Interlude - Naomi

Naomi sat in the corner, her brow pressed tightly against her forearms, her eyes screwed shut, her whole body shuddering.

She didn’t want to think. Didn’t want the thoughts, the memories, the emotions that refused to leave her alone. Running didn’t help. Fighting and killing fiends only gave her a moment’s fierce release. No matter what she did, the emotions came back, the images, the words, hunting her down like hell’s most consummate predator.

She gritted her teeth and ground her face into her knees. Only in sleep did she find oblivion, and then all too often she’d awaken from dreams she could barely remember, body drenched in sweat, gasping and crying out for someone, anyone, to help her.

But she was all alone.

All alone but for the Nightmare Lady, hidden deep within her soul.

With a cry of helpless rage, she slammed the base of her fist against the wall, and the flare of pain was welcome, a fierce jolt against the smothering despair. She paused, and the old temptation arose, that rapid and simple form of release.

No. She’d stopped doing that. Had sworn she’d never do it again.

But the Nightmare Lady stirred, ignoring her empty words, and against her will, she shifted, allowed the darkness within her to break free. Her body stretched, grew strong, her senses sharper, and her tail extruded itself from the base of her spine to waft out into the air.

She stared at her black talons and hissed. How she loathed this body. This horrific form. But how perfect it was, how perfect a reflection of both the cruelties of the world and her own twisted sense of self.

The Nightmare Lady.

Her truest self.

The great triangular blade of her tail curved around, gentle, questing, until its wicked tip was poised above her arm.

She could feel it questioning her, seeking but the slightest hint of acquiescence. How good it would feel, she heard the Nightmare Lady whisper, a delicate touch, then the spasm, a surge of emotion, a splash of color in the dark.

Just one. Quick. Cut.

No.

She leaped to her feet and bolted out of the dark chamber, clambering out of the window to scale the building’s wall to the roof, moving rapidly, blindly, trying to escape her own well of despair.

But wherever she went, she brought it with her.

Up to the roof, to scuttle across the broken stone and into another corner, to coil in on herself, tail now wrapped tightly about her body, sinking into the deepest shadows.

Her heart pounded. She couldn’t catch her breath. Resting her head back against the wall, she tried not to cry.

Stupid. So stupid. To think she could ease back into the normal world. With all the darkness within her, that hate, that bitter jealousy that marked her as the weak one.

To have believed him. Trusted him. Thought that things would be different if she stood by his side.

Again she grimaced, and this time when she slammed her fist against the wall, the stone cracked.

And heard the Nightmare Lady hiss: You belong out here. Alone with me.

She ran her hands down her gaunt visage, talons tracing thin lines of fire across her brow, her alien cheekbones, her jawline, and finally wrenched free the question she’d been avoiding for weeks: what was she going to do?

She couldn’t return to the way things were before him. Those long, still days where she did little to nothing, but sat in a stupor, drinking flaywine and experimenting on her body, or would drag herself to her alchemical experiments, or worst yet, wander the streets of the living city, deep inside her hooded cloak, to watch with sick envy how everyone else moved so easily about their lives, laughing and talking and enjoying themselves as if it took so little effort.

She couldn’t go back to that stasis.

But then what? Sign up with a mercenary outfit? They’d take her. Take her and use her till she broke.

Return to the Academy?

She banished the thought as soon as it came and snarled into the night. Her tail whipped out and slashed at the wall, causing an explosion of plaster and stone chips to fall to the ruined rooftop.

Scorio.

He’d ruined everything. With his easy smile, his impossible confidence, his—his.

Naomi shrank back down to her human form and covered her face. Sat utterly still, trying to become nothing, to not think, to not feel.

And again, as she’d done so many times before, she failed.

“Damn it,” she whispered, voice broken. “Damn it all to the ten hells.”

She couldn’t go on like this. But nor could she return. To those brightly lit hallways, those smirks and disgusted stares. She’d not bind herself to Scorio’s delusions again. Never.

But then…?

She thought of Scorio laughing at one of Leonis’s jokes. Lianshi tagging along, her own grin half-exasperated, half-despairing.

Her heart spasmed, like a muscle contracting when hit.

Wrapping her arms around her legs again, she pressed her brow to her knees and heard the Nightmare Lady hiss: Damn them. Damn Scorio and his all-consuming quest. His nonsensical, selfish, suicidally reckless, and impossibly stupid dreams.

Her shoulders slumped.

He was going to die. There was no doubt. Today, tomorrow, someday soon.

And when he was gone?

Naomi raised her face and stared out at nothing. When he was gone? Something infuriating, nauseating in its confidence, something vital and mesmerizing would leave the world forever.

She blinked. She hated him, wished she’d never met him… but she didn’t want him to die.

That would be even worse, somehow.

But she’d never return to his side. Not after what he’d said, the cruelty he’d shown, how he’d—

Naomi sighed, too tired to work up the rage in which she’d boiled and simmered herself ever since the night of The Flame.

His last words came back to her, his voice hollow, his manner near defeated. “Well, at least I got to apologize. Thank you for… everything, I suppose. Take care of yourself, Naomi.”

What a reckless idiot. What a naive fool. Of course Praximar had betrayed him. He’d never had a chance.

And yet.

The last of the anger slipped out of her. She didn’t want him to die. For that infuriating light in his eyes to be snuffed out. To see him shuffling along in the streets, another soul broken under the wheels of the city.

So then…?

Naomi wiped at her cheeks, sniffed loudly, and sat up. So then? Well… perhaps she could…

She wrestled with the very thought. Her own reluctance to voice it.

Perhaps she could help him.

In some small way. Without ever announcing herself, of course. If he ever returned, the way he blundered about the ruins would get him killed. She could… well, maybe she could watch for him in case he came after her again, shadow him whenever he visited. He always entered by the same street. Follow him, and keep the greatest threats at bay.

A small voice dared to speak from the depths of her misery: And she could see her friends again.

She waited, hesitant, for an upsurge of fury, loathing, disgust. For the Nightmare Lady within her to reject the words and cast them aside.

But nothing happened.

Naomi blinked. Maybe she could, then.

Just for a while. It… it would give her something to do.

She could be useful, at least.

A violent spasm of self-loathing washed over her, unleashed from the depths of her core.

Useful. How pathetic, snarled the Nightmare Lady.

But she screwed up her features and swallowed the sour taste in her mouth.

Yes. She could… help.

And with that resolve, she took a sudden and deep breath, and the dark nullity that had been her future resolved itself into a purpose of sorts. Took on a sense of structure, of meaning, no matter how futile, no matter how pathetic.

A road leading out of this well of despair.

She’d begin tomorrow.

Rising to her feet, she turned to stare at the distant living city. Its lights and complexity, its tapestry of lives and hopes and dreams.

She’d never be part of that. But perhaps she could help those who were.

The thought cheered her, lit a small candle flame in her soul.

She heard the Nightmare Lady’s hiss, but then the sound grew fainter as if she were drawing back, retreating deeper into her chasm.

Naomi’s lips quivered, then turned into the smallest of smiles.

Tomorrow, then.