Fantasy DIFFERENT BODIES ⋮ SAME SOUL | ( *starboob && syntra )

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Okay. Okay. So maybe this whole "talking shit out" shit isn't all that bad. Like, the world didn't end. Neither herself nor Inna started World War fucking III. To her knowledge the earth is still turning, she can see that the sun is still shining, and hear all the birds still chirping. That's pretty neat, she thinks. Obviously, people like Liora Trinh do not get nervous or weird about being honest, but around Inna sometimes she does worry about saying the right things. Which is totally different than being scared of talking things out for fear of getting shut down because that's all that's ever happened to her in the past. She had not felt any of that at all when she admitted all those things to Inna. Nope, her heart is beating super fast because its just concerned with making sure she says the right thing to make the blonde feel better, because Inna important to her. Even if nothing she had said had been particularly incriminating, she does take great care in trying to care for her companion and does not want to ruin any of this. It feels fragile, somehow. Like she doesn't know exactly how to take care of it and each step she takes feels as though she could unknowingly set off a minefield. She isn't sure how she would handle ruining her connection to Inna a second time. Ironic as it is, given her state, Inna has become something of an anchor for her. Even if the blonde hardly ever makes any sense and doesn't understand that it's not socially acceptable to eat your own kind, there's something about her presence that provides Liora some relief. Maybe it's just knowing that Inna is back by her side and that she's been given a rare second chance to make up for everything.

So, yeah, it's nice not feeling threatened after being honest with Inna. Even if she had not been able to tell her about E-keysmash living in her head rent free, she still at least admitted that something had happened and that felt... good. Somehow, she feels less lonely and closer to Inna. That thought alone almost makes the woman smile. So while they drive towards Inna's home, wherever it is located in this large ass fucking country, she steals more looks at the blonde and encourages her observations with the clouds––weird as they are. Though maybe she does find it flattering that Inna sees so much of her in the clouds as well.

When they pull up to what Liora can only describe as the world's most depressing village, she starts to understand the blonde more just based on where she grew up. Like, just being here is increasing her sadness by ten fucking percent. Though she tries to keep her judgments to herself, her body language clearly shows her disgust with how tightly she crosses her arms and her ever present frown. "So this... This is where you grew up, huh?" she comments, looking around the rows of identical grey houses and wondering how some of them are still standing given how decrepit they look on the outside. This is definitely not the rich gated suburb that Liora grew up in. Not that she expected Inna to come from wealth––definitely not after looking at her bank statements when she had hacked the blonde's computer some time ago––but maybe she also expected something different. Less soul-sucking. 'Okay, this is fine. I think Sol told me that places like this are real.'

With Inna sounding something close to excitement, Liora does not do anything to rain on that parade. (If only she could bring more of that out.) She looks at the house and, again, keeps her commentary to herself. Well, until that ugly fucking step-sister looking bitch pops her head out the window and tosses a bottle at Inna. (And, no, Liora doesn't think to think that this woman can share any genetic material with Inna. She assumes this woman is an old neighbor or something. Like, Inna is a certifiably attractive. It was one of the first things that Liora ever noticed about the blonde when they had first met. Anyone that can fucking see knows this as an undeniable fact. The bottle thrower, on the other hand? Liora would sooner eat her own vomited up breakfast than get anywhere close to her. So she doesn't exactly see the resemblance.)

As if second nature, Liora steps slightly in front of her companion and looks up at the assailant. "Excuse the fuck out of you? I'm not fucking trashy and––" another bottle comes flying out the window and Liora just barely dodges it, "Hey! Don't make me fucking destroy your house!"

"I said fuck off––I got a whole bin of bottles and I'm about to run out of fucking plastic. Leave now or deal with the fucking cops." Another bottle flies from the window and this time, Liora swats it away before gathering some rocks from the ground. Because, fine, if this woman wants to be a fucking bottle hurling bitch then Liora will do her one better! However, Liora doesn't even aim for the woman and instead aims for the windows to the home, breaking each one with a satisfying shatter. Not exactly diplomatic, but, hey, she fucking started it!

"H-hey! You'll pay for this you bitch! Leave it to fucking Inna––"

Whatever she was going to say about Inna is lost to the world, unfortunately, because Liora is suddenly inside of the house and has the ugly woman in a fucking headlock. "Don't say shit! About! My friend!" she shouts, shoving the woman halfway out the window while taking one of her flailing arms and twisting it painfully behind her back. "Now let us in––we shouldn't be too fucking long and if you call the fucking cops, I will personally make sure that you fucking regret that decision. Got it, bitch?" Rapidly and through tears, the uggo nods her head, begrudgingly agreeing. Without letting go of the ugly, Liora pokes her head out of the window, "Okay, Inna, you can come inside now and look for your... phylactery or whatever. This bitch said it's fine."

 

[Syntra]

"Ohhh!" Inna clapped, with all the enthusiasm of a child who was about to unwrap her fucking Christmas presents. "And she seemed so adamant about not letting me inside, too. Is this the power of diplomacy?" One of these days, she'd have to ask Liora how this shit worked-- like, the blonde had heard something about using words to get people to do what you wanted them to do, but that honestly sounded fake to her. Like??? Words were just hot fucking air that came out of your mouth, man! As far as she was aware, you couldn't fucking buy anything with them, nor could you sell them to the highest bidder. So, how come that they meant anything at all, huh? This whole shit-ass society revolved around money, money, money, and this was poking holes into that theory! ...unless diplomacy was about promising people cash, and then not delivering on it. Hmm, hmm. Didn't they have a different word for it already? Something like, dunno, fucking fraud? Eh, who cared! Synonyms were a thing, you see, and if the world was going to be this goddamn confusing about it, then Inna could do that, too. Like, she was part of the world, wasn't she? The last time the blonde had checked, she was an owner of the Corporeal FormTM, and that made her part of the Community of Living. Didn't that mean she fucking got to enforce her own ideas from time to time as well? Like, Inna felt that there had to be some benefit to having to pay taxes, and wear clothes, and follow all the complicated fucking steps of this ridiculous humanity tango!

"Diplomacy!" the uggo spat out, as if that was a curse word. (And, considering the practices of Inna's family? To her, perhaps it was. The ex-demon's memories may have been a little blurry, but she did remember certainly details distinctly-- such as, you know, the method through which they had used to decide who would get the biggest pizza slice. And, yeah, if you'd guessed 'fist fight,' you won the first fucking prize!) "I swear, Inna, what's your goddamn problem? Wasn't it enough that you ran off with our money? You fucking shattered my trust, and now you return to have your bitch of a friend shatter my skull, too?!" ...oookay, that was a little dramatic, considering that, to her knowledge, most humans just didn't possess the strength to pull off something like that, though Inna could understand why she was so bitter. Like, being territorial was pretty much the demonic modus fucking operandi! Humans sharing this trait filled her with the hope that, one day, they could all hold hands and dance around rainbows and... and shit. (Unless, of course, the demons succeeded in annihilating humankind-- that could, uh, kinda bury those plans as well.)

"If I fucking wanted to kill you, Zarya, I would have done it ages ago. It's not like it's hard to put a bullet in someone's brain! I'm just gonna go look for my phylactery, and then I'll disappear from your life once again."

"Phyl... what?" the woman frowned. "I have no fucking idea what it is, but it insults me. Is it some kind of parasite? We have no fucking parasites in this house!"

"No, it's... I don't know what it is, either," Inna admitted. "But I assume it'll call out to me when I see it." Hmm, hmm. If she was a phylactery, where the fuck would she have hidden herself?

"Great," Zarya rolled her eyes, "now she's fallen for some esoteric bullshit, too. I always fucking knew you losing your mind was just a matter of time!"

'Inna,' something whispered her name, oh so faintly. 'Inna, I'm right here. Can't you see me?'

"Uh, no?" Inna narrowed her eyes. "Of course I can't fucking see you. I thought it was obvious, since I'm not picking you up and... not eating you, or whatever the hell I am supposed to be doing with you."

'Oh, child,' the voice said, infinite sadness dripping from its words. 'So far you've strayed from your home! You may be standing here now, yes, but your heart hasn't visited it for a long, long time. Now wonder you can't find it.'

"What the fuck do you mean?" she demanded an explanation. (Just, ugh. Why the fuck did everyone speak in fucking riddles? Somehow, this seemed to be a frustration she was familiar with, because Inna felt right at home with her indignation. ...heh, home. Get it? Get it?!)

Zarya watched the whole scene unfold with a mix of astonishment and something that... also appeared to be concern? Some mutated version of it, though, because she also laughed. "Sooo, you are like, her nurse, or something? Or some kinda bodyguard they assign to clinically insane fuckers? Man, I thought you were fucking her 'cause you seem to be just her type, but I guess not. How much do they pay you for having to deal with her, hm?"

'You need an anchor,' the entity whispered. 'The one to whom you've given your heart can provide it. She can help you see who you are-- she can make you remember, in one way or another.' Well, that was...amazingly fucking unhelpful, actually. "Liora," Inna turned to her companion, obviously not in a very good mood, "did I happen to give you my heart? Like, some suspicious-ass voice claims I gave it to someone, and I don't think I would have given it to anyone else. Do you remember where it fucking is? I think I need to find it in order for the phylactery to reveal itself, or something. It, um, wasn't very clear." Casually, the blonde folded her arms over her chest. "And, oh! You are also supposed to provide some fucking anchor, in case you do own my heart. Where do they sell anchors, though? Or," she gasped, "are you secretly a sailor? Man, I can't fucking believe you've never told me!" Because Liora in a shirtless vest, smelling of gunpowder and sea, with her hair blowing in the wind as she barked commands at her underlings... that was, ah, an interesting mental image. Now, if only Inna remembered what to do with those!

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Wow. Plot twist of the fucking century is definitely finding out that fugly, also known as Zarya, is in fact related to Inna. Maybe she had been married into the family? (Oh, and that minor detail that Inna stole from her family and ran away? It doesn't really bother Liora. And why would it? Like, everyone knows that family is not fucking trustworthy. Only chumps believe that their own family wouldn't turn their backs on them in order to make them strong or whatever. (Ugh, Liora isn't really bitter about that at all.) Anyway, if Inna's family didn't want their money stolen then they shouldn't have been so naïve. It's pretty resourceful of Inna to have found her way out of this shithole village.)

Mostly, while Inna searches for her magic soul GPS, Liora does some casual eye snooping through the house. It's interesting peering into her life like this. She had never really thought of the blonde's life before England––not that she assumed Inna appeared like some freshly birthed Greek goddess one day and decided to be, like, Russian in the middle of a xenophobic metropolis. No, that would be silly and Liora Trinh is not silly. She just had never considered it before. Not thoroughly, anyway. So everything about this encounter comes as a shock to her, and yet it also provides so much context that Liora feels closer to Inna. Different as they are, she sort of understands complicated family dynamics.)

"What?!" Liora exclaims, in response to the accusation that she's some mere registered psychiatric nurse and not a full on psychiatrist! (Not that she'd want to be a fake kind of doctor––like, even being a dentist would be better than being accused of being a psychiatrist.) She shoves Inna's... Zarya away from her, clearly upset and also not trying to think about that last comment either. (You know, the one that suggests Inna might be into her because she's her type or something. Like, wow. What the fuck. Why is it suddenly getting so hot? It's not like this is really news to Liora. Not that she's vain or anything, but, like, yeah, Inna did use to like her. So clearly, at some point, Inna must have found her attractive! Especially with how enthusiastically she used to receive those kisses. 'Focus, Liora. Get back on track––let's find this phylactery thing and get away from this fugly bitch. I swear I am going to throw up.') "Take that the fuck back! That's so fucking rude, you dumb bitch!"

Liora is about ready to throw down once more with Inna's most hideous ugly step sister, but then the blonde completely catches her fucking off guard with that fucking implication. 'What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck?!' Her brain is on a helpless cycle of swears while her face lights up like a stop light. Like, she doesn't fucking get what that's supposed to mean and suddenly her throat feels dry. "What the––" she coughs, "fuck?" She pounds her chest with a fist and clears her throat, trying to get rid of the sandy feeling in her mouth. 'Jesus fucking Christ, why did she say that?' Not that it's difficult to figure out why Inna had said that at all and while Liora does look completely scandalized, she isn't embarrassed in a disgusted way. She's embarrassed in a caught out there kind of way; like, she's been trying to get rid of her feelings for Inna since the start of her demonic phase, but shit like this makes it hard to fucking keep her Feelings for Inna in their respective fucking lockbox! "Ah, shit..." she mutters, covering her hands with her face.

"Oh..." Zarya starts, then her eyes widening, "Oh! So you are fucking!"

Yeah, Liora wants to die, but she won't. The Creator has not been that kind to her yet so she senses she will just have to swim through this wave of fucking mortification. Oh, well! At least she has tons of fucking experience with that thanks to mother dearest. Anyway, with her hands still covering her face she does try to think about where else Inna might have placed her heart. 'Maybe in a Pokémon card?' But, no, even if that would not surprise her, she doesn't think Inna is that dumb. Or she hopes she's not. And, yeah, maybe she does like the idea that Inna had given her heart to her, but she's just not sure if she ever actually did that? Like, Liora would kind of think she would have realized if there was a literal or symbolic gifting of Inna's heart to her. "No, no––I'm not a fucking sailor that's also fucking insulting," she says, though her tone isn't sharp or angry. It's only matter of fact and, really, she's just using this to buy herself some more time to think about how to respond appropriately to all of this. She doesn't want to accidentally offend her companion.

"I don't think I have your heart, though?" she decides to go with gentle honesty, because that seems to be their new trend and she kind of likes it. It's much easier than trying to remain guarded and cautious. "I mean, that's really, really sweet... but I don't recall that happening? I mean, we weren't really... even together, so I'm not sure." To Liora, at least, she would think this would have happened during their three minute relationship and given that there's not much to remember, she knows it didn't! ... Still, she doesn't think Inna is just saying this, so maybe she should try and see if she has Inna's heart? Or her anchor? 'Jesus fucking Christ...' "But, I mean... I can try thinking about what your anchor would be."

So, assuming she does, somehow, have Inna's heart––what anchor is she supposed to provide? Like, she knows this is more metaphorical than anything else so what metaphoric anchor would Inna need in order to find her phylactery? Hmm. Maybe this is a Vie and Ivy parallel thing? Those two used to have their little rituals, now that she thinks about it, so what rituals do she and Inna share that could serve as an anchor? ...To be honest, Liora is not an easy person to start silly little rituals with so her mind is pretty blank trying to link this to Vie and Ivy. At least in the vein of rituals. So if not that, then what else could it be? It could be more directly connected to Inna and her Inna-ness. Especially if they are here to help the blonde find her way back home. So when she thinks of Inna, what comes to mind? Her smile, that's first, duh. Her absolute commitment to never taking anything seriously. Her warmth. Her unique way of identifying patterns. But really, what makes her Inna is how she feels like...

Hmm, well, maybe that could work?

"Um, come here, Inna," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, cheeks stained red, and with her arms wide open––like she's about to give away a free fucking hug? Liora Trihn? (Well, yeah, because... because Inna's arms have always felt like home to her and maybe the same is true for Inna. If her phylactery is related to her home, then maybe, just maybe, this is her anchor? God, she really hopes this is otherwise she is going to be so embarrassed!)

 

[Syntra]

"Oh?" Inna's face fell, so much that, in that moment, her photo could very well illustrate the term 'depression' in some medical fucking dictionary. "Do you think I fucking lost it, then? Man oh man, that's just so me! Next time, I'm going to lose a lung, or a thumb, or some other bodily part that sure as fuck seemed less detachable than it really is. ...wait! Does that mean I can lose an eye, too?" Oh shit, shit, shit! The previous Inna liked gaming, the ex-demon knew, and supposedly, you needed some pretty good eye to hand coordination for that. So, how the fuck could you coordinate your hand with your eye if you didn't even have the aforementioned eye? To her, it seemed like a glaring fucking plot hole! Also, what if the Old!Inna returned, kicked her out of her body and resumed her control over it? A shit ton of things would be out of place, that was for sure, and absurdly enough, that made Inna feel guilty. Like yeah, this mortal shell did technically belong to her, but it just didn't feel that way, you know? If such a scenario occurred, it would have been like... like agreeing to babysit a friend's cat, only to dye its fur pink. Except that, you see, it would actually be that friend's fucking body and those changes would be irreversible!!!

