Some people liked to fantasize about their own eventual deaths. They'd be in a bed, surrounded by their family, and quietly slip away, or go out in a blaze of glory. Victoria had never had those kinds of dreams; she had known how her death would be from the start. But coming to this place seemed like it might hasten it, she thought, feeling the bruises all over. Last night, earlier in the day, whenever it had been, felt like a blur-the cleric-soldiers, the beating, the black shadow that had blocked the blows and somehow, she guessed, saved her. Maybe when she opened her eyes, she'd be in the bedroom of a dashing prince, ready to confess his eternal love.

Reality was disappointing, as she expected, but surprisingly so- a small room, cold and dingy, a door with bars in it. And against the wall, a shadow that at first she thought must be her own, but on further inspection, she realized it was a suit of armor, black in color. Maybe there was still hope for the dashing prince, if he'd left his armor here. Feeling a fresh burst of 'ow' from each movement, she walked over to the armor, kneeling in front of it, and then poked at the helmet.

The hand moved before she could react, swatting her own away. Oh. So the dashing prince was still inside. "Hello," she said, holding up a hand. "You're the one that saved me, right?"

No response from inside the helmet. "My name's Victoria," she continued, standing up. "Some dump this is, huh? If they're going to treat us like dirt, they could at least scrub the walls. So what's your name? The clerics are holding you captive, too?"

He-or she, Victoria supposed it could be, but the body shape looked pretty male to her-still said nothing. She might've even thought he was asleep, but the helmet was turned in her direction, watching her every move. Not that she minded the attention. "Nothing? You could at least give me something to call you."

Now that she looked him over, she guessed he might've been her age, judging from his size. Finding a dirty blanket in the corner, she gave it a sniff, then regretted it. "Looks like it's night," she said as she peered through the barred window, "and I could use a nap. Here, hold this end." She pushed one side of the blanket at him.

He looked at her, but didn't take her edge. "Look, this is how it works," she said, grabbing his hand and placing the edge in it. "You saved my life, so you'd better take responsibility for it. I'm still sore as heck, so I'm going to get some sleep. And it's easier to keep warm with another body."

Again, no response, but he did keep hold of his end of the blanket as she sat down next to him, leaning against his shoulder as she tucked the edges of the blanket in. The armor felt cool to the touch, but not as cold as the walls, so Victoria closed her eyes and pretended it was warm as she drifted back to sleep.

With her only outlet the barred window at the end of the hallway, it was difficult to keep track of time. At regular intervals, some of the clerics would come and drag away the boy in the black armor, leaving her to her own devices. Victoria occupied that time with inspecting every edge of the room, hoping to find some weakness, some idea for escape. Walls? Solid as far as she could tell. Bars? Not moving with her strength. Hinges? Sadly, on the outside. Still, she kept looking for some crack in the defenses, just as she kept having one-sided conversations with the boy in armor, hoping for a crack in his defenses.

It was several days, or so she thought, when she felt the oncoming of her symptoms, the beginning of an attack. Her forehead burned, and her chest tightened, shooting pain down her limbs with every breath. She knew her legs wouldn't stay up for long, so she laid down with her back against the stone floor, staring up at the ceiling and hoping for relief.

The tightness and pain worsened, but she gritted her teeth, refusing to scream. A shitty thing like this wasn't worth screaming over. What would be? Maybe if I had a tragic love, she thought dryly to herself, nails scraping against the floor.

A shadow passed in front of her, and through squinted eyes, she could see the boy in armor, his hand pressing against his forehead. "What's that going to do, dummy?" she asked. "How are you going to tell if I have a fever with that on? I do, by the way." Another spasm shot through her, and she tensed, teeth gritted again.

"... Victoria!" He took her hand in his own, helmeted head scanning up and down her body, not knowing how to proceed further.

"Oh, so he does have a voice. Mind telling me your name now?"

"Are… are you all right?"

"Of course I'm not all right, you idiot in armor. I'm dying, but it's not like you can do anything about that." She took in a breath, squeezing his hand without thinking about it. "Sorry. I get cranky sometimes when these things happen. It'll pass. I just have to wait it out."

"You're… sure? I can't do anything?"

"You can tell me your name like I've asked you a billion times, jerk. Or you could at least try to distract me with your charming voice and tales of adventure."

"...What?"

"Just talk!" she hissed, back arching.

"I… Um. My name… it's Alternis. Alternis Dim Lee."

"Alternis, huh? That's such a weird name. Still, I guess it must be nice having something to go with that. So, where are you from, Alternis Dim Lee?"

"I lived around here. My … my parents used to work at the temple."

"Oh, unlucky them. But I guess it must be nice to have parents. Were they nice?"

