard down around a Life Hunter, underestimating a Life Hunter is just as dangerous as a Life Hunter underestimating a Deathless. A mutual relationship of destruction.

“Perceptive. But I have no reason to give you any more information, Phern.”

“I won’t tell the others about you. As long as you talk to me a little bit longer.”

“Your blind faith in strangers will result in a sudden death one day, little noisette.”

The woman cocked her head to the side, before giggling briefly. “It’s not blind faith, Lilith. If you had plans to dispatch Cecelia and I, you could have done so while we slept any time in the past two weeks, no? Unless that isn’t how it works.” The woman moved in towards me, slowly brushing the matted bloody hair that had been stuck over my eyes. With the parted strands of hair, she could stare into my glowing red eyes unobstructed. “My gut tells me you don’t want me dead right now.”

“It would be foolish to rid Bandit of his protection. The fledgling dies to the Empire hunting us, and I die as well. It’s simply logistics, dear.”

She smiled gently at me. “Makes sense. What doesn’t make sense to me just yet is why you’re stuck inside out friend like a Thumperding in a tree trunk.” What on earth was a Thumperding? Every part of me screamed to pull back and refuse to answer this woman. I had already divulged more than I should have. The more information I set on the table, the less leverage I have to keep myself safe. She had mentioned that if I answered her questions she would keep my presence a secret amongst the group. Which of the two offered more of an advantage? Around the hot headed Cecelia and Lucas, I doubted my identity being revealed would be taken well. It was probably better to give the gremlin what she wanted to appease her.

“I killed them. I was the Deathless that disrupted the ritual in the academy. The fledgling… disrupted the ritual, resulting in the two of us becoming merged.”

“A Deathless? That’s fascinating! So Bandit has had a brain teacher to show him everything about being a Deathless?”

“The fledgling does not like listening to instruction.” Phern laughed at that, before reaching inside of her boot. The woman steadily pulled what looked to be moss from the inside of her boot where it was stored for safekeeping. She held it out between the two of us like it was some sort of gift.

“If you were listening, you know our plan, right?” I nodded at the woman, wincing at the pressure of the muzzle shifting along my face, digging into the opened wounds. “This is one ingredient.” She then reached behind her back and pulled out a leather strap, a wide grin stretched across her face. “This is the second ingredient. Bandit’s stunt might have earned him quite the beating, but it allowed me to slip this off of Markus in the chaos of it all.” I frowned at her. I had seen the entire thing from the little morsel's eyes, and I had not once seen when she might have reached out to loosen it and hide it behind her back. Had she really managed that?

“Ooo! You look so surprised! I may or may not have grown up with some… less than legal hobbies. Relieving the pockets of people in the streets was the best way to eat.”

I wouldn’t blame the woman for finding a way to eat. Between the two of us, the way that I fed myself was far more reprehensible according to most. It wasn’t too surprising for me to find out Phern was a proficient pickpocket. She had the distinct advantage of being small enough to slip through crowds of people like oil on water.

“Which leaves the intense fury.” I spoke plainly, demonstrating that even if Bandit hadn’t been paying attention to her plan, I was. I had no intention of dying in the next few days. Or afterwards, for that matter, but I would focus on problems as they came.

“Yup! But progress is progress, and we should celebrate what we’ve got!”

‘GODS this hurts! Did that fucker pull all of our organs out or something?’

Not all of them, no.

“Your friend is awake again.”

“Oh, so do you two pilot the body at the same time?”

“No. One of us controls the body while the other rests in the back of our mind.”

I was placing a lot of faith in Phern, telling her the nature of our mental link, which in turn gave her the ability to abuse that information. If this woman dared to use what she had learned as leverage over me, I will choke the life out of her eyes.

“So… are you swapping?” Why did she look disappointed at the idea? I would not let this strange curly haired girl manipulate me in any form.

“Naturally.”

“Goodbye then, Lilith. We’ll talk more next time.”

Next time? Not likely. I felt myself calm, the sensation of losing control spreading out through every limb of ours. I hated the sensation every single time. Control implied safety, and nothing was more important than safety.

I felt my eyes open, but when they did so, it was because I had opened them myself, rather than feeling Lilith do so. Watching what I had seen of Phern and Lilith’s conversation was odd. How long had they been talking? When I had first realized what was going on, a threading panic swarmed my mind. It calmed upon seeing that the two were… somewhat cordially talking. But if Phern knew, the situation has changed.

