Invisible eyes watched her from the shadows. Occasionally, she'd catch a gleam in them, a flicker of false fire, and then the watcher would blink and fade away back into the darkness.
She yawned, then shook her head, desperately fighting against the sleep she'd missed the past two days. She couldn't let herself fall asleep, the fire was waiting for her, along with the screams. They waited behind her eyelids, while the eyes in the dark waited outside of them. She couldn't sleep; sleep meant death.
A chill wind blew through the hollow, and she shivered, drawing her rough cloak tighter around herself. Even without superstition's placebo effect, Hollow Shades was cold, a well that drew in wind, water, and chill from kilometers around. Covered in the canopy of the surrounding Midnight Wood, what little sunlight trickled down during the day did nothing to dispel the chill and mists that pooled in the crevasses and dips of the hollow, and in the night the tide of cold rose up to engulf the whole valley.
Red flames engulfed the bus...
She gasped and jolted straight up, heart pounding. Walking, she needed to walk if she wanted to stay awake. On trembling feet, she began to wade into the ankle-high mists, electric torch sending a shaking lance of light through them.
Things weren't looking good for the Unmarked; the government's murder of Adagio had turned Castellot against them, and they'd barely managed to escape the elite's counterrevolution with their lives. They'd tried to retreat back to Our Town, but the day before yesterday they'd run into an ambush, one that managed to take out a good third of their numbers.
Screams came out the windows, along with the smoke...
They'd tried to return by a different route, but the path Starlight led them down took them through hostile territory, lands inhabited by reactionary supporters of the elite. There hadn't been any more ambushes, thankfully, but there had still been anti-revolutionary activities; tree branches mysteriously blocking the roads, signs disappearing or misdirecting, tires occasionally popping on invisible nails, all too frequent to be simple chance. Their escape had slowed to a crawl, and every step of it had been dogged by those eyes in the dark.
Eventually, Starlight had decided that returning to Our Town before Captain Armor caught up to them wasn't feasible, and led the Unmarked to Hollow Shades to meet him. If the elites did try to use him as their tool of violence, the Hollow's defensible nature would allow them to meet his superior numbers, while the local superstitions about the area would prevent the Nocturnes from helping him.
She shivered as her torch's beam found a source of those superstitions, the grey stone of a grave-barrow looming before her. The Nocturnes had buried their dead elite in Hollow Shades for centuries, and treated them and their dwellings with the same cowed deference that they showed their living counterparts. No Nocturne would fight before the honorably buried, it was said, for fear that unjustly disturbing them in such a way would bring their anger. So long as the Unmarked stayed near a Nocturne grave, they were safe, and there were plenty of them in Hollow Shades.
A shadow dashed across the edge of her vision.
"It's just a silly superstition," she frantically whispered to herself as she cast her beam after the shadow. "It's just a silly superstition."
The eyes in the dark faded away as she left the treeline, the Nocturnes not even daring to tread on the ground where their dead elite lay. Double Diamond had proposed raiding the tombs for equipment, making the Nocturnes believe that their dead walked again, but Starlight vetoed him; dead though they might be, the buried still deserved respect. She'd been more receptive to the idea of hiding in the tombs and waiting for Captain Armor to leave, but eventually vetoed it when the other members of the Committee opposed it. Night Glider had argued that the respect due to the dead extended to their dwellings as well as their belongings, Party Favor said that the Nocturnes were likely to see them go in and tell Captain Armor when he arrived, and she'd supported him, though privately her main reason for opposition was that she didn't want to spend anymore time near the dead than she had to.
Speaking of whom, she caught sight of her fellow Equal as she reached the end of a ravine, and felt her heart give a little baking-powder bubble as she did so. She pushed down those emotions as she walked over to him, remembering Starlight's warning about the inequality that they brought. "Loving someone more than anyone else is the first step to loving yourself only," she'd said. "the first brick in the wall of hierarchicalism. Affection of any kind is poisoned honey, Sugar Belle, sweet at first, deadly at last." She remembered that, even after two years, and tried to practice it.
Party Favor's smile, the one he gave her now as she caught sight of her, made it hard, though.
"Hey, Sugar Belle," he greeted through chattering teeth. "What a night to be out, eh? Brr. It's not fit for Man or beast out here. It's not even fit for magic-users."
She snorted as she tried to suppress a laugh. Favor's jokes were never really that funny, but they always made her laugh anyway. "Hey, Party Favor," she replied, clearing her throat. "It's not that bad out here, though, is it? It doesn't feel as cold as Our Town in the winter, at least."
"I'm not sure ice feels as cold as Our Town in the winter," Favor smiled back.
She bit back another laugh at that, trying desperately not to lick the poisoned honey shining before her eyes.
