Ch 43 – The mirror is shattered, and nothing is as it was before.

The large figure stared down at me. I stood utterly frozen as I awaited my demise. Attacking an arbiter was an assured way to die. They didn’t always look particularly intimidating or powerful, but all of them had the magic of death running through their veins. With barely a look or a touch, one could send you to Mir.

I managed a gulp.

“Forgive us, arbiter.” Lilis stepped forward, giving the figure a bow. Her arm crossed below her chest, the lantern dangling beneath her. “We meant you neither offense or harm. We falsely assumed you to be an enemy here to attack us.”

Despite how calm her words were, the girl shook in her boots. It was clear that she was just as nervous as I.

“You should not be here,” the arbiter repeated, releasing my sword. Their words were so rough that they grated on my ears. The large figure barely moved as their arm lowered, but it was enough for the bells hanging from their tattered robe and coffin-like box to chime.

Lilis and I shared a look. Did they still intend to kill us? Were we safe?

“You are quite right, I’m sure,” my roommate continued carefully. “I hope we have not intruded upon your domain too egregiously. You see, we were sent down here to find a certain flower known as the argentum vicus, though we have little idea on where to look for it specifically.”

The arbiter took in and released a cold, rattling breath, as though it were the first they’d had in centuries. It didn’t sound like a sigh to my ears, but more like a deep breath of thoughtfulness, into whatever the being had that passed for lungs.

“Come,” they said after a long pause. More chimes echoed around us as they gestured.

With another glance at each other, Lilis and I tentatively followed behind the arbiter. Though it wasn’t as though we truly had a choice. They reached a small stairway, one which had partially fallen apart with time. The arbiter reached forward and touched it, causing the missing parts of the stair to form out of a peculiar ephemeral white light. It appeared to glow, yet gave off no light to its surroundings. I’d seen and made magical constructs before, but never one like this. My eyes seemed to tell me that it was both there and not at the same time, as odd as it was.

Lilis and I both hesitated as we stepped up onto them, worried whether they would actually hold our weight, despite the arbiter going up without pause. Were they leading up out of the catacombs? I could only assume so, considering that we were ascending. I’d hoped for a moment that they would have helped us, but I supposed that I was not so lucky. At least they were being kind enough to lead us.

“There are dangers that lurk here,” the arbiter said, as though reading my mind.

They weren’t looking my way, though I nodded all the same. I held a strange certainty that I was within their gaze. I didn’t dare speak still, too terrified that I might say the wrong thing and cause further offense. Despite the seeming kindness that the arbiter had given to me in our first and now second meeting, I couldn’t be sure that it came out of a sense of benevolence.

The arbiters were strange beings, and would as quickly bestow you with death as they would lend a helping hand. They lived by their own strange code, as dictated by Mir.

I could assume they were implying that whatever was hunting us was something we wouldn’t have been able to handle. Which could have been true, in fairness. Though I also wondered if perhaps the arbiter simply didn’t know what we were capable of.

Regardless, whatever the creature was, it had clearly fled the moment the arbiter revealed themselves. It was understandably scared of them.

We trod down a long hall full of old coffins for what felt like ages. At times, the arbiter had to duck to avoid bumping their head along the low ceiling, while other sections were two or three times their height. Eventually, we approached another crack where the fissure had once again split a hole into the ancient catacombs. An eerie blue glow shone out of it, though I couldn’t see its source. The arbiter paused before, their chimes ringing as they turned toward us.

“This is where we part,” they spoke, with a vague gesture toward the hole.

Once again, I met Lilis’s gaze. Had the arbiter not been taking us up and out after all?

“Once you are done, you can find an exit far down to the left,” the arbiter continued, the sound of bells chiming as they gestured toward the way out. “Do not linger.”

“Thank you, arbiter.” Lilis bowed once again, and I followed suit. “We are in your debt.”

The arbiter nodded, their pale eyes hovering momentarily on me before turning to lumber down the crumbling catacomb.

With a deep breath of air, I stepped through the hole first, sword out in case of danger. While the arbiter hadn’t hinted at there being any, that didn’t mean it was safe.

I was met with a massive cavern filled with vegetation. Much of it was fungi, including what had to be hundreds of species of mushrooms. Several of them came as high as my knees, and a few of the smaller ones cast a light blue glow across the cavern.

I blinked in wonder, stepping fully inside. Lilis came in behind me, lifting her lantern to further light the wide cave. Along the walls were numerous vines, an eerie red instead of the regular green. And near the center of the cavern sat a large pool of water, as still and sleek as glass. Light patches of mist hovered above it, colored blue by the glowing mushrooms. In the middle of the pool was what looked to be a tree, though it was a strange one. Its trunk was split into multiple parts that curved up around itself like thick, bark-covered vines. Numerous branches split off, holding leaves that started off bright red and shifted to a dark blue the larger they became. The largest were the size of my head, horns included.

