Heartworm

I need to hear you say it.

‘Fine. We’re a team.’

Great. It would be best for us to work towards both of our interests equally.

‘This does not mean I think of us as equals, remember?’

Sure. I think we’re closer to being equals than you’d like to admit, but I’m comfortable putting a pin in it if you are.

‘If the pin is between the eyes to kill the conversation where it stands, then yes, I agree we should put a pin in it.’

Cecelia comes first. I need you to save her, whatever it takes.

‘I would not be so eager to throw around phrases like "whatever it takes”. It makes you easy to manipulate and use for others' gains.’

I do not need you to critique my words, Lilith. I need you to tell me how to save Cecelia. How to avoid a hemolytic transfusion as you mentioned.

‘We possess a very potent control over blood, as you have seen with our own eyes. With that, you can fundamentally reshape the nature of the blood itself. You can imagine yourself as an artist, changing the very nature of the canvas before you with a few well placed brushstrokes.’

You can change someone’s blood type?

‘We can, yes. I can exsanguinate a foe, Ester. Changing the nature of someone’s blood is fundamental to the magic that I use. This is just a less… hostile way of transfiguring someone’s blood. While I have not performed this in a century, I’m confident in my ability to do it once more. It simply requires shifting the blood into a neutral, essence-less state. Something called “hollow blood”. From there, I’ll color in the details of the hollow blood until it fits the type of blood that beats through your lover’s veins.’

So all we need is blood.

‘Correct. Lots of blood.’

“Lilith says that she’ll help.” I finally broke the crushing silence that lingered in the makeshift camp. Sebil and Phern were both watching me intently, I could feel their eyes slipping across my back as I talked to the unruly demon in my head. I appreciated their restraint in not speaking. Gods know that Phern has trouble being silent when the situation requires it.

“LET’S GO LILITH!”

“She said she’d help?!” Sebil blurted out.

‘That spark plug things so low of me. He is one to talk.’

“She did, and she’s not too pleased about your reaction.” I replied, noting Lilith’s words in the back of my mind. They reminded me of a conversation that still felt incomplete. One about Sebil’s connections with Lilith, as well as the other person involved that I’ve been asked not to mention. It’ll need to come out eventually. Sebil shrunk backwards when he heard that Lilith was listening to his words. His caution colored in the unwritten lines of their dynamic. It was as if he was still awaiting an imminent punishment for something.

“Of course. Did she ask for anything in return, love?” Sebil asked in a way that betrayed his own question. It seemed as though he already expected there to be a catch to her assistance.

“Just that we work together. Her specific words were ‘one body, two minds, three goals’. We both get something out of it, I promise.” I did my best to reassure Phern and Sebil of the deal I made. It was in our best interest, truly, though it might not inspire the most confidence in the rest of the Bandits if I told them that I agreed to helping Lilith with whatever she asked. The ‘one body, two minds, three goals’ pact that we had made ensured we would both work in harmony. The first goal we had agreed on went as follows.

Goal 1: I am to assist Lilith in eluding the Empire, and ensuring the safety of Deathless.

It was simple, but it was what she had listed as her desires. Was it the be all end all? No, almost certainly not. But that had been acknowledged as we reached our agreement. The goals were for the sake of having an official agreement, the subtext of them was that we would assist one another in order to prevent ourselves from working against each other. Lilith and I had found out first hand (claw?) during the fight on the docks that our mind is more fragile than we thought. Entropy within causes degradation without, as Lilith put it. Or, if we fuck up our head, we’ll be dead in no time, as I put it. We had already introduced a concerning variable with the feral voice, and to keep that from happening again, we would need our mental stability to stay on the up and up. The second goal, mine, was similar to the first,

Goal 2: Lilith is to assist me in ensuring the safety of the Belligerent Bandits, as well as uncovering the fate of Vyra.

The second part was what caused Lilith to question me. It required me explaining the small glimpses that I had received from Vyra. It felt like she was alive. I had seen her die, felt her die in my very arms. Yet her voice lingered in the depths of my mind when I died. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find her, but I couldn’t stop until I tried. The final goal of our agreement was established in tandem.

