Chapter Text
She awoke in a dark place. She didn’t know why she was there or who she was. All she knew was sheer panic.
Earth filled her lungs.
She tried to dig. The endless soil embedded under her nails.
She clawed. She’d scream if her chest could expand, but it was crushed under the weight of the dirt surrounding her and wrapped tight by thick tendrils. Blood and mud filled her mouth.
Kronii sauntered around the corner of her girlfriends’ cottage in Fauna’s domain and stumbled upon Fauna. She was standing with her back turned to Kronii obviously absorbed in whatever she worked on at this new outdoor table.
Kronii visited this cottage on the rare occasion, the three usually preferring to meet up and spend time together at a larger house in the woods at the edge of an adorable town. That place was a place the three of them had picked out together when their relationship had moved to that point.
Admittedly, they had perhaps an unusual structure to their polyamorous relationship, but it worked well for them. Kronii didn’t feel excluded that her two girlfriends continued to live together in this cottage when she wasn’t around as they had done before dating her. Rather, she loved to see the adorable domestic bliss it brought her two lovers. It looked good on them.
Mumei and Fauna had their own relationship dynamic within their threesome, just as Kronii had her own dynamics with Fauna and with Mumei, along a different dynamic when the three were together. The three gods were more than well aware at this point that their triad was made up of four relationships, after all.
When apart, Kronii lived in her clocktower. Truly appreciative of the comfort of privacy and solitude that it offered even as she became almost entirely comfortable with the intimacy of romantic relationships. She’d become much more well balanced. No longer using her tower’s solitude as a means of punishment and depressive isolation from her peers, but rather seeing it as her happy place to recharge and focus on the other things in her life that were important to her.
“Hey man, how’s it growing- I mean how’s it going,” Kronii laughed at her own lame joke that she’d definitely used on Fauna before.
“I killed Mumei,” The words fell from Fauna’s mouth. Her reply could have almost been nonchalant, if it wasn’t so empty sounding. Kronii could not see Fauna’s weary look as she continued to toil with her back turned.
Kronii’s eyes widened and her bright smile dropped into an expression of horror, realizing there was no follow-up punchline.
When Fauna finally turned, her face was blank. As pristine and unreadable as the open sea as she looked at Kronii, hands never stopping what they were doing.
Kronii could smell it now. The scent of freshly churned earth no longer masked the tang of blood.
It soaked Fauna’s hands fresh red and splattered into a dry ruddy brown well up her bare forearms. Scraps of familiar but ruined feathers stuck to the front of her shoulderless blue dress, all mixed with tatters of pulverized meat.
On her table was what was left of Mumei’s corpse, though the vast majority appeared absent. A tome was open on a stand, kept safely above the carnage. Scattered on the long table were objects of various scientific and magical use. Fresh soil, crystals, a mechanical pipette with a box of disposable tips, some herbs, seeds, roots, whole potted plants, a few corpses of small animals, charcoal, a microscope, and a few empty gardening pots. The table also held various tests tubes, stoppered blood draw vials, and other glass containers filled with different liquids and floating pieces of Mumei, organized and labeled in Fauna’s flowing script. A mass of flesh was placed at the center of it all.
It was horrible crossbreed between a butcher’s shop and a magical laboratory.
Somewhere, Kronii knew this couldn’t be the first time Fauna had killed Mumei by the depths of precisely carried out horrors happening here.
Kronii summoned her blades with a blinding flash of light. She knew no murder between them was permanent, it was only when the thing they ruled over ceased to be that they would be erased from existence. That didn’t mean Mumei being murdered, being abused, by Fauna was a crime she could leave unpunished.
She wriggled her head. She’d managed loosen some of the dirt around her enough so she could spit the bloody mud from her mouth. Still hadn’t found any air to breathe though, so was very quickly getting harder to think and move.
She remembered that she hated when she died.
This was a surprising thing to remember. She thought it wasn’t normally a thing that people could ever remember. She had some notion that death wasn’t something most people had the opportunity to experience often enough that they’d learn to hate it. She thought it was more a thing that people feared right up until it happened.
