Heartworm

Much to my surprise, Phern had kept my words to herself. It didn’t stop her from laughing her ass off, but she at least had the kindness to not repeat it aloud to the rest of the bandits. The important part is that being let inside of the inside joke had given her enough joy to keep her mostly silent on our walk.

Our very long walk.

Each member of the bandits had fashioned their own unique way of expressing their exhaustion of the journey that we had begun. It started slow, with small complaints from Sebil about how his equipment was really starting to weigh him down on the second day. I made the mistake of asking him why he hadn’t complained about his equipment as much while we travelled around Uroro Lake. I had forgotten that Lucas had opted to share the weight by carrying a lot of Sebil’s inventions for him. I felt terrible for bringing up a sensitive topic, especially when I had been trying so hard to intentionally avoid bringing up Lucas. When I offered to carry his inventions like Lucas had, he swiftly rejected me. I suggested that he offload some of his equipment into the tent to at least alleviate the weight that was bothering him. He told me that he couldn’t afford to stash any inventions in the tent ‘just in case’. I was almost certain he was lying to me. Which left only one remaining explanation for why he continued to carry all of his equipment himself. Despite his self-imposed punishment continuing, he ceased his complaints after that conversation.

The next few days I had spent giving Nessyndra a very long explanation of what Phern, Cecelia, and I had been doing since that very strange day in the church. It was arduous, and very likely missing details that I had forgotten to mention. I didn’t think of myself as the best storyteller, but to prevent a million little instances of ‘who?’s and ‘what?’s, I thought it was necessary. Surprisingly, Nessyndra was invested in every little detail. I could feel her absorbing the recent history of my life as I recited it with the occasional assistance from the other Bandits. By the time I had caught her up to the point where I met her on the third day of explanations, she gave me a long series of wet claps as she slapped her slick hands together. She even encouraged me to write down our story so far in order to remember the details and ‘immortalize our legacy’. Sure, Nessyndra. I doubt people would care much to read about my convoluted and ridiculous journey.

After completing my somewhat theatrical retelling of our journey to Nessie, Cecelia reminded me that I still needed to fill her in on the details of my underwater adventure. Without much else to do but walk through the thick Circadin forest, now was as good a time as any. Cecelia wanted to be even more ‘efficient’ with our time, however. I quickly found myself in ‘hunting lessons’ at the end of each day, where I would recount my Uroro judicial experience while she did her very best to hone my senses. I frequently complained about how each of these lessons came at the very end of a very long day. Attempting to learn new skills while sore and tired was miserable, but entirely intentional by Cecelia. She had told me almost exactly what Lilith had told me days before. “You are only as strong as your weakest moment.” It was shocking how similar she sounded at times. A constant reminder that Cecelia knew far more about Deathless than I did. She likely knew more about Deathless than almost any other human. Life Hunters studied every aspect of their prey to ensure the highest chances of survival. Given that Cecelia was one of the most successful Life Hunters, I was learning to hunt from the very best. Or… second best. Lilith was very insistent that she was a better hunter than Cecelia. Which could certainly be true, but it wasn’t like there’d ever be a chance to put that theory to the test.

Regardless of their differences, Lilith found herself pleasantly surprised by Cecelia’s hunting lessons. Of course, it was always wreathed in an insult of some kind. But I knew Lilith well enough to know that she had gained a little bit of respect for Cecelia the more their instructions lined up. I would hear Lilith utter something like “She is unfortunately correct in her estimations of our limitations. Easy to learn when you slaughter enough of our kind.” To others, it would sound rather scathing. By Lilith’s standards, it was glowing praise.

Multitasking used to be a specialty of mine. I would frequently work on projects during lectures whilst still being able to retain the information that Varenthell academy wished to give me. Certain professors at the academy made it a point to let me know that multitasking wasn’t actually a real thing. In rather condescending tones, they explained that it was a misnomer. What we perceive as focusing on multiple tasks simultaneously is actually just rapid task switching. Our minds like to think that we’re focusing on multiple things at the same time, when we are instead consciously keeping track of both things one at a time, and moving our focus back and forth at high speeds. I received that same demeaning talk from 3 different professors at Varenthell, making the message stick very firmly in my memory to this day. It’s the very reason why I couldn’t hold my tongue while Cecelia and Lilith both lectured me about needing to multitask when it came to my senses.

“That’s not a thing!” I shouted, injecting more venom in the words that I had intended to. Cecelia clearly hadn’t expected such an adamant rebuttal given that I had quietly responded to every morsel of advice she had given to me thus far.

“What are you talking about?”

“Multitasking! You keep telling me that I need to focus on all of my senses at once by multitasking but that just doesn’t work!”

