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Info
This infobox contains recommended listening and total word length.
Total Length: 9.9k words
Reading Time: 45 minutes
Themes:
Overall themes:
I of the Storm - Of Monsters and Men
The Golden Land - Evan CallTilda Moose:
Our Destiny – Thomas BergersenM.:
2700 BCE
(Medea text:)
Knowledge belongs to the collective whole. It is simply the inherent nature of thinking things for curiosity to be intimately tied to the ability to learn, to revel in the wonders of a world much bigger than us. Knowledge is thus freedom. By extension, access is a right belonging to all thinking things.
She stands atop a balcony of gilded golds; boots firmly planted on smooth linoleum tiling as she stares out on the landscape below. The ceiling is an endlessly stretching sea of stars, casting light down onto the shelves and book cubbies. Patrons of so very many different shapes drift to and fro between the aisle. A forest where the trees are grand twisting shelves. The leaves the paper folds of countless books. The morning mists are not quite so heavy in this wing of the Library, a place of mysteries, both historical and fictional. How many years has it been since she first stepped inside these halls?
How many years has it been since the Library first denied her access to her deepest desires?
Who is the arbiter of truth? The Archivists claim it is them. Who stamps each work as the true embodiment of its contents? Who determines what knowledge should be accessible to all? The answer is always the same.
From beneath the hood of her robe, lilac eyes track the shape of an archivist. Laywind is her name, a sphinx-like shape with a humanoid torso attached at the front. She is white of fur with orange spots across her flanks. Her face is mix of feline and human, with no eyes in her skull. The same as with all the Library’s brutish, authoritarian enforcers. And she is the newest among the flock.
With cloak swirling as she turns, the robed shape descends the stairs. Laywind looks up from the ebony half-circle desk with its heavy tomes and many lists of inventoried books. Eyeless features drawn towards the steps of her boots.
“I know you,” she says to the approaching figure.
“I would be surprised if you didn’t.”
“Here to ask again for access to the Archives?”
“No, I have different queries in mind.”
“Good, the dictation has not changed.”
She purses her lips in the shadow cast by the dark purple fabric.
“How did you become an archivist?”
Laywind stops writing on the sheathe of paper with a great quill pen.
“I lost several books to the creeping maw of a beast in a faraway place. The archivists gave me a choice, serve my sentence in a greater form, or be taken as a mindless Docent.”
The figure leans against the desk.
“They punished you for something beyond your control?”
Laywind frowns.
“I was reckless and didn’t properly assess the danger.”
“Maybe you were, but to wander often places one in the path of peril. Did you leave the books unattended?”
“No, they were in my pack, slung upon my back.”
The hooded head tilts to one side.
“Then how were they taken from you?”
“The beast caught me by the bag and gnawed through the straps. Then they were simply lost to its belly.”
“Then that was not your fault. You should not have been punished for that.”
“The Library disagrees, as do I. It was my carelessness which destroyed the embodiment of that knowledge, and the price was fair in exchange. Now I will serve a higher purpose in the name of a greater good.”
A greater good that binds us all to a false premise. A truly insulting jest to believe it is the only source of all truth and knowledge.
“Why does the Library deny me the right to the deepest depths?”
“Do you think that because I am new, such questions will be answered when they were not before?” Laywind laps their padded digits on the surface of the wood.
“Perhaps it is my right to know.” She sweeps her arm horizontally with an open palm for emphasis.
“Must you play these games?”
The figure frowns beneath the hood.
“I don’t consider my rights to be a game.”
Laywind scoffs.
“There are no inherent rights to the true embodiments of stories. You of all people should understand, knowledge is dangerous. It can be weaponized, molded into tools to inflict harm upon our shelves. Altered to distort the truth and fragment the world.”
“And this is where you train the mind to recognize such potential. If it is approached with care and preparation, such things can be disarmed before their concepts burn through every neuron.”
“This would not stop transgressors from acting with intention. A truth you have experienced firsthand. Even winning as you did, did he not turn the stories against you?”
A very long pause settles between them. The figure lowers the hood, revealing sylvan ears, and the flowing purple text and symbols crawling across her skin. Her eyes burn with a purple ire.
“You tread dangerously,” her words hiss between her teeth.
“I speak to the truth of your nature. The embodiment of your story lays upon these shelves as the absolute source. Its pages dance before my mind with inherent clarity. He transgressed against you, a patron of the shelves and weaver of knowledge. Were he to live, he would be denied freedom of access.”