"I can think of one thing that might be colder than it, though," he frowned. "That escaped sorcerer's heart. His kin sacrificed herself for him, and he never even looked back. I mean, yes, he was wearing a hood, but still, to just abandon one of your own like that, his heart must be cold as stone."
Sugar Belle winced at the reminder of her failure. She'd been assigned to guard those subject to reeducation last night, and one of them had managed to escape. It would've been two if one of the attempted runaways hadn't tackled her in a successful attempt to help the other escape, giving him her chance at freedom. Starlight had thankfully been merciful, refusing to blame her for her mistakes, and ordered security on those awaiting reeducation doubled to prevent further incidents. There had also been a bit of a debate about whether or not to pursue the escapee, but Starlight in the end decided that it would be better for them to put as much distance between them and him as they could.
She swallowed nervously as she looked around at the thickening shadows; suddenly, the idea of stopping and making a stand instead of running, however slowly, away seemed less appealing to her. For all they knew, the sorcerer had burst his bonds and was hunting them for revenge. Maybe he would meet up with Captain Armor. Maybe he was already on their trail.
Maybe he was already there, a looming shadow approaching through the fog.
Desperately, Sugar Belle turned her beam on the shade, and breathed a sigh of relief; it wasn't the sorcerer she saw, but his archenemy, Starlight. Whatever fears and doubts she had about staying in Hollow Shades disappeared as she saw the Unmarked leader's serene, softly smiling face, the face that promised security even if the earth itself was torn open; whatever she thought, whatever she feared, she knew that Starlight knew better than her, that she would lead them truly through their current troubles. Starlight's face was a rock, one not all the storms of hierarchicalism and magic could destroy.
That rock was set atop a pile of other rocks, rocks which absorbed the beam from Sugar Belle's torch with ease. The deepstone armor that Adagio had "revealed" covered almost all of Starlight, except for her face, its glossy black surface protecting her from hierarchicalism's magical champions. The Unmarked had known about it for years, though it was only recently that they'd learned it was real; previously, they'd thought it was only symbolic, meant to represent how equalism armored one against hierarchicalism in all its forms, no matter how daunting they might first appear. Now, though, they knew it to be real, and Starlight wore it openly and constantly, a declaration of war against magic and its users.
"Hey, Starlight," Sugar Belle waved at the approaching woman. "What brings you here?"
"Thinking," she replied. "Trying to plan our next course of action. I'd hoped that we could make it back to Our Town before we had to fight the elite's attack dogs, maybe reeducate some of their comrades, but now..." She sighed, then shook her head. "The elite have shown their hatred for us, blatantly. Killing Adagio before we could finish reeducating her, sabotaging our demonstration in the capitol, setting that ambush, hounding our steps afterwards, they're trying to kill the revolution before it can even start."
"They won't succeed," Party Favor promised. "No pressure from above will stop the revolution from below."
"Yes," Starlight nodded as Sugar Belle fought not to swoon. "but it will make the revolution harder, and more costly. I'd hoped for it to be bloodless, not bought with over a hundred Unmarked lives. The elite will pay for the lives they've taken, the lives they've tossed away like they're worthless, like they're trash."
She sniffled, then wiped her eyes. "Pardon me, the thought of treating people like that, like things, just... it disgusts me. Stabbing someone in the back like they did to Adagio, hating them for trying to improve, or having people who try to help them improve... what justification can they have?"
"Privilege," Party Favor replied. "Private law. Whims make right. What other justification do they need? The hierarchy alone is enough."
Sugar Belle nodded; higher equalist theory wasn't her bread and butter, but what Favor and Starlight were saying made sense. Especially Favor; if society told you that socially you were superior to others, what was stopping you from extending that to legal superiority, or economic superiority? Hierarchicalism infected all parts of life, poisoning everywhere it touched. It wanted to rule everything, not just the social sphere where its root lay.
"We need to kill the root," she found herself saying. "not just the weed."
Starlight solemnly nodded. "While I wish it could be otherwise, these past few days have shown me that my hope for peaceful coexistence between equalism and hierarchicalism is impossible. Hierarchicalism won't rest until every equalist is either beaten down or dead. Conversion by example and incentive won't work; if we want equalism, we'll need to force it on Homestria, and to do that," her hand went to the hilt of the staff at her hip. "we need to tear out hierarchicalism, root, stem, and branch. We cannot compromise with or condone evil."
"We'll need to build a lot of reeducation centers, then," Party Favor joked.
"Speaking of building," Sugar Belle cleared her throat. "I was thinking that maybe we could see about building some defenses before Captain Armor arrives? There was a hill Cornflower told me about, one that even a simple wall could easily protect. If we can hold it, it'll be a lot easier to hold the rest of the hollow; at the least, we won't have stunbolts raining down on us if it comes to a fight."
