Editing The Tragedy of Thing-tan (section)

== Part 3 ==

Annabelle taught me to hide in plain sight. And, when They came for me again that skill paid off. One day, The Paladin strode into the Church and approached me with a grim, set jaw and eyes full of righteous purpose. He looked me right in the eye. For a moment I felt the monster lurch beneath my skin in anger and fear. I was sure that he could see right through Annabelle’s skin. I was sure that I would soon lose the life I had built yet again.

But he didn’t see me. I was small. Beneath his notice. He simply asked me politely to speak with the high priest of the church. That he had urgent business. I fetched my – Annabelle’s – superior in a daze. My confusion deepened when I listened in on their urgent conversation – I was so beneath notice that they did not even dismiss me. He and the high priest spoke in hushed, urgent tones. There was a monster in the city, The Paladin said, a monster wearing human skin. It could blend in almost perfectly with the populace, and, until it fed, would never betray a hint of its presence. It could even be in this very church and they would have no way to know. Already six girls had gone missing in the last month. Devoured by the creature. 

There was just one problem: I hadn’t fed on any girls this past month. I slaked my need for biomass devouring the slavers and flesh-peddlers that Orik had been working for. The loss of these criminals – if it had even gone noticed at all, must have been seen as a boon for the city, because the Paladin didn’t even mention them. Instead he named each of the missing women, most of whom I had met only briefly as they came to the church for confession or services. There was one, however, who stood out; one whom I hadn’t seen in two weeks. The sound of her name among the list of victims stabbed through me as painfully as the Paladin’s sword had during our last battle: Celty.

I stumbled away and into a private room just in time. It took almost ten minutes to withdraw the monster back beneath Annabelle’s skin; to pull my barbed tendrils back beneath my flesh and to shrink my teeth back to normal. By the time I had composed myself enough to return to my duties, the Paladin was gone, leaving me with questions.

The old me would have been thrilled at the Paladin’s news: there was another like me in this city. Another lonely creature without a name of its own. The old me would have wanted to meet it. Befriend it. Warn it of the men hunting it.

But the new me, Annabelle, felt only anger. There was a monster loose in my city, hurting my friends. I had to do something about it. 

Annabelle taught me to hide in plain sight. And, as I followed Them in their hunt for my Cousin, that skill proved invaluable. As they consoled the victims’ relatives, questioned witnesses, and, eventually, discovered the grisly evidence of my Cousin’s feeding, they never cared to notice the plainly-dressed girl always lurking about in the background.

They found my Cousin’s last meal in an abandoned warehouse by the docks. The warehouse, used to store fishing supplies, was painted the grisly red of a charnel house, half-devoured bodies laid open from stem to sternum, insides hollowed out of the precious biomass, the rest of their flesh left to rot in the heat. I was among the crowd of horrified onlookers as The Paladin forced the door to the warehouse open. Like the rest, I recoiled at the sudden stench and haze of flies that billowed out from the open door. Unlike the others, I did not shield my eyes from the sight. I was too busy fighting to keep the monster down. Fighting to hide my rage. Celty was among these bodies – I could see her lying atop the grisly pile. What was left of her face was twisted in a look of horror and agony. She had been alive when My Cousin fed on her.

Annabelle’s anger was different from the monster’s anger. The former, my human side, was driven to rage at the sight of her friend in such a state. The latter, my “true” side, was appalled at the cruelty – the sloppiness – My Cousin displayed. When I embraced Annabelle, Danika, and all of the others, they never felt pain. They never even noticed the transition. I simply held them in a loving embrace and then they were gone – a part of me and my legion of sisters. Even my earliest victims – and those first few were, to my shame, victims – did not suffer. It was always over quickly. Always done with the urgency of necessity. My Cousin, on the other hand, had taken its time – it had enjoyed every bite of its meals. 

My Cousin’s sloppiness extended beyond the way it fed. It concealed its presence like a child playing hide-and-seek. The skin it had chosen to wear was that of a fisherman’s daughter. The daughter of the very fisherman who owned the warehouse. I followed Them, part of the torch-bearing mob that bore down on my cousin’s hiding place. But when The Paladin told the crowd to disperse, I did not. Annabelle taught me how to hide in plain sight, but my years playing at being the “Rogue” in a party of adventurers taught me to hide in the shadows.

From these shadows, I watched Them confront My Cousin, thinking it was me. I watched my Cousin explode out of the pretty, unassuming skin it had wrapped itself in into a writhing mass of tendrils, spikes, and teeth. I watched it battle Them viciously, tearing apart homes, trees, and any civilians unfortunate enough to be within a block’s radius of the battle.

I watched them lose the battle against my Cousin. I could easily have slipped away. I could easily have gone back to the church and resumed my life as Annabelle. I could have tended to the wounded from this battle, administered last rites to the fallen, mourned my dead friends, and then, after burying The Paladin and his crew, been free –finally free – to live my life. 

The old me would have done just that. Instead, I leapt from the safety of my hiding place just in time to seize a writhing mass of thorny tendrils my Cousin had whipped towards the injured Paladin. I felt Annabelle’s skin rip away from the effort as the monster burst forth. I felt myself changing into my “true” self as I spun my Cousin through the air and hurled it into a burning building. I was able to pull some of Annabelle back over myself as I turned to face the Paladin, but not enough to hide. My full glory was on display for all to see. The Paladin struggled to stand, staring at my dumbfounded. When I spoke, my voice was half Annabelle’s, half the monster’s. “Evacuate the neighborhood before it gets back up,” I said. “This will be messy.”

After the battle, I pulled the tatters of Annabelle around me. There was barely enough left of her to conceal the monster. My Cousin was worse, writhing in mewling pain beneath my boot. Around us, the city burned, homes reduced to rubble, the streets slicked with blood and biomass from us, and from my Cousin’s victims. My Cousin’s features writhed, shifting haphazardly between the faces of those it had devoured and, by some cruel joke of Pelor, settled on Celty’s face when it finally managed to speak.

“Cousin,” it croaked, “Why?”

“Because you hurt them,” I said, grinding my boot into its chest to the sound of a wet crack and a squeal of agony. I bent down and seized my Cousin by the throat, lifting the writhing mass of tendrils and flesh into the air. “I love them. And I am going to take them back from you.” 

I devoured My Cousin whole, bringing its victims into me, pulling the souls of Celty and the rest from its cold, thorny flesh, into the warm embrace of my sisterhood. I could feel Celty's joy at being reunited with Annabelle fill me, her relief at becoming part of something vast and great. At never having to be alone again. My wounds stitched closed, and the monster withdrew beneath my new skin, that of an Elf that looked not unlike a child of Annabelle and Celty might. I felt stronger than before, even after I spat out my Cousin's essence like a bad applecore.

The Paladin and his party had returned at some point during our battle. They surrounded me, swords drawn, eyes filled with disgust and fear. I was restored, resplendent, and they were injured badly. It would have been a moment's effort to finish them off and be free of their pursuit. The old me would have killed them all without a thought.

Instead I looked the Paladin in the eye. For the first time, I think, he truly saw me. "Do you really want to do this?" I asked plainly. He stood in silence, struggling to keep his sword arm aloft despite the blood loss.

"No," he said finally, sheathing his sword. "Not today." And he stepped aside. "But another day."

I could have killed him then and been free. Instead I walked past him, out of the city that I had saved. The next town was a day's journey away. A new life. Another second chance. Maybe this one would finally be different. I think it just might be. I had learned something from Annabelle that I had not learned before; something more than hiding in plain sight. I had learned to have faith; to have mercy. I had learned how to be good.