Chapter 19 - Two of a Kind

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Lilith

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*sigh* ‘I’d love to believe that was a nightmare,’ I think as I slump back into the tub, slipping down until everything below my nose is underwater. Shivering slightly as I recount recent events, I can hear some hurried footsteps making their way to the door.

As the footsteps stop outside the door, a heavy knocking follows, “Lil, are you ok? Did something happen? You seem…”

Nellie’s voice trails off and I lift my head above the water and shout back to her, “Ah… I did fall asleep and I er… had a, I had a nightmare. I’m… ok, I didn’t drown at least.”

I can hear Nellie’s hand on the door handle, but she doesn’t open it, “Well, if you’re sure, but, you should come out now. I’ve prepared some lunch, when you’re ready.”

“Alight,” I sigh.

Nellie seems to walk away, and I claw myself out of the tub. My body feels heavy now, not physically, but… mentally, I feel like I’m being crushed. As I stand up, and look at the towel with the wine glass next to it, I reach toward my chest and wrap my hand around the pendant.

Glancing down as I hold it up toward my face I peek at it, with its bloodstained red color, before rewrapping my fingers around it again, as I pull it over my head freeing my neck from its chain. Holding it above my head for a moment, I consider throwing it, but instead, I simply open my palm and let it fall to the floor behind me.

I walk over to the table with my towel and the wine glass, and down the entire contents in one large gulp, refill it and drink it all again, twice more, before I set it back down. This time I try to dry myself off by absorbing the water, while it does seem to work, it takes more time and concentration than I imagined.

After about 30 seconds I’ve only managed to dry my left hand and the first half of my forearm. I guess there’s more going on with absorbing blood than I thought. This feels more like when I absorbed the swords, only, I have to imagine the water in small portions or it feels too overwhelming, how I imagine trying to absorb something larger than my body would feel.

Giving up I go back to using wind and fire magic to mimic a full-body air dryer and am fully dry in less than a minute. I don’t really try to be careful with my hair this time, imagining it’ll probably heal any damage like the rest of my body does.

Once I’m dry I shift into my ‘default black’ outfit and walk out of the room. As I walk down the hallway I stop at a small window and peer outside, Lilac’s apartment is on the fourth floor, so I can see a fair amount of the city from here, just barely including the courtyard where that confrontation took place a week ago.

I can’t recall many details, not as many as I feel I should. I remember how angry I was at that woman for threatening other people, and how that man saved her. I feel guilty, I never wanted to kill him, or even her, I just wanted to… what? What do I even want to do? I… don’t know anymore. The more I think about it the more I realize… I don’t feel how I think I should.

Why do I not have the remorse I expect for those I’ve killed? Just because someone else would kill or has killed, does that mean I can feel fine with killing them? I really don’t know. I regret the deaths of some people, especially that man, 7 days ago, I saved Lilac only to murder him, even if unintentionally.

“Gah!” I softly squeal unintentionally as flashbacks to the ‘dream’ I had run through my mind. I close my eyes as I hold my hands to my head, lost in thought, ‘I… didn’t intend to be fully serious when I thought that I’d kill those men, but… I really… no, I, it was a nightmare, that’s all, it has to be. I can’t really…’ 

“No, no, no… no,” I softly say to myself as I try to avoid tears and what I fear is the truth. “Eeek!” I shriek in shock as heavy knocking on the door yanks me from the abyss of my mind. Lifting my head and opening my eyes I reach out to open the door.

“Mistress, are you ok?” Nellie asked slightly nervously from the other side of the door.

“Yes, I’m… here,” I reply, opening the door looking into her eyes as her lips make a slight frown and her eyebrows are tilted outward painting her face with concern.

Her eyes widen as the door fully opens and she gasps slightly, “Your hair and eyes! They’ve turned white and red!”

I immediately reach up and grab some of my hair and pull it into view, sure enough, it’s white. “Ah, erm, this is normal, I guess I never really mentioned it. I only changed it to black and my eyes to greenish to blend in more. Since those people were after me,” I laugh nervously as I finish my statement.

