#maggie.

“You’re bullshitting me,” Daiyu exclaimed, slamming her hand on the table as she stared at Mina. The younger ranger was telling an animated story about fistfighting a werewolf as if it had been a boxing match, and though her storytelling skills were unmatched, Daiyu seriously doubted that the other was not exaggerating at least slightly. Sure, she had punched a werewolf before, who hadn’t? But just fists weren’t enough to defeat one.

She took a large sip from her cherry coke as Mina went on to defend herself, imitating how she’d given the werewolf a right hook and then an uppercut. Spirits were high today, the general atmosphere in the 3 daggers relatively upbeat. Of course, there were still the regulars sulking in the corners with a glass of scotch too many, as well as the knowledge that another name had been scratched in the bar just earlier that afternoon, but overall? It was a good time to be at the bar. And so she just grinned at Mina and shook her head amusedly. “Whatever you say.”

And then there was a change in atmosphere. The door to the bar opened and someone entered. The moment she did, Mina had grabbed a knife, Daiyu was unholstering her gun and multiple other hunters were getting up. All rangers at first, and then the wardens and slayers too. A shifter had walked into a hunter bar.

Further observation made Daiyu’s heart rise in her throat. She knew this shifter. Not very well, just as a common connection with Wyatt and because she’d given her a very thoughtful Christmas present. And potentially from jading her when she was stuck as a selkie, though she hadn’t bothered to get confirmation on that. She cleared her throat. “Let me deal with this,” she announced, shoving back her chair and loading her gun decidedly. Mina went to argue with her and Daiyu stared at her before moving swiftly through the bar and grabbing Maggie by her arm. “I’ll take her out back. Don’t worry, Killian — will clean up after myself.” As if his parking lot wasn’t permanently stained with blood already. She kicked open the door and pulled the selkie along with her.

___

In her arguably short lifetime, Maggie had had her fair share of bad ideas for good reasons. But this one? Yeah, this one was probably the worst. 

The name Agnes had entered her little world the way most names and people do. A mention from someone you cared about, a name you weren’t familiar with, an innocent question.  To some people, Maggie was sure Agnes was a totally fine person. Maybe she had people who considered her a friend. Maybe she went to the park or Darkling Lake on the weekends to feed the ducks. Maybe she did a whole lot of things! But the moment she knew who and what she was to Wyatt? The caring about all those little things she might have had went out the window, and in its place, there was a little, red-hot ember of rage. 

It had scared her at first– Maggie didn’t hate easily. Sure, there were a normal number of people in town she liked less than most, and a certain special handful she especially disliked, but to loathe was a different thing. To loathe was something meant the hate of it had sunk into your bones, your blood, and changed you in some little way, a little bit of rot on the shiny soul you thought you had. 

The first shift had left its mark in funny ways. A penchant for more seafood than she usually wanted? Sure, that was on the list. The migraines and chills and nausea that clung to her when she’d not settled into the warmth of that other skin in too long? Check. But she hadn’t expected the snarling thing that wound itself up, teeth and claws, and sat like a stone in her chest when it came to people stepping too far out of line with the people and things that in some way were hers. And after weeks of Wyatt cancelling and rescheduling plans, weeks of him showing up looking like a freight train had run him over and backed up on him to do it again, weeks of him saying he was fine even though he clearly wasn’t… a slip. A mention of work. A place that Maggie had not known about, a place that paid him but chewed him up and spat him out first… of deals she should never take… and of a name. Just one. 

Agnes. 

Said with enough wariness, it had fed that ember into a spark. The words written in the flames that rose from it were simple: make Agnes go away; get Wyatt out.

There were, as she had been warned so many times, people who went after the supernatural. And the thought (however much it made some saner part of her mind reel away in revulsion) that it would be simple enough to, at the very least, scare the woman away by providing her name to one such person had floated into the forefront of her mind and stayed there. For Wyatt, she would do just about anything. For Wyatt, Maggie would set aside that little angel that sat on her shoulder, and give into the far wilder thing whispering in the back of her mind. 

From the outside, the barn in Gatlin Fields that was supposedly a bar known as The 3 Daggers was rundown-looking, even for the more rural parts of town. The fence was the thing that caused her eyebrows to raise- silver, iron, crucifixes and other religious iconography… If ever there were a place for those who knew of the supernatural and rejected them, it would look like this. Magnolia chewed at the inside of her cheek til all she could taste was old pennies. As she walked towards the door from the treeline, she could hear her heart picking up, racing, thudding so hard she could barely hear herself think. By the time she got up the old wooden steps to the door, all the air in her lungs had evaporated. For Wyatt, she reminded herself, and pushed the door open. 

Up until that moment, she had never wondered what it might be like to be a deer staring at a pack of wolves, knowing that their claws and fangs were ready to rip the life right out of you. Now, in the doorway, Maggie knew the deer. She knew the wolves too; a hundred eyes staring, hands moving to the tools of their gruesome work without so much as a word spoken between them. For a moment, the only noise in the space between predator and prey was (perhaps ironically) the voices of Sonny and Cher crooning I Got You Babe. If she ran, if she turned her back, she would be dead in a flash, outnumbered fifty to one. If she stepped inside to make her request, they would probably take the name and then kill her. 

