[Fay’s perspective]

  “Again.” Null throws a rock into the air, I point my finger at it, trying to conjure some of the black liquid.

  It lands on the floor, Null picks up another rock, “you’re really bad at this.”

  “I know, it's like it has a mind of its own.” I prepare myself for another rock, holding my finger out, she throws it, it meets my eyeline, it drops to the floor with a crack.

  “Urgh.” I sit down, I had been doing this all night, not being able to rest. I fill my fingers with leaves, they slowly dissolve into the liquid, “why can't I just do this? I can always keep leaves with me.”

  She picks up another rock, “You need to conjure your innate magic with your own blood, not someone else's.” She throws a rock and pierces it with a pink thread, destroying it.

  “Maybe I just can't.” I control the liquid that came from the leaves, it's easy to control it after it's been conjured, I just can't make it out of thin air.

  She stands around a bit, swaying in the morning breeze, “are you going to give up?”

  “No?”

  “Good.” She picks up another rock, “again?”

  “Okay.” I stand up and point my finger, she chucks the rock in the air.

  “Hey Coworker!” Someone grabs both of my shoulders harshly, the rock falls to the floor, “hm... you kill that human yet?” She begins to harshly massage my shoulder blades, pinching with her whole hands.

  “Yes.” I step forward out of her grasp, “he is buried next to the cabin.”

  I turn to look at her, she is wearing a red and gold dress which shows off her shoulders, with her hair twirled up in a nice ponytail, it goes down her neck down her collarbone on her left. Her purplish skin looks sort of normal in the morning sunlight.

  “So, if I were to dig up the grave id find a corpse?”

  “Yes.”

  She steps back, then again, “are you sureee?” She does a small jump before hopping towards the grave, Null and I follow her.

  She holds her hand out and flings the dirt in the air with a flick of her wrist, it rains back down everywhere. She leans over the grave and finds the ball of meat that used to be the original Jackson, “you used an implosion spell?”

  “Yeah...”

  “Cute.” She leaves the hole wide open as she steps towards me, “what sound did it make? Did he scream? Oh, I bet he was a crier, not like you, you wouldn't cry before death.” She grabs both my hands.

  Her hands squeeze mine as she keeps eye contact, something that I learnt from my years of being close to her is if she initiates eye contact, I cannot look away from a second. “I'm going to a dinner party soon.”

  A dinner party? “Okay?”

  “Yeah...” she holds the eye contact, her orange eyes have a higher tint of red to them without the grey sky, “have you been to a dinner party before?”

  “I have... well I went to a wedding before, is that similar?”

  “I don't know.” She lets go a bit, “so... I'll be out. Tonight.”

  “Cool.”

  She steps back, grinding her shoes on the grass, “it is cool.” She turns to null with a sweet smile, “oh, uh.” She grabs nulls arm, I notice Null is shaking, with a sickening crack and meaty pop she rips the arm off. Sharpening the arm into a blade to stab into her chest multiple times. The sound of cutting and slashing wakes the birds up, they caw. Null doesn't say a thing.

  “WHAT THE FUCK?” I yell running up to her, grabbing Lilith's arm, she hits me with so much force I black out on impact, waking up with my body lying on a tree, my back feeling like its broken and my arms bent unnaturally.

  I see in the distance, 20 meters away Lilith standing over Nulls body, repeatedly hitting it, my one unbroken arm grabs leaves, I use it as fuel for my innate magic and shoot it towards Lilith.

  It hits her directly in the head, bouncing off and exploding the branch of a tree, splinters hit the floor beside them, I conjure up another pool of the black liquid, using 4 full hands of leaves, I shoot it towards her again, she hasn't stopped her violent attack on Null yet so I assume she isn't dead.

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  The black liquid bends into a spike as it launches forward, hitting Lilith's bacl, the dress she was wearing rips as it bounces off. The projectile ricochets into a window of the cabin, breaking a hole into it with a loud smash.

  Why is she doing this?

  The dinner party, she wants me to go to the dinner party. I use my working arm to pull myself up, rushing towards the crime scene, “I'll go! I'll go to the dinner party! Stop it!” My voice is tinged with emotion, something she isn't used to seeing.

  She stops, blood dripping from the arm she had ripped off, the bone sharpened into a blade, Null is convulsing on the floor, her eyes wide awake, her mouth slightly agape.

  “Say please.” She pokes at Null with the weapon.

  “Please. I want to go to the dinner party with you.”

  “That wasn't so hard, was it?” She pulls at her dress, her entire back is showing from the magic I had shot at her. She takes out a magic spell and places on my chest, “morva eris.” Which fixes everything, she had planned this, why else would she have healing spells hidden away somewhere?

