Raine didn't cry. Didn't run. She crumpled.
Her shoulders gave out and her lips dropped.
"You… but you have your voice," Raine whispered. Bubbles spilled from her eyes again, floating up to her aqua hair. "And your face… but... what would have happened? Why do you look at me like that?"
"I—uh, I don't know who you are. I'm sorry, look…"
Raine bit her lips tight and shuffled over until she was right at the edge of the silk basin. Too close. Aspen leaned back.
Raine held her hands out. "Please, your wrists. Please."
Oh. Aspen looked into her eyes. Into the bubbles that caught at the edge of her hair.
She's genuinely... she swallowed. Her arms uncurled from her chest, moving through the thick air by inches. Her wrists drifted until landing in the pulsing warmth of Raine's grip.
"You're still warm," Raine choked out. "How could I just accept this? Is this a test? No—Lyra would never do this…"
Aspen looked down at the girl's hands clutching hers. The necklace pulsed, keeping her heart rate slow, but it couldn't stop the tightening knot in her gut.
"Um… I'm sorry," she whispered. The drugs made her voice sound distant, even to herself. "I see you're sad and stuff... but I don't know who this Lyra person is. I'm just… me."
Raine recoiled as if burned. She snatched her hands back, pressing them to her chest.
"You… you smell different. So the scent didn't lie." She tested the words with her tongue.
"Listen, I don't want to hurt you, it seems like you were close friends with this Lyra person. But I don't understand anything. The other woman, High Priestess, said I'm this Hermit person. And that you would come and some Memma person? Something about a Namelost too. She seemed stressed too. I just want some grounding here."
That sounded mature.
Raine let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. She wiped her face with her sleeve, smearing the tears. "Y-You don't know what a Hermit is?"
Aspen couldn't decipher the look Raine gave her. Whether it was pity, or horror. Raine continued. "How is it even possible?"
"Um… I don't know. Do you want this necklace? That woman said it would keep me calm, and it seems like you might want it more than me."
"N-No, how could I?" Raine shrank back, eyes wide. "That is High Priestess's own Leal. And you need it. I wouldn't dare."
Aspen dropped her hand from the necklace. "Oh. Okay. Good to know, I guess."
Raine took a shuddering breath. She wiped the last of the bubbles from her cheeks with a jerky, insectoid swiftness. "I am a Namelost."
Aspen tilted her head. "Okay… what does that mean?"
"It doesn't remind you of anything…?"
"No."
Raine exhaled, a long, ragged sound. Her shoulders curled inward, and she shrank inside her silk robe. "We Namelost must have our names gifted to us by the spirits. You... or, Lyra, met me just days after I had received mine."
Aspen cocked her head. "Spirits? That's... a big uh, thing. Same with this magic stuff. But why are spirits giving you names? And not your parents?"
"Some of us don't have parents that live long enough to give us anything."
Aspen's mouth opened. Closed. Heat crawled up her neck. "M-My bad. I didn't mean it like that."
"It's okay. It just confirms it. You… are not Lyra." A wisp of a smile ghosted across Raine's face. It didn't reach her eyes; those remained still, like a pond where a stone had just sunk to the bottom. She twisted the fabric of her silk robe—once, twice—then smoothed it flat.
The motion was automatic, like she'd done it a thousand times. Like Lyra had seen her do it a thousand times.
Why does this feel so wrong? Like I did something bad? Aspen swallowed. "...Yeah. Um, okay let's just talk about the spirits."
Those words hung in the air. Raine stared at a knot in the wooden floor—anywhere but Aspen. Her shoulders slumped forward, her gaze glassy.
Aspen watched the silence stretch. Something in her gut twisted. "Hey, look," she said softly. "Okay. No need to answer. We can bench that. You look… really tired. Actually, everyone here seems tired. Is something going on?"
Raine lowered her hands, blinking slowly. "The reason for that is there is an omen coming in six days."
Huh? "Omen? What do you mean?"
"We don't exactly know what it is. I can't tell you. Most of what the commonfolk know is Hierophant divined its coming."
Aspen let one eye squint. "Okay, but what does it do? Is it just some... thing that's coming? That's vague."
Raine's mouth opened, but the curtain behind her was swept aside.
A hand, bony and calloused, gripped the silk. "Hello, hello. I smell two Pip's in here." An old woman's voice, rough like gravel grinding together.
The woman stepped inside, her hair silvered to a cloud and her shoulders bent. But she was steady, as though she leaned on time itself instead of a cane. Aspen felt the urge to sniff in her direction.
Dried hay and wildflowers. Something earthy.
She smells like dirt. But it didn't stop at her nose. A phantom tickle spread across her tongue. A thousand tiny blades of grass sprouted from her taste buds, brushing against the roof of her mouth. Thick. Green. This is that same feelin—it wove itself into a single name.
Quinn.
Aspen winced, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead. The neural misfire—smell twisting to taste, taste to label—jammed a spike of pressure right between her eyes. Damn, that's... a feeling. Drugs? No, we can... smell names now. I can smell names now.
What even is real right now? "Q-Quinn," she tested the word. Still tasted like dirt. "You… you're Quinn? Not Memma?"
Quinn smiled, "Memma means I'm an old lady. Who called me that?"
"Uh, High Priestess." Why do I feel like a snitch? "Speaking of, um, I'm getting this weird headache after, I think, smelling your name? But I didn't get it when I smelled hers."
