The first breath was always the most painful… and the most pleasurable. A choking gasp, a struggling desperation, a hopeful reach… and then there was light and life. Nocte held the girl close as she fought to regain her breath, her body shaking against hers, her heart pounding hard and rebelliously against hers. With her Sight, Nocte helped the girl’s life energy settle over her brittle body and curve the death energy aside, holding the black at bay to allow the white to mend.
Quietly, she heard the girl speak.
“N-Nocte,” she whimpered. “I-I’m s-scared…”
Nocte pressed the girl close, shoulder to shoulder, and waited until the girl’s shaking subsided. Then, slowly, she withdrew from Chantée to brush aside the stray hairs from the girl’s face and placed a kiss on Chantée’s forehead. Softly, Nocte whispered, “It’s okay now. You’re back now. I’ve got you.”
Chantée’s fingers dug into Nocte’s coat, darkness and ghosts still floating in her vision. Corliss had undergone the same transformation, as did Aman and Měi Fèng. Only, Nocte understood solemnly, she had not been there for Aman and Měi Fèng hadn’t had the time to dwell upon it. They had been strong enough to repel the nightmare of the life-after without her, an afterlife Nocte could only guess at that sealed Corliss’ lips and haunted her dreams.
She could only guess at what Chantée had seen.
Nocte had had a very different sort of experience.
She placed her temple against the girl’s and hushed her in a low tone. A billowing of unearthly robes and Nocte lifted her gaze to meet one of blue and green. Farhat smiled that gentle smile of his, his blond hair sifting in an otherworldly wind to divulge the ordinarily hidden green eye. That soft, mischievous quirk in his lips, that fond gleam in his eyes, Farhat was a welcome sight.
“Nocte,” Farhat sighed, relieved and pleased. “You did well. Much better than what we could have expected.”
Her gaze turned inquisitive, but the Reaper looked over her shoulder.
“My, he doesn’t look too happy,” Farhat commented, his smile turning tight and his eyes turning sharp. “Nocte, it’s time to rise.”
Giving Chantée one last hug, she released her hold on the girl and rose to her feet. Chantée reached for her, but Nocte turned to face the newcomer. The man did not look like any man she had encountered. Long white tresses, dried and grey, fell straight from his crown to the snow, wrapping around his withered and naked feet. He was white as snow, his eyes dark as coal. He was malnourished, all skin and bones, frail in his nakedness.
There was a madness in his eyes.
“He’s the Great Evil of Earth,” Farhat supplied at her shoulder. An angel or demon guardian did not compare to a grim reaper.
Nocte smiled at her thoughts.
“I-I did not expect the S-Singer to have a necromancer at her s-side,” the Great Evil heaved with effort, his lungs rattling his brittle ribs.
Nocte would have felt sorry for the bastard if he hadn’t killed Chantée.
Several ice-soldiers crawled out from the glacier, surrounding her in a small crowd. As long as there weren’t any spiders, she would be able to keep her disgust at bay.
“Behind,” Farhat said, not at all concerned.
Nocte looked back to see the Darkness. The Hell dragons were gone.
“Ready?” Farhat asked.
“To kick some ass, you mean?” she quipped, her right hand closing over an Ice Sword.
“My,” Farhat chuckled, “we’re back, I see.”
Nocte smirked, another Ice Sword shooting out from her left hand.
Seventh Pawn taken.
Knight to B5.
She raised her sword to deflect one of the soldiers, running it through with her other sword. Just as soon, she used her momentum to slice through two others, ducking once to both avoid a glaive and to trip an adversary. Impaling one soldier to the ground, she deftly cleaved another at her side, and then flung the sword behind to pierce the soldier making to strike Chantée. Conjuring a third Ice Sword to replace the second, Nocte cast an Ice that bombarded the field with small icicles that pierced through the ice-soldiers like stalagmites.
With her exhale, the field returned to its flat, faceless plain.
