Episode 4, Act 3 - Looking Wrongways

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The process of Tempering is not an easy one. While being Tempered, you act irrational. Sometimes you even take on a form too monstrous for them to comprehend. But you remain in control. It is not like losing yourself to the darkness; a mere glimpse into what would happen if you did forget yourself.

Many centuries ago, a witch approached me and promised to make my suffering permanent. I scoffed at her then, but during times like this, I wonder to myself what that decision may have wrought. In this state, I am not beautiful. I am more damaged than an egg cracked on the seafloor. A creature of scales and claws, more so than I ever have been.

I am a serpent that coils for dozens and dozens of knots.

This is the downside, or perhaps the upside, of Tempering. This clarity as you realize what you are from a whole new perspective; that you recognize what you were, and what you could be. Tempering is a method to cleanse the corruption from your body, yes. But it is not a method to ignore that corruption.

For one blissed and painful day, I get to live as a creature that is as beautiful as I am ugly. The representation of all my sins, a manifestation of the toxins embedded in the blood of my people. For one day, I get to see what it would be like to be Broken.

No Divinity can escape this fate. One day, like all others, they will reach their breaking point, and in that moment, there will be two options. Accept their fate and die; to nourish the ground and feed all the creatures of the sea.

Or reject fate. Become something cruel, and twisted, and terrible, like all that Malice that came before us, and will come after.

I have never been tested, and suspect I will live much longer than my divine brethren. I expect I will live long past the society I rear, all my children, all of the things that walk along the earth and grass.

But one day, in that infinite darkness?

The eternity of loneliness?

I expect that I too shall crack.

=-July 27th, 2022-=

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Madeline Crisp held fast to Evangeline's neck. Her back was pressed against the wall, and she struggled against Madeline's grip. She gasped for air, scratching with her nails, kicking out and struggling to hold onto her breath.

Madeline Crisp's eyes widened. She dropped Evangeline, stumbling backwards and tripping over another unconscious priestess. They all looked battered and bruised. When the fog of corruption faded away, each of them was left in bad enough shape they'd need a hospital visit to recover.

(What... Did you just do?) Madeline tried to ask questions, figure out what happened in that block of time, that missing gap.

Silly Madeline. I didn't do anything! I just provided the readers with a recipe for fun! You do know how much the readers love you, right?

(Get out... get out of my head! She didn't do that, She's not doing this...) Madeline held her head, stumbling backwards. She tripped on the leg of a snapped table and fell backwards. Her vision began to swim, turning upside down.

Madeline, I didn't do anything. That was all you! All of this is your mess, don't you see...? But of course you see. You and me, we see everything! Just not all from the same perspective.

Madeline Crisp grasped at the carpet. She felt the coarse fibers slipping between her fingers, the ground escaping her. She started falling up, not down; not because it is the right way to fall, but from her perspective, gravity has been flipped. We had to keep things consistent, you know?

The tufts of carpet she held tore away, and she landed roughly on the ceiling. Around her, priestesses began to fall to the ceiling as well, limp bags of meat surrounded by crashing furniture. A fridge tore out of its socket, falling up, up, up!

Madeline Crisp caught the fridge before it could fall and smash poor Evangeline. Oh, boo, Madeline. That's no fun at all. You like it when your obstacles become meat patties, don't you? When you can feel their blood coursing through your sticky fingers.

(I'm not real. I'm just an image, a figment of her imagination.)

A figment you make real! Someone has been skipping their Divinity lessons, it seems. Madeline Crisp should have paid more attention to all perspectives, if she wanted to survive in this cruel world.

(I don't mean. That serpent? That perspective was--)

Real, yes! That is a real perspective. Madeline Crisp rubbed at her face, the facts of the matter dawning on her expression. She struggled to breathe, the realization causing her to break into a full blown panic.

"MADELINE!" The dungeon trembled as a familiar avatar fell up, up, up, just past the window. The doll gripped the ledge before pulling herself forwards and shattering the glass panes between it and Madeline.

Taylor Mayde twisted her head on straight, standing up to her full height. "Stop this madness, right now! I don't know what's come over you, but you're hurting everyone around you! I'm having to shift everyone out of their beds, call ambulances and rescue everyone from this chaos. I had to physically attack some of the warriors to wake them up, because it's all hands on deck, and you're causing a problem!"

