“That absolutely should not have been that easy.” Andromeda thought. She watched as the strange liquid dripped between her fingers like thin syrup. It was more pure than anything she had ever seen in her life, her gaze fell into the perfect, unbroken surface. It was like a void of nothing.

I find your lack of faith-

“I absolutely will not tolerate the fact that you know that line.” Andromeda thought. There was a small, but profound wave of joy that radiated through her, followed by another, even smaller one.

You have some entertaining “memories”, you have to admit.

“Let’s not get distracted.” Andromeda said.

Andromeda shuffled over toward the edge of the container and put her hands along its edge. The liquid light poured over it like a waterfall and illuminated everything within a dozen yards. It was incredibly bright, that was definitely true, but for some reason it wasn’t blinding. Now properly lit, she could devise a plan.

She disintegrated a small portion of the shipping container in a way that there was a hole in the top and side of the container wide enough to reach her hands through. One of the downsides of Arcanism, or at least the technique she uses from it, is that the flow needs to be attached to both hands. What that means for right now is that to repel herself she’ll need to generate a longer and longer flow to use a rope, and if she loses concentration at all it will fall. If her makeshift Anchor point gives, then she falls, if her attention gives, she falls, if she is fundamentally misunderstanding how this works and it won’t hold her weight, she falls hard.

You just focus on climbing, I’ll deal with the focus.

Despite being in a life or death situation, she took her time in climbing down to get a handle on the flow needed to descend. She had been thinking about it’s form as a rope until now. But that wasn’t really the right term for it. The flow itself was indeed flowing, but the sturdy form it was in now was more like a hose, a thick outer casing to an internal flow. There was a strange and honestly otherworldly feeling in creating the longer and longer flow.

It wasn’t something she needed to really worry about due to recent events, but the increasing pain she felt when not using magic was something she had to keep in the back of her mind. Assuming everything doesn’t turn sideways once they make land, she needed to seek out a professional.

Once she was halfway down the shipping container, she noticed that the liquid light was dimming noticeably. “Uhh, White?” Andromeda thought.

The book said that it will evaporate after some time, which is probably good because otherwise it would make a mess every time. You’ll have to hurry.

“Great.” Andromeda thought.

Just as the light had faded enough to make fine details hard to make out, Andromeda was close enough to the ground to trust jumping down. The remaining light on the ground splashed in a way she didn’t expect. It splattered up and speckled her with tiny dots of white lite.

She wandered around the hold of the ship, both her hands streaming out the liquid light while she walked. Just from the sheer quantity, they were half an inch for the entire length of the hold. This was over kill, but it lit the entire room. She could have made for the door at the head of the hold, it was up some stairs though so she didn’t want to head up that way just yet in case she got caught up there. Besides, it was a cargo hold, she might find something useful if she looked.

She stopped producing the liquid light and reached over to a random container near to her, the wall was thinner and corrugated compared to the walls in the room above, so it took barely a touch to break them down. On looking inside, but to her surprise, there was nothing inside.

“What the hell?” Andromeda whispered.

From the far side of the hold, she heard the stomping of boots on the stairs, followed closely by the wet splashes of those same boots hitting the floor. At least a dozen men rounded the corner at the far end.

This time, they weren’t just armed with spears and clubs, every single one was armed to the teeth. Shields, swords, spears, one man even had what appeared to have something that looked like a flintlock rifle. These unassuming sailors were way too well armed to be innocent.

“This is your final chance, you will return to your room or we will kill you.” The man whose voice she recognized as the captain said.

They obviously don’t take empty threats, we can’t take that many people.

“I know, but I have an idea. Can you change the color of the light?” Andromeda said.

I think so, maybe? We can try at least.

Andromeda took a step forward toward the men.

