"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Ximenia had been a street orphan when she had been found. The girl had been wandering, malnourished and partially feral, through the streets of Morrocco.

It had been a true chore on the part of the children to get used to the eccentricities of the child who seemed to barely understand simple concepts of grooming herself and how to sleep in a bed.

It had been no easy task to make the girl understand how in danger she was with her previous existence. She had become the unofficial leader - protector - of many of the wandering children of the city's alleys.

Although her fledgling propensity for magic was a reason why she and the children who followed her managed to evade much danger, she had brought undue attention to herself through its haphazard use.

Magic was always vibrant in childhood, when, tragically, the accidental triggering of such power often lead to trouble for young Witches. This was evident in how often Ximenia had been the quarry for more than a few humans who heard of her powers.

She was reknown for her firebreathing that was beyond what the illustrated men who traveled through the city were capable of. She was also known for her ability to seemingly cause a fire at will.

Ximenia agreed to live with the traveling, fledgling Coven, on the condition that one day she be allowed to return to guide the children that she was leaving behind.

Growing up alongside the other Witches, for a time Ximenia seemed to find some form of companionship on occasion with Neith.

For a time, it seemed that both would, perhaps, find a friendship where the rest of the children seemed splintered, driven by their ambitions and the cold will of Netta's mother, their Matriarch.

That all ended the day that Ximenia decided that she required Hera's tutelage in becoming a Witch. She chose to seek to become a member of the Coven. In the way of that ambition stood the friendship she shared with Netta.

She was present on Neith's seventh birthday, and aided in throwing dirt and rocks on top of the coffin that the girl had been buried in.

She was among the silence that greeted Netta as she cried out for help.

"Wow. We've been here, for what, three days now - and we still can't find that woman?"

Even Netta had to agree with Ash's grim assessment of their situation.

She had thought that after she had followed the trail of the circus that Ximenia had supposedly been hired by, it would be a matter of asking the right questions and fishing the right lead.

Instead, Netta more often than not found herself deeply imbedded in a metaphorical wall.

Even before Ash had pointed it out, she had admitted to herself that there was no possible way that her sister had seemingly disappeared without a trace.

That was, unless she had meant it that way -

Or something terrible had indeed happened to her.

From the street car that felt like it rattled her teeth as it went along its rail, Netta was transcribing notes in her notebook. She was in the middle of writing when her pen died on her.

Cursing underneath her breath, Netta shoved it into one of the pockets of her coat. No sooner than she did than she felt herself being pushed over as a weight hit her in her shoulder.

Disorientated, she was helped up by Ash and by another person, who she recognized as the weight that had sent her toppling over.

He was apologizing to her profusely, but stopped, his face turning white as he looked up and for a moment. His haunted, blank gaze seeming to suggest that he was seeing something. Something that there was no way that he could see.

He backed off, mumbling something that sounded like, "Red, eyes are... red."

As Ash helped her to her feet, Netta murmured that she was alright. As she regained her footing, she happened to see something on the street that gave her a jolt.

Seeing that she was fixated on something, Ash turned and looked. "A camp for the poor?"

Netta shook her head, and, grabbing Ash's hand and dragging the Monster through the throng of people between her and the exit on the car, she said, over her shoulder, "It's like that ringmaster I once met called them, Hoovervilles. It reminded me of my youth, I haven't heard shantytowns being called Hoovervilles since I was as young as I look now."

She dropped off of the sluggishly moving streetcar as it was slowling down to a halt. She made a beeline directly to the shantytown in question.

Ash, who had caught up to her easily, asked, "That's all well and good, but what does this have to do with your Sister?"

Netta turned around, pointing at the sign that hung over the entrance to the large plot of land filled with perpetually tired-looking people and their small shack-like homes.

Ash stared up at it, Its eyebrows furrowed.

""Kazia's Town". Have never seen one of these places having its own name like that and everything, but what's the importance of it?"

Netta pointed more vigorously at the sign. "Seriously? Okay. It's not the name or anything, it's the little, I don't know, doodle next to the name on the sign."

Ash glanced back up at the sign. "A - a butterfly?"