"They're the best."

"How unbelievably sappy. Anyone else in your happy little family?"

A pause. She was pretty sure the helmet itself was scowling. "Are you going to insult me if I tell you?"

"Maybe. It is what I do best. Humor a dying girl, won't you?"

He paused, continued, keeping his hand in hers. "I have four sisters. Einheria is a year older than me. She's strict and smart. Mephilia is a year younger than me. She's a bit flighty, but she loves magic and magical creatures. Edea is three years younger, and she's a bit of a crybaby, but it's impossible to hate her-"

"I bet I could try."

"-and Artemia is a year younger than her. She loves the wilderness and hunting." He sat back, as if speaking that much was as exhausting as having a near-lethal attack. "What are you sick with?"

"Now who's asking the sensitive questions?"

"Fair is fair."

"Okay, point. You ever hear of the Green Death?" Even speaking the name caused a look of distaste to cross her face. Her nemesis, the thing she hated most in the world.

"No, I haven't."

"It's not contagious, so don't worry, though some think so. I'm the only one I've ever known with it, though. They don't know when or how it shows up, but when it does, it isn't curable. I just get episodes like this until they kill me. Though I hear your skin turns green too. Doesn't that sound fun?"

"I'm sorry."

"If you really felt sorry for me, you'd take off your helmet and let me see your face," she challenged. Hey, she was dying. What was wrong with a little emotional blackmail at this point?

He didn't reply for a long period, but then he let go of her hand. There was a click, and then the face of a young boy, about her age all right, with dark blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. Old streaks on his cheeks lay where he'd apparently cried before. He avoided her eyes, and his body posture was distinctly uncomfortable-did he not take off the helmet much?

"Your face is filthy," she told him, reaching up an arm. "Here, come here. You can at least wipe that clean."

He responded by pulling her into his arms, loosely wrapping his own around her. "Just relax and save your strength," he told her, keeping her cradled.

Color rose to her cheeks, but not from the fever. Maybe he was a dashing prince after all. Ignoring the hammering of her heart, she pulled on her sleeve, using a part of it to wipe his face as clean as she could manage. "What to do here," she mumbled, running her fingers through his hair, playing with it. Twisting it around in front, she giggled as it held that shape. "There. Perfect."

He blinked, trying to look at it as best he could, but didn't protest. "So Alternis," she said, "no more of this funny business. We're going to get out of here together, so you have to talk to me, and you have to take that helmet off, sometimes. I'm not going to spend the rest of my limited days in here, and neither should you. Right?"

"What makes you so confident in that?"

"If you're asking about some proof I have of victory, I have none. But I have a limited amount of time left in this world. I have too many dreams of things I want to do to spend time wasting around here. What about you? Don't you have dreams? You're hardly dying."

"Dreams…." He said the word as if it were foreign. "I just… want to live with my family in peace. I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps, and be a great warrior."

"How mundane." She leaned against him, resting her head against his armored shoulder. "But I suppose it might be fun to have a family worth dreaming about. Let me rest now."

"You should rest," he agreed. "Stop talking."

"Maybe I'll talk to spite you," but the symptoms were ebbing, leaving her alive but exhausted.

It was only a few days after that, if her loose time-keeping was accurate, that the cleric-soldiers came and woke her from a dreamless sleep. "On your feet," they instructed.

"Go fuck yourself," she replied with as much venom as she could get while half-asleep.

He responded with a strike to her face, and she responded to that with a kick to his knee. Before he could strike back again, Alternis was inbetween them, silent and arm spread. "Her Grace wants to see you both," one of them said, taking him by the arm. "You'd do best to listen."

Alternis followed along willingly, and Victoria was half-tempted to yell at him for being an idiot, a coward. On the other hand, they'd be out of the cell together, and maybe he had a plan. Allowing herself to be dragged along, she nonetheless dug in her feet where she could, resulting in a few banged toes. She never did anything willingly she didn't want to, and as far as she was concerned, they could still go fuck themselves.

They went through hallways, enough to make her disoriented, but noticeably, they went up stairs but not down. "Where are we going?" she demanded of one of the clerics.

He didn't answer, but Alternis moved a little closer to her. "We're heading toward the inner sanctum of the Earth Temple. Where the Earth Crystal lives."

"Why?"

The helmeted head only shook slightly. "Her Grace will be so pleased to learn you've remembered how to talk," one of the guards sneered.

"Her Grace can go fuck herself, too," Victoria offered, and was rewarded with another slap. Her Grace… inside the Earth Temple, the only one who held a rank of respect was the Earth Vestal herself. Victoria had a vague impression of the woman; tall, ugly, the one that had ordered her soldiers to beat Victoria. Yep, she could definitely go fuck herself.

