Content warnings: death, gore, and mildly bad language

It was late at night, and Deirdre was beginning to worry. Neither Johann nor Rustyn, who had gone to look for him, were back yet, despite the fact that it had been almost a whole day. Deirdre didn’t know exactly what was in these mountains, but it couldn’t be good. Perhaps Stolas had gotten wind of them and was out in the mountains looking for them. Maybe he had brought a legion of demons with him. Or worse, what if the Things had followed them here? Deirdre took a deep breath. Johann and Rustyn were fine. Better than her, even. 

A sudden scrabbling noise of boots on rock echoed up the mountain. She leaned over the cliff and gasped because Rustyn was climbing up the rock face.

“Little help?” Rustyn shifted and almost lost his grip. “I’ve been doing this all day!”

Deirdre threw down a rope she’d had sitting beside her. Rustyn climbed up slowly, and gasped for breath as soon as he made it to the top.

Deirdre immediately began talking far too fast. “I thought you died! Where’s Johann? What about Monty and Richard? Did you see them? Are they safe? Where were you?”

Rustyn waved the questions aside. “All in good time.” 

He walked over to the cave entrance and shoved aside the blanket that had been hung up as a makeshift door, Deirdre right on his heels. 

Sylvia stood up from the fire they’d lit in the middle of the cave. “Rustyn!” 

Wilhelm turned and gaped at him. 

“Where’s Johann?” Sylvia asked. 

“Safe.” Rustyn said. “I mean, I didn’t see him unsafe.”

“Not unsafe?” Deirdre asked. “Where the hell is he?”

Rustyn sucked in a breath. “Listen, I’ve been thinking, and I’ve come up with a better plan than Johann did. We’re going to go by Stolas’ tower anyway. We need to go straight to Stolas when we do, because-”

Sylvia grabbed the front of his shirt. “Tell me where Johann is.”

Wilhelm rubbed his chin. “Well, I think we should simply not go to Stolas.”

“We should,” Rustyn said, ignoring Sylvia. “He’s the only one who can help us.”

Deirdre frowned. This was odd. From what she’d seen, Rustyn would normally want to sneak around Stolas’ place, and try not to attract any attention. Perhaps being out there in the cold looking for Johann had changed his mind. Or, possibly, he had weighed all the options, and thought that this was the best course. She had never trusted this guide, and this was just more fuel for the fire. Realizing that Rustyn was speaking again, Deirdre focused back on the present.

“We should just march right in there- no one will stop us. Then we can-”

“Absolutely not,” Sylvia said. “Where’s Johann?”

“I didn’t find him tonight,” said Rustyn.

“Let’s talk about this in the morning,” Wilhelm said.

“We can’t, because Rustyn’s going to be out as soon as the sun rises looking for Johann,” said Sylvia. “Aren’t you, Rustyn?”

Rustyn shrugged. “Whatever.”

Sylvia glared at him for a moment, then let go of his shirt, turned, and stalked off.

The others seemed content with that ending, so when they all went off to their separate bed rolls, Deirdre did, too. She lay awake in her bedroll for a long time, trying to sleep but silently hating Rustyn and thinking about Richard and Monty, and how confused and alone they must be. She lay perfectly still in bed, save for her fingers, which she tapped as fast as she could against the floor. Richard and Monty, all alone. Johann, all alone. Deirdre and Sylvia and Wilhelm, stuck with a person who was by no means trustworthy.

Sitting by the fire, Rustyn was keeping watch, staring into the flames. What a normal thing to do, and yet, Deirdre was suspicious of him for it. She chewed her lip to slow her fingers down, until it bled and she had to go back to tapping. When that didn’t do anything to calm her nerves, she looked up at the fire, watching Rustyn stare into the flames. Deirdre studied the dancing blaze, seeing the way the flames devoured any wood offered to them, leaping up eagerly, tasting the air like a snake. Then, she turned her attention to the demon in front of the fire. 

She didn’t trust him. That was plain and simple. He was a snake, a slippery monster that was deceiving them somehow, and so well that no one else noticed it, and Deirdre herself wasn’t even able to put her finger on it.

Maybe that meant there wasn’t anything untrustworthy about him. Maybe Deirdre needed to calm down and the only reason she distrusted him was bad experiences in the past. Her father had always called her biased when she was nervous about something because of that.

