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Blood ran down your face. It clouded your vision, tinted everything a little red. But you stood still. That’s all that mattered. The cleric with her diamonds tucked away, you could bring them back. In the moment, you must admit that your thoughts were less altruistic. You saw Kipperlilly Copperkettle dead on the ground, saw her through your own blood, and you dropped to the ground.
Everything happened so fast. Too fast. Everyone laid dying or dead around you, and you frozen with fear, waited for the giant to leave before you crawled out of the snow covered in blood—your own and your friends’. But time marched on, and you knew the time limit you had here. So you went to her first. Ignored that she was one of the first to die and the entire ordeal seemed to stretch on for an eternity, that maybe, just maybe you could save the others. Ignored the instinctive knowledge that a minute allowed passed. Ignored the gentle cold that prickled at the back of your neck, the breeze that led you to Oisin—still breathing.
Down on your knees, ready to pray and ready to beg, you held Kipperlilly Copperkettle to your chest and a diamond in your hand. The diamond glowed in your hand, crumbled to dust. Kipperlilly stayed dead. You stayed with her corpse. Her body still held the warmth you knew it to have. You held her tighter, buried your face in her neck. Eventually her body grew cold and stiff but you stayed with her corpse.
Jace came back with Porter, and the gentle breeze picked up, raged like a winter storm, whispered that you needed to run. His eyes widened when he got close enough to see you, Kipperlilly in your arms and your sobs echoing around the mountain. Later, you catalogued the way he moved, the way he held himself, compared it against the giant that shattered every bone in Kipperlilly’s body and left the rest of your friends in similar states of shattered. Later, you wondered how he got there so quickly, as if he’d been waiting to stumble upon the massacre and play the hero. But in that moment, you held the corpse of your best friend in your arms.
“Kipperlilly needs help.” You tightened your grip on her. “Everyone needs help. Can he help them? Please help them.” The words came out distorted by sobs and the rage wind around you.
Still, they seemed to understand. Porter went to them one by one, but he took Kipperlilly from your arms first. You held tight, though, until he promised, “I can help her, I can bring her back. Let me bring her back.”
He put a gem in her chest, and you felt something fundamental shatter. But Kipperlilly sat up, an odd red glow fading from her chest and then her eyes. She looked straight at you, “I’m going to tear apart whoever did this.” She pulled you to her. “No one is ever going to get away with hurting you again.”
You didn’t understand why the barbarian teacher sought you out that first day in freshman year. You understood later, when he sank a red gem into your chest, but the Lucy Frostblade that knew to be paranoid around Porter Cliffbreaker was forged in the Mountains of Chaos nearly two years later, and you were just a fourteen year old girl holding her best friend’s hand.
The High-Five Heroes were already established, formalized before the day ended, and you and Kipperlilly remained as inseparable as you had at Oakshield. The day had crawled to a close, but you stuck around late at Kipperlilly’s insistence. She wanted to know more about the kids that had already gotten detention on their first day, and the two of you sprawled out in the courtyard—your head in Kipperlilly’s lap and her hands taking out and then redoing the braids you wore.
“Lucy Frostblade, right?” Above you stood a hulking man, around your parents heights, and an earth genasi. He held out a hand for you to shake.
Before you could even think, Kipperlilly said, “We aren’t doing anything wrong. The vice president said we were allowed to wait for our parents here.” Her words rang biting, with a hint of the angry you knew too well from her. “So if you are here to tell us we are in trouble, you’re wrong.” She spoke fast, barely able to get one word out before she started the next one, and her grip of your hair grew tight enough to sting, just a little.
“Of course not, Miss Copperkettle.” He didn’t pay her much mind, not yet. You couldn’t quite place it back then, couldn’t quite put it together, because every adult in your life so far had been kind and attentive and at least pretended to care. But he looked at her like she was a gnat, tiny and a nuisance and a pest he could crush in his hands if she ever got in his way.
What you knew was the tension in Kipperlilly’s body and a chill that settled in your body and grew colder and colder and colder the more this man stared down at you. You reached out and squeezed her arm. In that moment you wanted nothing more than to drain the anger from her, some ancient warning freezing your blood.
