"-you tell whoever's got a problem with me to come in through the front next time, Orville," The Chef de Cuisine yelled back through the opened back door. She let the door slam behind her as she snapped her gaze out to the alleyway.

When she saw nothing, she hissed out, "Simpletons," before she set to open the door once more.   Then the wind was knocked, violently, out of her.

The woman collapsed to the ground under the weight of the person that had leaped on her. The Chef managed to croak out a shocked squeak, the air broken out of her lungs. Before she had a chance to react, she heard a woman's voice, unfamiliar, but cold, so very, very cold, in her ear.

"What's your name?"

The Chef gasped in a breath of air, winced, dazed, as she felt the blood coat her mouth. "Bethany," she grunted out. "and whatever this' about -"

In spite of the cruel words that she spoke, the woman's voice seemed to be perfectly, emotionlessly, modulated. "Shut the fuck up, bitch. I'm going to tie your hands behind your back. Then you're gonna tell me why you and the rest of them are murdering innocent people."

Bethany chuckled. The hooded woman stilled on top of her for a moment before she forcibly shoved the chef's hands into some zip ties. She then flipped the woman onto her back, not sparing her from a hard hit that made the chef lose her breath once more. When she did get her breath back, the chef chuckled again.

The hooded woman leaned in close to the chef's face and she spoke. "This isn't funny, I can assure you of that."

The chef was crying as she laughed, hard. "This is rich. Do you know who I am, little bitch? Huh?" She looked up into the black abyss of the woman's hood-shadowed face, saw in a grab of light for a moment a pattern reminiscent of bones on black. The woman's lower half of her face was covered by something that turned her face into a skeleton's.

She had had a strange eyes, and it took the chef a jolting moment before she recognized that she saw fire looking back at her from where eyes should be. Recognition seized her, as perhaps for the first time in decades, the chef - who was not, at least, fully - human felt something she was unused to experiencing.

Fallibility.

Her laughter stopped, choked in her throat.

The hooded creature stood up, dusting Its hands off. "This is a bad place for work. I'll just have to take you, then come back here and do a memory wipe -"

The chef laughed again, ego winning over a moment's fear. "That'll be hard to do."

"I wouldn't count on that as a reason for me to spare you."

"Oh, I wasn't referring to that. You see, you asked my name, and I told you Bethany. In reality," the chef's voice lowered until she spoke in a whisper. She looked up at her attacker meaningfully, and spoke only when she had bent down to her face. "my name is - go fuck yourself."

The attacker's world transformed around her.

Netta dreamed that she danced, as the world beneath her both ended and began, anew.

Outside of the high tower she danced in, the Old Earth was falling in pieces to the ground of the New, baptizing it in flame. It was the end of one cycle and a sign of the next. A sight that fewcould ever live through, to see the beginning of one as well as the end the previous.

And yet, with the beautiful, terrible sight outside, she could not take her gaze from her partner.

Her dance partner was hideous, dark as though he was living, slithering shadow, then beautiful in the light of the flames that fell outside. He almost radiated with the energy, the joy of life itself beating in him, pure. A love that was sightless, without reason.  Without pity for those It needed to feel his own energy continuing to pulse.

And He does need sacrifices.

When she had at last finished their dance, he whispered her truth into her ear with an intimacy that an innocent child could have no knowledge of.

She wept, knowing only when she woke that she would never be happy if his words - prophecy - ever came true.

She remembered it as a nightmare when, at last, she woke.

When she opened her eyes, Netta discovered that she was laying down in a wood. It was sunny, beautiful. Without realizing it, Netta stretched her arms out, enjoying the feel of the grass on her back.

I never thought that I would feel this again.

The bright, life-affirming heat of the sun. The cool brush of the grass against her bare upper arms, her calves. Netta shut her eyes, shuddered in a heavy breath. She felt like the smell of the wood around her, that earthy smell, was rejuvenating her.   Felt as though she was worthy of this purity, this warmth.

It's like I never left the homeland I can barely remember, after the -

Netta's eyes snapped open, an unwanted, dark memory feeling as though it had punctured her thoughts. It infected her relief, the cozy happiness she felt as she laid in the grass.