Goal 3: We are to find a way to sever. To once again occupy our own bodies and minds.

The Empire had done something in the basement of Varenthell that fateful evening that fused us together. If they were responsible, it was likely that they might have a solution for our predicament. If we were able to sever, we could go back to living our own lives.

“You both get something out of it? I hope you know the details of the deal you strike with a devil, love. From my experience, you will never escape a Lilith scorned.” Sebil nervously fidgeted at his right arm, as if there was a small colony of ants just underneath the sleeve. Under the sleeve where the strange sickly sanitized smell always slipped out from.

“Is the thing you get out of it a one way ticket to saving CiCi town? Because that’s where we need to be headed right now. She won’t last much longer if we stay at this standstill.” Phern added. Despite her words being filled with her usual Phernisms, there was the same cutting seriousness that she displayed when talking about Cecelia earlier. A concern that colored a rainbow with grays and blacks, soaked in the worries of a sister lost.

“It is. Saving CiCi town is just on the horizon. Lilith can get it done as long as we find a source of blood. Quite a bit of it, just to be safe.” Keeping my explanation simple was the best bet for now. I could explain the details later. Oh, Gods I feel like I’m saying that at every turn now. There’s so many knots tied up in the clouds. It feels as though every time I reach up to pull one down and untie it, another 3 knots are set upon the clouds. We would have time to explain it all soon enough. When Cecelia was safe, our main goal was to make distance from Uroro lake. I could unravel all the knots that the Bandits needed while we walked away from this place.

They would need to unravel soon enough. It began to feel like every conversation between Bandits left more unsaid that could ever be said in the time we had. Besides, Sebil and Phern didn’t need to know the science of how Lilith planned to change the nature of blood to safely transfuse it into Cecelia. Although Sebil would no doubt love to learn about how it all worked.

Now all we had to do is determine where we could get that amount of blood from. Animals, most likely, but it would require us catching what we could and bringing it back to the camp. I was unsure if the three of us-

“There you are, Ester! Am I to understand these are the friends that you spoke of?”

Four of us. Right. Nessyndra had been swept behind several other prescient concerns of mine. I had completely forgotten that she was following after my tracks after I sent her a signal.

“WHAT IS THAT?!” Phern forcibly pointed towards Nessyndra with a fully extended arm. Something quite meaningless considering Nessie had announced her own arrival. I could already see Sebil moving into a defensive position, sliding over towards one of the scattered inventions in the camp.

“Sebil stop! She’s with me!” I shouted out to stop Sebil from attack just as she slid his hand around a metallic orb that rested against a branch. While her words implied her friendliness, Nessyndra was instinctively speaking in Crutian. Phern and Sebil would have no idea what she just said. “She helped me get out of the lake! I meant to tell you about her but I just got a little distracted.”

“Oh, I understand! I apologize for my introduction. You can understand me now, yes?” Nessyndra slipped between languages during her sentence. It was quite impressive to me, despite me technically being able to do the same thing. Where my ability was artificially learned through a soulstone in my head, hers was practiced over years of eavesdropping and listening to drylings.

“Yes… we can understand you now.” Sebil uttered with a hand still firmly grasped around the smooth surface of one of his inventions. I could tell his body and mind were torn between an instinctual reaction to defend himself, as well as the dying ally behind him, and me giving him an order to stand down.

An order. Was that something I was capable of doing? Maybe, in the circumstances where I was forced to. But it felt far more natural for Cecelia to be doing the ordering. She was forged for it, expressly prepared to make the choices that others would hesitate on. It felt strange to have that absence. I wanted Cecelia to be able to give orders once more.

‘I’ll bet you do. Just because I do not speak whilst you engage in your morning Hijinx does not mean I don’t see it.’

Lilith. There is a time and a place for those jabs, and neither are when she is tapping her heels on death’s door.

“Oh, good! The words of Kistram do not always align in the ways I wish, but as long as you are able to understand me.” Nessyndra finally stepped into the camp, revealing the full details of her scaled, fish-like body covered in the traditional garb that matched many other Crutia within Uroro. The seaweed looking material draped across her body in flowing patterns in such a way that it confused the eyes when I had first seen it. Somehow sticking quite efficiently to her scaled skin, while flowing and floating through the water as if it were made up of tassels. Her iridescent teal skin was still coated in the slick plenda that flowed freely from the intricate looking crown atop her head.