"I don't wanna lose an eye," Inna said, her gaze full of panic. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need it, and I got this body in such a nice shape, too. Gotta fucking take care of it, right? Please, please, Liora, tell me how to avoid any... eye-related accidents."

"...a good thing you don't have to worry about losing your fucking brain," Zarya rolled her eyes. "That ship has sailed already, huh? I fucking told you not to drink that homemade vodka, Inna. No safety procedures make for dead brain cells!"

"But, if we weren't together..." Weren't they, really? Again, Inna's memories did seem sorta hazy, kinda like a grainy movie that kept rewinding itself in the background of her mindscape, but she could swear that they, in fact, had been together, at some point. (The moment was fleeting, but wasn't that true for life in general? One day, you were kissing you friend, and the other, she was stabbing you in the fucking back. Still, that didn't make those kisses un-happen! Like, as far as the blonde knew, nobody fucking possessed the kind of technology that could rewrite the goddamn history. There had been no fairytale wedding for them, no happily ever after, but fuck, for a few sweet moments, she really, really had been hers. ...unless Liora didn't see it that way, of course. Oh well! Inna could, um, go cry in the corner about it, once she remembered how tears fucking worked. Eyes produced moisture constantly, right? Increasing the rates shouldn't be that hard!)

"...if we weren't together, then where am I supposed to search for this shit? I don't think I can locate all the people I've had flings with." That would be a loooong-ass list, for one, and Inna was also reasonably sure some of them had died already. ...which, fuck. What if one of those bitches had kicked the bucket with her heart in her possession? Had she left it at the heavenly gates, or had she sold it to one of those weird-ass angels in exchange for... uh, free massage vouchers? 'Cause the blonde could see that being true for several of the chicks she had been involved with!

But, as always, Liora seemed to have a solution. Curious, Inna stepped forward, which... wow. The wave of warmth really was something, you know? Not just the physical warmth emanating from Liora's arms, but the warmth that sprang from her heart, too, and... oh. Oh! So she hadn't fucking lost it, despite her expectations. (All this time, it had been inside of her chest-- a shrivelled flower, weak but not dead, that waited, patiently, for rain to resurrect it. Gracefully, Liora provided it, and now the garden was back in full bloom! ...was that what it felt like, being human? If so, then Inna could sorta understand, really, why people made such a fucking fuss about it. Suddenly, all those folk tales in which the heroes had given up great powers in favor of retaining their humanity didn't seem as stupid! Just... being able to reach after that feeling, and whenever they wanted to at that? With only their Favorite Human as its generator, too? Seemed like a sweet fucking deal, honestly.)

"Ah. Um. I dunno whether it helped, but this sure is nice. Can you do that more often?" Except that it did help, as Inna realized shortly after-- a small, tear-shaped crystal materialized in her hand, translucent and shiny. Well, aside from the black crack in the middle, at the very least? Pretty fucking ominous, if you asked her. Like, certain Symbols of DoomTM were universal-- such as, you know, your alarm clock blaring in the morning, police sirens and suspicious stains. "Wow. I, um, guess that's it?"

'Yes, Inna. Good job. You found me! Finally, after all these years, you've returned back to me. Now, do what you need to do. Do what Fate asks of you.' ...which was what, actually? Damn, these dumbass fucking things should have come with a manual!

"What do I do with it now, though? Do I like, eat it, or something?"

'No, Liora,' a different voice whispered into her ear. It was... the Mistress? Yes, yes, that sweet, calming cadence must have belonged to her. 'That cannot happen! It's been tainted, as you can see. Desecrated. Somehow, it's turned into a demon magnet, and... I don't think it can be saved, at this point. Not in its entirety, anyway. Shatter it! That's what you must do, if you still wish to save your friend. The good parts of it will find their way back to Inna, for they wish to become one with her. Free them of the demonic influence!'

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Oops. Liora hadn't meant to shatter Inna by telling her that she didn't have her heart! It's just that she genuinely does not think that she has it. It's not something she thinks she would have collected without noticing. Even if in metaphor alone, she figures she would have known that Inna's feelings for her were that deep and it's not that she doubts Inna's feelings (save for the dramatic use of the l-word), it's just she has a hard time believing she really meant that much to her friend. Past lives or not, that just seems too much like a shitty fairytale and everyone knows that fairytales stop at happy endings and never reveal all the shitty skeletons hiding in the fucking closet! So, yeah, she really doesn't think she has her heart. Yet, she also wishes that maybe she hadn't told Inna that even if she is trying to be honest. She just looks so crushed and Liora hates when her friend looks like that. "Oh, shit––I'm sorry, Inna. I didn't mean to make you sad. I just don't know if," 'what we had was that deep' doesn't seem like something you should say to a distraught person who believes they have given you their heart, so she settles for, "we made it to that stage in our relationship, you know?"

"A-anyway," she hurriedly adds, not wanting to spend too much time on Inna's distress, "I don't think you'll lose your eyes or anything like that. That's not how that works. I mean, you can lose your eyes, but it wouldn't be the same as how you might have misplaced your heart. The heart thing is more... metaphorical, y'know?" she explains, figuring that Inna Queen of Metaphors Orlovskaya might understand that. Though she does not count on it. That could be something that is still missing from the blonde, after all. You just never know what is or isn't there with her––sometimes things come back randomly and then leave just as quickly, but it's still worth trying.

"And you," Liora turns towards Zarya, pointing her finger at her like an accusatory teacher, "can shut the fuck up. Inna's brain is fine. I don't fucking get it and maybe she did drink too much homemade vodka, but she's perfectly fucking fine. Don't fucking talk about what you don't understand."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you also the same breed of stupid as this dumbass?" Zayra shoots back, hands on her hips.

"N-no!" Liora shouts, clearly defensive, because if there is one thing Liora hates, it's being called stupid! Which she obviously isn't! Like, graduating summa cum laude from an ivy league fucking university is not handed out to just anyone! (Except for all those legacy students, who are not all that different than Liora when you consider that she, too, is a legacy child. Oh, well! Not like Liora is going to spend time getting caught up in the finer details.) Anyway, she would absolutely spend the rest of the afternoon arguing with Inna's ugly step-sister, but then the blonde is in her arms and all her prior worries and agitations melt away. Her arms fit around Inna like a blanket and she perhaps squeezes her tighter than necessary, but honestly? It's been a damn minute since she has allowed the blonde this close to her, willingly, and hugging her reminds her why she cares so damn much about Inna. Coupled with her embrace, a flood of memories push through her mind of all the other embraces they've shared––starting with when Inna saved her from being swallowed by the kraken down to when she saved Inna from drowning in that stupid fucking lake. All of those moments are ones she could have made a home in. Her cheek brushes against Inna's own and she buries her nose into those blonde locks, subtly memorizing her scent. 'Even after all this she still feels the fucking same to me...'

When she pulls back, though still keeping her arms around Inna's waist, her cheeks are still bright and rosy and her eyes seem to sparkle in Inna's radiance. "Oh, it didn't?" she asks, clearly at a loss then for how to retrieve Inna's magic object. "I, um, yeah... I guess we can probably hug more. I'm not opposed," she guesses, after a minute of thought. Yeah, being this close to Inna is hard for her, but where it's terrifying and overwhelming it is also safe and warm. So she doesn't mind perhaps increasing the frequency of touches she has provided now that she's crossed this boundary. It might help with the fear––after all, she's pretty sure overexposure is how you desensitize yourself to shit.

As the tear drop object floats in the air like some video game reward after defeating some fucking boss, Liora stares at it quizzically. 'So this is her fucking phylactery,' because for some reason Liora assumed it would have been less impressive, to be honest. And that is not a slight against Inna, she just assumed it would have been some household object that held significant meaning or something. "No, I don't think you eat it, Inna. Not everything is edible, remember? You need to..." her voice trails off as the Mistress's voice fills her ears with her wisdom. 'Shatter it,' she repeats to herself looking at the teardrop. Somehow, that doesn't feel right to Liora. She cannot explain it, but it feels as though every alarm bell is going off in her head to ignore the Mitress's advice and yet... The Mistress has not led her astray so far––in fact, she has become someone Liora has grown to trust. (And perhaps even deeper than that, Liora has come to see her as a pseudo-mother. To make up for the one she never had. A warm, but firm hand to guide her as opposed to the harsh woman who only had frowns and criticisms to offer her children. No, the Mistress is much more loving than her cold mother.)

"I think... I think it's been tainted. See that crack?" she asks, pointing to the black corruption at the center of the tear. "I don't think it's supposed to be like that. The Mistress says it might be unfixable." Though she fails to explain that she's hearing the Mistress right now. (Zarya's expression, however, suggests that she has not missed the fact that these two seem to have a mistress.)

"What are you waiting for, my child?" the Mistress asks, her voice warm and encouraging, "The longer you leave her phylactery in this state, the worse the corruption will become and the less of Inna's purity will exist. To stop the spread, it must be destroyed."

Slowly, the woman nods her head and reaches for the teardrop, holding it in the palm of her hand. 'A demon magnet, huh?' she thinks, spinning the teardrop in her palm. With her heart pounding and heat flaring through her body, she doesn't really know what to do or who to listen to. She can't really ask Inna what she thinks since Inna sort of doesn't have many opinions these days, and Declan has been rather quiet. For some reason, she assumes the owl would tell her if shattering the phylactery is a bad idea but since she seems quiet... that must be good, right? (Wrong.) It's not like Declan is being kept silent or anything like that. (Wrong.) Like, she'd probably notice that, right? (Wrong.) "I'm... I'm going to shatter this. That, um, is supposed to stop this from getting worse, okay?"

Still, Liora hesitates. Like, why come all this way to destroy this? The demon queen also hadn't seemed to want Inna to reunite with this object, now that she thinks about it. Well, E-keysmash sort of made it sound like she couldn't wait for Inna to return to her home but that had all been a ruse to get them to crash before reaching Inna's childhood home. So the demon queen doesn't want her reunited with this, and the Mistress also seems to want to keep Inna from this. Yet E-keysmash and the Mistress are diametrically opposed (she assumes), so why would they want the same thing? Sweat begins to bead around her browline as her hands close over this object, applying more and more force even with the uncertainty screaming in her chest to stop. But... the thing is? Liora doesn't trust herself to make this decision on her own. So she goes with the masked woman who she does trust.

The teardrop shatters in Liora's hands and a bright beam of energy shoots up from where the object once had been, into the ceiling, effectively blowing the rooftop off the decrepit home.

 

[Syntra]

"Hmm. Will that really work, though? Like... I don't know," the blonde shrugged, "but shattering something and making it better kinda seem to be antonyms to me. If you want to repair a chipped mug, you don't fucking drop it, do you?" Unless, of course, you were actually meant to do exactly that, and the whole world had been fucking lying to her. Which, wow, wow, wow! Using that analogy, maybe Inna should have flung herself off some stairs-- the impact could have re-organized the goddamn mess inside of her cluttered head, and maybe... maybe they wouldn't have needed to undertake this trip at all. She would have been better, you know? Liora wouldn't have been reduced to tears, and she wouldn't have felt as if she needed to lie to her, either, and that point in time, they could have been... uh, conquering the goddamn universe, or whatever it was that happy couples did. Just, why did nobody ever explain anything to her? The blonde wasn't stupid! She may have been reckless and impulsive and dumbass-adjacent, but not truly dumb, which obviously made all the fucking difference. With some care thrown in her general direction, Inna would have understood, dammit. (Except that, for some reason, very few people seemed to care enough. To a lot of them, Previous!Inna had basically been a fucking vending machine, you know? Insert a coin, get a cool one-liner! It made sense, then, that she would inherit this treatment, too. ...without her talent for one-liners, though. That one had gotten swept away, along with most thing that had once made Inna Inna.)

...what was she if not Inna, though? Her ghost? No, no, those fucking tended to be incorporeal, and her form at least was solid enough. A living museum of the woman, then? An Inna-shaped monument, to which Liora could bring sunflowers whenever she felt like it? (Honestly, that statement rang truer than she would have liked to admit. Like... Liora still enjoyed her presence, but how much? Compared to the real deal, the ex-demon must have sucked-- like a black and white movie versus those fancy 3D holograms. No matter what her companion said, she must have been a paltry, pitiful thing! ...and shattering the crystal could change that, apparently. Okay. To be cool, you had to sacrifice something, right? Many people did that with their fucking dignity, or their future, even, and when taking that into account? Inna wouldn't even lose much. 'Ooo, give up this trinket that you hadn't even owned till like five seconds ago.' What a terrible fucking punishment! Oh, how would she ever recover? Every night, the blonde would cry into her goddamn pillow.

"But, okay," Inna looked at her, her eyes bright and innocent. "You're Liora, and I trust you. I'm sure there are some big-brained reasons behind this..." this obviously stupid idea, "...behind this decision."

'Inna!' the voice shrieked. 'Inna, no. That cannot happen. I am your guardian, and if I were to fall...'

"Lalalah," she stuck her fingers into her ears, "I'm not fucking listening. Liora knows best, okay? And the last time I've checked, you weren't fucking Liora. So, piss off, suspicious magical presence!"

Liora, you see, would never hurt her. Yeah, yeah, there had been some worrying behavior in the past, like the whole being stabbed to death thing, but hey, that could have happened to anyone! Pretty much every person alive had killed their best friend at least once, Inna was sure. Liora's brain had just short-circuited, and she wouldn't fucking do it again. Her companion had promised, which had to mean somet--

'Inna. Inna, listen to me! You can't... no, no, no!!!'

And, the moment the crystal shattered? Inna fell on the ground, seemingly lifeless. No amount of shouting would wake her, nor would anything, really-- she just fucking lay there, like a rock, or... or a corpse. (It couldn't be that way, though, right? So what if her heart seemed suspiciously quiet, and her lips gained this sickly shade of blue? The Mistress had said this would help!!! Why the fuck would she have lied?) Meanwhile, a pearl-white cloud of something surrounded Inna-- the substance was writhing, just like a vicious snake, and then... then it lunged at Liora, sinking its teeth into her flesh. Ah, was the pain blinding! Searing and cold all at once, like fire wrapped in ice. Like millions of nails, each of them stabbed directly into her fucking throat! And, to top it off? Inna's body, now free of the shiny cloud's influence, seemed to be... well, growing more and more translucent by the second. Less real, in other words. If this went on, it seemed, then only a shadow would remain! A shadow, or a memory, and also the terrible pain spreading through Liora's leg. Uh oh.

'Shhh, child,' the Mistress cooed into her ear, 'shhh. Just accept this, and let it transform you. It's not venom that snake injected into you, you see? No, it's just that... well. I did tell you that Inna cannot handle her powers, and that much is still true. For her sake, you need to absorb them, and purify them as well. You can do that, can't you?' There was the faintest hint of something strange in her voice-- echoes an emotion long buried, and yet simmering just under the surface. What was it, hmm? Could it be eagerness, perhaps? Either way, the Mistress suppressed it, quickly enough that it may have been a mere illusion. Why would she be eager, after all? What a silly, silly conclusion.

'Be brave, Liora. For me, and for Inna as well. If anyone can save your friend, it's you! Open yourself to her essence, and allow it to flow inside. Don't defend yourself. In not doing so, you will become the perfect vessel! Then, and only then, can you help Inna regain herself. Hurt it will, but don't we all have to suffer for good things? Surely you understand. And, in the end, you shall receive the sweetest of rewards!'

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

"You're Liora and I trust you . . . Liora knows best, okay?"​

That's what Inna had said only moments prior. Moments before her tear-shaped phylactery had been shattered by Liora's own hand. Before Inna's body had collapsed to the fucking ground like a bowling ball. Liora doesn't see Inna's body drop, but she hears the thud next to her and when she looks over, her mouth hangs agape while her eyes go wide as saucers. Immediately she knows this is not a good sign. This is not a good fucking sign at all and she cannot figure out what is happening.