Something about remembering that eased her existential terror at being thrust into life. Maybe it was remembering anything at all that helped.
Though, thoughts of life did little to relieve her of the claustrophobic panic that was only getting worse as she continued to suffocate to death, crushed by the earth and tendrils around her.
Fauna ignored the appearance of Kronii’s blades and turned back to her table.
“Fauna…” Kronii warned. Somewhere in the hidden soft part of her heart Kronii didn’t want to hurt someone she had thought was their family. But her hurting Mumei, the one person they were both supposed to cherish and love together until the end of all things, was not something she could turn from. She locked the warmth that screamed at her about loving Fauna too. That tie had to be viciously severed in the face of the unforgivable. No mercy for betrayers or abusers.
Kronii was handicapped in a fight against Fauna. Her innate ability to time stop nearly unable to directly affect the other concepts, as time did not affect them the same way it did mortals. She could do it, but not without risking too much, as it required too much loosening of the chains she kept on Time. Time would be more powerful, but the effects would be universally devastating if she gave Time even a hair’s breadth too much freedom.
Kronii was confident in her ability to beat the woman without the extra power from Time though. Fauna never sparred with her, too nervous to join in when Kronii was training, but Kronii knew how she fought with magic and vines. She was usually a healer in their group battles. Providing a well defended area for the girls to fall back into while she healed them to strength again.
Kronii’s strategy here was her usual technique used to accelerate up her own time and enchance her physical speed. Similarly to a time stop, rewinding could work if she was careful, but it could destabilize the event further and further, until she was forced to either canonize it or risk unraveling this timeline. Trial and error had shown directly meddling with rewinding time lines in that manner rarely brought about good results. Time was cruel that way. So all the Kroniis across all the timelines had agreed rewinding using this was a nuclear option reserved for bad ends that threatened the safety of other timelines only.
In combat Kronii’s mild future foresight helped, up until the future changed. However, merely observing it closely enough nearly always changed it. It was better used for to see only fractional seconds ahead, allowing her to react impossibly fast to attacks before they finished happening. It was useless to try to see the events of the whole battle, as tempting as peaking at the results was.
Though Kronii was completely confident that she’d win, she still had to be careful. The thing that was so often forgotten about Fauna was that she wasn’t simply the lady of all plants and animals. She was every creature’s tenacity to cling to life against everything, including the inevitability of time. She was the force behind every wave, the power of every earthquake, fury of every storm. Nature was life itself, just as it was death. Each side an impossibility without the other. Fauna was never considered to be the strongest member of the Council when they theorized their rankings based on raw power, but any Council member would still be an unfathomably dangerous foe on the battlefield.
Kronii stopped time in the area of their soon to be arena. A bell tower tolled in her head followed by the slowing and grinding halt of a mechanical ticking rhythm.
It would at least keep any living creatures coming on instinct to protect their keeper from distracting her in battle, making this solely a fight of their own skill, magic, and strength.
She saved her power and kept the bubble small. She assumed their fight would not move far. And it seemed likely if she had stopped time any area larger than she had it may have summoned the rest of the Council, who might sense the unusual surge of Kronii’s time magic that she so rarely used. Though there was a slim chance Bae’s or even Irys’s arrival could be a positive thing, in her fury Kronii doubted either would allow her to carry out the immediate justice she required for this monstrosity that had tricked her and Mumei into love. Worse, Kronii knew Sana would instantly warp to where they were before Bae and Irys had a chance to get there. Sana would blitz her into the 2nd dimension without stopping to ask why, acting in defense of Fauna without the need of a single question. If Fauna commanded one thing outside of her role as Keeper of Nature, it was the loyalty of her friends.
A loyalty and trust that she’d betrayed with her abuse of Mumei.
A loyalty that Kronii herself was struggling with at the moment. She loved Fauna so much, even now, heartbroken and furious. She had tried so hard to learn how to love at all. Had only started to drop her walls well after Mumei and Fauna had forced their way into her closed off heart.
She had to stop this madness. Had to protect Mumei.