A familiar voice broke the silence. “Let me deal with this,”

Daiyu. Daiyu was standing up, shoving her chair back so hard against the old wooden floorboards that it gave a tooth-wiggling shrrrrrrk. Maggie watched wide-eyed as her hand dipped to a holster, then back up. Heard the click of the safety sliding out of place. All she could do was watch in abject horror as the woman crossed the room and grabbed her arm, dragging her backwards out the doorway to a fate she could only assume that involved her name etched into a tombstone. 

You’re not a deer. You’re a seal. You have teeth too, the wild thing inside her shrieked. Fight! But struggling in the grasp of someone pulling you back under the unfeeling eye of the blue sky to kill you wasn’t so easy. She kicked. She thrashed. Fuck, she even pleaded, her voice half choked with fear. “Daiyu- Daiyu, no, let me- let me GO, let me go, please, I’ll never come back- please!”

___

Maggie was afraid. Though she was slippery in her hands, Daiyu knew she could be more slippery and so she held on tight enough to bruise, face iron as she moved further from the door. She could not show emotion. She could not show that while she did not know much about Maggie (besides that she was a good gift giver, showed admirable bite online and did art), she knew that one of her friends cared about her. That she did not want her to die. That alarm bells were ringing. That she hated that the other was afraid of her and that she hated too, that she could find no satisfaction in it.

She closed the door behind her with another kick. Maggie was pleading and she wanted to stuff her ears so she didn’t have to hear it. She should be better at that. She usually was, but that was when she was opposing people she was actually planning to kill. With Maggie, she only saw someone stupid and lost. Someone Wyatt had spoken to her about in those soft tones. Loyalty was hard won, but now extended to the selkie in the parking lot. 

She did not say anything. Daiyu aimed her gun at the line of trees up ahead, shooting once, then twice. The sounds rang out loud, but it wasn’t entirely unheard of to hear shots fired around this place. She flicked on the safety with practiced ease, putting her gun back in her holster and returning her gaze to Maggie. Seeing the fear on her features now made her stomach twist. Weak. They were both weak.

She clenched her jaws, figuring it better to say something than to say something cruel, and pulled Maggie further along with her. Towards the trees, rushing to get to cover and looking over her shoulder at the bar. Hunters weren’t big on trust. There was a chance that someone would come to check. At least the place didn’t have many windows. Once among the cover of nature, she let go of the other’s arm. She shook her hand. “That was real fucking stupid.”

—--

If. It was the single word that seemed to repeat itself over and over again inside the woman’s already scrambled mind. If, if, if. If she were stronger. If she were a better fighter. If she were smarter. If she were braver. If she wasn’t so fucking gullible. If she were any of these things, maybe she wouldn’t have been able to slip away from Daiyu’s vice-like grip. Maybe she wouldn’t have started to trust the woman who was now dragging her to her almost certain death. But those who learn truths late often learn them harshly. Lesson one had been that she was a selkie. Taught in nature’s classroom with only blank spaces and guessing to inform her, that had been an awful lesson. Now, her second lesson: never, ever trust a hunter. 

She probably wouldn’t live to see a third lesson. 

Words left her, and in their place echoed wild, angry wails and screeches as she wrenched away from Daiyu. Out of the bar, across the grass, her feet skidding and kicking up clumps of grass and mud. Maybe she could get closer, bite her arm like a proper selkie might, get her to let go, but— A shot cracked out, and Maggie screamed… but it was not pointed at her. The muzzle was pointed off into the trees. Wide eyes stared in some mix of great horror and utter relief up at Daiyu— the hunter— Daiyu, who was still a hunter. And then, she was being dragged again. There was no wildness anymore. The need to flee that nearly made Maggie wrench her arm out of her socket had been sucked right out of her when the bullet lodged itself in some distant pine. Instead, she stumbled along numbly, letting the hunter take her into the trees and out of sight. 

The moment Daiyu let go of her arm, Maggie was making distance. She backed herself up a good couple of feet– no trees directly behind her just in case Daiyu really was going to kill her. She opened her mouth to say something sharp, something that would take the focus off her and throw it back onto Daiyu, but there was nothing… because Daiyu was, regrettably, right. “I know…” The words came out thick, forced out through the lump in her throat. “I know… I know it was— Daiyu, I needed–”

Needed what? She hadn’t said it out loud. Hadn’t even written it. It was a thought that lived in her mind and in her mind alone. And maybe, that would be better for her. If she didn’t say it, or do it, then maybe she would stay a good person. But Wyatt was hurting. No— correction— Wyatt was dying. He was dying a little bit more every time he went in that stupid, horrible place where people like them were trapped in deals, where Wyatt was trapped in a deal, and some fucking bitch fae was letting him get beaten half to death and made him keep on going. And evil had a name! A name that Maggie could get to go away. To leave Wyatt alone for good. To let him be free… To let him live…. 

Even if Wyatt found out… and maybe even if he hated Maggie for doing it. 

“... I needed to put a name out…” The half-whispered words tasted like ashes, but the fire in her chest roared to life; a confession to feed the flames. Good. Go on. Set him free. “... I need a bounty out. I’ve gotta name.”

___

Maggie backed away from her like an animal might and Daiyu remained standing still. Her weapon was gone, but her gaze was still stone. Watching the young selkie scramble, she was starting to realize the potential consequences of her actions. She had claimed she was going to kill Maggie, had fired shots to indicate that she had but the girl was still standing here and Daiyu had no plans to finish what she had decided not to do. 