Netta groaned, held her hands to her head. She struggled, part of her loathe to summon the memory in question forward, to allow it to destroy the sweet comfort of the summer day. After a moment of struggle, she forced the memory forward in her mind.

It burst through her mind like a Trojan horse, in its wake it brought utter destruction.

A woman, with her transformed face hidden behind a kerchief, a skull's face on the design. Anger has turned her movements slowly, increasingly, like a snake's deliberate, smooth pace. She doesn't want her own kind to gaze openly on her, because she has taken on the features of the Monster she has taken a contract with. She takes Its power, contorts it into a bludgeoning force, brings it down onto the head of a woman she once regarded as kin.

That woman, when she brings down the magic, takes on more than the facial features of the Monster-

The sound of the woman's voice, distorted, seemed to come through the clouds.

"AESTHETICS. NEITH, DO YOU EVEN THINK THAT YOU COULD BEGIN TO COMPREHEND THE AMOUNT OF WORK, THE SACRIFICE, THAT I HAVE TO PUT INTO EVERYTHING I MAKE? DO YOU EVER CONSIDER THE AMOUNT OF BLOOD THAT I HAVE TO PUT INTO MY FOOD TO BE A SUCCESS IN THIS HUMAN'S WORLD? OH, NETTLES, SACRIFICES ARE EVER NECESSARY. IT ONLY SEEMS NATURAL THAT THE WEAK WILL NOT ONLY SUFFICE, BUT THEIR WEAKNESS MAKES THEM THE BEST TARGETS."

Netta looked up at the sky in astonishment as the understanding that, in spite of the difference in cadence, the ragged quality of it, that she was listening to Millicent's voice in the sky. Netta felt fear, and instinctively reached for Ash. When she did not feel him, she looked up in the sky, hoping, somehow, that the answers would be written up there.

Instead, all she heard was her lost Sister, Millicent's ringing voice.

"CALLING FOR HELP AGAIN, WEAKLING? DID I POISON YOU TOO WELL THIS TIME, CAN I ACTUALLY KILL YOU NOW? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, JUST KIDDING. I'M LEAVING THAT UP TO YOUR "HUSBAND", THE GROTESQUERIE."

In the distance, Netta heard the sound of trees all falling at once. Turning, Netta first saw the shape in the distance, a shape taller that the trees.

It moved quickly, destroying all in its path.

She saw Its face, then felt as her legs refused to move. Netta's mind attempted to make sense of what she was seeing.

A skeletal, red face was attached to gigantic, sickle-shaped horns, then as more of it appeared, she beheld a massive torso. Its muscular arms reached out and grabbed trees, pulling them out of the ground and throwing them like a child would toy cars.

Netta ran, then heard the thing roar, the ground shaking from the force of it. She ran, falling into a thick patch of trees. Hiding, she crouched by the roots of a massive tree. 

As she panted, trying to regain control of her breath, she heard a mocking, small male's voice next to her. She jumped, causing the thing to cackle.

"I said, "I think he's looking forward to the honeymoon." What do you think? Think you can manage all of that meat he's packin'?" It laughed.

Netta looked into the gloom of the roots that she crouched next to. There she saw the emaciated-looking man. He grinned at her, his blue, pupilless eyes shining in the darkness. "What's it like to be beauty in your beauty and the beast fetish? Hmm? Ever dreamt of him sodomizing you while he's like that?"

Netta closed her eyes, then looked up into the trees. Not so far away, she could hear a roar.

The man was saying that that was Ashwood... but it couldn't be. It... can't be...

"Oh, I'm afraid that Prince Charming turned right into a frog, dear." The man rested his cheek to his hand and sighed. "Young love," he sniffled, wiped away a tear. "gets me every time, I'll tell ya."

At the sound - it was like house being dropped - Netta took off, running through the woods until she thought that her lungs would explode. When, finally, she had no choice other than to rest, she found as she leaned over a tree branch that she nearly smacked into the man from before.

He smiled at her. "We seem to run into each other a lot, lemme tell you. Must be fate - or love? Tell me, you claim to love Ashwood, but do you love that Monster back there? Or do you think that you could manage a quick fuck and suck before you get squashed?" When Netta didn't answer, her mind feeling as though it was drowning in her fear, the man said, "Well? Don't hold back - doesn't matter if you do or not, he can hear what you say or think, that's how he knows which direction to stampeeeeddee in."