That soothed Kipperlilly. She went back to braiding your hair, but her eyes remained locked on Porter above you.
“I’m Porter Cliffbreaker. Just wanted to introduce myself, us giantkin got to stick together. Right, miss Frostblade?” He held his hand out again, waiting.
And you sat up then, ignored Kipperlilly’s hands moving to your shoulders and trying to keep you down. You wanted this man to leave. Wrong, wrong, wrong buzzed under you skin each moment his eyes remained on you. You took his hand, felt a burst of frost colder than the coldest winter you’ve known blossomed in the palm of your hand.
Porter didn’t react, didn’t even feel it.
“It’s nice you meet you, Professor Cliffbreaker.”
“Same to you. Come to me if you need anything.” His eyes cut to Kipperlilly, you didn’t look back at her but you saw her coiled up like a rattlesnake ready to strike time and time before. It was an afterthought when he added, “And you too, Copperkettle. You’re always welcome to drop in on some barbarian classes.”
Then chaos broke out, Jace Stardiamond ran out and called out to Porter, “Some giant corn blob tried to eat a bunch of freshmen, and Aguefort killed himself in front of them.” No panic tinged his voice, made it sound like an everyday occurrence here at Aguefort.
Porter clenched his fists, his jaw tensed. “Looks like I have to go handle that, I’ll see you girls later, yeah?”
Kipperlilly glared at him as he walked back into the school. Once he was out of sight, she grabbed your hand and pulled her back down next to her. She held your hand, the same one Porter shook, and brought it closer to her face.
For a moment your heart stopped. You thought of Kipperlilly’s lips against the skin of your hand and flushed. You thought of Kipperlilly’s lips more often than you would admit to anyone. But she just held your hand, studied it, and for the first time you felt the heat you would associate with Kipperlilly for years to come. She bit her lip, furrowed her brow, and leaned closer to get a better view. You didn’t even notice the blue that tinged your fingertips now.
“What the fuck did he do to you?”
Ruvina promised an icy cold afterlife. An eternal snow storm, the other spectrum of rage—not the fiery burn of the unnamed goddess and certainly not the scent of rot you learned intimately, but the raging of a winter storm and the burning of frost as tears turned to ice. It was wandering in a storm and finding a hearth, and finding someone to tend it with you.
You imagined death countless times, and imagined the afterlife countless more times. In your visions it was always Kipperlilly at your side, keeping the fire burning. Of course the two of you would die together. Of course your love would tie her to you in the afterlife even if she never particularly believed. (“anything for you, Luce. anything.)
This was not the afterlife you got. It was hot. It was red. It was a loneliness that surrounded you on all sides, thick and suffocating and too much like the wetness of flesh.
You laid dead for over a year. You waded through that horrible horrible place of rot and rage. It'd been too hot. Your skin felt tight.
“I'm sorry.”
For the first time you see your goddess's sister, Ankarna. You felt her rage before, felt her shatterstar tear into your very being. And you saw her in that vision, but even in death you looked towards Kipperlilly, waited for her to do anything to save you.
Ankarna reached out, held your face in her hands. Her warmth reminded you of Kipperlilly. You were so tired of being warm, wanted nothing more than the cold and biting embrace of Ruvina.
“I've been cruel to you, and I hope my sister forgives me one day.”
And with that you woke up, surrounded by the Bad Kids. You didn't know where you were, certainly not in the forest anymore.
You stared into the eyes of Kristen Applebees, saw wide eyed wonder and so much hope your stomach roiled. “My girlfriend is gonna be so pissed you brought me back.” And then darkness overtook you again.
When you woke next it was in a hospital room.
“You and Kipperlilly, huh?” It was Figueroth Faeth that spoke. She'd taken up a guard position near your bed.
It really wasn't the time to be talking about this, you knew. “She kissed me before she-” killed you. It'd been a year now, but it was the last thing you remembered. “It wasn't official or anything.”