“Beautiful,” she remarks softly, before she smiles and stands courtly, “Today’s lunch consists of braised chicken with rice, and a vegetable cream soup. If you’ll follow me, I’ll prepare your plate.”

I nod slightly, “Uh, thanks,” still unused to this treatment. I don’t converse as we walk to the dining room and she prepares my food, my mind is still going in circles over my previous thoughts, I think she notices somewhat, due to the telepathic link incident, as I can see her frown or wince occasionally as my mind runs through recent events, and… deaths.

Nellie brings me my plate and sets it down in front of me, before she can speak I ask her, “Are you sure about this?”

She looks down at the plate and back to me, “If you want something el—”

I cut her off, “I mean me, are you sure about me? About sticking with me? I’m probably not the safest person to be around,” I finish as I look down to my hands, images of them covered in blood flashing through my mind unintentionally.

I feel her hand on my shoulder, as I look up she replies, “I can be quite selfish too, you know. Life is messy, especially if you’re not just hiding in some safe corner. I plan to see the world, good and bad. I’d be lying if I did not say I want to stick with you because of your power.”

Nellie’s hand squeezes my shoulder tightly as she continues, “That night, I saw… I saw you, Lilith. I know how naive and clueless you are. This world could eat you alive.”

She kneels down slightly next to my chair, meeting me at eye level, “Or, with my help, you could eat the world alive before it has the chance,” she declares as her lips twist into a devilish smile.

I start to reply, “But, I don’t wa—”, but she holds her hand up to my mouth as she cuts me off.

“Listen, the world won’t give you a choice. Not with power like yours, eat, or be eaten. Even your own world ate you, what do you think will happen here? Let me help you. We can’t hide here forever, I know you could leave if not for us. But, running won’t help you in the end, you have to turn and fight Mistress. And I’ll be your support. Together we can pull out this city’s teeth before it can bite you,” as she finishes she moves her hand away from my mouth and grabs my hand.

I stare into her eyes for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh, “I uhm, say you’re right, just… what do you have in mind?”

Her hand squeezes mine slightly, “Keep practicing your transformations and powers, I’ll keep teaching you the language, and we’ll sneak out and slowly cull the city guards, I’ll be your bait. When enough chaos erupts we can leave the city with Lilac and no one will have time to stop us.”

Nellie looks down toward her hand, still gripping my own, “I know… what you need, I know you eat the blood and spirits of others. I will help you feast, Mistress. I’ll help you find those you needn’t feel sorrow over as well.”

She looks me in the eyes again as her free hand touches my cheek, “Though, we shall need to take down whoever stands in our way regardless, please, understand, I know about that guard, the one from your escape, I saw… felt, your memory, you can’t afford that courtesy in the future.”

I look away to the side as I barely manage to exhale a soft, “Ok,” I don’t feel very happy about it, but, I can’t really argue with her points, no matter the merits in my mind, it seems clear that keeping my hands clean is a pipe dream, one that’s already been ruined. I can only go forward from here and try my best, I guess, to not be too terrible? Fuck, I can’t believe myself, what even am I anymore?

I don’t know and I want to just not think about it. I turn back to Nellie, “Ok, fine, but, if I can I want to relax and enjoy things a bit before everything gets too messy. I really want to have a nice day out, Lilac goes out and she's talked about all the nice shops and food and stuff, I’d like to experience it at least once before everything goes to hell.”

Nellie stands back up, still holding onto my hand, “You need more practice, if you can learn more words, and convince Lilac with your child impersonation, it might work. But you have to promise me, we need to focus on improving your powers, you can’t become so helpless in a fight like with that archer woman.”

I chuckle at her, “Helpless, huh? I guess I was a bit of a glass cannon.”

She tilts her head sideways and looks perplexed at me, “Glass cannon?”

“Ah erm, it… I mean I can do a strong attack but I also got taken out of the fight pretty easily,” I reply with a nervous laugh.

“I don’t think I would call you a glass cannon, you are really strong and heal quickly, you're really quite resilient, however you easily freeze up mentally. With your body’s ability alone an experienced fighter could probably take down a small army,” she says crossing her arms and tilting her head up with a proud look.