"It's not me, it's not my fault!" Madeline Crisp denied, denied, denied!

"Shut it, Crisp. Only you could do this much damage. I checked all of my sensors and alarms. No trips, no bites, no fights. Nothing except you, and the only points of corruption in the whole building comes from you and your room." Taylor Mayde pulled a briefcase from behind herself, kicking on the lid to draw her scissors.

"I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I can't be." Madeline Crisp couldn't breathe. She curled up and held onto her legs, trying to block out the noise.

"You're the fucking incursion point, Madeline! End this now!" Taylor shook her blades at Madeline. "I'm tired of all this! I just want to put everyone in bed and let them sleep! And if it means stabbing you, so--"

"Don't you DARE stab MY girlfriend, you stupid jerk!" A third figure interposed herself, causing both parties to stop and stare. "And don't you dare blame her for this mess!"

Olivia... no. Olivia, wearing Bea's signature hat and trench coat, stood in defiance to the CEO of Magimaid, and her priestess Mikayla wasn't far behind. Mystery Maid was here to investigate the scene.

=- July 27th, 2019 -=

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"Hey, Maddie." My legs kicked back and forth as I leaned on the branches in Jenna's garden. Beneath me, my not-so-secret admirer was trying to meditate on the stars. "Do you want to play a fun game?"

(Maddie doesn't know. What kind of fun game is it? Maybe I could twist her arm.) My very-secret admirer glanced up at me.

"It's a game of hide and seek." I grinned at her. "I'm going to hide in a place very, very far away. And then you'll find me, okay?"

(That game isn't much of a challenge for her. She can always just see through my eyes, and find me that way.)

"Oh? Is that what Maddie thinks?" I stuck out my tongue. "But what if I did something extra sneaky, something that even you couldn't predict? Something like... ███████████████ ? That would make it fair, I think."

(I'm mean. I know that Maddie can't resist a real mystery.)

"And I'm just full of them, aren't I?" I leaned in even more, letting my body take over and giving her a peck on the cheek. "But this riddle is going to be especially hard. Is Maddie suuure she can solve it?"

(She can solve any puzzle. She's the world's most dangerous detective.) Maddie gives me a suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

"Alright. Let's see... three years time should be enough to solve this riddle!" I'm practically cackling... no, that's a real cackle. "What walks on two legs but has six or more eyes? Can sunder the feud of the stars in the skies? Who breathes in the mist, and walks under trees, can run down the branches and fight with the breeze?"

"That's too easy, Bea. The eyes are glasses. Your glasses, and an extra pair on your head." Maddie gently whispers, and I respond by giving her a pet on her adorable head and booping her nose.

"You should let me finish, you heckling bum! Now, where was I? Though time has been passing and she isn't quite there, you'll find that her presence makes heads turn and stare... Can you find in yourself the drive to ███████? Because you let her ███, and she let you ████?"

(...that's not fair. I censored some of the riddle. How is Maddie supposed to figure it out?) Maddie gives me an adorable pout as I poke her cheek. She's quite expressive if you get her grumpy!

"That's okay~ You'll find the answer through context clues, I think," I sigh. "It's too bad you'll forget all about this riddle with everything to come."

"Will something happen? I don't get distracted easily, Bea. It would take a lot," Maddie whimpers. I think she can sense something is wrong. I don't want her to be sad, you know?

"Don't worry about it, babe! Hey, do you think we should see Nancy? I bet she could use some pizza." I give my dear Maddie a few more pets, for good measure. You can always calm her with pets.

"I don't know. She's a little high energy for my mood right now." Maddie was successfully and easily distracted, as expected! But I can't have her thinking like that, either. This is an important dinner.

"I think you'll really regret it if you don't spend more time with her, you know? She's such an airhead, she'll blow that sour mood away." Even though I'm the windy one. Ehehe.

"I guess I could try." Maddie reached up and gave my hand a squeeze. "But only if you come with me, okay?"

"Yeah. I'll always be with you, dork." I pressed my forehead to hers, hoping that I wasn't lying about all that. But that's the risk of reading the future, isn't it?

You don't know when the author is going to rewrite everything again.

=-July 27th, 2022-=

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"Betty...?" Taylor Mayde stopped her assault on Madeline, her scissor-blades halting inches from Olivia's face.