Her hand reached for her forehead rubbing at a temple as she wished that she wasn't such a fool. Being friends with Wyatt had already interfered with her hunter relations aplenty, and now there was a walking dead girl she had not actually killed. Anger coiled in her stomach, lashing out at herself for getting so entwined with idiots. But there was no part inside that regretted this, either. She could not kill Maggie and she could not stand idly by as a ranger from the three daggers did the job themself. Even if she had pretty much cut Wyatt from her life, there were still things she could not live with. 

Maggie started talking, her words garbled by the emotions that were clearly coursing through her. Daiyu had half a mind to take hold of her again, to bark in her face that she had already gone against her nature advising Wyatt about her and that now she was possibly revealing her murky position between hunters and shifters. In stead she just kept rubbing her forehead, trying to massage away the headache that was starting to form. Eventually she looked at Maggie, eyes no longer stone but blazing. 

“You know that if any of them see you walking around now, you've fucked me?” She wasn't usually one to get angry on her own behalf like this, but there were plenty of guns, claws and other things aimed at her and Daiyu wanted no enemies at the three daggers. “And yourself, as well. Dead girl walking.” 

She dropped her hand from her forehead, crossing her arms as she took in what Maggie was actually saying. “Jesus. You can't just … walk into a hunter bar because you want someone dead. There are —” She groaned. “There are other places. Places where not everyone is gonna reach for their gun when you walk in.” Daiyu considered it some more. Maggie, from all she knew, was a selkie with little knowledge of what she was. She oozed naivete and even some level of innocence. “Who? Why?” 

 ___

Between the gun and the anger that bit with Daiyu’s every word, Maggie felt sick. That coiling, sweaty palmed feeling, the one that made you shiver even when you weren’t cold? The heart that felt like a hummingbird crashing against the bars of a cage? It was all there, bubbling up in some noxious combination of fear and anger of her own. It made her want to lash out— counterproductive to what needed to happen. She sucked in a shaky, slow breath. Forced it in, forced it out. Forced her hands not to shake. It’s fine.

But it wasn’t really fine, was it? Nothing was. 

“I didn’t— look I am sorry. I am… aware now… that I didn’t… do this right—” Which was putting it mildly. How many hunters had there been in that bar? Forty? Fifty? All packed in like sardines? How many hunted selkies? Did they all know what she was? Had they memorized her face in the three heartbeats she’d actually stood in the door like a deer in headlights? Would they recognize her in the street? Would they know her in a crowd, and if they did, would they follow? Would they kill her? Take her pelt to pawn off to the highest bidder like Drew and her mother warned her they would? Would Daiyu? She had the reason now— yeah, sure, maybe her relationship with Wyatt would be fucked, but did that win over Daiyu not being killed by an army of her co-workers? Maggie’s body was pins and needle numbness while her mind buzzed like an angry hive with its million-some-odd too-sharp questions, all asking her if today she died or tomorrow.

Daiyu was still speaking. She could see her lips moving, forming words that were probably a continuation of do you know how bad you just fucked up. But the hand that had been furiously working what was almost definitely a why do I put up with this selkie headache dropped, and arms were tucked across her chest. Defensive. Frustrated. While she couldn’t get the ringing out of her ears, the body language spoke in a way Magnolia could still understand: Daiyu was just trying to protect herself, too. 

The pingy whine tuned out, finally, for two simple words: Who? Why?

It was so much easier to let the fear seep out and let that strange, too-calm anger come back, washing over her like a sun-warmed wave. She could concentrate again. The woman opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, trying to force her mouth to form the words her mind and heart had been screaming out for days. “... her name is Agnes... she works at a place called the Grit Pit…” With every word that left her mouth, Maggie could feel herself righting: spine straightening up, chin untucked, arms loosening from the protective vice she’d wrapped herself up in. “Because she’s hurting Wyatt. Wyatt’s gonna get himself killed and it’s her fault, so I just— I don’t care how, I just need her to not hurt him ever again, Daiyu. I would do it myself if I could, but if Wyatt can’t touch her, how the fuck will I?”

—

“Doesn’t mean a thing to me, that you are aware now,” she said, her voice nothing but bite. Daiyu felt certain in her decision to not kill Maggie or let her be killed by one of the many other rangers in the bar, but she was feeling haunted by it already. She should not be this involved in these kinds of matters. Her friendship with Wyatt was something she also felt somewhat solid in (as solid as she could in friendships, anyway), but this was not the first conflict of interest her ties to him had posed. “Too fucking late for such realizations. You’ve got a handful of hunters in town now that think you’re dead, yeah? Get that through your head and figure out a way to deal with it, and I fucking will too.” She’d have to paint a pathetic picture of being bested by a selkie who up until recently hadn’t even known she was a selkie. Her pride had taken bigger hits, but that didn’t mean she was pleased with it.

She started pacing, boots sinking into the forest ground with every angry step taken. She wanted to punch something. No, she wanted to punch Maggie, but the girl looked so pathetic and soggy that something held her back from it. She was growing too soft. Maybe her potential lie of being bested wasn’t even a lie — she was being pushed from her instincts and logical decisions by a naive selkie. 