The petitioner’s lips curl up in a small, triumphant smile.
“So, that is it then. I am a transgressor? For two hundred years this has been the reason you will not give me what I seek.”
Laywind’s face shifts, brow wrinkling with confusion. Then her mouth opens with surprise. Then she curls back her lips in anger.
“You tricked me, Medea of the Noble House of Colchis.”
“You are new, you will learn in time. Or, maybe, you won’t.”
“I’ll—”
“Do what? I have broken no rules, I have no overdue books, and I have raised no hands against the other patrons.”
“I am an archivist who deserves respect!”
“And I am a noble wanderer, who believes all knowledge should be free of control to those who desire it. Yet today, it seems, neither of us will get our way.”
Laywind’s facial muscles twitch beneath the fur.
“I will be watching you closely.”
“I’m sure you will. But you will find I always return my books on time.”
With the flourishing of her robes, Medea turns beneath the star swirled ceiling. She pauses, looking over her shoulder and tosses one final parting shot:
“Adieu, Laywind, until we next dance between the shelves.”
Then, she nearly prances away into the growing morning mist which haunts the western rows.
The end of the bookshelf she’s leaning back against is unnaturally, even disturbingly, warm. Which says a lot given the leather armor sitting atop her wool trousers and undershirt. The tail drags back and forth across the polished wood, brushed out maroon strands looking like a matte oil painting with every stroke.
She’s trying to ignore the Docents. There are at least four she can hear, maybe more skittering above. All of them continuously mill back and forth around her, making her current task rather arduously difficult. They keep pulling tomes from the shelves, stopping in front of her with them, waiting around a minute for any sort of response, and then setting them down on the table just ahead of her position. Then they do it all again. It’s starting to piss her off, which is reflected by the rapid swish of her tail.
When they first stumbled into the Library, around—what was it? Two hundred years or so ago? Anyways, the nascent helpers had taken an immediate and somewhat irksome liking to her. At first, it was a great irritation to be constantly swarmed by these freaky fuckers, especially since they could be so damn quiet when they wanted to be. How many times had they jump scared her and her partner with their near silent paths along the walls and ceiling?
The main motivation seems to be rooted in trying to give her written works pertaining to her interests. Archery, animal life, forestry, carpentry, fletching, smithing, and other such things. It took time to get used to. Sometimes, their efforts even pay off.
But most of the time, they were nothing more than a moderately endearing nuisance. Especially right now, when she’s trying to listen to the activity of a particular Way several rows behind her.
She sighs, and in a somewhat snarling tone, with as much politeness as she can muster, she finally waves them off.
“That’s good I have enough for now. Go help someone else.”
The Docents hover for a moment as if not quite believing her statement. Her eyes finally open. The light of the starlit ceiling above shimmers against the yellow of her irises, reflected in the polished silver of a nearby mirror. She looks over the unconvinced mix of insectoid and reptilian body plans and clicks her tongue with rising annoyance. Those pupils narrow into cat-slits as she pulls back her lips to reveal the sharpened canines in her mouth.
“I said, I have everything I need.”
They still don’t move.
Oh come on, seriously? Do I really have to say it every time?
She considers, for only a moment, being more aggressive with her motions. But her partner’s words ring in her ears.
“Be careful. The Library takes any perceived slight or threat as an excuse.”
The notion falls away immediately, and she groans.
“Ugh. Thank you, but I don’t need your services right now.”
Finally, they skitter off, leaving her alone. She sighs, running one hand, ending in sharp, claw-like nails, through her messy locks of blood-red hair.
“Artemis’s bow, you’d think they’d get the hint after the first fucking time.”
(Format for Artemis): At this point, I’d think you would know the secret to get them to leave right away.
“Yeah, well, I’m fucking stubborn. Now if you don’t mind, I have a job to do.”
She spends another moment looking in the polished mirror, taking in the curves of her own body. She’s tall but lean, powerful but fast. Stronger, faster, more resilient than she’d ever been as a human. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, when the goddess of the wilderness had saved her all those years ago, drowned her beneath the flow of power in a lightning storm of fusing souls and twisting shapes, she’d thoroughly hated her. Forever bound with the traits of a cat that the bastard king of the goddess’s pantheon had thrust upon her.
But now… well, she’d certainly never admit it aloud, but it made her the best gods damned hunter on the planet.