“Oh my Gods it’s Nessie! The green stalker light in the lake!” Phern yelped in excitement over her discovery. A ‘realization’ that felt so bizarre to Nessyndra and myself that we could both only look at each other in confusion. Perhaps it wasn’t the biggest logical leap, but to have correctly guessed so many consecutively sound details with such confidence… it was something only Phern could do.

“Ester already told you my name?” Nessyndra looked at me with glistening eyes, filled to the brim and overflowing with confusion.

“She hadn’t mentioned it, love.” Sebil answered in the place of Phern before she could confirm it for herself.

“Gut feeling! You felt like a Nessie because of all of the lake stuff!” Phern said nonchalantly.

“You may call me Nessie if that’s to your liking. Nessyndra is the full extent of my name.” Nessyndra flicked a small smile out from between her lips, revealing the top row of sharp, almost fang-like, teeth. Something which I had managed to get an explanation for during our swim to the shore. Apparently the sharp teeth were not as counterintuitive to their herbivorous nature as I had originally thought. A majority of the plants that Crutia consume in the depths of Uroro are various types of weeds and fleshy plant amalgams that form in large sheets along surfaces. The sharp teeth help to rip apart the tougher plant material. I wondered if she would start to have a tricky time on the surface consuming plants that were much less tough than what she had been used to.

“Nessyndra… And you are what exactly? If you don’t mind me asking, love. I have absolutely no idea what you are despite my well traveled nature.”

“Love? Earlier Ester clarified that you were a group of friends, as opposed to lovers. Was there a misunderstanding?” A genuine desire for elucidation hung onto her words.

“I find myself explaining this more in the past few weeks than the last few years put together. No, I do not mean it in such a way, Nessie- er- Nessyndra. We are friends here. Ester and Cecelia are the only ones guided by the mystical song that we call love.” Sebil answered, with a pang of sadness tensed in the corner of his mouth. “As of now… at least.” Sebil added, so quietly that his mouth barely shaped the words at all. They sloughed off of his tongue to drop to the ground, weighed down by the gravity of regret.

“Platonic endearment? That makes sense to me. Much of Crutia culture is expressed through subtleties of speech, rather than the expression of physical affections. That is, additionally, the answer to your question. I am Crutia. The people of Uroro.”

“Uroro. Within the lake? That’s rather astounding, love. To be so close to the brink of discovery without ever being revealed.”

“There have been, on small occasions, instances of Drylings learning of Uroro. They are dealt with very quickly when it does happen.”

“Oh my Gods you feed them to the leviathan of the deep when they find out!” Phern leapt into the conversation with such a dramatically incorrect guess that it might make someone question how she could ever pinpoint the truth through her spectacular imagination.

“We do not kill. It happens very rarely in the history of our people. No, when Drylings learn of us, we attempt to form a deal with them first and foremost. If they are willing, we simply reach an agreement and leave it at that. If they are not so amicable, we are forced to employ a different tactic. We seal the memories away in a stone, and shatter it into dust to join the floor of the lake.”

The three of us were stunned. Given Lilith’s lack of a reaction, I imagined she was having a similar reaction. Nessyndra’s casual explanation of Uroro’s memory magic was shocking. I had more information than any of the other Bandits, and even I was still stunned.

“A stone… like a soulstone?” I asked, hoping Nessie could clarify the connection between the two.

“Yes! Very similar, yet different. It is not a method we have needed to utilize often. Due to the invasive nature, it has only been used when Uroro was at risk of malevolent Drylings. Rather than killing the Drylings that learned of us, we resorted to that.”

It made some semblance of sense. Crutia were strangely opposed to killing. A cultural idea that took root long before any relative of Nessyndra, or even Cyndri. It seemed that Crutia would resort to as many alternatives as they could before ending another life. Even if the alternatives were arguably more cruel, in my case. Indefinite containment was their alternative to executing me. I wasn’t sure which would be a greater mercy, especially after decades of internment.