There was a commotion outside the cave, and Deirdre started. She flipped over very slowly to see what it was, and discovered… an owl, sitting on a rock right outside the cave.

Deirdre didn’t know much about the demonic, but she knew owls were associated with Stolas. That did it for her. She had to get out of here. Luckily, Deirdre was something of an expert at escaping watchful eyes in bad situations. 

She stood up and went over to Rustyn. “Do you think you could pretend to be asleep?”

Rustyn gave her a disgusted look. “Why?”

“It would make me quite a bit more comfortable.”

Rustyn scoffed, but stood up and went over to lay on the ground facing the wall. Deirdre pretended to go back to her bedroll and fall asleep, but about thirty minutes after she’d gotten up, she got up again and went to tap Sylvia’s shoulder.

“What?” Sylvia asked. Apparently she hadn’t been sleeping either.

“We’re leaving,” said Deirdre. “Do not talk above a whisper.”

Sylvia shrugged. “How are we gonna escape hellboy, here?”

“Get Wilhelm up.”

Sylvia crawled out of her bed and over to where Wilhelm was passed out asleep. He wasn’t too hard to wake up. She motioned to the door, and Wilhelm followed her in a crouch-run to the door of the cave. Now Deirdre was the only one left.

“I heard them leave,” Rustyn said. “Where did they go?”

“They went to piss outside.”

Rustyn grunted. 

Deirdre drew the dull, blunt knife from the floor of the mill. She picked up a smooth, heavy rock from the floor of the cave and stood poised over Rustyn’s head for but a moment before bringing the knife down hard on his temple.

He screamed, of course, but Deirdre hammered the knife in with the rock, and his screaming soon stopped.

There was gore everywhere, too, but Deirdre wasn’t coming back to the cave. She pried the knife out of Rustyn’s temple, stood up calmly, and walked out of the cave. When you were in a bad situation, you did what you had to to survive, and that was that, and you waited until afterwards to feel bad about it.

“Where is he?” Sylvia asked. “Rustyn, I mean.”

“Dead,” said Deirdre. Her tone invited no questions. “I think we should head to Wolf Icefall to look for Johann. That’s probably where he went.”

“We need the map,” Sylvia said.

“I’ll-”

“No, I can get it.”

Sylvia went back in to get the map, then came back out and handed it to her. “Holy hell, Deirdre.”

Deirdre shrugged. “Wolf Icefall is here. Let’s go, everyone.”

They walked in silence until Deirdre couldn’t bear it any more. “Wilhelm, would you play us something on your pipe?” She sort of regretted singing in that cave. It was like giving a piece of her soul away.

Wilhelm began to play softly. Somehow, he managed to ask, “When were you born, Deirdre?”

“1321.”

“I was born in the year 0.”

“I’m younger than both of you,” said Sylvia. “I can’t believe this.”

“You’re older than Johann,” Deirdre said.

“Hoorah.”

They soon came upon Wolf Icefall. To get into it, it was a lovely choice between a frightening slope of molten rock and jagged obsidian, or a sheer rock wall that would have been death to fall from. 

Deirdre pointed to the rock wall. “We’re going down that.”

Sylvia shrugged. “Doesn’t seem too terrible hard.”

She led the way over, and was the first one to start the treacherous climb down. Wilhelm was next, and Deirdre last. She wasn’t afraid of heights, though the climb, with the jagged rock walls pressing in on her, was more than a little triggering of her claustrophobia. She closed her eyes, which might not have been the best idea, but it was the one she chose, and eased herself down the rock wall. It was just one foot over another, one handhold at a time, slowly but surely, until she was at the bottom and the danger was past.

Sylvia pointed to a rock ledge. “Behold, a man!” She began laughing hysterically.

“I’ve no idea why that’s funny,” Deirdre said.

“It’s actually a quote from ancient Greek philosophy. Diogenes. You see-”

“Not now,” said Deirdre. “Is Johann under there?”

“Oh. Yes, he is.”

“Someone go and get him. Please.”

Wilhelm crawled under the ledge and dragged the sleeping Johann out.

“How is he still asleep?” Sylvia asked.

“I don’t know. Someone has to carry him, though.”

“I wish Monty were here,” said Sylvia. “He could do it.”

Wilhelm put his hands under Johann’s arms and lifted his upper body up. “I can drag him along like this.”

“Sylvia, get his feet,” said Deirdre.