The soldiers were gone; she spun to face the Darkness, only just dodging his blade. She refused to look at him too closely, her vision starting to become unfocused as Doctor’s Spell was beginning to wear off. She could only gasp in relief when Doctor’s Burst threw the Darkness aside, only for him to be replaced by another mass of ice-soldiers she sliced through like pine bushes.
She barely blinked when another of Doctor’s Bursts came from her left, allowing him access to the epicentre of the chaos. They exchanged a nod, the Lucent wiping blood from the corner of his mouth as he came to her side. They faced the enemy troops.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Doctor said, Healing his mouth. “How’s your wound?”
Nocte hadn’t checked, but the uncomfortable sting was still there. It had been easy to ignore until he mentioned it. “Fine.”
She turned to face the Darkness and Doctor stiffened.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You take the Evil and I’ll take the Darkness.”
Doctor hesitated, Chantée whimpered on the ground and Farhat gave her a bracing look.
“You sure?” Doctor asked.
Nocte placed her back to his. “Yes.”
“He’s your father,” he tested.
Nocte had placed the fact aside, but she had not forgotten.
She had not forgotten the branches, the stars, and the wind — the web, the eyes, and the voices — the raw hurt of the forgery, hoax and Faery lies. She had not forgotten how she had reached for him, hands stretching — fingers straining — nails scraping, only for him to vanish into the air like vapour.
She had not forgotten how she had held him in the dark, covered in his blood, let his energies slip from her hold.
She remembered how foolish and frantic she had been — a spawn unworthy of her sire — a daughter unworthy of his name.
His name — the one he had inherited from his children.
But he was not her father.
“I know,” Nocte said.
He was just some fuck who put a hole through her body.
A brief pause—
Knight lost.
—and then they both charged to opposite ends of the battle — the Light towards the Great Evil, and the Lady Necromancer to the Darkness.
She had never been good at chess, as Dire could attest to.
All was still and tranquil for that one second between sleep and wake. The world came into focus, and all the dangers and obstacles had been left behind, several spaces back or away. Ahead was an unobstructed path to the edge of the battlefield, a slim line of black and white — a sharp border before the brink of the world. She could see so clearly now, so sharply now, so effortlessly and honest. They had placed her here, front and centre, in the middle of nothing but traps and corners, and labelled her as “the sacrificial pawn.”
But what would happen if she refused to be what They wanted?
What if she were stronger than Them?
When their blades met, white eyes with black, their chi and chakra clashed, sending a wave of power that cracked the ice beneath them. Nocte struggled, with both swords, to deflect the Darkness’ lone blade; ice-soldiers scrambled out from the ground like parasites, only to be impaled by a hail of icicles from above — her leviathan roared in pride and rage.
She would have to train the creature out of it.
Pride was not always good.
Nocte smirked at the thought, pushing the Darkness away and jumping back to give herself some breathing room.
“I am your father,” the Darkness said, cold and empty. “Why do you fight me?”
“Because you are not my father,” Nocte replied. “And because death is a lonely place.”
He did not understand her answer, or even his own question. He was merely stalling, she knew.
She would have to trust Doctor to defeat the Great Evil.
The Darkness was going to give her one hell of a fight.
They had given her a name that was not hers, and bound her to a contract that was just as flighty and fickle as They were. The terms had never been written, only dictated and recorded by a man who was in too deep and a man who was in too much delirium, respectively. The characters had been assembled in a mismatched manner and the setting had been hastily constructed out of necessity. The roles had never been clearly defined, or given precise instructions. Cues had been muddled and directions had been guesswork; costumes had been a mess. And They had buried her into this chaos, in a name that was not hers filled with negative connotations and destructive stigmas, and expected her to know her character before opening night.
And she had no one else to blame save herself.
Nocte sprang forward, swords at the ready, but an Explosion knocked her back. She landed on her feet and her Paralyze caught the Darkness off-guard long enough for her to fight back two ice-soldiers, the rest of their ranks rampaged by her leviathan.
The Darkness summoned Hell Dragons to contend with her leviathan, and she flinched when her leviathan had been clipped at the tail, but she did not stall when a rush of Lightning hit her Barrier. A wave of opposing Fire and Acid, and she pushed them all aside with an Ice and Wind.