"Maybe. It's a real whodunit." Beatrice Malone winked at Taylor Mayde, clearly not ready to give up the game that quickly. "Cut that out, okay? Maddie's having a hard time. If you spent half as much time getting a bathrobe for her as you did scissoring her, she would have been out by now."

"Ugh. Of course she channels you when she wakes up." Taylor Mayde stared at Beatrice, trying to burn a hole in her beautiful coat with glares alone. "Don't interfere. Madeline's an incursion point. We need to take care of this before it spirals out of control."

"An incursion point she might be, if your eyes are defective. But take in all the evidence, you get a new perspective. She isn't Malice, Taylor!" Beatrice Malone made a cute little ball of wind, watching as it slipped from her grip and bounced on the floor above them. "She's just being Tempered."

"I'd like to believe that, but she's already been tempered." Taylor growled back, her appetite for violence not yet sated. "She's been a magical warrior for ten years, Betty!"

"And in those ten years, has she stopped smoking, drinking, eating fast food...?" Beatrice Malone counted on her fingers. "I know my girl, and she doesn't live healthy. It's not surprising that the burgers are biting back!"

Madeline Crisp started to find her composure. Having a brief moment without any fighting helped her think through everything going on. It also meant she had no distractions from the pain, the rawness of her flesh and the smoke in her lungs; with pain comes clarity, and she recognizes where she is, now.

"Don't tell me you predicted this would happen," Taylor Mayde scoffed. "You would have told us if you knew about this."

"Would I...?" Beatrice Malone tapped her own soft cheek. "I seem to remember telling everyone that I'm not allowed to use future sight outside of combat. There's rules to magic, you know? I thought I gave you all plenty of riddles, though!"

Taylor Mayde grit her teeth. "So you planned this the whole time? Dramatically showing up in the middle of our fight to, what? Beat me up?"

"Beat you up?" Beatrice blinked, caught off guard by the accusation. "No, I came to bring Maddie a bathrobe and walk her to the store. Unlike you, I actually prepare for incidents. Babe, catch!"

Beatrice Malone tossed Madeline Crisp a bright green bathrobe. It would barely cover her body, sized more appropriately for the mousey Olivia than the muscular Madeline, but it did the job. Madeline stared at the bathrobe for a few moments before breaking into tears, and Beatrice frowned in response.

"Jeeze, Maddie, you need to wear it, not use it to mop up your tears. Here, let me help you out." Beatrice moved quickly, twisting Madeline's arms up and squeezing them into the sleeves of the coat. Beatrice helped wrap the belt of the bathrobe around Maddie's waist, whistling all the way. "Still have the abs I remember. Nice."

As soon as Beatrice Malone finished tying the knot, Madeline Crisp used her as a pillow to soak up the incessant sobbing. The tension in the room defused as Taylor slid her blade back into her briefcase. "I want nothing to do with this foresight bullshit. You have this handled. I'm going back to bed."

Without a word more, Taylor walked over to Evangeline, scooped her up, and walked away. Beatrice Malone watched her go, hand stroking the back of Madeline's head. "Hey, how come the Malice in your heart always pronounces my name the wrong way?"

Wh... at? "Huh?"

"You call me Bea, but she calls me Beatrice. I mean, I'd get it if she went 'Betty Malone' at the start of her sentences? But she's not consistent. I mean, commit to the bit, or don't start it at all, right?" Bea-uh... Betty put on a smug grin.

"Not to mention, she gave a recipe in the last two acts, but not this one! What's the big deal? You aren't even that great at cooking. You burn anything more complicated than pasta." Madeline looked very flustered at Betty's accusation.

"I like cooking, though."  Yeah! Just because Madeline sucks at cooking doesn't mean she doesn't like it. (...rude.)

"Yeah, you're cute when you cook." Betty Malone kisses the top of Madeline's head. "How about a recipe for chocolate, Malice?"

...

Readers, would you like to follow along?

Here's a recipe for a kiss.

FernGilly

2/2 chapters for this week. My grandfather passed away, so there probably won't be bonus chapters this week; I barely squeezed out this one on time. This one was particularly hard to write thanks to depression, but hey. That's why I have Neverlands Cultivator (BL) to write, so I don't have to hyper-focus on this unfolding tragedy while I'm in a pretty bad place myself. See you all next tuesday with another chapter.