Sylvia grabbed his feet, and they awkwardly carried Johann up the steep part of the icefall. Really, it should have been called a rockfall, and Deirdre didn’t know why it had the word ‘wolf’ in it, either. The name was entirely inappropriate. 

That had her thinking about names. People had the same first names a lot of the time, so they were often told apart by their last names. What was her last name? Deirdre strained herself to remember. Surely she’d had one, she just couldn’t remember what it was. For the longest time, she’d just been Deirdre. Had she ever had a last name? Surely. But she’d already come to that conclusion. She would have had a last name, and she would have shared it with her father and mother. Her father’s face was a blurry silhouette in her mind, and she didn’t remember what he’d sounded like, or his name. She only remembered his actions, and one extremely clear scene from her early childhood, when she had found him butchering a rabbit and asked why he was leaving the foot attached. That was because a dead and skinned cat was indistinguishable from a rabbit until you’d already bought it, so a foot was left on to identify it as a rabbit.

Apart from that memory, where the smell of blood and metal and rabbit flooded her senses too much to think of her father, Deirdre hardly remembered anything about what he had actually been like. That had faded, and only memories of what he had done remained.

“What the Hell?” Sylvia asked.

Deirdre looked up. They had crested the steep part of the icefall, and could see the further land spread out beneath them. A perfectly flat road cut through the mountains, and seemed to lead off forever in either direction. There was a wagon rumbling down the road, they could see it in the distance.

“Well?” Wilhelm asked.

“That’s not a well, it’s a road,” said Sylvia.

“We’ll see if we can hitch a ride on that cart,” Deirdre said.

They made their way down to the road. Deirdre hailed the cart, and the driver, a nasty-looking old man, stopped.

“Where are you going?” Deirdre asked.

“Eligos’ stronghold,” said the man. “You might know him as Duke Janson.”

“Can we ride with you?”

“Whatever.”

Wilhelm and Sylvia hefted Johann up into the cart and climbed in. Deirdre was the last in before the old man started the cart again.

The wagon was rickety, the horses were old, and the driver seemed to hate all his passengers. Deirdre closed her eyes to sleep, or something like that, but was snapped out of her reverie almost immediately by the driver. 

“Damn picking horse, won’t go any faster,” he said. “Won’t go any faster. Hauling too much of a picking load. Picking human. Making my picking horse go slower because of their picking plans at Eligos’ picking stronghold.”

“We can hear you, you know,” said Sylvia.

“Shut your picking mouth, little picking girl!”

Wilhelm was obviously confused. “He does realize he isn’t hauling anything you pick, right?”

This was true. They were squashed uncomfortably between sacks of potatoes, not berries or fruit.

“I know I’m not hauling picking pickable things, picking devil boy!”

“So are you swearing at us, or what?” Sylvia asked.

“I thought I told you to shut your picking mouth, picking girl!”

Sylvia looked a little insulted.

“You know the old man will just call you picking again,” Deirdre said. 

“Which may or may not mean the same thing as the you-know-what-word,” said Wilhelm. 

“Picking road,” the driver said as the wagon rumbled over a pothole. “It’s those picking workers. Spend too much time in the picking bar instead of fixing the picking road.”

A bird squawked off to the side of the road, startling Deirdre.

“Goddamn picking bird!”

This was going to be a long ride.

Johann had paid a demon guide to take them to the graveyard from the docks. Apparently, due to Hell’s bizarre geography, they were going to have to somehow cross a mountain range to get to Duke Janson’s fortress, where Albert Janson’s body was interred in the vault. Johann spent a very angry night in an inn near the mountains, because the demon, Rustyn, wouldn’t let them attempt a crossing until the morning. They entered the Border Mountains early in the morning, with Rustyn in lead, then Johann, Deirdre, Sylvia, Alice, and finally Wilhelm.

The mountains were odd. No one had to wear warm clothing because the mountains actually got hotter as they went up, but they had to wear heavy-duty boots because the ground was made of sharp black rocks that were vaguely like obsidian but much denser and more opaque. They seemed to go on forever, but Rustyn insisted that they actually bled into a rainforest at some point, which was equally unpleasant to go through. Having walked even part of the way through the mountains, Johann doubted that such a thing was possible.

