The void wrapped around her, spreading out in an endless expanse. The silence was deafening. The pressure, incomprehensible. The crushing weight of eternity pressing down on Sonya like a mountain. She held herself as steady as she could, floating in that place that seemed like the space in her own mind. She knew, though, that this place was not her territory. She heard her voice, echoing across the vastness of it all.
“Finally.”
Sonya spun and looked up, finally spotting the source of the accursed voice. Titania floated in the void with her, a majestic creature of ebon hair and porcelain skin. Those off-white vines wrapping around her body, her black and silver robes fluttering in an unseen wind. She looked down at Sonya with a smile and a flinty sparkle in her eyes. This wasn’t the Titania who went about her life as if she was acting out a play of the past. This was the architect of this place. Sonya could feel it in her bones.
“You,” Sonya hissed, “Finally show your real face.”
“It’s no different from the one you’ve seen already,” Titania murmured, drifting down towards her. She reached out and touched Sonya’s cheek, Sonya flinched away but she grabbed onto her chin, squeezing it hard, “Let me look at you. Yes,” she purred, “Good, finally squeezed out that last bit of hope, haven’t you? Grew some of your spine back.”
“I want to leave,” Sonya hissed, “I’m done here.”
“Are you?” Titania asked, “Fine, you may go. On one condition.”
“I thought you didn’t like making deals,” Sonya growled.
“You’ve associated the Arbiters with your cute little ability, what’s it called? Broker?” Titania asked with a small laugh, “Yes, I did dislike the Arbiters quite a bit. They were responsible for the worldpact after all, it stifled me,” she added with a hint of disgust. She squeezed down on Sonya’s chin painfully, “Are you going to hear my condition or shall we start over from the beginning?”
A chill went up Sonya’s spine, “What is this place?” she asked, deflecting a little, “You recreated the past somehow?”
Titania frowned, she clearly knew what Sonya was doing but she really didn’t seem to care. She smiled and looked up to the black sky above them, “This place is something I built into the inscription of my own ability. In the past I took the Oracle of Delphi and had her tell me what was to come of this world. Pandora locking mana away with her ability and a new pact with the world,” she scoffed, “Self-righteous brat.”
Sonya narrowed her eyes but said nothing as the woman continued, “The Oracle also told me that one day her box would open again, and my power would fall into the hands of someone worthy of using it. A body worthy of using it,” she added and looked Sonya in the eyes, “You have a fascinating mind, Sonya Chernovna. Even though you were caught in my little trap and brought into that place so that I could replace you, there was someone else already waiting to take over. It vexed me.”
Sonya’s eyes widened. A name. There was a name she was supposed to remember. She furrowed her brows and pulled away from Titania who laughed, “Having a hard time?”
“Carla, Chunhua, Amos, Barry, Lillian, Cass, Beyol, Kera…” Sonya trailed off part way through her recitation of those names she used to ground herself. She reached up and grabbed her head, “Someone’s missing. Who-” she looked up at Titania, “What did you do?”
“What I had to, in order to make room for myself,” Titania said and drifted towards her with a smile on her face. She floated around Sonya, “You’ve been trapped in here with me for three hundred years, though only a month or so has passed in the real world. Three hundred years to forget all about someone who,” she gestured around herself, “Hasn’t taken a step to help you.”
Sonya winced, Who? That name. I can’t remember the name.
“Why bother?” Titania asked, “It’s just a name. A fragment of your personality that decided to run amok with your body. They don’t care about you. They’re not concerned. They’re living your life while you suffer in this place.”
Sonya felt that tiny mote of hope in her chest flicker. “That’s… no that’s not right,” Sonya shook her head, “I… we- we’re sisters!”
“Not a very good sister!” Titania laughed, “Don’t you think someone like that would have at least tried? Wouldn’t you have felt their presence attempting to break into this place? You’re so connected!” she admonished, “It would go without saying that you should have felt it.”
Sonya scowled and grasped onto that warmth still in her chest, that fire beating in her heart that Set, Loki, and Pandora had rekindled. She shook her head, She needed to think. Who was it? What was that name? A name that was hers as well a name that she’d embraced and that somehow seemed to fill Titania with hatred. She clenched her eyes shut and forced herself to think while Titania moved around her like a ghost.
“She’s abandoned you,” Titania singsonged, “You’ll be trapped here forever if we don’t come to an agreement. Abandon her like she did you, cast her aside, push her away, let me fill her role and I will aid you with all of my knowledge of how mana and your abilities truly work. You haven’t even scratched the surface,” she whispered into Sonya’s ear. “I can educate you, put you so far ahead of the game you will be like a god among those people.”
