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Sometimes, the island sounds like it’s singing.
It's not a happy song. The branches creak in the wind and the rocks scrape the earth and it combines into a horrid crescendo that sounds like a mourner’s dirge. Screams and shrieks echo across the violent waves, the sounds of creatures prowling the wilderness, hoping to come across anyone unlucky enough to wash up on the rocky shores.
Listen. Can you hear that?
The island grows quiet as the waves push something onto shore. The quiet is anything but peaceful. As the silence grows, tension builds, until the air on the beach is so strained it feels as though it could snap in an instant.
Clancy coughs awake into the tension.
Her hands fly up to her throat subconsciously as she gags up all the water that made a home in her lungs. She can’t process anything beyond the all consuming need to breathe, the water that scrapes up her esophagus like it's made of something thicker.
Her limbs ache and her head pounds, brought on by the continuous lack of oxygen that came right after a good few minutes of furious dog paddling, trying her best to keep her head above the water even in the choppy waves. She’d put up a good fight, but eventually her body stopped responding and she’d felt herself sink down, down, deeper into the darkness. She had welcomed it, even.
Now, Clancy is alive again, and some part of her is disappointed.
The coughs didn’t stop. Clancy clutched at her chest as the violent spasms only continued, her torso aching from the force of it. Water dribbled from her mouth, from her nose, she even swears she can feel it behind her eyes, searching for any exit.
Breathing gets a lot harder when she coughs so hard that her stomach spasms, bile and vomit suddenly escaping her mouth. The tears that stream down her face from the pain would have soaked her if she wasn’t still covered in slowly-drying-into-salt-crust ocean water. No part of her has time to be disgusted as she collapses forwards onto the ground, vision going hazy for the second time that day. Every part of her is overwhelmed and overstimulated. Even her hair sticks to her cheeks in long, stringy, itchy strands, like it's trying to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
She closes her eyes and prays that this will finally be it. Please, someone take her away from this life of pain. Finish this waste of a life.
Then a hand grasps her arm tightly and her eyes fly open as she gasps in pain.
There’s a person standing in front of her, watching her with some unnamed emotion dancing in their dark, seaglass eyes. Those are the only facial features she can make out. The rest are blurry, like she’s looking through fog or sea spray. She blinks, trying to clear salt from her eyes, but nothing changes.
“Who-” Clancy starts, before being cut off by more violent coughing. The person in front of her doesn’t speak, only watches, but their grip on her arm tightens just a little, like silent reassurance. This time when she stops, she feels less congested, like she can finally breathe again.
The figure holds a torch now, seemingly pulled from thin air. They still say nothing, just beckons her forward with a way of their hand. Clancy hesitates, thinking back to stories of spirits who trick travellers and lead them off the path into danger, but something in the warmth of the torch and the watching, yet protective eyes makes her feel safe.
Formidable, she thinks. She follows them.
She stumbles up the beach after them, tripping on loose sand and the washed-up wreckage that litters it. Her feet leave behind a trail, made up of her plodding, stumbling footsteps. The Torchbearer doesn’t seem to leave anything, their feet barely sinking into the sandy ground.
As Clancy follows, she tries to think back to how she got here. She remembers drowning, she remembers embracing the darkness. Before that it’s a blur of color and confusion, a haze of drugs and movement that clouded her mind and tainted her memories with a layer of fog that she can’t parse through. She remembers flashes of people dancing, grinning, laughing, she remembers singing, she remembers deep, dark blue water that went on for miles closing in, covering her, burying her. She remembers amber eyes opening, staring right at her, knowing her, coming right at her-
Clancy trips and falls face first into a tree root.
She can’t bring herself to move for a good few seconds, overwhelmed by the memories and the sudden fall. Her face stings where she smacked it, and when she finally lifts her trembling fingers to the bridge of her nose the come back stained red.
The sting of pain hits her then, a sudden bright point among all the aches already plaguing her. It wakes her up, though, and she realizes with a start that she’s lost sight of the Torchbearer.
Clancy pushes herself up to her knees, nose forgotten for now as she takes in the scenery. Dark, twisted trees watch over her, caging her in. The branches contort and sway in the light breeze, scraping against each other with sounds that send chills down her spine. The sky is barely visible, just patches of looming gray in between the trees giving her only minimal light. Blue-black shadows move on the ground in front of her, like holes in the ground coming to swallow her down. Clancy shrinks against one of the trees, heart racing in her chest. Every rustle of leaves or clacking of branches becomes another threat in the darkness, something watching her with eyes that can see far better than her own.