“Have to stop this from ever happening to Mumei again," Kronii thought as she turned her soul into cold steel. Colder and sharper than the legendary swords in her palms.
Her time stop got Fauna’s attention, as up until this point she’d stayed focused on her work even upon hearing Kronii call her blades forth.
Even so, Fauna still did not stop moving her hands as she told Kronii, “Drop your bubble, Kronii.”
“You killed her,” Kronii snarled. She loosened her hold on the bandage wrapped handles of her summoned blades, readying them to spin and slice on her command.
“You have to drop the time bubble Kronii,” Fauna said again, turning for a moment to glance at Kronii. It was so sincere of a request compared to her emptiness of her earlier words it almost made Kronii falter and do as her once girlfriend asked, but she couldn’t trust her. She was too cleverly manipulative.
Kronii stepped forward, body vibrating with confined speed that bled off into the atmosphere as heat waves that rippled the still molecules in the atmosphere around her. She pointed her longer blade at Fauna’s throat. Fauna looked infinitely more exhausted than Kronii had initially noticed from where she had stood before, but that only raised more questions. Questions Kronii needed already answered minutes ago.
“I can explain everything to you in a few hours. You have to trust me that she wants this,” Fauna said as she carefully swirled a round bottomed flask, the liquid inside losing its dark orange color and turning clear as she mixed it. Her eyes remained trained on the fluid, calculating something unknowable, “I don’t have time for you, please. I need focus and to finish the experiments so it doesn’t all go to waste.”
“Make. Time. Now,” Kronii hissed each word through gritted teeth and then side stepped to flick her blade towards Fauna’s table. Fauna’s claim that Mumei wanted this done to her infuriated her beyond belief. Nobody would want this for themselves. The pit of Kronii’s stomach only grew colder and colder as she stared down the bitch who had never even bothered to pause what she was doing.
The swipe of her blade happened before Fauna could stop her. Shattered glass and chemicals and blood hung suspended in air. Frozen in time.
Fauna snapped.
Fauna struck out towards Kronii with a palm. Hand crackling with concentrated pale blue lighting, burning with an unbridled and wild fury. Electricity chased Kronii’s side step, each nearing the speed of light, erratic streaks of electricity grazed through Kronii’s navy hair and kissed her cheek.
Kronii saw the future trajectory of Fauna’s hand, how easily the sharp swing would miss her if she moved behind Fauna. She countered Fauna’s strike by doing just that, stepping behind her with an impossible speed.
Kronii was forced to slow herself when she swung her blade so she would not obliterate her own body and a good chunk of the planet by striking near the speed of light at her full power. She did so now, aiming for a soft part of Fauna’s neck. The exact spot her lips had been pressed to not a week ago.
Her silver sword swung true, but Kronii had miscalculated. She had tried to attack too soon, had stayed too close. She hadn’t been able to look far enough ahead. Had relied solely on the crutch of her future vision instead of her own calculations.
The slap had been a misdirect. The threat of lightning on her palm used to hide the real damage which followed it.
Thunder ripped out from the trail of Fauna’s hand, rupturing Kronii’s eardrums and sending her off balance for the smallest fraction of a second. She forced her body’s time through the months long healing process in an instant.
That instant was all the opportunity Fauna needed, turning and catching Kronii’s blade in her hand when Kronii faltered.
The air around Kronii ionized with the distinct smell of ozone and a thick column of lightning dropped from the sky, drawn directly to her blade by Fauna’s silent command. The thundering light engulfed both of them.
For an instant, as the electricity traveled through her nervous system Kronii could have sworn through the blinding white of her fellow goddess’s thunderous wrath she could see the light of her feral golden eyes. They burned her with a hatred beyond anything she’d ever witnessed in the woman.
Then Kronii’s heart stopped as her muscles seized. All thoughts interrupted by electrical current.
She’d stupidly allowed herself to underestimate the women. Lulled, as many were, by Fauna's choice of pacifism in daily life as a weakness in battle. And most of all, she’d forgotten they were fighting in Fauna’s terrain.
The earth opened and swallowed Kronii whole.