"Hmm," Starlight hummed in thought, before shaking her head. "Going out into the forest for materials is too risky. Any gatherers would be swarmed by Nocturnes once they leave the hollow. No, we'll have to trust our fellow Equals for defense."
"We won't be disappointed," Party Favor reassured Sugar, causing her heart to bubble again. "One Equal is worth a thousand hierarchists."
"Yes," Starlight nodded, face stern. "So long as we all stay true to each other and to equalism, we will win."
Blushing in embarrassment as she remembered how recently she'd proven false to equalism, Sugar Belle stepped nervously away from Party Favor and nodded, trying to retch up the poisoned honey she'd swallowed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Party Favor do the same.
Starlight nodded, then gave a wave farewell and walked away into the mists.
Party Favor breathed a sigh of relief, then gave his own farewell, saying, "I'll leave here in your hands, Sugar Belle. Just give a shout if you see anything. Bye."
"Good-bye," she waved after him as he left, quickly being swallowed up by the murk of the night. Sighing involuntarily as he departed, she turned back to her watch, trying to think about equalism and how she could apply it to her life, and why she couldn't stop feeling baking-powder bubbles in her heart at the thought of Party Favor's smile.
"Two of the clock and all's well," she called out into the night.
"Two of the clock and all's well," Double Diamond's voice faintly echoed to the south.
"Why do we say that?" her watch-mate mumbled next to her. "How can all be well? What're the odds that every single blade of grass and drop of water and breeze of wind are all well at the same time? What're the odds that none of us are feeling sad, or mad, or bad? Why don't we just say 'Nothing to report' or something like that? It'd be truer."
Sugar Belle shook her head. Hierarchicalism was ingrained deep in her companion, especially its dualistic division of things into 'better' and 'worse.' While most hierarchists focused on the 'better' things and why they deserved them, though, Caramel focused on the 'worse' things and how they were what he or those he was working with were facing. If Caramel learned to fly, the first thing he'd do would likely be moan that he'd rather have learned how to swim; if he learned to swim, he'd moan about how learning to swim when there's nothing nearby to swim in was useless. He was strong, and a diligent worker, but his hierarchical 'pessimism,' as he called it, became grating after a while.
"I wonder if the elite'll have Captain Armor just kill us," Caramel muttered. "The commons would rather they 'reform' us, of course, reeducate us into ignorance, and they don't like doing what the commons don't like where they can see it-the commons, I mean. Where the commons can see it. The elite don't. Don't like it, not see it. I mean-urgh, the elite don't like doing what the commons don't like where the commons can see it, but they-the elite-might think we're too troublesome to keep around. Wha'd'yu think, Sugar Belle?"
"I think that Captain Armor's victory isn't as sure as you think," she replied. "One Equal is worth a thousand hierarchists, like Party Favor said."
"One well-armed Guard is worth a hundred Men," Caramel mumbled. "Even if those Men are just hierarchists, that still means that one well-armed Guard is worth a tenth of an Equal, and if even one percent of the crownlands joins up with Captain Armor, that'll still give him more than double our number, even if one of us is worth ten of his. And that's without the Nocturnes." A pensive look came over his face. "Do you think he'll have the Nocturnes kill us? They'd enjoy it, at least according to the stories I've heard. People say they drink blood from the skulls of their enemies, and make things out of their bones. Their enemies, I mean. Their enemies' bones. That's what they make things out of."
"Those are just stories," Sugar Belle replied, trying to still her thundering heart. "Lies meant to establish the Nocturnes as subhuman and reaffirm hierarchicalism."
"Doesn't mean they won't kill us if Captain Armor gives the order," Caramel murmured. "If he does kill us, he'll probably have them do it, actually. Do the killing, I mean. Give the elite, what's the phrase, plausible deniability, make people wonder if it was deliberate or an accident. The killing. Make people wonder whether the killing was deliberate or not."
"Poios tha gemisei to kypello mou?"
Sugar Belle whipped her head around at the beautiful song, eyes bulging. Where had Caramel learned to sing like that?
Nowhere, evidently, as he began looking for the source along with her. "That voice," he mumbled. "I've heard that voice before."
"Pros to paron o tragoudistis echei perasei kai ola ta monopatia einai ntymena sti skia..."
A spark, a jet of flame, and then an inferno...
"I don't," Sugar Belle shook her head, shaking away the memories. "Is she an Equal?"
"No," Caramel shook his head. "Definitely not."
"Tora chamenos," sang out of the hollow behind them. "chamenos se ekeinous apo ti Dysi, einai to Vasileio Mearas!"
"Intruder alert!" Sugar Belle shouted into the night. "Intruder alert!"
"Intruder alert!" Double Diamond raised the cry. "Intruder alert, Sector 2!"
