By the time Lairas was finished spilling the contents of his stomach into the bushes, Slaughter’s cackling laughter had reached a maniacal level.

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” the spirit crowed, its hazy claret shadow draped casually over his shoulders. “We really did a number on those guys, eh?”

“W-we?” Lairas sputtered, wiping the last remnants of bile from his chin. “That… That was you. You killed them.”

“Ah, but the only reason I had to kill them was because you stole from them,” Slaughter pointed out in a mocking tone. “Did you not think they’d want their property back, hmmm?”

Lairas said nothing, merely tightened his jaw and turned to gaze upon the vista of carnage Slaughter had created. Seven- no, eight bodies - more? - lay strewn about the forest clearing, dismembered or disemboweled or decapitated, or all three at once. Every inch of green and brown had been liberally painted with a dull crimson, with the occasional patch of grey matter or torn organ dotted throughout.

It’s not my fault, Lairas tried to convince himself. I warned them not to try and stop me!

“You really think they’d listen to a snot-nosed brat like you?” Slaughter pointed out snidely. Lairas clamped his hands over his ears, desperately trying to drown out the spirit’s words. But he could hear them even now, echoing inside his head. I’m so glad you decided to steal me away, now. This is the most fun I’ve had in centuries!

“Shut up,” Lairas hissed through gritted teeth. “Just- just shut up! I need to think.”

“No, no, you need to have already thought,” Slaughter enthused. “Your past self needs to have thought a lot more about this whole ‘spirit-stealing’ plan. Your past self especially needs to have at least tried to be a little more sneaky about this whole spirit-stealing business. And your past self really needs to have reconsidered choosing to steal a spirit of Slaughter. A spirit, need I point out, that they considered too dangerous for a human vessel.”

“I said shut up!” Lairas practically screamed, clenching his eyes shut. “How was I supposed to know!? Why would they- what is even the point in attracting a dangerous spirit to the Well in the first place, if they’re just going to trap it in an urn?!”

“Well, they do like their little summons, the mages do,” Slaughter mused. “Keeps the spirit nice and weak while they’re inside, and the only time they want to use it is when there’s an obvious target anyway. I’ll hardly turn on them if they’re offering me up a juicy invading army, will I?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lairas said, taking a series of deep, calming breaths. “I can’t change the past. I can only change my future.”

“Cute little mantra,” Slaughter said, a bubble of a laugh hiding at the edge of its voice. “Hm… Oh, no, these aren’t your father’s last words, are they? How delightfully trite!”

“What? How did you-?!” Lairas stumbled backward, and the hazy red shadow drifted in his wake.

“Your memories are an open book, fleshy,” Slaughter replied, voice now openly-amused. “I can read your entire history at leisure. Let’s see, shall we? Part of a ‘nomadic merchant clan,’ as a child, how fancy. Oh dear, and then they went and got all killed, didn’t they? Then boring, boring, you got adopted into Wellspring Barrow, blah blah you never forget, whatever whatever, you became an acolyte in the Wellspring Temple, finally got a chance to get the weapon you needed for your revenge, and then - and here comes the highlight - you met me! How lucky for you.”

Lairas grit his teeth, not responding. He just needed to keep moving forward. There was an old merchant outpost a distance north of here. He’d been sneaking supplies there for the past few months - he just needed to find it and make his way to Scant, his first stop.

“Oh, excellent idea, ignore the carnage, charge straight ahead, no thinking just doing!” Slaughter said, sounding genuinely elated. “After all, that’s what got you into this mess in the first place - I can’t wait to see what trouble it gets you into next!”

He ignored the voice, this time, checked the position of the sun, and started walking. He knew where he was going. He had a plan. Everything was going to be fine

“So this is where you keep your most embarrassing memories! Let’s dig in, shall we?”

***

It was a little over three hours later that Lairas began to approach the outpost. Slaughter had dipped in and out of inane chatter, mockery, and insults the entire way, and his grating, knife-on-whetstone voice was more irritating than ever.

But he would persevere. He had to. Not for himself - for his legacy.

The clearing that denoted the outpost was only a short walk away when he heard laughter. Children’s laughter.

“Ohhhh?” Slaughter’s voice perked up, after what had been a blessed period of silence. “What’s this? Don’t tell me… Someone has moved in?”

It broke into harsh peals of laughter,

Lairas backed away from the light filtering in through the clear skies ahead. Behind him was a dense forest, sparsely lit where the canopy was less packed. Ahead, the man-made circle of sky ensconced the merchant outpost in golden light.