“Dude, I used to make out with middle aged men while pretending to be other people. How is your love life more fucked?”
Despite yourself you laughed.
Kipperlilly glared at the Bad Kids.
“Lils, come on, you need to eat something.” You pushed her lunch tray in front of her.
She died and came back just a few days ago. Something, something, something was different about her, about all of them really.
“It's not fucking fair.” She at least seemed to remember her food existed, started to pick at the corn on her tray. “They get to resurrect a fucking god, and we get killed.” She stabbed down at the corn and it splattered everywhere.
You placed a hand on her knee under the table and squeezed. “But you’re here now, that’s all that matters.” And that was all that mattered to you, but you knew Kipperlilly wanted the same attention that the Bad Kids got, wanted to be a hero just like them. “You’ll always be my hero.”
Ivy groaned, threw a bun at you, and Kipperlilly moved a glare that could kill before her death and only grew more violent after it in her direction. “Leave her alone. Stop messing with her.” There was a threat under the words that Ivy understood.
There was a moment before you came back, but just a second, less than a second before you came back, where you saw Kipperlilly.
“Please, please, please don’t be dead.” Because after a year of this you knew better than to think her presence would do anything but hurt you more. “Please, please, please let her come back again.” But you looked at Kipperlilly and saw none of the rage you remembered from your death.
She wasn’t there. Not really. But somewhere similar. where blood and sinew and rage and rot were just as commonplace. Porter shattered on the ground, crushed, and a woman too bright and burning to make out and a woman cut out from the night sky stood above his corpse. There was no satisfaction at the sight. You were still dead. It’d been too long, anyway. You’d always be dead, and you would never escape blood and sinew and rage and rot.
Kipperlilly dropped to her hands and knees. Begged and begged and begged. “Bring her back, please.”
Time did not stop for a sixteen year old girl trying to put herself back together after her only friends ripped her apart. You went back to Aguefort, went through the motions of junior year with everyone’s eyes on you.
This was what Kipperlilly wanted, you thought. Everyone knew the name of the Bad Kids. Everyone knew the name Lucy Frostblade, whispered about you and whispered about her, and all you thought of was Kipperlilly Copperkettle.
There was some error in paperwork that slotted you into the senior cleric classes with Kristen, and Lydia Barkrook no longer questioned it when you trailed into barbarian class with Gorgug and Fig, just slid some snacks in front of you and started her lesson.
“I can’t believe that Aguefort let them come back.” Fig said one lunch, eyes cast to the Rat Grinders across the room.
They were as far away from you as they could be, and the cafeteria was the only place you ever saw them nowadays. You felt Kipperlilly’s eyes on you the entire time. It burned. You were used to the heat of Kipperlilly’s gaze. Your cheeks no longer warmed when her eyes lingered too long.
You knew from Fig that she still worshiped Ankarna, she and Bobby Dawn the only Rat Grinders that stuck with her once Ankarna was restored and redeemed and you were resurrected. She was the only one that watched you.
“I’m pretty sure he gave them extra credit for trying to end the world and all.” Adaine added.
Even before you died you were quiet, always still and somber tucked away in the back of the classroom. That hadn’t changed.
But you spoke up now: “I don’t really mind.” You picked at the corn on your tray. More than anyone else at the table, you understood why they said yes. More than anyone else at the table, you understood why she did it. You met Kipperlilly’s eyes for the first time in over a year.
Your parents paled at the sight of the blue on your hand, and every time it grew a little more, and every time they felt the chill in the air around you now. They sat you down, explained the blessing that Ruvina gave you, but you didn’t see the joy in their eyes that you expected to come with the news of a miracle.
Then they explained the history of House Frostblade, told you about the unnamed goddess, and the frost genasi that Ruvina blessed to help kill the corruption that changed her sister and ultimately her sister herself. A blessing and an omen wrapped up in one.
They found it hard to look at you anymore.
The unnamed goddess showed you her from time to time.
Kipperlilly curled up around your corpse, sobbing. For the first time since spring break, there was no rage. She curled up like a child, no longer coiled like a snake ready to strike. By then, the other Rat Grinders had left, given up on you. But never Kipperlilly.