She met the Darkness in the eye, white on black, and fixed her grip on her swords.
She could admit, depreciatively and poignantly, that she could see where she had gone wrong. She could see what she had done wrong. She had, so naively and insecure, accepted the role without question. In fact, it had been she who said, “I’m the Darkness.” She had given herself the name. No one had forced it upon her. After all these years of repeating herself hoarse, after all these years of proving herself different, it had been she, herself, who had made herself the villain.
Irony had never tasted so sour or so right; it was a testament of how uncertain and self-doubting she was of herself.
“I will kill you,” the Darkness stated, matter-of-fact.
Nocte would give her life and death for the girl, for billions of others, and a foreign planet.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that,” she returned. She knew it was adrenaline speaking, but fuck it.
“Nocte Yin,” the Darkness said. “Move aside.”
A name.
They knew how to make her trap herself.
Her name.
Nocte inhaled and let the cold and the sun seep into her lungs and veins. She closed her eyes and let the light bleed through — a red that was of her blood, of her body, or her line. A red thread that connected her to those before her, a thread that had been dragged into Their web and tapestry as their plaything, generations and generations of her blood and bone.
Nocte would give her life and death before this false copy of her father could destroy all she loved.
But the Sisters had been foolish.
They could present her with as many names as They wanted — daughter, sister, friend, Yin, necromancer — and shape her to them.
But there had always been a name that was hers and hers alone.
The name he had given her.
A name outside of Them.
Nocte churned her chi and chakra like an eye of a storm, gathering, pulling — reaping. She gathered all that was left of her, drawing from her seams until she had nothing left to give. She spun and spun and spun a weave of her own, a tapestry she placed over her eyes. Her breath echoed inside of her, her heart ricocheting between her ribs, and her bones rattling under her skin.
They had set the board and tricked her into playing.
Nocte opened her eyes, swords firm in her grip.
But Yins never played by the rules.
White met white.
The Darkness stumbled back.
Disowned Yins even less so.
“My,” Farhat mused humorously, “no last words?”
Pawn to C1.
“Queen me.”
And then she charged.
She thought she knew fear…
…but she had never known Death quite like this.
(AUTHOR NOTE: I thought about ending it here, but I didn’t think it’d be nice to have two short chapters in a row. ;P)
A lurch in their auras and their blades met in an air of charged energy — chunks of ice breaking up and falling away from the ground and the wind howling like a storm, tearing at the snow and their clothes. The Darkness’ arm shook under two of hers, her white eyes digging into his. She understood that the power was not hers, but his. She understood that the flying debris and cutting air was not hers, but his. She understood that the chi and chakra that threatened to shred her skin from her bones weren’t hers, but his.
Nocte understood that he was hesitating to kill her.
Though she did not understand why.
She held his gaze.
The White Death.
He spluttered and the electricity in the air sparked.
With brutal strength, Nocte let one of her blades go, the tornado snatching the ice, and then hammered her fist against his temple. His knees faltered, and she knew she had to attempt the feat again. Converting all her chi and chakra from her Death Glare to her fist, she bashed him again, sending a strike of chi into his chi and chakra points, cutting them off briefly and long enough for him to fall back into the snow.
The Darkness fell, and with another Death Glare — a cutting white — he was knocked unconscious.
Immediately, the howling wind dissipated and Nocte slumped to her hands and knees, gasping heavily and trying desperately not to throw up. Not only would it hurt, but it would be unsightly after such a victory. She couldn’t even laugh at her joke. She had used too much of her strength — physically, magically and emotionally — to be able to stand.
“My,” Farhat said, “the Lucent seems to be in some sort of trouble.”
Annoyed, Nocte bit out, “What do you want me to do? I can hardly stand!” She was more angry at herself than at him.