She delicately runs her fingers along the contours of one large triangular shaped ear. Cloud like tufts of fur, sensitive twists of flesh that send slight shivers down her spine. She lets the hand fall away, before closing her eyes again. Both ears pivot back, listening to the crackle of the Way.
There’s a pattern in the oscillations of crackling magic that potentiates the snaking pathways of each distant multi-potent door. Math, endless and repeating, fractals stacked atop differential equations, each providing an order to a chaotic, living pathway. A heartbeat, of sorts. The Library had bound these Ways beneath the shackles of its will, locking down all the various roads into the Library.
Well, almost all of them. The thought brings a slightly smug smile to her lips.
Based on what she’d overheard from other patrons, this was originally the method to bring the unnamed things that preyed on travelers in the spaces between, in line. Whatever genius Archivist came up with that had understood the delicate balance of these, well, extra-realistic ecosystems. They were safer, but never truly safe. Population control, and entity protections.
Then, after the Great Searing, the idiot savant that was the Fifth Grand Archivist had completely locked down the Ways. Massive extinction event for the extra-real entities that lived within the endless tunnels. At least, for the Ways which are considered official routes through the universe.
She returns to that thought as someone steps through the doorway. She could hear the breath, the pulse of it over the ruffles of many pages. Just barely audible, almost drowned out by the heartbeat and pulse of the Library itself.
Wild, untamed Ways are born and die every second, every minute, every hour of every day. An endless series of random collisions of astral energy and material mass given rise to shapes between. Based on the echoes of creation thrumming in her fingertips, it used to be a 50/50 chance of survival. Now, most will never stabilize. They die by the very things they once shared mutual relationships with. Starving extra-real entities forced out of the ancient, colossal, ‘official’ Ways by the Library’s efforts. Those things of light and gas fall upon newborn Ways like a pack of starving wolves, before they can gain strength by feeding off the hopes and wanderlust of any passengers. How many times has she seen the horrors play out before her eyes?
The vibratory undertones dance against her ears, against the twitch of a single extended finger. Arcs of twisting magics curl in patterns within patterns in the dark of her closed eyes. She’s getting closer.
This isn’t her only qualm with the way the Library currently handles access and travel. The Great Searing is probably the most egregious example. Even mentioning it on its own within the Library would be liable to get you flagged for rejection from the deep archives, a sentence that could stretch as long as it takes Taurpolos’s arrows to fly to their mark, or it could stretch for eternity like the sentence of Prometheus upon the rocks.
“Why do they get to dictate where someone can walk within the Library’s bounds? Shouldn’t it be open to anyone who wants to wander and explore? Isn’t that the name of this stupid place, the Wanderer’s Library?” she mumbles to herself.
Her ears twitch. There, there’s the seventh layer of repetition. If it follows the path of the others, there’s five more. Always patterns of twelve.
If you really push your luck on the topic, the Library will ban you. Oh, but this isn’t the only way. It banned you if you lost a book. If two parties got into a fight and the other person started it? Didn’t matter, both banned. If unlucky, hauled away by the Docents to get your mind erased. Then you were forced to be one of those poor skittering bastards. If you damaged a book? Pretty much the same outcome.
She’s seen it happen too many times. Somewhere deeper in the Library she can hear the faint screams of it happening again.
The most recent she’d seen was an eight-limbed drider, a woman, or at least what she thought was a woman. Some species are hard to tell sex, assuming they have them at all. The drider had been one of the wanderers she and her partner had come to know. A nomad of similar disposition when it came to the transgressions of the Library and the Archivists against freedom.
The poor thing was minding her business when the declaration came down from on high. It turned out she had an overdue book. When she couldn’t immediately produce it, it was over. They came in a swarm, grabbed onto her limbs, and dragged her screaming into a hatch that appeared in the floor. The huntress couldn’t unsee those terrified eyes begging for help she couldn’t give. The lucky, or deeply unlucky, depending on the circumstances, got turned into Archivists. Eyes plucked out, mind conditioned to revere and serve the Library.
All of it is horrifying, but the most offensive part is that being banned, having your Library card revoked, means that you can’t use the ‘safe’ Ways anymore. No more wandering through the most stable and secure means between the stars. But that isn’t an issue for her, not since she’d been saved by the goddess.
The huntress lets the smile curl through her lips. It falls away again as her brow wrinkles with focus. A finger curls and uncurls. Then she swirls it around in a flat, horizontal arc, forming a hand-mirror-sized, two-dimensional circle of silver light. A viscous mercurial fluid trickles inwards, twitching with every vibration, every pulse of the doorway at her back.