Still, I could respect the desire for peace at its core. They valued life to an impressive extent. The same could not be said for the Empire. Not unless you were expecting a chorus of laughter after saying it.

“I respect how much you value life, Nessyndra. Even if the idea of messing with people’s memories rubs me the wrong way.” I tried my best to give her a reassuring smile. I wanted to be conscious of her upbringing. She belonged to a wholly different world. As did I, compared to the other Belligerent Bandits. Our strength came together when we came together, in spite of our different upbringings.

“This is probably not the best thing to follow up that conversation with… but we need to go hunting. In order to save Cecelia, we need blood. To get enough blood for her, we’re going to need a couple of living things as a source.” I sheepishly relayed my plan to the other Bandits and Nessyndra, knowing the latter would not be pleased by the idea.

“Why must we hunt and kill?” Nessyndra asked, with innocence budding behind the slick layer of translucent plenda covering her eyes.

“I… I just told you why.” I replied. I knew that she wouldn’t take well to the plan, but it didn’t stop the necessity. If I needed to kill a few animals to save Cecelia, I would do it without hesitation. There was no question of equivalency in my mind.

“You said that we need blood. Unless I am mistaken, there are four present beings filled with blood. If taken in equal parts, we should be able to provide all of the necessary blood for Cecelia to make a recovery.” Admittedly, Nessyndra’s plan made some sense. Enough sense that I had already considered it myself. But given our situation, with the Empire’s Marked on our trail, keeping us all healthy was of the utmost importance. I suppose if calculated correctly, we could take only enough blood that it wouldn’t affect the Bandits much, but that would rely on Lilith performing the transfusions near perfectly.

‘You doubt my expertise?’

I know you are capable, Lilith. But we’re gambling with more than chips and cards here. These are the only allies you have, and the only friends that I have.

‘You do not think they are capable of being my friend?’

I don’t think I can answer that in any way that you would appreciate.

‘It matters not. I’ve grown more than accustomed to traveling the endless road of life without accompaniment. If you are worried about the odds of gambling with their lives, let me make it absolutely clear that the deck is stacked in our favor so long as I perform the transfusion. There will be no risk of failure.’

“Three. Not four. But it might still work, Nessie.” I finally responded to Nessyndra after my short back and forth with Lilith. While Phern and Sebil could likely put the pieces together as to why I paused for so long, Nessyndra likely assumed I was considering her plan for the first time.

“Why the change in number?”

“I can’t give my own blood. If I tried to pump a bunch of Deathless blood into Cecelia, there’s no telling exactly what would happen. But the best case scenario is bad enough it’s not worth the risk.”

“Then you siphon the three of us like little spouts of life for your lover’s life. That would work, no?” Nessyndra asked, confidently asserting her plan despite being in mostly unfamiliar company, in an entirely unfamiliar land.

Her plan could work, but it required one important factor. Permission. If Sebil and Phern were not on board with the plan, then we’d need to backpedal towards a hunt once more. I first looked towards Sebil, the stoic man that appeared to be distinctly less stoic now than his usual self. There were cracks in the warmth that usually spilled off of him. Cold spots across his face that reeked of regret, most likely replaying the events of Urden.

Then there was Phern. Oh Phern. As soon as my eyes locked with hers, she opened her mouth to speak. “You can take as much blood as you need. I can handle it.” There wasn’t much else to be said. I was confident that she meant every word of it. If anything, it seemed as though she was holding back slightly in her eagerness to save Cecelia. There was a desperation in her eyes, a kind so jagged and raw that it was almost terrifying to behold.

Nessyndra was a given, based on the idea being her own. She would likely request blood to be taken from herself before any other creature. With confirmation from the two of them, my eyes were once more drawn back to the silent inventor. For some strange reason, he was refusing to look anywhere but the earth beneath his feet.

“Sebil? Can we count you in?” Phern asked with a growing impatience. Most likely not due to Sebil himself, but more so that he was the last step in the way towards saving Cecelia.

“I’m afraid not. My blood would only make things worse.”