Listen. Can you hear that?
She stills at the scream in the distance. It sounds unnatural, like air pushed out of jagged lips, like the scrape of metal against metal, like something she wasn’t meant to hear. It’s not human, but it’s clearly alive. Another scream rings out, closer this time.
The bushes rustle with the movements of something approaching. Clancy presses further into the tree, trying to get as far away as possible while still protecting her back. There’s nothing around her that she could use as a weapon, the forest ground strangely clean of any debris.
The rustling grows to a crescendo, sounding like multiple huge things are running at her, and she closes her eyes, breathing out for what she thinks might be the last time. She would have preferred the ease of drowning, letting go and drifting peacefully to the bottom as opposed to being ripped apart with teeth and claws, but her desires have never been the priority of the universe. Either way, maybe now she can finally rest.
Another screech, close enough that she can feel the vibrations in her chest, all the way down to her bones. Then a whimper, a cry, more pained than the triumphant hunting cry from before. The crackling of fire, and another pained cry, and then hands are on her, searching her face, running underneath the cut on her nose, then trailing down to grab onto her hand and pull her to her feet.
Clancy opens her eyes, stumbling after whoever has grabbed her to see the Torchbearer again. Their torch is held in front of them like a ward, and the forest itself seems to lean away from the flames.
They run together, the screeching growing distant once again. The Torchbearer runs smoothly, like their feet aren’t even touching the ground. Clancy is clumsier, only keeping up because of the vice grip the spirit has on her hand.
Something about the motion is familiar. The running, the frantic glances behind, the way her heart leaps into her throat at every movement in the bushes. Her body goes through the motions like a well-formed habit. She’s grown used to the feeling of being hunted.
Her feet and legs ache and her heart pounds in her chest and she can feel every ragged breath as she gasps in air whenever she can. She can’t even bring herself up to a full sprint, and she knows she’s slowing the Torchbearer down. But she pushes through, drawing on the very last dredges of energy that she can scrounge up.
Finally, the Torchbearer slows to a stop in a clearing. Clancy collapses to her knees as soon as they release her hand. Her face is wet with tears, though she doesn’t know exactly when she started crying. She vomits again, her throat feeling like she swallowed broken glass as the bile travels up it. She’s sobbing now, aching and exhausted and overwrought. The clothes she’s wearing are still damp, and even the parts that are mostly dry are thin and don’t do anything to shield her from the cold night air. She hugs herself, trying to hold everything together.
The Torchbearer stands at the edge of the clearing they're in, watching her with those dark eyes once again. The forest around them is growing darker, the blue-black shadows growing longer as the grey sky dims. Clancy looks back at him, gazing into his eyes with desperation, clinging onto anything to keep her grounded. They stabilize her, keeping her from spiralling into a full mental breakdown, though she’s still teetering just on the edge.
Clancy falls into darkness like that, trusting the protection and safety promised by those eyes as she finally lets go.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
Clancy’s dreams are anything but safe. She finds herself sinking, back in that place where the bottom of the ocean and the surface were the same distance away, but one sounded so much more appealing. Giant amber eyes watch her, daring her to choose. And just like before, though the bottom called to her with promises of final rest, she makes her limp arms move and pull her up to the blind belief that maybe something up there can finally change.
She breaks the surface and sucks in a breath, but suddenly she’s somewhere else. It’s dark, well past sunset, and she’s sitting by a fire. She feels warm and safe, and she’s relaxed like nothing could touch her here. It’s such a strange feeling that it raises her hackles immediately, and she looks around, searching for what the catch might be.
“Clancy? Are you okay?”
She turns to the person sitting next to her. They’re wearing a green hoodie with a yellow ‘X’ of tape over their heart. Dark curls fall, framing their face. But just like the Torchbearer their features are obscured, blurry and indiscernible. Clancy can just make out the shape of their smile, and feels a pang deep in her chest that she can’t remember the positions of their freckles.
“You look cold,” the person says. “I’ll go get you a blanket.”
They stand up to leave and Clancy opens her mouth to call them back. Suddenly the thought of them leaving her side makes her shake. Something bad will happen if they leave. But no sound leaves her throat, and she can only watch in despair as they walk into the darkness and disappear.
Now alone, the fire isn’t as warm and welcoming as it was before. Shadows flicker in the light of the flames, jumping out at her. She starts to stand up to follow the person into the darkness, hoping to find them again, but then frigid, dead hands close over her throat.