Drawing her staff, Sugar Belle gave chase, Caramel following behind her somewhat reluctantly. They pursued the singer's echoing voice through clefts, dells, and ravines, plunging deeper and deeper into night, mist, and the city of tombs in their hunt. Other Unmarked voices were raised around them, their fellow Equals joining them in the hunt. "She's here!" said some, "No, here!" replied others, "Don't let the watch slack!" said Double Diamond. The watch in Sector 1 met up with Sugar Belle and Caramel and joined the chase, pursuing the intruder deeper and deeper into the Hollow.
Gradually, the sound of the other Unmarked faded, as did the already-faint sight of their torches. Soon, Sugar Belle and the others were all alone, lost in the mists and shadows, a great barrow looming before them. Even the faint echoes of the singer had died away. There was nothing save the darkness and the dwelling of death.
"We lost her," Caramel mumbled. "And ourselves, too, by the looks of it."
"We're not lost," Sugar Belle replied, trying to quash his pessimism before it could infect the others. "All we need to do is go back the way we came."
"Which way is that?" one of the Sector 1 watchers, Lime Twist, nervously asked.
"Simple," Sugar Belle smiled. "We came from-" She trailed off as she realized that, in the haze of the pursuit, she hadn't been keeping track of where they were going. All thoughts had been on the chase.
"We're still in the hollow," the other Sector 1 watcher spoke up in reassurance. "The thing behind us proves it. What we should do is settle down for the night and either wait for one of the others to find us or for day to break so we can find our way back ourselves."
"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Sugar Belle smiled back gratefully. "Thank you."
A chill wind ran through them, and Sugar Belle shivered. If they wanted to survive the night, they needed to get out of the wind. Biting her lip, she looked up at the barrow, looming silently over them like a cold mountain.
Caramel followed her gaze, then shook his head. "No way," he grumbled. "I've watched enough horror films to know that going in there," he pointed accusingly at the barrow's stone door. "would be a horrible idea. If we go in, we won't come out again."
Another gust of wind slashed through them. Lime Twist quaked from the cold, and her companion wrapped herself protectively around her before glaring at Caramel. "Do you have a better idea?" she asked.
"Try to find our way back," Caramel replied. "Go one step by one-step, I mean, one step-if we have to, but at least try. It might be a bit uncomfortable, but it'll at least go better than going in there would."
"I say we put it to a vote," Sugar Belle said. "Infighting like this isn't the Unmarked way. All those who vote we try to find our way back now?"
"Aye," Caramel grumbled.
"All those in favor of waiting out the night?" Sugar Belle asked.
"Aye!" Lime Twist's companion called, while the shivering scrap of a girl herself merely nodded.
Sugar Belle nodded back, then led the way over to the barrow's door, a slab of stone with an iron ring in the center. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the ring and pulled.
Slowly, creakily, the door opened, revealing an antechamber wreathed in shadow. Piercing the darkness with her torch, she revealed several old jars and urns, but nothing truly horrifying or threatening. Breathing a sigh of relief at the disproval of Caramel's superstitions, she prepared to wave the others through, but paused in thought, first. Turning to Lime Twist's companion, she said, "Let's make sure we can open this from the inside before we lock ourselves in."
They nodded, and she closed the door, feeling the thud as it closed rather than hearing it. An unknown fear bubbling up in her heart, she threw herself against the door and tried to open it again, mentally pleading for it to work. It did, thankfully, opening with no more trouble from the inside than from without, and she quickly waved the others in. Caramel hesitated on the threshold, clearly still harboring doubts, but in the end he followed the others into the barrow, the door closing shut behind him.
Sugar Belle exhaled in relief as the door closed, then turned to look at the others. Although they were out of the wind, now, the barrow was only marginally warmer than the outside, leaving the rail-thin Lime Twist still shivering. Her companion was trying to help warm her up, taking off her cloak and wrapping it around the smaller Equal, while Caramel was examining the chamber, shining his torch over every corner. He moaned as it lit up a set of steps descending into the earth, near the back of the room. "A staircase in a tomb," he mumbled. "Nothing good every came from a staircase in a tomb."
"Nothing bad ever came from one, either," Lime Twist's companion sharply replied. "You believe too much of what the media says, Caramel. If the elite had them make a movie about us, you'd believe what it said, even if it was all lies."
"Would they want to make a movie about us?" Sugar Belle furrowed her brow. "It might inspire people to research the truth about us, about the hierarchy. I'd want to cover us up, if I was an elite, act like we never happened."
"Then you'd have to cover up a lot of people in the future," Lime Twist's companion shook her head. "Silencing someone doesn't make people think they're bad, it makes them wonder what they did to deserve that. That means curiosity, curiosity means research, and research means they find out about us again. You need to acknowledge what happened while making sure people know that they shouldn't do it again, telling them about our defeat instead of acting like we don't exist."
