Yeah, I was shaking standing out on the roof of that old gun shop, who wouldn’t be, right? I’ve robbed countless trains, if a businessman or wealthy merchant had the gall to come out to the outer circles, you know I was there to run their pockets. Cheesebag after cheesebag, I looted and stole all that I could from those over inflated bastards. Exploit Mestael workers? Launder profits from the mines? Traffic slaves from the outer circles? Didn’t matter what your business was, you came into my turf, and you were losing as much as you sought to gain. 

That said, I left church alone. Rich people may have value to the church, but the inquisitors didn’t give two shits at the end of the day if some weapons dealer got his purse stolen. Fuck with a priest, a minister, a monk, a nun...Then the inquisitors were on your tail. Sure, there were witches hung for doing the stuff I did, but they were the inner circle witches. Any girl stupid enough to cross into the fifth circle had it coming, that’s what I always thought. But not anymore. I couldn’t keep turning a blind eye to the suffering of others. What was once no skin off my nose, was now a personal invitation for me to kick some church bastards ass! Hell, Kara really was rubbing off on me. The many nights we spent together, as she’d massage me with her magic fingers, we’d talk. About her orphanage, about her supply distribution. About witches other than Naomi who she saved. Slaves she bought out of captivity. 

Yeah, Angel Kiss Manor was a brothel. They offered services that absolutely could include sleeping with a prostitute, but each and every man woman, and in between, that worked there did so because they wanted to. There were no Ael women or men being forced into sex work. Those who once were, now worked a completely different set of jobs. Maybe they helped with the cleaning and other upkeep of the Manor. There was a host of work to be done. And there were services that went past those of carnal nature. I mean duh, I was proof of that right? 

So yeah, we talked, we talked a lot. Kara’s ideas seemed so lofty, and a bit too full of self righteousness at first, but then I started really listening. I opened myself up to the words she spoke, and maybe it did help me grow. Gabby certainly seemed to think so.

“I’m proud of you, my love.” Gabby said to me as I sat on that roof. 

“Oh yeah, and why’s that?”

“How many times now have you risked your life for another?” She stroked my hand, “you’ve taken quite a bit of risks now haven’t you?”

“Hey, Kara pays well.” I shrugged it off.

“You say that, but I know you better than that, dear, I’ve been with you all these years Shana, I can see how you’ve grown.”

“Yeah, I grew alright, my tits got pretty big huh?”

“You joke, but you know it’s true. That rowdy little trouble maker who robbed trains has gone and become a real hero. I think so at least.” She leaned her head against mine, her feathers tickling my nose. Yeah, I did know it, but maybe I wasn’t ready to admit it. Not then at least. Growing means changing, and I don’t know if I wanted to change.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?” Vox disturbed our little moment as he came climbing out of the latch that led back into the shop.

“Just getting a bit of that fresh country air!” I said with a big cheesy grin.

“Nervous about tomorrow aren’t you?”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Guess that was a dumb question, huh?” He stood next to Gabby and I, and looked out at the stars. “Amazing view from here though,” he said with a sigh.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Gold City’s skyline was pretty bleak, smog from the factories had made it hard to see the stars at night. Here, we were close enough to the outer circles to be away from the pollution, and far enough to be away from the Malice. The sky was breathtaking. I spent way too many nights staring up in the wastes into the Malice filled sky, it wasn’t that it was invisible there, it was just less prominent. 

“So, your father ever tell you about me?” He asked, squatting down beside me.

“What was there to tell?”

“We were pretty good friends, you know. I’d even say best of friends.” He smiled with his eyes.

“Funny, I don’t think he ever mentioned having a best friend before.” I scratched my nose and pursed my lips.

“Ouch, that wounds me,” he laughed, “honestly though, he was a great man. I would have died for him.”

“Yeah, except instead he ended up dying for me,” I bit my lip and held back my tears. “I’ll kill that bastard Salem.”

“Killing his own brother, he truly is one of the worst traitors I’ve ever met. And I’ve been to a buncha other worlds, so the bar is set pretty high.”

“You really travel to different worlds? Sounds made up to me.” I shrugged my shoulders, wiping a few stray tears that rolled down my cheek.

“Absolutely have. I’ve been through the void itself, wandering aimlessly till I emerge in a new world.”

“So that’s why they call you wanderer, eh?” I smirked, “how the hell do you end up in a place like that anyways?”

“I actually don’t know, I kinda just always was in the void. Oh, but I can tell you how I ended up in this world.” He gestured wildly, “trust me, you want to hear about it!” 

“Okay, shoot, how’d you get here?”

“While I was lost in the void, well not really lost so to say, you actually can’t exist there cause the void is literal nothingness. So while my consciousness existed in a place of nonexistence, I heard a song.” He kind of lost me, but I continued to listen anyway. “A beautiful woman was singing to me. All the fear, confusion, anger, anxiety...all of it, was being washed away by the sound of her voice.”