At first, she tries to convince herself that this is just part of the process––that Inna needs to be reset, like a computer or something so that's why it looks as though she's died. However, as her lips turn bluer and bluer, Liora sinks to her knees and presses her ear to the blonde's chest, searching for any signs of life. However, she's met with only sickening silence. The entire world seems to stop, then, her own body feels colder than the fucking Arctic as the realization hits her that she has made a grave mistake. It almost petrifies her in place, especially as she frets over this being irreversible. While concern ravages her mind, confusion also creeps up into her because she isn't quite sure just how this happened. Because this is exactly what the Mistress had advised her to do. Had Liora somehow misheard her directions? Did she perhaps shatter the phylactery wrong? She doesn't think that there is a wrong way to shatter something, but she guesses that if there is leave it to her to do just fucking that! 'Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is going on?!'

"Inna!" she shouts, her hand gently stroking her friend's cold cheek, tracing the outline of her lips that haven't smiled nearly as much as they're supposed to in these recent days. Of course, Inna being lifeless, she doesn't respond. She doesn't move. There is no rise or fall of her fucking chest and Liora tries as much as she is able to not think about how she's just fucking murdered Inna when she specifically promised both of them that she'd never do that again. 'I-I can't fucking take care of her... I keep fucking ruining everything I touch!'

Why, why, why had she done that?! This cannot be happening. She cannot be losing Inna. She can't lose Inna! Not again. Her fingers tangle knots into her hair as she tries to think about how to undo this because this obviously is not right. Nothing can convince her that this is what was supposed to have happened, because generally when you're supposed to make things better, you don't fucking make them dead first! She doesn't want to believe that the Mistress has led her astray, she never has before, but when that white mist starts to separate from Inna's body her heart instantly goes cold.

As the white snake materializes, Liora stares at it and she doesn't even need to guess what this is because she remembers the Mistress telling her that when someone with any talent for magic is killed their power leaves their body and can be usurped. She assumes, this snake is a manifestation of Inna's power––like, what the fuck else could it be? Patronuses aren't real so she knows it can't be fucking that. Then before she can even move away from the blonde's essence, the snake launches itself towards Liora and its jaw clamps down on her neck. Pain sears into Liora's system as if replacing her blood with liquid fucking glass, each pulse feeling like her body is getting punched from the inside out. The woman writhes on the ground, crying out as this phantom tries to wriggle its way into her system––it even fills her head with visions of the elements, whispering in a language that only they speak, and as tantalizing as it all is, Liora pushes back against this seduction.

Even as the Mistress starts to whisper inside of her head, filling her with more fucking deceit. No, Liora isn't going to fucking fall for that trick twice––not with her alarm bells sounding so loudly inside her chest that it threatens to burst through her ribs. By this point, the Mistress should know that her protégé is not interested in usurping Inna's powers––she never has been. The lie that her body is supposedly the perfect vessel to purify Inna's powers doesn't fucking settle her nerves or convince her. There's just no way in fucking hell she'd ever believe that, because she already knows her heart and soul are corruption personified. She is also less convinced when she looks to her side, squinting through the agony, to see that her friend's body fucking fading. Like, yeah, no amount of saccharine promises are going to convince her that that is supposed to fucking happen too––this screams bad fucking news. Angrily, she responds, "Shut the fuck up you fucking bitch! You lied to me. You said this would help Inna, but she's disappearing and I know that's because she's fucking dying."

She doesn't catch the excitement in the Mistress's tone, but she doesn't need to in order to figure out that this is a trap meant to get rid of the blonde. Even if she has her own doubts about herself and her abilities, she cannot justify going through with the Mistress's plan. There is too much risk involved, because what if she does absorb Inna's essence and it turns out that her friend cannot be brought back? That will mean Inna will be gone forever and she cannot allow that outcome to happen. She fucking won't. Even if she doesn't know what will happen if she rejects her essence... even if that could equally result in Inna's permanent removal from this existence... Argh! She can't think about this! She needs to stick with her fucking gut. Liora is done being a fucking idiot and she knows, somehow, that she needs to trust herself for once. "Don't even try to fucking lie to me. I'm right––she's dying, isn't she?! The fucking reward is some new fucking powers and dead fucking friend. That's not what I fucking want! If she never gets fucking fixed again and never becomes herself, so fucking be it! At least she'll be here."

Liora doesn't wait for a response. In fact, if the Mistress is even trying to communicate with her right now, Liora has shut off her psychic link––albeit accidentally. With quiet in her mind, she redoubles her efforts resisting this flow of power into her body. 'Get out of me,' she thinks, grabbing onto the snake-like cloud that's latched onto her neck and attempting to pry it off of her––even at the risk of ripping off a chunk of her own flesh; it's a small price to pay to keep her friend alive. As she tugs, her mouth opens to release a scream so loud it shreds her throat and it might have shattered the windows in the house had she not already broken them earlier. 'I will not take her powers. I am not her killer, I'm not a traitor––that's not all that I am god fucking dammit!' With that, she yanks the snake-shaped cloud from her neck and, while pain still beats throughout her body, she crawls over to Inna's rapidly fading ghost. "C'mon, c'mon," she mutters, her voice raw and weak, eyes blurry as she tries to somehow reattach Inna's essence to her. Instinctively, she reaches for Declan and touches the tip of her sword to the white cloud and then plunges that into what remains of Inna's outline to fuse the two back together.

 

[Syntra]

'Dying?' the Mistress' voice rang in her ears, clear and amused-- like bells made of glass, or perhaps a river stumbling over stones. 'Dying, my child, is such an ugly way to put it. What awaits Inna now is not death, per se. No, it is... hmmm, how to put it... a transformation of sorts? No need to worry, though!' she exclaimed, in a tone that suggested that Liora should, in fact, be very, very worried. You know, kinda like those labels on the jars with various chemicals, such as 'flammable' or 'radioactive'! 'She'll still be herself, in a way. Would you, after all, say that ice is no longer water? You might, if you wish to be superficial about it, but its contents are still the same. Only the form has changed, really, and it has done so to reflect its surroundings. Now, as for our poor, silly Inna,' the woman sighed, in the disappointed tone of a disgruntled genius who had just been told that, no, she couldn't fucking experiment on people just because she felt like it, 'something similar is happening to her as well now. I mean, Liora, can you deny it? As she is, your friend is useless-- like a toddler who had been given a gun, except that it's a nuclear bomb and it's aimed at the rest of the world. She herself knew this, too!' Ah, so the Mistress had been eavesdropping on their conversations, too. Good to know, right? Especially considering their, uh, emotional components.

'A lesser woman, indeed, would have killed her. There would have been nothing wrong about it, either. From the beginning, she's been ill-fitted! This is merely the tip of a very ugly, very incompetent iceberg. The Creator must have been mistaken in choosing her, I'm certain. You, on the other hand...' the Mistress paused, possibly to give her statement more weight, '...you, Liora, are the perfect candidate. Yes, yes! So obedient, and so malleable, too. You know when to suppress your own ego, and sacrifice that which is dear to you for a just cause. Say, is it not noble to follow a path that nobody else can access? A path that will lead to salvation? You two are such polar opposites, actually, that I believe the Creator may have intended for this to happen all along.' All along? This? What??? Thankfully, the Mistress wasted no time in her efforts to explain.

'You see, my child, Inna's role in all of this may have been... to serve as a vessel, really. As a container for her powers. They had to grow somewhere, and ripen, and now that they're ready... why, they should be transferred to someone who knows how to handle them! To someone as special as you are. The first time you murdered her? Merely a practice run for what was to come,' she said, cold and precise. (Her tone? Yeah, the woman might as well have been talking about the correct fucking way of doing her taxes! And not about, you know, offing your best friend.)

'But, anyway. I wasn't actually lying to you-- such a deed isn't worthy of me. Technically, Inna won't die, for she will live on inside of your own soul! Isn't that beautiful? To be bonded to her on such a deep, deep level... few women are as lucky, Liora. I hope you shall enjoy the closeness. Never again will she betray you, and--' Something about Liora's actions must have surprised her, probably, because the silence on the other end sounded... well, shocked. Unrehearsed, unlike this entire fucking speech so far.

'No, you aren't,' she agreed in the end, 'but a fool is what you are, it seems. Do you think that it is that simple? Like emptying and refilling a bottle, maybe? Oh, Liora, Liora, Liora! Don't make me re-evaluate my assessment of you, child. If you wish to be naive about this, however... I suppose that is your prerogative. Remember, though! You can always just... stop fighting it. Accept the fate you've been born for, really. Don't you want to do good by your friend? Just so you know, prolonging the process hurts her as well. Look at how hard she is struggling! Struggling for nothing, might I add. With no phylactery to house her, her spirit shall disintegrate! Be reasonable about this, Liora. Do what you have to do, just like you always have.'

And, terrifyingly enough? What the Mistress was saying seemed to be right, on some level. Inna's body was still there, and still sorta visible, but it was flickering in and out of existence, as if its image was being broadcasted by a TV with an exceptionally shitty signal. The energy fucking refused to return to her, too! ...maybe because it had been conserved in the phylactery, not inside of the blonde's body. Hmm, hmm. Technically speaking, there was nowhere it could return to! Like smoke, it hovered above her not-corpse, and the shapes it showed to Liora? Those were, uh, most interesting. (In one moment, she could spot Chett's face in the writhing fog, and in another, there were visions from the accursed manor. And... um. Those were more than just vision, actually! Out of the whiteness, a shiny version of Remus emerged, followed shortly by the kraken-ass thing they'd destroyed months ago. What the...?)

'Ah!' the Mistress chuckled, clearly pleased by the development. 'And now she's defending herself. Things aren't looking too good for you, are they, Liora? Hmmm, better absorb her, I think! Unless you've always secretly wanted to be dog food.' Remus must have heard that, for he threw his head back and howled, howled, howled! Sang the song of bloodlust, really. And the kraken? Never one to be outdone, she spread her tentacles and rushed to embrace Liora, doubtlessly in order to crush her bones.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Zarya shrieked in the background as she backed away slowly, her eyes never leaving the apparitions. "Man, what the fuck?"

...yeah, this fucking day was turning out to be just peachy.

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

If the Mistress is expecting to reach Liora at all, she has sorely mistaken how stubborn her protégé is when it comes to icing people out. The woman, for Christ's sake, went a full eighteen months without speaking to or acknowledging her own sister once (all because Sol accidentally stripped the paint from Liora's car with a prank gone awry). Just because her voice is whispering directly into Liora's ear does not mean that she will listen. No, with Inna fading and become less and less alive with each passing minute there isn't time to suss out whether or not the Mistress is truly friend or foe. For Liora, there is no redemption for those who threaten the few things and people that are actually precious to her. (Well, at least for the time being. As valid as it would be for Liora to cut ties the Mistress, the Mistress is right to say that the woman is obedient and malleable. There is a chance, however slim, that Liora will still give the sorceress a second chance. Especially considering how close they had gotten during her stay at the villa and how the woman has grown to see her a replacement mother. It's not as though Liora doesn't have experience forgiving undeserving mother figures, after all, and if the pattern continues, she will likely, albeit cautiously, let the woman back in.)

Even with ignoring the Mistress's commentary, it is not difficult to discern that her attempt to attach Inna's essence back to her body is not working. At all. While panic mounts inside the woman, the reality that she has killed her friend a second time settling into her bones and immobilizing her, she isn't even fully aware that Inna's powers are attempting to protect her. It's not until she hears a howl that she looks up and stumbles backwards when she sees a bastardized version of Remus appearing in the blonde's childhood home along with the kraken they fought all those weeks ago. "Shit," she mutters, but makes no effort to avoid the attack––either still too horrified with her own actions or not given enough warning to move. Either way, she's a frozen target and ends up wrapped in the kraken's tentacles while Remus growls and leaps towards the woman's head, maybe to bite it off. However, Liora escapes both the crushing embrace of tentacles and decapitation by teleporting behind the two assailants.

"Zayra," she starts, her voice barely strong enough to carry across the room, "unless you want to fucking die," which Liora would not mind, "get the fuck out of here."

"What? Are you insane! I'm not leaving some stranger and my dead fucking relative inside my home. Why don't you get out, huh?" the woman asks, arming herself with a broom from the kitchen.

"Ugh," Liora rolls her eyes, jumping over a stretch of tentacles and dodging Remus's maw, "suit yourself, but if you get in my fucking way I can't promise you'll fucking live." Though the two women are not working together, Zarya is apparently enough of a threat that Remus focuses his attention on Inna's ugly step-sister and the kraken is left for Liora to deal with. Even with only one opponent to watch out for, this is not ideal environment for brainstorming a solution, but since the kraken doesn't seem like she is going to let up, it's just what she'll have to work with.

So far, all she knows is that this started after she destroyed the phylactery and this leads her to believe that if she can recover that piece, she might be able to sate Inna's essence... A good idea, that's for certain, except that even if she could locate the nonexistent pieces of that teardrop, she's pretty sure super gluing it back together won't fucking work. No, Inna probably needs a different vessel for her soul now. Not that Liora knows what would be a suitable alternative––though if she had to make a guess, she might assume that something connected to this home might work? This whole thing started, after all, as a way to bring Inna back home and while Liora hadn't had that much time to research (ask Sol) what the fuck a domovoy even is, she remembers it has a specific connection to home.

... But given that Inna has barely opened up much about her home life and given how Zarya treated her upon arrival, Liora sort of doubts that Inna's soul is particularly attached to this specific home. Bold as it is, she decides to choose a different object to make into a phylactery. She takes the class ring from her finger and reaches for her discarded sword, still focusing on dodging the attacks and ignoring Zarya's high pitched screams while Remus chases her through the house. 'So fucking annoying, Jesus fucking Christ,' she thinks as she side steps away from the monster. 'Declan, can. you hear me? Do you know how to make a phylactery? Is it possible?'

'Yes, my pupil, I can hear you––I was trying to tell you not to crush Inna's first one but you weren't listening! Very, very uncool. Anyway, it is sort of possible, but this is not––'

'Give me the fucking highlights, Declan. I don't know how much time we have!'

'Um, rude, but fine. Yes, technically, you can, but it will take a sacrifice on your end to create. Now, here's what you need to do...'

With the instructions in her head, she takes a deep breath, grips the edge of her sword, and slices her palm open. She grimaces as blood pours out of the wound and places the class ring into the cut, closing her fist around the object she hopes to turn into an appropriate vessel for Inna. The kraken then manages to latch one of its tentacles around Liora's leg and rather than teleport herself away, she allows it to pull her closer towards its open mouth. She cannot worry herself with being eaten alive since she needs to focus her energy on reciting the spell that Delcan is whispering to her. As the words leave her lips, as she is dragged closer to a certain death, light starts to stream through her bloody fist. With her sword still in her opposite hand, she next sinks the blade into her heart though no blood spurts from the supposed injury. Instead, it appears as though the sword has passed through a membrane rather than flesh; when Liora pulls the blade from her chest, a piece of her own soul clings to the weapon. She opens her fist, finishing the rest of the spell as she touches the piece of her soul to the ring, binding them together and creating a signal to calm both of the apparitions and by extension, Inna.

Hopefully this works and Inna's essence accepts the new phylactery, because if it doesn't, it looks like Liora will end up as kraken fodder! Which she supposes is kind of cooler than dog food. (She might be more concerned with this outcome were it not for the fact that her eyelids now feel like lead, along with the rest of her body.)