Porter approached. His words didn’t carry through the blood and sinew and rot and rage around you but you saw him speak. He reached down, avoided brushing against your corpse as he pulled her away.
If your heart still beat, you might’ve felt the rage everyone wanted you to when Porter put his hands on Kipperlilly, remembered the last time he did and remembered the ways she came back wrong, wrong, wrong.
And you saw Kipperlilly stiffen, saw her tears stop, saw the rage fill her once. She broke out of grasp. She slammed her fists into his chest. Rock cracked, and fear overcame you. Everyone else was dead when you saw him, saw his rage turned against you all.
Her words made it through blood and sinew and rot and rage. “You promised me!” Rage and sorrow mingled in her voice, hoarse from sobbing, and hoarse from screaming. “You promised me that she would come back and that she would understand! But she’s dead!”
Her fists collided with stone once more. The fissures grew, and the red around you burned brighter.
Porter said something. You still heard nothing but the ambient noise of a decaying body. The vision ended. You waited for Kipperlilly to die again, waited for her to join you floating in blood and sinew and rage and rot. The sight would kill you a second time, but she’d be by your side again even if you could never reach her. It would be horrible. It would be enough.
She never came.
Kipperlilly hated sleepovers on school nights. She told you that during freshman year when she was still trying to help the party get closer. It’s been a while since the last group sleepover, all of you spread out across the floor of your room or Kipperlilly’s.
Now it was just the two of you, curled up around each other in your bed. You two always stayed at your’s now, Kipperlilly’s room and furniture built for a halfling. She always ended up curled up on her own floor, tangled up in your arms.
“We’re going to be late to school, Lucy.” But she made no move to get out of bed.
You stared into her eyes, searching, searching, searching for something that sparkled in her eyes when they met your’s from time to time, something you only had the courage to name after death. Then you stretched, got out of bed.
“Do you want to help me with my braids?”
Without waiting for an answer, you sat at your vanity, got your hair ties out, and sectioned your hair out into two halves. Before you could start to brush it, Kipperlilly dragged over the step stool made just for her and grabbed the brush out of your hand.
Kipperlilly’s every action was carefully measured. Even with something like this, something that mattered so little and something that mattered so much, she ran the brush thorough your hair carefully. She braided both braids and pinned them up into the crown you wore then in. The heat of her fingertips ghosted against your scalp.
You wanted to lean into the heat but you knew it would mess up Kipperlilly’s work, so you sat up straight.
When she finished the braid, Kipperlilly went over to the closet and came back with two outfits, one for each of you. A red flush crept onto her cheeks as she handed you the clothes. “That’s one of my favorite sweaters. Of your sweaters. I mean.” She grew redder and redder. “You look good in it.”
For the rest of the day, you thought of that moment and the red on her cheeks. For the rest of the day, you felt her eyes linger just a bit more. For the rest of the say, Oisin pretended to gag every time he saw the two of you.
Tragedy hadn’t made you stronger. Tragedy made it harder to get out of bed in the morning. Your parents moved away after your death, but the house stood there just the same. Your bedroom was exactly the same, down to your unmade bed. In the haze of early morning, you woke up and reached out for Kipperlilly and the warmth she always radiated. That always made it easier to get out of bed and bask in the chill of morning air.
Even towards the end she was curled up in your bed, curled up against you. You wondered if she planned your murder here, while you held her to your chest.
Your bedroom was exactly the same, down to the hair brush and ponytails left on your vanity. Every morning you sat there, stared in the mirror at the long grey hair you used to cherish. The braids took so long, took so much effort. And your hair was too long to leave down while going to an adventuring school. One morning you pulled it up into a ponytail, threw up, and told Kristen you would be missing class today.
You brushed your hair, sectioned it into half, each half into thirds, braided your hair, and pinned it into place. Before you died you did this every morning. After the morning, you did this every morning. But now your arms felt stiffer now, and they ached in a way they hadn’t in years.