She falls back, air suddenly cut off. The fingers dig deeper into her neck, so cold it feels like frost is spreading on her skin. She barely manages to look up and see the white and black painted face above her before she’s dragged backwards into the darkness, farther away from the fire, from safety.
She remembers him now – Nico. Her bishop. Her captor. Her protector. She’d trusted him for most of her life, gone to him with all of her troubles, been loyal and bent to his every whim because he told her that it was what was best for her.
Then he’d taken her away from the only freedom she’d ever known.
How could she have forgotten him? He’d shaped her ever since she was a child, molded her into his image like a potter with clay. She’d trusted him, loved him, hated him, feared him. He was baked into her very being in a way that couldn’t be cut out.
The hands close tighter, a vice grip crushing her airway and she chokes, bruises and black ash staining her neck. It goes deeper than skin, seeping past her flesh into soul, taking not only her voice but her name. She panics, mind foggy and confused.
And then the hands are gone but her voice doesn’t return. Clancy stands on stage, a piano before her. Rows and rows of people stand in front of her, watching with anticipation and expectations. Glowing eyes bore into her, waiting and hoping for her to mess up, wanting her to disappoint them.
Her voice is failing her, but maybe the piano can speak where she cannot. She reaches out and plays a few notes, but they’re all sour, a dissonant chord that scrapes at her ears like a knife. The glowing eyes shriek in laughter, joining the terrible chorus that keeps growing, rising like a shepherd tone up, up, up. Clancy presses her hands to her ears, but nothing drowns out the sound as it crescendos, louder and louder as they get closer and closer.
Something shifts and now she’s seeing herself, but a plastic version. Fake. Her pink hair is perfectly curled, stiff and unmoving, like a doll still in its box. When she moves, it moves, perfectly in step with her. She reaches out to touch the mirror but finds only flesh when their hands meet in the middle. It’s colder than she is, as it grips her hands, then her wrist, pulling her closer as it grins with dead eyes. The pink in its hair bleeds out, replaced with stark white. The dye starts to turn red as it carves down its face, drip, drip, dripping onto Clancy’s arm.
Then Keons is there and the pink version of her is gone. He’s the softer equivalent to Nico’s firm hand. She falls into him, gripping onto his robes out of instinct, hiding behind him like she used to as a child when the creaks and sounds from the dark became too real. But unlike then, he tugs her hands off and steps away.
“I’m sorry, my child,” he says. His voice is just as warm and comforting as usual, but it closed off. The warmth doesn’t permeate farther than the skin. He was always afraid to get too close. “I can’t do anything more for you now. It must be you who finds the path forward.”
Despite it all, him abandoning her is the worst part of the whole thing.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
Clancy wakes with a start to the sound of that now far too familiar screeching in the distance. She scrambles up, suddenly alert, scanning the area for any threats.
The sky is lighter now, the gray closer to an off-white than the all-consuming blackness of the night before. The trees aren’t so intimidating now that the shadows aren’t looming. Even the sound of them rustling is more pleasant, the sound peaceful and almost calming.
She turns her head sharply when she spots motion out of the corner of her eye, anxiety spiking. But her heart rate immediately calms when she recognizes the blurry features of the Torchbearer. Maybe it's a bit unwise to have put so much trust in the spirit this quickly, but they kept her safe through the night. She can’t bring herself to distrust them.
They look her over and tilt their head, asking her a question silently. She smiles at the innocent gesture, then takes a moment to assess her state now that she has a minute to calm down from her violent awakening. The beating of her heart and her breathing are elevated still, only just settling down. Her hands are shaking from both the cold and fear, leftover aftereffects from her dream. Her body still aches all over, a bone-deep pain that seems to have settled even farther in since yesterday. Her memory is still a hazy mess, with only this island and Nico existing as solid spots in a sea of forgotten pieces.
“I’m alright,” Clancy lies, and winces at how the words scrape out of her throat. She doesn’t know when the last time she really talked was, and the salt water and vomiting of yesterday probably aren’t doing her any favors. “Do we need to move?”
The Torchbearer studies her, and she knows they see right through her, but they can’t exactly argue. They shake their head at her question and wave towards the trees surrounding the clearing.
Looking closer, Clancy sees that some of the branches aren’t connected to the trees, but settled among them in the limbs. They’re lashed together with some crude form of rope, forming strange circles and symbols. She can tell just by looking at them that they’re some form of protection, a ward against the dangers that lurk beyond the clearing.
