One-shot documenting the acquisition of Magda's Level 20, directly following Izen Cyrilson 's death.

Previous one-shot for context.

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Covered in Izen’s blood, Magda sent for water to be brought to her wash basin. A red sun had started to settle She’d requested to be left alone, not that anyone was eager to be near her. It was her and Rian now, and Rian had been left to clean up the mess she’d made. Magda did not waste time in having the water warmed. The water drawn from the well was cold as ice. After it stilled in the tub, its surface grew dark and glassy. Enough that Magda could see herself in it by the light of the fire.

She didn’t recognize herself.

At first, Magda thought it was simply adrenaline. Surreality clouding her perception. But then she realized it was someone else. Something else. A monster.

“Such a good girl.”

Magda blinked, shaking her head, shaking the creature from her vision and her father’s voice from her head. By the time she opened her eyes, it was her familiar face again—or at least, something close.

Magda dipped her arms in the water. The drying blood sluffed off in a crimson cloud, dissipating into the darkness. It distorted her image for a moment. In the brackish water, the monster returned — pale-skinned, foul, with needle teeth —

“Am I a good girl now?”

Once again, Magda closed her eyes to erase the vision and then opened them. It had been her voice that time, one younger and much more fearful than the one she had now. She didn’t look this time to see what remained. She slid into the water, bones aching, injuries stinging in the cold. A shuddering breath rattled out of her chest as she sank into the tub and the fire…flickered out.

The room went black. Magda slipped down into the water, now under the surface at the bottom of the tub as if forced down by an unseen hand. At first, Magda struggled, the tub now seeming an endless expanse of black water.

“You did well, my love.”

Though they were her father’s words, it was a different voice that spoke them. A woman’s voice, one so sweet and coaxing that Magda ceased to struggle. She was lulled by it, content to drown as it whispered to her in the dark. Magda’s eyes fluttered open even though the water surrounded her. It was then that the creature emerged. It drifted toward her until they were face to face and Magda was unable to look away. It was another version of the creature with the contorted face that she’d seen in her reflection.

Magda blinked again.

When opened, it was a woman gazing back at her—the most beautiful woman Magda had ever seen. Her midnight skin was irresistibly smooth, her lips sloping, her eyes an impossible violet with long black hair that wove around them both like ribbons. Magda was dying, drowning she could feel it, but though her lungs burned she remained transfixed.

“My love…”

The woman gently took Magda’s face in her hands and kissed her. Kissed her with all the passion of a lover who’d been parted from their mate too long to be tolerated. And Magda kissed her back, kissed her back even as her body screamed for air. She’d die here, rather die than part from the woman whose beauty filled her senses. In that kiss, she saw...everything. The being's power, it's potential, all of it. After a time, the woman parted gently guiding Magda’s face away—

To leave the monster in her place.

“Mine.”

Magda rose from the water with a jolt, gasping for air, spluttering, and choking as she grasped the sides of the tub. The water, pink with Izen’s blood sloshed over the sides as Magda crawled out of it in a panic. The fire was crackling as if nothing had happened. The disturbed water in the tub was the only evidence that anything had changed, but soon enough it too settled to stillness as Magda lay on the floor, chest heaving with desperate breaths.

Soon, she too settled. Cautiously, Magda rose from the floor and leaned over to the tub. She looked down at the surface to see her reflection changed. The changes were subtle but evident all the same. Her black hair had a new shine, her curls more pronounced. Her skin seemed to glow, now not a mark on her as evidence of Izen’s attack. Her brown eyes were now fully black, but their depths were glittering and beautiful like the shafts of a diamond mine. It was so subtle as to be imagined, but all the same, made her a being entirely changed.

Magda stared, stared for a long time, still feeling the woman’s lips on her own, before she stood to dry herself. Still, she refused to be seen. She braided her hair and would sleep alone in the darkness of the room, locking herself away until dawn as the woman’s voice hummed sweetly in her dreams.

[ END ]