Renfaire Fantasy 2: Darkest Night (Patreon)

“Hey? Hey,” Brian gave Stephanie a squeeze. “Steph? S’gonna be alright. Okay?”

You shouldn’t be comforting me!! Stephanie wanted to wail. We should have listened to Emily—we should have taken care of Chloe before you woke up from the healing trance. This SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN YOUR PROBLEM, shouldn’t have been your responsibility, this shouldn’t have all been on your conscience! Doing it this way—doing it like this—it was cruel to you, Brian. I hate that we did things this way. I hate it I hate it I hate it WHY DIDN’T WE LISTEN TO EMILY?!

Everything felt like it was flipped upside down, and right now she didn’t understand at all why her past self had been so lenient and forgiving and wanted to suffer through some attempt at moral high ground. Stephanie hated how her naivete had hurt Brian here, she hated it hated it hated it! Any attempt at offering charity or mercy to Chloe was a mistake, it was cruel to everyone who suffered because of her words and deeds, and she had been blind to how her stupid ‘good intentions’ had simply been a complete misstep from the very start.

“...She bit you,” Stephanie murmured hatefully against Brian’s chest.

“What?” Brian shifted the knee she was perched on and gently tried to pull her away from himself enough that he could see her face. “Steph?”

“She bit you,” Stephanie repeated, looking away from him.

She was too ashamed to meet his eyes right now. Brian was the one that was really hurting, she could feel his pain radiating off of him in agonizing waves. He felt diminished by what he had just done to Chloe, he felt like he had crossed a line that was never meant to be touched upon and the simple act of kissing Chloe against her will here rendered him into irredeemable trash. The self-loathing he was experiencing right now was totally abhorrent to Stephanie because she loved him more than anything, and the only mental compromise she could accept to keep from going completely insane was to apply his feelings instead to herself.

“Ah, yeah,” Brian let out a dry laugh. “It’s okay—just drew blood a tiny bit, not gonna kill me or anything. I’m sure we can clean it up fine. Rebecca probably has something we borrow to wrap it up in.”

It’s NOT okay, Stephanie’s throat constricted but she managed to stifle the sob from coming out—instead she simply shook her head at him in firm denial. IT’S NOT OKAY. Okay?!

There was too much tied into what Chloe had done for her to put into words right now. Chloe biting him couldn’t be treated as if she was a wayward toddler who didn’t know better, and they shouldn’t be acting as if it was simply an instance of domestic violence or assault, either. It was a total rejection of principles—Chloe saw before her the gateway to a life of magic codified into a path of love and a path of blood, and she directly rejected peace to choose blood. She would rather be a blood-sucking parasite, a killer, someone who stole life from others to survive, then live a life defined by people she loved.

It was proof in Stephanie’s eyes that Chloe had never been capable of love.

I don’t know anymore, Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut again and rocked forward to press her face against Brian’s shirt which was already wet with her tears. I-I can’t even think right now.

Brian’s mood, his feelings, had always subconsciously been a stable foundation for Stephanie, and with them dropping out from under her and instead forming a terrible chasm of self-doubt and disgust it felt like the end of the world. Not too far away, Emily was boiling with rage that had no outlet, and Stephanie suspected the seething constant why didn’t we just fucking listen feeling that continued to throb out in pulses was emanating from her. From Kelly Stephanie could barely feel anything at all, and that terrified her, because she didn’t have any idea what that sort of detachment might mean, and the loss of her Kelly guiding stars above along with Brian the ground beneath her feet made it seem as though everything was over.

“Hey. It’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay,” Brian’s voice was a low rumbling murmur, and his hand rubbed up and down her back. “Was just a normal bite, no magic or anything. Promise I won’t transform into Chloe every full moon or anything.”

The joke interrupted Stephanie’s quiet sobs with a jerky exhalation that might have been a laugh, and she shook her head again and clung onto Brian even harder. On a personal level, she was not comfortable at all with him trying to console her when she should be consoling him—but also at the same time when he did so the yawing open wound in the ground didn’t feel quite so deep.

