Chapter Text
“He’s going to be late,” Anya says.
Yor blinks, shocked at the sudden appearance of a small child at this hour, outside, then crouches down carefully with her pretty dress and heels. “Anya, right? What are you doing here by yourself? Where’s your father?”
Lying comes easier than telling the truth.
“I don’t know. Father told me he suddenly had to go to work because a patient was having a medical emergency. And I can walk on my home street by myself now! I’m a big girl, Miss Yor,” she replies, cheeky.
There’s a revolt in the Thorn Princess’ mind, a thing of lust and poorly hidden rage. It seeps into the static air of the world of espers, polluting all the little gaps and crevices that make up the foreign realm. It’s too real, too present, and too much.
Anya swallows.
“Oh dear,” Yor says. “The party started a few minutes ago.”
The thoughts in the assassin’s mind are less than pretty, infiltrated by the news of late, late, late, and more perverted thoughts of ripping Loid’s clothes off with her golden blades, skewering him in affection, roasting him over a fire like a proper hog, juiced up and ready to eat. She wants to cut him open for the disrespect then bathe in such a handsome man’s blood – beautiful blood, so perfect and ready to spill to the ground, perhaps on the grass of a park, perfect for a date or two or three–.
“Then I’ll walk with you, Miss Yor!” Anya erupts, holding her fragile little hand out, shivering from the cold. “Father always taught me to make sure pretty women are always happy!”
They debate a bit, Yor obviously protesting against being with a stranger’s child, but the legalities wear down against a silver tongue – and besides, Yor doesn’t actually care about any pretences. It’s all the innate moral training of her appearance leaking outwards, into the public eye. So Anya smiles, curtsies, shines her bright green eyes up into the faint moonlight, and takes the serial killer’s hand into the darkness of the night.
Mother, mommy, mama.
A better woman wouldn’t have let herself be persuaded, but Anya doesn’t need better. She needs a serial killer, an assassin, a murderer with superhuman strength. She needs someone who can crush all the puny bird bones of her hand and rip off her limbs with nary a thought. She needs the woman right next to her, holding her hand, humming a sweet tune from a foreign country, with thoughts as insidious as they are lovely.
As they cross the road to the block where the party is at, Anya hears the whisper of screams and the whiplash of speed.
“Anya?”
The girl points at the speeding trucks to their parallel. “Father’s being chased by a psychotic patient.”
“Eh?!”
Don’t be too late, don’t be too late, keep up a normal image–! But he’s being chased– he needs me? He needs me! I can help. I can c r u s h them, fragile little humans who dare cause this nuisance. Blood, bones, skin, muscle, rip, shred, tear, split, hurt.
Within the next few minutes, there’s an awful commotion where Anya barely registers; the serial killer mama picks her up like a sack of potatoes, speeds through the roads to reach the car chase, and firmly wedges herself (and poor Anya) in between the cars. The vehicle continues on, undaunted by the appearance of two civilians, and Yor slams her nightmare heel into the bonnet. As if gravity itself fears the strength of this woman, the car screeches to a halt, lifts in the back, and then careens sideways off into an industrial brick-lain building.
Anya squirms in the monster-tight grip, a bit afraid.
There’s a cough from behind. All traffic has stopped. “...Miss Yor?”
In the end, they make it to the party only fifteen minutes late. Loid, in a haze, slips up and calls Yor his wife. He’s still awfully banged up due to the car chase and almost failed mission, with blood that isn't his, staining the dark green overcoat. Yor’s heel is utterly destroyed by a combination of foot-meet-car and racing to her friend’s flat, and in a fit of roses and blushes, he carries his now fake wife outside to her doorstep.
Mission success.
The next few days (on a serious time crunch, really) are sped through in a blur. Father and Mother have a long conversation in the living room whilst Anya watches television and scribbles on a drawing pad.
Then there’s practice for the mighty interview – dates, dinners, operas, afternoon walks – until it’s time.
“A healthy breakfast to start the day,” Twilight charms, effortlessly smiling at his fake wife. There’s nothing in particular on his mind when he’s staring at her, other than a faint melody that Anya can’t quite place. He places the dishes on the table, absently removes a cuddly toy (guilty as charged: a big unicorn toy) warming up one of the chairs, and they begin eating.
Yoghurt. Muesli. Tea. Fruit jams. Bratwurst and cold cuts.
The slimy pink flesh of the salami is cold and flimsy, tearing apart easily in her mouth. She chews longer than necessary, savouring the flavour, then pairs the sausage with lingonberry jam. The blinding red of the fruit stains the shiny char, and a thick glob of lingonberry spills off to the side. Too much jam?
Anya licks her spoon clean, feeling the red penetrate through her tongue in its tart glory. She looks up, and Twilight’s watching her eat again, but this time his mind has settled into a peaceful, serene calm. He’s satisfied. He’s brimming with positive emotion. He’s swelling up inside as she fumbles with the knife and fork against the meat and jam, delivering the meal into bite-sized pieces. She chews and chews, swallows, then looks up to Yor who’s only smiling sweetly at her upon noticing the attention.
Red.
Mother’s thoughts are on a repeat: red, red, red, red, red, red–.
The food is suddenly unappetising, but the growl of hunger in the morning forces her to pick up the utensils and keep going. Lightning sparks down her spine in a dance that makes her whole face feel numb. There are eyes all on her, but the clinking of silverware against porcelain plates drowns out the endless plague of thoughts and Anya can slowly, ever so slowly, go back to enjoying her meal.