There was the next part of his plan, he knew. The map to Scant, the supplies for the journey, everything he needed for the next step.

Behind him were the pursuing dogs of Wellspring Barrow. They would find the scene of the… confrontation with ease - Spirits of Hunting were aplenty among the Barrow Enspirited. If he stopped now, waited for the children to leave, that let the Barrow close that much more distance. He could measure, in steps, the exact distance his goal would be further away.

But if he took the plunge… if he went in to get his supplies, Slaughter would take over again. That red haze would envelop him, wrap its claws around his mind and make him feel that bloodlust again - and then the claws, and the fangs, and crimson spray-

He dropped onto his rear, a jolt of pain shooting up from his tailbone and through his spine. His breath was coming faster and faster now, panic beginning to boil, but the sudden shock jolted him out of his stupor.

This is what happens with Enspirited, he told himself. At first, the conceptual weight of your bound spirit can interfere with your rationality. The important thing is to keep a clear head. Meditate. Use the visualisation exercises.

“Ooh, yes,” Slaughter said, and its voice was a harsh, double-layered whisper, both inside his head and out. “By all means- disconnect from the world. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing… and give up all control…”

Lairas gritted his teeth.

“I’m begging you, please,” Slaughter continued, its voice honeyed now. “Visualise. Do it - it’s really for the best.”

He stood, the red haze billowing about his shoulders, fists clenched into a white-knuckle grip, body so rigid it was practically vibrating.

“It’s the sensible thing to do, really.” The spirit’s red form undulated about his neck, seeping slowly downward to encase his torso. “You really need to take control - dilute my presence, get control of your mind back, don’t you?”

His brow was furrowed so hard he almost felt it was becoming an actual headache. He didn’t know what to do- there were no options- he couldn’t-!

The fists relaxed. The jaw unclenched. The brow unfurrowed. And then, with a bland, casual voice, he said-

“Why would you tell me that you could take control if I meditated?”

“Hmmm?”

“Surely the smart thing to do would be to just let me start meditating, maybe even actively discourage it, and then take control once I’d started. You’d get an opportunity to wreak havoc, and I would be discouraged from ever doing so again. A win-win for you, right?”

“Mm. Perhaps I’m simply irrational?” Slaughter purred. “Perhaps I don’t care about what the smart thing is? Perhaps I’m simply having far too much fun tormenting you, and it’s disrupting my judgement?”

“Or maybe,” Lairas mused, “you think - or you know - that the first meditation is going to be crucial. Maybe you think that if I start with the visualisation now, you will be that much harder-pressed to take control in the future.”

“I’m a spirit,” Slaughter replied, voice growing curiously amused. “My motives are directed purely by my manifestation - I’m a Spirit of Slaughter. You can’t guess what I think until you know, in the deepest and purest sense, what slaughter. Means.”

“You’re self-interested,” Lairas guessed. “You called what we were doing ‘the most fun you’d had in centuries.’ Now why would a conceptual manifestation of violent killing have any interest in ‘fun?’”

“This is growing boring, fleshy,” the spirit sighed, the bubbling red haze drooping, cascading down Lairas’ legs to coalesce around his ankles. “Are you going to believe the spirit, or are you going to presume to understand the motives of beings who measure minutes in human lifetimes?”

Lairas was silent for a moment.

Then, “I’m going to presume,” he said, and dropped into a cross-legged position right there on the forest floor. He crossed his arms behind his back, and bent forward until his forehead touched his crossed ankles.

In his head, Slaughter was a bubbling pool of blood. It was on the verge of coagulating, more like tree sap than water, and rivulets of it were constantly breaking the banks of the pool, slithering their way outward into the rest of his soul.

His time in Wellspring Barrow had taught him many different methods of meditation, each one tailored to a different kind of spirit. He had never had cause to use them, before, but he had known he would need a method once he had his weapon. He had intended to blend the best kinds of meditation together, to create an incredibly effective tool to eke the most power out of the spirit.

But now speed was of the essence, because if Slaughter had been simply toying with him then he had only moments.

Traditionally, meditation consisted of visualisation - take a symbol to represent the spirit, and another to represent your selfhood. Blur them together, mix them somehow, and you would become more fully Enspirited, the spirit’s powers would become yours.

But the elder acolytes in the Wellspring Temple had told him of other, faster, more dangerous methods - methods that involved plunging the entirety of your selfhood directly into the heart of the spirit, and fighting your way to dominance.

And so, inside Lairas’ mind, he gazed into the heart of Slaughter, and dived in.