Allegra sits in the front row of pews, staring at the altar to avoid meeting her sister’s gaze. Rays of sunlight dance over Necros’s body as clouds drift across the sky. “Why didn’t you come back—“
“And do what, Helena? Turn myself in? Trust me, coming home has always been on my mind-- but Elk City isn’t ready to see one of their former Sentry officers as a four-eyed freak.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask what those souls are.”
“Hell if I know. I’m only carrying three, besides my own. One is definitely a bird, I know that much. The other two I’m still figuring out. This place has been helping with that.” Orien runs a finger along the side of her blade. “I’ve been living here for almost a year now. It’s empty physically, yes, but spiritually-- it’s never been more alive. There’s a reason why people who merged with beasts were allowed refuge here.”
“You think the deities still have a presence here?”
“I know they do. The lights, the altar, that weird hall of mirrors… I think they want visitors.” Allegra asks Orien if she’s ever communicated with them. Often, her sister says. “I looked in the mirror and saw Lumen. She said, 'Before you start this solitary life, your path and the path of chaos will cross once more. You must let it happen’. So I’ve been doing exactly that-- causing chaos in hopes that I fulfill that vision. Lumen has been giving me her blessing in exchange for… whatever I’m doing for them. Glorified house-sitting and general troublemaking, basically.”
“So you’ve been maintaining this place. Literally waiting for Chaos himself to show up.” Allegra sighs and hugs her knees to her chest. “It should be you with this team, not me. You’re not a lone wolf.”
Orien sheathes her sword and removes the scabbard from her body. She settles down beside her sister. “Did Naira tell you why we broke up?”
“She’s Wendy to us,” Allegra answers. She pulls the necklace from her pocket, letting the treble clef run up and down the chain at the mercy of gravity. “And I’m Allegra to them.”
“Cute. It suits you.”
“She said that the quiet life ‘wasn’t for her’. That you both wanted different things.”
“I’d say ‘need’ rather than ‘want’.” Orien scoots a little closer. “When we met, we were still getting used to carrying multiple souls. We did our best, tried to accommodate, but not even that can prevent everything. We hurt each other sometimes. Never intentionally, of course, but our bodies were clumsy and our minds were scattered. Sometimes it was a snarl or a shout, other times it was a swollen ankle or a broken nose. We had to learn to live with ourselves before we could live with someone else.” Gently taking the necklace, Orien places it around her sister’s neck. After all this time and all this turmoil, her smile remains the same. “Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Trust me, I almost snuck into Elk City a dozen times just to tell you everything was okay. When I left in the first place, I never thought I’d receive my answers by living them. But since that’s the case, I owe it to myself to keep learning.”
Allegra groans and buries her face in her arms. She explains how she turned in Julius in exchange for her old position. Orien furrows her brow, not sure whether to be surprised they’ve kept it open all this time, or appalled that she turned on her best friend. “I was naive. I wanted to be exactly like you so bad, no matter the cost. That’s why I’m here-- to learn about the beasts, and to make sure Elk City does the same. No more firing blindly into the mist. No more diving into things I don’t understand.”
At the altar, the smooth, granite floor begins to shift and shake. A wide hole opens up, swallowing the fake flowers and candles and offerings left at the deities' feet long ago. The bricks land at the bottom not with a thud, but a splash. The rest of the group hears the commotion and comes running back in. The gap in the floor stretches down at least fifteen feet; Lynx drops in another candle. The splash echoes upward long enough for them to infer it’s more than just a puddle. “What was that you said about not diving into things you don’t understand?” Orien mutters.
“You know, for once, I’d like to use a figure of speech and not see it become literal.”
The hole grows wide enough for every member of the group to comfortably drop in at once. Everyone shares the same sentiment-- they do this together, or not at all.
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