Shadow Slave

Sunny remained silent for a while, thinking about Mirage and her whimsical kingdom. A land of towering dams, sprawling forests, lakes that glistened under the sun, and illusory castles that drifted upon the bed of reflected clouds… a place where fantasies came true.

A playground populated by beings she had imagined to сure her solitude and entertain her.

Sunny thought about how it had ended up, as well.

A broken sky, a shattered moon. A great castle that lay in ruins, and a drowned city hidden at the bottom of an abominable lake, with countless bones buried in the silt.

The only untainted things that remained of the Demon of Imagination were the illusory simulacrum on her beautiful citadel and the imaginary palace hidden in the reflections.

The former had been usurped by the Nightmare Spell and fashioned into a great stronghold for the Awakened, while the latter… the latter was slowly falling apart, having been left without a master for too long.

Sunny sighed.

He had always loved unraveling the ancient mysteries of the Dream Realm… but at some point, delving deeper into its dark past became intertwined with a sense of wistful melancholy.

Perhaps it was because he had become so much more powerful now. The protagonists of those ancient stories were not as distant and unreachable as they had seemed once… the gods, the daemons. Now that Sunny was halfway to becoming a deity himself, he could not perceive them as vast, faceless forces of nature anymore.

He could relate to their woes and sorrows, somewhat, and therefore was unable to deny their personhood.

’Should I really be feeling sorry for them, though?’

Those bastards were the ones who had ruined the world, after all. They were to blame for turning all of existence into a graveyard.

But no matter how Sunny tried, he could not bring himself to hate the deities of bygone eras. Their fate was already tragic, and their ends were already bitter enough. It was all one big mess of cosmic proportions, and that mess was too distant and too vast for him to care about it personally.

”A wonderful lecture.”

Morgan had approached him and Saint at some point, and chose that moment to speak.

”I did not know. It is strange, really, how little we knew about Bastion — my grandfather had conquered it, after all, and my father ruled it for decades. I guess it was only to be expected, though, considering how wary both of them were of the Great Mirror.They spent decades guarding against it instead of trying to unravel its mysteries… I can’t help but wonder if things would have been different if they were more curious.”

Effie, who had brought the last box from the trunk of her PTV — or rather, her family PTV — placed it on the floor and shook off drops of water from her shoulders.

”Of course, things would have been different.”

She looked at Morgan and smiled.

”Your grandfather, your daddy, and you would have been replaced by the Others decades ago. I hate to admit it, but let’s give credit where credit is due… if there was one thing Anvil did right, it was keeping the Great Mirror covered at all times. As the current ruler of Bastion, that is precisely what I am doing, too.”

Morgan gave her a dark look, then shrugged.

”...Fair enough.”

Sunny interrupted them in a neutral tone:

”That is great and all, but shall we get down to business? Effie…”

He gestured to Saint, who seemed to have tensed as a result.

”Will you do the honors?”

It was sort of fun to see this side of his taciturn Shadow, but Sunny needed his trusted general more than he wanted to have fun. So, they needed to make Saint remember who she was sooner rather than later. 𝑅𝙖𝐍Ổ𝖇ƐṠ

Having her going around while believing that she was a human, and a psychiatrist from before the Dark Times at that, was not only of little use, but also a hindrance.

Of course... there was a risk in making Saint remember, as well. Sunny did not know how she would behave after regaining her memories, but while still

trapped in the body of a mundane human. Becoming mundane had been quite a shock for him, after all, and Saint was not even of the same species.

Living as a human would be an entirely alien experience to her. Would she still be able to play the role of Dr. Saint? If not, they would have an entirely different problem on their hands.

Nevertheless... there was a lot of irony in the fact that Saint would have to experience what being a human felt like not long after Sunny had experienced being a Stone Saint.

In any case, the benefits outweighed the risks.

Effie stared at him for a bit, then sighed.

”Excuse me.”

With that, he placed a hand on Saint’s shoulder and looked into her eyes.

”Hey… Saint, was it? Snap out of it.”

The beautiful therapist looked up at her silently.

Nothing happened for a few moments…

And then, her expression changed subtly. Her eyes widened slightly, and she seemed to hold her breath for a heartbeat or two.A slight crease appeared on her brow.

She lingered for a while, then coughed.

”I am sorry? What am I supposed to snap out of?”

Effie blinked a few times and glanced at Sunny before turning back to Saint.

”Uh… come to your senses? Pull yourself together? Get a grip!”

Saint stared at her for a while, then raised a hand and deliberately pushed Effie’s away.

Her eyes glistened with a barely suppressed emotion, and Sunny could hear the sound of teeth grinding against each other.

Saint exhaled slowly, then inhaled deeply and closed her eyes for a few moments.

Opening them again, she said in an even tone:

”Isn’t that what I should be telling you three?”

She paused for a moment, and then added in a low voice:

”...Damnation.”