 

[Syntra]

The essence still hovered above Inna's fading body, its tendrils light and immaterial-- kind of like cigarette smoke, really, except that it didn't fucking make you want to choke. And as for Liora's sacrifice? At first, it didn't seem that they cared. On and on, they continued to swirl! Remus, too, kept chasing Zarya, and let me tell you, the woman was not pleased. "What the fuck is this fucking bullshit?!" she shouted. "I mean, I'm kinda used to bears, but they are not usually made of some weird-ass energy, and... no! No, bad wolf! That was grandmother's fucking china, you worthless piece of shit." ...yep, Remus' coordination apparently wasn't as good as it had used to be during his, um, more corporeal days, because, for some reason, he looked almost guilty. Could it be Inna's usually non-existent conscience somehow manifesting itself through the wolf? Well, either that, or he had actually been a passionate antiques rights activist all along. "Yes, that's fucking right," Zarya added when she noticed the wolf's hesitation, "you destroyed the only memento of my relatives helping to murder the czar's fam in cold fucking blood. It fucking survived the Bolshevik revolution, so I hope you're satisfied with yourself. Bitch!" That word, of course, was accompanied with a whack of her broom-- shockingly enough, Remus whined then, and sorta retreated. (...wow. Had Zarya actually been a badass exorcist all along? Perhaps the Creators had used the ancient technique of min-maxing with her! Namely, that she had allocated exactly zero fucking points to her charisma stat, and instead put everything into 'obscure arcane talents that may or may not save your life one day.' And, given that her relative was Inna Fucking Orlovskaya? That was probably a good fucking choice!)

Anyway, back to your regularly-scheduled Inna posting. The essence seemed to react to things with a small lag, so when it did, in fact, notice the ring? Eagerly, it flowed inside-- with the same kind of inevitability with which an apple headed directly towards the earth when it fell off a tree, instead of, say, fucking off into the universe. The ring began to shine, so much that everyone in the room had to cover their eyes, but that wasn't the most important thing. Two events competed for that title: a) the monsters just fucking glitched out of existence, as if they were nothing but an advanced collective hallucination, b) Inna's form, on the other hand, stabilized. It still looked a little translucent, but like, that still had to be good news, right? Right?! Maybe she just needed to spend some time outside, playing under the sun and shit!

'Oh, Liora,' the woman sighed, 'you're trying so hard, and yet you can't see that it's all bound to end in tragedy. You can't escape your own trajectory, you know? It's better to just... accept your fate, I think. It'll be less painful for everyone involved that way. Why won't you allow Inna to rest? Hasn't she suffered enough already? As a part of you, she could be safe. She could be loved. She could have all of that, and yet you're denying it to her. Why? Are you so selfish? No, my child, I know you're better than that. Open your eyes, Liora, and see! See that which--' The voice in Liora's ears crackled, then, as if something interrupted the signal, and... oh. Inna's body? It stirred! Even if she didn't look nearly ready to resume her usual routine of, you know, actually fucking living, the blonde proceeded to open her eyes. (Her brown eyes which were empty, like a starless night. A poor imitation of itself, really.)

"Inna's not home!" the not-Inna smiled, just as sweetly as real Inna would have. "So, this is, um, kinda awkward, I guess, but hello? I'm Ivy. The body was vacant, so I kinda moved in. Don't worry, though," the woman raised her hands defensively, "I'm not planning to stay. Like, I'm dead and I'm okay with it, at this point. I've... what's the cool kid slang?" she furrowed her brow in obvious effort. "Right, processed it. I mean, I'm sure Vie had her reasons! You don't murder your best friend just for the hell of it. Maybe I was wearing shoes that didn't match my shirt that day?" the Ivy-Inna shrugged. "Sins against fashion are sins, too, you know. Anyway," the blonde shot her an appraising look, "in this life, your mortal shell is pretty nice. That's one of the reasons I took over! I wanted to meet you personally, at least once," she admitted, and with that, a certain shyness crept into her features. "The other reason is that Inna's body really would have become a demon magnet. With her sort of history... no, no, it's much safer this way. I'll be your guide!" ...a guide? For what, though? Ivy herself seemed to realize that some sort of explanation was in order, though, because she proceeded to provide it with no prodding.

"So, uh. You know that Inna kinda died, right? Your sacrifice saved what was left, but not that which already... um... went whoosh," Ivy giggled, a little uncomfortably. "Given her deeds in this life, I bet she's heading straight into hell right now. You don't want her to meet that terrible queen again, do you? Well, in that case, follow me! I'm sure that, together, we can stop her. There will be some Orpheus-tier trials, I guess, but nothing you can't handle."

"Wait, wait, wait," Zarya raised her hand, "is anyone going to explain literally anything to me? I mean, I planned to watch a fucking soap opera today, and instead, I end up vanquishing mystical wolves."

"I'm sorry," Ivy smiled, "but no. Only folks with recycled souls are allowed in this club! Don't worry, though. When you're ground into burgers for protesting the demolition of that one old house you care about--"

"...what..."

"--I'm sure you'll get to enjoy your fair share of reincarnation cycles as well. Anyway, Liora," Ivy turned back to her companion, not at all caring that Zarya was having an aneurysm over there. "Inna is fire, right? Like, her soul is very fire-based this time around. That means that, through that element, we'll be able to find her!" And, with that? With that, the blonde snapped her fingers, only for the house to turn into a fiery fucking inferno. The flames were raging everywhere, orange and red and white and everything in between! (Curious shapes were emerging out of it, too-- both phoenixes rising out of their own ashes, and monsters too terrible for the human mind to comprehend. Flowers, beautiful and intricate, but also the barren wasteland they created via their very existence.) "Don't worry, Liora," Ivy whispered. "Give yourself to the fire, and you shall find your Inna. Just walk through it!" Yes, 'just'. How fucking simple, right?

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

On and on life goes and maybe Liora's is about to stop going on and on given her currently positioning (i.e., being dragged into the maw of a kraken). It's not even like the woman can even care about that, however. Or, at least, show that she cares in any meaningful way since her energy seems to have been spent creating a phylactery. Well, 'attempting to create' is probably a necessary qualifier since Inna still isn't back from wherever spirits go when their original phylactery is shattered. This is fine, she supposes. It would have been silly to think she could undo a mistake that catastrophic. As silly as trying to revive the best friend you had just stabbed in the fucking gut. Like, that's just not how this shit work, you know. When Lady Death has claimed a new soul, she is not keen on giving them back. Liora, Vie, or whoever has learned this lesson before.

Though she sincerely hopes that there will not be a third time to redo this stupid script, if there is then she hopes whoever she becomes next doesn't turn out to be such a fucking disappointment. Maybe the next version will actually get this right and then, like, Vie and whoever the third version of herself becomes can laugh about the second edition of their soul; because obviously this second fucking version is a failure on all fronts. But, like, other than some pretty obvious major life regrets Liora can say that she's... yeah, she pretty much doesn't think her life ended up chalking up to much which means she wasted all of her past life's efforts in bringing them back. Christ. (Maybe if Vie was so smart she would have seen that she's also trapped in this cycle and that a different body doesn't negate that they have the same fucking soul.)

Well, at least Liora has more or less accepted her failure and is ready to die. Or was, because as her legs are about halfway through the kraken's mouth, she feels the tentacles suddenly disappear from around her ankle and when she lifts her head, forcing her eyes open, the house seems... destroyed, but apparition free. She takes that as a good sign. Lethargically, she turns her head to the side where Inna's body lay and notices that she seems less ghostly than before. Though less ghostly is just not what Liora had been aiming for and so she knows she fucking screwed up once again. (And the voice in her head telling her to cut herself some slack? She can shut the fuck up. Like, yeah, this is the first time she has ever fucking attempted magic quite as complex and taxing as creating a fucking phylactery and that she was even, say, 75 percent successful should be a win! Except that 75 percent is a solid fucking 'C' and Liora is an 'A' student, so this does not fucking satisfy.)

With a groan, the woman sits herself up and rubs her eyes before she crawls over to the 75 percent okay Inna. She hovers over her, waiting expectantly for something to happen and when that something does happen? She reassess her success rate and gives herself a solid 25 percent. 'Jesus fucking Christ––I didn't fucking mean to bring Ivy back!' Like this trick would have been much cooler five hundred fucking years ago when she had actually tried to resurrect Ivy. Thankfully, her frustrations do not last much longer as whatever Ivy says seems to draw out more curiosity from the woman when the ghost admits wanting to meet her. Completely taken aback, Liora blinks slowly, shakes her head, and then gets herself onto her feet. "I-Ivy? Alright, okay. Why not?" she thinks aloud, running her hands through her hair while she paces.

"Wait––she died?" Not that the information is surprising. Liora did point this out earlier when she had challenged the Mistress's authority on the matter, it's just that she figured making the phylactery and shit would, like, totally undo that. "Shit. Fuck!" and slew of other colorful curses leave her mouth as she realizes that, in trying to prevent Inna from going back to the demon queen, she fucking sent her soul straight fucking there! Jesus fucking Christ, can she do anything right?! (Will she ever do right by Inna?) "Zarya, shut the fuck up, you're not helping me fucking think!"

Okay, okay, okay, so she needs to fucking save Inna's soul. No big deal. No big deal at all––demigods and lesser Greeks used to do this shit all the fucking time so it can't be that fucking hard. Like she a demi-demon so that's nearly as tough as a fucking half-god, she's pretty sure. And thankfully, for once, one of the magic bullshitter she is stuck with is actually being helpful and offering her a viable solution and not a cryptic fucking riddle.

As the house goes up in flames, she covers her eyes, briefly, as they adjust to the bright hue. Though a normal person might have feared the suggestion that she must walk through the fire, Liora just hasn't felt like a normal fucking person since she touched that stupid tome in that murder mansion. Besides, the flames do remind her of Inna. Both with their destructive nature and the beauty hidden in the flames. Still, however, before she takes a step forward she looks towards the semi-translucent version of her friend, who is not even her friend. (What? She doesn't really know Ivy even if she feels strikingly familiar.) "A-aren't you going to come with?" she asks, extending her injured hand towards Ivy, "Will you come with me?"

Still, not wanting to wait, especially knowing that every second wasted is another second Inna's soul could fall into the queen's clutches, she charges ahead. She does not even take a breath to steel her nerves before embracing the flames. It's not that she doesn't worry about all the dangers that come with the fire, obviously she is acutely aware of how threatening fire can be, but if this is what Inna's essence is made of then she is not afraid. While the fire dances around her, it does not burn her. She even experimentally thrusts her already injured hand into the flames and when she pulls it out, the hand remains unscathed save for the wound that was already there.

She observes all the shapes in the flames as she walks forward, not really sure how to search for her friend's spirit but also guessing it will just come to her. Cautiously, she turns to her companion, "Ivy... Earlier, you said that you were okay with being dead and stuff and that you were sure Vie had her reasons, but... I just don't know what those reasons were, you know? If that's why you wanted to meet me, I'm sorry. I don't think I can help you understand her. Me. Whatever," tears almost threaten to wet her eyes, but she blinks them away just as quick. It would be really lame to cry with a ghost. "I-I'm sorry. I want to know why, too, so I can apologize to you properly, but I just don't know that yet." She pauses, then adds, "I'm trying really hard to take care of you this time around, I really am. I know it doesn't look that way, but I'm not like Vie. Both in that I'm not going to kill you again (well, on purpose) and in that there's just a lot about this magic shit that I don't get. I know she was, like, some prolific sorceress and probably would have realized shattering a phylactery is bad news, but that's not me. I'm trying, though. I really am, okay?"

 

[Syntra]

"Hmmm?" Ivy gave Liora a charming smile, so similar to the one that Inna had worn that you could really see how these two had been a single person, once. (And, no, the fact that she was literally inhabiting her body at the moment had nothing to do with it. Not even Inna's smiles had looked Inna-ish recently, you see? After her post-demonic hangover, the blonde had been a paltry imitation of herself-- like an author who couldn't repeat her own successes, really. Ivy, on the other hand, was the original fucking source of Innaness, and it showed!) "Don't be silly, Liora," the woman giggled. "I mean... you are aware you're Liora, right? Liora, which I'm sure can't be pronounced as 'Vie' in any existing language. You're two separate people. Obviously, there are some similarities, but it's like, hmmm," Ivy furrowed her brow in obvious effort, "oh, I know! You're like bread." ...which probably made sense in her mind, that, if it was anything like Inna's, produced wild associations at the fucking speed of light, but not to anyone's else! Fortunately, she seemed to realize that. "Like, you're kind of made of the same dough, but you turned out different? Because you were baked at different temperatures, and different seasonings were used, and... you get the gist of what I'm saying," Ivy waved her hand, as if she was trying to get rid of an especially annoying mosquito. "Had I wanted to meet Vie, I would have found her in hell, or wherever it was that she went. No, I wished to meet you, Liora. The Creator said you were basically like, Vie's enhanced edition! So, to be totally honest, I was just curious. It's... kinda weird, I admit," the blonde put a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Akin to getting to know Vie's daughter, maybe, except that you're not a daughter but someone she might have been? Eh, not the most awesome allegory. Really, though, don't worry. I don't actually need to know why she killed me. Like yeah, discovering that would have been nice, I guess, but it's been too long, you see? I stopped caring after a century or two. The universe is way too vast and fascinating to be bitter over a grievance for this fucking long!" ...wow. Was this really the woman who had tormented Liora so in that fucking labyrinth? (No, she wasn't. Back then, those had been fragments-- mere shards, taken out of context, and thus about as representative of reality as a single photograph could possibly be. A warped perspective.)

"Inna, though," Ivy sighed, ignoring the flames as they walked forward. "Ironically, I kinda feel she's worse off! Like... she wasn't the one who got stabbed, but I've had a lot of opportunities to come to terms with this bullshit, you see? For years, I did nothing but think about it. It was terrible! Felt like my head was about to snap in two halves, really. At one point, I was tempted to swallow a star and end it all," what, "but then it was suddenly fine. Well, not really fine, but if I were to liken it to something," of fucking course, "then I guess that there was fuel in my belly, and it needed to burn away. So, when it did? The flames had nothing to consume, and so I couldn't continue being angry. I don't think Inna has really done that. Like... I guess she couldn't? When Vie decided we would be reincarnated, she kinda did it in my most angsty phase, so those parts of me may have been preserved. Sorry about that," the woman scratched her head awkwardly. "Be patient with her, please? And, oh, try not to kill her again. That might go a long way."

And, indeed, the fire didn't hurt Liora. It went beyond that, actually-- when observed carefully, you could see that the flames shifted around her, creating a route for the woman to follow. 'Go,' a mysterious voice whispered. 'Find her.' 'It's not too late. Not yet. It will be if you don't fix what has been broken, though!' Now, what could that mean? Some metaphorical bullshit about the ~fractured state of their relationship~, perhaps? Fortunately, the answer to that proved to be much more literal than initially anticipated. The path that was forming itself underneath her feet? It twisted and turned, with the flames dancing all around, and, the end, it led them... to a pile of fucking ashes? Ah, okay.

"Hmmm," Ivy leaned forward. "Could that be...? Oh yes, it is, it is!" the woman clapped, excited like a child that had just been told that school had been cancelled. "Watch closely, Liora." Watch... what? The dead fucking ashes? The dead fucking ashes that, as it turned out, began to stir-- bubbles suddenly appeared on its surface, too, as if the laws of physics just... stopped caring about the differences between solid substances and liquids, really, and instead decided to get shitfaced in some seedy bar. Which, a good fucking choice! The emergence of magic kinda made them obsolete, anyway.

Agonized moans were escaping from the pile at that point, which, what??? Ashes didn't typically have working pain receptors-- 'typically' being the key word, though, because those statements probably didn't apply to weird-ass dimensions made of hellfire and regrets. Anyway, the ashes coughed a few times, only to... spit out Inna's old phylactery? A phylactery so pure that looking at it almost hurt, without the corruption that had allowed the Mistress to trick her.

"Not a phylactery," Ivy pointed out, oh so helpfully. "It's a seed! Plant it, and it will show you the way." ...somehow, because ~symbolism~ and shit. "But," her face fell immediately, "you'll need to water it. I'd help, really, except that I don't have the access to my water magic anymore. Once, I almost triggered one of those biblical floods, and man, was that hilarious. I think like ten doomsday cults might have spawned just because of that incident! Vie chewed me out back then, but the story was worth it, and... uh, not the point, I guess. The point is that you're on your own. Sorry."