It is helping him, Stephanie realized, fighting to blink away her tears. Just, just being able to comfort me helps him a lot. I-it maybe externalizes the issue, for him. A bit. He does know I’m feeling what he feels, but Brian just fundamentally can’t just tell himself that what happened, what he did was something he can be okay with. But, if it’s me—if it’s me, he can, kind of. Because he can just focus on wanting me to feel better.

“Brian?” Stephanie’s voice was a hoarse croak. “Brian, you did the right thing. You did the right thing. O-okay?”

“Did I?” Brian asked, and his voice had a distant, far away quality to it that Stephanie despised.

“Yes!” Stephanie rocked back in his lap so that they were at arm’s length from each other and could properly address one another. “Yes, you did the right thing. Chloe chose this. This, th-this outcome, this happening the way it did—this was the choice she made. Okay?!”

“Steph, I…” Brian closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I just took away her free will. Which means, for the rest of you, for us all, it means—”

“No!” Stephanie shook her head in adamant refusal. “You didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t. Okay? You didn’t. That’s not what happened. Sh-she bit you. She tried to steal your power, she chose blood. B-but, you see, that wasn’t her choice to make, because, because it is your power. Comes from you, from us.”

“So if it wasn’t her choice to make, then doesn’t that mean—”

“No, no, stop,” Stephanie wanted to burst into tears all over again. It was so frustrating that she wasn’t able to organize her thoughts into clear arguments the way Kelly seemed to do naturally.

“I mean, what I mean is—her biting you, her trying to take that from you, she, sh-she didn’t get to choose the path she took, because that, that isn’t something she can take from you. A-and, um, it’s her trying to steal that that chose her consequences, because. Because at that point you can’t let her keep the freedom to try to take from others. T-to hurt people. I-it’s, what you had to do, it wasn’t like you mind control her or, or take her free will. You’re not a bad person! She is. She, she forfeited her freedom to keep hurting people right here with her choice. It’s like prison! Like prisons—people are in prison because they forfeited their, um, their certain rights. Right?”

“I guess,” Brian blew out a long breath and gave her a squeeze. “Just, also no matter what… I don’t know. I can’t justify it. I mean, I get what you’re saying, and down there in the moment it really was like I didn’t have a choice doing it. Wasn’t too rich on options. But then also, trying to rationalize it will to some extent just always feel like I’m trying to make excuses for myself? I guess. Fuck, Steph, I’m real sorry about this. I know you’re uh, you’re kind of just forced into what I’m feeling right now, and I hate that.”

“No,” Stephanie pressed her face against his chest again so that he wouldn’t see her face collapse into more tears. “No. No. No. I—I love you. I want to feel this. I, I hate it, but I don’t want to, to just not know. Not know what you’re going through, not be a part of it. Brian I love you.”

“I love you too, Steph,” Brian ran fingers through her hair.

Armed with more of a sense of purpose now, Stephanie’s inner flame felt less like a hateful fire that harmed everything it touched and more like a focused, purifying fire. More than anything she wanted to push all of her burning heat down into Brian and scorch away all of the horrible feelings somehow—but she didn’t know how to do that. So, she simply burned as bright as she could, because maybe she could at least be a light for him when his earthy substrate was collapsing down into caverns of grotesque darkness.

He did feel a little better, and being able to feel that out was an enormous relief to her.

I’m not sure this, this wound here will ever fully heal, Stephanie sniffled. But it WILL get better, I’ll make sure it gets better. With some time, and some love, and maybe once Kelly can, can I guess use how much better she is at explaining what I mean, it won’t be like there’s this giant ABYSS in my Brian’s heart, his magical presence. It’ll maybe just be like—like—

Stephanie’s eyes snapped open, and she frowned against Brian’s shirt.

Like a single grave.

*     *     *

“Bet you’re pretty fucking pleased with yourself?” Emily kicked another bit of dead leaves and dirt into the open grave so that they showered down upon the cowering Christine. “Yeah. You must be.”

Emily wasn’t happy. Emily was discovering new depths of unhappiness that she wished she could have just remained ignorant of forever. She could accept sharing Brian with Stephanie and Kelly, they were fine. Maybe even Rebecca too, Emily didn’t really have any big problems with that. Emily had huge problems sharing her boyfriend with Chloe, and her inclusion already felt like it was immediately souring everything.