To think this can happen because this single thing, a place that declares itself the absolute source of all knowledge, is unhappy that you didn’t return a book on time. That’s not a place of freedom to learn. That’s an authoritarian state.
“Borders aren’t real to begin with, just lines on a fucking map. But this? This is just complete horseshit,” she mutters. “Is it not a fundamental right of anything that can walk to go where it chooses? Am I not designed to see the wonders of the world outside my own? Should I not experience the heat of a distant star, feel the surf of a purple ocean wash over my feet as I bask in the breeze of an evergreen sky?”
No one answers the question. Why would the Library bother?
One ear flicks and she grins. The mercurial sheen twitches and changes, taking on the pulsing static fluorescence of the doorway she was listening to.
“There. Got it.”
Her eyes pop open, a victorious smirk flowing across her lips. Her tail flicks, attempting to stand vertically parallel to her spine.
“Task complete.”
She lets the miniature Way dissipate. Her partner, the love of her life, is a sorceress, among the most powerful magic users in the universe and perhaps one of the greatest mortal minds to ever exist.
In her own biased opinion, of course.
A woman of magical capacity only matched by the Witch of Tempests on her hidden island. Though the huntress might consider herself a pale imitation in comparison, she can do two things that her wife could not.
Firstly, she can teleport anything, anyone to anyplace as long as she knows the right mathematical function. It’s taken years to figure out how to use it to get to the Library. A lot of trial and error with heavy safety precautions to make sure she doesn’t end up in one of the archives that are inherently hostile to her form of life. Or worse, in the center of a star.
One day, the math just finally clicked. Of course, there are size limitations scaling with mass and volume, but even then, she can force it in an emergency. At a deeply unpleasant expense to her functionality for a few days. This ability by itself is already important to their nascent group of disgruntled Wanderers.
From within the folds of her leather chest-plate she pulls out a twine bound notebook.
But it’s the second, fundamentally more important, aspect of that same power that makes her invaluable to the ultimate goals of their blossoming little group. She can make tunnels between any two points in space. Silver moonlit portals that can be dissipated. Or, as she has spent the last fifty years experimenting with, connect them to existing Ways. It is not easy to do; she has to match the exact thaumo-kinetic frequency of the Way’s emissions. At first, that was an arduous task that took hours. But with a great deal of effort and practice, it now takes maybe half an hour.
For a while, she and her wife believed that this was the extent of what could do. Which, you know, is already pretty fucking impressive all things considered. Imagine their surprise that with enough experimentation, she could also birth and stabilize entirely new Ways.
Suck my nonexistent girl dick, Jason. Golden bitch boy, hope your Tartarean task fits the crime. Turns out, I was far more capable than you could have even dreamed of.
Granted she couldn’t keep them stabilized on her own forever. That’s where Posey was going to come in, with her ability to nurture the newborns to make new permanent passages. Now, they could fundamentally evade any surveillance through the Library’s Ways, a fact that meant they could go anywhere they pleased.
Now that, that is true freedom.
(Artemis formatting text:)
Hermes would be pissed that you have combined our powers and conceptual aspects to do what he never could.
I’m sure he fucking would be.
She smiles at the thought. The notebook shimmers unnaturally, every page rippling with a barely visible twitch of shifting shapes and colors.
Here it is, one of her partner’s secret weapons to fight back against the Library’s assertion of creative monopoly of all knowledge and stories. The result of years of collaboration, heavy research, conceptual assessments, and experimentation.
The only reason the huntress can see the handiwork is thanks to the sharpness of her inhuman eyes, even then it’s a strain. Otherwise, they would be invisible. Well, unless the goddess decided to kick on the conceptual sight. But that both gave her a headaches still, even 350 years on, and would require great effort to pick out the effect against the background of the Library’s conceptual noise.
She leans over the table, taking a quill pen from its pot of ink, and begins to scrawl. A series of complicated numbers, equations and mathematical formulas. Though the notebook seems small and thin, there are more than 10,000 pages within, enchanted to be blank to anyone but her and her partner.
Crowley, Posey, and the Pilgrim had first appeared on the doorstep of that little cottage they’d built for themselves in the Arcadian woods around five years after—
The thought catches in her mind, a well of emotion threatening to boil over. She shakes her head vigorously to push it back down.
