Lili screamed and ran. As soon as the stones dissolved, Authority would lose its power source, and she knew better than to be there when it did.

As the stones hit the surface of the Muckpool, several things happened all at once. The room filled with a pink and green light, as, after generations of ruin, the Goddess Fountain was finally purified. The malforms suddenly moved freely, saved from Authority. Some chased Lili, some tended to their respective packs. Many were lost in the battle, and Authority had left many more on the brink of death.

People needed help. She wanted to rush to their side…but she wasn’t doing so well herself. Without the stones, all the wounds – and the poison - she’d shrugged off caught up to her with a vengeance. She was dying. Her only hope now was the Goddess Fountain – with hope, it would still work after all this time.

With the last of her strength, Thyssa dragged herself over to the edge of the fountain.

“Hey…” she choked out as she approached. “I’m about to die. Life’s about to get a whole lot less fun once my old body comes back, but…despite everything…I really do want to live. I’ve got stuff to do. Awkward conversations to have. Hell, I’m only twenty. So…be nice if you…fixed me up a bit. And…if you don’t…if I’m not worthy or whatever…well…fuck you too.”

She saw a chalice by the edge of the fountain, picked it up, scooped up some water and drank it down greedily. A warmth spread throughout her body. Cuts mended. Broken bones straightened themselves out. The burning from the Venom of Spiteful Kreit subsided. She looked at her arms and saw wicked bruises disappearing before her.

She looked at the Goddess Fountain. She didn’t know what to say to it, so she just gave it a single, firm nod. Then, she picked herself up. Damn, she felt better than even before she’d had three big fights in a row.

“Look!” Thyssa cried out. “It’s healing water! Splash it on the wounded.”

Gangly hands and wretched claws reached out, picking up other chalices to heal their pack. One chalice seemed to levitate – Vlila was picking it up. She brought it up very high and splashed it on the Ogre Queen’s burns.

“HEAL ME LAST,” said the Ogre Queen. “THIS IS NOTHING.”

Thyssa ran to Merryway’s side. “Come on. Get up. We won.”

They were still unconscious – a coma...? She must have screwed something up – used the stones wrong, or abandoned them too soon.

“You didn’t give up on me,” she whispered. “I’m not giving up on you.”

She filled the chalice again and splashed it over what remained of Merryway’s wound. The water hissed, bubbled, and in a moment it was gone completely. For all the stones’ powers, when it came to healing, the fountain was much stronger.

Slowly, the colour and warmth returned to their face. They were going to be alright! Thyssa felt her heart rise…then a familiar dull ache throughout her body.

No…no no no…

She knew this would happen. But that didn’t make it any better. She felt her spine shifting, preparing to split apart. She cast off her clothes – even if a malform had any use for them, her twisted body would just tear them to pieces. Her arm branched off into extra, useless limbs. Her ribs stabbed through her skin, which hardened…her consciousness faded.

She blinked her eyes. The world was cold and grey again.

Merryway began to stir, shifted their weight. Their eyes blinked open, and they saw the creature before them.

They recoiled in cold terror, limbs tensed to run. Then, seeing the creature was not attacking, they stopped.

“…Thyssa?” said Merryway. “Is that…you?”

Their face was full of an unbearable concern, just like when the Ogre Queen saw her as a human.

“Don’t look at me!” Thyssa shrieked, and she ran off, away from those sad scared eyes, out of the fountain chamber, out of the temple, onto the cold peak.

She found a spot away from the crowd, away from the sun, and curled up there to hide, weeping bitter, poisonous tears.

Massive footfalls approached. Thyssa looked up and saw the Ogre Queen, stepping through one of the huge cracks the battle had left in the temple walls. She sniffed around, then found Thyssa.

“I told the pack that human of yours is off limits,” said the Ogre Queen. “They agreed. Reluctantly. The Stormwatch will be more than enough meat and scrap for a while.”

She placed down her massive palm, and Thyssa stepped onto it, lifted up to her mother’s face, which blazed with a pride Thyssa couldn’t share.

“You did it,” said the Ogre Queen.

Thyssa looked down. “I almost didn’t.” Her voice was gross, but her jaws were still in alignment…for now. For a while, she could speak without too much pain. “That stuff she said... about being weak, not able to go back…she was right.”

“And yet you didn’t back down,” said the Ogre Queen. “She was right about a small part of you. But she thought that part ruled you. She did not see your strength, as I did. And that strength let you prevail.”

“I don’t feel like I won,” said Thyssa.

“Victory is not always a triumphant thing. I know how much being human meant to you.”

Thyssa looked at her arms, twisted, wrapped in nerve cables. “It feels like I had a lovely dream, and now I’ve woken up.”

“You are hurt. But the same strength that overcame Lili can overcome this. I’ll be by your side. As I always wanted to be.”