  “Wear something nice.” She looks back at Null, who is slowly reconstructing herself, “relax, rank 4’s don't die that easily, you need to turn them into a pulp to kill them.” She gives a good chuckle, “see you tonight.”

  Lilith hops away down the path, leaving a scene of blood and destruction. Null is still on the floor, pink threads stitching her wounds together.

  “Ill... go make a healing spell.” I open the cabin door, the entire kitchen had been destroyed by my spell, metal bent, and wood splintered.

  I grab a piece of paper, then a blood vial, writing out the spell I was familiar with at this point. I rip it off and get to null, who was trying to connect the mutated arm, “stop... that arm is beyond saving...”

  I put the paper on her, “morva eris.” My head feels like it was hit with a basketball, a lot less of a reaction than it used to be. I used my own blood again, forgot to drink a vial.

  The spell helps with her minor wounds, small cuts close and scab over then close again, like I'm watching a timelapse. “Thank you, Fay.” She says with her coarse voice, her lungs are probably punctured.

  “No problem.” Thank you, ‘Fay?’ She dropped the ‘master.’

  I feel a weird sense of concern, whenever someone was taken, if it was an old man or a kid, I'd feel next to nothing. Of course, I wasn't celebrating, but I wasn't losing sleep over it.

  But right now, I just felt like Lilith was attacking me just as much as Null, much how like I felt her threats towards Noah was a threat towards me, through extension. Is this how I'd feel if I saw Noah get attacked? Angry?

  “Call... clone... go to mansion... get clone.”

  I nod, “okay.” I stand up and walk like I'm on a mission, down the path and out of the forest, towards the manor.

  I can already pick up on what she is about to do, but much like how I didn't lose sleep on the people who were taken that I didn't know, I won't lose sleep through this either.

  There is a clone cutting a box shaped bush, her tongue sticking out due to focus, “Hey.”

  “Oh. Hello Master Fay, are you here to visit Master Lilith?”

  I scratch the back of my head, “oh nah, Null got hurt and I need to clean up my cabin, place is a disaster.”

  She nods, happily stepping onto the path, “I will assist you.”

  I guide her down the path into the forest, towards the bloody cabin, the clone's eyes widen at the scene, “oh my.” She runs up to null, settling down next to her “are you okay?”

  Null stares at her for a moment, “yes... can I borrow your arm?”

  The clone's eyes settle on nothing for a moment, disassociating, she turns to me, then back to null, “oh. Yes. If you must.”

  Threads fly through the air, she carefully takes the clones arm off, stitching it as she goes to not cause bleeding. Tears flow down the clone's face as she does so, not moving an inch.

  Null attaches the arm to herself, being able to move it perfectly, “thank you...” Null speaks softly and wipes the tears from the clone's face.

  “No... No problem.” She stands up, “I must get back to work... I might need a hand... hah... with... work...” she steps away from everything, “do you still need help Master Fay? Or was this it?”

  “That was it... sorry...”

  She nods, walking down the path, her balance off slightly, holding her side.

  I turn to Null who is now fully standing, “can we get her a replacement arm?”

  She gives a small smile, “I can, I usually do clone repairs every week.” She touches my shoulder with the hand she had just stolen from her clone, “you need to get dressed for your dinner party.”

  I don't feel good about what just happened, Null guides me into the cabin, soaking in all the damage I caused, “it's interesting... your magic.”

  Theres a note on the table, the date I had with the original version of her, Null has not mentioned it yet. Having a schedule after 5 years of nothing is really stressful.

  Null opens the drawer, “what you are wearing is good... but you need a suit, let's go for something basic.” She grabs a basic blazer; the ones fancy business folk would wear while walking down the street.

  She puts it around my clothes, outerwear apparently doesn't stitch onto me, weird.

  “Then...” she grabs almost the exact same long-sleeved button up shirt I was just wearing, maybe a different shade and pushes it into my chest. The other shirt shoots out and gets replaced by the new one as it absorbs. She picks the old one up and folds it up for washing.

  “you’re missing something” she holds her hand to her chin, stepping back a bit to look at my whole frame, “no tie... that isn't it... why is your hair so long?”

  “Lilith likes it long.”

  “Oh.”

  She grabs a hair tie from her small bag, walking behind me and pulling my hair. Tying it into a neat short ponytail.

  There are no mirrors in this cabin, so I am unsure of what I look like, but it feels weird.

  “Thanks Null.”

  “Don't get into trouble, I was taken to a dinner party when I was first bought, it was not pleasant.” She pats down my clothes, making sure I look perfect.

  “What happened?”

  “Just... a lot of showing off, Lilith loves to mingle with those weaker than her, but those weaker than her are a lot stronger than you.” She pats both my shoulders, “stay safe.”

  We both sit in silence, deciding that today was for relaxation until the eventual dinner party.