"If they ever did make a film about us," Caramel mumbled. "they'd probably cut me out, or combine my part with someone else's. Maybe Double Diamond. He helped me with Adagio, after all, and he's strong. Not as strong as me-I mean," he stammered, looking around nervously. "not as strong as I seem to the hierarchical mindset, all of us are equal, none of us is better, we're all as good as the worst-but he's still strong, as strong as the rest of the Unmarked." He furrowed his brow, then slowly nodded. "I could see Zyota Zhatua playing him, actually. He has the chin for it, and it wouldn't take much makeup. Denim Blue's closer in build, though, and his voice isn't as deep."
Sugar Belle and Lime Twist's companion rolled their eyes as Caramel continued murmuring about which elite would make a mockery of them if they failed, and prepared to bed down for the night. It was surprisingly easy; the stone floor was pleasantly comfortable, and their weariness gave a certain inner warmth. Lime Twist had already fallen asleep, and Sugar Belle was looking forward to joining her. Sadly, a suddenly-remembered responsibility kept her away, at least for a few moments.
"Caramel," she asked. "would you mind taking first watch? Wake me up after an hour, or at least as near to that as you can guess. And please, don't worry about ghosts or skeletons or other superstitions attacking you." If he woke her up because he was scared of the boogey monster, he wouldn't have to worry about a phantom attacking him.
"I expected I'd have to," Caramel mumbled. "Yeah, I'll take first watch. But if I hear something down the stairs, I'm waiting for it to come up; I'm dumb, but not dumb enough to go down stairs in a tomb."
Rolling her eyes one last time, Sugar Belle lay back down and closed her eyes, gently breathing in time with the faint lullaby calling her to sleep.
What felt like a moment later, Caramel was shaking her awake, and she blearily climbed out of sleep to relieve him. He mumbled his thanks to her, then collapsed on the floor, snoring like a saw.
Grumbling as the sound grated on her ears, Sugar Belle sleepily took up a stance in the middle of the room, shining her torch down into the darkness of the stairwell. The beam flickered, then died, and she hissed in annoyance as she holstered it back on her belt. She would have to wait for her night-eyes to set in to keep watch, now; there was no light in the barrow, not even a beam of moonlight peeking in through a crack in the front door.
Her eyelids threatened to fall, and she gasped as she forced them back open; she must've been more tired than she thought. The fear of facing the ambush again in her nightmares was gone now, overcome by the sheer fatigue she had to fight against. Gritting her teeth, she slapped her cheeks in an attempt to force herself to stay awake, then took up a renewed watchful stance, glaring resolutely down into the stygian darkness of the stairwell.
Again her eyelids threatened to shut, and again she forced them open. How much time had passed? Had it already been an hour? Why was she so tired? Was the stony air of the barrow so comforting? Or was it the faint lullaby at the edge of her hearing that was threatening her vigilance? She shook her fatigue-webbed head clear, then returned to her watch, gazing deep into the darkness beneath the barrow.
"I failed guarding the guests," she grit her teeth. "I won't fail to guard my Equals."
But the lullaby had returned from her clearing, returned to continue whispering in her ear. It promised sleep, slumber, rest, if she only listened to it. She didn't even have to agree to listen to it, or consciously betray her companions; all she had to do was not refuse it, let its soothing melody fill her mind. Feebly, her weary mind tried to refuse it, but the lullaby was stronger, and its strains began to play, and her eyelids began to droop:
Slumber, worn watcher, up on the walls;
Let your eyes rest though Sun and Moon fall.
Let the stars dance hundred thousand times
Before opening your poor weary eyes.
"Slumber, worn watcher..." she sleepily began to repeat, eyes almost closed. She could risk nodding off for a few moments, nothing was going to happen to them. Who would know if she slept, anyway? All the others were already fast asleep, lulled away to dreamland by the blissful lullaby.
She realized her danger too late, and was only able to open her eyes in time to see a pair of glowing ones staring back at her, a razor-fang grin, and a hissed command of "Sleep."
She was just behind the front ranks, stone-tipped spear in her hands. Her eyes flinched from the torchlight, burning like red Suns, dancing in the weak, chill wind. Suspense and fear were thick in the air.
And then they were pierced, along with one of the torchbearers, an invisible arrow burying itself in his throat. He gave no cry, an expression of shock frozen on his face as a grey pall crept over him, seeming to turn him to stone. It reached his hand, and his torch snuffed out.
"Dark elves!" the captain cried, pointing into the darkness from whence the arrow had come. "Dark elves!"
And then the dark elves were upon them, daggers and darts of amethyst cutting through her clan like molotks through vines. Torches guttered out, spears snapped, and her companions died, but all silently, the dark elves murdering sound as well as her kin.