But hunger and thirst are already tugging at her, and Clancy knows they can’t stay there forever. The clearing is safe, but it’s also empty.
“Is there somewhere else like this?” She asks. “Safe?”
The Torchbearer tilts their head again, thinking this time. Eventually they nod, but what little she can make out of their face doesn’t look happy.
“Is it far?”
The spirit is quick to shake their head this time.
“Can you show me?”
The Torchbearer nods, but points at her and then at the ground. Clancy feels vaguely chastised, like a dog that’s been ordered to stay.
“Not yet?” She guesses. “You want us to stay here?”
Another nod.
Clancy isn’t mad about the extra rest. She’s bruised in places she didn’t even know could bruise, and she’s sure that as soon as they start walking her feet are going to scream at her. She’ll push through it when the time comes, but for now letting her feet sit with no weight on them feels like heaven. She leans back and rests, doing her best to ignore all the warning systems of her body screaming at her.
It still hurts like hell when they finally do leave, but she shakes out her muscles and follows behind the Torchbearer, determined not to complain. She only has to last until they get to the next safe place. It’s late afternoon now, right on the boundary of evening. The shadows are long, but there’s enough light to navigate by.
As soon as their feet cross the boundary of the clearing, the tension snaps. A hush falls over the island, anticipation building. Even the trees still, drawing back like they’re ready to pounce.
Listen.
Clancy barely even registers the howl before the Torchbearer grabs her hand and they’re running.
Once again, it’s easy to fall into the habits of hunted prey. She breathes in and out with every footfall, trying to regulate her already exhausted breaths. She pushes past the ache to keep up with the Torchbearer, even running alongside them at some points. Now that she’s more coherent she can see just how strange their movements are. They move like in a cycle, each movement repeated exactly the same as it was before. Each stride is the same length, each step falls with the same weight. Their chest doesn’t rise and fall with desperate breaths as hers does. She can’t tell if it's moving at all.
She stumbles on a branch and shakes herself out of her observations. She focuses on her feet, trying to follow exactly where the Torchbearer stepped. She pushes aside everything except following them, being guided through the forest. Something about it is so familiar, even beyond the running. The feeling of being guided, the knowledge of someone looking out for her.
It’s only for a few seconds, but in that moment Clancy can see the Torchbearer’s face. No blur, no obscuring, just dark brown eyes, a freckled nose, that soft, crooked mouth that curves up into a knowing smirk. She knows that face, knows the person behind it. For those few seconds she suddenly remembers the feeling of understanding someone and being understood in return. Of really, truly knowing someone. She’s staring directly at the sun, and it’s staring back. She’s hit with a painful pang of yearning, of wishing that she was somewhere else, with someone else. With Jo-
And then the moment is gone.
The memories, whoever she was thinking of, they sink back into the haze of her mind and she whines at the sudden throbbing pain in her temple. She tries to cling to them, to bring them back to the forefront of her mind, but the pain increases too much, like a built-in warning not to go too far. It’s frustratingly just out of reach, inches from her grasping fingertips, but she can’t cross that gap.
Her hand is gripped tighter and she’s pulled back to awareness as something huge charges through the bushes towards them. Clancy bites back a scream as the trees groan and the ground shakes as heavy footsteps approach.
Torchbearer changes the direction they were going, suddenly breaking left. Clancy’s arm feels like it's being pulled out of its socket as she struggles to keep up. She almost falls again, cursing her feet for stumbling over and over again. She feels like a child being pulled around, not coordinated enough to last more than a few steps before falling.
She’s pulled behind a tree and the sudden stop sends her to her knees, forward motion suddenly stalled. Torchbearer grabs her and pulls her flush against them, hand wrapped around her mouth.
The creature roars in anger, suddenly unable to find them. The noise rattles her chest all the way down to her bones. Only Torchbearer’s hand stops the squeak of fear that she lets out as the creature thunders past, so close that she’s sure it only has to turn a few degrees to spot them. She feels like a rabbit, frozen in the bushes, hoping the fox will leave her alone.
Another shriek sounds from somewhere deeper in the forest and the creature takes off in that direction. They stay still, so painfully still even as it gets farther and farther away.
Clancy doesn’t fully relax, but she lets herself melt just a little bit into the warmth of another body.
She hadn’t realized before, but the Torchbearer was colder than she remembers humans being. Not entirely cold, not like a corpse, but there’s a distinct chill to the skin that touches hers. She can’t hold back the shiver that rips through her body. But even behind the chill, the familiar weight of another person pressing against her is welcome in this strange wilderness, even if said person is some form of spirit. She’s protected here.