Netta shook her head and could not stop the smile on her face. "No - it's a moth. A moth - just like the kind that Xi always drew on her stuff. I could recognize that drawing anywhere, because it's like a modified four-leaf clover."

"Huh." Ash had to chase after her a little, when Netta trudged into the shantytown. "Whoa - watch the - there's ice everywhere on the ground in here, Lovely - where do you plan to go in here, who do you plan to ask about her?"

No sooner than Ash asked that than Netta heard a voice, dusty sounding, call out to her. Turning, she discovered the source of the voice, behind what looked like a turned-over foot-powered child's toy car.

"Looking for someone here, are you?"

What emerged out from behind the car was a man swaddled in heavy layers of clothing, his face covered in a beard so thick and unkempt that it was hard to see the man as possessing a face behind the wild and bushy mass.

He spoke, a grin appearing beneath the heavy covering of his facial hair. "Maybe I can help you with that."

Ash answered before Netta could, its voice tense and harsh. "Why would you want to help two strangers?"

Alhough he could not be reacting to Ash - perhaps he could see the mistrust on Netta's face - the man laughed. It was like listening to bolts being rattled in a metal tin.

"We're all strangers here. Doesn't mean we can't help each other out, especially with that winter coming like it is. They say this is set to be the last winter ever, with nothing to ever come after it, except for a long, long night, when a great and terrible King comes back from his grave."

Netta shivered at his words. "You said that you could tell me where someone was?"

The man paused, settling somehow overbright, brown eyes on her. "It depends on if I know the person's whereabouts, honey."

"I'm looking for Ximenia - she might call her last name Oleander - but likely she calls herself Costello."

"Ah." The man raised a finger high in the air, a smile spreading beneath the thick layers of beard, exposing teeth of unusual bright whiteness and straight, perfectly straight. "You're in luck on that count. I know Xi well."

"You do?" Netta took a step towards him. She could feel a weight that she had been carrying in her shoulders lessen somewhat. "Oh, good. Wait - how do you know Xi?"

The man chuckled. "Why, she helped found this camp two months back, when that poor child Kazia Morales got killed during a bungled police raid." He smiled then, chuckling softly. "I know where Xi is right now. That is, if you want to meet her."

By the time that they reached the place, the sun had set on the horizon over the buildings. When Netta took a look at the time, she saw that it was just past six.

She shivered underneath the layers of her clothing. It was hard to not wonder how the people in Kazia's Town could abide the cold as it was then, let alone when the night set.

Up ahead, the man was pointing at an awfully abandoned-looking warehouse that was surrounded by a fence on all sides.

As they got to the door, the man beckoned for her to open the doors, telling Netta that he hoped that she would enjoy her family reunion. It was not until Netta had pushed herself inside of the warehouse's doors and heard Ash entering behind her that she realized that she had never told the man that she was Ximenia's sister.

Inside of the warehouse there was a sea of darkness that made it impossible to see. Save for the spot of bright light that shone, as though illuminated from above by a spot light.

In the center of it stood a dark-skinned woman with her black hair tied back in a long braid.

"Xi," Netta gasped before she tried to run to her.

She was stopped when Ash grabbed her and pulled her back. Netta turned to the Monster and tried to pry Its arms off of her. "Ash, what are you -"

Ash spoke, Its voice low. "This is a trap, specifically for you, Netta. I knew the moment that that man happened to know exactly who you were looking for."

Netta push Ash's hand off of her arm and took a step forward - even as her every instinct was to run away.

"Ximenia, what is the meaning of this?"

Ximenia, whose face and demeanor seemed to bely an inner calmness, broke to reveal deep anger. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides and snarled.

"Come forward and let me administer your punishment, kin slayer."

Netta gasped and took a step closer to her Sister, only to feel her arm being tugged backwards by Ash.

"Kin slayer? What are you talking about?"

Ash pulled her closer to It and hastily whispered, "Something's very wrong here, this was a mistake."

Ximenia bellowed then, saying, "You'll die by my hand tonight - Sylvester!"