Eyes closed you almost felt the ghost of Kipperlilly’s hands finishing your braids, not a hair out of place.
Your bedroom was exactly the same, down to Kipperlilly’s clothes hanging in half of your closet. Beside your sweaters and shawls, her skirts and sweater vests were tucked away where they always were. One of your sweaters was missing, one of the few blue ones you owned, and it’s absence bothered you most when you saw Kipperlilly in the same shade.
Each morning you stood in front of the closet, took a deep breath before you opened the doors. Some days you opened it quickly, grabbed clothes at random, and ignored Kipperlilly’s clothes. Today you opened it carefully, as if Kipperlilly herself was hiding in there. You reached for one of her vests, held it close to your chest, pretended you could still smell her. In truth, you couldn’t even really remember. It’d been so long since you held her.
Kipperlilly didn't visit you while you recovered. None of the Rat Grinders did. You doubted the rotating guard of Bad Kids would've let them. But Kipperlilly never let anything stop her.
You still remembered the press of her lips against your own.
Fig hadn't left you alone, even after you were discharged. She called herself a german shepherd, called herself your german shepherd. It was the two of you walking around Elmville when you saw Kipperlilly for the first time since she killed you, since she kissed you.
“Lucy.” Your name sounded wrong in her mouth. It was like a winter storm’s wind before, biting in all the best ways. Now it burned.
She walked towards you, quick. She was always so fast. And you flinched, ready to die a second time.
Fig moved in front of you, the only warmth you could stand nowadays. But not before you saw Kipperlilly break, saw rage leech out and sorrow flood in.
“Stay the fuck away from her. I don't care if everyone thinks you're normal now. Don't even think about talking to her.”
Porter sought you all out after spring break, took you back into the woods. But it wasn’t rats and spiders you were going to kill this time.
You watched his form change. You watched as your worst fears become reality. You watched as the monster that killed your friends came back into existence. He brought you monsters to kill, taught you guys the best ways to slit their throats and listed off vulnerabilities. All you did was think if Jace and Porter discussed your friends and yourself like he discussed the monsters.
Your monster came last, a frost salamander laid down in front of you. Its skin shared a shade of blue with your own. The wind picked up, out of season snow carried down from the Mountains of Chaos. It snarled and spit some ice at you, cold enough to freeze the rest of the Rat Grinders if it had been aimed at them, but you barely felt it. You walked to the monster, placed a hand on its head, and felt it calm. It sensed something in you, something you two shared.
“Go ahead, Frostblade, kill it. ” You heard the threat in Porter’s voice. No one else seemed to, not Kippelilly who saw a threat in something as innocuous as the wave Kristen Applebees sent your way that morning.
But you stared down at a creature that was encrusted with the same frost as your hair. You brought your mace down on its head. Over and over and over again. It was a monster, it was a horrible creature that hunted anything with warm blood in its veins. It was not thinking, not like you.
Everyone left. You trailed behind them. Porter walked beside you. “Make sure you keep up, Lucy. It can get dangerous out here.” His body radiated the warmth of a million suns, a warning, and the answering cold breeze swallowed it up, a warning of its own.
Ahead of you, Kipperlilly stilled for a moment, long enough for Ruben to run into her. But she picked up the pace again, kept her spot leading you all out of the woods.
The Bad Kids graduated. The Rat Grinders graduated. You started your senior year alone. It ended early, your GED mailed to your house a few weeks into the year proper starting. It ended with your stuff packed up, finally, and Kipperlilly’s clothes left in your closet. It ended with you tucked away in the Mountains of Chaos in a small cabin.
Tragedy was supposed to make you stronger. Destiny and a god’s favor was supposed to make you stronger. But you were seventeen years old, and your parents no longer knew how to look you in the eyes, saw only your body dead for nearly a year and still unrotted in the morgue. Tragedy left you alone, no longer an adventurer but just a girl abandoned.