“So…” I let out a ragged breath. It was intended to be a kind of sigh, but with the damaged state of my lungs, the simple act felt labored. “You know about Lilith? I-I’m sorry I never told you. It was for her safety! I wasn’t sure what-”

“It’s fine, Bandit. I told you a couple days ago that I trusted you. You were hiding her for your own reasons. I’m happy to have met her.”

Happy to have met Lilith? Had she been talking to the same Lilith?

‘Oh fuck you.’

“I already told Lilith, but I managed to get the leather strap that we needed. Now we just need the intense fury ingredient.”

Right. Intense fury. Being trapped within a cell wasn’t very conducive towards having many options at our disposal. The throbbing pain that danced along my nerves made it hard to focus on much thinking whatsoever. I was far more preoccupied with the chains that dug into my body, as well as the muzzle that rested on an open wound where my nose was broken. I could feel my wounds healing, but it was agonizingly slow.

“Would the muzzle count? It’s sure pissing me off.”

Phern moved towards the muzzle and rested a hand on it gently. She began to look around the form of the muzzle, scrunching up her face as she did so. “Sorry. It doesn’t feel like it was made with fury during the construction.” Figures. I let my head slowly lean back against the wall behind me. I was doing my very best to not let tears fall from my eyes. I wasn’t keen on the idea of my tears leaking into the wound on my face.

Phern seemed to notice the difficulty that I was having keeping my face dry of tears. With a sweet and caring tone, she moved closer to me. “Hey, it’s okay, Bandit. I know it hurts. It’s healing, just not very quickly. Do you think you can sleep while it all heals up?”

With a quivering voice, I shook my head to the side slightly and spoke softly. “I-I don’t think so, Phern. It’s just… a lot.” I had opted to start focusing entirely on my breathing, hoping the steady rhythm of breaths in and out would keep my mind distracted from the pain. It was only somewhat working.

“I uh, fuck Bandit I’m not sure what to do. If I didn’t have my magical restraint I could soothe some of the injuries. I could-” Phern’s eyes widened, a small smile finding its way onto her face. Why was she smiling? “Story time! I can distract you from the pain until you can fall asleep! It’ll be like a bedtime story!”

“C-can you not say bedtime story? M-Makes me feel like a kid.”

“Well that’s what it is! I’ll tell you about how Cecelia and I met!”

I had pulled my knees up to my chest to hold myself in a kind of fetal position. I wasn’t really in a position to bargain, so Phern’s story time was going to have to be my distraction. As long as she was a good enough storyteller to keep me thinking about anything other than the grated skin along my chest. Knowing Phern, she was going to try her best to make it interesting.

* * * * *

It was a long shot to follow the miscellaneous rumors of a few drunken men inside of the Sunken Apple tavern, but without any other leads to follow I hadn’t much choice in the matter. I hoped that it wasn’t the alcohol speaking for them when they mentioned that a Deathless would soon enter Thrieve. From the sound of it, the Empire had gotten word of a Deathless moving from the south towards the north. A rather common occurrence as Deathless seemed to be hellbent on making it to the capital in some vain attempt at single handedly slaughtering the Council, the Headmaster, or the Emperor. It was a foolish plan, but what could you expect from animals?

Following through on this plan meant that I was currently camping next to the main road, guarding the entrance to Thrieve from the south. I had initially been excited for this ordeal, a chance to hunt another Deathless, and protect the entire city in the process. But after a couple of days of camping, coming up with reasons to speak to the people who traveled the main road, and then repeating, I had grown tired. Of course, being bored and tired was no reason to stop. Someone needed to hunt these beasts, and I was blessed by a god to do so.

It was still in the early morning. People would usually start to walk across the main road around now. I decided that I might as well eat my breakfast and prepare for the first group of the day. I sat up from my bed roll and lazily walked towards my bag to fetch the loaf of bread I’d bought to last a few days. It wasn’t the most extravagant breakfast, but I knew the berries in the area to pick, so it was better than just bland bread. When I had finished rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I heard the distinct snap of a twig nearby. It seems my prey had found me first.

Without hesitation, I twisted towards the sound, unsheathing my sword from my belt as I spun. My blade towards the figure that had crept up behind me.

“PEBBLESTINK!”