Instead of being offended, Farhat’s gaze softened, almost as if he was laughing on the inside, and pointed his scythe to Chantée and Alex. Witley was standing over the siblings. Nocte supposed the spy had brought the reconciliation between the two somewhere between her fighting off several ice-soldiers and bashing her father’s lookalike in the head.
Very graceful.
“Don’t you want to hear her sing, Nocte?” the grim reaper mused out loud. “I think I would like to hear her sing.”
Nocte flickered her gaze over to Doctor, half-bloody and half-standing. She cursed. She could not help the Light in the state in she was in. But the prophecy — the prophecy had spoken of the Singer defeating the Great Evil. With the Darkness down and the Great Evil distracted by the Light, the Singer could sing without interruption.
“Yes,” Nocte said decidedly. “I would like to hear her sing.”
Tired and feeble, she pushed herself to her elbow and attempted to stand, but her legs could not hold her weight. Several levels of angry, Nocte placed one hand in front of the other, and began to drag herself across the snow.
“My, one would think that you would move faster…” Farhat trailed, almost disappointed.
Nocte paused, looked him in the eye, and deadpanned, “I hate you.”
Farhat pouted, but Nocte ignored him. She missed these banters, but must he start now? When she was half-dead and in a fight for their lives? She tried not to feel fondly for him when he started to poke at the sharp point of his scythe like a sorry child.
She did not understand why he was not taking it seriously.
“Why are you so okay with this?” Nocte gritted.
Farhat stopped at his poking to stare at her, solemn and reassuring. “Because you’re doing a lot better than we thought you would.”
Nocte begrudgingly brushed his comment aside and channelled all her energy and will on moving forward. She missed him. When she got close enough, she called for Witley. Immediately, the spy was at her side, helping her off the ground and escorting her to Alex and Chantée. With a swift command from Nocte (“Assist the Light”), Witley left her side, daggers drawn and ready to defend the Light from another invisible blow from the Great Evil.
“S-Somnium,” Alex choked at the sight of her bruised and battered.
Nocte nodded to him and met Chantée’s teary gaze.
“N-Nocte,” the girl cried softly, reaching out a hand to touch Nocte’s bloody cheek.
Nocte did not remember how she had gotten the wound.
“Chantée.” Nocte was brisk and gentle. “Can you sing for me?”
Chantée’s eyes got wide and Alex pressed his lips to a thin line.
“Please,” Nocte cajoled, taking hold of the girl’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Anything you like. Your favourite song. Can you do that for me?”
The girl hesitated and her brother gave her a hug. He understood what was needed to be done.
“Anything you like,” Alex murmured to his sister, his eyes glancing briefly to Doctor and Witley being knocked to the ground. He didn’t even flinch or shake. Instead, he turned to Nocte and she gave him a nod. “I’ll sing with you, all right?”
Chantée’s gaze lowered to the ground, scared and mute.
“Be brave for me, okay?” Alex whispered to his sister.
Nocte placed a hand on her side where the icicle had penetrated her flesh, and felt the new skin chafe. She had pushed her body for too long and too hard, and with a cringe she fell to the snow, taking long, deep breaths to pace the pain shooting up her limbs. Chantée trembled at the sight and Alex quickly placed a Healing charm in her hands; Nocte clenched onto the piece of paper like a lifeline. It was not perfect, but it was a relief.
Nocte closed her eyes, willing her body to heal. “I-I need you to be a hero right now, Chantée.”
Chantée swallowed, her lips shaking.
“Be brave,” Alex encouraged.
Chantée took a bolstering breath-
Farhat placed a comforting hand on Nocte’s forehead, whispering, “Nocte...”
-and then she sang.
Nocte’s eyes snapped open at the tremendous warmth and power flowing from the girl, a wash of rainbow colour that spilled over the land, slipped over the edge of the glacier, and into the ocean like ink and cream. It was like a fresh breeze in the spring, a waving sunflower field in the summer, and a full moon in autumn. It was like a hot mug of cocoa in winter. It wrapped Nocte all snug and tight, and pulled her under into an array of colours and dreams.
Nocte almost choked on the power.
