Lorelai dragged herself onto the deck. Now adorning boots, trousers, and a face full of soot. It was who Lore was. All she wanted to be. She marched the planks, marched to the crates of loose weapons and jewels. Dress gone, perfume replaced with sweat, grim instead of makeup. Yes, this was the only version that was authentic, that matched her flaky nails.

  She could’ve been another crate, for all they noticed.

  Her musty figure like another barrel.

  A dirt-covered body devoid of taste.

  However, it allowed her to move with ease.

  First, the Ratman, stacking things of shine and sparkle, his hairy finger throwing priceless cups, forks and jewellery like it chump change. Part of her wanted to move, but she remembered her boots, wet, slippery and making her toes reel.

  How did everyone just wear these with care? Like they didn’t have a foot sliming in shit. It was gross, unsavoury, and even a servant didn’t need to deal with this.

  Mutt sloshed his bucket of wares to the side and then started piling more. The lack of the word goddess, and his unhinged stare. Like he hadn’t praised her up like some new mythical queen.

  She scoffed. Was a change of clothes enough to make a goddess invisible? Or did she, in her delusional mind, imagine such a thing? She shifted, but his eyes never caught her, his expression tighter than a whores ass.

  She moved again.

  And he looked at the bucket. She poked him. Kicked him.

  “Hey!” she said.

  But nothing. She knew he felt it, knew he could see her. But the damned rat refused to look at her. She didn’t know what was worse, being praised as a false god or being ignored like you don’t exist. But she didn’t like either.

  “Mutt.” Beaumont yelled, “Help me take this to the common room.”

  Lore turned, and there, like the tall beetle, he was carrying a full-size crate of exotic Durg wine. It made her wonder, was drinking a brew that came from your own species a form of cannibalism? Could a scorpion drink its own product, like an alcoholic venom sucker?

  But that wasn’t enough of a distraction, as like Mutt, this stupid dung beetle avoided her gaze. She curled her tail, watching the merry men run off as fast as their snapable legs carried them. Maybe that was it. Maybe this was what ‘nobody’ felt like.

  She huffed, lingering on the deck alone, the whispering sea of Voidium mist curling around her skin.

  “It was better this way.” She said.

  Nobody cared that she stood here. Nobody noticed a little succubus. And importantly, nobody asked her to be a ruler.

  Then a pair of boots stopped, the shoulders twisted, and a face looked straight at her. His stubble glinted with patches of old, his stern face harder than a rock. She didn’t want to see him right now. She hadn’t come up with an answer yet. Hadn’t figured out… who she was.

  Marshal waltzed to the edge of the platform, the looming man casting a shadow on her before she could turn.

  “You have a habit of wearing rags,” Marshal said.

  She flinched. hell, had she needed to debut as the sootiest girl alive?

  Then, watching him from the corner of her eye, the man removed his dark gloves. The slick sound of leather peeled off skin. And then the cloth got tossed over.

  She panicked, her trained body moving frantically like a servant catching gloves with her life on the line. An instinct she regretted honing.

  She swivelled to face the oh so mighty Monarch, her fangs nashing like her tail.

  “What are you throwing at me?” she snapped.

  But Marshal only smirked, just slightly enough to boil her fangs, to make her move another step.

  “Put them on,” he said, inching closer. “It’s rather…”

  But then, like a bulldozer to a wedding, out shot thick-skulled Matthias. The captain, if she could call him that, burst open onto the platform, his pale expression dripping in regret.

  “If anyone wonders what a brothel, mixed with piss, smells like…” Matthias paused, “I wish my gloves didn’t have holes.” He added.

  He shook the wet material, the ooze that dripped off, enough for Lore to take the gloves, without any more questions. She slipped it on, the warmth still weaved inside, the fingers like she was holding someone’s hand— his hand.

  She looked away, her tail swirling.

  “Not a princess, remember.” She reminded herself.

  So she shook her horns, only to find the towering vampire right before her. Lips, fangs, his odour. Her breath caught, her posture wavering.

  “You might want to see this.” He said.

  He offered her a hand, a simple limb from his body, a gesture to pull her up, a touch that could bond skin.

  “I’m not a princess.” She said.