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Though Liora recognizes that she is talking to Ivy and not Inna, there is an uncanny resemblance in their personalities that she finds comforting. After all, it has been ages since she has been able to have a conversation with the blonde. The ones they have shared recently just have not been the same. And how could they be? Most of their time together has been dedicated to Liora explaining the function of toilets and pants! Anything beyond that has been small talk. Granted, Liora is partially responsible for the lack of life in their conversations given that she, herself, has struggled to be normal around the ex-demon. So talking to Ivy? It's a breath of fresh air and perhaps something she has needed. It's not that she had been looking to Ivy to absolve the guilt that seems to be embedded in the marrow of her bones, but the other woman's words do have that effect. Maybe because, for once, she is not being viewed in the context of her past life; that the first edition of Inna recognizes she is more than that. The smile Ivy shines also helps erase her worries, in a similar way that Inna's always has. (Admittedly, she keeps up with Ivy's metaphors and comparisons about as well as she does with Inna, but she doesn't even find them annoying this time around. Inna's metaphors, like the rest of her, have been lacking and so she finds solace in this similarity.)

(It's also not lost on Liora that, apparently, Ivy could have met Vie's spirit and somewhere out there, her past self is lingering. And as much as she wants to ask why Ivy has not gone to seek out her friend if she has gotten over the betrayal, she decides against it. It's not her business, she figures, and Ivy is being so nice to her so she doesn't want to ruin this by touching subjects that should be left alone.) "Well, I guess I'm flattered then? I don't feel like an enhanced version of Vie so the Creator might be wrong about that." Yeah, leave it to Liora to think the Creator made a mistake. "It's, um, cool meeting you too. I always, I guess, thought that Inna and I were more or less your carbon copies, but... seeing some fragments of your past and talking to you now, it's like I see the similarities but you're different too... This reincarnation shit is weird, I don't know why Vie wanted to do this shit all over again. She must have been worse than me about getting stuff right," she shrugs, like the realization isn't as jarring as it is. The realization being that it is possible that her soul hasn't ever been satisfied as she suspects both her and Vie's standards must be skyhigh. (And for what? For who? She doesn't know.)

"I will be patient with her," and already, she has been. Sticking with Inna while she recovers from her demonic state should be proof of that alone––that's not to say Liora will stop there, however. No, this, she understands, is only the start and whatever is ahead does not daunt her. "She's... she's worth it, you know, so I'm not going to like abandon her or anything. Or kill her. I've been thinking of taking her to get a dog... I think that would make her happy and I haven't seen her happy since," she confessed her feelings to Inna in Sol's apartment (r.i.p.), "I dunno, a while."

Liora follows along the flame path, not realizing that it's forming with each step that she takes. Not realizing she is following anything at all, more so engrossed in her conversation with Ivy and only following where her feet take her. The voice that whispers in her ear does fill her with urgency, but she does not allow herself to fill with despair; with the idea that Inna is closer and closer to falling into the demon queen's hands. Maybe it's being beside Ivy and knowing that she, at least, seems to believe in Liora that allows her to hold onto the meager remains of her confidence. That allows her to believe she can be successful in retrieving her friend. Maybe it will not happen the way she expects or wants, as few things go her way these days, but somehow, someway she will be returning home with Inna.

When the pile of ash appears at the end of this path, she stares between it and Ivy, waiting for an explanation before assuming that she's, like, looking at Inna's remains or something. At Ivy's beckoning, she watches the pile closely and tilts her head as it decides to start fucking bubbling. (Yeah, nothing is going to convince Liora that the laws of magic make any fucking sense. Or that there are laws at all.) The ash pile then burps out the teardrop phylactery she was certain had been gone forever (like... did she make a new one for nothing?) and tears immediately spring in her eyes––this must be what they mean when they say something is so beautiful it can spur tears. Carefully and instinctively, Liora cups her hands and reaches for the object, admiring its radiance. However, her face immediately falls when Ivy explains what she's supposed to do with it. Like... um, even if she had magic water powers, everything is kind of on fucking fire?? There's no water??

"Ivy... There's no water. There's no soil––if this is some kind of magic planting lesson, I really don't..." though her voice trails off in that moment as she remembers an incredibly cheesy scene from a movie she watched as a kid. 'Oh, shit. Okay, now to solve the soil problem,' she thinks, staring at the ground beneath her, trying to identify a spot between the flames that might serve as a place for a seed. And, miraculously, one appears––well, it doesn't appear so much as the flames that surround them reveal a patch of black soil beneath their heat. Liora sinks down to her knees and sticks her finger into the warm soil, creating a small hole for the seed. Carefully, she places the not-phylactery into the hole and then covers it. Finally, she turns towards Ivy, looking up at her, "Can you, um, like... turn around or something?"

Once the woman is sure that she is not being watched, she brings to mind everything she has been avoiding. She thinks about Inna's transformation into a demon. She thinks about those lonely months without her. How she severed their sacred bond, the one thing that had been theirs. How often she threatened Liora's life whenever they ran into each other. The labyrinth, the slash across her face, those fragments from their past, the Ivys who taunted her; she thinks about the queen's talent for pointing out her insecurities; how she's not strong enough to rival her and that means she's hardly strong enough to protect Inna. That she may never be good enough for Inna. Then visions of her mother come to mind; both real and imagined memories of the woman and the utter contempt she has for her daughter. It's pathetic, really, how many things she has to cry about, but with this all on her mind the tears do flow freely and she has to resist the urge to stifle them as they start to drip down her cheeks and chin, dripping down onto the patch of soil. She isn't sure how much she's supposed to water this thing or if tears even have the necessary properties to water soil, but since this is magic she only banks on it working. And she hopes it starts working soon, because this is getting kind of embarrassing (painful) and she wants to not feel this way as soon as possible.

 

[Syntra]

"It must be hard, huh?" Ivy looked at Liora, after a few moments of deliberation. "To fill shoes as large as those Vie left behind, I mean. I wouldn't do this shit if they paid me all the money in the world. But," conspiratorially, she leaned closer, "let me share a secret! The truth was, Liora, that Vie wasn't all that impressive. Like yeah, her command over her magic was impeccable, but aside from that? The girl had, uh, issues. I did love her, of course, just like Inna loves you, though living with her really was a challenge sometimes. Calling her 'a control freak' would be too kind! Did you know she used to rummage through my shirts and fold them for me when she wasn't satisfied with the technique," the blonde made quotes in the air with her fingers, "that I used? Like, can you believe? It was just folding some goddamn laundry, not a failed karate move. 'Technique,' pffft. What I meant to say by that, I guess," Ivy smiled, "is that you don't need to put Vie on a pedestal. She kinda lived on one, you see, and I suspect it didn't really go all that well for her! At least judging by your very existence. Like... I dunno why she did this, either, but presumably, she grew dissatisfied with her own decision? Eh," she shrugged, "not really my problem anymore. As I said, I've gotten over it already. Let me tell you, being angry all the time is just so, so draining. I'm convinced like 80% of your mental energy is spent on keeping that fury fresh, and man, is that wasteful. I bet I could have invented some miraculous cure for cancer in my afterlife had I not been too busy imagining all those ways in which I'd claim my vengeance! ...or not, suppose," the blonde admitted, with a sheepish smile. "I mean, my schedule has been pretty free for those past few decades, and mostly, I've been watching the TV. The afterlife fast-forward is great! Like, time flows differently there, so you can even watch shows that don't exist in your timeline yet, which... uh, can I just recommend Madoka? It's really, really good."

Without a pause, Ivy prattled on and on-- you could almost miss that she had at one point been unhappy with her death, really, because the benefits of not living seemed to be so fucking great. (Not having to breathe anymore was a boon she seemed to value above all, for some fucking reason. Eagerly, she described to Liora all those times she had almost found the Atlantis, only to be thwarted at the last second by a) a random fishing ship, b) a volcano explosion or two, c) an alien attack-- most of the stories sounded about as believable as the prospect of billionaire CEOs giving up their riches for charity, really, but then again, this was Ivy. Judging by Inna's track record, most of those didn't even have to be lies!) "But yeah, a dog," Ivy nodded, with her usual infectious enthusiasm. "A dog sounds like a splendid idea. I've always loved the big breeds! Maybe you could get one of those for Inna, too? I mean, we're not the same, but I cannot imagine any version of myself appreciating a dog that could be bested by a rat. In their case, the evolution has gone too far!"

When the woman asked her to turn around, though? Immediately, Ivy listened. "Sure, sure! Good luck with... um, with whatever you're about to do there. I trust you. Should something unhygienic happen, though, let me know afterwards-- I wouldn't want to, like, touch anything by accident." What was she imagining, exactly? ...yeah, some riddles should remain unsolved, for the sanity of everyone involved. (That the Creator had given her enough common sense to censor her own imagination had for sure been one of her brighter moments. Because, Ivy who actually spoke her mind? One of the most feared weapons of her era, probably!)

The tears dripped on the ground, slowly at first, then in one continuous stream-- so impressive it was, really, that it could very well compete with some of the shittier rivers. And as for what happened next? One big, fat nothing! ...at least till the pile growled, only for something to sprout from it. That something was green, and it grew so fast it probably violated several points of the Geneva convention in the process-- speaking of which, it was also way larger than it had any right to be, so... uh. Could it be a flower, actually? A massive fucking daisy that somehow grabbed Liora, and took to the skies? Why, such a development was way more likely than anyone anticipated! Mostly because that was exactly what happened. (What was this, Jack and the Beanstalk 2: Electric Boogaloo? Or Jack and the Beanstalk 2: Lesbian Fucking Edition?)

Either way, this sequel was hellbent on delivering new twists, because Liora didn't land in some giant's castle-- nope, the flower carried into what seemed to be... a morgue? Wow, pretty grim! The room was poorly lit, like in some cheap horror flick, and full of tables covered by a piece of white cloth each. (Which, judging by the shape of what they hid? Unless Liora had some particular and also kinda worrying interests, she did not want to lift those blankets. Like, at all.)

What she want or did not want, though, had pretty much no relationship with what actually happened. As Liora examined the room, you see, someone gripped her arm-- someone who by all accounts should have been fucking dead, because it was the Inhabitant of Table #34. Great, why not! With that sudden movement, the blanket fell on the ground, too, and... and Liora was staring at herself, except that her lips were blue and skin cracked. Graveworms crawling through her otherwise empty eye sockets, though that couldn't prevent the freakshow from smiling. "What are you doing, Liora?" her dead version asked. "Don't you know that a piece of your very self died in that throne room? Do you maybe want to let her finish the damn job, huh? But, oh, you haven't even accepted what you are now yet! How can you be ready for more sacrifices? No, no, no, I don't think that you are prepared for what's to come. In fact, I think you should stay here, with me. With us."

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

The tears flow and flow, and Liora is almost certain that she must be dipping into the reserve of tears from when she had been ten. (Except that, Liora is entirely wrong about that assessment. The tears she's crying right now? She's barely scraped the surface of her tear reserve. In fact, she's currently only crying the tears that were produced a couple weeks ago. So to say that Liora is woefully underprepared for all the tears she has to cry completely misses the mark. Liora is so tragically underprepared for her floodgates breaking that if she were to be sealed into a 10x10 room and left to cry, she would drown herself before ever nearing the half-way mark. It would only take two hours, too. For surely that is how long it would take her to fill the room with her harbored and unaddressed angst.) While she wishes that something would happen soon, either indicating her success or failure, she does find some release through her sobs. With each one, she feels lighter, like the weight on her back is finally being lifted and she actually knows what it means to stand with a straight spine.

So wrapped up in her semi-private pity party, she doesn't immediately notice the earth's growl or that anything is happening at all. It's not until she finds herself surrounded in the soft petals of a comically large flower that she actually starts to panic. Not because she believes she has done something wrong or that she is being taken somewhere she is unfamiliar with––it's just the suddenness that startles her. Though at least it instantly stops her crying, so she is grateful for that as she taken higher and higher into the sky. (Liora never much cared for the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, so this display is unimpressive to her and honestly a little boring. Like, how high up is she being taken? Will there be enough oxygen up there for her to breath? And, like, why couldn't she have been told the location of this place so that she could teleport there? It would have been much quicker and she wouldn't have had to expend her energy on crying. She's already tired from making that phylactery and the crying just about puts her to bed. Thankfully, her own will won't allow her to collapse, but still! What lies ahead is still a mystery to her and maybe she'll need that energy for something. Yet another problem to add to her list.)

When the bud finally opens and creates a petal platform for her to step off of, she climbs from the flower and into the morgue. 'Is this some bullshit symbolism,' because stepping out of a fresh flower into a house of death? Seems cheesy enough that some literature teacher would probably torture her students over dissecting the meaning. Luckily, Liora doesn't have to think about that. Instead, she walks through the rows and rows of drawers. Most are closed, but there are enough open, with the bodies covered, that makes her wonder what exactly this morgue is for because it doesn't seem like a regular one. Though she isn't sure where she is supposed to be going or what she should even be looking for, if anything, she decides forward is the best option.

Then something fucking grabs her arm and makes her scream. She rips her arm away from whatever has grabbed her, taking several steps away from the table until she bumps up against the opposite table. When she looks at the thing that grabbed her, her mouth falls open and she'd scream again if the... the her hadn't started to talk. "What the fuck," she mutters. The news that a piece of her died back in Hell? Yeah, not all that surprising. In the metaphorical sense, she has already determined that... though she had not realized there had been a literal death too. Oh, well!

Anyway, she doesn't really entertain her zombified self and decides to scurry forward. Like, she doesn't have the spoons to deal with this and she's supposed to be looking for Inna. Not damned herself. Maybe they can come back for this piece later, but honestly, she's not that concerned. Like she feels fine operating at what must be 63 percent capacity. (A far cry from an 'A' grade, but whatever. It's fitting, she guesses.)

If only the zombie were capable of taking hints, because a second later she feels a tug on her sleeve. "Hey, were you not listening? You can't go back––you're not ready yet."

"I was listening, but if you think I'm going to listen to someone who fucking died? Dream the fuck on. You died for a reason and it's probably because you were a stupid piece of shit that I don't actually need. Now leave me alone. I'm trying to find––"

"––Inna?"

"Yes, obviously... Do you know, like, where this all goes? It seems fucking endless and I don't really have time to deal with this bullshit. So either you can help me or you can fuck off. And if you don't fuck off, I have no issue sending your ass somewhere else. Don't fucking test me."

The zombie narrows her non-existent eyes, "Wow, I really am stupid. No, you can't go find Inna. You're not ready yet and I won't take you there. Why are you so insistent on dying? You're much safer here. Can't you just stay? What better company than me? At least I fucking understand you." The zombie then snaps her fingers and those tables of dead things? Gradually, the room is filled with a cacophony of groans as the beings beneath the sheets stir and rise. More also start to rattle their drawers open and hop from their enclosures. "The cool thing being dead, Liora? I have access to Vie's powers. I can understand if you want some of this too, but now is not your time. Sorry, but this is for our own good."

Okay, shit, where the fuck is Ivy?

 

[Syntra]

Where was Ivy, indeed? Hadn't she, like, promised that she'd be Liora's fucking guide? Obviously, promises meant nothing in this shit world, but the blonde had sounded so genuine, and... and... could she have been lying, too? (Lies, after all, seemed to be the leitmotif of this entire goddamn journey. The clusterfuck had started with Chett lying about the tome, then continued with Alessia, E-keysmash and the Mistress herself-- whenever someone opened their goddamn mouth, it seemed, only falsehoods burst forth. Ivy doing the same would only fit into the established fucking pattern, and since the Creator loved her symmetry? That was probably exactly what was happening here! ...maybe the blonde had come to claim her vengeance, actually. The bullshit talk about not seeing Liora as Vie had been just a smokescreen, and behind it, Ivy was sharpening her knife. 'I can't wait to end your miserable existence this time,' she'd say, 'just like you ended mine. What is it like, being betrayed by a friend? Do you enjoy the fate you've sentenced me to, huh?')