Netta shut her hand over her mouth and looked back up. She could hear another loud sound - like two houses had been dropped from the sky - almost smash her eardrums. Netta gasped, closing her hands over her ears as tears filled her eyes.

She had spent a lot of time thinking, as a child, the worst would happen to her. However, when Ash had appeared...

"Hey," the man said, reaching forward to shake her. "I asked you a question. Several. I'll have you know that I'm not just asking for my own curiosity's sake, but rather because one or both of you has wondered this sort of thing before."

When Netta heard the bloody roar, too close behind her for comfort, she felt her legs move of their own accord. She did not make it so far this time, however, as she nearly fell to the ground as pain in her lungs overwhelmed her.

Through the veil oif pain and confusion, she heard the small man's voice.  "Here's a request that I think that'll shine light on this whole situation for a certain... how do you say... powerful- beyond-reality being. So, do you "love" Ashwood because he's a dead ringer for an elder god that can sure as hell imitate a human like nobody's business, or because he's a real good shield? Well? Nettles, need I remind you that with each passing moment you seem guiltier and guiltier..."

Netta closed her eyes and found that her impulse for immediate safety was being overridden by her overwhelming anger. "He's my lover!" she shouted at the ugly, snaggle-toothed Monster.

The thing shrieked happily - and it was echoed in the roar frighteningly close by. "Yes," it cried out, "but do you love that Monster?"

Before Netta could censor her thoughts, she felt a wave of fear - and repulsion - fill her. When she looked back at the man, she realized that she was not imagining it when she saw that the man seemed to have gained more than a few inches on her. She gasped.

"Another question-"

Netta took off running before she stumbled, falling against a rotting log. She looked up, her eyes catching on the blue-eyed man as he sat on a tree limb, looking down at her, unblinkingly. "Tell me, Netta, how angry you are at how Ashwood's blind rage will kill the both of you in one fell swoop - first you, then by default, him, because when he snuffs out your soul, poof, out the genie goes?"

The fear and anger - at the man, at the situation, at her warped understanding of the fact that this was something that had been pulled apart from reality - converged into a cry that she yelled back almost in reaction to the closer than ever roar in the distance. When she finished, tears blinding her, she saw how far away the blue-eyed man seemed to be above her.

It took Netta a moment to realize that she had shrunk yet more. "This can't be happening," Netta cried into her hands as terror overtook her. "this isn't real, this isn't real..."

Netta thought that there was an echo that had come from her voice, but then she looked up and realized that the man in the tree was copying her, even her voice, perfectly.

After a moment, Netta heard another - louder than thunderous crash - in the distance. The man did not flinch. In an instant, his face seemed to warp, the center sucking in on the rest of his face so that for a moment, he was faceless.

Netta yelled in terror at the sight, then felt her horror grow as she beheld him in his new face. Or, it could be said, her adopted Sister's face.

"Nettles, Nettles, Nettles," it crooned at her. "I'm afraid that, hey, all is lost. All you've ever had, all of your life, are nightmares. Even now, all you can conjure for love is a nightmare. Netta, I'll let you in on a secret - you think you don't want to know his past, but let me tell you, his past..." she whispered conspiratorially then, her brown eyes shining. "would make Genghis Khan and Stalin look like sweethearts. "

Netta shut her eyes. "I don't care what you say," she said, trying to shove her fear and her thoughts of terror towards Ash away. "I won't think anything bad about him."

Indeed, she tried to drown her mind in images of a tall man whose face she couldn't quite recall, whose smile was lost to her amidst the ocean of fear that she was drowning in.

The creature wearing Millicent's face laughed. "Don't you ever learn to not trust me, stupid? So, so stupid, dumb cow shit mother-fucking Human pissant - he knows where you are, and your emotions are like red in front of a bull."

Netta cried out, tried to run away only to realize that she had shrunk yet again. This time, she was the size of a child. She moaned in terror, crouched to her knees.