“Er… I guess,” I laugh nervously while rubbing the back of my neck with my hand, “Uhm, the food is getting cold, erm, let’s just eat now.”

I turn my chair to the table and begin to eat the delicious food and try to avoid unpleasant thoughts. Nellie indulges me with some small talk about the region, even though she’s not been to many places she has read a lot about the world and knows quite a bit about how the region we’re in is supposed to be, admittedly with the caveat that some information was fifty to even over a hundred years old, especially from further away.

~***~

The next several days consisted of intense language practice during the day and at night, I focused on practicing shapeshifting, especially splitting into two separate forms and controlling the other with puppet master, as… using the ideas that shapeshifting 'tutorial' mentioned.

After about 4 days, Nellie told me I had reached the vocabulary of around a six year old. My shapeshifting practice was a bit slower, while remote controlling hadn’t proven too difficult, it was taking a lot of effort to try to control both my body and another at the same time. First I practiced with a spider again but found the mix of perceptions too disorienting.

Eventually, I took to turning my arm into a cat and worked on controlling both myself and it at once. After a couple of days, I was reasonably proficient at working on a puzzle with my main body while having the cat wander about the house, occasionally knocking Lilac’s pen or other small non-breakable objects to the floor. What? Don’t give me that look. I need to act the part ok? Gotta be one with the Kitteh~!

On the fifth day, I tried something new. I split myself into two 'sisters', each looking about 10 years old, one with red hair and blue eyes, and another with black hair and green eyes, otherwise I didn’t change much about my appearance aside from age. Next, I had one continue to work on the puzzle with the other tried practicing speaking with Nellie, sadly I wasn’t able to learn any new words that day, it proved too difficult.

Instead, I simply tried to hold a basic conversation, mostly focusing on replying to things. Progress on both fronts was slow, I only managed to assemble about a third as many puzzle pieces as before, and my conversation speed and replies were very slow, maybe a dozen words in a minute at best, and Nellie had to repeat herself several times for me.

My goal was only three days away, Lilac had grudgingly conceded, that if I could convince her by then, she would let me accompany her to the shopping district to pick up her repaired hat, the one that was damaged the night I had met her when she was captured by those men. She promised we could get some food at a restaurant and even do some brief shopping.

I was hiding my ace in my sleeve, planning to surprise her with myself as ‘two sisters’ and talking to her with both in Estarian tongue, like a three way conversation. I couldn’t help but snicker at the thought, ‘How can she say no to two cute adorable sisters begging her?’ 

Alas, I have a bit less than three days & nights to perfect this, and as it stands I don’t think it’s passable. While Nellie and Lilac sleep I focus on movement coordination, doing things such as playing catch with myself, or working on a puzzle together, I’ve even practiced eating and drinking different things at the same time with both.

The sensations of two bodies really takes getting used to, still, I’m amazed at what progress I’ve made. I expected it to be a much more involved ordeal, which is certainly the case with some things, such as the two sisters and a spider, or a small bird, or the cat. Three is still a bit too much, and with only two, more exotic things like spiders, or other insects are just too overwhelming still.

Feeling like my language skills are passable if I don’t talk much, I spend the last bit of time focusing on controlling two bodies that look around ten years old, Nellie helps me practice conversing simple sentences with both, as me and her hold three way conversations.

It is also very important to find out the range I can reliably control both bodies at, with Nellie’s help, I have her carry a ‘cat’ that was my arm, off into the street. It’s a very rough guess, but it seemed like after about 30 yards(~27 meters) or so the connection began to weaken, as the cat it felt a bit like being very tired or drunk, difficulty seeing, moving, the further they went.

After about 40 yards(~36 meters) it felt like I blacked out completely as the cat. Leaving just my body back in the house as my sole perception, it didn’t feel painful or anything once the link was cut, more like, the feeling of taking off a VR headset, or less so, leaving a dark movie theater after a very long movie.

Once Nellie turned around and came back into range I could sense the rest of my body and reconnect when I felt like it and resume controlling both bodies without issue. We did this for a couple of hours and I felt like I was able to extend my range by about three feet(~0.9 meters) with the practice.