  Marshal cleared his throat, rather awkwardly, she might add, and pointed towards Sebastian’s ship. She couldn’t help but raise a brow at the little display. Was he always this aloof?

  “It’s this way,” Marshal announced.

  She half thought it was a command from the way he spoke. But as he started walking, she felt a little guilty for not humouring him. So she climbed up, rolling in some slime she pretended wasn’t in her shirt already. Iched her knee, which scraped against the plank, and then followed the Monarch.

  But she frowned as they wandered the ship; the man moved more like hovering than walking; his boots were always a short distance away, and he paced perfectly, matching her stride. She should run and see what he does, but honestly, it also puzzled her. How did he know when he was facing away from her? He couldn’t be counting her steps, right?

  She shrugged off the thought and brushed her gloves along the old metal. The ship that may be older than herself, stained in thick oiled paint. The walls were a glittery mess of colour, harsh lines, and idiotic scribbles.

  ‘If it breathes, we can sell it.’ One line said.

  She scoffed, “They were the scummiest of the scum.”

  Marshal grunted, his boots taking no care of the bones he crushed, the remains of old demon corpses like a carpet of calcified powder, the Eitherite fully eating away at flesh, and it only now started to chew through the metal.

  “Guess there was a reason they had painted so many layers,” Lore said.

  Marshal stopped at the intersection, the airlock busted open with what she could presume were fingers, the scuffed paint around the man’s knuckles telling her who had done such a brutish thing.

  “Paint or not”, the monarch said, “it was only a matter of time before this ship crumbled.”

  She peeked in, the cracked metal and smell hitting her first. Rot, rust, and large, pulsing, yellow crystals. She almost couldn’t believe so much Eitherite was in a single place. The mountain of limbs, cluttered in piles, the cut-up demons like a compost of rot.

  “They were farming it,” Lore whispered. “Growing crystals, from…”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  She felt her stomach turn, a sickness rising to her throat.

  “Eitherite sells well on the black market.” Marshal said, “Dust that eats metal flesh and anything it touches.”

  He raised his boot, the fine yellow layer, eating the rubber cell by cell.

  “Make sure you don’t get it on your skin.” He said. “Or we might need to cut off an arm or two.”

  Lore moved a step from the wall, her gloved hand starting the flake.

  “Noted,” she said, swallowing her lunch.

  And then she faced him, an eyebrow raised.

  “Is this what you wanted me to see?” she asked. “Not exactly a must-see experience. Or do you Monarchs, just get that bored in your towers?”

  “No”, the man replied. “It’s further along…” he paused a moment, scanning her up and down, “it’s— it’s last chance, you can turn back if you want.”

  Her tail curled up her shirt, “back? Why would I go back? You said I need to see this?”

  “Are you sure?” He said.

  She folded her arms and huffed. “Do you need to ask?”

  The broody Vampire sighed, wrinkles forming along his brow.

  “Follow me.” He said.

  And then again, they continued moving.

  Lower and lower they went.

  The darker and darker it became.

  Bodies seemed to get fresher, this far down. Dead eyes and a lifeless dungeon. She even spotted some that still breathed, but drooling all over themselves, she doubted much was left to call them living. Minds fried to husk, chains, leather and rope keeping them in place.

  The distance between Lore and Marshal got tighter. But was it she who sped up or he who slowed down? It didn’t matter as she knew what this was. It didn’t take a genius to infer the sticky walls and hollowed looks she got.

  “Burn… burn…” croaked a voice. “Burn… burn…” Again. Louder this time.

  But oddly, she felt like she had heard that voice before. Like every word that slipped out made her shiver. But they kept walking, Lore almost inside Marshal’s back as she wasn’t ready to see what lay beyond it.

  She needed to go back. She had to go—

  They stopped at a cell. It was different from the rest, cleaner, littered with furniture, wallpaper, and a bed. However, it wasn’t the condition that locked her in place.

  She saw him, a knight of wrath, a Minotaur old man. Tanner.

  Her skin crawled with fire, her breath sizzled her throat. Run. She had to run. But her feet were bolted, glued by those eyes. Her heart screamed at thousands of revolutions per minute. Her mind scorched as pistons hammered her skull.