“Of course it does, that’s how every Life Hunter, and most likely every Deathless, learn to hunt.” Cecelia gently pushed herself away from the crooked tree that she had been leaning against.

“Multitasking isn’t really a thing! Your brain still has to pick a primary focus of some kind. I feel like whenever I focus on listening to my surroundings I just start missing out on other shit! By the time I start trying to focus on scent again I’ve already stopped paying attention to what I’m seeing in my surroundings!” It was a very real frustration that reignited itself within me during our ‘lesson’. It felt as if there was bile building in my throat whenever memories of Varenthell Academy came to the forefront of my mind.

“I think you’re overthinking this, Bandit. I multitask all the damn time, especially when I’m hunting.” Cecelia’s expression was hard for me to pin down. Was she annoyed with me? Or just deeply confused by my outburst?

“I know you think I’m overintellectualizing this, but I’m not lying! I looked into it after I was scolded a bunch in the academy. I understand what you’re trying to teach me, but it’s just not working! There has to be something more to your thought process that you do.”

“Slinging around the word overintellectualizing certainly doesn’t help your case. We clearly have very different… education styles.” Cecelia’s word choice was very deliberate. I could tell that she was trying to phrase the differences in our childhoods in the kindest way possible. “Ffenton used a lot of metaphors and shit to prime me for his lessons. I learned best through repetition and instinct. That… and a lot of life or death experiences that forced me to learn quickly.” That was a very conservative way of saying that she fought immortal beings at a shockingly young age.

“I guess that kind of forces you to sink or swim.”

“Damn straight. I learned a lot by putting myself in those life or death situations.”

“Life or Deathless situations, huh?” I gave a wry smirk towards Cecelia, who was already rolling her eyes and turning her head slightly to the side to obscure the subtle smile.

‘Oh how delightful, Fledgling. Is it amusing to discuss her habitual murder of our kind? I must have an aged sense of humor, I didn’t think it was funny to jest about those topics.’

Oh fuck off, Lilith, you’ve made a plethora of morbid jokes in the past. You only care about the sanctity of life when it’s a Deathless in question.

‘Of course I care about the life of a Deathless more than a petulant human. You’d ask me to extend sympathy to those that murder our kind? You’ve heard how the Empire talks of Deathless, I need not tell you how little sympathy they would extend towards us.’

“So do you need a fuckin’ essay or something?” Cecelia was staring intently at me, gazing down towards me as I hunched forwards on an uneven stump that I had adopted as the cleanest place to sit nearby. “If you learn stuff differently, how would you want to go about this?”

“I’m not sure. Life or death certainly does something for me. Most of the feats I’ve pulled off were done by instinct when I was scared.”

“Sure, but we can’t exactly do that right now. You’d need to be afraid, and I doubt I could convince you that I’d kill you.”

“I mean… you have before.” I reminded Cecelia, conjuring up the memory of her cutting me down with no warning in our first conversation. Good times.

Cecelia gave a small nod of acknowledgement, followed by the small kindling of a warm smile. “True. But that was before we had an intimate evening that has made me somewhat rethink my desires to kill you.”

“Somewhat? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” My indignant response seemed to be exactly what she wanted. She immediately chuckled and slid her fingers gently underneath my chin to force a moment of eye contact.

“It means I might need some more evidence before I’ll rule out the possibility of not killing you again.” Cecelia punctuated her sentence with a coy wink. “If we can’t get you scared, we need to teach you to hunt through other methods. So what worked for you in Varenthell when you went to Prejudice 101 class?”

“Specificity. If I know exactly what goes through your mind when you’re on the hunt, I might be able to identify the thought process that I need to make this work.” If I could hear from Cecelia about her step by step process, things might start to fall into place.

‘Would my thoughts not be substantially more valuable than hers? She does not understand the visceral senses that you need to wield together.’

Why only listen to one of you? I can have two cakes, can I not?

‘If you wish to indulge in a gluttonous display of depravity, I suppose.’

“I’ll try to put it into words.” Cecelia knelt down towards the ground, pushing her right knee into the ground next to her right hand. She closed her eyes and began to focus on something. Was this her preparing for a hunt? “Just don’t judge me if none of this makes any sense to you. I’ve never put words to this process before, it just comes so naturally to me. The process of a hunt is intimate in its own strange way. It’s almost like you enter a-”

‘Trance.’

“-trance.”

Cecelia and Lilith spoke at the same time, describing the process of a hunt not only with the same word, but with the same inflection as well. They felt the same sensations while hunting.

‘I doubt the Life Hunter knows the reverie of the hunt like I do. She could not possibly understand the motionlessness of the mind as it races through every detail of its prey.’