The Torchbearer keeps her there until they can’t hear the creature in the distance anymore. Then they pull her up and continue on, navigating confidently as if they weren’t just run off their course. They go quickly, but quietly.
The final stretch is a large stretch of land with no trees or vegetation. Cliffs look over them, rocky and menacing. A cave opens in the cliffside like a mouth, beckoning them ever closer. Their destination. There are no places to hide in between.
Clancy breathes in and hopes that her aching legs will last long enough. The Torchbearer grabs her hand once again, a welcome comfort, and together they begin to run.
There are no places to slow down. The land seemed flat at first glance from the tree line, but Clancy trips over hidden rocks that scatter the landscape, wheezing in breaths as the altitude increases. Her muscles burn and she begs to anyone or thing that may be listening that this nightmare will just end already. At this point she doesn’t even care if the creatures catch up, as long as she can take in a normal breath that doesn’t hurt her chest.
They’re halfway across the clearing when the creatures spot them. A scream rings out, answered soon by another, then another. They’re all converging on them, shrieking and baying for blood.
Clancy forces her feet to move faster, feeling the weight of every time they connect with the ground. Everything tunnels to that. A drumbeat of her footsteps contrasting with the Torchbearer’s. The sounds behind them come together in some kind of twisted harmony, an orchestra that promises pain and destruction if the rhythm falters.
The Torchbearer reaches the cave first and pulls her in, collapsing against the wall. Clancy falls against them, feeling a breeze on her back as one of the creatures reaches for her and just misses. She clings onto the Torchbearer once again, sure that they’ve stopped too soon. Surely the creatures will just continue in, corner them against the cave wall where there’s no escape. She squeezes her eyes shut and waits for the final blow.
But nothing comes. A hand runs through her hair, soothing her as she realizes that she’s crying again. She probably has been the whole time, given how wet her cheeks feel. She pulls herself together, using the last strain of adrenaline running through her body to push herself up and away from Torchbearer’s chest.
Now that Clancy’s looking, it seems like the Torchbearer’s face is coming more into focus. The blur has lessened, and she can make out their dark eyes. She recognizes them from her dream. The person who sat with her by a fire. She knows them. Now that she knows where to look, the hole where they should be in her memories aches like an open wound. It’s a small comfort that they’re here at her side.
“Are they gone?” she asks, glancing towards the cave’s opening.
Torchbearer nods. They reach out and wipe the tears off of her cheeks, their motions slow and calm. Seeing them so relaxed makes Clancy feel safer. For whatever reason, the cave is like the clearing they’d stayed in before. Safe. Protected.
Clancy pushes herself to her feet, feeling every twinge of pain as her destroyed body does its best to keep her up. She steadies herself with the wall and limps to the opening, looking out over the blue-tinged landscape.
Most of the creatures have gone, retreating back into the woods. But one stays at the treeline, watching the cave.
It’s hard to make out its features through the shadows and at this distance, but just the silhouette of it against the trees is enough to send chills down her spine. Its long, lithe limbs are disproportionate to how big its body is, but it moves with a smooth sort of grace, like flowing water. It’s red eyes focus on her, and she knows it can see her. It’s watching her, waiting for the moment she slips up and becomes vulnerable.
With that disquieting notion, she makes her way back to Torchbearer and collapses. They gently maneuver her head into their lap and begin stroking her hair again.
The intimacy of it hits Clancy like a truck and she remembers another night similar to this.
In the memory she sits just like this, with her head in someone’s lap while their fingers slide through her hair. The fire roaring in front of them warms her to her core and she smiles, pleasantly sleepy. The person above her leans down to kiss her forehead and she closes her eyes, content. They pick her up gently, strong arms cradling her tenderly as they begin to walk. Even as they get farther away from the fire the warmth doesn’t disappear. As the soothing swaying motions of the person carrying her slowly sends her off to sleep the warmth seems to spread if anything, warming her all the way down to her toes.
The memory fades into reality and she realizes that she’s being held just like back then. The arms are familiar, even if the name refuses to come back to her.
As she finally drifts off she imagines she’s back at the Bandito camp, and she smiles.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
She wakes up to the roar of a fire.
The cave floor isn’t any more comfortable than the forest was, if anything it’s worse, but at least this is warmer. Shelter from the wind is more than welcome.