Thyssa looked down. “I’ve gained back what I lost. But I lost what I gained.”

The Ogre Queen nodded. “You speak of that human.”

“Merryway.”

“You lost them?”

“Well…look at me! You saw how they were scared of me.”

“And yet it was you who ran.”

Thyssa hissed and curled up into a ball. “I can’t deal with feelings like that in this body.”

“Feelings like what?”

“Rejection.”

“You never gave them a chance to reject you. A strong armour to keep away their touch.”

“But I want their touch!”

“Then go back to them. Either they leave, or they stay. Either way, you won’t be weakened by regret.”

“I can’t believe you’re telling me to open up to a human.”

“I couldn’t believe you’d want to be one. They’re so…fragile.”

Thyssa laughed weakly. “I liked being fragile. It was fun.”

“And I couldn’t believe Cerberus Pack and Widow Mantis Pack would fight by our side.” The Ogre Queen sighed. “But the world is changing. Adapt or die.”

Thyssa nodded slowly. “Let me down, please. I need to go adapt.”

The Ogre Queen grinned a fearsome grin. She lowered her palm and Thyssa jumped down. She ran back to the fountain chamber, only to find Merryway running to her.

“Merryway, I…”

“Thyssa, I…”

They both spoke at once.

“I love you!”

“I think I might have figured out a way to make you human again!”

Merryway blushed. Thyssa would have blushed, if her face wasn’t covered in exoskeleton.

“What?”

“If…if that’s what you want!”

“It is! Show me.”

Merryway reached for Thyssa’s hand, then stopped. “Wait, is it…alright to touch?”

Thyssa nodded. “It’s just my spit that’s poison.”

“And it wouldn’t hurt you?”

“My hands? Hardly any sensation at all there.”

Merryway frowned for a second, but took Thyssa’s hand, and they ran into the fountain chamber. The malforms had already left the chamber, taking the delicious, delicious corpses with them. (When not in their nests, malforms preferred to eat outside).

“Watchful said the stones were just concentrated power from the Goddess Fountain.”

“That’s how they could change me, do Scission, all those other things. The Fountain can only heal.”

“The Fountain heals disease because that’s what health means to us. And, when they defiled the Fountain, they got rid of all their imperfections, because that’s what health meant to them.”

“And we are those imperfections.”

“But you’re all different! And the perfect humans, they’re all different too. Watchful is nothing like the ones I’ve met.”

“They…got rid of different things.”

“Exactly! The Scission gave them all their idea of perfect health!”

Thyssa looked down. “Then why didn’t the Fountain fix me?”

“Because you didn’t think it would. You thought it would heal your wounds, so that’s what it did. Faith. That’s what the trials were testing for. Imagination, faith and self-reflection. That’s what you need to control the Fountain’s power. And…a twisted imagination would give a twisted idea of health. That’s why the trials were there. Barriers to prevent people from…well, what the perfect humans did with it.”

“It kept me out too.”

“Until now. You have proven yourself worthy.”

Thyssa looked down. “I was always worthy. No matter what anyone else said. I shouldn’t have had to prove anything just to be healed.”

“I didn’t mean…you’re right.” Merryway stared into the sparkling water. “The same barriers that let in the defilers nearly killed you. That cannot be the will of the Goddess.” They sighed. “I am young. I still have…much to learn.”

“We all do. We’ve made a new world, with new rules.”

Merryway tightened their grasp on Thyssa’s hand. “Then take your faith in yourself, and in me, and bathe in the Goddess Fountain.”

Thyssa let go of Merryway’s hand and leapt into the Goddess Fountain, submerging herself completely in the water’s warm embrace.

The water was clear enough for her to look down. It went deep, deep, underground. She couldn’t see a bottom. She could see pores in the rock wall here and there, where the Muckpool once poured out into caves. One of those holes was her birthplace. She didn’t know which.

She thought she’d feel sad for the Muckpool…but it was still the same body of water. The Goddess Fountain was the Muckpool and always was. And it still gave life, in another form. Thyssa fancied it liked this form better – that it was grateful to her for changing it back. That gratitude flowed into her, changing her. Her figure softened, curves where there had been spikes, hair where there had been nerve cables.

Lungs that could only breathe air.

She swam up to the surface, climbed out and took a deep breath.

“It worked!” she shouted, in her wonderful human voice. “You were right!”

Merryway’s eyes widened and then darted away. “The Goddess be praised,” they said, voice cracking.

Thyssa realized she was naked. (Well. She knew that. But she forgot the significance. Malforms are always naked, or, if you like, they wore their own armour. A naked malform, that’s completely normal. A big naked girl right in front of you, that’s a very different sight.) Thyssa jumped back in the water before poor Merryway fainted.

“Sorry!”

“You have…nothing to apologize for,” croaked Merryway, scratching the back of their head.

“Could you please get my clothes?”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah. Where’d you leave them?”