But there had been that time in the restaurant with Wyatt, when he had said she was a good friend and had followed that up with some tales of Maggie. Daiyu had never considered herself a loyal person, but there was something like that reserved for Wyatt (and by his extension his very stupid friend) too. Even with her back turned on him, that seemed to remain like a stubborn thorn in her side. She was struck by it, that level of care still reserved for him. The worry that flashed through her, wondering if something had changed about his position at the Pit. 

So when Maggie started talking more, mentioning the Grit Pit, she halted and looked at her with a different expression. Maggie was looking different too, as if the words were saying were making her feel righteous, in stead of the idiot who had almost walked into her death just now. Daiyu grit her teeth, thinking of all the things she knew of the Pit, of the way it had trapped Wyatt in this fucking town. She thought of going in there once, to try to do business and walking out with a bunch of unconscious beasts that she’d release back into the wild. Though she dealt in murder and cruelty most days, there were lines she did not cross. Watching beasts and shifters fight for money in a place like that? It was too reminiscent of the life left behind. And yes, Daiyu made a profit of murder and violence as well, but she still saw a line in the sand. She wasn’t an enterprise. She did not invite people to watch for an entry fee. 

“I’m familiar,” she said, her voice still venomous but not directed at Maggie any more. “The Pit. Wyatt’s situation there.” Not in great detail, but she knew enough. She thought back to Felix too, for a quick second. Daiyu grit her teeth even more, “Should be burned to the fucking ground, that place. Slimy fuckers — Agnes, you say? What a fucking name. She sounds like a bitch.” She started to pace again, her hand back on her temple and running circles. “They got … fucked up contracts there. And you’re fucking right not to try yourself. You’re… Well, I know you only just learned that you’re a selkie, and you don’t look like you did anything besides a trial class in martial arts once.” She stopped, looking at Maggie. “She fae?”

—

If the ground could have swallowed her up, Maggie would have let it. 

This was a scolding. A life-or-death stakes scolding. And god, she, the stupid little idiot she was,  deserved it. So the selkie bit her tongue. The combative bark that wanted to creep out of her was contained. The creature was muzzled. Daiyu was right, after all: if Daiyu got caught in her lie, they were both dead. Not just Daiyu, not just her. Two lives hung in the balance because Maggie had let that wild thing in her mind grapple for control and win for one minute. 

At least, when the Grit Pit entered the conversation, Daiyu’s ire shifted off the selkie. She knew it… Somehow, that didn’t surprise Maggie. Of course, a hunter knew about a place where the supernatural congregated. She probably knew about the Chimera too—maybe not its exact location, but surely the whispers of it in the background. People needed places to be with their community. Even hunters had their bar, horrible as it had been from her brief glimpse within. (The trophies on the wall—had they been shifters, once? Or supernatural creatures they deemed unfit to exist in their world? Was there an alligator somewhere on that wall? Would there be a seal pelt up there, somewhere, if she looked hard enough? Would hers be up there, one day? Her stomach twisted at the thought.) But at least there was anger in the hunter’s voice when she referred to the fight club, disgust in her syllables. Maybe Daiyu was the right person to find in all this mess. Maybe Daiyu, in whatever way she cared about Wyatt, would help in this mess. 

Was Agnes fae? Maggie blinked. Of all the (albeit limited) information she had to drop at Daiyu’s doorstep, somehow the one thing that would probably help matters was the one thing she didn’t have an answer to. “Uh…” She shifted awkwardly. A sinkhole would be nice. A nice sinkhole to swallow her up before Daiyu started making her feel like more of an idiot. “I don’t… know…” The words were muttered to the dirt, as if maybe that would make Maggie.

—

She had not spoken to Wyatt much since the Talia debacle had created a rift. Or maybe she had created the rift, Daiyu really wasn’t sure any more — all she knew was that she no longer trusted Wyatt or no longer trusted herself to be friends with Wyatt in a good way, and that she’d turned her back. Not definitively, but still in a way that had made the friendship she’d had with him feel like a cold absence now. All that did not mean she did not understand why Maggie was here. All that did not mean she wanted to see Maggie hurt so it would hurt Wyatt, or that she wanted Wyatt to keep suffering at the Pit.

The selkie wanted the bitch dead. She was going about it in a way that put daggers, arrows and pistols at both their throats, but Daiyu understood rashness in the face of desperation. As Maggie answered with a non answer, not offering any insight in the potential hit Daiyu might pick up, she let out a bit of a sigh. “Doesn’t matter what she is. Figure she isn’t human, but who’s to fucking tell — the Pit seems to invite all kinds of scum in.” She did not hold humans in a particularly high regard compared to shifters or other supernaturals, even if she did not hunt and kill them. 

Her mind went to Wyatt. Who was good, in the face of loss and cruelty. Who had forgiven her, even after she had wounded him and accepted a prize for his life. Who had tried to reason with her when she was unreasonable, when she saw no possibilities for their continued friendship. “I can help. They can’t.” She gestured vaguely into the direction of the hunter bar. “Especially if you’re not even sure what this asshole is. But I can — for Wyatt.” She had told him she would help him out of the situation he was in, hadn’t she? And though she had drawn up the walls around her and turned her back on their friendship, she possibly still could. “You have any more details for me?”

