(A/N: Trigger warning for implied cannibalism. I don't know if it counts if someone isn't that species at the moment, but fuck it, this book should be lit up like a Christmas tree in content warnings.)

She is where I knew her to be.

My vision is already dark and her bright face lights the way between trees. It is the brightest thing for miles in a world of midtones. There is room between the trees for us, but not much. I will maneuver.

"This is not my operative," I tell her.

"Oooh, of course, Gillian. You're free to just let Damien and I walk away into the woods. It would be charitable, don't you think?" she asks. I feel my fingers becoming encased in keratin. They are meant for slitting. For digging and holding, constantly, until the opponent gives up.

Mary will never give up. "That is my operative. Your restraint. I am not charitable. You are not charitable."

She makes an infinitesimal movement.

"You do not want to leave," I tell her. "What you want is chaos."

"What you want is stagen-- saten-- you want things to never change again," Mary says, her clothing billowing around her. It becomes armor just as it as at its loosest point, fabric wrapping back around to become metal flesh. Her sword extends from her hand, and her face is lit from behind by a halo of brilliant white light. She is a violent flame. "We're shapeshifters. All we do is change."

"I hate you," I whisper.

"I wasn't sure if you could feel anything," she responds.

Every word carefully chosen. My next movement, calculated. Flesh blossoms into flesh. I grow scales. I rise, horns forming on my head, teeth and fingers becoming blades. I rise to my full height. The world is slow, but definite. I know what to do next.

She swings the blade through my side, rising on four wings, and my body heals behind the swipe of her own blade.

"Oh, you're faster," she says. She goes for my head. Mistake. I rise higher, shifting my weight from my claws to my back legs and slam the wasp into the earth. She falls, but her wings move into gear at the last moment, so that she costs away. She descends a while away, wings fluttering, and the brightness around her grows more volatile. She takes another sword.

It is darker than night.

She scours my side again. It heals. She takes my face. It heals. She goes for the neck. There are no blood vessels. There may not even be blood. There is no fatal attack. There is no way to down me. We know this.

"So what, then?" asks Mary. "What are you going to do, coward?"

I stare her straight in the face.

With a cry of fury, she drives in and cuts a limb. She drags her sword around my front leg, diving beneath my chest, and my sinews string back together, just as I practically collapse atop her. Though I can not see her, I can feel her struggling beneath my weight, plumbing organs, all the small jabs. I can sense her frustration, her fury, her light, but all the world is dark now, without her. No animals speak. The river does not burble. The trees do not bristle with wind. Beneath me, my flesh grows again and again, no matter what she attempts. She is out of room. I feel fleeting pain. Stars lace the night sky.

The world is still.

The pain abates.

I feel absence as I step off her. My body heaves blood, which trickles down my sides. It is black as death. She is covered in viscera. Our viscera. She is no longer in Veritas. She wears casual clothing, which loosely fits a still frame. Her body is curled and small. I bend down to it, my snout the size of her entire body, and sniff deeply. I can smell my own blood, and my eyes see blue.

There was not supposed to be any color here.

I can feel metal lodged deep in my innards, cold and sharp. I press her with my muzzle, and my horns detect a dull, vibrating noise in the trees. Someone is coming from far away. They will see me here and know that I have failed protocol. I am longing to have her back already. I need to destroy evidence.

She needs to be back with me. I am looking at my own arm, spread, bloodied across the ground. Our arm. This battle. Oceans of blood. I need her back. She is right there. She is elsewhere. The thing that is her is a butterfly. I need to have her back. She is not allowed to leave.

The conquest of evil is good, I tell myself. Whatever happens next is acceptable.

I accept it.

Red sensation hits my tongue. More powerful than color. More powerful than the lack of it.

We are together again, in the same body.