She’s still not quite sure why they’d been dropped there, something to do with her wife. Realistically, she wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. No, she’d been more concerned with how the Pilgrim had slipped these strangers through her wife’s conceptual defense screens in the first place. Also, if they were an active threat she needed to contend with. But, well, from there, everything kind of fell into place, which is how they were introduced to the Library.
The first time they stepped in, the conceptual field had hit her partner like a sack of bricks. Like one of those things they’d dealt with in the nearly 100 year-stretch before. Immense, incomprehensible masses of rolling shapes filling every horizon. A headache to be in the middle of for someone who had to make an effort to switch off their conceptual sight. At the same time, also a great way to hide an effect you didn’t want to be visible. Especially to the archivists within the Library’s halls.
She scrawls at the top of the page, in big letters, “Way number 3532.” Shutting the notebook and carefully tucking it back within the folds of the leather armor, she stands up again.
“Now, just to wait for her to be—”
“Finished?” the voice comes from behind her.
It sends a cascade of butterflies rampaging through her stomach. At the same time, it also scares her so badly she jumps, twists in the air, and lands in the chair. She has to grasp the back of the seat for stability, as the wood rocks beneath her weight. There her partner stands, a perfectly innocent look upon her gorgeous features.
“Medea, Artemis’s bow, how did you do that?”
“Forget again?” she asks with an upward lilt of her tone.
“What?”
“You ask me the same question every time. When are you going to remember the things I say when we’re setting up for travel?” Her voice is semi-serious but also trickles with an undercurrent of teasing.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about?”
“Darling, the silencing charm.”
She had in fact been told at the start of this little soiree that the sorceress would be using one of those. Now the huntress looks and feels quite foolish. She steps down from the chair, rubbing the back of her neck while avoiding Medea’s gaze. A slight flush settles in against her cheeks with a steady warmth.
Sometimes, it’s difficult for the huntress to stay focused when Medea looks at her like this. All the knots twisting in her belly make her want to squirm, but she maintains as much composure as she can. Which isn’t much judging by the glint in Medea’s eyes. The businesslike composure of her expression barely masks the lilac affection burning deep in them.
“I didn’t forget, I just wrapped up here. Was still in the zone when you snuck up.”
Movement. Soft fingers cup the huntress’s cheeks, meeting their gazes together in the middle.
Well, sort of. Medea is shorter. Still, the effect is largely the same. A thumb strokes one cheek. Which, in turn, provokes an involuntary purr to rise from the depths of the huntress’s chest. This, of course, only worsens the butterflies ravaging her belly. A heat rises through her, pooling in her abdomen, her cheeks and then up into her ears.
Medea’s lips slowly arc up, washing away the imperious neutral expression with something softer. The way her sylvan ears tilt slightly forwards, not quite fully horizontal, says everything about what she’s feeling.
Carissa blushes even harder. She leans into the hand, enabling the stroking thumb with a quiet nuzzle and an uncharacteristic, soft trill.
Medea leans forward, with hooded eyes, drops her voice a half octave, and whispers, “Did you get it, Carissa?”
The way the Sorceress says Carissa’s name with such a rolling intonation. It’s almost musical. And it sends a shiver all the way down her spine.
“Yeah…” Carissa responds, starting to melt.
“Good,” Medea says, leaning forwards.
Their lips meet in a slow kiss. It steals every inch of oxygen from the redhead’s lungs. Her tail shoots straight up behind her, flicking back and forth erratically with a furious energy. The contact drags on for what feels like an hour but can’t be more than a minute at most. When Medea pulls away, there’s a string of saliva that clings between them. She has thrown one hand behind Carissa’s neck to support herself, the other holding the catgirl’s cheek. For a moment, they stare into each other’s eyes, all the world spiraling out for them to claim.
Then Medea leans back in, pressing forehead to forehead. They hold there, affectionally rubbing against each other’s noses.
After a moment, Medea flinches, the hand wrapped around Carissa’s neck coming away to hold her own skull.
Her breathing picks up.
She lets out a sound, it might be a whimper, or a mewl.
Her whole body starts to shake uncontrollably.
Without warning, she buries her face in the crook of Carissa’s neck. Wet begins to soak into the skin of her throat, trickling down to dampen her undershirt and the chest tuft of maroon fur.
Carissa frowns, and acts without thinking, picking Medea up in her arms. She cradles the Sorceress in a bridal carry, hugging her tightly to her own chest.