The shattering of her bones, the squelch of blood squeezed from her organs, and the pitiful slowing sound of a clock winding down to a stop. It could not be heard by Fauna through the dirt, but she still felt it as if she’d crushed her lover with her own bare hands.
Time started again, punctuated by glass and fluids being flung through the air.
Fauna might have messed up counting in her head. She was almost positive it was 40 seconds since the initial time stop, but Kronii attacking had thrown her off. She didn’t know how stopping time would affect the experiments she’d been in the middle of running.
"Is her body susceptible to Kronii’s power? That might be something to try,” she considered, mind automatically snapping to focus on the task.
The samples she had would be inert in a few hours. She had to keep working. Harder now that Kronii had destroyed so much, but she couldn’t stop now. She had to pivot quickly. Everything counted.
She couldn’t think about Kronii. Couldn’t mourn. Couldn’t regret. Couldn’t anything except work.
Mumei would be back soon.
She felt tendrils around her tighten and heave her upwards as the earth rolled away from her.
Freedom.
Her face touched cool air and she gasped it in for the first time in her life. An image of a pink thing flashed in her mind. A newborn, she knew. She did not wail like they did.
She emerged on her hands and knees from the earth. She was under the roots of an impossibly huge tree that she hardly noticed in the moment, because there was a beautiful woman standing front of her.
She threw up a foul bile at the woman’s perfect bare feet. She spat a few times, trying to clear the burn and taste from her mouth and throat.
The most elegant and beautiful woman she’d ever seen, though she considered the possibility that was perhaps because this was her first time ever seeing a woman at all, squatted down in the dirt next to her and her vomit. The woman held her long hair back for her as she heaved and then threw up again. A wet clot of something dark and globby came out, and she felt a bit better.
“How’s your memory this time?” The woman she loved asked her in a soothing whisper.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to draw on something. The threads of her brain were so squirmy, but one found its way into her mouth as she said, “I’m Mumei.”
“That’s good,” the woman seemed pleased underneath her evenly whispered tone, “Keep going.”
“I know that I love you,” She-Who-Was-Apparently-Mumei, though she didn’t understand the implications of what being Mumei actually meant yet, paused, “Hope that you know that too and I didn’t out myself to you,” The woman’s name came to her easily, “Fauna.” That name had been a puzzle piece that was missing up until she looked away from the puzzle. Suddenly fitted into place like it had never been gone. Maybe trying to remember made things harder to remember. Like catching an eel without looking. "Weird."
Fauna laughed, relieved. Mumei’s personality had never really changed too much between resurrections but every time the reassurance that was the case was nice, “I have good news there. We are dating.”
“That’s good,” Mumei nodded, “Ummm… Can’t remember how I died, but I don’t think it’s the first time. Not sure what I picked to come back as either, whatever the heck that means.”
“You get some freedom of choice on your resurrected appearance and form like the rest of us, but none of us really remember how that process goes so don’t feel too bad about it. This time around it looks like you picked a bird of some sort,” Fauna touched her lightly on one of the two fleshy bits that were protruding near Mumei’s shoulder blades on her back.
Fauna silently figured she was an owl. Mumei rarely picked anything other than some variety of owl, even sticking to repeating the same species of owl more recently. Prior to that she was occasionally other birds of prey, sometimes a canine, once during humanity’s most active arctic expedition phase she picked a polar bear, and of course a few other animals that had perked her interest during one of her lives.
Fauna personally always found herself a kirin when she woke up. She wished she would pick cat for herself just once. Kronii had gotten to once and had walked around with soft blue cat ears and a twitchy tail that gave away her emotions so easily. She missed that era.
Fauna felt like joining in on Mumei’s sick suddenly remembering what had happened between Kronii and her a few hours ago, but held it in.
Mumei experimentally flexed her little bony flesh flaps and they wiggled against Fauna’s fingers. Fauna giggled as she tickled them, distracting her momentarily from the dark future she knew awaited herself. Already, Fauna could see the little bumps on the fresh pink skin where Mumei’s baby down would burst through later today.
“Why are they small?” Mumei asked curiously as she twisted to try and get a better look at them for herself, “I feel like I’m an adult bird.”