Lilith’s description didn’t seem to make any sense, yet I could feel it resonate with me. I had felt it before in short bursts. Never long enough to have the words to describe the experience. But the strange sensation of my mind feeling stagnant while simultaneously racing faster than ever before was exactly what I had felt in the past. Those moments where I fought with all I had, doing anything I could to survive another second, they felt like a trance.

“Keep going. Tell me more about the trance part.”

Cecilia's eyes brightened ever so slightly as soon as she noticed the epiphany that was just around the corner. “I am hyperfocused on the hunt, but my mind almost feels pulled back, like I’m sitting behind my shoulders. I start to pay attention to everything that I can. My senses aren’t nearly as honed as yours, but I flick through them efficiently enough that I can usually pick up on the important details. A twig snapping in the distance, the stench of blood, whatever it takes to find the Deat- uh, the prey.”

‘What I would bargain for a chance to put that Life Hunter in her place.’

It didn’t surprise me that Lilith noticed Cecelia’s split up. Despite her poor choice of words, the advice she was providing had made something click. The picture was beginning to form in my mind, all I needed were the last few puzzle pieces.

Lilith, how do you observe the details of a hunt?

‘I told you once before, little Fledgling. My senses are like an orchestra. I let them ring out in symphony to ensure that nothing slips past me. What you are lacking, Ester, is a conductor.’

You think of yourself as a conductor?

‘Indeed. Though other Deathless have their own rationals, I’m certain. It is the way I learned centuries ago, and it has helped me to engage all of my senses seamlessly.’

I need to be a conductor. I opted out of the music theory classes in Varenthell, however. I had some rudimentary understandings from earlier in my education, but none of it had anything to do with conducting. I’d have to research the topic, perhaps ask Phern if she had any books within the tent? Her collection of books was mostly culinary and druidic, but it was worth a shot.

‘Do you intentionally ignore the wisdom that I attempt to impart? I just told you that other Deathless have their own unique methods. The only important aspect is that it makes sense to you, and allows you to properly focus all of your senses together.’

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking about it when I said it, I’m just so used to-”

“Huh?” I accidentally cut off Cecelia’s words as I snapped back to the conversation that I had been distracted from. I made eye contact with Cecelia to encourage her that she had my full attention.

“Were you listening to me?” Her voice was soft, she sounded hurt.

“Uh. N-no? Sorry, I just got a little distracted.” What else could I even say? ‘Sorry, I was having a discussion with a super old demon lady that hates your guts and also she’s my personal trainer just like you!’. I let my shoulders sink and awaited the inevitable scolding.

“It’s okay… I know I slipped up earlier, I just- I didn’t expect it to affect you so much. It almost looked like you were dissociating immediately. Did it really hurt you that much?”

‘You need not worry, Cecelia. Your sweet little Deathless was entirely unphased by the mention of her kind!’

My hands began to shake. It was subtle enough that I could wrap them around my stomach to keep them from shaking visibly. I hated the mental obstacle course that it felt like I had to navigate to ensure that Cecelia didn’t feel guilty, but still remained unaware of the passenger that was chiding me in my mind.

“Sort of. I always forget how naturally opposed we are until something like that reminds me. You used to despise my kind, and I wonder if any of that is still in there deep down.” They always say that the best lies contain an element of truth.

“Your kind?” Cecelia raised her eyebrow. She seemed genuinely taken aback by my words. “Do you think of yourself as a Deathless now?” As if Cecelia anticipated my next words, she continued her thought. “I don’t mean physically, we both know what you are here.” She gently pressed her finger into my chest. “I’m talking about what you are here.” She moved her finger up to my eyes and pressed her finger into my forehead.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Doubt filled every crevice of my shadowy body, adding to the growing disconnect I was feeling about my thoughts and my physical form.

“You’ve been a human for what, twenty-something years? Does that all go away now that you’ve been a Deathless for a couple months?”

“I don’t know! But I sure as hell don’t feel like a human anymore! Not with the Empire on my ass and every sense of mine so intense that I feel like I’m overstimulated every second of the day. I don’t feel human with the constant urge to satisfy a hunger that I know I can only be sated by slaughtering something! I gorge myself on small game every day because it’s the only way I can eat without feeling completely disgusted with myself. Because I know what I really want, and it terrifies me!” I had forgotten to breathe during my speech. I awkwardly sucked in a breath while Cecelia looked at me with confusion. Notably, not the expression of disgust or judgement that I expected to see.

‘Your nature should not terrify you, my sweet Fledgling.’

“What do you really want?” It was a simple question, and really I had set myself up for it with the way I had ended by manic rambling. How could I possibly answer that question? There were unconscionable amounts of shame involved in the answer. How do you go about telling your girlfriend that you crave the most guilt ridden action you had taken since meeting? The answer, as it were, was to dive headfirst into it.

“I want Greg.”