The world was shifting around her, bright and dark at the same time; someone had torn the sky into strips and twisted it about, striping sunset next to noon next to midnight next to dawn, and she was the center and the nexus of it all. A distant, tinny laughter rang in her ears; a thousand voices spoke, but the meaning of their words escaped her utterly, lost in a roar like the sea. She could see the shadows moving, dancing with sparks in a wild reverie that didn't include her; she was what they danced around, what they worshiped. This place, this patchworked and broken place, put together from pieces and shards - this was her, this was home, and she would never be lonely again...

< Wake up. >




Her waking was not kind - it was sharp and sudden, like a slap in the face, one moment drifting in the heart of dreams, the next a painful return to awareness. Anna's eyes snapped open, a strangled gasp escaping her throat. Every part of her ached, and her entire left side throbbed as if bruised; all around her was a seemingly unyielding darkness, rough against her gloved palms. She shoved forward experimentally, first gently and then with increasing force, her heart pounding in growing panic as her apparent prison held fast. She was trapped, she was doomed, she was-

With a sharp crack, the darkness shattered, brittle; Anna tumbled forward, unable to keep her balance, and sprawled inelegantly across the floor. She laid there for a moment as the ruin of her 'prison' collapsed around her, shaking and trying to catch her breath, trying to make sense of the world. She remembered...

... what did she remember?

Shibey is... gone... She closed her eyes. She remembered the buzz of panic and rage in her mind - yes, she'd come back from her exam, Shibey had goaded her, and she'd... she'd killed him? Except she hadn't, because he'd wanted her to do exactly what she'd done. Now, without the haze of fury obscuring her thoughts, she understood. They'd had to become one; the Incubator was a sort of living seed, planting the change in her core the instant she'd agreed to his contract.

She understood, now, the memories oddly blunted, at one remove, as if someone else had experienced them. Which, in a sense, was true. Anna Walpurgis had died the instant she agreed to Shibey's terms. She rolled the name around in her mind for a moment. It still fit, though. She had no idea what else to call herself, and no great desire to change. So: Anna she was, even if she wasn't the same as the child who had made a wish.

Slowly, Anna pushed herself up, wincing as bits of her 'prison' tumbled to the ground as she shifted beneath them. It was wood, she realized, bits of brittle black wood; when she turned, she saw the foundation, a single trunk digging roots into the floor of her room, absurdly. The remains made it clear that the brittle branches had coiled around her, giving her a cocoon of sorts. Someplace to rest while she became.

She took a deep breath, experimentally, and reached out as if summoning Shibey. Instead, something cool and hard materialized in her left hand, and her fingers tapped its smooth surface only for a moment before it sprouted upwards, uncoiling in her grasp to a blackthorn bow. It looked much the same as the ruined branches around her, only it was far stronger, and far more beautiful.

A weapon. Her weapon. Yes, she remembered this now, too. Belatedly.

With a sigh, Anna brushed splinters of wood off of her petticoats, then froze. Her left arm was blackened, but not a solid black; instead it was dappled with black and dark blue and purple, almost like a bruise. Startled, she let her weapon fade back into her FEAR and crawled over to her mirror, shoving bits of branch out of her way as she went. A single glance showed her the extent of the change - darkness dappled half of her face, and further checking showed that the markings had taken almost her entire left side, stopping just above the knee and blotching across her torso.

And yet, she couldn't see what had happened as damage. Indeed, as she looked at herself, she felt the most absurd urge to laugh. This was what she'd wished for, or what the other Anna had wished for. It was just too bad she hadn't lived to see that wish come to fruition.

Slowly, Anna got to her feet, turning in a circle in front of the mirror. Gone was that muddy bond to the earth that her previous self had cherished so deeply; in its place was a crackling power at the heart of her, something dark, something kin to the blackthorn vines that had cradled her after she'd absorbed Shibey. Experimentally, she summoned her bow again, drawing back the string; that power manifested as she did so, forming a bolt of dark energy seething between bow and string.

With a snap, she released; the bolt flew forward and slammed into the wall, leaving a nimbus of darkness behind. While the physical damage was minimal, she could feel the curse seething hungrily in its wake, and reveled in it, glancing over her shoulder at the mirror again to see the look on her own face.

... Yes.

With a satisfied hum, Anna dismissed her bow and studied her room. She had a lot of cleaning up to do, but that giddy delight still bubbled through her, a joy she hadn't felt... well, ever, if she wanted to be perfectly precise.

Today was the first day of the rest of her life.