Then one was before her, and before she could move, its dagger pierced her heart.
And Sugar Belle awoke with a gasp from a nightmare that wasn't her's.
The cold hardness of stone was under her, while a low ceiling leered out of the darkness over her. The air was cool, and heavy; whoever or whatever had attacked her must have moved her afterwards, dragging her... somewhere.
She scrambled to sit upright, but paused as doing so brought a clanking to her ears. Looking down, her eyes widened as they saw her new garb, a coat of bronze rings that went down to her knees over a kilt of copper links. Her old outfit, and accompanying equipment, were nowhere to be seen, though that wasn't saying much; there wasn't enough light for even a hint of a gleam on her newly-acquired armor.
Shaking her head to clear it, she carefully swung her legs over the edge of whatever she was lying on, wincing as her bare feet touched the cold stone floor. Shakily, she stood up, then looked around to see if she could find anything useful through the darkness.
The thing she'd been lying on appeared to be a stone table in the center of a small room, jars and urns lining three of the walls and a pitch-black gateway yawning in the one opposite her. Even through the gloom, the similarities in style between her new surroundings and the place she'd been attacked were clear to her; jars, stone, shadows, death.
"I'm still in the barrow," she murmured. "Just a bit deeper." That was good; she knew something of where she was, so she should be able to find her way back to where she wanted to go. Despite every nerve in her body telling her that where she wanted to go was most definitely not out the dark door before her, she forced herself over the threshold, into the abyss beyond.
As her eyes began to adjust to the gloom, she saw that she was in a corridor now, a bleak hallway without decoration. Thankfully, it also seemed devoid of debris and inhabitants, so she was able to move faster than a crawl, though her pace was still slower than she'd like; the barrow had seemed like a safe place to rest, after all.
She groped her way down the hall until her hand, tracing the right wall, traced a curve. Swallowing her fear, she followed the curve, and soon found herself in another small room, almost an exact copy of the one she'd awoken in; faintly-visible urns and jars along the walls, and an occupied stone table in the center.
"Lime Twist?" Sugar Belle whispered as she cautiously approached. "Caramel? Is that you?"
No reply was given. Taking a deep breath, she stepped closer and began to shake them awake-
-before quickly recoiling and biting back a scream as her hand touched bone.
"It's just a skeleton, Sugar Belle," she frantically whispered to herself, trying to calm her racing heart. "It's just a skeleton. This is a grave, you'd expect to find skeletons here. It's just a skeleton, it's not going to jump up and-" She covered her mouth before she could finish, turning back to the corpse in the room with dread. In the media, anyone who said "It's not going to hurt you" was always promptly hurt by the thing in question, teaching the viewer not to question authority.
Several moments passed. The corpse didn't move. Sugar Belle hissed angrily at herself. "Look at yourself, Sugar Belle. Jumping at superstitions and the elite's subliminal, media-dispersed messages. Before you know it, you'll turn into Caramel." She winced at the reminder of her companions, of her failure as a watcher, but set her jaw before she could drown in regret; if she'd failed to keep them safe, then she would just have to find them and bring them back to safety.
She turned around, face determined, and prepared to go find her companions, but paused as she turned; something had caught her eye, something in the skeleton's clasped hands. Turning back to it, she walked over and looked carefully at what it held, a finely-worked bronze sword, with a blade shaped like a leaf. Biting her lip, she gingerly untangled the weapon from the skeleton's bony grasp and carefully lifted it up, brushing off a few cobwebs as she did so. It was heavy, a fair bit heavier than her staff, and she didn't know how to use it, but some protection was better than none.
"I'll bring it back when I'm done," she murmured to the corpse. "I promise." Eyes widening, she shook her head, and muttered to herself, "And now you're talking to a skeleton. Come on, Sugar Belle, let's get out of here before you get any more superstitious."
And yet, as she left the room and headed down the corridor again, out of the corner of her eye, she could've sworn she saw the skeleton smile at her.
Two more rooms, two more skeletons, and no sign of her companions. She bit her lip as she returned to the corridor; were they anywhere near her at all? Had her attacker simply kidnapped her, leaving the others alone-or for later?
"Let the stars dance hundred thousand times..."
Her heart thudded into her stomach; were her friends the skeletons she'd seen? How long had she been asleep? If she did manage to return to the surface, would she even recognize it?
"When in trouble," Double Diamond reassured her mind. "don't focus on how much trouble you're in but on how you can get out."
He was right, she thought with a calming inhale, speculating about what had happened would do her no good. She needed to focus on fixing what she knew was wrong and figuring out just how much she needed to fix as she went along. Setting her face in determination, she marched deeper into the catacombs, clawing her way to the next turn.