As Alternis had said, the stairs eventually stopped, the hallways becoming narrower but more grand, pillar-lined and mosaics set in the tile floors. Beyond another set of double doors, they entered the inner sanctum. Victoria was caught unprepared. The place was so massive she had a hard time believing it was at the top of a tower, for the space below the walkway they were on seemed to never end, and the ceiling looked miles away. The walkway was the only feature in the room, save the Earth Crystal itself. Massive, so much taller than Victoria herself, and a deep green color, rotating slightly as it hovered in midair, disdaining gravity. And around that, she could see a perfect sphere, shimmering like a soap bubble, obscuring the colors within.

A single woman stood by the edge of the barrier, gesturing for the two of them to be brought forward. Yep, this had to be Ugly. Alternis was given a shove, but Victoria remained in the grip of her guard. "Good morning, Alternis," the woman greeted with a fake syrupy voice. "Did you sleep well?"

He didn't answer, his posture stiff and cold, on guard against the woman. Suddenly, Victoria realized that whatever Alternis had been through, this had probably been the woman behind it. Now she had a thing she hated even more than the Green Death. "It's simple, Alternis. Today, you will break this barrier. Otherwise," she waved a hand at Victoria.

One of the guards put a spear tip to her neck. "Victoria!" Alternis said in alarm.

"You heard me, Alternis. Break this barrier. Otherwise, you understand what will happen, right? I expect I won't have to tell you twice."

"You worm!" Victoria exploded. "Is that why you let me live? So you could use me as a weak point against him?"

She looked over at Victoria, as if noticing her for the first time. "Oh, so there is a brain in that head of yours."

"You slime," she hissed, leaning into the spear edge. "I swear I'll throw your ashes to the four winds. I curse you, insect! Your ambitions will never come to pass!"

"Large talk from a dying girl. Alternis!"

"I don't know how to remove the barrier!" he shouted at her. "I can't do what you ask!"

She tilted her head, and then looked at the guard. "Start with an eye. We can remove her sharp tongue later."

"Victoria, no!" Alternis tried to reach for her, but the guards blocked his path.

As the speartip leveled with her eye, ready to strike, Victoria thought about the Green Death. It wasn't contagious, but if it had been, she wished each and every one of the guards here could suffer a fraction of what she was going through. "I curse you all!" she shouted as the weapon moved.

Then it dropped to the ground as the guard clutched at his throat, blood bubbling past the corners of his mouth. Within a moment, he fell to the ground as lifelessly as his weapon. The guards holding her, too, released their grip as they clawed at their throats, wheezing and coughing. "She's a darkness user, too!" she heard the ugly vestal's voice above the noise. "Kill her before you all die, fools!"

"No!" There was a sharp crack, and then the walkway shook, the sounds of shattering rock catching her attention through the haze around her. Another crack, and the ground under her feet quaked violently, tossing her off-balance. Arms caught her, familiar armored arms, and Alternis's voice, "We're making a break for it!"

Destruction still rang in her ears as she felt herself being carried away, the walls blurring by. Then they were in open cold air, falling toward an expanse of white. She barely had time to yell before they were engulfed with a 'pamf'. "Are you all right?"

"Do you always ask that question when the answer is obvious," she asked, shaking snow out of her hair.

"If you've got the energy to talk back, I guess you're fine." Alternis awkwardly pulled them out of the snow, Victoria still in his arms. Tossing off his helmet, he said, "It's cold out. We need to get away from here. I don't know what happened to the vestal and I don't want to stay to find out."

"Where should we go?" she asked, already feeling the cold in her arms and legs.

"If we can make it to the city, we can hide there. I'll carry you," he said, turning his back to her and kneeling down. "I can run faster than you can."

She scowled, but consented, slinging her arms around his neck and letting him grab her legs. With another blur of white, he was off. "When did you get so fast?" she asked.

"I've always been pretty athletic," he replied. "When did you learn… whatever you did?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm just the personification of plague. Sounds romantic, doesn't it?"

"No. It doesn't. And you aren't." He ran in silence for a while, his hands holding her firm. "I know what plague looks like."

"How so?"

"The village I was born in… succumbed to plague. I never caught it, so they figured I must be cursed, or the cause… I don't think they were bad people, but…."

For the first time, Victoria felt embarrassed for something she'd said, pushing her face against his shoulder. "Sorry."

"It's in the past. You just focus on staying well. Are you still feeling well?"

She looked down at her hand, at the tinge of green under her fingernails, the tightness starting in her chest. "Yes," she lied. "Keep going."