—

There were a lot of things that Maggie should have known. She should have known better than to walk into a place like The 3 Daggers to place a bounty. She should have known better than to place a bounty in the first place. She should have known that Wyatt had been suffering at The Pit under the thumb of a woman she had never met and still managed to loathe with every inch of her being. She should have known that whoever took up the bounty would want details, implying that she should have known to do more digging than just walking in and providing a name and a ‘here’s money I don’t have, take care of this problem that’s hurting my brother please’. The should haves were loud in her mind, rumbling around like a bunch of rocks loosened into an unending landslide. 

It was too late for should haves now.

Maggie forced some softer piece of herself to harden. To keep Wyatt safe, she would make her heart stone. She would make sure that her brother was not made to bleed and ache and whither away any more. The person responsible for the pain could be ripped away. He would be safe. It would be alright. It would all be alright… If she could ask for help to do a truly terrible thing. And Daiyu was standing in front of her, assuring her that she could help when no one else could. The selkie’s eyes darkened. Too late to back out now. 

“Help, then.” She bit out as she leveled her gaze back at the hunter. There was still a shake in her voice, but Maggie was no longer certain if it was from fear or from rage. “Whatever your price is for this sort of shit, I’ll find a way to pay it. I mean it. I’ll get you more information on Agnes if I can. No guarantees—Wyatt just barely told me about her…” Magnolia paused for a moment, her gaze suddenly a million miles away. It was hard to imagine anything being able to really hurt Wyatt… but The Pit and the puppet masters running it seemed capable enough. “I don’t want her hurting him ever again, Daiyu. Never again.”

—

The main question on her mind for a moment was that of money. Daiyu thought about it often, what with the bills hounding her and the blood on her hands being exchanged for crisp bills and cheques. As Maggie told her to help and mentioned money she was thinking it over, wondering if she should charge the other. She wasn’t one for charity cases, was she? Though there had been a few cases as of late, what with all the bodies piling up in town, it was still not her modus operandi. She was risking her neck for letting Maggie walk in and out of a hunter bar alive and yet she was considering not charging her at all.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take Maggie’s money. That was of little consideration to her — if she were to go broke for this, let her. The thing her mind kept getting caught on was the fact that Wyatt had paid her to spare him. That he had borrowed money to buy his life off her and that she had agreed to the deal. She had not considered it a debt, even when their dynamic had grown into a friendship, but now that she had cut the strings tying herself to him it felt like one all the same. She saw no possibility to remain friends with Wyatt any longer, but there was still something she could do, couldn’t she? She wasn’t going to make a buck off their broken friendship. Off the bridge she had burned. She would have done this for free before, and she would now. 

Daiyu glowered at the selkie, matching her in anger even if most of hers was directed at herself and this Agnes. “I hear you,” she said swiftly. Rolling her shoulders back, she continued, “It’ll be free of charge. Don’t go running your fucking mouth about that, though. Just between us. But don’t worry about getting the cash. I’ve got it.” She thought about how Wyatt had spoken about Maggie in Portland. She was like a sister to him. “Don’t go poking your nose at the fucking Pit either, if you know what’s good for you. Better place for you to be than a hunting bar, but still.” She let out an exhale and held out her hand. “I’ll give you my number. Let me know anything you can learn through him. I’ll get it done.”

—

There was a weight in her chest. She didn’t quite know how else to explain it. There wasn’t relief in the asking; there wasn’t escape from the anger in knowing Daiyu was going to take care of the situation for her, whatever that meant… The selkie shifted nervously under the dark gaze of the hunter and wondered for a moment if this was the right choice. It was possible there was another way to help Wyatt. But if there was, Maggie wasn’t seeing it. There were two options: one, leave things as they were and watch her brother suffer and, fuck, watch him die; or two, do something about it. She wasn’t strong. She wasn’t fearless. She wasn’t a good fighter, as much as every inch of her being screamed to tear this Agnes lady apart. Do something about it, then, meant asking for help with a terrible favor, hoping it paid off, and hoping Wyatt was safe and didn’t hate her for asking it… and accepting that he might.

Daiyu held out her hand. There was no going back from this. Her breathing hitched. Shake her hand. Make the deal. She was being stupid—it would be fine in the end. So things had started badly, and maybe a bunch of hunters had seen her and now thought her to be dead. Their memories couldn’t be that long. And if things got bad, maybe she could hide away in her seal form for a bit. Besides— Maggie wasn’t what mattered here. It was Wyatt. It was seeing him safe. It was making sure he didn’t get killed in that fucked up place. It was letting him live with Owen, seeing that smile, hearing him laugh and enjoy life rather than watch him get crushed to death under the weight of a deal shaped like a snare. She swallowed hard. The weight wasn’t going away. 

She took Daiyu’s hand anyway.

“Fine. No Grit Pit. Just info, if I can get it. I’ll keep you in the loop as to what I learn… And I’ll lay low for a bit.”

That night, she would stare at the ceiling and would not sleep. She would ask herself the same question over, and over, and over again, and would never get an answer. There was only the weight in her chest.

Since the Wisp Incident, as she had taken to calling it, Maggie had not slept. Well… maybe that was a bit of a hyperbole. She’d slept. At the kitchen table, or behind the counter at Periwinkle’s Paint, or on the couch when the sun was up… But sleeping at night? When the world was just as dark as the Allgood Death Pit? She might doze for a moment or two only to feel herself jerk awake to kick some phantom hand away. 