You loved the cold mornings and the colder nights. Every morning you woke up, prayed to Ruvina, and went to a temple dedicated to her under the burning sun of Ankarna. “St. Lucy Frostblade,” one of the other clerics there greeted each day. And it made your skin prickle still, but you never argued the point, just settled down in the kitchens and made soup, or the donation room and mended clothes, or held babies in your arms and asked Ruvina to care for them like she did her sister. You walked home under the stars, thought of Cassandra.
You dreamt one night being sixteen and of blood and sinew and rage and rot and burning and burning and burning while a year stretched out and waking up from it all, still sixteen. (You worried you would always be sixteen, always stuck in the moment Kipperlilly murdered you.) You woke up warm and suffocating and smelling rot in the air. A quick sending to the temple and you had the day to yourself.
No one but your parents and the Bad Kids knew where you ended up. Kipperlilly’s clean handwriting on a letter pinned to your door you stopped in your tracks. You waited for the spike of fear, waited for the part of your brain that remembered Kipperlilly’s dagger in your heart to turn on, waited for you both to be sixteen again. It never came. You grabbed the letter off the door, tucked it away. The dagger was familiar, and you remembered how it felt in your chest. You put it under your pillow.
You slept better that night, dreamt of Kipperlilly’s lips against your against the palm of your hand, and woke with the dagger in your hand.
“Did you hear about the group of adventurers coming up the mountain?” The woman who asked was a devout follower of Ruvina, started her days with the same prayers in the same temple at the same time. “Would you ask Ruvina to grant them the warmth of the hearth each night?”
You imagined a group of kids on spring break. You promised, back with your party slaughtered around you, that you would never let this happen again. “My friends and I came here for our spring break assignment my sophomore year. I understand the hardship waiting for them. Do you know the party’s name?”
“Oh, something childish. I think they kept it after high school? Something about rats.”
And your heart stopped.
She knew you died, knew you came back, knew you helped Ruvina and Ankarna find sisterhood again. But the truth of the Rat Grinders’ involvement wasn’t public knowledge. Kids killed and manipulated and shaped in the image of a corrupted goddess didn’t deserve for the world to know. You knew. The Bad Kids knew. Cassandra and Ankarna knew. That was enough.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
In the decade that passed with you in the Mountains of Chaos, the exploits of the Rat Grinders filtered back to you. You always asked when one of the Bad Kids made their way up the Mountains, wanted nothing more than to believe they learned how to make a mark in the world without a lamb to slaughter. You knew Mary-Ann went on to play Bloodrush professionally. You knew Ruben started a new band, something more folk. You knew Ivy went on to work as a ranger on one of the mountain ranges on the other side of the Mountains of Chaos. You knew Oisin had proposed to Adaine, let him into the cabin while Adaine invited you to the wedding. Kipperlilly followed Ankarna still, came to Fig for guidance every once in a while. That was all you let anyone tell you about her.
You were no longer kids. You were twenty seven, and the Rat Grinders were twenty eight now. Time marched ever forward. You saw the evidence of change, you believed it. But most of the time, you never wanted to see them again.
More letters came. The first few were nailed to the door in the same matter as that very first. There was a drawer dedicated to letters and daggers in the end table near the door. And later a box under your bed you emptied the drawer into whenever it was stuffed to the bring with unread, unopened letters. A few years of that before she started to mail them, and a couple years after Fig showed up for your monthly lunch date—it started as a way to check in and later as a way to bring the congregations of Ruvina and Ankarna closer once more and later just as an excuse to shoot the shit—with a letter tucked away in her bag.
You saw it before she brought it up, plucked it out of her bag, and saw the same crisp clean handwriting you still knew so well. With it held close to your chest, you left the table, tucked it away in the drawer.
“Can you tell her I don’t read them?” Because even years later you couldn’t bring yourself to welcome her back into your heart, even a little.
“I’m pretty sure she already knows that.” Fig looked at you with a kindness and love you knew well by now. “Do you want me to ask her to stop writing them?”
Something in your chest seized at the thought. You remembered the dagger sinking into your chest. You remembered Kipperlilly carving and carving and carving. You remembered the burning heat of death. “No.” You said it too quickly. “It’s alright.”