During the day when Lilac was out, still trying to gather information, as well as doing what she said was ‘just some work and taking care of some duties,’ I would practice with Nellie as two ten year old ‘sisters’ until Lilac returned at which point I would be myself and a mischievous cat, that may or may not have been responsible for several non-breakable objects being liberated from their table prisons, to find freedom on the floor.

The last day was spent practicing as much as possible, controlling two bodies while eating, working on two different puzzles, holding conversations, and doing language reviews. Once Lilac returned Nellie and I tried our best to not reveal anything in preparation for tomorrow’s big surprise.

~***~

As I lay down to rest, thoughts of excitement about the coming day fill my head and I find myself unable to sleep. Instead, I find myself thinking about all the events up till now, as well as pondering on the future.

The first several days I was very careless, though, I found it really hard to accept everything, actually, it’s still hard, even after 19 days into this. Speaking of which, I’ve determined that my ‘chronological age’ in the status screen is going by Earth time and not Arilia time, so it’s really been around 21 Arilia days, but about 19 days and 3 hours in Earth time.

I am worried about the future, what kind of monster might I become? I can’t really accept what I saw in my— in the dream I had. That’s… all it has to be, a bad dream. I toss and turn in bed as I try to clear my mind of those images and thoughts. ‘No, I can— I will be fine, everything is fine,’ I tell myself.

I am lucky, really, I don’t know them too well yet, but through some twists of fate, I have Lilac and Nellie who have gotten attached to me, so I have a place to stay, and people to teach me about the world. Even if they both have their own selfish reasons, and maybe some weird affections after that… weird party, I really need to learn how to control my magic better.

‘No, it will be fine,’ I tell myself, ‘no reason to be so afraid, I’ll develop real friendships to replace whatever weird thing we have now, and we’ll leave this place behind and things can stay peaceful and I can have time to just experience and enjoy life as I learn about my body and powers. Maybe I can just wait a lifetime before I worry about taking care of whatever it is… Izanami— whatever she wanted.’

Yes, we’ll leave this city behind and I hope to never see that man who captured me ever again. I start imagining what might happen if we were able to visit the magic academy that Lilac works at, she seems anxious to return, often speaking now of how behind she’ll be on things, she should have been back several days ago. A real bonafide magic academy, I wonder what it will be like?

Several hours pass and I am unable to sleep. Spending the time imagining what things I might do in the future, and some random idle internet browsing, looks like I’m going to miss the launching of new consoles, I read a story about them coming out sometime next year, I didn’t live to see 2020, I’m going to miss out, at least I can still read manga, sadly watching shows doesn’t seem to work with this… browser?

Oddly I don’t feel tired at all, I expected I would after spending the past two nights awake practicing. Nellie’s knocking on my door signals it’s the start of the day, so I sit up as she opens the door, and we greet each other in Estari.

“Hi,” I say simply to her as the door slips open.

“Good Morning, Mistress, Breakfast is ready, shall I accompany you to dine with Lady Lilac?” she replies to me in a graceful elegant tone.

I reply to her telepathically, “I can’t come close to your speech yet.”

Nellie takes a few steps closer to me, smiles as she kneels down slightly to meet me at eye level, “You don’t need to, yet. Just remember what we practiced, you’ll do great!”

I return her smile with my own and a nervous laugh, followed by a reply in Estari, “Ok, Miss. Yes.”

Nellie does a cute little hop as she stands up, intentional or not, I don’t know, as she takes my hand and leads me near the door before turning around to look at me, “Ok, Lilith, show her what two of you can do!”

At her prompt, I close my eyes and begin to shift into two ten year old forms, one looking like a younger version of my body here, but with black hair and green eyes. The other looking like I imagine a ten year old version of my old self, Taylor, would have looked as a girl.

After transforming, I focus on splitting my consciousness between the two as I have done many times in practice up to now. The sensation is still weird, I imagine an out of body experience would probably feel something like this, except it’s both in and out of body, well, really it’s two separate bodies, but I feel inside and outside both at once, it’s… very weird.

Opening both sets of eyes I see Nellie from two different angles at once as I flank her on both sides. Looking at her with a smile, both my bodies greet her. Speaking Estari in unison “Hi Miss Nellie, I am—” until they diverge, “Lilith,” and “Taylor.”