“Fucking answer me,” Emily kicked more crap into the hole.

“You should kill me,” Christine pleaded. “So you can be sure. So that you all aren’t risking it. I should stay down here.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Emily scowled. “I’m not buying it. I’m never going to fucking trust what you say, ever, and if you’re trying to evoke pity or sympathy from someone, you’re talking to the wrong fucking person.”

Her own magic power was surging and roiling, but try as she might Emily was not able to channel it into a slicing beam of water pressure, or flash-flood the excavation here and drown Chloe, or take control of the water content of the girl’s body to blood-bend her into a grisly mangle. Not for lack of trying. With narrowed eyes and a grip on the borrowed phone so tight that her hand ached Emily was pushing at her power, but she just couldn’t get it to do anything.

So fucking frustrating, Emily clenched her teeth. And like—what are we even supposed to DO with her? I say, the party we have here is full. Brian’s got a great line-up of Monsters, and any he catches into the harem after say, Rebecca, should just get automagically transferred to his Monster Battlers PC. To wait there trapped in silence forever. Rebecca’s cool though, she’s in.

“You’re not ever having sex with him,” Emily spat. “He’s never going to love you or make love to you. Probably you have STDs anyways—fuck, we should have had you tested before he kissed you. Were you cheating on Brian? Seems like a total Chloe thing you would’ve done. Yeah, I bet you were.”

“No,” Christine said in a small voice.

“Shut the fuck up, nobody asked you,” Emily snarled. “Yeah, right. Like I’d believe anything you’d say. Just you wait. I’m gonna ask around. Investigate. It would’ve been guys around Seneca—somebody’ll know something.”

“I was… she was just using Ryan to try to make Brian jealous,” Christine reported. “She wanted to hurt him, needed to emasculate him. Cuckold him.”

“I fucking knew it!” Emily hissed, and for a moment the light of the phone turned this way and that as Emily searched the terrain around her for a handy-sized rock or something she could smash this traitor’s skull in with.

“But, I never cheated,” Christine continued. “Didn’t kiss, didn’t touch. I just, she just—it was all leading guys on. Trying to use them. Ryan was easy to manipulate. Tried to turn Will against Brian too, but I-I think Michael realized and they must have talked. That all clamped down and shut me out.”

“Fucking Will,” Emily raged. “Better fucking be putting bros before hoes. So, what was even the point of all of it?! Huh? Why, fucking why, why go through all of the stupid bullshit you pulled, what the actual fuck did Brian ever do to you?”

“I…I don’t know,” Christine cried in a pleading voice. “Please, please just—kill me. I don’t want to be her again.”

*     *     *

Silver haze hung in Christine’s head like smoke and refused to clear. The scales upon which her internal values balanced were askew but felt like they were teetering back and forth between both directions, which made her feel like she was genuinely going insane. The contrast between rage at everyone else and despair at herself and what she had done was a difference so extreme that trying to maintain coherent thought was giving her a dizzying headache. As she crouched miserably in the dirt of the excavation, it was easy however to determine what was wrong with her.

For all of the past months, maybe the past several YEARS, I’ve just—psychologically weighed everything in my favor, Christine determined, feeling sick. I do KNOW right from wrong, I do have those moral scales, I just somehow started putting a thumb on one side so that they always, always tilted in my favor. Not, not just a fucking thumb. In the end, I put all of the weight of my being on it.

She had fucked up.

She had really, ROYALLY fucked up.

What was scariest was how easy it was to do. Once she sank further and further into that delusion, there just weren’t any doubts or real self-awareness. Everything was viewed through the lens of her being in the right; always. Always. The whole world, everyone else was wrong, it was always someone else’s—anyone else’s—fault. Whether or not that even made any sense. Without any compunction she had tampered with her own moral compass until it was completely broken, and then after that she had done completely reprehensible things to other people while not feeling even a single iota of guilt or remorse.

I can’t fix this, anyways, Christine drew her fingernails down her face. It’s over for me. I can’t make up for what I’ve done or make it right. It’s crazy that they even discovered MAGIC BULLSHIT that restored my sanity like this. Or at least mostly.