Adaine and Oisin’s wedding reminded you so much of the cafeteria when you were seventeen and the Rat Grinders were eighteen. You’d all grown past the protectiveness that meant the Bad Kids rarely left your side, but you were still seated with them. There was no more glaring across the venue at the Rat Grinders, no comments about how fucked up it was that they still haunted the halls.
Instead it was Fig’s hand on your elbow, and Ayda on your other side. It was Fabian asking if you wanted to avoid them for the night, and the shake of your head. It was Mary Ann with a keychain plushie you bought her a decade and a half ago on her handbag. It was Ruben strumming a song you remembered him writing back in freshman year. It was Oisin and Adaine pulling you into a hug.
It was Kipperlilly’s wave from across the room, never taking a step in your direction.
The night ended with a battle, some enemy of the Rat Grinders or the Bad Kids or both deciding to take the opportunity to wipe them out while they were all in one place. It felt almost nostalgic.
For the first time in a while, you felt like a teenager, remembered the adrenaline rush and drive to change the world that led you to Aguefort in the first place. Everything felt right for a moment when the battle came to a close, you looked at Adaine and the wicked grin on her lips, and Ivy slung an arm around your shoulders.
“I can’t believe I forgot how good you are in a battle, Frostblade.”
It only lasted a moment before you looked around for Kipperlilly, a habit even a decade couldn’t break. She was a body on the floor,and you moved before Buddy had the chance to even process the sight, and her blood was so warm when you fell to your knees, and your cry was so loud when you couldn’t find a pulse.
“No, no, no, no.” You said it like a prayer as you reached for the diamonds you always carried in now. Her heart started beating again, but all you could think of is that this is the second time you cradled her corpse to your chest and asked Ruvina to bring her back.
She took a breath, opened her eyes, looked up at you, and wrapped her arms around you for the first time since you were both sixteen.
You felt sick as you walked up the path further into the Mountains of Chaos. The cold comforted normally, a reminder of your goddess. Kipperlilly held your hand as you hiked up, and normally the warmth of her hand in your own comforted you too, a reminder of the fires that warmed in the endless cold nights. Neither comforted you then. It felt like a warning, an echo of what might be lost if you didn’t turn back now Anxiety gnawed at you.
There had been an uncomfortable buzzing in the back of your skull since you got the assignment. You felt the cold bite you in ways it never had before, swore you felt Ruvina’s hand in the hand Kipperlilly wasn’t holding. Something pulled you back. Something begged you to leave now.
But you tried to focus on Kipperlilly’s hand, on the weight of it in your own. Evidently, she noticed something was wrong.
“Guys, let’s take a break! We need to stay on top of our game.”
She didn’t wait for everyone else to slow down before she pulled you to a fallen tree. The two of you sat down and looked into your eyes. “What’s wrong, Lucy?”
“I'm nervous. Something just feels wrong about this.” You admitted.
“Why?” She tilted her head back, held your gaze and you saw something, something, something shining in her eyes. “It's me and you in this, we can do this. We can do anything together.” She brought your hand to her lips, pressed a quick kiss to it.
Oisin and Ivy stayed quiet for once, no snarky comment on the tip of their tongues. Maybe they felt the same impending doom.
“You look so fucking cool now, Lucy.” Excitement rang out in Kipperlilly’s voice as you and the High-Five Heroes trekked out into the forest.
“I have to say, it’s nice not to be the only blue one in the party now.” Oisin chimed in.
Ivy shoved him just enough to knock him off balance. “Don’t be such a dweeb.”
After your magic was depleted and when everyone was exhausted, you sat down at the lake, looking out at the water. Kipperlilly sat beside you, leaned her head against your chest. You ignored Ivy’s groan and Ruben’s call of “Can you two just started dating already?” went similarly ignored.
Kipperlilly flipped them off but kept her head where it laid and wrapped her arm around you when she finished flipping them off.
It was all commonplace by now. You and Kipperlilly danced around each other. One of the other party members would crack a joke or two at your expense to piss Kipperlilly off, and she retailated with anger and then grew more affectionate with you. You pretended, every time, that it didn’t fuck with your heart.