Fortunately, Rustyn knew the terrain quite well, because he’d evidently been there several times. He knew where the avalanche hazard areas were, so Johann followed him for the most part without question. Sylvia had made disapproving noises at several points, but that didn’t really mean much, because she disagreed with most things that didn’t have opium in them. Either way, Rustyn led his charges along the narrow mountain passes for most of the morning, never once stopping or even pausing for a moment. This was necessary, Rustyn claimed, to reach the fortress before the demon who lived in these mountains, Stolas, discovered that they were in his territory.

By noon, Johann was drawing on his last reserves of strength, because he had been clambering over hot, sharp rocks for the past five hours, and his limbs were beginning to feel like dead weights that had been tied to their bodies. 

“Can we stop?” Wilhelm whined.

“No,” Rustyn said. 

“Please?”

“Not yet.”

Johann wanted to throw back his head and groan, because he was also exhausted, not that he would ever admit it.

He was quiet for some time after that, staring angrily at Rustyn. The group crested a hill and were met with an amazing view of the surrounding area. Black tipped mountains surrounded them on all sides, as if to flaunt the full majesty and terrifying power of nature. The valleys were bluish in color and so far-off that they seemed wholly another world. Far in the distance, at the top of a mountain, a huge black observatory rose into the sky. That was probably Stolas’ tower, and possibly his place of command. 

“Please tell me we’re almost there,” Wilhelm said.

Rustyn glared at him. “Not even close.”

“Well, can we still stop now?” 

Rustyn turned around. “Look, do you want to get caught by Stolas in this hellscape? Because I certainly don’t. So get moving.”

Johann was ready to kick him in the crotch, but he stayed silent, because he would rather walk the whole of the mountains again then admit that this demon might not have been the best choice.

They resumed traveling, but hadn’t been walking for more than twenty minutes when Sylvia suddenly stopped. “Hold on just a second. Where’s Wilhelm?” 

Johann swung around and was about to give Sylvia a piece of his mind for making excuses for Wilhelm’s whiny little ass, when he realized Wilhelm actually was gone. Johann scanned the area. Heat rose off the ground in waves and made everything shimmer. “I noticed he was lagging behind, but didn’t really think much of it.” 

Sylvia looked around. “Well, where the hell is he?”

As abruptly as he had disappeared, Wilhelm’s slim form appeared from behind a rock. He had an absent look about him, and was moving so slowly, Johann wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d collapsed right then and there. 

“Are you alright?” Johann asked. It was a rhetorical question, really. He could tell pretty well when someone was sick.

“No,” Wilhelm said. “My head hurts, and my nose is bleeding, and I’m more tired than I’ve ever been before. Can we stop?” 

Rustyn was about to open his mouth, probably to say no, but Johann shot him a venomous look.

He backed down immediately. “We have been going for a while. Probably be good to get a few hours of rest.” He waved his arm to follow him “C’mon, there’s a cave a few minutes from here we can rest in.”

Sylvia nodded in his direction. “I think the altitude is starting to get to wilhelm.”

They stumbled up the mountain a few paces, then came to Rustyn’s promised cave. Johann practically fell into the small cavern, pressing his tired, hot body against the cool sandy floor.

Deirdre leaned down to speak in Johann’s ear. “Rustyn has a map.”

Johann groaned and crawled over to where the others sat in a circle. Wilhelm, Rustyn, and Deirdre leaned over an extremely confusing and disorganized map of Hell. 

“Listen,” Deirdre said, “if we were to go this way,” she indicated a spot with her finger and traced a line, “We would all be dead in seconds. I’m telling you, the Pass of Eagle is the way to go.”

Rustyn shook his head, his puffy brown hair flopping back and forth. “No, there’s going to be a storm, and a big one at that. The entire Pass of Eagle will be blocked for days.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Johann asked.

Rustyn glared at him. He had the appearance of a rugged man in his thirties, with a goatee that made him look cartoonishly evil. “Do you want to stay around here when it’s raining ash and hellfire?”

“But how do you know-”

“Because Stolas’ weather predictions about his mountains are always on point, and I was issued a pamphlet a few days ago warning that there would be a storm. Is that good enough justification for you?”

Johann shrugged. “What about Emperor’s Pass, here, in the opposite direction? It won’t be blocked, will it?”

Rustyn shook his head. “Emperor’s Pass is a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Why do you have to question every goddamn thing that comes out of my mouth?”

