Tinea was freezing cold and lost. It was frigid on this mountain, but she had managed to find some dry wood and a cabin abandoned in the mountains with a fireplace. Furthermore, she had meat, which was the most important thing. She had managed to rig up a spit and was now roasting a haunch of meat, and the rest had been butchered and left out to dry into jerky, because she had a feeling she was going to need it in the coming days.

There were furs abandoned in this cabin, and she was wrapped up in them, chilly and cold and scared. She had no idea where she was, but she was pretty sure those were demonic beasts she saw. Which was fucking fantastic. In her effort to avoid her fate, she had wrung herself up for a worse one. Freezing to death or eaten by wild animals in the Demonic Empire.

Tinea shivered and blew on her fingers, trying to warm them up as the fire crackled and spat from the meat drippings. Winter would not be over for at least another month, and she was not stupid enough to try to go down the mountain until then. Anything could happen, and if she got lost, she may not find a better place to lay her head.

No, she would remain here for a month. That was the reasonable solution to the problem. The snow would start melting soon, and she would be able to leave before she knew it. At least she had no responsibilities except keeping herself alive.

It felt a lot like being with her mom again. They had lived off the land on the road, and she missed her terribly. Mom was always fated to die, and she wished she could blame it on Delfina, but if she had learned anything, it was that things were doomed to end. Except for this vicious cycle, everything in Tinea’s life ended. Her father’s affection, her brothers’ regard, her family’s protection, her life. Everything ended. The only constant in her life was Delfina, and it created a toxic dynamic.

With a shiver, she curled up in front of the fire and stared into the depths of it. This felt a lot like her mother could come in any moment, with fresh firewood and a smile just for Tinea.

Mom had been wonderful. She taught Tinea how to use a sword in her first life. She wanted her to be a mercenary and adventurer, just like her, and gods, Tinea wished she could have that. She wished she could have that. It seemed like a simpler life than this. This was…

There was no point to it. Tinea was Tinea. She had nothing to her name but what her father could give her. She could take nothing for herself. She was at the mercy of the Oracle, and she couldn’t help but wonder what Delfina was doing right now. Why she targeted her every lifetime. Was she regressing, too? Was she responsible for this loop? What had Tinea done to her in a loop she didn’t remember that could possibly justify this?

That was the conclusion Tinea was coming to. Delfina was most definitely looping with her. And if she wasn’t… Well. Then, her actions still made no sense. The only conclusion Tinea could come to was Delfina remembered her harming her in a previous life Tinea had no memory of, beyond the poisoning, and that was why Delfina was doing this.

“I didn’t know.”

That’s what Delfina said just as she passed. I didn’t know. Like that somehow justified this. Tinea had puzzled over her final words for a long time before she settled on this option: that Delfina was regressing, too, and didn't know Tinea was regressing, as well.

Tinea’s meat was ready, and she ripped off piping hot pieces from the hunk of meat and ate them, chewing them down and swallowing them and missing seasoning and spices. It was fine. It was edible, and that was all that mattered. Mom had always carried a special seasoning salt Tinea never got the recipe for, and Tinea missed that. If she had that recipe, maybe she would feel a little less alone in this life.

It took about thirty minutes to pick through the hunk of meat and eat it, and when she was done, she made her way to the bed and laid down, closing her eyes and trying to settle down to sleep. The stress and exhaustion of the day weighed her down, and before long, she was drifting asleep---

“What are you doing here?” asked a girl with beautiful blonde hair, perfect waves ending in light curls, and sky blue eyes. Golden skin that shone in the light of the moon beaming through the glass of the greenhouse-like structure they had found themself in, and Tinea pursed her lips at the sight of her.

“I should be asking you that. What are you doing in my dream?” Tinea demanded, and Delfina blinked at her.

“This is my dream,” she insisted, and Tinea crossed her arms.

“Well, clearly, it’s not, because I’m asleep.”

“Well, clearly, it’s our dream, then,” Delfina said, and Tinea studied her in silence.

“I think I’m a little of sick of sharing with you. Sharing my fiance, sharing my death, sharing this loop,” Tinea declared, and Delfina flinched. “Oh, did I hit a sore spot?”

“I’m so sick of you,” Delfina muttered. “You’re like a cockroach, always crawling back for more.”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?” Tinea demanded. “I came on my knees for nothing. I walked away twice, and you killed me both times. You’re the one that’s the cockroach.”

“Well, clearly, you’re doing something wrong, or we wouldn’t be here, now would we?” Delfina demanded. “If you could just follow the rules, we would be fine.”

“What rules?” Tinea demanded as ire rose. “There are no rules! It’s just life, and you’re not letting me live it!”

“This isn’t real!” Delfina screamed, and her sudden explosion of anger shocked Tinea. Never once had they seen the mask slip, but Delfina looked…

Desperate.

She looked desperate.

“This isn’t life, this is just a fucking story!” she screamed, light seeming to take up space in her irises and illuminate her eyes. “None of this is real! You can try to be as well written as you want, you can try to trick me into believing you’re just as real as me, but it’s a lie! It’s a lie, and I don’t know why I’m being punished!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Tinea demanded as confusion grew, because what? Story? Lies? Well written?

“You can evolve, you can be angry, you can be in pain, but none of it matters!” Delfina screamed and picked up a potted plant and threw it. It crashed into one of the glass walls and shattered, cracking the glass, and she whirled on Tinea. “Your pain isn’t real! You’re not real! None of this matters!”

