“I felt that magic and took it home~

Gave it a twist and made it mine~” Around me, beautiful green balls of light floated around, twirling around hundreds and hundreds of souls bursting out of the ground.

The sun did decrease the spectacularity a bit, but not by much, especially not because I had seen such a thing for the first time.

Life and death mingling peacefully, coexisting without fighting for supremacy … as it should be.

And yet, Irminsul was anything but happy about the spectacle and erased the green balls as quickly as she created them. Frowning, I let go of the souls as well and watched them scoot away, over the hole in the ground towards the ocean or back into the forest, wherever they wanted to be reborn.

“What’s wrong?” I asked a bit concerned about her sudden silence.

“That song … it’s …” She mumbled while Lucy stirred within me quite a bit. She wanted to say something at first, but let it be in the end.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked while wondering what was going on. But as nobody said anything and Sofie continued to sulk because she couldn’t let a burnt tree regrow, even after I removed all of Aska’s influence on it, I continued on as if nothing happened. “Anyways, I’m taking a little nap to recharge.”

“Do that.” Slowly, I laid down in the ash, blocked the bit of sunshine with my right hand and closed my eyes. In truth, I just wanted to experience the wind on my skin without anyone talking to me … because that was something I always kind of liked. But that also calmed me down, so much so that I must have fallen asleep and woke up on a similar hill, with my side being completely dead while Lucy’s side was vibrant with colourful flowers.

“Hey there!”

“Oh? My other me is coming for a visit again.”

“So does it seem. How are you doing?” I asked a little bored already.

“… you know that’s a weird question considering we share a body?”

“Okay … which colour do you want our nails to be in?”

“Pink.”

“… yeah no.” I would never paint my nails pink. Never.

“That song … from where do you know it?”

“Huh? The first time I probably heard it on that boat …” I was quite confused to be honest. Scratching my head, I did remember being on a huge boat and listening to that song … but I have never been on a massive boat I remembered before, have I? “Fuck.” I raced towards the top of the hill, disregarded the hundreds of books of memories on my side and looked over hers. It were … too many. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

They were far too many memories we already shared for my comfort, even though we just began with merging our souls.

“I didn’t think that would benefit anyone, at least until you started singing my favourite song.” She admitted while presenting me one of her books in which she was on this huge boat, listening to that song with Aska and Irminsul behind her … those had been better times for her.

“Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.” It was very likely Aska caught on that as well. Irminsul tried to gloss over it … but that could hardly be called a successful attempt.

“… I could … try to take over the hard part.” Lucy stumbled over her own words, but I knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to murder Aska and truthfully had a high chance of doing so. He would never expect her to kill him after all … even I didn’t.

“No you can’t. You can’t even hurt a fly, so how the fuck would you murder Aska?” I growled angrily. I wouldn’t let all my plans be ruined by a goddess who didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Let me try. Please.” Lucy begged while I just shook my head in denial. I did not want her to do it for several reasons. For once, that kill was supposed to be mine.

“And how are you going to use my sword? It’s soul bound to me!” I told her angrily and didn’t hesitate to kick a tower of books.

“You know we are kind of becoming one soul already … and if we were to accelerate that a bit …” Yeah. I knew how she would be able to murder … but was I willing to sacrifice so much time for that? It would mean willingly putting more memories into that place, further blurring the lines between me and her … and even though that fate was already inevitable, it wasn’t something I desired.

“That’s going to cost us dearly.” I growled whole thinking about the optimal choice of action. After all, I was still sticking to my motto of doing everything to achieve my goals.

“You always told me that preparation is key for everything. Maybe I won’t need to wield it, maybe I do … Lucinda, I need this to work at all costs. I’m willing to do anything necessary.” While it was a principle for me to give my best to reach my goals, she was driven by pure fear and anger. Seriously though … I liked that determination.

“All things must be equal. I offer the memories of every death I witnessed … what about you?” I was already turning around, ready to gift her the deaths I witnessed and all the times I drowned to enable her to feel less strongly about murder as she made her offer.

“I … I want to give you all my memories on which I felt empathic to someone. I want you to know how much you hurt others.” Empathy? Why the fuck would I need memories about that? If I wanted that, I could have read romance novels … just to clarify, I didn’t.

“That’s quite a shitty trade. I want something else to be shared. Throw every moment you shared with your mum in here and we are settled.” I demanded with a cheeky grin on my face. I wasn’t sure if I would see Irminsul in any other way after that, but it wasn’t my goal in the first place. I just wanted to know how it was to have a functioning family … and that was all there was to it.

“You … okay.” Shrugging, I strolled over towards my door and pulled it open swiftly. Just by thinking about it, a multitude of books came flying towards me and scooted through the one way street that was the door into the shared place we were in. Thousands and thousands of books came through the door while the place we were in expanded slowly to make room for all the new memories.

But not just mine were added. From her side, hundreds of books flew into the room, flying through all parts of it before settling amongst the ones already on the floor in a random fashion.

And there I was, remembering how Irminsul held me up at a ferries wheel so that I could see better, how she fought for me with tooth and nail, but still lost against Aska’s cunning. She had started a war just for Lucy so that these two could live together. I already knew that, but having memories about the fact still touched my heart a little.

“So? Ready to stab someone?” I asked with a smile on my lips.

“I don’t know …” That was the worst of all. Just with the song, I didn’t actually know if I changed or not. The differences between the Lucinda I was before meeting Lucy and the one I was were minuscule, but they were there. Unnoticed for the most part, but still impacting my thinking and actions.

“Let’s just hope that it never comes to that.” And with that, I hit my jaw to force myself to wake up. Eyes wide open, I looked at the dark clouds for a little while until I heard the clanking of chains and Hannah’s laughter as she shooed the three in front of her. Without noticing anything different about myself, I stood up and stretched my arms, only to realise that Irminsul was staring. Not a me – thankfully – but at the place where I had just slept.

A single dandelion was there, flattened by my weight, but still very lively otherwise.

‘How did that happen?’ I didn’t know either. Without making it too obvious, I stepped onto the flower and rubbed my boots over it, hopefully hiding it in the ashes. ‘Luckily no camera was watching.’

Exhaling quietly, I nodded towards Irminsul and began waving to the four newcomers. Just as we had planned, we met up during the early night again and made our way together to the castle, with me baiting Schwarz with a sword floating in front of him, sadly always out of reach.

Instinctively knowing what motherly love really was didn’t change that part of me at all. Being a sadist was just who I was.