“Hey, hey, look at me,” Carissa’s voice is incredibly soft, full of a quiet warmth she gives no one else.
“Jason won’t leave. The Monster is here too,” Medea says muffled into the huntress’s neck.
“Look at me, Medea.”
She looks up, tears in her eyes. She once told Carissa, when they first met, when they hated each other, that there was no point to crying. Not even over the fact that her entire fleet, a fleet she’d finally been entrusted with as a sign of responsibility, had been lost. She was stranded far from home, knowing she’d be a shame to her house. To her, it was a waste of energy when she could be taking action to ensure her return with something more glorious than she departed with. It was weakness.
Sometimes, Carissa wonders if she was responsible for softening that stance; showing Medea it’s okay to feel more than just avaricious ambition.
“Listen to my voice, look into my eyes.”
Medea meets the gaze in full, a quiet fear etched in the lines on her brow, the downward curve of her lips, and the crinkle of her eyes.
“They’re not here. Jason’s dead, and your mother’s gone. You are safe. This is just the spell. It’s not real.”
Carissa presses her wife’s forehead to her own.
“They can’t hurt you. Not while I’m here. And I’m never leaving you again.”
Carissa rocks her slowly, forehead pressed to forehead. Her breathing starts to slow down, returning to a steadily more normal pace. After about a minute of this, she pulls back to wipe her face. A deep quiet shame sweeps across her features, and she tries to look away.
“Sorry.”
Carissa takes Medea’s face between two clawed fingers and gently pulls their gazes back together.
“Hey. Do not listen to her voice. You are not weak for being vulnerable. You are not a waste of flesh. There is nothing to apologize for. We will break this curse, even if I have to walk to the ends of the universe to figure out how.”
Her eyes shimmer, lips trembling as she sniffles. This holds for a few seconds more, then the lines on her face crinkle. Then she laughs, softly. It’s a sweet sound at first. At least, before it twists into a heartbreaking bitterness that slips free between her sniffles. Carissa squeezes Medea more tightly against her own chest in response.
After another few seconds, she dries her eyes with one sleeve.
“There’s something in the Archives that would let me break the final piece. I’m sure of it. If only I could just reach it now.”
“One step at a time, even though I know it’s painful. We have plans. We just have to follow through.”
“Yeah. Follow through.”
She sniffles again, pressing against the huntress for what feels like an eternity. One of her hands comes up and takes Carissa’s cheek again.
“Why are you so good to me?” she asks through half hooded eyes.
Carissa pulls her lips slightly back in playful incredulity.
“What kind of question is that?”
“An honest one.” Medea doesn’t break eye contact.
“I love you. You’re my wife. I need no other reason.”
“Even knowing the monster I was, you still love me so unconditionally?” she asks.
Carissa softens her expression.
“Don’t say that. You were forced into the shape of a monster by the world. I don’t hold any of it against you. This is just what the universe tries to do.”
“How can you be so sure?” she wipes her eyes with her free hand.
“Because it tried to do the same to me. Listen, the Library will eventually try to do the same with others. I want you to remember that the person in my arms right now is not the same broken woman who hardened everything to survive.”
A moment of quiet before Medea responds.
“I think you’re far too forgiving.”
“You’re welcome to keep believing so, but it’s not going to change a damn thing about my love for you.” Carissa rolls her eyes.
She sniffles again, before smiling warmly. It’s a sad little loving smile. The type of smile that comes from someone who has been battered and broken by the world so many times that she no longer fully believes she’s worth such things. But she stares deep into Carissa’s eyes anyway.
An intense gaze that neither is willing to break.
Then, Medea’s face washes over with a glint of something else.
Carissa starts walking towards the Way, carrying the sorceress along.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What, I didn’t do anything?” she asks with the slightest bit of upward lilt in her voice.
“You’re up to something. I know that look in your eyes.”
“You know nothing, Carissa Decimus,” she reaches up and boops the Huntress’s nose, making her momentarily go cross-eyed.
“Uhhuh, sure.”
“You know nothing. Except maybe, you know how to—”
Carissa presses a finger to Medea’s slips, even as a small shiver worms its way down her spine to the tip of her tail.
“We’re still in public, love.”
“As if the kiss and your purring pants was any better.”
“If you say it, you’re going to pay for it.”
“I’m already betting on it.”
“Let’s go find a place under the stars to sit. Then you can make your run at me.”
Medea grins up at Carissa as they vanish into the all-consuming light of the Way.
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