Raine raised a brow. "Headache? Pain?"
"Yeah, is that not normal?"
Quinn tapped her chin. "Must be because you're Pip-minded now."
Aspen frowned. "What does that mean?"
Raine and Quinn stared at her. Quinn sighed. "Pip's are little tiny children. Don't know nothing. You don't know nothing. So maybe you aren't used to it."
Wow. Smart. So, so smart. Yeah I don't fucking know anything.
But that makes sense. So this place or dream or whatever has different terms for some things. I mean, I already knew that but its more obvious now. This place is getting harder to... deny? Live in?
Whatever.
"Okay, that makes sense. This is... pretty terrible."
Quinn eyed the necklace on her. "It'd be better if your voice had some emotion in it, but true." She moved to the shattered loom, picking up one of the broken spindles. She turned it over in her hands, examining the split wood with a practiced eye. "Waste of good wood," she muttered, then tossed it aside.
Aspen swiped a bit of sweat from her forehead. "Sorry for... breaking that. I was trying to run because I was scared."
Raine flinched, getting ready to speak, but Quinn beat her to it. "Could tell. How'd you even get this far with her around?"
"I told her I'd lick her."
Raine glanced between them, her brow furrowed.
Quinn's wings flared slightly—a flutter of amusement she tried to suppress. She covered her mouth with her hand, but Aspen could see the corners of her eyes crinkling. "With a straight face?"
"I had to make it believable." Aspen got a tiny smirk on her face.
A very tiny one, the necklace was working as intended. "Wait, what are we even talking about? Isn't this kind of weird?" Aspen glanced at Raine, whose slumped shoulders suggested anything but joy. "Why are you so happy, Quinn? Isn't there an Omen coming?"
Shouldn't I be worrying more? I know this necklace is calming me but…
Well, now that I think about it, this necklace calming me just means I can't properly judge reality. Like its making me not care emotionally about magic.
Or the coming fact that I'm actually in another world. I mean, I can just think that and not feel bad. Like... what the fuck?
Plus Raine is properly sad. That High Priestess lady was… yeah, but she seemed stressed too. While Quinn is just calm. And I'm relatively calm.
The amusement didn't leave Quinn's face, but it sank. It settled into the deep, dry canyons of wrinkles around her eyes. "When you've lived through enough cycles of the Sleeper, you stop worrying so much."
That doesn't sound healthy.
And what? So do you just not fear the Omen? Have you guys survived enough to not be scared? "What's the Sleeper?"
Raine flinched, Quinn didn't. "Big storm. Comes every night but, well, sometimes it's bad enough that we have to hide."
"Every night? This place sounds terrible. How do you live like this?" If this is another world, then why was I sent here?
Quinn chuckled. "You live with it. Most nights it's just loud for nothing. Are you hungry? Not much reason to stay in here."
"What do you guys have? Blue jelly in cups?" Aspen's eyes drifted to the desk. Heh, I clocked her.
"Spot on. Tastes good."
Oh.
Like blueberry?
Quinn waited for a reaction from Aspen. When none came, she asked. "Were you expecting me to say that?"
"Oh. No. I just wondered if it actually tasted good."
The creases in Quinn's cheeks tensed. "You also have some silk in your hair."
Aspen picked a strand from her new gray hair, flicking it away. Then she looked down at her chest. "You know, at first, I had weird ash stuff on my chest. This is an upgrade."
Raine's eyes shot open, staring at Aspen. Quinn tilted her head. "Ash? Ain't that a dark joke."
Raine looked away quickly, her jaw tight.
Huh… yeah, I guess it kind of is.Maybe.
I mean, it made me faint. And Raine said I was bleeding, so did Lyra bleed ash? Either way, that ash stuff didn't come from nowhere. So was it an injury? The one that... led to me being brought here?
Wait, yeah, I'm calm. Way too calm. I mean, I've never even fainted before, so fainting for the first time should be an insane experience.
Did I not think much of it at first because I was in denial? And now because I have the necklace? And hell, if this is real, I'm thinking about the previous owner of this body being killed.
Am I in a corpse right now? I mean, I'm in another world. There's an Omen coming to kill us. I don't even know what it is.
I'm away from home.
There was no change in Aspen's heartbeat.
No change in her temperature.
No change in her thoughts.
Aspen touched her throat. Under the skin, her pulse was a slow, bored rhythm.
She waited for tears. For bile.
Instead, the necklace tightened just a fraction. Was it this strong before? Is it adjusting to me?
Aspen looked at Raine, who was trembling. Just slightly.
Maybe she was right to reject this necklace, Aspen thought. The realization came clinical. She still gets to feel.
Aspen lowered her hand. "Yeah," her voice was smooth. "My bad."
A monster, or person, or thing is coming and I'm wondering if blue jelly tastes like blueberry.
The necklace hummed against her throat, a lullaby for the damned.
I mean, I don't even know what it is, but still. Shouldn't I be asking more about it?
Aspen tried to stand. Her legs responded half a second too late, and she had to catch herself on the edge of the basin. The silk threads stuck to her palms. Raine reached out reflexively, but Aspen waved her off.
"I'm fine." The words sounded hollow even to her ears.
I kind of... don't want to think about this stuff right now.
But I guess I have to.
Stay motivated!
No change in her heartbeat. Or better put, the beat of her new heart. Behind new skin.
Behind a necklace born from new magic.