“Adult human,” Fauna corrected her. She had screwed up and hadn’t been specific enough when she had explained their resurrection process. These confusions were why she usually tried to wait until Mumei naturally remembered things, but circumstances this time around meant needing to move things along faster.
Fauna continued her correction, “Well… sort of human. With bird-like features. And there is some other stuff too. We don’t need to get into the details yet. Most humans don’t have wings, so these usually take you a little extra time to grow them which is why they are little. It will be maybe a week or so until they’re full size. In the mean time it will feel pretty itchy.”
“And painful,” Fauna added silently to herself before she asked aloud, “How do you feel?”
Mumei sat up and turned to face Fauna with crossed legs, now that she didn’t feel at risk of vomiting again.
Mumei looked like utter hell. Her long hair was matted. Every part of her was smeared in some amount of dirt, blood, and amniotic fluids. Even under better circumstances, Mumei always came back in a way that more closely resembled childbirth than a holy resurrection. A reflection of her origin from mankind perhaps.
“I felt sick earlier, but I think I feel fine right now,” Mumei said and then considered her situation, “Or I could be in horrible pain and I just don’t know it.”
“True, I suppose,” Fauna giggled, safely doubting that was the case here, “Do you want to come get cleaned up while you try to remember more? You will get cold being naked pretty soon.”
“That’d be nice. Where’s Kronii? She’s my other girlfriend right? Wait. No,” Mumei thought for a second and then asked, “Our girlfriend?”
Fauna flinched.
“Oh sorry. Did I get it wrong?” Mumei shrunk. She found she didn’t like whatever expression was on Fauna’s face.
“No. Sorry, you are right. Um. We three are dating,” Fauna hesitated, “I will explain more as you remember more. It’s better that way. I do not like to mess up your understanding of the world with my personal perspective or a bad explanation or something.”
“Is Kronii going to be at home?”
Fauna swallowed everything. A mask of strength plastered onto her face when she replied gently, “Kronii is going to be resurrected in a few days like what you just went through.”
“Dang. It sucks,” Mumei spat a few more times to clear the last bits of dirt from her mouth.
“She doesn’t come out of the ground like you did,” Fauna offered up.
“Did you kill her too?” Mumei asked as Fauna helped her to her wobbly feet, no malice or resentment in her voice.
Fauna tries to avoid the pain the question causes her by asking Mumei, “You remember that I killed you?”
“Only little bits. Enough to make a good guess,” Mumei admitted before adding, “I remember that I’m sorry it makes you sad.”
“That’s a sweet thing to remember Mumei. Thank you,” Fauna says a little distantly, and then decides to be honest with Mumei about what happened. She’d have to tell her eventually, and it was better now than trying to cover it up and then backtrack, “And yes. I killed Kronii too. For a different reason though. She’s going to less than happy about it when she gets back. I assume she’s going to break up with me for all this even if I get a chance to explain this time around,” Fauna’s shoulders sagged as she lead Mumei through the wilds back to their cottage. “And really that’s assuming she doesn’t rewind the entire timeline so none of this happens and assassinate me first,” Fauna thought to herself, “It’s probably what I would do.”
“Explain what? Do we kill each other all the time? Is she going to kill you back?”
Fauna chose to avoid the first question for the moment. That would take a lot to catch Mumei up on everything, and it was always better when Mumei remembered the more complicated things on her own. It stuck better.
“Um. No, not often. Not normal and not supposed to either. I’m sure Kronii will kill me as soon as she wakes up though…” Fauna sighed, “At least that’s a fixable problem for myself. Breakups… less so, ya know?”
Mumei didn’t miss the clue that Fauna’s answer meant that apparently Fauna killing her was not something that was supposed to happen, she just didn’t really find it in herself to care. She stepped onto a fallen log and stood on the higher vantage point as she told Fauna with a grin, “Well, I still don’t really get what we need to explain, but I’m sure things will be fine. You kill me and I still like you! Anyways, I’ll kill Kronii for you if she breaks up with you over it.”
“Mumei,” Fauna winced, “Please don’t try to kill Kronii.”