It was all in her head. She knew that much. But that knowledge didn’t stop her from dreading the nighttime hours, when the world was quiet, when she was alone… Maggie was leaving her light on like she was five again. Her parents wouldn’t worry. It was easy to pretend that she was simply ‘up late’. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to work into the small hours when things were good. And they didn’t know about the Death Pit, they didn’t know about that night when Isa had pulled her from an untimely demise… 

She wasn’t sure how late it was when her eyelids finally started to droop. Late was a time. It was the time opposite of Morning, the opposite of Daylight. Sprawled across her bed with her notebooks and pens, the girl promised herself that she would only close her eyes for two seconds. But two seconds was enough to send her sinking into the deep dark of sleep, too tired to wrench her eyes back open.

—

It was rare for her to be this hungry. Inge was an indulgent mare, feeding at least every other night if not every, ensuring that she was always at her strongest and that there was a slim chance that she’d be caught in a weak position. But something else had taken priority, now. Every night she stood watch over her Debbie, gliding in the astral above it or resting next to it to make sure no harm would come to it.

But she was starving now. Starving and in need of a new sleeper in her roster. The lamia was proving to be at the end of his rope, if not a risk, and Inge had no intention of creating another one like her. If she was to feed herself now, starved as she was, she’d have to find someone else. A human, this time, she hoped. A human without hunter strength or necromancy abilities. She picked as carefully as she could as she traversed the astral, finally descending in the room of a young woman who had finally fallen asleep. 

She took an indulgent moment to scan her notebooks, eyes taking in the drawings and forming opinions she’d never voice. They were good, these sketches of monsters and cryptids. Done by a skillful hand combined with a bright mind. Inge felt emboldened by the sight, as her nightmares were a source of inspiration she did not mind sharing. Maybe in a few weeks time the notebooks would be filled with the things she had put into the young woman’s head, her hands fervently moving to put down onto paper the things she had dreamed of.

Yes, she was perfect.

She got into a comfortable position near the other’s nightstand and made contact, ensuring the other stayed asleep. And so the scene opened — her sleeper would wake in a maze, the moon shining down with a soft, reddish glow. Something skittered in the bushes, and if she were to look over her shoulder, she’d see something pulse on the ground and no exit at all.

—

It was strange to dream of something that was not the pit. 

The image of that gaping hole in the ground where light seemed to die had been so imprinted in her mind that Maggie did not think it was possible that she could dream of anything else. And yet, the scene that unfolded was not of the Allgood Death Pit, but rather, a maze. What should have been green bushes cast almost silvery in the soft moonlight was red. The moon, the clouds, red, like some great piercing eye of an ancient beast beholding the world below. 

And yet, somehow, she was grateful that the foreboding image that filled her mind was not the Pit. It was a relief to find any sort of reprieve from that. 

Something moved behind her, the telltale hush of leaves and branches giving its presence away. Maggie didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to know. It would be so much easier if she could simply force herself awake and avoid the unpleasantness of her own dreams. But her gaze shifted back, back, back towards the origin of the sound. There was no exit behind her. A dead end, with bushes higher than she could hope to climb, thicker than she could try to escape. And something. It moved rhythmically, thrumming there amidst the shadows of the maze and the hazy red glow of the moon. 

She really needed to start drinking more energy drinks… 

—

She was not yet present in the maze herself — Inge was hesitant to put her face in the dream at this point, wanted to see how the sleeper would and could feed her before delving in too deep. So she was the maze, the sky above, the person behind the scenes making leaves rustle with the sound of skittering insect feet. These were all cheap tricks, to make a place filled with things that could be heard, not seen. At least she was not pulling out her birds tonight.

A gush of cold wind pushed her dreamer forward and so forward she moved, Inge’s control over the dream sometimes even extending to those that were asleep as she burrowed into their subconscious. Though the maze was closed at the end, the other still had to get out — and so after the gust of wind something burst from the bushes.

It was a monster, because of course it was — and Inge allowed the subconscious to fill some of the blanks as she pulled inspiration from the sketchbooks she’d looked over earlier. The monster looked worm-like, but clawed hands still protruded from its fleshy body, teeth bared as it slithered forward.

—

Though her feet stumbled forward, Maggie kept looking back. There was something behind her. She could feel those eyes watching her with dagger-sharp intent. There was a moment where the world felt frozen and her breath felt trapped in her chest. And then, bursting through the foliage, the creature emerged. 

Maggie shouldn’t have wanted to draw it, but she did. It wasn’t smart to look at something with fangs and claws slithering at you like you were about to be its breakfast and wish for a pencil and paper. The correct first thought should have been run. Not what colors could I use to shade the strange mottled flesh of the worm-like monstrosity that had been spun up in a dreamscape. But it snarled. Beady eyes were wholly focused on her as it made its strangely serpentine approach. 

Run. Wisdom spoken in her sister’s voice filled her thoughts. Don’t be stupid, run. But dreams were not things one needed to run away from… She tried to will herself to stay still. However, the closer the creature drew to her, the more she wanted to flee deeper into the dark of the maze. One step. Two stumbling steps. And then she was running. As far and as fast as her legs could take her. As far away from whatever it was her mind had conjured to haunt her. 

