Evergreen Forest Ch. 19

"What the hell is wrong with people like you?" Snatch shook his head. He looked around, realizing that Yilra, Anna and Nipper were nowhere in sight. "Looking inside my mind. Trying to control me. It won't fucking work!"

"Well, no." Coucang laughed. It was Larya's laugh. He'd always hated that joyful guffaw of hers, but hearing Coucang give it was twisted. It was wrong. "I don't control minds, Snatch. I give people what they want. And besides, you seem like far too much mess to manage." She gestured to herself. "How is this shameful? The illusion is supposed to trap you in self-loathing. This is just a simulacrum of me talking to you in the body of some girl you screwed. It's not even immersing."

"I didn't—" Snatch cut himself off as 'Larya' arched her eyebrows. He took a step back. "Look, you want Anna? You can have her."

"Really?" 'Larya' blinked. "Are you sure? You'd abandon an innocent, after all this, just to save your own skin?"

"Yes!" he snarled. "I'm fucking—" He put his hands in front of his eyes, trying to shut her out. "Stop looking at me like that!"

"Like what?" Her tone was reproachful. It was that 'Stop being a shithead' tone Larya had used whenever he'd done something she saw as wrong. He'd gotten that tone a lot.

"Stop it!" His eyes felt hot. There were tears, real tears, running down his cheeks. "Fuck you!" He raised his head back up and reached for his scythe.

He looked at it. It was rusty, notched, iron thing. Ugly. A farmhand's tool. Not the sleek silvered device he had entered the forest with.

She smiled at him. "What an ugly weapon. Did somebody give you the nicer one you have now?"

"Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it!" He advanced on her. She didn't even move to defend herself. "You—wasn't it enough that I fought for you, you stupid goddamned . . . naive asshole? I bled! It's not like I wasn't trying!"

She giggled. "I think you're talking to someone else. I'm just an illusion, remember?" Her eyes shimmered with green fires. "Larya is gone."

"Fuck you!"

"What?" She shrugged. "You blame me for what happened?"

Snatch screwed his eyes shut and swung the scythe with all his might.

He felt the impact. Felt the blade slice through cloth. Sensed a heartbeat snuffed out. His heart pounded as he opened his eyes.

Larya stood before him, unharmed. "You blame me? It was your fault more than mine, you know."

"I blame you for making me care!" he shouted. "You were my partner! You made me—made me act like a better person!" He felt his voice breaking. He couldn't make her stop.

"Did she?" the illusion asked. "I see little improvement. You've slipped since you last saw her, haven't you? How do you think she would feel about that?"

He fell to his knees and covered his ears. But it was like a dream. He couldn't drown out her voice. "You made me . . . I'm tired of being good! Just let me be a fucking waste of space, Larya! That's all I ever was! That's what I'm—what a mercenary is supposed to be! None of this 'saving kids', 'finding antidotes' shit! I just—"

"Is that why you let her down?" the illusion asked, walking in circles around him. "You always were an evil bastard. Did you want to be rid of her?"

"No! I didn't—"