Clancy allows herself to wake slowly. She keeps her eyes shut, pleasantly surprised by the distance the pain has decided to stay. She knows that as soon as she moves it will all hit her, but for just a second she feels fine.
There’s the sound of movement around her, and it only hits her as strange a few minutes later, when she’s cognisant enough to realize that the sounds have to be coming from more than just the Torchbearer. They sound like they come from smaller bodies, and from multiple places in the cave.
No one’s attacked her yet, and she trusts Torch enough to wake her if she were in actual danger, so she gives herself one more minute of peace before finally opening her eyes.
The fire is the first thing Clancy focuses on. It crackles on cheerfully, illuminating the cave in dancing shadows. The chamber they’re in is big enough that she wouldn’t hit the ceiling if she stood up straight, but not too large in circumference. The fire is in the middle of the room, smoke billowing up into a small passage in the ceiling that must lead outside.
She spots Torch across the fire and any remaining tension she had released immediately. Even from where she was, and even with the blurriness still present, she can see the way their eyes crinkle up, smile lines evident at the corners. She can’t see it, and that pains her, but she knows they’re smiling.
The creature they’re smiling at is strange, but it’s too cute to be frightened of. Its large head and even larger ears balance on top of a round body. Large black bug eyes pop out of its head, but even those are somehow adorable and not creepy.
Multiple others of the same creature mingle around the chamber. Some are chittering at each other in what must be some sort of language. One stirs a pot of soup on the fire, its stubby hands surprisingly dextrous. Yet another just sits, staring at the fire like it’s looking for something in the flames.
They all look identical, if not for the strange nubs left on their heads. It looks like the start of some kind of horn or antler, but broken off. Each break pattern is different from the others, and some seem more recent – still sharp, and not as rounded down as some of the older breaks.
The creature making the soup sees that Clancy’s awake and scoops some of the food into a carved wooden bowl. It waddles over and offers it to her as she pushes herself into a sitting position.
Clancy takes it hesitantly, cringing at the way her hands tremble. She holds it close to her chest, trying to stabilize it as much as she can with her overworked muscles. She looks at Torch nervously, and finds them already watching her. They nod when she sends them a questioning look, reassuring her.
Some drops of soup fall off the spoon onto her clothes, but most of it manages to make its way to her mouth. The first bite explodes across her tongue, a savory and seasoned experience that shuts down her brain for a second. Before she knows it, she’s wolfing down the rest, stomach growling as it realizes just how hungry she really is. The events of the last few days and the lack of food and water are catching up to her.
As soon as she finishes the first, another bowl is there. She grabs it and eats as quickly as the first. Already she can feel a bit of strength return to her. The pain that’s been behind her temple for days eases slightly. She feels human again.
Clancy looks up as soon as the second bowl is finished and sees Torch looking at her, those smile lines still there. She can almost hear them laugh, the sound echoing through her mind. It’s like a melody of its own, a song straight from their mouth.
“I can’t sing,” she hears in her mind, the person’s voice so clear in her memory. “You know I can’t, Clance.”
“I know that’s a lie,” she’d replied. “Your speaking voice is beautiful. With a little bit of work we can make a singer out of you.”
That laugh, that beautiful laugh. “If you say so.”
She shakes herself out of the memory again. Torch is still watching her, smile lines gone. She can see the worry in those dark eyes. Clancy’s seen that expression on their face far too often for comfort. She smiles at them, watching the way they soften at her reassurance.
Things are coming back easier now. The haziness of the past is lifting, her head no longer clouded.
The bustle of the cave is as familiar as a group of strange creatures can be. It’s like being back at camp, with people surrounding her and conversations and background chatter settling around her in a blanket of sound. Clancy sinks into the safety even farther.
She’s not done much more than sleep on this island, but the warmth of the food in her belly and the protective atmosphere of the chamber lets her relax and lean back on the wall, eyes fluttering shut once more.
She drifts for a while, not fully asleep but not awake either. The sounds of the cave form a lullaby that keep her calm. Someone, probably Torch, gently wraps a blanket around her shoulders and she burrows in even farther.
When she finally falls asleep, her dreams are a mess of colors and emotions swirling around her. In the cave, even the nightmares can’t reach her.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
She wakes up to an empty room.
The fire is still crackling in the middle, but all the supplies have been packed up, and the creatures are gone. Even Torch isn’t there.
Sitting next to her is a pile of clothes. A black tunic, a cloak, new pants, all made of thick fibers that keep the heat in. She puts them on quickly, happy to finally be out of the ruined clothes from the submarine.