She watched the others through a haze of bright colours as they dropped, one by one, onto their knees at the girl’s singing. It took Nocte a moment to realize that her Sight had been activated, and all she was seeing was a mix of auras, shining bright and bold: liquid gold immersed with silver mercury, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, violets and indigos. Colours unimaginable and unseen by mortal eyes were now opened for her to drink and behold.
Nocte shook, one hand clutching Alex’s charm and the other holding her wound.
“Nocte,” Farhat called, his voice ringing clear and close while the others’ were distorted and far. “Look down.”
She did, and through a cloud of colour, one aura shone stronger than the others. Below them, hundreds of miles slumbering in the glacier, Nocte could read the outline of a tortoise — the tortoise Ewan had insisted was a tortoise and not a turtle. It seemed to encompass all of the sea, Xonese numbers etched along his shell.
“The Singer is still young,” Farhat said. “She is not yet strong enough to wake the tortoise. She needs your help.”
“How?” Nocte said.
“You must connect your chi and chakra points to his, and then pull him up.”
Nocte jostled. “I will not take another undead servant.”
Somewhere, far away, she could just make out her leviathan’s roar, as if in agreement. As if he was the only one worthy of her.
Farhat shook his head. “No. Not him. You just have to wake him-”
“S-Singer-!” The Great Evil.
“Hurry!” For once, Farhat sounded urgent.
Despite her lack of energy and health, Nocte knew that she had to try. There had been no need to prick her finger — her blood was everywhere. Honing her chi and chakra into her blood, the world expanded into black and white, overlaying Chantée’s colours with shades of grey. Nocte spun her own web, a web that sounded the dead and dying, that laid out the living on a netted board. Bolstered by Chantée’s power, Nocte’s Sight expanded beyond the horizon and the limits of mortal sight.
The world opened up for her.
So did the dead.
Nocte swallowed a painful hitch in her throat when she found Mary and Burghard among the dead scattered along the arctic. Ewan, Siren: unconscious. Seth, Achindra, Priscilla: barely conscious. Nahele, Pàn: dead. The Darkness: vanished. She forced the Darkness away from her mind. If they succeeded in vanquishing the Great Evil, then the Darkness would not need to fight them.
Gritting her teeth, Nocte braced herself and coaxed Chantée’s power into her body, filling her body to the brim. She was amazed at how seamlessly and harmlessly the girl’s warm aura washed into her own, allowing for a smooth transition. Breathing in deep, Nocte focused her Sight on the tortoise, the creature suddenly taking up her whole vision. With care and precision, she dug her chi and chakra into the ice, gritting when she felt resistance from the frozen particles, a web of intricate patterns made of attached atoms and molecules.
“Slow…” Farhat breathed into her ear.
Taking a deep inhale, Nocte balanced Chantée’s power in her system, and then slowing snaked her way through the ice. Like roots — veins — several threads of her chi and chakra dug through the glacier, inch by painstaking inch. She did not know how long Chantée could keep singing or how long the Great Evil would be caught off-guard, but she would never forgive herself if she did not reach the damn reptile.
With her enhanced Sight, she saw the Great Evil lash at Doctor, saw Chantée faltering in the lyrics, saw Farhat never faltering in his gaze on her — but none of that mattered. None of that mattered save for the tortoise, and her grey chi and chakra strings creeping closer… deeper… stronger… She felt her heart convulse when she finally touched the creature, her breath hitch when her energies pierced into the tortoise’s rough hide. Carefully, one by one, she joined her own chi and chakra points to his.
Carefully, she felt his consciousness brush against hers.
“Now, Nocte,” Farhat instructed calmly. “Now.”
She tugged once, stirring the beast–
“S-stop-” The Great Evil.
-twice to hear his heart beat-
Several ice-soldiers sprang forth to cut her off.
–and thrice to feel it take breath.
Chantée’s singing faltered at the monsters.
But it was all right.
“N-no!” The Great Evil.
The Singer didn’t have to sing anymore.
“C-curse y-you!” The Great Evil.
The tortoise had heard enough.