“Fine. Then I’ll kill myself,” Mumei smiled sweetly and jumped back down to the soft soil, “Sounds like she’d hate that.”
Mumei hadn’t even remembered they were concepts yet and was already back to, hopefully jokingly, threatening Kronii in utterly psychotic ways only Mumei was capable of. Fauna shook her head in halfhearted admonishment, “Please do not do that either.”
The hike from the base of the world tree to their home is longer than Fauna would have liked, but Mumei handled it well. Newly grown muscles already strong and steady after only a few steps into the world.
Their cottage came into view through the trees. It was settled in a small clearing with a garden and gardening shed, a shaded pagoda with a table for tea, and a small pond. They pass by the work bench behind the cottage that Fauna had left in disarray in her rush to rescue Mumei from the underground. The gore doesn’t particularly phase Mumei, which was frankly more normal for her than if she had freaked out. However, she does ask about it through a cocked head and squinted expression.
Fauna tried to avoid addressing it too much, “Ah. I didn’t have much time to clean up before I had to dig you out.” She hadn’t even washed her hands of the dried viscera.
“Is this a normal thing for you?”
“Normal? Kinda, but also not. It is not my hobby or anything sick like that,” Fauna danced around the issue with a vague joke. She couldn’t bring herself to fake a smile or even give a nervous giggle.
“What is it?”
“Um. An experiment,” Fauna chose to settle on vagueness again, eyes flicking away from Mumei. The twisting in her stomach was becoming harder to ignore with every question.
“And here I thought you were vegan. Shouldn’t you be against animal testing?” Mumei teased, unaware of Fauna’s expression as she looked at the mess on the table. She was too focused on being proud she had remembered that particular detail about Fauna. It was a very important thing to remember, not to go catching her girlfriend a nice juicy vole or rabbit she couldn’t eat.
“It’s not the same,” Fauna tried to stay composed.
“I feel like it probably still counts,” Mumei argued cheekily, not really trying to hold Fauna morally accountable for anything.
It was impossible for Fauna to take all this as lightly as Mumei always tried to make it, her words heavy as she replied more to herself than Mumei, “It’s at least semi-ethical because the subject was informed, agreed to it, and no lasting harm to the subject was done.”
Mumei was silent as she investigated the bloodied feathers that lay strewn in the area as Fauna defended her experiment. It sounded like her line of teasing had bothered Fauna, which wasn’t what she wanted to do. She picked one out that was mostly intact and flicked a string of meat clear from it. She didn’t notice Fauna look away as she told her, “Sorry. I was being annoying. That makes sense.” She twiddled the feather in her fingers, inspecting it. Familiar looking. She had her obvious suspicions even if the feather hadn’t struck her as particularly familiar. Even without memories she wasn’t stupid.
“We kept your two trophy feathers, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
When Mumei had long hair she usually kept it tied up in a pony tail with two feathers. Mumei was always quick to point out they were only her’s because she had earned them when anyone questioned her about them.
“Oh, no. I was just thinking. I still forgot what bird I picked for this time around,” Mumei said absently as she tucked the freshly smoothed out tawny feather behind her ear.
“Sometimes you don’t remember, but we can figure it out when your feathers come in.”
“Or when you remember you can shift into your animal form,” Fauna thought but kept to herself. She’d told Mumei about her form shifting ability early once, because seeing Mumei hopping around and learning to fly (partly by falling out of trees) as a baby owl was one of the cutest possible things in the whole universe. Unfortunately, Mumei had suffered from severe body dysmorphia and distress in the following weeks as she couldn’t remember how to make herself into her owl form. Another reason they’d agreed it was better to let Mumei naturally remember everything she could when possible.
They walk on a little pathway of inlaid stones alongside their well-sized cottage. The home’s appearance was clearly lovingly designed down to the inch. The outside walls were a pale off-white that had the occasional exposed wood beam running up it. Mumei had also painted their wooden shutters recently so they looked fresh and lovely. The thatched roof still had at least a few seasons on it before they needed to get up there and maintain it. Their chimneys were cold and smokeless, since Fauna had been busy working on her experiment outside, nonstop day and night.