“Excellent!” Nellie cheers with a smile and a tiny clap.

We walk out of my room and down the hallway, as we near the dining area both of me hang back while Nellie walks out and announces my arrival, “Lilac, your guests have arrived.”

Lilac makes a confused “Hmm?” at Nellie as the two of me walk out.

We walk up to the table along either side of Lilac, and greet her one after the other, “Hi miss Lilac, I am Lilith!” followed by, “Hi miss Lilac, I am Taylor!”

The clanging of metal rings across the room in response as Lilac drops her utensil and stares between us for several moments, her mouth partially gaped open. After looking back and forth between us a few times she smiles before bursting into laughter.

“Lil you have outdone yourself, I… was not expecting this! How did— AH! I really must get you to Kafora, you are amazing!” she says excitedly as she stands up to look over both of me.

Both of me look away to the side in embarrassment, the Lilith me mumbles, “Thank you,” followed by telepathically adding, “Ehh… I’m just a dumb girl who got lucky,” as I shift my foot nervously on the ground.

I surprised myself as the Taylor me runs over and hugs me while yelling out loud, “KAWAII!”

Lilith me, and Nellie both look at each other followed by staring at Taylor-me in confusion. I seem to be in control of both versions of me, as I release myself from the hug and look between the two of myself in confusion for a minute, moving arms and holding up fingers and other tests of motor control.

I close my eyes for a few moments and think, trying to recount my memories of the past few moments, my memory was never the greatest, but I hope for some clue. Thinking back to how I’ve been doing things, it occurs to me that I’ve been autopiloting quite a lot, sort of like when you drive in an area you're familiar with, you control the car and navigate the route without actively thinking about it.

The same sort of feeling I get when driving on autopilot, I have right now trying to recall what I was doing with the Taylor me. I am not really sure if this is exactly what’s going on but it’s the only idea I have at the moment. I guess the random thoughts in my mind manifested in Taylor?

I, Lilith me, turn to a still confused looking Nellie and a silently smiling Lilac addressing them telepathically, “Uhm… I… my, er—”

Lilac interrupted me, “What is that word Taylor yelled?”

“Oh uhm, Kawaii, it means cute in… er— it’s not important, cute, it just means cute,” I respond telepathically.

I feel Nellie place a hand on the shoulder of both of the two me, “Shall we sit down and eat?”

I reply out loud, with the Lilith me, “Yes miss Nellie!” followed by the Taylor me, “Miss Lilac eat with us!”

Lilac chuckles, and tries to mimic my earlier exclamation, “caw- we- ey!”

Both of me put our face in our hands feeling embarrassed, “Noooo~” leaks from Lilith me, while Taylor me exclaims “Hide me~!”

~***~

For the next twenty minutes or so we had some practice conversation while munching on appetizers, as Lilac explored the extent of our vocabulary. I proposed the cover story Nellie and I had come up with, that I was a pair of sisters from another country, and we were still learning the language.

As for why we were with Lilac, we showed a lot of promise in magic and were going to attend Kafora Institute. And Nellie was our maid and attendant, and we came to this country specifically because it was one of the few that was supportive of miscreated like Nellie.

Lilac listened intently, as we laid out the plan, and talked about the reasoning, most of it based on information Nellie learned from all the reading and studying she had done. Once we had finished eating our food and Nellie came back from clearing the table, we awaited Lilac’s decision.

Lilac leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hands as she looked between Nellie and the two of me, “I can see you three have put a lot of thought into this, and it’s pretty good, though there are few minor problems with your reasoning.”

Lifting her head she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, “But, all that aside, I must ask one thing, mind you I think it’s extremely impressive, however, why do you need to be kid sisters? Would not your premise work equally well if you were a single young adult?”

I was mortified and the Lilac me practically face planted onto the table as I loudly chastised myself, “Idiot!” Meanwhile the Taylor me flung her arms in the air as she flung herself into the back of the chair, nearly falling out.