She remembers that now. She had been terrified of going into it, but the promise of punishment if she refused was even worse. It had been bad enough getting onto the cramped boat, and even worse when it finally started to sink, cutting off all hope of escape. The shiny, thin fabric she’d been wearing had been her performance outfit. She stood up on stage with a window looking out into the deep ocean behind her, and sang words that she wrote but that weren’t her own for a crowd of people celebrating their upcoming deaths. It was morbid and unsettling, the smiles on all of their faces. They didn’t question the Bishops. They thought that they were doing something good. That they would make it into paradise.
It was a strange thing, to look out at a crowd of walking corpses and have to pretend like nothing was wrong. But she plastered on a smile and gave it her all.
Until the dragon came.
Then the crash, the glass shattering around her, water rushing in to drag her into the depths. The wish that maybe, this could be the end.
And now she’s here. In a cave on an island inhabited by horrible creatures that want to chase her down and do who knows what. But in some twisted way, she’s free again. No longer under control of the Bishops. No longer trapped behind concrete walls and the rules of a religion that wants her to self-destruct.
Clancy sits for another few minutes, but when no one comes she pushes herself up and begins to wander. As soon as she does, she feels a tug inside her chest, like a tether pulling her in a direction. She follows it, trusting the cave and the protection.
The firelight fades as she gets farther from the room, but she doesn’t trip or stumble in the darkness. Her footsteps are sure as long as she’s following. The tugging guides her through the maze of tunnels until daylight breaks through an opening.
She steps out, squinting in the sudden brightness, and finds herself on a cove. Rocky cliffs surround the beach in a half-circle, and waves crash against the shale.
Torch stands on top of one of the shorter cliffs, watching as she emerges from the darkness. She can’t see any way to get up there from the beach, the cliff far too steep and jagged to climb.
She scans the rest of the beach and spots one of the creatures from before standing in the surf. Waves seem to part the way for it, letting it stand there unbothered by the tide. It turns as she approaches, and beckons her closer.
Clancy kneels down in front of the creature, surprised when water rushes up with another wave and doesn’t penetrate her clothing. Somehow the fibers are water proof, and though she can feel the chill of the water, it doesn’t touch her skin.
The creature is larger than the ones in the cave, and instead of broken nubs it has two antlers sitting proudly on top of its head. Even with how much bigger this one is, the antlers seem too large for it, like they’re meant to be on some other critter.
The creature gives her what seems to be a smile, and breaks off its antlers with a snap that Clancy can feel deep in her chest. It offers them to her with wide eyes, and she can read the question that they’re thinking as they stare.
What will you become?
She reaches out to grab them. As soon as her hands touch the smooth bone, everything finally comes rushing back to her.
Years spent in a grey city, trapped behind walls and expectations. Slowly learning that not everything was what it seemed in the walls. Looming Bishops in red robes and yellow eyed vultures, both with the same piercing stare that judged her and found her lacking. That first taste of freedom, the pale yellow petals falling around her. Locking eyes with the figure on top of the cliff, features hidden behind their hood. Knowing then that something connected the two of them, even as cold hands wrapped around her neck and dragged her back to the cage of the city. Trying again and again to escape, and being foiled every time. Until, finally, a concert. Music filling the empty streets, bringing life back to a place that had been long dead. Torches leading the way through dark tunnels, while tape is put on her shoulders, officially marking her as one of them. A few months of freedom, of unrestrained creativity. A few months of the Banditos. And then that icy grip once again dragging her back, back to the cold towers, back to the demeaning silence. The city took more from her then — her creativity. No longer were her words for her alone, for the Banditos, for anyone who needed to hear it. Now the Bishops twisted her words for themselves, using her music to drag more people into their icy hands.
Clancy had been trapped for so long. The small taste of freedom she’d managed to find only made the restrictions chafe even more.
She looks up and locks eyes with Torch and remembers.
In a parallel to how they’d first met, Torch stands up on rocks above, looking down at her. This time they don’t have the petals to throw, but she still feels her spirit settle as it had when they did the first time. As long as Torch is watching over her she would be okay. She remembers all the nights at the Bandito camp, Torch teaching her how things worked on the outside. Guiding her through the valleys and cliffs of Trench. Taking her hand and showing her the way.
Clancy looks away from Torch back to the creature in front of her. Its changed positions now. Its hands are up, resting deliberately by its broken nubs where the antlers used to be. Up on the cliffs higher than Torch, the other creatures stand in the same pose.