“Thank you for the tea, Mother. Thank you for the meal, Father,” she mumbles out, staring at her hands. They look bloody and broken, but after a few blinks they’re right back to normal.
Yor smiles, and a hand that’s faster than light picks up her plate. “Don’t worry about cleaning up, young miss. You should get your uniform on!”
So the girl smiles, waves to Twilight for approval, and darts back into her room, hands clenched over her chest in what feels like fear.
It’s not fear.
The girl in the mirror is smiling with too much teeth and bits of something dark stuck on her gums. Then Anya blinks and her reflection stares back – an empty doll. It’s not a hallucination, but it’s not nothing, so she spends the morning a bit quieter than usual, holding onto a spy and serial killer’s hands whilst walking to school (to curate a better image in front of our neighbours, Twilight had said, ever so demure), captured between a long skirt and overcoat hems. They hold her tightly, afraid that she’ll get swept away in the crowd of student hopefuls, and the touch gingerly fades once in sight of the campus proper.
From here, affection is less in touch and more in action and words, such as aristocrats do.
It all leads up to the weighted interview – the make or break of admissions.
The interview goes well until it doesn’t.
Twilight, Yor, and Anya all follow the plan of attack perfectly, improvising and never letting any distraction or side-mission affect their performance. The adults think of Anya in mind all the time and the outpour of love and affection could eat her up.
She drowns in the love from Father and Mother. Papa and Mama. Daddy and Mommy.
Even when the love turns sickeningly sweet, heavy and foul, a pungent syrup, permeating the air and polluting her mind. They love her so much that they would kill for her, rip apart her enemies, and rain down blood to anyone that dares bring her harm.
The beginning of it starts in the middle of the interview proper. A man named Swan. Two horrified teachers. A family, targeted by greed and injustice.
“Now, do you prefer your first or your second mother?”
Anya stares into Mr. Swan’s beady eyes. He stares expectantly at her, huffing and fuming on the inside.
The answer should be obvious. She shouldn’t cry this time, make a fuss, cause any sort of disruption that’ll jeopardise her chances. Her written test scores are strong, but the waiting list is long and any reason can make her drop in the rankings.
The answer is right there.
But Anya looks down, bites her lip, and says, “My second mother has arms to hug me when I’m sad, and my birth mama didn’t– she. She had her arms ripped off in that car crash that took my mama away.”
Mr. Swan breathes in sharply with a nervous giggle.
Good.
“So I think I choose my second mother, even if it’s for a selfish reason, Mr. Swan – but, I’m sorry, it’s a painful question that you ask me.”
Then she looks up. The teachers are horrified. Mr. Swan might throw up at any second, and Anya tries not to smile. But then the sour mood turns worse when Mr. Swan thinks up any other way to get her disqualified, citing trauma, poor words about her first mother, rude mannerisms, not crying when speaking of a missed parent, and Anya begins to hate this man.
Hate. It’s a strong word. Ice fills her veins and heat pounds in her brain. He opens his mouth to speak, to dismiss what should not be dismissed, to override the other teachers’ discomfort based on his own weak understanding of how the world works in his selfish weasel brain, and she tries to break through his mental shield to dig as deep as possible. What will hurt this man instead? She digs and digs, piercing through glass layers, popping them like birthday party balloons, enjoying the sound of explosions that nobody else can hear or imagine.
She’s never wanted to be this cruel before, not even to the scientists, because even they never treated her like an object to be cruel – they wanted education. Their treatment of her was a transaction, in their mind, in search of world peace. This man wants senseless torture. The passion burns, twice as bright as ever before, and something breaks.
These are no longer surface level thoughts. Anya grabs the man’s mind and twists it.
“I’m very sorry to hear that, Miss Anya, if you’ll excuse my colleague,” Mr. Evans says, with a tight smile. “Moving on to the next question–.”
Mr. Swan’s left arm starts to twitch uncontrollably. Then the left side of his face droops, sags, and melts. Twilight points this out first, with a careful calm, and then the three teachers panic. Mr. Swan tries to speak, but the words come out slurred and unintelligible.
He’s having a stroke.
Someone rings a bell near the back door, members of Eden’s medical team rushes into the room and carry Mr. Swan out. A new teacher, a short and wrinkly Year 5 sports coach, takes the open examiner’s spot almost immediately and the interview continues with little mention of the events that took place. He was a man of poor health, the coach snipes dismissively, as if to put the Forger family at ease. Cholesterol problems, nothing to worry about, he’ll be alright.
Anya hears Yor’s thoughts of sneaking into his hospital room and slashing out his eyes. It’ll only take a second to cut out each eye…
On the other hand, Twilight muses on how to get the teacher fired. Indecent behaviour with students. That, or rumours of peaking into the toilets. That will always get a teacher fired, if not arrested, even if he’s the son of the previous headmaster. No, it’s even better if he has known nepotism scandals involved, because then the school will do anything to remove a poor image.
The rest of the interview goes splendidly. Everyone falls back to their scripts, on cue, on time, and does a wonderful job.
Anya sits in her bed later that night, hardly able to fall asleep. The voices have all grown louder. She can even hear the thoughts of the neighbours from two stories away, now – a radius of twenty metres. It used to be ten.
A stroke.
She caused a stroke.