Both of me began laughing hysterically after several moments, it was so ridiculously stupid, and something I always do, I overthink things or latch onto specific ideas and miss obvious things like a dummy. ‘Too bad Iza— it’s… too bad I couldn’t have respawned with a better brain to go with my cool body,’ I lamented.

After calming down I sat silent for a couple of minutes before I steeled my resolve, what is done is done, and I might as well make use of it. Besides, isn’t it cooler to have two of yourself over one? I can procrastinate twice as much!

Having resolved myself, I finally respond to Lilac, first out loud with Taylor me, “Yes, Lilac is right. I was silly. But this is done. This is neat and fun,” next I respond telepathically with Lilith me, to overcome my limited vocabulary, “Ok Lilac, you got me, I didn’t need to do any of this and I completely failed to notice. I got hung up on the kid idea and solving the weight issue. What is done is done and this is cool so… whatever! I want to play with my new skill, it was a real bitch to learn you know.”

Lilac looked both of me and then at Nellie, “Nellie, what do you think of this?”

Nellie stepped beside of Lilith me and patted my head, “I support whatever makes Mistress Lilith happy, also I believe she has practiced this quite a lot and it could prove very useful in the future. I do, however, think your input is valuable.”

An almost devious looking smile crossed Lilac’s face as she stood up, leaning forward planting her hands on the table, “My, my, I guess I have two prodigy apprentices to train then don’t I? Looks like I’ll need to prepare double the homework for you.”

Both of me exclaimed out loud, “Well fuck!”

Confused, Lilac asked what we just said, I replied telepathically, “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

She stood up straight crossing her arms and remarked in a serious tone, “You should, making outbursts like that might draw unwanted attention.”

With the saddest pouty faced look I could conjure, I did a double whammy attack on Lilac from both sides with the two of me as I responded telepathically, “Sowry miss Lilac, but it’s ok, the cover story right? We can just say it’s the foreign language from our home country!”

Unrelenting as a steel wall to our assault Lilac responded matter of factly, “Lilith, you need to be less careless, while most people could be fooled, there are those in this world familiar with the countries of the world and the languages they speak, even if they don’t speak it, they can recognize it, and yours is unlike any of this world. We can patch the holes in your story, but you absolutely cannot speak your native tongue, understand?”

I give my best angry teenager impression as both of me cross our arms, look away from Lilac and huff loudly, “FINE.”

Lilac takes one hand and pinches the bridge of her nose, “Lilith—”

I cut her off, as Taylor me exclaims, “Sorry!” and I telepathically add, “It’s just me being silly and dramatic, I was pretending to be an angry teenager because it seemed funny.”

Lilac plops down in her chair in a manner I couldn’t have imagined, “I swear Lilith, I was beginning to question your mental aptitude.”

I cannot help myself and respond with Lilith me, “I am dumb,” followed by Taylor me, “but I am cute!”

Lilac has this look on her face that I assume is what happens when someone doesn’t know whether to laugh or facepalm, or similar. I break out in laughter with both of me for a moment before hopping out of my chairs and running up to either side of Lilac and hugging her. Only a monster can resist two cute girls hugging them!

For the killing blow, both of me look up at Lilac with cute expressions as we say, “Miss Lilac is kind!”

I can’t help but internally snicker at myself, ‘Deviousness 100, muwahaha~!’

Lilac’s defenses crumble under my latest attack and she sighs as she wraps an arm around each of the two of me, “Ok, I relent, we can all go out today and enjoy ourselves, we have a lot of difficulties to deal with, but I’ll trust in you Lilith. After today we have some work to do.”

Releasing both of me from her embrace she looks into the eyes of Lilith me, “I believe I have a lead on the man you described, and I have a plan coming together for us to possibly escape. Things may get messy, but given your ability, I think we can handle it if we tread carefully.”

Taking a serious demeanor as I release a sigh, “Ah.. right, him,” I shiver slightly recalling how I felt trapped in that cage with him facing me, “Ok, I will do whatever you need, I want to get away from here… and him.”

Lilac gave me a nod, “Excellent, oh, as well, I have some spell books for you to look at later, maybe it will give you some ideas. For now, let’s enjoy ourselves a bit. Go get ready you… three, and I’ll see you in an hour when we depart.”