"Hey, Alrek?" He found himself looking up. Larya looked down at him, her smile kind, sympathetic. She shook her head sadly. "If all you ever wanted to be was a friendless waste of space? I think you've got it made."

~~~~

Too easy, Nictice—Coucang to her enemies—thought, looking down at the three. Yilra lay on the ground, slumped next to the wall, moaning uncontrollably. What a silly 'greatest shame' to possess, she thought. One encounter with a woman and she's still obsessing over it? So sheltered. So naive. Also, kind of homophobic, but that's humans for you.

She looked over to Nipper and couldn't help but laugh. The catgirl had begun to quietly masturbate. She was drooling on the floor. Now, that's the sort of shame I can get behind. Evil and hot. Almost wish I could join little Catnip in there. But Nipper's best kind of evil at this point was the kind she did to herself.

Nictice only spared a casual glance at Snatch. He was slumped against the wall, his eyes dead. Tears were streaking down his face. She'd had trouble reading him, because of that little piece of void he'd swallowed earlier, but whatever she'd put in was doing the trick. His was the more boring sort of shame, she expected. A man like Alkers had a lot to be ashamed of.

"Well," she said, smiling about as brightly as a being of pure shadow could manage, "back to fun times." She turned to Anna.

Or tried to.

She stared down at the ground. There was a little puddle where Anna had been cumming.

Anna herself, however, was gone.

"Okay," she said, frowning, "what's—"

A hiss filled the air. She let out a shrill shriek as burning pain hit her foot, and she sprang into the air. She looked down at the source.

The torch had been lit.

She considered it, rubbing her seared flesh. Hm. Interesting. "Anna?" she called out. "Anna, don't hide from me. Remember being a slut?" She laughed. "Remember what we promised?"

Silence.

"Remember humping my leg like a bitch in heat, Anna?" Nictice couldn't see Anna anywhere. Had she found some secret compartment to hide in? Honestly, this tiresome old tomb had the most pointless traps imaginable. "I thought we agreed you didn't want to be a stupid slut. So be a good slave and come over and—"

There was a clattering. Nictice spun around.

A few of the bones on the walls had fallen to the floor. She stared down at them, frowning.

Another clattering. This time, Nictice just allowed her eyes to travel through her to the back of her head. It was a bit faster. Several skeletons had fallen to the floor on the other side.

"Hm." She blinked. "Anna, perhaps you and I should—"

The skeletons' arms twitched. They raised themselves up and stared at Nictice.

Fire had filled their eyes.

"Should what, Nictice?"

Nictice turned. Anna, still naked, was shambling down the hallway towards her. Her right hand was pressed against the wall for balance. And her left . . .

There was shadow, and then there was fire. That was her left hand. A burning coal that had half-burnt out. A sparking mass of sun and void. It had the shape of a skeletal hand, but with far too many fingers, too many joints. An abomination down to the elbow.

"Should what?" Anna repeated. Three more of the fire-eyed skeletons walked behind her. Nictice realized she was being surrounded. "You talk a lot, Nictice. Want me to do some talking for a change?"

Nictice looked around. The torch had filled the hall with light. There were no shadows to escape from. Not enough. Not nearly enough. She turned back and looked at the hand. So much power was there. Enough to kill her in an instant.

The skeletons were rising up all around her. Their bones were catching fire.

"I want to thank you, Nictice," Anna said, giving a slow smile. "You reminded me of something I . . . a past me didn't want to remember. You reminded me of this." She raised the horrid hand. Nictice felt her pussy clench at the sight of it, despite her terror. So much power. And it could have been hers. Anna clearly noticed this. "Oh, did you want this, Nictice?"

Nictice felt bony hands grab her arms. She could have broken the grip easily. Could have broken free and run for it. She couldn't stop staring. Her head tilted to the side, her mouth slightly agape. She hadn't even known. So much more than she'd known.

Anna sauntered forward, a coy smile on her face. "I have plans for this hand, Nictice," she whispered. "Plans I can finally act on, after all these years. I'm not going to let any pathetic Evergreen vermin get in my way. Not anymore.

Nictice stared into the flickering flames, into the black void. She knew she needed to fight. The skeletons cast shadows. Anna cast a shadow. She could . . . She could dive into them, she could flee, she could break them all where they stood.

But the hand was casting such a pretty light. Such power. It could have been hers. She felt her pussy getting wetter and wetter the more she thought about it. She couldn't stop it any more than she could stop Anna. This power was outside her reach. And it was going to end her. And it was beautiful.

"Do you know where these catacombs come from, Nictice? It's not a tomb, you know. I thought it was some kind of tomb, but I know now that it wasn't. It's an armory." Anna smirked. "An armory for people like me. An armory for the endtimes."

The hand waved from side to side. Nictice felt herself swaying with it. Anna giggled, watching her sway. "Wow. You really want this, don't you?"

"Uh-huh," Nictice said vacantly, staring into the dark fires.

Anna considered her for a moment. She turned and looked at the three on the ground, letting Nictice continue focus on the hand. A power forgotten in these lands. It had almost been hers. It was like a lantern to her, now, and she was happy to be the moth. It felt so good to be the moth for once.

Anna turned back to her, looking rather smug to see Niceice had remained entranced. She raised the hand to eye level. "You want it?"

"Yeah . . ."

Anna brought the aberrant hand low. Very low. And closer. Much closer. She fixed Nictice with a look of total hatred. "Then take it."

~~~~

Snatch awoke to the sound of a woodpecker drilling against a nearby tree. He snorted and scowled. "Fucking nature."

His eyes opened. The roof above him was beige and . . . clothy. He was in a tent.

Memories started to come back, and he clutched his stomach. It was bandaged, and he wasn't wearing a shirt. "Oh, motherfuck."

"You okay?" He looked up sharply. Yilra was lying in bed a few feet over. There were two other bedrolls in the tent. He had shared a tent with four people.

That was so not 'okay'.

"I guess," he muttered. "What the hell happened? Did I kill that asshole with the shadow puppets?"