"Liora. Li-o-ra!" a different voice cut through the simulation then-- a voice that still belonged to Ivy, mind you, but somehow, its contours were... well, more defined. Sharper. Like the difference between a fantasy, colorful and hazy, and the merciless reality that hit you with a steel fucking fist! "Liora, I'm over here. And, like, not to be overly critical, but can you look with your eyes before jumping to conclusions? I thought that was Inna's gimmick, not yours." The corpses all around her moaned and rattled their bones, apparently hellbent on introducing every zombie cliche abused by the Hollywood in the past ten years, but Ivy didn't really seem all too bothered by the development-- and, when Liora followed her advice to really look? Immediately, it became obvious why that was. (A part of it, of course, likely had to do with the fact that Ivy had literally died already, which would make any fears centered around her survival pretty fucking redundant. No sense in crying over spilt milk, right? The other component to her non-reaction, however, was the she was locked in a golden cage, safely out of the zombies' reach. ....oooh, a golden cage! Had Inna seen that, she would have had a field day complaining about the shitty ~symbolism~ of it all. Like, why gold of all materials? Wasn't gold meant to be a shorthand for luxury? Not to be a spoiled brat, but being stuck in a hellscape full of rotting zombies didn't really meet her criteria for lavishness.)

"Seriously, though," Ivy pursed her lips, obviously dissatisfied. "Why is it that you seem to believe pretty much anything people tell you, as long as it fits in with your worldview? Like... has it not occurred to you that a fucking zombie that is obviously a part of some bullshit trial may not be the most reliable source of information? You are not dead, Liora. No part of you is. As a Certified Dead Person, I can confirm that for you."

"Hey!" the Dead!Liora shook her first. "Stop fucking with my job, blondie. Who the fuck asked you? Return to your afterlife, or whatever the fuck it is that ~heroes~ like you get for kissing the Creator's ass passionately enough while you were still alive."

"No," Ivy shook her head, "you stop fucking with my job. If you think I'm gonna give up on Liora as if she was... uhhh, a half-eaten sandwich that turned into a fungal colony because I left in my backpack for a year," okay, Ivy could apparently be pretty creative with her comparisons, too, "then you're sorely mistaken. She's important to Inna, you see, so when I return this body to her, I'm gonna make sure she'll have something to live for, too! Or someone, in this case." That, from what Ivy had seen, seemed to be a common affliction of the modern era-- people only chased after money, money, money, and then they wondered why the hell they were spending it all on therapists. Like!!! There had to be some purpose to it all, man. Far it be from her to criticize other people's choices, but why would you hoard resources for no reason at all, huh? If you were drowning in cash, it was your moral duty to fund your cute gf's luxurious lifestyle!

"So, the reality? The reality is that the corpse girl is full of shit. Well, not literally, probably, because shit tends to get expelled when you die, but!!! You know what I meant. Anyway, I can promise to you that she doesn't have Vie's powers-- no more than a random walnut has it, really.You have Vie's powers, because you are her heir. Nobody can take this away from you, least of all some paltry imitation."

"Paltry?" Dead!Liora huffed. "I will have you know that the queen invested a considerable amount of her power into maintaining this illusion, and..." the last remainders of color drained from her face then, in a way that screamed 'shit, shit, shit.' "Oh. Can we... can we forget I said that? I don't want to die, my dudes. Ah, fuck, I shouldn't have said that, either! Where the hell is the memory-wiping potion when you need it--"

"You see now?" Ivy smirked. "You are ready, Liora. You've always been. Now, get rid of her, free me and then we'll finally find Inna. It's not too late!"

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Right. Right, of course! What the fuck happened to not trusting bitches? Especially bitches who are fucking magic?? (The biggest bitches out there, as far as Liora is concerned. Were she even a tiny bit more influenced by Inna she might hypothesize that it’s actually bitchiness that is the source of all magical energy given everyone they’ve run into so far—save for Ivy who must be an anomaly and in light of her connection to Inna, Liora wouldn’t doubt it.) Like, how could she be so stupid? Lately, everyone and their fucking mother has been telling her that she’s fucking useless and she totally understands why if she cannot even distinguish between an imitator versus her actual damn self! How embarrassing (and in front of Ivy too––she must fucking think Liora is a total fucking loser). This is so embarrassing, in fact, that the woman can feel the heat rising in her cheeks and the temptation to body swap with the zombie bitch in front of her is immense... like she’d really like to fucking die.

Thankfully, she won’t be acting on such teenage angst because she does remember that she is here for an important reason and until she secures Inna’s soul she will hold onto her will to live. Or whatever. At least everyone who has witnessed her most recent embarrassment is either dead or about to be! Silver linings, she supposes.

(Okay, okay, admittedly Ivy's following remarks may be helping her hold onto her will as well. Just. Wow. Someone actually believes in her and it doesn’t seem to be part of some cosmic episode of Punk’d! Like, yeah, she guesses that Inna must believe in her too—much of their recent interactions suggest as much—but she kind of has to. Her brain is so fucking broken she’d probably believe in a spoon’s competence to take care of her if someone told her spoons are sacred guardians. No offense, obviously. Liora is just... bitter about what’s become of her friend. Of course, that’s just why she has to try harder. If anything, Liora may be a weak ass little bitch but her mother certainly did not raise a quitter. She raised a tryhard and Liora is starting to remember that giving up is not a valid fucking option!)

“Why the Hell are you locked up there?” she asks, deciding to only focus on the important details and not on, you know, the crowd of zombies that are encircling around her; probably because she's starting to realize that their idiot leader is an incompetent idiot. The army of the undead, granted, had been a concern to her but a mere three seconds ago, but in that lapse of time two important things have happened (1) Ivy made her presence known and (2) the zombies have officially pissed her off by trying to make her look like a fucking fool in front of Ivy. (Well, those things and some of what Ivy has said has also taken effect with the woman. See, where she is disappointed that she fell for another trap, she also appreciates Ivy’s pep talk. It somewhat helps her move through her feelings of shame quicker rather than stew in them.) So oddly enough, her fear has run out in place of her righteous fury which has given her a new perspective on this situation. One that gives her what she thinks is a clever idea.

It’s actually pretty boring how this all goes down. In a rapid sequence of events, she swirls her sword above her head and opens a ring-shaped portal to the pigeon dimension. Standing at the center of this ring, she lowers the portal so that the zombies are standing with their torsos in one dimension and their legs in another. With the snap her fingers, a bright light flashes through the morgue, and the portal snaps around the bodies with a disgusting splurt sound leaving Liora with only an army of disembodied legs to deal with. It's effective to say the least and to the unknowing onlooker, it almost seems as if she has done this before.

Making a disgusted sound, she wipes off some exploded zombie guts from her shirt and walks over to Ivy’s golden cage. Vaguely, Liora almost feels the need to thank Ivy for what she said earlier, but she swallows it and chooses to moves on instead. (Like, it bothers her that Ivy had been so right that Liora is quick to believe anyone these days. It's hard feeling so unsure of herself and somewhere she knows she has never felt secure in herself, but at least before she could hide it better. She at least knew how to go through the motions enough to trick anyone into believing her confidence has no limits. However, in a fucking magic world, she doesn't know the rules at all and she doesn't know how to be and it's so easy to dig into her insecurities... That she just doesn't feel like herself. Or, more accurately, she is not used to walking through the world without her armor. It's unnerving.) With thanks only in her eyes, she continues into a different conversation, “Seriously, what’s up with all these fucking gimmicks? It’s like a literature professor’s wet dream,” she shudders as she cuts through the lock on the cage and helps the other woman out of the cage. "Like who cares about all this theater shit––I'm starting to fucking think this shit was all made by some fucked up drama kids."

 

[Syntra]

Ivy just shrugged, in the universal gesture for 'fuck me if I know, man'. "I don't run the show here, Liora! Like... I dunno what you think of me, but I'm literally only here thanks to a magical glitch. Without that phylactery incident, I would have been watching another episode of my favorite series right now! Which, by the way, is supposed to be kinda gripping, so let's get Inna out of there, huh? C'mon, I know you can do it-- you're Liora, so success is basically your second name. 'Miss Zombie Apocalypse' used to be Vie's second name, so surely, you can deal with a bunch of re-animated corpses! This is as if... uh, as if an accountant challenged Mozart to a piano duel. Do you still do piano duels in this century?" Ivy asked. "I used to win in a bunch of those when I literally dropped a piano on my opponent! Vie used to complain that that wasn't the point, but, like, they did call the piano 'a weapon of choice.' Can you blame a girl when she gets a little creative with the interpretation of the rules?" ...oh, so the Inna-like tendencies did sometimes shine through, alright. And, when they did? They fucking punched you in the stomach, with an armored first. (Nature vs. nurture, huh? Apparently, none of those could come close to tampering with Inna's essence, for she was eternal-- kind of like taxes, or maybe the bitter complaints about the current generation of young people being the worst humans to ever human.) "Wow, what a great teleportation usage!" Ivy clapped, happy sparks dancing in her eyes. "That's another major difference between you and Vie, you know? I... don't think that she appreciated her portals that much, actually. She was all shock and fury and teleporting wasn't where it was at, according to her. They for sure didn't make you as feared as zombies! And, like... she may have clung to her reputation a bit too much. In an unhealthy way, I mean. I'm, um, kinda bad at these things, though if she could speak to you, I think she would have wanted you to learn from this, you see? To stop caring about shit that doesn't fucking matter."

When Liora began discussing the theater tropes, though? Ivy flashed her a bright smile. "I don't think that comparison is too wrong, now that you mention it. The Creator sure as hell loves her symbolic bullshit! Like, she literally invented literary analysis-- one of her greatest crimes, if you ask me. I bet she only made the world and the universe and everything, basically, so that she could have a fancy stage for her larger-than-life stories. No, really. Once, when I came to visit her, I saw that she had custom figures of me and Vie made. The bitch tried to hide them, but I saw it! I bet she's, like, the universe's creepiest shipper. It wouldn't shock me if she wrote fanfiction about us, but," the blonde shuddered, "I didn't dare to snoop around. After that discovery, I wasn't all too eager to find out just how deep the rabbit hole was."

...did Ivy even need to breathe? The answer was no, it seemed, because a normal person would have fucking choked already, with this ratio of words spoken to time that had passed. (Being dead probably helped with that. Like, you couldn't kick the bucket twice, could you? Death was an exclusive fucking event, and her ticket had expired already.) Either way, the blonde bounced forward happily, caring very little for the dangers that lay beyond. "She's close now!" Ivy beamed. "Inna, I mean. I can sense her. But, Liora, before we reach her, I've been wondering... what is it that you like about her?" ...hmmm. Did she suddenly seem a bit shy? The emotion looked all out of place on her face, but it was unmistakable-- a slight blush crept into her cheeks, which was a clear fucking giveaway. "Just for, uh, scientific reasons. Have I ever told you I'm a researcher now? I majored in Innaology, so I'm curious. Curious and, um, hoping to expand my understanding here. I'll even credit you in my journal!"

Except that, when they entered the next room? The symbolism refused to leave them alone, because, despite them clearly being inside of some building, they found themselves in a blooming fucking meadow. (The smells? Utterly overpowering! And not just flowery ones, either-- Liora could smell cinnamon and nutmeg, and something that reminded her of Inna's baking, too. Something... chocolate-y, maybe? That something practically screamed home, and it outstretched its arms so that it could embrace Liora, too.)

'Welcome,' it said, in a voice that was and wasn't Inna's. 'Welcome, Liora! You've passed the trial. Now, after all the hardships, both you and Inna finally get to be happy! Isn't that wonderful? So, so many people wish to leave their miserable lives behind, but you actually get to do it. Truly, you've been blessed.'

Wait, Inna? What? Where was she?! She wasn't here, no, no, not at all, and... and before Liora managed to blink, her companion was suddenly by her side. "I've missed you," she whispered, so, so sweetly. (And that her skin was grey and cracking, much like the surface of the moon? Just an unimportant detail, surely. Nothing to fucking see here!) "I forgive you, too," the blonde continued. "For everything. I've had a lot of time to fucking think about it, and I've come to the conclusion that you've never done anything wrong in your life, you know? My perfect, perfect knight. Kiss me," she demanded, and put her arms around her neck. (That they felt cold? That, too, probably didn't matter. Like, it was Inna!!! ...or was she?) "Do it, Liora. Kiss me, and we can stay here forever. Don't you want to say goodbye to that silly quest, hmmm? I don't know about you, after all, but I don't remember ever asking for it. Here, we can be happy!"

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

"Piano... duels?" she repeats, her face looking just shy of bewildered though she shakes her head and decides against inquiring further. If piano duels had actually been an important part of history then she would have learned about them during her school years, because the education system definitely never leaves out important facts. (Well, there's that belief plus a combination of disinterest and not wanting to see just how fast Ivy can explain what a piano duel is. It's hard to keep up with everything that she says and with how fast she talks Liora almost forgets to breathe herself! Just, Jesus fucking Christ, does this woman know how to chat. Not that Liora is complaining––she finds it surprisingly enjoyable, because of how much it reminds of her friend. Plus, everytime Ivy opens her mouth she manages to outdo herself in terms of how weird each anecdote is––like, every time Liora thinks Ivy can surprise her no further she reveals a new unknown fact about this existence.)

There are also more important things for Liora to focus her attention on anyway. Like, Ivy complimenting her and driving the wedge deeper between herself and Vie. It's not that Liora hates Vie, but being compared to that woman is not easy. While everyone seems to be so thrilled that Ivy has returned as Inna, commenting on how fun both the two women are, Liora is always met with impossible expectations to fill. So that Ivy not only separates them but points out their differences, it helps Liora see how she is not meant to be the same woman as Vie. In fact, it's not even bad to be so different. She all but stops in her tracks as well when Ivy claims that Vie might've wanted her to learn from her mistakes and rigidity. She almost wishes she could meet the woman to actually confirm this because while all of this validation from Ivy is beyond nice, she is desperately curious to know what Vie must think of her heir. "Do you think it's possible for me to meet her?" she blurts out before she can even stop herself from asking such a silly question. "Like, you're here and so she must be somewhere too, right? I–I, like, don't need her to validate me or whatever but I'm curious. She sounds a lot different from what I've imagined and I just wish I knew more about her," because she believes that the more she understands about her past life, she'll have a better chance at not repeating history. The thought frightens her and given how much mystery surrounds Ivy's death and Vie's betrayal, she just worries that a repeat might happen out of nowhere even if things like not killing your best friend seem pretty simple to follow. One can never be too sure, especially with a history like hers.

Then when Ivy asks what she thinks of Inna, Liora doesn't miss the shyness or blush that creeps onto the other woman's cheeks. It causes Liora to wonder just why Ivy wants to know this. She doesn't think this is a test or whatever to see if she really is worthy of being with Inna, but it is odd that Ivy is so curious. It almost makes her wonder if Vie had ever told Ivy how much she meant to her and if, perhaps, Ivy is trying to make up for that with Liora. Though, she'll admit that seems a bit convoluted for Ivy and it's more than likely that she has a genuine curiosity. Either way, it's not like Liora has much to gain from withholding this information.

At first she just shrugs, trying to come off as nonchalant as possible, "Well, I didn't always like her. I, um, hated her for most of how long we've known each other, actually. She was just so insufferable and she was, to be honest, quite an asshole. I mean, granted, I was a bitch to her, too, so I doubt she has sparkly things to say about our beginning, but," she starts chewing on the corner of her lip while rubbing the back of her of neck as she explains, "like being stuck in some magical prophecy together helped me actually get to know her, you know? And when I actually got past hating her, I realized she's, like, alright." Okay, wow, this is not the most romantic thing of the century but Liora also is not much of a romantic. (Unlike Vie who definitely had a way with her words.) "She... she just shines without trying, you know? You just wanna be in the same room as her, because you know it's gonna be way more fun with her around. And she's seen me at some pretty pathetic lows and hasn't cared that I'm not all that. Like she just accepts me and I don't know why but I honestly try not to question it, because I just don't really want to stop being next to her. I don't get a lot of what she says and her way of thinking absolutely confuses me, but I like that too. She's just really different and, like, I really wouldn't ask for a different person to share this prophecy with. She's also, like, really pretty and I can't believe she liked me," she admits, sheepishly.