Johann shrugged. “I’m paying you, remember?”

“Well, shut up so that I can do my job.”

Deirdre pointed to the map. “Look, this leaves Wolf Icefall.”

Rustyn groaned.

Sylvia, who had been helping Wilhelm stop his nosebleed, dragged herself across the cavern on her stomach. “Alright, so, I only heard that last comment. What’s so bad about Wolf Icefall? Sounds alright to me.” Sylvia brushed some dust off the map. “Where are we?”

“At a rough guess we’re here,” said Rustyn, pointing to a spot on the map that wasn’t too far away from any of the three routes they’d been discussing. “Wolf Icefall is one of the most dangerous places around here.”

“Why is it called that if there’s no ice?” Sylvia asked.

“Molten rock acts the same way ice and snow does,” said Rustyn.

“Holy Hell,” Sylvia said.

“I know my way around Wolf Icefall.” Rustyn pointed to it on the map so that any of them who had forgotten where it was in the five seconds that they hadn’t been looking right at it would now be reminded. “It’s a bit hard to get to. You can either do what’s basically skiing on molten rock, or climb down a treacherous rock wall. Once you’re actually in the Icefall, there’s huge mounds of crystal and rock that you have to climb around. I think that if we make something a bit like mountain climbing shoes, with grips on the bottom, we should be able to make better time climbing over the rocks.”  

“And, how do you know all this?” Johann asked. He’d been led astray by guides who only knew the land hypothetically before. 

“I’ve done this route before, idiot,” said Rustyn.

Wilhelm, who had been laying down, stood up, stretched, and sat back down. “When are we doing all this?”

“After we rest,” Johann said immediately. He wasn’t going another centimeter without at least twenty more minutes of inactivity.

“We have to pass the time,” Sylvia said. “Someone start singing.”

“Can anyone here sing?” asked Johann.

“I can,” said Deirdre.

He hadn’t known that about her. “Are you comfortable singing for us?”

“I guess I can try. I only know medieval songs, though.”

“I can play the pipe,” Wilhelm said. “I know lots of tunes.”

“I’ll sing, then,” said Deirdre. “Do you know that old lullaby that was probably about Rome or something?”

“I think I do.”

“That’s what I’ll sing. Are you ready?”

Wilhelm took out a bone pipe. “I’m ready.”

He started up a slow, haunting tune that echoed off the walls of the cave and seemed to fill up the whole world. The music was beautiful enough, but Johann was shocked by Deirdre’s voice when she opened her mouth to sing.

My ship’s a-coming in after all the months

sailing the sea

No matter how far I go, there’s always the castle

waiting for me.

The Red City’s on the horizon, I see it

in the dying light.

The Red City’s there, 

they’re losing the fight.

Cursed be thee, Red City’s Bane,

Bred in a place where things have no name.

Lay down your head, Beloved, you’re safe under lock and key,

Fall asleep to the song of the sea

She was far, far better than anyone he’d ever heard before. Her voice was incredible, unearthly, even. Johann listened in a happy stupor from the music and the atmosphere and the good company as Deirdre sang the song twice more, and Wilhelm played along in the background, before they both slowly fell silent. Johann didn’t want to speak for a moment afterwards, wanting to preserve the magic of the moment, but at last he did.

“You’re incredible,” he said. “Both of you! Why are you trying to be a doctor, Wilhelm, when you should be a musician?”

Deirdre had flushed red, but there was a tentative smile on her face.

“Thank you,” Wilhelm said. “I suppose being a doctor is knowledge I want, and it’s harder than being a musician. Nothing can ever be difficult about being a musician, but being a doctor, now…”

This was an odd burst of arrogance from the usually normal and humble Wilhelm. Johann gave him a look that was meant to scrutinize him, but probably just looked like he had indigestion. 

“You should sing something else,” Sylvia said. “Or play another song.”

“I want to get moving again,” said Johann. His muscles were rested for the most part and he was ready to go.

Sylvia laid back with her backpack for a pillow. “You do that.”

“We should stay here, actually,” said Rustyn.

“I’m not going to,” Johann said.

Rustyn looked down at his grubby nails. “Then you can go out and scout.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Have fun,” said Wilhelm.

Johann glared at him, but did step out of the cave into the open. He immediately remembered how hot it was, and regretted being alive. However, he was going to keep moving, because going back in would include admitting he was wrong, and Johann would never admit that he was wrong. 