Whatever he had done to her had cleaned her clock—a violent silver surge of something she didn’t know how to describe invaded into her and loosened up that internal scale of personal values. Values which had been so completely lopsided that everyone else had seemed like the psychopath. It was as if Brian had used silvery droplets of pure mercury to grease oil on a stuck lever, to fix some defunct needle in a gauge that had always pointed to I’m always right no matter what the actual circumstances were.

Worse yet, Christine didn’t quite feel as though she was completely fixed. Her values were still not quite right, the scales weren’t calibrated, and every time the pendulum swung back towards her ego of psychotic narcissism, there was that irresistible pull there in that direction, which wanted to throw everything out of balance once again and simply insist that she was always in the right. Always.

The silver feeling… it’s not CLEAR like it was before, Christine realized, her thoughts fighting through the fog and confusion. On the blood magic, everything was in this laser-focused clarity. Now, it’s like… it’s like…

Her ‘magic’ awareness right now was instead like trying to peer through an extremely dusty mirror. Christine could feel the reflection there again, but it was cloudy, it was still choked with a faded dullness that rendered all of the fine details into murky abstracts. At the forefront of all of that strange synesthesia somewhere between imagination and gut instinct, Christine knew that the hunger was gone. The blood hunger, the innate hole deep within the core of her being that would always, always need filled when she was on the other magic path was gone.

I’m not… SATISFIED either, though, Christine brought shaky fingers to touch her stomach through the filthy sweatshirt. It’s just, that NEED isn’t there. Not like it was before.

The phantom ache for blood had been something she had associated with the terrible mental clarity and ability to self reflect, so not feeling it now worried her. Because, what if it meant that something wasn’t working right? Whatever magic thing they had tried to do didn’t take? What if the scales tipped her towards Chloe again? Brian kissing her was supposed to instead put her on the ‘charm’ path the other girls were on, but she didn’t feel infatuated or lovestruck or even remotely turned on.

She felt sick, she felt a growing horror and disbelief welling up within her that made her want to vomit. Christine felt like she’d been watching a baby bird hopping at her feet and chirping and then stomped it to death, not realizing what she had done or why until after the fact, when the terrible deed was already done. There was no way to accept what she had done to the others, how she had treated everyone. As a vengeful psychopath she hadn’t experienced any of these awful feelings, and Christine was terrified that being unable to live with her deeds would force her back into being the kind of girl who was indifferent to all of that. Wasn’t it easier just being Chloe?

Another spatter of dirt and leaves showered down upon her as Emily continued to idly kick stuff from the edge of the grave in her direction. That didn’t bother her—Christine didn’t think she could blame Emily if the girl slapped her or beat her or clawed her face. She deserved all of that and worse. Or, maybe Christine would fight back? After all, all of this that happened was their fault in the first place, wasn’t it?

Wait, or was it?

Christine silently wretched as another wave of revulsion roiled through her with an unpleasant aftertaste of silver oxide. She mostly thought that she deserved any punishment that the others would decide, but then also still a venomous broken part of her raged at them and insisted they were in the wrong, that all of this was their fault.

Everything that happened was because of THEM.

“Em-Emily?” Christine croaked out.

“Fucking what.”

“I’m not fixed,” Christine explained with urgency. “I, I still feel—I’m still crazy. I’m, it’s not all right. It’s not all right like it’s supposed to be, like it was when I was on the other magic. I feel insane, I feel—I’m not completely fixed.”

“Are you fucking complaining that we didn’t—” Emily’s furious voice called down.

“No! No, I mean—” Christine stammered. “I mean, I wanted you to know. You have to know. Know my uh, my mental state, my, as uh, as best as I can assess myself. I am not fixed. S-so, so I want you all to be as, as careful as you can because I’m not in the right mind still yet. Okay? That’s what I wanted to say.”

“Okay,” Emily grunted back. “Right, got it. Fucking figures. You’ve just got a few shitty silver streaks, you’re not all the way.”

“Okay,” Chloe sniffled. “Okay. Just—yeah, just so long as you know. So long as someone knows. Be careful with me.”

“I don’t want you to be with Brian,” Emily muttered. “I just, I don’t want you to be with Brian. Hate hate hate even just the idea of it. You don’t deserve him. I wish they had just fucking listened to me.”