While she shares her thoughts on Inna, she notices that morgue shifts into some fantasy land and she decides against questioning the change. Mostly because it beats a fucking morgue. The meadow is a bit extra in that it smells exactly how she'd expect a fairytale to smell, but everything about it also reminds her of Inna so she'd be hard pressed to find herself annoyed with the scenery. Though when Inna's voice reaches her ears, her breath catches in her throat and tears nearly immediately spring to eyes––just what does she even say? What does she do? Obviously, she doesn't have to be anything other than herself and Inna will still want to be around her (she's pretty sure), but it's been so long since she's spoken to the actual––

Okay, well this isn't the real fucking Inna and now Liora is as pissed as she is unimpressed. Like, first of all, the real Inna would have said something about this cheesy fucking scenery. And even if Liora can reason that the real Inna would want them to chill out in this meadow forever, the real Inna also wouldn't look so fucking ugly with all this gray and cracked skin. The real Inna is fucking beautiful and Liora refuses to believe that this imitation is anything close to her actual fucking friend. Even while she says all the things that Liora wants to hear, this just completely misses the mark with how obviously fake it all is. Something about her Inna-isms is off. "Shut the fuck up, I'm not going to fucking kiss you," Liora snaps, shrugging off the impersonator's weird fucking arms that are not nearly as warm and homey as Inna's. "Where the fuck is Inna and who the fuck are you––you better have a good fucking answer or, or I'm gonna rip your soul from your fucking body and make you wish you never fucking tried to trick me." (Like, yeah, maybe she can't recognize herself, but Inna? She could identify that woman anywhere.) "I want my fucking Inna back so step the fuck off unless you're here to take me to her!"

 

[Syntra]

"What?" the cheap-ass imitation of Inna asked, batting her eyelashes. (Yeah, nice try, bitch! The gesture might have been attractive had it not been, you know, for the fucking cracks in her skin. Even Russian roads seemed to be reasonably intact in comparison, and yes, that was fucking saying a lot.) "What is it that you're saying, Liora? Do you not like me anymore? Is it because I look like this?" she pointed to her face, heartbreak reflected in her eyes. "I thought that was what you enjoyed, though! Like... you are aware that you killed me, right? And that corpses fucking decompose? You made me this way, Liora. You, and nobody else," the blonde hissed. (...was it just her, or did her pupils swallow the rest of her eyes? Gone was her chestnut brown, as well as the whites-- her gaze was drowning in darkness, and oh, that darkness threatened to draw Liora in, too. Like a moth to a flame, she felt the need to come closer, closer, closer...) "Will you not accept the responsibility, hmmm? It's not nice of you, you know, to ruin a girl like this, and then discard her. Do you think that I'm an orange, Liora? That you may squeeze every last drop of juice out of me, only to throw me away?" Something in her voice was almost seductive-- a purr, yes, but also a song, and everything in between. (Curiously enough, that sound reminded her of home, too. Maybe this woman really was Inna...? The Inna-ness was all fucking wrong, indeed, but it was kinda common knowledge that death, uh, often left you in a pretty sorry shape.)

"Let go of her, you impostor!" Ivy's voice cut through the air, sharp like a knife. "She said no, okay? And no means no, bitch. I know the queen isn't, like, a linguist, but one would have said that that isn't a difficult concept to grasp."

"Aaaargh!" 'Inna' threw her head back, and made a sound that could only really be described as 'howl'. (What the fuck was this, another episode of Animal Planet?) "Stay away from this, you dead fucking dumbass. Humans, I swear. There aren't many nice things I can say about you, but usually, you at least have the goddamn decency to stay dead when something kills you. Do rules just not matter anymore? I'm gonna file a formal fucking complaint and send it to the Creator herself if you don't calm down, and... whoops." Whoops, indeed! Pro tip for next time, sis: when pretending to be a human, maybe, I dunno, don't speak of humans as if you were a member of a different species entirely. "I... I mean, I said that accidentally! Just, tongues, man. They do whatever they want, don't they? In one moment, you're saying things you truly mean to say," she scratched her head awkwardly, "and in the other, you suddenly become a victim of demonic possession! Wild, really." ...wow. Where was E-keysmash getting these shit employees from? The Hellish University of Failure? One thing, it seemed, was pretty fucking undeniable-- the candidates were not chosen according to their IQ. "Haha, sucks to be this fragile, doesn't it? I mean, not to romanticize the demons, but like... if you joined their side, there would be benefits. Not being able to be possessed anymore, for example, is a pretty big deal." Ok ok ok, so now she was including a fucking sales pitch as well? Ten out of ten for subtlety, really! "Anyway, can you kiss me? Like, I dunno if you've noticed, but I'm kinda disintegrating in real time. Wait for too long, and I might not even have lips anymore! The kiss will definitely save me, though. Humans love their fairytales, don't they? I mean, we love fairytales, because they contain infinite wisdom and shit. So, just imagine me as one of those enchanted frogs, or maybe Rapunzel. Get over yourself, and you will get your Inna back!"

Ivy, meanwhile, seemed entirely unimpressed. "Yeah, no. Give it up, bitch! Liora passed the trial fair and square. You know what that means, don't you? Back into nothingness with you!" The blonde slapped not-Inna across her face, then, and as for what happened next? Why, the world surrounding them began to crumble-- much like a window that had just been hit by a rock, really. The shards fell to Liora's feet, with this hard-to-describe grace, only to be replaced by... ah. What a familiar, familiar scenery! Too bad that sweet nostalgia probably wasn't going to grip Liora's heart, however, because 'familiar' didn't necessarily have to mean good. Not when that word was referring to a prison, anyway.

"Hahaha!" someone (presumably E-keysmash's lackey) chuckled. "Enjoying yourself, Liora? There's a reason everything is made of glass here, you know-- it is perfect for, hmm, delivering visions to the ones who did not learn their lesson in real life. The way it reflects light? Impeccable, indeed. Now, the fact that it can hurt a person is just a side effect," the demoness smiled, and a glass dagger materialized in her hand, "but a pleasant one. Would you like a demonstration, perhaps?" And, by that, she didn't actually mean hurting Liora. That quickly became apparent when she stepped aside-- the shadows shifted slightly in that moment, and revealed a glass tree. (The same one upon which she had suffered? Maybe, though that didn't actually matter. What did matter, you see, was that Inna was bound to it! Inna, who was pale as a ghost, with fresh blood streaming past her lips. Her eyes were closed, and did not open upon the demoness saying Liora's name-- presumably, was asleep. Asleep, or maybe even...) "Since you broke the illusion on your own," the woman gave her a chilling smile, "I'm thinking you deserve a reward. So, tell me, Liora: where should I cut her, hmmm? Or would you like me to do something more interesting to your precious Inna?"

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Honestly, it would be a luxury if Liora could say that this sort of behavior from the obvious imposter surprised her. However, this is just what she would fucking expect. Like, yeah, Liora's reaction to her had not been the most diplomatic but, whoever this shit-ass demon is, she gave up her right to diplomacy the second she fucking decided to impersonate Inna. To make her offense even worse, she even dares to demand a kiss! As if Liora is the poor sucker who has to work the fucking kissing booth! Like, hello, her lips are not for everyone and she doesn't just go around kissing people (or demons) just because they impersonate her ex and take her on the guilt trip of the century. Which is a pretty good tactic and Liora would be lying if she said the impersonator's words didn't hurt––but she realizes they only hurt because the image of Inna is saying it to her, tricking her mind into believing that Real Inna is telling her all of this. Even if the Inna-ness is all off, her image is powerful enough that it does take Liora some effort to hold onto the fact that this copy-cat has nothing on the real fucking Inna. The real fucking Inna, of course, has every right to still be angry with Liora, but this demon clearly did not study fucking Innaology because her upset is all fucking wrong. She almost punches the imitation in the face because it's so fucking offensive.

So when the faker accidentally slips up just like the zombie version of herself from earlier? She isn't at all surprised. "Give it up, you've been fucking caught and I'm not fucking stupid," she chimes, crossing her arms and then pretending to inspect her nails. The demon, of course, continues to try to plead her case but it's about as convincing as flat Earth conspiracy theories. (Honestly, it's surprising that even demon lackeys are fucking idiots. Previous to this she had thought that only those hired by Chett have IQs that plummet through the fucking Earth––save for herself and Inna, duh. Clearly, Liora had been mistaken to assume that just because demons are more powerful and resilient that they are inherently better than humans in every other arena as well. If that is true, and demons really aren't inherently better, then maybe Liora does believe in herself a little bit more. She's only half-dumbass, after all, and E-keysmash is a full dumbass. Interesting how this tiny narrative shift is improving her morale––almost as if thoughts and feelings are connected? Has anyone made this discovery yet?) Since Liora isn't sure how long this fake Inna is going to ramble on (like, at least she got one part of her character right), she reaches for Declan––though her sword proves to be wholly unnecessary as Ivy slaps the decrepit imposter.

Liora would have thanked her not-friend then and there, but then the world decides to shatter like glass around them. She raises her arms to protect her face from debris, but nothing flies towards her. Instead, the pieces drift down like snow or drizzle or maybe a feather? In any case, the shards pile around her adding to the... glass floor that she definitely recognizes from her (brief) nightmares. She steps back, hoping that if she walks back far enough that the meadow or the morgue or the flames will return. The familiarity of her environment chills her and all the air from her lungs leaves her body, leaving her deflated like a balloon. Even if she did expect to find Inna in Hell, she didn't think she'd find her in the fucking dungeons. (Who knew it was such a great fucking hope to have that, actually, her Inna hadn't already fallen into the fucking demon queen's clutches! Even if E-keysmash has yet to make her grand entrance it's not as though this dungeon can belong to anyone fucking else.)

Slowly, trying to stop the inevitable, she lifts her head and meets the demoness's eye. She knows she's fucking close to Inna at this point and she doesn't want to screw up this exchange. She has to be fucking precise. She has to be smart.

... That mantra gets tossed out the fucking window the second she sees Inna attached to that tree. Just what horrors is she experiencing? (Liora still remembers everything she witnessed in vivid detail. If she ever lets her mind wander, it always returns to those hallucinations. Just looking at this glass contraption, now, she has to pinch her thigh to keep herself from drifting to that place again.) She swallows hard. While she keeps her eyes glued to her companion, her fingers idly trace her stomach where the branches had impaled her flesh. (She can still feel the edges tearings into her insides, if she concentrates hard enough.) Then, with a disturbing amount of clarity, her eyes cut back over to the demoness and she's teleported herself on top of the other, knocking the dagger from her hand.

"Nowhere, you fucking bitch!" she screams, punching the demoness in the face and cocking her fist backwards to go at her again. "What the fuck are you idiots fucking on if you think I'm going to play along?!"

"Get off me, you filthy thing!" The demoness hisses in response and spits blood into Liora's eyes, causing the woman to lose her grip as she tries to get the fucking sting out of her eyes. The pair struggle with another––the demon gaining the upper hand while Liora fights through tears to keep her eyes open and clear. She climbs on top of the woman and lands a blow in Liora's side, then reaches into the shards that cover the floor and grabs a fistful to rub into her face. Except when the demon brings her hand down on Liora's face, the woman isn't there anymore (duh). She's on top of the demon, shoving her face into the glass fucking floor. The woman then drags the demon by her hair and shoves her into the side of the tree, gripping her head and grinding her against bark. The demoness thrashes and whimpers against Liora's grip, and that only causes the woman to conjure chains and bind her to the tree.

"Pleasant fucking side effect, huh? And have you learned your fucking lesson?" (Honestly, Liora has had a long and hard day and maybe this is also revenge for her own fucking glass tree incident.) "Release Inna from this goddamn tree or I'll grind your face into burgers." (Though if Inna isn't fine, then the demoness will probably also be ground into burgers anyway. And, yes, she did lift the ground burgers phrase from Ivy.)

"You fucking idiot––you're going to get us both killed," she whines and Liora only pushes her further into the tree. "F-fine, fine! I'm releasing her just, ouch––be fucking patient!" Slowly, from where the demoness touches, an orange glow spreads throughout the glass tree, liquifying it until it is a puddle on the ground. As the blonde's body is released from her bonds, Liora stands to catch her before she can hit the floor. When Inna falls into her arms, her entire body is shaking, her lower lip trembles, and she gathers her friend's ghostly cold body closer to her core. (She refuses to think about how dead her friend is.) She then pulls the class ring phylactery from her pocket and gingerly slips it onto Inna's finger.

 

[Syntra]

Were you familiar with the awesome, awesome feeling of being stuck in a nightmare? You know, realizing that what you were seeing was about as divorced from reality as the billionaires who didn't even know how much a single banana cost, but still not being able to break free. Well, if not, then you could fucking congratulate yourself, because Inna Would Not RecommendTM. Zero out of ten, really! (Just??? There weren't many certainties in life, but dreams being dreams was one of those things she had kinda counted on-- like yeah, they could be annoying for sure, but once you figured out their little ruse? Game over, bitch. Your fucking mind was freed from the prison, and you could close that chapter of your life. Technically, you could write the it down somewhere, the blonde supposed, and like, psychoanalyze it later, though everyone knew that only superstitious fucks fell for such nonsense-- the types who also unironically bought into healing crystals, 5G waves neutralizers and other money sinks that had been designed to rob goddamn idiots. That, my friends, was the extent to which dreams were supposed to be influencing your life! This one, though? Like a mad dog, it sank its teeth into her flesh, and bit and bit and bit-- if they went any deeper, Inna was sure, the fangs would tear her apart. ...maybe that was exactly what she deserved, though.)

Like, reincarnation was a thing, right? A few months ago, Inna would have recommended you to drill a few holes into your head had you tried to peddle that sort of bullshit to her, but her, uhhh... personal experiences with the topic had convinced her otherwise. So, if reincarnation really worked, it wasn't so far-fetched to deduce that other seemingly nonsensical concepts might not be so nonsensical, after all. Karma would be a good example of that! (...karma, which seemed to be a fucking double edged sword. Did Liora deserve to have her whole world shattered because some other version of her had hurt Inna once? It had felt that way back then, when the fury had been fresh in her heart and her companion had acted like a fucking kid who had been caught stealing cookies, but now she wasn't so sure. Like, there was such a thing as going too far, you know? When someone stepped on your foot, it wasn't fucking normal to cut it off in retribution, and while Liora had killed her... well, she hadn't really been herself back then, and Inna hadn't been, either. It was easy to draw the = sign between them, but was it also the right thing to do? Like, not that the blonde worshiped JusticeTM, but Liora had proven she was loyal to her, again and again and again. Had that one fuck up, which hadn't even been hers, erased all the good things she'd done for her? And, if you wanted to use a metaphor, would McDonald's formally banish a customer just because they'd gotten their fucking meal at KFC once? Calibrating her moral compass according to what a soulless food chain saw as wise was kinda a low bar to pass, she had to admit, but still! Even the goddamn McDonald's, in all its capitalist villainy, understood the concept of forgiveness-- unlike Inna, apparently, who nursed her grudges so well that they grew up and fucking went to college.

So, the demon that wouldn't leave her alone? An okay-ish punishment, the blonde guessed. It had been good enough for Prometheus, so she wouldn't complain, either, and... wait, what was this? This sensation of being dragged somewhere? She could feel a new weight around her finger, too, and, like an anchor, it pulled her down, down, down--

"Alright," Ivy clapped excitedly, "listen, Liora, I don't have much time. Inna's coming home, so I should free up the space for her, you know? Just, imagine buying a house and finding up it's still occupied when you want to move in! ...except it's not a house, but your body, and you don't really buy bodies unless you're a supervillain, so I guess my metaphor kinda sucks. Anyway, it was an honor to meet you! I'm glad I had the opportunity, really. Immediately, I'm less worried for Inna. Take care of her for me, okay? When she dies, I want her to tell me stories of you guys going for walks with your dog and shit, not another murder mystery. I mean, lesbian love stories with sad endings are such a snoozefest! So, don't bore me, alright? And good luck, too."