She turns to face the ocean and raises her arms.
Seizing is the strangest thing Clancy has ever experienced, and being on the other side of it doesn’t change that at all.
She can feel her original body, all the way on Voldsoy, hands gripping the antlers up to her forehead, the sea spray hitting her face with every wave that crashes against the rocks. But she can also feel the body she’s taken control of.
Every sense is dialed up to eleven. Clancy can feel the last remaining breaths of air in Keons’ lungs, the way the blood has stopped moving, just sitting and cooling in his veins. It makes every step hard and clumsy, only her sheer force of will contorting his body to take the actions she wishes. She’s too cold, and she can feel the heart of her original body slowing, trying to match the pace of Keons’.
She looks around the room and sees all the Bishops. They stare at her with disquieting horror, like she’s something to be feared. She feels a quiet thrill at the sudden power she has over them.
They’re in one of the towers, surrounding the Bishop’s Neon vials. The eight around her hold daggers stained with blood, and she feels the matching wounds on her vessel. But even surrounded by these weapons, she can’t bring herself to be frightened. They can’t do anything to her like this.
She knocks down one of the vials of Neon, setting fire to the bottom of her cloak. She’s always wanted to break one of those. The sickly pale light used to give her headaches, straining her eyes and forcing her to squint against the pain in her temple. It’s satisfying to finally have the ability to do something about it.
The Bishops’ panic and begin shouting over each other. Clancy stands strong in the flames, reveling in the chaos she’s unleashed on the tower. She looks up to meet Nico’s gaze, and she’s vindicated to see fear in his beady eyes. Finally, she’s making him feel the same way he’s made her feel all these years.
Then, a particularly violent wave crashes into the shore and she wakes up, as if from a dream.
She feels both bodies begin to fall, but only feels one of them hit the floor. Her head hits the rough sand, and she gasps for air as she’s violently thrust back into her original body. The antlers she was clutching fall next to her, and even with her vision fading, she stares at them hungrily, wanting to take them up again and finish what she started. She wonders just how much she can make Nico fear her.
She comes to, maybe only seconds later, and the first thing she feels is disgust. She felt powerful while holding the antlers, but now they’re sitting next to her and all she can think about is how the power that has been used against her is now inside of her, somewhere between the bones of her ribs, like it’s made a home in her chest.
Clancy looks up and Torch is there, torch in hand and offering her the other to help her up. She flinches back, expecting to be hit or punished or pushed away, but Torch doesn’t falter. Their hand stays right where it is, steady and waiting. Always waiting for her.
She grabs it and is pulled to her feet. Now back in her body, her heart rate speeds up and she breaths heavily, suddenly all too aware of her lungs inflating and deflating in her chest. It’s like she can feel all of her muscles and organs working manually now, suddenly restarting after stopping for who knows how long.
The disgust didn’t fade much, but as she looks down at the antlers a new determination fills her. The Bishops have used this power to subjugate, to oppress. She’s been on the receiving end of it far too many times. But now she has the power to fight back.
Clancy remembers the first thing she’d thought when seeing the Torchbearer back on the first beach she’d washed up on. Formidable. Someone who can’t be taken down. Someone who couldn’t be bullied into submission.
The Bishops were powerful, but now she is too. She doesn’t need the Torchbearer to protect her. Now she can fight back. She can become formidable.
Now the creatures in the forest fear her. They shrink back when she comes near, calling out with shrieks that are pitiful compared to the ones before. Some are a bit braver and growl, but they all cow away soon enough when she lifts the antlers towards them.
They already feel like a part of her, an extension of her limbs. She doesn’t know how she ever went through life without them. A new energy fills her entire body, and even her footsteps are less clumsy than before. She navigates the forest like she’s lived there her whole life.
By the time they get to the far shore where she first washed up, the whole forest knows she’s there. She’s taken control of the island.
Torch hands her a torch and together, they lift them into the air.
The torch light only seems to go out so far on the pitch black sea, but soon enough little pinpricks of light can be seen across the strait. An answer to their question, a response to their call. The Banditos, on the other side of the ocean, waiting for them to return.
With communication established, Clancy turns her attention to the distant glow of the city. It’s barely there, just beyond the horizon, but the sheer number of neon gravestones surrounding it light it up like a beacon.
She will bring destruction to the city. She will be a wrecking ball to everything the Bishops have built. She will breach the walls and tear them down brick by brick if she has to.
She is Clancy. She is an exception. She is retribution.