—

She was brave, this dreamer. Inge liked that. It was so easy when those she fed on were scared without much push, when it took barely anything for them to become afraid. It left no challenge. It required little inspiration or artistry. But this young woman, she stood and took in the horrors displayed to her. Eventually she ran, because everyone did — but still. She was appreciative.

For a moment she wondered if Debbie would ever be so brave. The thought of her, all grown and brave enough to face the things that scared her while knowing how to run sneaked in and it took over. The sleeper ran but the monster that was chasing her transformed into the Bristlecat pup, crawling over the ground the way a baby might.

Inge watched her darling child move after the girl, making to scare her just as the large monster had done. Maybe she’d grow up to become a thing people feared — that was even better than being fearless. She watched her version of Debbie chase the sleeper, and was completely blinded to the fact that she was not that scary, not really.

—

Wake up wake up wake up- the words were a chant, repeating over and over in the poor girl’s mind with no effect. Sleep and the unfortunate dream had a fast hold on her. It was a dream! Just a dream, but the sting of fear still pierced through her all the same. Maggie’s legs propelled her forward into the crimson-cast maze. It was only when she cast a quick glance backwards that she noticed the beastly thing that had burst forth from the bushes was now… significantly less scary. 

Smaller. It was smaller. More of a large, hairy caterpillar than a fleshy sandworm monster. It was almost cute, the way it crawled after her. Almost. But it made Maggie stop in her tracks all the same, utterly distracted by the new form of the creature. She could draw this, she thought to herself. If she woke up, she could make this creature anew on the pages of her journal. 

But that required waking up. Something she could not do. And despite the transformation of the creature chasing her, the well of fear in the pit of her stomach was still there, threatening to pull her back in.

—

The nutritious value of the dream ebbed as her sleeper realized that the monster chasing her had been turned into the perfect little baby. Inge didn’t mind, though — all her attention was on this world, in the astral plane, where Debbie also existed. Her own need for nutrition was not as important as cooing over her darling child. So why the other just stood there, not stepping in to look after the caterpillar like creature was beyond her.

So she, too, appeared in the dream. Not in any scary form, but just as herself — dressed in the exact same clothes her earthly body wore on the other plane. Inge walked up to Deborah and ran a hand through her bristles. “If you’re hungry you can eat her,” she said, loud enough for the other to hear.

She was a hungry baby, much more than Vera had been. Inge was thrilled by it: it was easy to be a mother when all you had to do was supply food. Even if that food was human bodies. She looked up at the dreamer. “She’s short but she’ll be very nutritious!”

__

There was a lady now. A lady with red eyes and a vaguely menacing presence… cooing over the caterpillar thing like it was the sweetest baby in all the land. The creature seemed contented with the woman’s presence, inching along down the darkened path, in her general direction. What the fuck even was this dream? Weren’t you only supposed to see the faces of people you’d met in dreams?? Maggie blinked, utterly perplexed by the scene.

Lady, that thing is not big enough to eat me… The girl eyed the creature worming along. What the hell was she even on about? It didn’t stop Maggie from backing away. It was entirely possible that the crazy dream lady would try to murder her to feed to her weird worm child, and dying in her dreams was not high on her dream priority list. Besides, she’d died enough in her dreams recently. The last thing she needed was for Isa to be woken up by her screaming bloody murder about ‘don’t kill me please’. 

“I’M NOT SHORT!” The words were tossed over her shoulder as she continued through the maze, turning around every corner she could find. Really, it probably wasn’t the thing to be focusing on at that moment. But Maggie wasn’t short! She wasn’t! “I’M A COMPLETELY AVERAGE HEIGHT! AND I TASTE TERRIBLE!” The last part had been thrown in as a last ditch effort to persuade the creature that attempting to eat her would be a terrible experience. 

__

The sleeper was running from her and Debbie and that simply would not do. Her child needed sustenance, that was all Inge knew to be true, and so she barely paid any mind to the short sleeper’s protests about her height and in stead turned the ground into a landslide so she’d be forced back to them. Maybe Deborah did not need to eat on this plane of existence, but Inge would not risk starving her darling child.

She tumbled towards her along with rock and dirt and Inge pulled Debbie along with her, kneeling at the dreamer. “You are below average height,” she cooed to her, “But it’s okay, Debbie is still growing.” It was an honor to be made into her child’s food. Inge would offer her own limbs if she had to and if she could, but her flesh offered no sustenance at all. Luckily there were plenty of humans left in town.

The worm-like child moved towards the dreamer, curious as a babe and as hungry as she could get. “And I am sure you’re delicious.” 

__

Maggie REALLY didn’t like this dream. The earth beneath her feet gave way and sent her careening down a path of rock and dirt. Wake up, stupid, wake UP! She wanted to scream herself awake. The red-eyed woman in her imagination that controlled her dream like a puppet master knelt down beside her, like she believed that Maggie would simply give up. Those eyes that pierced through the dark like embers looked on at the inching creature known as Debbie with adoration. 

Nope. Hell no. She was not going to lay there in the dream dirt and let the dream crazy lady feed her to her weird dream worm monster baby. Yes, it’d be a great thing for her to draw in the morning, but she certainly did not want to dream herself being eaten. Scrambling against dirt and gravel, Maggie tried to get to her feet, moving away from the evil pair. Even in her dream, she didn’t want to hurt the creature. It wasn’t Debbie’s fault her brain had conjured her. And while kicking the creature as hard and far as she could and running until she woke up would probably be the easiest solution, it still felt wrong. 