“Do you guys want to go swimming?” Ivy asked, and you knew that if you turned around you’d see her already down to her underwear and was ready to jump in. It only took Oisin’s hum of approval before they rushed in, accompanied by Reuben and maybe Mary Ann on a good day.
Today was a good day. It left you and Kipperlilly there on the shore.
The lake made your skin crawl, the water glimmering with something only you saw. You never ventured in, and Kipperlilly stuck to your side.
So, the two of you sat there, looking out at your friends laughing and fooling around. You pulled Kipperlilly closer.
Kipperlilly burned brighter than the sun, and you were the snow that reflected it back. Classes were done for the year, and Kipperlilly brought you out to Lake Shimmerstone to celebrate. You two sat there, looking out at the lake. It conjured memories of the day at the lake back in freshman year, when you guys were still the High-Five Heroes and before everyone else knew the embrace of death.
You pulled Kipperlilly closer to yourself. In the years you knew her, the two of you held each other. You imagined a future where you held her countless more times, where you woke up with her in your arms every morning. It was impossible to know this was the last time you would two held each other before blood and sinew and rage and rot. But for now, everything felt right, right, right for the first time since you cradled Kipperlilly’s corpse in your arms back in the Mountains of Chaos.
At least it did until Kipperlilly broke the silence.
“Porter said you need to change your god, for next year.” Kipperlilly said it with the confidence of a child still sure of the world. “I already have the papers submitted.”
Kipperlilly, tucked under your arm, seemed to burn with rage as she spoke, and you felt the tense she carried. You swore you heard the raging wind of a winter storm. Ruvina’s voice carried in cold wind whispered to run. You tried to listen, pulled away from Kipperlilly and stood up.
“What do you mean you submitted the papers? I didn’t fill anything out.”
Kipperlilly stood when you did, quick as ever. “It’s for the best, Lucy! I had to do it. You have to do it.” Her voice grew louder and louder with each word. “He is tired of waiting for you to make up your mind! He’s going to get rid of you if you don’t start to understand.” She reached for you.
“What does that even mean, Lils?” You took a step back, the water around your ankles now. “Are you going to let him kill me?”
“You let him kill the rest of us! You couldn’t stop him. How am I supposed to?”
The truth laid out in front of you both, acknowledged. “We can stop him”
One step forward. A matching step backward. Then she lunged towards you, tackled you into the swallows of Lake Simmerstone. It wasn’t deep enough to drown, but the water buffeted your face with each pull of the current.
Something, something, something simmered in her eyes. She pinned your wrists to the silt and sediment. “I can’t let him kill you.” She pressed her lips to yours, let go of one of your wrists.
You kissed her back, even as she sank her teeth into your bottom lip. Of course you kissed her back. Even if you imagined your first kiss as something dripping in syrup, a gentle press of lips after a heartfelt love confession. But you always imagined it with Kipperlilly, this was close enough. Even as the water around you froze in warning, you never wanted to do anything other than this again.
Her dagger carved into your chest before the kiss ended.
You were left in the water, bleeding out, when the rest of the Rat Grinders made it to Lake Shimmerstone. Your head fell to the side as your gaze followed Kipperlilly. She left the dagger in your heart as she walked up to them.
“What the fuck, Kipperlilly?” Ivy or Oisin or Ruben called out. You weren't sure anymore. “You were supposed to wait for the rest of us before you went all psycho lesbian.”
“Drop it. She was going to run. I did what I had to do.”
You wanted to reach out, rub her back until the tense left her form. Instead you opened your mouth, tried to call for help but your tongue was lead and the glimmering water of the lake filled your mouth.
“I think she’s still alive, babe. Gonna leave your girlfriend to drown?”
Someone walked to you, bent down to pick up your mace. You knew it was Kipperlilly when she tilted your head back to the sky. You saw blonde hair, strands escaping that impeccable high ponytail.
“It’ll be alright, Luce. You just need to come back. Everything will be alright.”
She closed your eyes and brought your mace down into your skull.