At the bottom of the tree, just above the water, were several flowers sprouting off from the wild and knotted roots. They were as delicate and sheer as glass, sparkling from the light of the lantern and mushrooms as though they were crystalline. These were undoubtedly the strange flowers we were here to gather. The argentum vicus, as the healer called them.

When I turned to Lilis, she had a scowl on her face.

“Seeing it now, I’m remembering a little more of what I read about these,” she said. “We’ll have to wade slowly through the water to reach them. Unfortunately, the flowers may be just as delicate as they look. And there's something else about them that I’m forgetting.” She tapped her arm in frustration. “If I could just remember what it was.”

I hummed. “I’ll trust you with gathering them, then.” It wouldn’t do for me to get this far only to ruin them somehow.

Lilis sighed. “Alright then. Let’s go slowly and be careful not to splash them much.”

Given that some appeared to be right above the water's surface, that could prove to be difficult. Lilis took the first step into the pool, only a small ripple traveling out from her boot. As she made it several feet in, she paused and reached out a hand for me. I grabbed it, and took a tentative step, following her example.

The water immediately soaked through my boots, warmer than I expected, but still cool to the touch. I let her lead the way as we moved gradually deeper, my hand gripped tightly within her own. The light mist above the water grew denser, and somehow, the tree seemed to grow further and further away.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Lilis’s hand somehow slipped from my own, and I reached forward.

I found nothing but air. Rubbing my eyes once again, I saw nothing but the thick mist that now fully surrounded me. Off to the side, I caught what looked like her figure fading completely from view. It was only then that I realized that my sword had disappeared as well. Even the tree was no longer visible. Instead, all around me was nothing but a cloud of gray with flickers and swirls of light blue fog.

I cursed under my breath.

Trudging forward, hopefully toward Lilis, I gave up on fretting over destroying the flowers. Something was quite clearly wrong here. I half expected the strange feeling from the creature that had been stalking us to come back, yet it didn’t. Rather the mist swirled in front of me until a new figure appeared.

Her skin was red, with two horns that stuck up from her forehead and a long thick tail poking out from behind her, much like my own. It took me a moment to realize that she didn’t simply look like another succubus in the academy uniform.

She was... me?

But unlike me, she held a wide grin on her face, like the cat who’d caught the mouse. I scowled at the impostor, wishing I had that sword still in hand.

“Impostor, is it?” she said in a high-pitched and snarky voice. Was that really what I sounded like? “Is that how you’re choosing to see me? As just an impostor with your face?”

She circled around me. With narrowed eyes, I prepared to defend myself, hoping that she couldn’t copy my martial ability as easily as she’d copied my body.

“Then what are you, if not some creature copying my form?” I countered.

“I am you.” She smiled, a mischievous glint in her red eyes and tail swaying behind her.

“You are clearly not.”

“A reflection,” she continued. “Or perhaps an inner part of you brought forth and given form? Who can say?”

I huffed. “Shouldn’t you know?”

My supposed reflection shrugged. “Perhaps. Though one thing I do know plenty about is you, Ruby.” She leaned forward, and I took a step back.

Something about the way she said my name made me bristle. There was an implication there, though I couldn’t decide what. I was certain that I didn’t like it.

“You know nothing about me.”

“Au contraire, little succubus. I know all there is to know about you, because in one form or another, we are the same.”

“Get to the point, would you? Or are you simply here to distract me?” I gave the succubus wearing my face a sneer.

“Your face now, is it?” She tapped her chin, staring off into the fog as though in thought. “Was it not just a few days ago that you had a completely different one?”

Was she truly reading my thoughts?

“Of course! We are one and the same. Your thoughts are mine, and mine are yours.”

I had my doubts. There was no way I was this insufferable, for one. The reflection just smiled, appearing not bothered at all by how close I was to coming to blows with her. I was tiring of this—whatever this was. She smirked, and I decided that I’d had enough. I jabbed forward, aiming for her nose.

Reading my mind might allow this imitation to spar with me verbally, but fighting was mostly muscle memory.

Her eyes widened the moment before I connected…only for my fist to go through her as though she wasn’t there at all. Her red skin faded into mist, until I was left with nothing but the pool of water and endless fog once again.

“I told you, didn't I?” Her voice was all around me. “I’m just another part of you. Did you think that you could fight a reflection?”

The last sentence was right in my ear, and I swung around, water splashing everywhere.

She wasn’t there.

I took a deep breath, followed by several more.

This had to be a nightmare. Had I fallen asleep? Could it have been the work of the arbiter, or was it possible that I’d never gone down into the catacombs in the first place?

Still, it didn’t feel like any nightmare I’d ever had.

“I can assure you that this is all very real,” she said, nowhere to be seen.

“What do you want?”

“What do you want?” she whispered back, as a hand caressed my arm.

This time when I swirled around, she stood several feet away. But where before she wore the academy uniform just as I was, now she was completely nude. It was a tantalizing sight—bare red skin, wet from the pool of water. A large chest that swelled as she took a breath of air. And peeking from between her legs was…

“Like what you see?” she asked after a moment, pushing her chest forward.