The first order of business was actually getting down into the Icefall, and Johann would apparently need skis to do that. Rustyn had said that there were two ways to get it, but Sylvia was the only one who could reliably climb a wall of sharp rocks down into the valley.

Rustyn wouldn’t be dumb enough to suggest skis and not have any, would he? Johann poked around the rocks, moving some of them and feeling under others, looking for skis. He found none.

“Well, skis would have been useful,” Johann said. He wished he had some.

Suddenly, a pair of planks with leather straps on them were lying on the ground in front of him, next to two wooden poles. What was this? Where had these skis come from? Johann wracked his brain for an answer, and soon came up with the fact that, since he had sold his soul, he might be allowed to have whatever he wanted in Hell.

“I wish I had Albert Janson’s body,” said Johann.

Predictably, that didn’t work.

Johann sighed and slung the skis over his shoulder. He had a pretty good idea of where Wolf Icefall was, judging from the look he’d had at the map, and thought that he could be there within an hour. Walking was monotonous, so Johann defaulted to going through his inventory of supplies back at the house. He would need to buy more purgatives soon.

As soon as he came to the edge of the Icefall, Johann unslung his skis and strapped them to his boots. He leaned down to feel the ground that he was going to be on, but found that it was almost too hot to bear as soon as he had his hand a foot away. Johann felt a twinge of annoyance as he brought his hand back up.

Either way, it was malleable enough that he would be able to ski down it, or so Rustyn said. Johann knew how to ski well, since he’d vacationed in the alps many times during his childhood. The slope was steep, and he would have to make wide turns to keep in control. Mercifully, there were no bumps, which would have been a problem not only because they were hard to ski, but also because they would probably be spitting molten rock. 

Johann grabbed his poles and shuffled forward. He looked down into the slope, and, after a moment’s inspection, let his skis dive into the Icefall.

He didn’t make a sound as he slid through the rock. He stuck his poles in the ground every time he turned, which pierced the film over the molten rock and made magma bubble up where he’d been. Avoiding the “wedge” shape that would be deadly on this steep of a slope, Johann skidded smoothly down the mountain, at last coming to the bottom of the dreaded entrance to the Icefall. 

He unstrapped the skis from his feet and slid them under a rock. It would really be a nice place if there was any vegetation. Johann took a moment to try to imagine the valley as it would have looked if it was on Earth, and has all the greenery that entailed. 

Johann caught himself in a daze of imagination, which he shook off. Too much time devoted to only imagination was dangerous, he thought. Everything in moderation.

Johann could not forget where this hole was, because if he did, he would be stranded at the bottom of an Icefall all alone. So, he took off one of his socks and tied it around the rock. He pulled on it once or twice to make sure the knot was tight, then walked through the narrow entrance to Wolf Icefall and ran his hand along the smooth wall. It was so different from the rest of this godforsaken place.

Suddenly, he had a funny feeling that something was in the process of going horribly wrong, and that he would pay for his unseen stupidity. Johann smiled at the bizarre urge, and kept walking.

Johann remembered the last time he’d ignored a feeling like this, and how it had led to the wagon crash. Maybe he should start listening to his feelings more. Reluctantly, he turned around and saw that the sock he’d tied around the rock was gone. 

Oh no. Johann ran back and skidded to a halt right in front of the rock. He suddenly realized that the ground under the rock where he’d hid his skis was molten and bubbling, which meant that the skis had been eaten and burned.

“Goddamn it!” Johann threw his hands up in the air. “Someone come help me!”

Unfortunately, his friends were all cozy in a sandy little cave kilometers away.  He screamed until his voice was hoarse all the same, until all the hiking caught up with him, and Johann’s eyelids began to droop. Before long, he had dragged himself to a spot somewhat out of the way, underneath a rocky overhang, and fallen into a deep sleep.

Notes:

Fun fact: Rustyn is lifted from the same story from when I was eleven that I talked about in my last post. He was supposed to be the stock ‘cool guy rebel who doesn’t listen to anyone, plays by his own rules, and is the absolute best at everything’ character. The only problem is, in the original story, he was eleven years old and still acting in the same way you might expect a Mary Sue straight white cis male wish-fulfillment character from a bad action movie might.

This is a prime example of why reading my old writing is such an experience. Anyway, thank you for reading!