Sonya’s gut churned and she opened her eyes to glare at the woman, “I’m not a-”
Titania waved her hand and an image of Otis appeared before her. His smug smile, his false regality, his cruel eyes. “Look at him, Pandora’s first pick as I understand it. She even imbued the abilities of those she cared most about in the past into him, she put all her hope on his shoulders and look where it got her. She destroyed the world twice, you were just a fallback. An afterthought. A second chance.”
Sonya’s eyes widened, her nostrils flared, she glared back at him as he smiled at her, brushing his hair back and looking away as if nothing in the world mattered to him.
“I can tell you how to kill him,” Titania whispered, “Just let me in. I see the clustered reworked mess of his inscriptions for what they are. I can tell you how they work, I can give you the tools to kill him without batting an eye. You’re already strong enough.”
Sonya was breathing hard, her chest heaving as she clenched her fists.The void around her turned into the burning remains of London. She was in her old gear again. She looked down at herself, her torn cargo pants, her worn shirt, her blunted knife. She could smell the smoke, hear the screams and clashes of heroes as they fought on the ground and in the sky. She watched a building topple and knew, she knew. A mountain of muscle with gray-white skin stormed out of the rubble with a figure gripped in his trashcan lid sized hand.
Majordomo! Chunhua!
Behind the man mountain, the golden-haired monster, Otis, stepped out with a smile on his face and a skip in his step. He said something that she couldn’t hear and waved his hand. Majordomo squeezed. Chunhua went limp.
NO!
She was in the void again, her chest pounding, her ears ringing, the smell of blood and ash clinging to her nose. She shuddered and reached up to clutch at her head. Not again. Not again. No more. I can’t do this anymore. It’s going to happen again. I can’t-
“Let me help you,” Titania purred into her ear, “Give me the reins, let me fix all this. My full power brought to bear on a world without a single Great One. ‘Heroes’ and ‘Villains’ playacting with powers that they did not forge for themselves, unable to stake a claim, none of them rising to the true challenge of breaking through to something more than mortality. I can push you through, I can make you mighty.”
“It’d be over,” Sonya whispered, her mind too addled to understand the implications of the woman’s words. Her thoughts caving in on themselves as she felt a hand around that last spark of hope, claiming it, squeezing it.
“That’s right, it’d be over. The fighting would end. I could bring the Heralds low with a brushstroke. I could subjugate the warring nations and there would finally be peace. You would sit atop it all, the queen you were meant to be. You cannot do it without me. You will fail, the world will remember you with hatred, your friends will die, unless…”
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Sonya felt nausea rise in her throat, “But-”
“You are hopeless!” Titania roared at her, growing large in her vision, looming over her. “Look at you! You can’t even handle a fragment of the weight of your actions! That person has been carrying the lions share for you! You’re pathetic! What possessed you to think you had any right to be the main character of this story? You? A half-baked scout who barely survived the flash? You can barely crack one of your little jokes now, let alone save the world!”
Sonya withered beneath the attack, her chest aching. “I want to keep going!” she shot back, “I want to keep fighting!”
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“You?” Titania laughed, “Not without someone carrying you the entire way,” she derided her, “You’re suicidal, pathetic, cowardly, repressed, and a jester of a woman. You were better served in my bed. Without me, you will amount to nothing out there. You’ve said it yourself, you don’t deserve to live. Not after everything you’ve done.”
If you’re going to live, live, and keep living, hold onto it as long as you can and deal with the aftermath afterwards
Sonya jolted.
“You get it now?” Titania asked, swirling around her like a mist, “Do you understand? You can’t have it all.”
If I- if anyone else could find a way to have their feast and eat it too, they most certainly would.
Sonya clenched her jaw and felt something hot stream down her cheeks. Titania laughed. “Tears of blood! How poignant! Come on, dear,” she whispered, “Enough playacting. I can make all this pain go away if you’d just let me. You don’t belong in that world anyway. Your world died, remember?”
Yeah, you belong here. So quit fucking around and save the world already, you dumbass.
Sonya reached up and clutched at her chest, a pained gasp rattling from her throat. She fell to her knees in that space, that endless void. “You will be alone in the end without me,” Titania hissed into her ears.
It’s just pain, it’ll pass… I am with you till the end.
“The world will scorn you. They will curse you. I can make them praise your name, worship you, grovel at your feet,” Titania insisted as she reached down for her.
