I can't help it

Come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your ear

After her discussions with Sunjata, and before the sun could rise again, she tiptoed her way over to the infamous bookshelf. Her fingers dusted lightly over the particular spines, resting comfortably, as if she’d done this all her life, easing a breath she didn’t need. And behind, behind, behind, where the obsidian sphere rested, the youth maneuvered, pressing herself into the stones, kneeling before her altar.

Alone.

Something she’d never been before – not with an intertwining of souls. But this was for her twin, for survival, for everything else – and knowing what Wessex had told her, a conversation was required. Necessary.

For her vengeance. For her acknowledgments.

“My Goddess, thank you once again for saving me,” not a quiet whisper, but a heralding of devotion. For reaching in and plucking her out, for allowing her to survive once more, for calling, calling, calling, and permitting her to follow and answer. “I will do my best to fulfill my role to you.” Whatever that required – her own personal ambitions stoking beside it. “I’ve come to ask about Evelyn.” And if there was anything more to be done.

MABEL

It isn’t the Voice that arrives, nor is it anything terrible. In fact, the creature that arrives and clamors on top of the shrine is simply a cross between what appears like a feline and a lizard, scales and fuzzy splotches of fur that peek out of ears and long whiskers that poke out from their face. It doesn’t know an Evelyn, nor does it know this Mabel.

But it sits on the shrine and reaches out with a scaled paw to poke at Mabel, before it offers a squeaky sort of meow roar combination and hops off the shrine to run through the Atheneum to get lost within it.

Come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your ear

The silence encompassed, and she’d find no answers. Another setback, another quiet edge. Perhaps it’d been too close to LongNight. Perhaps it was an endeavor, a goal, a reason for her to make it out on the other side of the impending battle and onslaught. A breath released, unnecessary but habitual just the same, and then her eyes settled upon the strange creature that arrived instead.

She stared at it, wondering if there was going to be any answers derived from the bizarre cat-lizard ensemble; but only a paw reached, and she waited, hand extended, before the meow roar unfurled.

And then nothing again.

She’d try once more, when she wasn’t desecrated. When she wasn’t in pieces.

So the youth rose and left, back the same way she’d come.

{FIN}

MABEL