“Okay, go on.” I was mildly interested.

“I felt, well I think I felt, every fiber of my conscious mind pulled me towards the voice. It was like being sucked into a powerful vacuum from a place of literal darkness, and spat back out into a sudden world of color.” He was losing me again... “I don’t even think I had a body at first, when I entered the garden, but I didn’t need one to see her. She was so brilliant, so wonderful, so beautiful. Her song continued to pull me in. And slowly, I found my form coming into existence. I was nothing, and then BANG! I was something!”

“Okay, I think I get it...”

“But she said I was touched by the void, my body was cursed by Malice, and I needed to receive her love.” 

“What the hell does that mean?” I had heard a similar phrase before, Gabby said it to me when she taught me about consummation, “you didn’t… diddle the Goddess did you?”

He looked at me with a bewildered empty glance, staring past me thoughtless until he snapped back to reality, “what? No, why would… No, I am tracking down pieces of her stolen heart.”

“Ooh…” yeah I felt pretty stupid, “wait, the goddess’ heart was stolen? How?”

“It’s a really long story, but that is how I ended up in this world. A very large significant portion of her heart was brought here, but someone already found it like a thousand years before I got here.” 

“Who?”

“The Witch Queen, of course,” he said as if it was so obvious. Okay, maybe that was obvious, I don’t know. “So I’ve been searchin other worlds too to find the other pieces, but admittedly I have lost a few along the way.”

“How do you lose something that important!” I was astounded, flabbergasted, other synonyms for shocked.

“To be fair, the last piece he just gave to some girl,” an unfamiliar voice spoke up from nowhere.

“Whosaidthat?” I instinctively reached for my revolver while looking around frantically. 

A familiar appeared beside Vox, giggling as she poofed into existence. She had silver feathered wings with accents of pink and blue, unlike Gabby her wings extended from her hips and shoulders, and not her arms. “Hiya, sorry if I shocked you or something, I'm Rayle,” she peeped with a small little smile, the only feature visible underneath the rather odd helmet she wore. 

“Nay you didn’t scare me or anything like that,” I coughed, “I just didn’t expect Vox here to be carrying a familiar.” Confused and a little bewildered, I examined Vox again. I had thought he was a girl at first, and now seeing a familiar manifest around him, my suspicions grew stronger, “heya, Vox, you sure you’re a boy?”

He chuckled, “if you’re askin if I’m a shifter the answer is no. I’m a boy, though only in the most basic of ways.”

“Wuz that mean?”

“Gender isn’t as cut and dry as people like to make it out,” he giggled, “I was born a boy, or at least my body is a boy, but like I’m just me. Boy, girl, anything in between, doesn’t really matter.” 

“You lost me,”

“It’s simply as Vox said,” the familiar, Rayle, answered, “Vox is Vox and that’s all that matters.”

I nodded my head while pursing my lips, “okay, okay I guess that makes sense,” to be honest, I was still lost, but I guess I didn’t have to understand it as long as I respected it, right? “But how is Vox able to have a familiar? I thought only girls could be witches.”

“That’s all semantics,” the familiar answered, “just cause must of us goddess’ prefer female partners, doesn’t actually mean we only chose female partners. The whole thing about men not having as much Eros as women is honestly just a silly little half truth,” my perception of the world was being challenged with each new sentence she said. 

“Wait, wait, so you’re sayin there are boy witches?”

“Most guys who use magic do use it through different methods than girls who use magic,” Vox answered, “but there are some who use it the same,” he shrugged, “Eros isn’t something you are born with, well it is and isn’t. It’s really hard to explain.” 

The familiar tussled Vox’s hair and laughed, “silly Voxie, I think you’re confusing her,” You’re both confusing me lady, “Eros exists in all things, but it manifests based on a variety of factors, the most important factor being one's own capacity for love.”

“So men are worse loves, I knew it,” I was joking, mostly, but I do think I was starting to understand it a little more.

“Men in Eforde are relegated to a social role that isn’t conducive with expressing love,” Vox’s big words started confusing me again, “that doesn’t mean men can’t express it the same, just that they’re often taught not to.” 

“And the expression of love is what we goddesses are most attracted to,” the familiar added.

They talked with me a little longer, explaining so many things to me. Some of it stuck, and some of it kinda went over my head. But after a good long while they left. Once more Gabby and I sat there on the roof, the two of us. Just a witch and her familiar. A girl, and her lover. In the quiet stillness of the night, with Gabby laying her head against my shoulder, I decided then to just let all my worries go, and enjoy her company. A strange fear biting at my heart, telling me this was the last night we’d have together.