“I know,” Christine said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Emily snarled. “No, you don’t know, you don’t have any fucking idea. I already had to watch as he suffered through being in a relationship with you, I fucking saw what you did to him. How y-you, you ate away at him, how my Brian started to lose that special spark. Yeah, he was hurt from what his shitty fucking parents did to him, but—he was so, so Brian before, he had hopes and dreams and bright fucking prospects, he had so much to look forward to! We had so much fucking fun back then, even though we weren’t really together!

“Every day was this total blast, every day felt like it was the best fucking day of our lives! Watching all of that… dim after he was with you, watching that brightness start to leave his eyes, having to see depression and tiredness and silence start to settle in in its place—Chloe I FUCKING HATE that you did that to him. And, no, I’ll never fucking forgive you.”

“Yeah,” Christine let out a small sob.

Her insides felt like they were wrenching themselves into knots, because she agreed. Except, Emily’s words also didn’t make much sense. Why was Christine somehow responsible for all of Brian’s stupid problems? She didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for that pathetic man-child of a—no, again sympathy ebbed through in chemical silver and she shuddered with disgust for herself, feeling bile rise up in her throat. See-sawing back and forth between derangement and despair made her want to scratch and claw the poisonous silver out from her veins, made her want to rip her hair out.

I need more fucking silver, or I need rid of all of it, Chloe rocked back and forth to relieve the manic tension. Not this IN BETWEEN. Or, I need to just die. Die, die, die, die.

“He’s back, now,” Emily continued. “My Brian. He’s got his Brian spark back, but, you know what? It took Stephie and Kelly and weird-ass real life actual magic to bring it back to him, to wake him up, to bring him back up from whatever you fucking wrought upon him, a-and I don’t think you understand how, how fucking lucky we were. That all of this crazy bullshit happened to play out this way.”

Christine’s fingers traveled up into her hair and gathered mussed and tangled locks into her fists as she cried. She needed something to clutch onto, because while she was raging against the shadowy shape of herself in the mirror, there was also still that eerie patch of psychopathic calm. That Chloe part of her, which was probably just waiting for its next chance to fuck everyone and everything over, biding its time. It was maddening being only partway fixed, and moment to moment she wished they would instead just put her out of her misery.

Silver fog woke her up to being able to isolate and recognize that side of herself, and looking at it, actually seeing it terrified her. Because it was addictive, because having power of others, having zero qualms about freely manipulating everyone around her, taking every advantage, turning every situation towards her favor, and living a life that spared absolutely no thoughts to the consequences of what she was doing or who happened to get hurt along the way—it was EASY.

It was simple and straightforward, natural, to only ever care about herself, and damn everyone else. Wasn’t it? Some insidious part of her knew that it was mentally the path of least resistance for her, that she could either relax and slip back into it, or spend every waking moment doubting her every reflexive action and holding them suspect. If there was ever going to—

“How is she?” Brian’s voice sounded from above.

Christine couldn’t help but flinch back at recognizing it, and her shoulders shrunk in against her neck and she tried to press herself down as low as possible. There was nowhere to hide in this grave she was trapped in, and the flashlight of the phone Emily kept pointed down towards her prevented her from finding any shadow to hide in. Terror, shame, and rage squirmed through her guts and sapped all of the energy from her bones—she did not know how to face him right now.

“She said she’s not turned all the way,” Emily answered. “That we should be careful. Are you okay? Brian? Steph, you okay? Thought you guys were gonna sit things out for a bit.”

“Yeah, just—think I’m magically spent. Head’s killing me,” Brian remarked. “I’m okay.”

“He’s not okay. Okay?” Stephanie’s voice sounded from just beside him. “He’s not okay.”

“What are we doing with Chloe?” Emily asked, and shadows swung throughout the grave as the light was turned away to instead illuminate their conversation up above. “Battery on Steph’s phone is down to twenty seven percent. We can’t leave her down there if we’re not killing her—and I am not sleeping tonight if she isn’t tied up or chained up or padlocked to something sturdy.”

“Chloe?” Brian called. “Or—should I call you Christine?”