This one opened up to a larger room, one that seemed almost as big as the Meeting Hall back in Our Town. The walls went back too far to tell exactly how large it was, though, or what lined them, if anything. On the edge of her vision, just barely visible if she squinted, she saw yet another stone table, larger this time, big enough to hold the three people on top of it.
She prepared to race over, to see if she'd found her companions at last, but paused; she heard a faint whisper in the distance. Eyes widening as it drew nearer and clearer, she desperately searched for cover to hide from the singer, distant but approaching quickly. But the room was almost barren, at least the area in her field of vision; her only hopes of cover were the table, a good distance away, and the darkness, something she was unsure would fulfill its hope. She shivered at the memory of the burning red eyes of the singer, searing into her soul through the darkness.
The singer's voice was almost understandable now; she had no more time to think. Desperately, she threw herself against the wall and held her breath, willing herself to go unnoticed.
A moment later, the singer stepped into the room, and Sugar Belle closed her eyes, trusting the childhood knowledge that if you can't see the monsters, they can't see you. Miraculously, that superstition appeared to be true, the singer apparently passing Sugar Belle by without note, walking with graceful, quiet steps up to the table in the center of the room. A hush fell when she arrived, all sound seeming to die as she stopped moving. After a few moments of silence, Sugar Belle carefully cracked open her eyes, seeing the faint outline of the singer standing at the head of the table, gently brushing her hand through one of the occupant's hair.
Through Caramel's thick, stiff hair.
The thunder of Sugar Belle's heart must have been loud enough for the singer to hear, at least until she overpowered its thunder and stilled its beat with a keening song:
Slumber worn watchers, burglars in these halls,
Slumber in silence though Sun and Moon fall...
A crippling weariness crushed Sugar Belle, threatening to drag her into sleep along with her comrades. It would be so easy, the song whispered, simply listen to it and she would need to worry no more.
Slumber till stars a hundred thousand
Circles and orbits and images dance...
"Listen to me," the song tempted. "You already did once, what's a second time? Who's to know? Caramel and the others are already listening to me, why not join them?"
Slumber though kingdoms fall and arise,
Slumber though friends and family die...
"You failed as a baker," the song whispered. "you failed as a warden, you failed as a guard; why not succeed in this? Why be a failure at everything in life?"
Slumber through wars, politics, and schemes,
Slumber through searches and sorcery,
Slumber till stars and sky and earth end,
Till family mine is whole once agai-
She was cut off by a shout of "I have to try!" and a slash of Sugar Belle's borrowed sword, ripping a crimson crevasse in the singer's hand and causing her to emit a piercing shriek.
While her opponent reeled, Sugar Belle tried to shake and call her comrades awake, to succeed in her self-appointed task, to no avail; whatever spell held them asleep refused to loose its grip.
The singer hissed as she turned back to her, eyes glowing with rage. Sugar Belle matched that rage, and loosed a battlecry as she charged, swinging her sword.
The singer dodged her first stroke, but was caught on the cheek by her swift second, and knocked to the ground by Sugar Belle butting the pommel into her stomach. Sugar Belle leered down at her and raised her sword for the finishing blow, driving its point down with her full-
The singer spoke a word, and Sugar Belle was thrown back, crashing into the stone table with a cry of pain. She hissed as she rubbed the stars out of her eyes, then clambered back to her feet, and raised her-
Her sword wasn't supposed to be grey at the tip.
It wasn't supposed to crumble to dust, either.
Soon, she was left only holding the hilt, and then that, too, melted away before her eyes. She turned them, widened, at her foe, shambling to her feet and muttering angrily under her breath.
Weaponless and faced with a doubtless-armed opponent, Sugar Belle did the only thing she could think of; throw Lime Twist and her companion over her shoulders (Caramel would be too heavy for her) and try to carry them away.
But both of them together turned out to be too much for her, and she was forced to make an impossible choice; which of her comrades would she save? Which one was more equal to her?
The singer hissed as she fought to her feet. Gently laying Lime Twist on the floor, Sugar apologized for failing her and Caramel, then picked up her companion and fled.
The barrow was a blur after that. The singer's faint hisses pursued her as she carried her comrade up countless flights of stairs, chance thankfully sparing her from any wrong turns in her escape route. Armed with nothing more than an iron will not to fail in this, too, Sugar Belle crawled up out of the earth which had swallowed her, the singer's dreadful voice hot on her heels all the while.
At last, she reached the top floor, the door which had lured her in faintly outlined in light, blinding after so long in the dark. She charged it, ramming it with her unoccupied shoulder-
-just as the singer's hand lashed around her ankle.
Her skin was a pale, sickly blue in the light, but there was an unnatural strength underneath it, one that began dragging Sugar Belle back into the abyss she'd escaped. Frenziedly, Sugar Belle kicked at the hand, trying to dislodge it, but it refused to let go, dragging her slowly but surely back into the darkness. Searing ruby eyes gleamed within the barrow, staring at Sugar Belle with an intense hunger, while a triumphant hiss slithered out of its gullet.