“Well, it sure felt fucking real when my limbs were pulled apart!” Tinea screamed. “When the poison dissolved my organs! When my head got chopped off! When I was burned at the fucking stake! All of that felt very fucking real!”

“It’s not! You’ve bought into this idea that you’re a real person, but you’re not! You’re just an NPC!” Delfina screeched and advanced on Tinea, and Tinea took a half step back and flinched. “You’re not real! None of this is real! And you keep acting like you have your own agency, but you don’t! You’re nothing but words on paper! You! Are! Not! A! Real! Person!”

She poked her finger into Tinea’s chest as she backed her up, and Tinea stumbled and fell on her ass. Her face was twisted and full of pure, unadulterated hatred, like Tinea had personally come down to the world to make her suffer, and Tinea burst into tears. She couldn’t take this anymore. She could not take this anymore, and she had no idea what was going on. Not real? Words on paper? Agency? Tinea just wanted to survive beyond her eighteenth birthday. That was it. What was so hard about that? Why couldn’t Delfina just allow her to live?

“Do you have any idea what this is like for me?” Tinea screamed as tears streamed down her face. “You robbed me of my childhood! Every life, I wake up and my mother dies no matter what I do! Every life, my father finds me and abandons me when I’ve done nothing wrong! Every life, I have to be dressed up like a doll, face the world, get hit again and again, bear Countess Amalia again and again, do this over and over again! Every time, I am told again and again that my life is nothing but what you decide to do with me! I am powerless! I am nothing but a toy to you, and I am so tired of being thrown away as if my life means nothing!”

“Your life doesn’t mean anything!” Delfina screeched, her face red, wet with tears, and then she abruptly dropped to her knees and sobbed into her hands. “I’m the real one! I’m still real! I have to be real!”

Tinea rapidly realized there was something deeply wrong with this girl. There was something deeply wrong and twisted in her psyche, and Tinea didn’t know how to confront it. She thought that maybe, just once, she could reason with her, but there was some kind of insanity in her that could not be matched. Had her duties as Oracle shown her something she shouldn’t have seen? Was that it? Was something fundamentally broken in her? How did you reason with someone that had no reason?

You didn’t, she realized, and then she realized none of this mattered, anyway, because this was a dream, and this Delfina… wasn’t real. She was dreaming. She was asleep right now, and this Delfina wasn’t…

Wait.

What if this was a power of the Oracle? Could they invade someone else’s dreams? She tended to viciously scrub any memory of anything related to the Oracle from her mind, so she couldn’t recall.

Was this Delfina… real?

Did it even matter? This was a dream, and Tinea had years worth of resentment bubbled up.

She lifted her hand and magic swelled. Magic bullet ripped through Delfina’s chest, and she gasped, a gaping hole in her torso, and fell over. Blood spilled out, thick and red and viscous, and Tinea shivered in place.

“If I’m not real, then why does it feel so real when you die?” she spat out, and Delfina choked on her own blood. “I hope you felt every moment of that death. I hope it keeps you awake at night. I hope whenever you see a moth, you remember what I did to you, and I hope you remember I can do it again. You can’t take Adrius without seeing me at least once. I hope you rest on your laurels this time, because I will be feasting again.”

Tinea was shaking in anger. She didn’t care if Delfina was severely mentally ill, deranged. She didn’t care that she was obviously sick. The next time she saw her, she would eat her alive.

“I---I---” Delfina choked out, and Tinea climbed to her feet and crouched down in front of her as a moth landed on her finger.

“Let’s get a preview,” she purred, and Delfina disappeared.

Delfina woke with a start, thrashing in her bed and nearly pitching off the top of it. Her face was wet with tears she didn’t recall crying, and the comforter had been kicked off at some point, leaving her freezing cold in a top sheet. She was shivering violently, and it wasn’t from the chill. A choked sob escaped her lips, and she curled up on her side, clutching the sheet to her chest as she tried to calm herself.

She had been warned that this would happen. Studying the same person too often could lead to invading their dreams, and she had been watching Tinea nonstop since this first started.

Tinea remembered, and all Delfina could think was I’m not a bad person, she is not real, fake people can’t be hurt. All her Christian upbringing could think was this had to be Purgatory. She was being punished for her misdeeds, and Tinea was getting more and more realistic by the second. She hated it. She hated it, and she wanted to escape from this.

Why couldn’t whatever cruel entity that had trapped her here let her leave? Why was she being punished like this?

She wasn’t a bad person.

She just wanted to go home.

She couldn’t be a bad person.

She donated to charity in her real life. She had meatless nights. She went to protests. She did what was right, always, as best as she could, so why was she being punished with this intense realism? Why was she being made to feel like a bad person when she had already been trapped against her will, kidnapped from her home, fed to the dogs?

I will be feasting again.

Delfina couldn’t fucking do this. She couldn’t do this. She wanted to go home.

“I want to go home,” she whimpered and pulled up her ice cold feet closer to her body heat. “I just want to go home.”

With that, she burst into tears.

She couldn’t sleep again. Not after that. She had never been afraid of Tinea, but now that she knew what she was capable of, she was terrified. She was honestly terrified. She didn’t know what to do. How to avoid this? She could just not bring back Tinea, but then she would never go home.

She had to be brave.

She had to be brave and face her head on, because her parents were waiting for her to come home. They were waiting on her, and she…

She couldn’t let them down.

They were waiting for their little girl to come home.