For all her love of theatrics, Ivy disappeared quietly-- more like smoke above a dying fire rather than, say, an exploding volcano. And as for the Inna that Liora had embraced? Within a blink of the eye, she was gone, too. Gone but not lost, it seemed, because when her brown eyes opened again, there was a spark something that had not been there before. Something that could be called... hmm, recognition, perhaps?

"Liora?" the blonde asked, her voice hoarse. (It could have belonged to a hermit who hadn't spoken for centuries, but like, an infinitely hotter version of that archetype.) "Liora, where are we? What happened?"

"Ahahaha!" E-keysmash (of fucking course) laughed, before she emerged out of nothingness. (Okay, a few questions: a) how did she do this, b) how long had she been watching, c) how come her hair was so infuriatingly perfect? Seriously, the bitch might as well have returned from hairdresser's!) "Don't pretend you have no idea, Innushka. Wasn't it my presence that drew you here, after all? And you, Liora-- my worthless little worm," she batted her eye-lashes. "What is it like, knowing that I'm always right? Your precious friend did lead you to me, just like I said she would! This is what you get for having no pattern recognition, I guess."

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

There's so, so much riding on this phylactery to work and though Liora no longer doubts that she actually had been successful in creating one, the anticipation between slipping the ring on Inna's finger and waiting for her to spring to life is killing her. It's worse than waiting to rip open the Christmas presents that have been taunting you and your sister since the first day of December, mostly because Inna is a lot better than a Christmas gift. If metaphors were more Liora's style she might be able to think of an apt one and even then, she would probably be dissatisfied with it because the blonde really is beyond words. She cannot be contained by any definition or metaphor. Maybe when she comes back she'll ask Inna how she'd describe herself but right now she can only hold this version of Inna close to her. (She doesn't want to think about it, but she is nervous. It some ways, it feels like seeing someone you haven't seen in years and wondering if the chemistry you had before will still be there or if you are about to have the most awkward cup of coffee in the world! Except this is infinitely worse because she's more or less invited Inna to live with her. Sure, she could be a total bitch and kick the blonde to the curb if it truly is so horrible, but honestly? If you believe that Liora would do that to her friend, then you haven't been paying attention. So the worst case scenario is living with a roommate that you try to avoid at all costs. Not what she wants, obviously, and the possibility frightens her even if unlikely. It's just been so long since she's been with Inna––and not the ex-demon version that still is adjusting back into human life, but real and actual Inna. The one she has missed so much that it actually scares her to think about just how much she cares for a single person. She'd fight a honey badger with a toothpick if it meant ensuring that her friend is safe.)

When she looks towards Ivy, there is a certain level of sadness in her eyes as well. Even while Inna is returning to her, and she wants that more than anything else in the world, in the short hour or so since she's gotten to know Inna's past self she's grown to like her. It happened quickly and unexpectedly, sure, but Liora has appreciated the other woman and if time would allow, she would have liked to say a goodbye. But apparently, things are moving quickly with the whole Inna coming back situation and soon the ghost is gone, both of them actually, and––

"Inna," Liora breathes, the entire world melting around her when she looks into those brown eyes. "Shh, shh," she says, pulling Inna into a tight embrace––for some reason, perhaps losing Inna for the seven hundredth time in her lives, she isn't hesitant to hug her. She even strokes her hair, tucking loose strands back into place; she smoothes her thumb over her cheek and while concern is plain in Liora's eyes, the faintest hint of a smile tugs at her lips. "Don't worry about it. I'm taking care of it, okay?"

Obviously, it'd be really fucking stupid for Liora to believe that E-keysmash wasn't going to show her ugly fucking face. (Okay, she's not actually ugly––she's actually super fucking gorgeous, but that becomes surprisingly easy to overlook when the demon's bitch personality has all the appeal of beat up shoelaces.) When the queen laughs in that evil way that villains always laugh (shoot Liora if she ever leans into a trope so fucking corny), Liora is prepared to face her. Her blood doesn't freeze, her hands don't start to clam up, and her mind isn't ripping itself up with swears. The woman has spent too much of this past fucking week trying to fix whatever it is that E-keysmash had done to her Inna to let herself falter now. For Christ's fucking sake, she has had to explain fucking microwaves to her; has had to fucking deal with the Mistress being a completely incompetent dumb bitch; suffered through bullshit trials that lacked any semblance of consistency; and she now finally has Inna in her arms. So if this stupid fucking queen thinks Liora is just going to give up? Then the bitch doesn't deserve to be a fucking queen if she doesn't understand that Liora has already crossed the fucking finish line! Protectively, she stands in front of Inna, not at all risking E-keysmash even taking another look at the blonde.

"First of all," she says glaring at the queen and placing a hand on her hip, "I'm not yours, so that's just worthless little worm to you, you fucking oaf." The glass shards beneath her feet begin to rattle, but Liora doesn't seem concerned or, more accurately, she doesn't notice. "Second, she only fucking came here because she fucking died and, let's be honest, she's not a fucking saint so where the fuck else would she end up? That's like saying you predicted bugs were going to swarm the honey you left out. So if you think I believe for a fucking second that she came back here on her own, then you're the queen of delusions as far as I'm concerned. She..." suddenly, her nerves return to her. Though not because she is facing E-keysmash, but because there is still so much uncertainty within her when it comes to Inna. Namely, what Inna thinks of her. Yet even then, she remembers the moment that really kickstarted this whole bastardized version of Inna business. (Briefly, the image of Inna holding down the entire demon court with the wind before stabbing herself in the stomach flashes behind her eyelids.) "Inna fucking chose me over you and nothing can change that."

"Hmm, is that so?" the queen asks, looking oh so unimpressed and unmoved by Liora's little speech. "Oh, Liora, there is still so much you––"

'don't understand' is probably how E-keysmash would have finished her sentence had a certain hydra not come crashing through the dungeons. Interestingly, half the heads seem to still be loyal to Liora, their creator, whereas the other half seem to be loyal to the queen. The result? Chaos mostly. (But at least it gets E-keysmash to shut the fuck up.)

 

[Syntra]

Of course. Of fucking course! Out of all the mythological fuckers they could have met, it simply had to be E-keysmash-- E-keysmash who, by the way, couldn't even be that much of a big deal because, as far as mythology went, she was a goddamn nobody. Krakens? Yeah, Inna had heard of those. Romulus and Remus? Again, even if the blonde had tried her best not to store useless goddamn bullshit inside of her head, the cultural significance had caught up with her. Like, you didn't have to actively listen to Madonna to know who she had been, right? Well, it was the same mechanism here! And, no matter how hard she tried, Inna couldn't fucking remember any bitch-ass demon queen with a borderline unpronounceable name. (Hmm. Sorta made sense, didn't it? For a supposed ruler, she sure as hell was oozing insecurity-- the kind of 'hurr durr, look at how powerful I am' attitude that clung to losers, much like the stench unwashed socks clung to men who lived without their mommy. "Fuck off," Inna recommended to the queen, "I didn't fucking return to you and you know it. That's just wishful thinking, baby!" The mere idea of sharing a bed with her again... shit, the blonde wanted to scream, and definitely not from pleasure. "Does it not strike you as desperation, love? That's not hot at all. Just, learn to take a hint, bitch!"

Inna had a few more biting remarks at her disposal, most likely because they'd been stewing inside of her head for so, so long, but Liora's words? Those stopped her in her tracks, alright. ('I'm taking care of it,' she had said, and while with others, her first instinct would have been to refuse, with Liora... well, with her, the blonde felt safe to accept. Being held in her arms fucking felt safe, too, so Inna didn't protest-- on the contrary, she leaned into it, if only so that she could breathe in her scent. ...ah, fuck, it had been ages since they'd done this! Not nominally, of course, 'cause it wasn't as if she'd been dead for that long, but, in a way, the opposite sorta checked out to her. Like, while recovering from E-keysmash's numerous mindfucks, Inna hadn't exactly been present, had she? Physically, maybe, but when it came to her mind, she'd been there about as much as she'd """taken""" her maths lessons. And, no, in her book, sleeping with her eyes open didn't fucking count!)

(Then, you know, it occurred to her-- all those delicious, delicious implications, each connected to one another like links in a chain. Just!!! Inna had been a vegetable for months, right? And, despite her vegetable fucking brain, Liora hadn't left her. Even more bafflingly, she had taken care of her! With the patience of a goddamn saint, her friend had exclaimed to her how shoes worked, and what the toilet was, and... and, long story short, her fucking reputation had gone down the drain. This was like the disintegration of the USSR, really! The point of no return, from which no amount of excuses could save her-- except that maybe, just maybe, Inna didn't want to return. People seeing the real you could be scary, yeah, but not with Liora, you see? ...unlike everyone else, she hadn't left her. When cracks had appeared in her facade of a hardcore badass, you know, her friend hadn't seen it as an 'abort mission' signal-- instead, she'd fucking been there for her, and handed her some glue. 'It's fine,' she'd said, with gestures if not words. 'I'll help you repair yourself.' Which, wow! Was it possible to wait for certain words your entire fucking life, and not realize it? Since those were kinda the vibes Inna was getting here now. Suddenly, concepts like fate didn't seem so far-fetched, huh? Labels such as 'superstition' didn't exactly cut it anymore-- not when the truth of it had been engraved into her heart, long before she'd even been fucking born.)

"Yeah, that's right," the blonde nodded, sensing that her friend could use some encouragement. "And even when I did choose you in the beginning, I only did it to spite Liora. So, in essence, you've always been just a consolation prize! Now when I have the real deal, I don't need you. Bitch." That statement apparently hit a sensitive spot, because a mix of emotions flashed through E-keysmash's eyes-- shock, betrayal, and something that could only be called... well, petulance. In that moment, the glorious queen resembled a kid that had just been denied candy!

To her infinite sorrow, however, Inna ran out of opportunities to egg her on further-- a real fucking shame, because she had a few rather, hmm, cutting observations re: the queen behaving like a sore fucking loser. Gotta save them for later, she guessed! Mostly because the fucking hydra was a much more immediate problem to deal with. ...except that maybe not? Because the creature lunged towards the queen, roaring like an angel of vengeance.

"What!" E-keysmash cried before dodging the claws aimed at her face. (Well, 'dodging' may have been a strong word-- when she looked up, you see, her face was covered in blood! It seeped through three symmetric wounds, and as much as Inna hated to admit it, the resulting imagery was kinda... well, cool. The 'would make a killer tattoo' type of cool, anyway.) "Don't forget where your loyalties lie, you wretch!" she shouted.

"I'm actually thinking she may have remembered just now," Inna smirked. Speaking of loyalties, though-- where the fuck was Haenel? The blonde had forgiven her for being a bitch the first time around, but defecting to E-keysmash had been so over the line she couldn't help but devise a punishment in the privacy of her mind already. (Dousing her with water? Might be unpleasant for the fiery fox, but man, it seemed so entry-level that Inna felt ashamed for even considering it. No, no, no! The punishment had to be great and terrible, and so fucking cruel that Vlad the Impaler's activities would look like a fucking tea party in comparison. So... forcing her to listen to God Save the Queen on repeat? The very idea of that made her shudder, but let's face the truth-- with her garbage-tier behavior, Haenel fucking deserved it. Yep, every insufferable second!)

Naturally, that was when a fire broke out in the middle of the prison, with its scarlet flames so high they were practically licking the ceiling-- the speed was so fucking eye-brow raising that Inna just knew some supernatural fuckery had to be involved, really. And, yup, fucking bingo! Accompanied by an ominous hisssss, Haenel jumped out of the blazing inferno.

'Pffft,' she flicked one of her many tails. 'There you are! My greatest disappointment. We could have been good together, you know? So, so powerful, truly, that we would have reduced the world to cinders! But, nooo, you had to go and spit on our future-- all for some... some fucking chick. Disgusting. Do you have no ambitions at all? Wait, no, don't answer! I know what you are already. But, hmmm...' her eyes traveled to Liora, 'we still have something to discuss, don't we? Declan. I demand a duel! Show yourself, you filthy owl, so that I may end you once and for all.'

 

[starboob]

☉ LIORA TRIHN ☉
​

Okay, never in a million years would Liora have thought that someone would more or less admit that she, Liora Trihn, isn't the fucking consolation prize but the actual, like, real fucking prize? An actual golden trophy? Well, obviously Liora had been known to walk around with her nose stuck in the air so it shouldn't be surprising for her to realize that someone else actually sees her worth as well. Except that, while she had gone around with the belief that she is better than everyone fucking else, that had all been a front to hide everything she lacks. Her mother always told her to never show any signs of weakness so she never did. Not until her life turned upside down and she was forced to look all her insecurities in the eye and swallow each one. It's been apparent that Liora hasn't been herself as of late either, a side effect of realizing that only her facade has been strong, so hearing that Inna still values her above all else––including a fucking queen––she could die happy.

But dying today is just not a fucking option. Even if she'd die happy, she'd still die without ever having gotten a truly happy ending with, like, a dog and cute bungalow and shit. She promised Ivy that she'd make sure Inna had good stories to tell her when they're all dead and those stories won't be that fucking good if this all ends with, 'And then E-keysmash ruined everything and killed them both at once, but at least they died knowing they don't hate each other.' Nope! That's not happily ever after so it won't fucking suffice.

So even when Hydrangea comes back, Liora does not allow herself to be scared. For one, this is her fucking creation so she imagines there is an off-switch she can activate were she to think about it more; and two, they've killed krakens, gone back in time to undo a fuck-up, dealt with mind control, flesh cocoons, etc. At this point, there's nothing she and Inna cannot take on. Of that, she is certain. Even so, she reaches over and grabs Inna's hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze––for old time's sake, she supposes. (And Inna's hands are soft and nice and warm.)

(Also, is it just a trick of the light or did she catch E-keysmash looking... upset? For the longest time Liora thought the queen was invincible to such emotions that weren't related to, like, tearing people down but realizing that perhaps she also has insecurities of her own? Consider Liora's mind officially fucking blown. Like even if it's common to assume arrogant assholes and bitches alike act the way they do because they are insecure, she just thought E-keysmash was above that. Now, however? She realizes the pedestal she had placed her on had been much too fucking high! This bitch is like all the rest and if that is true, then she can be taken down too.)

While Hydrangea spends a few minutes fighting with herself and hurling her body throughout the dungeons with reckless abandon, eventually there seems to be a shift within Liora's creation. The woman doesn't want to make any assumptions, but it is peculiar that the second the beast seems to have recognized Inna that she decides to launch at the queen. Hydrangea doesn't seem bothered by the queen's cries of treason and continues to use her many heads to try to swallow the demon.

The queen, obviously, is none too pleased with this development––on top of the prior development that the half-demon has betrayed her for real, she now seems almost unhinged. "Have your many brains fucking forgotten who has housed and fed you while your creator has not even searched for you, you stupid mongrel?!" The queen's sword then materializes in her hand to block another one of Hydrangea's attacks––apparently she doesn't care that Liora never looked for her (probably because she's actually fighting for Inna who actually did care for her).

Though, unfortunately, there's not more time to watch Hydrangea attempt to cut up the queen and eat her like sashimi. As the room lights up in flames, Liora once more reaches for Inna's hand. "Is this you?" she asks in the same moment that Haenel, that traitorous fucking fox, jumps through the fire. Immediately, without even Liora's prompting, Declan jumps from her sheath and materializes in her owl form. Even as small as she is, the intensity radiating off of her feathers gives her the illusion that she's twenty time larger than she is.

"You shut your trap about Ms. Inna and her choices!" the owl cries, "What happened to the Haenel who used to gab with the Creator and I about when Ivy and Vie would get together, hm? She was way cooler than this edgelord in front of me!" Declan begins to flap her wings and with each motion, spirits are raised from the below––taking on different shapes all at once. Liora cannot figure out what her sword is making, but that soon gets answered when the masses of spirits attach themselves to the owl and form a giant owl body around her. With her new enhancements, the owl stretches her wings and gives a single flap that sends the glass shards in the room flying towards the fox.