“Hold on!” Farhat.
Nocte gasped when pure white erupted across her vision, blocking her from sight and sound. All the bodies, living and dead, disappeared before her. All the noise, living and dead, vanished before her. All there was, all that remained, was nothing but white light. All there was, all that remained, was pure life energy, a pulsing warmth and omnipotence from the tortoise.
For a moment, there was nothing
“Wha — happ —ing?!” Witley.
For a moment, there was only peace.
“The — oise!” Doctor.
For a moment, Nocte saw a little girl, all dressed in white, skipping across her vision, giggling, chirping to a tuneless song.
“Nocte!” Chantée.
And then the world crashed around her.
Nocte convulsed horribly as sight and sound slammed back into her awareness, a force so deafening that she nearly lost consciousness. She knew that Alex was holding her hand and that Chantée was hugging her head — that Farhat was holding her other hand, but all she could manage to do was curl into herself as she became mortal once more, no longer a part of something bigger and better than herself.
Gasping, heaving, Nocte pried her eyes open see what had happened in her moment of blissful nothingness. With several painful coughs wracking her body, she struggled to reorient herself in this reality, and eased when she saw the Great Evil had been paralyzed by a cord of ancient runes circled around his feet, a number of them similar to the ones on the tortoise’s shell. Even as Nocte was trying to control her headache, the Great Evil was struggling to move his limbs, but to avail. The tortoise had caged him.
The only thing the old, withered man could do was keep the Light at bay with his strong chi and chakra, a force that coated him and prevented others from coming too close.
“S-sing,” Nocte choked. She knew even before Farhat could open his mouth: the one to end this must be the girl. “Chantée…”
The girl jerked, having not expected her to be conscious.
“A l-lullaby,” Nocte said. “Sing.”
Chantée nodded and took a shaky breath. With a smile from Nocte, the girl sang again.
This time, Nocte blocked her Sight, pushing aside the lenses so that she may view the world as it was. Blinking against the winter breeze and snow, Nocte watched as the Great Evil’s chi and chakra waver. Even as he clenched his teeth and fisted his hands, he could not stop his eyes from drooping. Smiling, Nocte saw the Great Evil slowly fall into slumber from the Singer’s lullaby. She almost laughed when the Great Evil fell asleep on his feet!
Check.
Pressing her forehead to the glacier, Nocte felt her body finally give under her. It was time to rest. She would have to rely on Doctor to conclude the battle with the Great Evil. She would have to rely on Witley to insure her peaceful slumber. She would have to rely on Alex and Chantée to be okay without her for a few hours — because daaamn was she tired.
She smiled to herself, turning to Doctor, one last look before she fell asleep. Her eyes widened when he started sprinting toward the sleeping Great Evil, prying a blade from a fallen body as he ran forward. Her heart leaps to her throat when the Lucent swung the blade and — shiiiiiing — sliced the Great Evil’s head straight off his shoulders.
Checkmate.
She was shocked. It certainly ensured that the Great Evil was gone for good, but she had not thought that Doctor was capable of killing.
And as he stood there, in the winter wind and snow, blood matted in his hair and smattered along his coat and ripped gloves — the sun washing him in a halo of gold and heat — Nocte came to a sudden conclusion: Doctor Lucent was no longer the sidekick of the sidekick.
He was now a hero in his own right.
He turned to her and breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing her alive and well. She returned his smile and then closed her eyes. She could rest easy now. Everyone was safe and sound, and finally — finally — they could have one night’s sleep without fear. Perhaps, too, they could have cake the next morning before they returned to Erisire — strawberry shortcake. Chantée would love that.
Nocte’s breathing slowed and she felt the world fade in stages of feeling and calm. The sun kissed her cold cheeks. The rustling of ice carried the whisper of swaying grass. The wind brought in the scent of snow and ocean, and the taste of waves and salt hit her lips. A lulling of rocks and trees from afar…
…and of waves rolling over her naked toes.
Nocte awoke at once.
She was no longer on Earth.
End of Part One