"Slumber, worn watcher," she crowed as she pulled Sugar Belle bark into the yawning darkness. "trapped in these halls, never to leave till Sun and Moon fall, till stars have danced hundred thousand times; you're trapped here, worn watcher-"
Her face leered out of the darkness, eyes burning like bloody Suns illuminating teeth like a shark's, stunning Sugar Belle with fear. That face leaned in to Sugar Belle's frozen one, and hissed, "-and here's where you-"
Once again, she was cut off with a screech, this time being driven back by a cast stone. Shaken out of her spell, Sugar Belle whipped around to see Lime Twist's companion standing, albeit shakily, and reaching down to grab another weapon. As she found it, though, the hand around Sugar Belle's ankle let go, and its bearer slithered back into the darkness with a hiss.
Quickly, her companion raced over and pulled Sugar Belle free of the barrow before slamming the door shut with a decisive thud. She leaned against it, panting, while Sugar Belle sluggishly dragged herself to her feet. They rested for a moment in the weak morning light, before her companion pushed herself off the door and said, "Come on. We should get back to the others, before she comes back."
"Caramel was right," Sugar Belle murmured. "We shouldn't have gone in there. If we had, maybe he and Lime would still be here."
"Maybe," her companion sighed. "maybe not. It doesn't matter. What does is that we're alive and we've got the intruder trapped, thanks to you."
"We might've all gotten out alive if I'd done better," Sugar Belle protested. "If I was strong enough to carry you and Lime, if I hadn't fallen asleep on watch-"
"The others aren't dead yet," her companion reassured her. "And even if they do die, their deaths aren't your fault. They're nobody's but the intruder's. You might have been able to do more, but you wouldn't have had to do anything at all if it hadn't been for her. The only thing that's your doing is saving my life, and that's an achievement, not a fault."
"To achieve is to fail," Sugar Belle replied. "Doing more than others is as bad as doing less."
"Whatever," her companion dismissively waved her hand. "It's a good thing is what I'm saying, not a bad one. A hierarchist would have fled as soon as they saw you were in danger; you stayed behind and tried to help your fellow Equals, even though it put you in danger. You did the right thing, Sugar Belle, the equal thing, even if you weren't strong enough to save all of us. Heh," she smirked. "You not being able to save all of us actually makes what you did more equal; carrying one person is what you would expect an Unmarked to be able to do, so if you carried more than one of us out, you would've done more than others, and like you just said, that's unequal."
Sugar Belle bit her lip, trying to think up a counterargument, before bowing her head in defeat. "I just wish I could've saved them, too," she murmured.
"You did everything you could," her companion gently reassured her. "That's all you can be asked to do. If they die, I'll miss them, too, but I won't blame you for them. Their deaths are the intruder's fault, not your's. The only thing that I'll admit was your doing was saving my life, and I'll admit that every day of my life. I won't forget this, Sugar Belle, I promise."
Sugar Belle sadly nodded, then began leading the way hopefully back to camp. She paused, though, as her companion snorted in laughter. Turning around to look at her, Sugar Belle found her chuckling as she held her armor up to the light, bronze dappling in the Sun.
"Looks like Dad was right," Night Glider laughed. "I was born to bronze."
"And just like Starlight said," Sugar Belle teased, trying to preempt the melancholy the thought of her family usually inspired in her companion. "so am I, just like every other Equal."
Night Glider laughed at that, but Sugar Belle's smile was empty; her thoughts went back to the other Equals they'd seen in bronze, coats of amber dragging them down into the pit the singer had made for them.
Coats of frozen fire, killing them as surely as the living fire had killed their comrades on the bus...
"I know that voice."
"We need to head back," Sugar Belle panted, eyes wide with fear. "We need to warn Starlight."
Night Glider frowned. "You think the singer was a scout for Captain Armor?"
"No," Sugar Belle shook her head. "I think that, unless we stop them, they'll do Captain Armor's job for him."
Before her companion could reply, Sugar Belle darted back along what she thought was the way they'd found the barrow by, racing back towards the heart of Hollow Shades.
Back towards what would, if they weren't able to stop the singer in time, become a vast source of new tenants for the crypts.
Out of the swiftly-receding barrow, or maybe the frenzied fear of her heart, a song pierced Sugar Belle's brain, all pretense of warmth vanished from the words. She forced herself to run faster, tapping into reserves that she didn't even know she had, desperately trying to outpace its mocking words:
Hurry, worn watcher, your time's running out,
The clock is a-ticking, the sand's running down;
Hurry, worn watcher, you're soon out of time;
Hurry, worn watcher, or soon they'll all die.