"Maybe." She shrugged half-heartedly. "Being honest, I dunno much more than you. I just woke up to Anna telling me she needed help working out how to patch you up." She waved a hand around. "She got us out of there, I think. Don't know how she even carried us, let alone got us out, but . . . we're out."

The woodpecker kept drilling. Snatch stared at Yilra, wondering how she could be so relaxed. Even outside the caves, they still had a ways to go to reach . . .

And then he realized why she was so flummoxed.

"We're in the Cracklewood," he said. The Cracklewood was the name for the ambiguous point where the Evergreen Forest became The Only-Green-In-Summer-And-Spring Forest, like . . . well, a normal forest. "How the fuck?"

Yil just shrugged again. "Look, if you could just get me my crutches, we can go ask them together. They left 'em right outside the flap." The ranger gave a rueful laugh. "Didn't want me wandering off, I guess."

Snatch did as she asked, and the two of them left the tent—which smelled more than a little ripe to Snatch. They exited into a calm, quiet forest of dry brown leaves on the floor and orange-and-red boughs up above. Huckleberry bushes nearby were providing their last few berries before they faded away into winter. It looked like autumn. Which was a relief, because it, well, was autumn. They really were out.

The campsite was sparse, and a bit subpar even by Snatch's standards. He thought about lingering to start a fire before going to check on the others. That was the one thing he was really good at in camping.

Instead, he walked alongside Yilra and headed over towards the sound of a babbling creek.

Nipper and Anna sat on a large boulder. They looked like they'd been skipping rocks into the water. They were sitting close together, but not too close. Both were fully clad.

"There's a nixie in this creek, here," Anna said brightly. "We're going to get their help finding the herbs to cure the, er . . ." She gestured with her left hand to her crotch and grimaced.

Was her left hand twitching oddly? Snatch wondered if he'd imagined it.

"That's great!" Yilra said. She walked over and had the crutches leap her up onto the boulder. They handled slopes pretty well, actually. Snatch climbed up after her. "And then what?" He noticed she didn't ask how they'd escaped.

"I dunno." Anna shrugged. "I have some . . . plans, but right now my main priority is getting you guys to safety. Right now, we're all really vulnerable to fey spells, because of, er, everything."

"Fades in time," Snatch said. "I don't need protection."

"Well, you're welcome to go wherever you want, Alrek," Anna said. He grimaced. She'd never stopped calling him that, had she? "I had Nipper hand that amulet off to the nixie to manage, so that's off your chest now." Nipper gave an odd little giggle. "You sure don't need our help."

Yilra nodded. "Okay, I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind you sticking around. Just for some extra muscle. But we're just heading to the next town over. Duke Horacio will want to hear about these Chosen entering the Evergreen, no matter who wins."

Snatch gave a short nod. His plans to escape Baron Galroge after stealing his prized flying mule herd seemed so distant now. He'd planned on going to Horacio to seek sanctuary. It felt so long ago. So trivial, even.

"Yeah," Nipper said, "even if the dryads win, that's still Crypta gaining a crapton of new servants! Think of what someone like her could do with them."

"Anyways," Yilra said, "Judging by everything that's happened, it's pretty clear you don't exactly need our help. You do better on your own, right?"

Snatch grimaced.

Words echoed in his head. Words that weren't true. Friendless waste of space. Evil bastard. Words that also kind of were true, even if Larya had never said them.

Anna reached forward and patted him on the shoulder. "Your pack's by the tent. If you want to just go now, it's cool. I appreciate what you did. Really."

Snatch looked at her hand. He remembered sticking her with the syringe just a few days ago to save his own ass from the nymphs. He remembered arguing to Yilra that they should have just abandoned her. And she'd saved his miserable waste of skin in turn. He hated feeling beholden to people.

He shrugged. "Ah, fuck it. I was going to that town anyways."

They smiled and turned back towards the creek. The three women looked out over it, and each, he could tell, was lost in their own troubled thoughts.

Snatch didn't smile. His smiles tended to make children cry and adult men and women slowly back away. He wasn't good at smiling. People paid him to stop smiling.

But he sat down next to them and stared across the creek as well.

Snatch was always lost. His troubled thoughts were old friends.

I guess better those friends than none, he thought. And he laughed.

THE END

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Author's Note:

It has been nearly two years. Two. Years.

I talk more about all this in the comments, but seriously, thank you so much for reading! Your feedback and comments are what made me decide to keep going when I posted the first chapter.

The entirety of this story is 84,000 words. Here's to 84,000 more!