I was surprised by the words, but I was even more surprised by the thick tree branch that was already colliding with the side of my head. The rotted branch splintered across my face, the decomposing wood thankfully soft enough to not leave splinters in my cheek. I reeled back from the blow, but managed to keep my grip on my sword.

“FUCK!” I yelped, looking back towards the Deathless to make sure it wasn’t following up with another attack.

“Sorry!” I blinked. Sorry? It was a small woman with freckled caramel skin, and a knotted was of curly brown hair on her head. Her yellow eyes looked at me with a mixture of concern and annoyance. If this was a Deathless, it was odd that they hadn’t taken a shadowed form yet.

“You surprised me!” The woman squeaked at me, as if she wasn’t the one who just slammed a branch across my face.

“You snuck up on me!”

“I wasn’t gonna hurt ya!”

“You socked me with a Gods damned tree!”

“You pulled a sword on me!”

“Because you snuck up on me!”

We had already managed to make a circle in our conversation. I was far more occupied with the woman’s identity than anything she was saying. Was she refusing to transform to make me doubt her? I needed to see her upper back to confirm my suspicions. While I looked at the woman’s clothes to see how easy it would be to catch a glimpse, I noticed a familiar sight sticking out of the bag around her waist. A loaf of bread. My loaf of bread.

“A-ah! You bitch! That’s my bread!”

“Nuh uh! This is my bread! I regularly take loaves of bread for my morning walks!” The woman crossed her arms and huffed. I moved towards her, my eyes locked on my breakfast for the morning. I spoke in a demanding tone, not willing to lose my breakfast to some thief.

“Give it back, you little scamp!” I scrambled towards the woman, my left arm reached out towards the woman’s waist to grab my bread. The thief slapped my hand away as she turned around to run from me.

“Scamp? I’m fuckin’ 18 years old! You should respect your elders by sharing your food!”

The short woman was nimble, like a little rat as she leapt over fallen trees and dipped underneath branches. I wasn’t letting this thief escape so easily. Our paces were almost completely matched, but I had been camping in this part of the woods for the past few days, which seemed to give me the edge in pursuing the woman.

“Come back here, you gluten gremlin!”

I was just about at her heels when she pulled back a branch to fling it into my face. The quick slap of the branch left a stinging red outline where it had hit, but it hadn’t thrown me off of the chase. At this point it was more for principle than anything else, I wasn’t letting some random woman steal from me in my sleep and get away with it.

“Generosity is like the food of the soul! Doesn’t it make you feel good to share with me- AH!” At the end of her sentence, the woman had tripped over a tree stump and took quite the tumble. Head over heels into the dirt she went, a few more indistinct words coming from her mouth that I didn’t understand. In a moment, I was standing over the prone woman with a wrathful presence, one that finished slightly upon seeing her upper back where she lay on her stomach. I hadn’t seen it for long before she coughed up dirt and rolled over onto her back, but it was enough to know she wasn’t a Deathless. Which meant that this woman was just some petty thief that picked the wrong person to steal from.

“Cough up the bread, stump.”

She looked up at me with pleading eyes. It felt like such an obvious manipulation tactic, and I had been trained enough to not fall for such basic tricks. It was natural for a thief to lie.

“Okay, okay!” The short woman held her hands up above her head as she stood up. “I think you need to work on your people skills, woman. Would it hurt you to be a little bit nicer to me?” The woman gave a lopsided smile, I suppose in hopes it would make me feel something for her.

“You’re the one that stole from me!” I hissed at her, closing the distance between the two of us to snatch my loaf of bread from her bag.

“OH MY GOSH IT'S A TROUSELSNATCH!” She screamed and pointed behind me. I whirled around with my sword at the ready. I wasn’t familiar with whatever a trouselsnatch was, but I wasn’t willing to find out by becoming a victim of one. Once I had turned around, the infuriating realization of what I had just fell for dawned on me. The area around me detonated into a turquoise smoke as I turned back to face the thief. It smelled awful, like someone had reached into their spice cabinet and decided to throw three handfuls of every single spice into a pot before throwing it at me. I coughed through the mist that burned at my eyes, hiding within the fabric of my clothes to give me some relief from the smoke that was spreading through the surrounding area.

By the time it had cleared, the woman was gone, as well as my loaf of bread. Son of a bitch. Looks like I was picking berries for breakfast today. The next time I saw Stump I would make her regret stealing from me.