I’m so, so proud of you,
Above Titania, the void stirred. The wicked fae paid it no mind, her eyes burning with desire as she loomed over Sonya, eager to claim a new life in a new body. Sonya felt that little bit of hope in her chest flicker again. What was that name? She wondered, Who are you? Why aren’t you here with me? Can I do this without you? You’re a part of me. I feel so…
The sky twisted and Sonya could see beyond it, threads binding the world together that were being peeled away and twisted, delicately shifted aside to create the smallest of holes. She looked up in wonder, it was beautiful in a terrifying way. She felt Titania’s cold fingers around her throat.
Silly girl.
The voice in her head shocked her out of her spiralling thoughts.
A villain doesn’t even consider an end they don’t get to see. They plan ahead. They stack the deck. They play the game and they get away with it. …. Until you’re ready, I will carry this weight … Be strong little sister … I am always with you … Stand on your own two feet, little villain … You aren’t a hero, stop pretending, revel in it, play, live! Keep fighting tooth and nail with that smile on your face. You know who you are. Accept it. All of it.
Sonya’s trembling lips stopped as she looked away from the tear in the sky to meet Titania’s gaze. The fae queen stared back at her expectantly, “It’s time to let go, Sonya.”
“You’re right,” Sonya said with a small smile that widened bit by bit as she felt a titanic weight crash onto her shoulders, a pain in her chest unlike anything she could have ever imagined crushing her heart in a vice, but she held firm. She held firm with all her might and kept that smile on her face as the pain turned into something else. A heart as black as coal, crumbling under heat and pressure and changing. Shining. Not with grief, not with self pity, not with that despondent hopelessness that plagued every night. “It is time to let it go, isn’t it?”
Titania looked confused, she tilted her head, “...yes? Have you finally lost your-”
“Ishtar,” Sonya said with an easy smile, one that reached her eyes, as the pain faded into the background, rebounding off the spirit of diamond that formed in her chest. The pain would always be with her, but it wasn’t something that had to crush her. No. She could use it, she could let it make her strong, temper her even further. Titania hissed and let her go, rearing a hand back to slap Sonya across the face. As her hand swung down the vines around her body tensed, her body stiffening. Her eyes went wide and she snarled at Sonya, struggling against her own vines.
Sonya blinked once and stared at the absurd pose the fae queen had been stuck in, “Well, Guess it is still technically my ability,” she said thoughtfully and wiped the bloody tears from her face. She chuckled, letting out a breath that felt like she’d just taken her first in ages. Like she’d been drowning. She looked up again at the sky where the fibers were pulling apart and reached out to them, she pushed out, letting her will cross the boundary and touched the hand that was reaching for her. She felt it react, relief washing back towards her. Her smile eased even more.
She looked back at Titania and saw the Great One floating in the void, bounded up like a marionette. She snorted, then laughed, “You- you look so funny,” she laughed and wiped the bloody tears from her face before raising her hands to mimic Titania’s embarrassing pose, “Rarrr!” she play-roared, “Wow, I hate you,” she said, the rage at her torment, the relief, and the weariness all making her feel a little funny.
She fell into a short fit of giggles as the bubbles in her chest fought their way out followed by a wave of exhausted relief. She felt like she’d been down with the flu for weeks and had just taken her first fresh breath. There was a giddiness there tempered by an acute weariness that covered her entire body. The good kind. The ‘I need a full nights sleep, now’ kind. She sighed, letting the mixed feeling of mirth, fury, and exhaustion pass through her as she sat down in that space, floating in front of the confused and infuriated Fae Queen.
“Titania, you’re right. Pretty much about everything,” Sonya said, “I’ve been… so scared,” she rubbed her neck, “Holy shit I’ve been scared,” she chortled wearily, “I hated myself. Living a hard life of a hero gives you a certain hard line perspective. I couldn’t get off my high horse, couldn’t let it go. I looked at the things I’d done and decided that I needed to die for it,” she shook her head, “I really don’t need to, do I?”
She looked at Titania and met her rage filled eyes. She smiled warmly which only seemed to anger the woman more. “My friends, the people around me, my big sister Ishtar,” she began and looked down at her trembling hands, “They have been screaming at me for so long to get it through my head. That I have just as much a right as anyone else to keep on living, to fight and claw and scrape my way into the future,” she snorted, “So caught up in my own fuckin’ head that I just… I didn’t hear them, you know? Everyone was telling me they had my back but I just…” she tapped herself on the side of the head, “Depression man, it's a bitch!”