"Look at you. No, really, look at yourself. You thought that you were going to come at me, kill me. Let me tell you what I'm going to do to your new family once you're dead. You remember how Sia enjoyed her fun to be less tame when it came to playing with you? Well, I'm sure that she's willing to break her incest-only rule, and drag that young thing around by her hair until she gets bored of her. Me, I always have more draughts to test out on you, like I always did, but as you can see here, I've grown to have quite the affinity for altering reality, without the use of all of the tasty concoctions -"

"S-shut up..."

"Hm? What's that? Speak up, bitch."

Netta turned her head up and looked at the thing in the tree seemed closer somehow to her. Netta hardly recognized the fact that she was taller before she snarled, "I said, shut the fuck up, you twisted whore."

The thing's face contorted in a smile as she laughed. "Oh, that's rich - yes, be angry at me, it only brings him closer and closer and closer-"

As if in answer, Netta heard the sound - could hear the sound of them individually being torn - of trees breaking. Fear immobilized her. When she managed to regain control of herself, Netta looked back up at the creature in the tree and realized that it seemed, somehow, smaller.

In that moment, an understanding of what she had to do came to her. Netta looked up at the creature her ex-Sister had transformed into and tried to dig as deep as she could inside of her, uncorking rage and pain that she had long tried to stifle.

"You sadistic bitches," she spat out. "you sadistic, hateful, wormy, lecherous, repulsive and - and traitorous bitches -" she hardly recognized the look of sheer terror that came onto the creature's face, all the more visible as she reached its height. She continued, her nails digging so deeply into the palms of her hands that it was like a sharp, painful talisman. "You will all beg for mercy like how I have, more times that I dare to count, and I will laugh at your tears..."

She was soon growing larger than the creature was, beginning to tower over it. If she looked up, she knew, instinctively, she would see the creature that was Ash in the distance.

Instead, she kept her gaze locked on the tree, even as she grew over it. "I don't want to be a hero. I just want to see the look of recognition on each of your faces just before I kill every one of you..." Soon she was towering over the tree. It was only as the tree became the size of a bonsai to her that Netta looked up, acknowledged the Monster that was only, to her, a matter of five feet away.

She was still so small compared to it, her head coming not even to its shoulders. Still, her rage, once opened, was unquenchable.

"AND YOU," she roared. "YOU SECRETIVE, UNFEELING FUCK - YOU KNOW YOU BROKE MY HEART, MADE ME HAVE TO BURY MY EMOTIONS, MY OLD MEMORIES IN THE DESERT!"

Soon, she had grown over his height, and she thought, as she stared into that inhuman face, that she could somehow detect fear. She would not stop - could not.

"YOU'RE A MONSTER, NOT BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE OR CAN DO, BUT BECAUSE YOU'D LET ME THINK YOU'RE AN INCUBI FOR A LIFETIME!"

She stomped towards him a step, saw him jolt a step backward. "I WAS AN UNWILLING VIRGIN, AND I WITHERED ON THE VINE, THINKING THAT ONE DAY THAT YOU - MY PRINCE - WOULD COME FOR ME! HOW COULD I EVER TAKE WALLACE, WITH THE THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD WATCHING ME, ALWAYS? ANSWER ME!"

Netta took another step towards him and registered a frightened cry he let out. "AM I STRONG ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW? AM I GOOD ENOUGH FOR ANYBODY, NOW, TO LOVE ME?"

Netta opened her mouth to yell something more at him, even as her height seemed to only grow and grow and grow, but she was stopped as she looked down and saw something that shocked her to her core. 

How had she ever thought that the creature was some sickened representation of her husband?

In spite of the twisted, wretched mass of dark horns on Its head, Its red eyes and the deep red of Its flesh, she saw Its face and knew who Its true identity was. The expression it bore on Its face was one that she had only ever seen in the mirror, tear-stained, vulnerable. A gaze that seemed to beckon even its mirror image for pity, for charity.

It gazed at her, and Netta stared at the face of the Monster that she had always loathed. The massive horns on Its head, the contorted, transformed shape of Its body -

And still none of it could not banish the raw pain in Its eyes, Its damnable weakness.

Netta clenched her fists tight, feeling the rage that burned inside of her.

She wanted to kill It, rend it into pieces, into shards so that It could not show that glowing pain, that haunting sorrow every time she looked at her reflection.