I realized that I’d been staring, and averted my eyes. Then I considered how silly that was and instead met her smirking gaze. My reflection, or whatever she was, swayed her hips as she sashayed toward me.

“Is there a point to all of this?” I asked, crossing my arms.

It was a struggle to keep my gaze focused on her face.

“I think you already know.”

Did I? I didn’t think so. Though perhaps there was something obvious that I was missing. There had to be some purpose to all of this. I just had to figure out what it was. Even if that point ended up being to distract me while some wild beast made a meal of me.

“You’re getting there, closer by the moment, despite your reluctance,” she continued. “You’re a smart girl, Ruby. You can do this.”

“I’m quite certain that whatever you are, you can’t simply want sex.” There was more to this than that.

“What if I did? Would you turn me down?” The seductress pursed her lips in a pout as she clasped her hands, incidentally pressing her breasts together.

“Yes,” I hissed back.

“Doesn’t this appearance please you, Ruby? Or perhaps…” Her form shifted, blurring until it was unrecognizable. Then a second later another, much more familiar appearance stared back at me. “Would you rather fuck me like this?”

My old body, still just as naked as before eyed me up and down, his eyebrow raised mockingly. I was certain one of my blood vessels was about to burst.

“Why would I ever—stop that this instant!” I yelled.

His maniacal laughter was much too familiar, but sounded different when I wasn’t the one doing it. This time when I swung forward, the copy-cat dodged to the right, and then ducked beneath my follow-up, instead flowing behind me. When I turned to react, I found him?—her?—several feet away and once again looking like my current demonic self.

The fake, naked Ruby smirked. “What’s wrong, Ruby? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, you know. I thought you’d enjoy a good fuck with your old body before you go back to it?”

I ignored her taunting. “What do I have to do to make this end?”

There was something I needed to do here. Of that I was increasingly certain, though I was unsure how I knew that. Was she right? Was this strange reflection really just an inner part of me somehow brought to life?

“Why do you want to go back to being Gellin?” she asked instead of answering.

Fine, if that was how she wanted to do things, I could play her game.

I crossed my arms. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? Gellin is who I am. This body is temporary.”

“And yet you prefer the name Ruby.”

I went to protest, only to remember that she could read my thoughts, and seemingly, my feelings. “It’s a nice name. Why shouldn’t I like it more? It was a name I decided on myself. If you can really read my mind, you should know that I’ve never liked being called Gellin.”

I shrugged my indifference. The reflection didn’t seem to buy it. Once again, she turned to mist.

“And you like this body,” she whispered in my ear.

Suddenly, she was behind me, a hand reaching between my arm and chest to squeeze my right breast. I squealed, and pushed away from her, turning to face her smirking face.

“So what if I’ve enjoyed some minor parts of being like this?” I growled out with a scowl. “What man doesn’t wonder what it's like to be a woman from time to time? It’s only natural that I would find some enjoyment being like this.”

“Is it?” she asked with a casual air. “Just how certain are you that others share this fantasy of yours?”

The simple question was a hit to the gut. It was a question that had kept me up at night on more than one occasion.

The sort of question that I’d been actively avoiding thinking about since my transformation.

“And what? You think you have the answers? You’re not even real!” I sneered back.

The naked succubus shrugged. “I’m just asking questions. You’re the one giving the answers.”

I knew where this was going. “I’m not a girl. I don’t want to be a girl,” I insisted.

“Who said anything about that?” she asked, still smirking.

“It’s obvious where you are going with this. A blind man could see it.”

“Just admit it, Ruby. Admit you like being a woman.”

I glared, for what little good it did me. She stared back, unwilling to back down. Both of us stood like that for what felt like minutes to hours. Though really, it was probably only a few seconds. Eventually, I gave in.

“Fine. I’ll admit to it. I’ve enjoyed being a girl. In fact, I’ve enjoyed it quite a lot. More than I ever liked my old body.” I took in a deep breath. “There. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?”

She grinned, in a smile that I was growing to detest. “Yes. You pass.”

What was the point of all this? What difference did it make whether I enjoyed being like this?

“It makes a difference to you, Ruby. To me.” Her hand tapped against her upper chest. “We’re one and the same, remember? I’m just some unconscious part of you brought to life temporarily with magic.” She shrugged, her body once again beginning to fade back into mist. “Though really, it's unfortunate that you declined my invitation for sex. I’m sure it would have been lots of fun. Perhaps we can have a go at it in your dreams sometime. When your conscious mind isn’t getting in the way.” She winked.

Then I was alone. The fog began to slowly dissipate, and I felt a wave of tiredness wash over me. It took effort not to fall into the water. My hand came up to rub my eyes once again, except—I wasn’t standing. I could feel the hard rock beneath my back.

“Ruby? Are you alright?”

I blinked my eyes open to find Lilis hovering above me. My head was laying in her lap.

“Thank goodness you’re finally awake,” she said with a relieved sigh.