Titania scowled, disgust wrinkling her features. Sonya smiled back at her unabashed. She let out a sigh through her nostrils and summoned her strength. Monologuing to this bitch felt way too satisfying, even if it meant pushing herself a little. She pat her knees and leaned into the feeling of giddiness, holding the exhaustion at bay for a little while longer, “I’m gonna have to live with what I’ve done, and what I’m going to do. But… I know why I’m doing what I’m doing. They do to. That’s good enough for me, it should have been before, it just…” she gestured to Titania, “Look at you. I get what this place is. A trap so you can keep on living after death. You’re dead, lady. Game over.”
“Not for long,” Titania growled.
“Uhuh,” Sonya picked at her ear and took another deep breath, savoring the moment. There was a lightness in her chest and in her head. Not a manic one, she knew what that felt like now. Not an ease of the pain from more madness but from acceptance. She exhaled hard and let out a hoarse laugh, “MAN! I fucking hate you so much,” she laughed and clenched her fists, “I almost hate you more than Otis, isn’t that crazy?” she shook her head, “It’s too bad I can’t torture you for hundreds of years or something. Oh wait.”
Titania gave her a deadpan look but Sonya kept going, looking back at the sky, “Phew. That feels good.”
I just need time to recover now, yeah. I’m going to be okay, even if it still hurts some days. I’m past the worst of it. Since this place’s sense of time is all screwy, might as well take advantage, she thought wryly.
She looked back at Titania, “I kinda feel bad for you. It was a good plan but I can’t help but wonder if the Oracle set you up. I happen to know an Oracle and they have a tricky way of sharing information,” she said with a wink.
Titania’s expression went dark, her eyes flitting around as the information settled in, “Yeah, yeah, you’re seeing it now, aren’tcha?” Sonya snarled at her, a grin on her face. She fell onto her back and lazily kicked against the air, shooting the woman the finger. She turned her attention away and looked up at Ishtar’s tear in the sky and smiled. “You’ve always got my back, don’t you? She thought with a warm smile. All of you out there have been so worried about me and what have I been doing?
“You know,” she said, “I think part of my problem was that I just kinda threw myself into it all in a frenzy, hoping for the best. I got distracted a lot, always on to the next scheme and sometimes leaving the others in the dust. It’s hard to manage a villain empire, didja know that?” she glanced at Titania, “Right, right, Court Queen. Man, I learned so much from this.”
She sighed, keeping up the taunting was getting a little tiring but she wasn’t done, she wanted rub it in as much as she could after all Titania had put her through, “I don’t talk a lot about my feelings,” she said after a pause.
“Then spare me,” Titania growled.
“Naaaah,” Sonya shot back with a sneer, “I never set ground rules for myself, just kinda went around willy nilly like I said,” she turned over, “That sucked. I didn’t give myself a chance to breathe and process what I’d done. Didn’t look at those things and remind myself of where I’m going,” she chuckled, “See the path, take it to the end, stand at the peak, and look back with pride,” she recited and raised her fist into the air. “I’m the bad guy, and I’m okay with it. I’ll have regrets, but I have people to share them with. I don’t have to do this all on my own.”
She lowered her hand and looked up at the sky one more time, rubbing her thumb into a shaking palm, “I just need a little more time, I’m almost ready, I’ll be better soon,” she said quietly, “Hang in there for me big sis,” she whispered with all the love in her heart as she reached for the sky. She pulled at the threads and gently tugged them away from the grip she knew was her other half. Give me a little more time, Ishtar. I need to figure out how to help you too, she thought as she twisted her hand, it felt so easy, like this place was hers now. She clenched her fist and the threads closed off.
“What just happened?” Titania demanded, “What have you done?”
Sonya pointed at herself, “Me? Oh,” she gestured to the vines, “It’s my ability, bitch, not yours, not anymore,” she said flatly, “I know I can’t get rid of you until I get rid of it, I’ll figure something out,” she mumbled and tapped her chin thoughtfully as the queens ire rose and rose. Sonya brightened and spread her arms out as an exciting idea struck her. “For now, we’re gonna hang out! It’s gonna be fun! I’ve got a loooot of trauma dumping to do and gotta finish getting my head clear, made a big breakthrough today though!” Sonya teased before brightening even more, “You know what’s better than solo therapy? Group therapy! I think I’ll invite some friends! You can join us! I’m sure they’ll love having you,” the last words came out cold.
The bleak black world began to fill with color as Titania struggled against the bonds of her own making, “This is my world! My trap! Mine! You won’t get away with this, you little brat!”
Sonya smirked at her and tapped her nose, “Actually, ‘getting away with it’ is exactly what I’m going to do from now on,” she teased as the sky turned blue.