“Y—” Christine started with a stammer and had to swallow before attempting to speak again. “You can call me whatever you want. I’m, um. It was always Christine Chloe Weschler. My full name. Just wanted to, uh, to try to reinvent myself. After high school. So I kept introducing myself as Chloe. It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” Brian finally said. “Then, I guess—”

“I can feel her,” Stephanie reported from Brian’s side. “It’s, she’s not a dead spot that pushes back magic like she was back before, right after the convention. And, she’s not a nothing with no magic like she was just earlier tonight, either. There’s like a smudge around her now, but I can feel her. Feel what she’s feeling. A—ooph, a little bit.”

“What is she feeling?” Emily demanded.

“Disgusting,” Stephanie held nothing back. “Wretched. Suicidal. Despair. Angry at herself, and at us. Horrified, she stinks of shame and guilt and she hates herself. It feels disgusting, it’s all awful things, but then they’re also different. Not blending together or uh, or in concert. Her feelings are chunky. I, I, Brian I’m not going to be able to be near her for long, if she’s like this.”

“She did say she wasn’t cooked the whole way through yet,” Emily muttered from above, turning the light back over a recoiling Christine. “See? She’s only got silver streaks. She needs to be done through silver the whole way, if we’re doing this. Are we doing this?”

“Chloe?” Brian called. “Can you climb up out of there yourself? Not exactly going to be able to sleep on this, I don’t think. Steph, if you can sense her, you can watch for uh, for violent emotions or outbursts or—”

“I will,” Stephanie promised.

“—anything like that,” Brian said. “Let’s sit around the fire and see if we can have a productive conversation this time. I… I didn’t want to hit you, Chloe. I wish I could say I’m sorry that I did, but. I don’t know what to tell you. Don’t know what I was supposed to do, what I could have done differently. I know you didn’t want the charm magic forced on you, I didn’t want that either and I don’t like that it came to that. I’m not comfortable with it at all, but fuck. What was I supposed to do? Chloe?”

“I don’t know,” Christine couldn’t help but sound anguished. “I don’t know.”

“Were you really going to go to the Masters and try to snitch us out to them?” Emily pressed.

“Probably,” Christine covered her face with both hands, refusing to start climbing out. “Just—yes, probably. Once she could, once I could figure out a way to do it without risking myself. Anything to hurt you all. To make you pay.”

“Hah,” Emily snorted. “Told ya.”

“Do you still feel that way?” Brian’s voice went cold.

“I—” Christine opened her mouth.

“Not completely,” Stephanie answered for her. “Extremely conflicted. She feels both ways. It’s chunky and gross.”

“So, we feed her the whole fucking jar,” Emily insisted. “I’m so serious. She gets chained back up either way ‘til we’re super sure, but she guzzles cum until Steph can give her a clean mental bill of health. I’m totally not budging on that, Brian.”

“...Cum?” Christine wasn’t sure she heard that right. The ‘jar’ they keep mentioning is full of…?!

“Chloe, come on up out of there,” Brian blew out a long sigh. “Come on.”

( Previous: We are not Friends | Renfaire Fantasy | Next: Raising Tents )

/// I chose the title 'Darkest Night' for this next set of teasers because I want to indicate this is as dark as things are going to get for a good long while. Christine isn't going to be constantly suicidal, Emily isn't always going to be a 97 lb rage demon, and etc. They just for sure are going to be right here at this specific point in the story.

Chloe becoming Christine isn't some instant free pass, and this will be the start of a redemption arc for her, but I want to make it more of an optimistic learning to love / grow as a person / accept and move on light-hearted romcom story rather than a brooding cynical hate piece.

Remember, Rebecca and Kelly are here with them and on a much lighter personal wavelength! There's a bar in Tionetta for them to explore, and yeah after that they WILL be prepping for a big trip to the actual ren faire. AnimeCon didn't focus at all really on the pre-convention side of convention culture because the story was already setting up to be slow burn and I didn't imagine readers would have patience for that there at that moment. I have (hopefully?) earned enough goodwill to be able to do that for Renfaire because readers will be somewhat personally invested in each of the characters and able to accept prep for a big trip as slice of life / character building without things getting too boring or frustrating.