“Nope! I taste terrible! I’m poisonous to creatures like Debbie, and you wouldn’t want to kill her, would you? You seem like a good… mom…” 

__

It would have been so easy to raise Vera if she had lived only on this plane. It would just be easier, if Inge had this amount of control in her life: if she could halt people by making the earth turn under their feet or fling them away like a speck of dust. She watched the young sleeper struggle and she would make her incapable of moving altogether if she had to. Debbie had a complex diet, but parenthood required sacrifice.

And of course, this Debbie was not real, but the way the creature had enthralled the mare seemed to persist even if someone else's dreams. So when the dreamer seemed to insinuate that Inge was a bad mother she seemed to blaze with what she considered righteous fury, eyes lighting up even more bright red, teeth growing in furious size.

“I'm a great mother,” she snarled, arms wrapping around her caterpillar-like, bristled child. “And you are exactly what she likes. Young, fresh, human meat.” Much too mouthy, though. Worry swirled in her stomach, but she knew humans said whatever they had to to survive. She did, too. “C'mon, Deb,” she cooed, pushing her daughter forward, eyes still blazing at the stranger. “Open wide.” The caterpillar opened her round, toothy mouth, never complaining about the food she was served.

__

No no no no 

It was a dream! It was all a dream. Because going into a spooky maze at night when the moon was red was a terrible and stupid idea that she wouldn’t do… at least, not alone. When Maggie tried to stand, the dirt slid under her feet and she kept falling back down. She didn’t want to die. Maggie had died in every dream she’d had for months. Usually by falling to her death while staring up, Isa reaching out to try and reach her while she disappeared further and further down the Allgood Death Pit. Death in a dream by murderous caterpillar somehow was worse. Specifically from the teeth…

“Nononononono…” She just wanted to wake up, wake up, WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP- 

In the real world, she was screaming. In the real world, she was crying out in her sleep, pleading to a stranger in the shadows not to kill her, not to eat her, to leave her alone. But Maggie didn’t know that. In fact, she was starting to worry that the dream was real. That this was it. That the caterpillar that sank its teeth into her while the woman with the ember eyes watched, delighted in her suffering. The moment the creature bit into her, a blood-curdling shriek pierced the air- and the girl no longer knew if she was dreaming. __

It hardly mattered to Inge that the dreamer's fear was feeding her. She'd forgotten about her own needs in the face of Debbie's urges, even if this version of her was part of her own subconscious (and, by extent, that of the sleeping girl). Still, it was a good thing that the nightmare was successful in achieving its goals: scaring the person who was experiencing it. It was perfect, that Debbie had such horrifying urges. 

And Debbie was such a wonderfully easy eater! Inge did not have to trick her by pretending the other was an airplane and making it fly to her mouth. She simply ate all by herself, not needing any coddling. She was a good mother. “Goed zo meisje,” she said, hands getting lost in the bristles as she stroked her daughter's back. Soon, she'd have to make her burp to make sure everything was alright in her tummy, though Debbie seemed to have no aches there. She really was the perfect child. So much easier than Vera ever had been. 

The source of food for both mother and daughter was screaming and it was only because she knew Debbie didn't mind that she didn't make her stop. Inge let her eat, though she was kind enough to let the dream fade into dark obscurity when she reached the other's face.  

__

She swore she could feel the teeth digging into her skin, ripping flesh and tendon and bone into a meal for a monster. Maggie tried to convince herself of a scientific reason- that she was probably laying on some part of her body in some strange manner that sent pins-and-needles into the limb, and when she woke it would all vanish. But that didn’t change the fact that it felt real. It felt so disgustingly, awfully real, trapped in the dream playing out in her mind.

There was no fighting the creature. Every attempt at escape was thwarted by the world around her. She writhed in pain as she listened to the creature devour and the red-eyed woman that called the thing her child cooed her words of encouragement. And slowly, slowly, the dream faded away into nothingness. Into void. 

When her eyes finally opened and Maggie lurched into the waking world once more, she could hardly breathe. Her throat was hoarse, aching from screams that had pleaded for escape from her own mind. The apartment was silent. Crickets chirped in the cool of the summer evening, her window cracked ever so slightly to let the breeze in. In the distance, thunder rolled like a distant omen. Isa was evidently not home, from the apparent lack of a confused and terrified sunglasses-wearing girl wielding whatever was nearest her bedside as a weapon in her room. Good… At least Isa could not worry about what she did not know. Without so much as another thought, she gathered herself and her blanket up, trudging down the hall to Isa’s empty room, to sit in waking safety until she was alone no longer.

__

The dream ended and Inge returned to the earthly plane, feeling a hollowness now that Debbie was no longer with her. She was aware that the Deborah in the dream had not been a true version of her, but she had been as lovable, as deserving of her care and nurture. She didn’t spend much time in the still-sleeping dreamer, though, giving one more glance to her notebooks before going back into the astral.

There was only one place she wanted to be now, and that was with Debbie. As Inge traversed to her darling child at Anita and Metzli’s home, she wondered if she should have taken at least a hand or foot from the dreamer for Deborah, but now that she was on her way, she found it hard to turn around. She just wanted to see her, to check in on her needs.