The front door was unlocked. The women who lived there found no point in it most of the time since they could just lock the domain from outsiders. When they did leave it unlocked the stray mortals with bad intentions wouldn’t be stopped by a simple door lock if they had already committed to finding the two, and their friends usually knocked first.
There was one incident when two of their friends had walked in on Fauna and Mumei in an extremely compromising situation in the kitchen. Sitting on the counter, Mumei was far beyond any state to notice the approach of Bae and Irys, and Fauna’s ears were too tightly covered by thighs. Fauna couldn’t make eye contact with either of the two for nearly a week. Mumei couldn’t make eye contact with Bae and Irys for nearly two months.
Thankfully, lessons had been learned and they started being better about locking their domain when things were getting frisky. Then after the two had started dating Kronii they were extra vigilant and kept their domain locked basically at all times to everyone but the three of them, unless they were specifically expecting guests. The three all agreed this was a necessary precaution because Kronii knew she would have certainly caused some nontrivial injuries to any surprise guests had she been part of a similarly vulnerable situation.
Unfortunately, despite all their preparations, because they now kept their domain always locked they had overlooked the need to change the lock to actively exclude Kronii during the experiment. This mistake was what had allowed Kronii to see what she shouldn’t have.
Mumei wiped her dirty feet on the pretty sunflower image printed on their rough doormat as best she could, but still ended up tracking little crumbs of dried mud through the house while making a beeline for the shower. She remembered where the bathroom was as soon as she set foot in the familiar feeling home and was more than ready to clean up. The crust and strange stinking body fluids on her skin were becoming increasingly unpleasant the longer she was alive.
Fauna didn’t offer her help, feeling as though Mumei would have asked if she wanted it.
Instead, Fauna opened the living room wood stove up and started to build a fire. She thought Mumei would want it when she was done with her shower. Her long hair stayed wet for a long time. The house wasn’t exactly chilly but she knew Mumei would still enjoy standing by its radiative warmth while she dried off. She wanted to make her comfortable in every way she could think of.
“Penance,” Fauna thought, “Selfish and pathetic penance.”
Fauna realized her hands were still covered in dried blood. She opened the latch of the stove door with a summoned vine that slithered in through a partially open window.
She crumpled some old papers, and built a little nest around it with small twigs from a box. She carefully laid some larger sticks of kindling on top.
She could easily light a log with her magic, she could torch full forests with a wave of her hand if she cared to, but she struck the last match in the box instead. She preferred to light and watch the fire grow naturally instead of cheating the process.
Fauna fed the old match box and more sticks into the licking flames and when the fire had established, she carefully placed two logs in before having her vine close the door and adjust the air flow vent. Once satisfied with the steady orange flicker that she watched through the glass she thanked the mindless vine and released it back to its natural state.
The black iron stove would slowly warm up. She’d probably need to add another log sooner rather than later since the first two she’d fit in there were on the small side. In the mean time, Fauna moved to the kitchen and turned their sink on the hottest it would go.
She scrubbed. Pale reddish-pink water slid down the drain off of her hands.
“Mumei.”
Fauna threw up in the sink. She couldn’t help it. Left alone with her memories. All she could see was days of Mumei’s blood. All she could feel was her love’s viscera.
Her vomit was a burning clear liquid that only consisted of stomach acid and the foul leftovers of old potions. She hadn’t eaten since before she had killed Mumei three days ago, and had barely eaten for days before that. She only drank her pre-prepared elixirs during the three days as needed to keep herself going.
The mess rinsed from the sink as she coughed and retched.
She straightened and began to scrub again. She scrubbed well past when all the water ran clear from her skin and the only thing she should be able to smell was the sweet lilac of their hand soap.
But for Fauna, iron still stung her nose. Blood still filled the sink. Still stained her skin.
Her hands were still deep inside Mumei’s soft guts.
She scrubbed until her skin was raw and burned from heat of the steaming water.
Still she scraped.
She had to keep cleaning. She wouldn’t be clean enough. Not for a long time.
Maybe not ever.