In the blink of an eye, a man appeared next to Ximenia, wearing what looked like a mix between a gas mask and a plague doctor's beaked mask. No, not a man - a powerful Monster

"Yes?" It asked, with no muffling of his voice, in spite of It speaking inside of the confines of the mask.

Netta felt a sick lurch in her stomach. She could not recall ever, with the exception of Ashwood, seeing a Monster in person. To be able to see this creature - Ximenia's - like this must mean that It possessed great power.

Ximenia smiled then, a bestial, hateful look on her otherwise pretty, eternally youthful face.

"We won't be letting them get away again."

"Understood." The Monster said, raising Its hands above Its head.

Ash grabbed Netta, shoving her behind It.

"Now might be a good time to leave, unless you want to see me dealing with your Sister."

Netta did not think what he could mean by that, allowing It, numbly, to drag her out of the warehouse with unnatural speed.

They ran through the night until Netta was certain that she'd be sick. When Ash stopped dragging her, Netta found herself in Kazia's town.

"Are you alright?" Ash asked, Its hands framing her panting face, staring at her.

Groaning, Netta leaned against one of the shacks and forced her eyes shut to stop the movement that her eyes still insisted that she was undergoing.

"Um, yeah, just - give me a second to recuperate."

They were hiding behind a shack - an occupied one, judging by the sounds of laughter that Netta could hear inside of it.

Ash was quiet, then made Netta sit down on the ground, her legs splaying out. After she had regained control of her breathing, she turned to Ash and weakly asked, "What the hell was that?"

Ash sighed, an arm placed around her back in a partial embrace as It crouched on the ground.

"It looks to me like we inadvertently found the fire bug."

Netta looked at him with her eyes wide. "N-no. Ximenia couldn't - she can't have been the person that was trying to kill me on the road. Why would she want to..."

Ash shook her gently. "Nettles, think clearly and remember what she said. She called you kin slayer. What do you think that she could have meant by that?"

Netta bowed her head and felt a confusion, a riptide of emotions.

And it dawned on her. "The only one of us to have died - was Hera. But, Ash, that was almost a decade ago. None of this makes any sense."

She cried out a choked sob, leaning forward to grasp her face.

Ash gave her another gentle shake. "No, not now, Nettles. You have to keep your wits, or we'll be sitting ducks."

"What do I do?" Netta asked, near tears, her face submerged in her hands.

"There's two options, if she truly means to kill you," Ash remarked, Its left hand touching her, pushing messy locks of hair away from her peering eyes. "then you either have to make sure that she can't catch you..."

"Or?"

"Do you need me to tell you the other one?" Its voice was low, flat.

Netta found it almost impossible to breath. She looked down at her shoes. Netta didn't allow herself to think of every private moment that she could remember between her and Ximenia, knowing that it would be too painful to recall.

Instead, she finally managed to suck in a deep breath. "This could be tied to what's been happening."

Ash chuckled, the sound like dry wood snapping. "I would say that the chances that this isn't tied to what's been happening is very unlikely."

Netta clenched her eyes shut. "Oh, Goddess, my Sister is trying to kill me."

"Well..." Ash glanced around them, then ducked in closely and whispered, "adopted sister."

Netta did not rise to that barb, her mind buried in a darkness so thick that she could not envision a way out of it.

"What do you suggest?"

Ash leaned back slightly and retracted Its long arm, leaving Netta feeling bereft. "You've left my hands tied, Lovely, by not leaving me with much in the way of power that I can use against her Familiar."

Netta felt embarrassment make her neck and face grow hot.

Ash continued, saying, "Nevertheless, I think that I can get us to another day yet, as long as you're willing to spill a little blood."

"Ash, she's my kin. I can't - I don't want to kill her."

Ash sighed. "Well, what do you suggest? I would recommend that we do something, because running is a good way to leave your back open to a sneak attack."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience."

She felt a strange hollowness in her chest - one that she was not certain had been there before, or if it had, it now felt hungry, yawning...

Ash didn't answer that at first, and when It did, he said, "We can talk about other matters later. For now, I want to tell you that I think that I can manage to get away with not killing her, since you insist on it."