  Then he noticed her.

  “Princess?” he whispered, a glow of light in those dark eyes.

  The man stood, greyed by the years, his uniform worn to the decades.

  “Princess, is that really you?” he said.

  She took a single step back, her breath a gunshot of air, her arms reaching for the most stable wall. Fingers scrunched around fabric, her hand pulling Marshal, her lips unable to open.

  “Lorelai?” Tanner said. “You remember me, right? I worked for your—“

  “NO!” Lore shouted. “NO!”

  She started to kneel, her body balling up, her mind flickering to forget to, push the memory away, fry her brain cells until she drooled.

  But Tanner only moved closer, his ghoulish body pressing the bars.

  “Lorelai!” he said, “let me out. let me out. LET ME OUT!”

  But before she could crumble any further, the Monarch took a step.

  “Princess,” Tanner cried, “you need—”

  Then, in a crack, Marshal yanked the old knight through bars. The metal warped as he pulled Tanner’s face against it.

  “That’s enough!” Marshal snarled, “Can’t you see what you’re doing to her? HUH?”

  The man’s fangs hissed in steam, a spark of surge oozing the room molten. Eitherite shards glowing in toxic yellow particles, their crystallising power reacting to his growl.

  However, what she really noticed was the semi-transparent copy of Marshal. Its eyes were wider than the real man’s, its voice a touch high-pitched. But she knew it was him. An oddly darker variation of him, just like Ego was to her. A Fragment.

  “Kill him!” the Fragment hissed, “pull until all his bones snap, taste his flesh as pops of his body.”

  But Marshal’s expression remained flat and controlled, the insistent Fragment howling for him to end the man. Licking his lips as he demanded blood.

  Then a pause, a quiet moment as the creature’s eyes met hers. And despite it all, she flinched and a smile stretched across its face.

  Her tail curled, her body retreating to the slimy wall.

  She didn’t know why it creeped her out, the Fragment wearing Marshal’s face like a puppet, like someone moving a corpse. But as it started to walk over, boots phased through steel, bone and all matter.

  Until—

  He whispered, slow, sweet, warm in her ear.

  “You can see me, can’t you?”

  His smile aimed right at her, Lore pretending not to notice. Or just remain so still, it might leave her alone.

  “He doesn’t exist,” Lore muttered, “he can’t exist, Fragments are—”

  “Imaginary?” the thing said.

  It was so close, so vivid, real and breathing on her face.

  “If you want to know,” it said, “we’re—”

  Then, Marshal sighed and dropped Tanner, the Fragment spinning in a blur.

  “Wait, not—”

  And the hot air around Marshal cooled, the creature fading like mist, the words cutting off. Then the face of the Monarch replaced her sight, the exact same face as that thing.

  “You ok?” he asked, an oddly concerned expression on his face.

  Lore stepped back, one, two, three. A gulp of air forced down her throat.

  “Urm, it’s… nothing,” she replied, “this all just brings back memories, is all.”

  In a shaky gesture, she pointed to all the loot in the cell. Tanner’s horde of stolen goods. It was a large chunk from her old home, vases and paintings that her father had once put up. But it was nothing compared to the gaze Marshal gave her. That Fragments whispers a ringing sensation, its breath crawling down her back.

  “Ego?” Lore muttered, hopeful.

  And then came a sigh, the form of a Lore copycat, dangling her legs off a crate,

  “If you’re going to take anything, I reckon this might be good.” Ego said, pointing to a long blade, a sword once owned by her father, “I heard it can cut Fragments.” The mirror copy glanced at Marshal, then at her. “If you catch my drift.”

  The Monarch frowned, “Is.. Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Lore said, reaching out.

  She was able to finger the blade between the bars. The pure white blade — Solelite glass. Super rare. Forged for a king. A dead one.

  As she gripped the hilt, twisting the sharpened end in the dim light, it flickered, forcing her to loosen her hold. The bite against her skin as if it had just tried to cut her.

  She knew who she would stab with this. Perhaps the blade knew, too. She would kill the wife of its owner. She would kill her mother. But just for a moment, her eyes flicked to the Monarch—if she could kill him too?