“I have given all of you plenty of chances to leave me alone. So listen closely when I say this. I do not like hurting people, it goes against my values as a person, and when I can, I try to avoid it. However-” Andromeda said. She lowed her hood and let her hair fall down, from her head, more liquid light drained down like a perpetual bucket of paint was poured over the top of her. Its color was dark red. “-I am not a coward. If you aren’t rational people, and refuse my call for peace. I will invite upon you such violence that you will pray for the days when I was more kind. If you won’t give me peace, I will take it for myself.”

The white light she produced before was washed away with the overcoming red light, washing the entire room in sinister glow that gave only enough illumination to make out bare details. She took another step forward, the hollow clang of her boot touching the metal through the red light made each man shudder in place.

With each step she took, she collapsed a wall of a container near her. Not enough to risk collapsing the whole stack, but enough to produce the stomach turning sound of a giant metal behemoth moaning under it’s own weight.

“This is your last chance. You will leave me alone, and I’ll leave it up to your nightmares to imagine what I might have done otherwise.” She said. There was a pregnant pause in the room, then the loud clatter of a sword hitting the floor echoed throughout the hold. The rest lost their nerve one after another and ran in the opposite direction.

-----

“You were a dozen to one down, and you decided to bluff? I can’t tell if you’re suicidal or incredibly confident.” Gram asked.

“I mean, I’d like to think I could back it up, but yeah, you’re probably right.” Andromeda said, she leaned back in her chair and lifted her hand up slightly. Gram watched as a small amount of an unnatural white liquid dropped from her fingers.

“Oh, wow, you were being completely serious.” Gram said.

“Did you think I was just making it up, for better or worse this weird stuff is a large part of why I’m alive. If anything, I’d think what I was saying undersold it.” Andromeda said.

“Actually, hold on, what is it? You said it something about reflexes, but what exactly is that?” Gram asked.

“White could tell you better.” Andromeda said. She put her hand to the necklace again and her appearance changed to White’s Medean-like form.

“Though I’m unsure of the exact, proper name for this technique.” White said, “I do know that it’s probably something unlike Arcanism. That form of magic requires using the Refutei reflex. In the case of this liquid, we applied the Criontil Reflex. This, among other things, causes mana itself to manifest into physical form. Theoretically, we could create gases or solids with greater or lesser focus, we could also possibly apply other mystical properties to it. It’s very likely another documented form of magic.” White said in her normal monotone.

“Wordy little thing, aren’t ya?” Gram said teasingly, this made White frown at him and release the necklace.

“Moving on…” Andromeda said with a sigh. “That got them to back off, it was important that we made it back topside. With all the stress of the situation, I forgot that I wasn’t sure about Eli.”

-----

Andromeda rushed up the stairs and reached yet another bulkhead door. Again it was locked, probably by the witlessly scared sailors she just strong-armed into running away. She was familiar with the general mechanism this time, so it was just a matter of touch to get the door to break apart.

Once outside, all she needed to do was getting her bearings. She had barely gotten a chance to look around the ship due to the restrictions placed on her. Though that was probably their plan from the beginning.

The crew didn’t mess with her past that point, they just went about their business as if they weren’t just scared half to death. Following Whisper’s directions she arrived at the lunchroom, where Eli was talking with Aldir. Of course, it was empty, whatever happened with Eli and Aldir probably required that they not stick around. She walked out onto the main deck of the ship and cleared her throat, obviously enough to get the attention of everyone outside.

“I don’t care who does it, but I want Aldir and Eli in front of me in the next few minutes. If I don’t see either of them, I’ll sink the boat.” Andromeda said.

That seems a bit extreme, a lot of these men could get hurt.

“I don’t actually plan on sinking the boat, but they don’t know that.” Andromeda thought. When the crew stared at her in stunned silence, she sighed and reached her hand out at a random part of the ship and focused her mind.

The ship began to groan like a beast under their feet as she disintegrated various parts of the ship. Then with a sudden and violent snap, a crack appeared in the floor beneath them, stretching from the port side toward starboard. The men whimpered in fear at the sound of their only barrier between them and the sea groaning like a sick man, but not one man moved.

“Time’s running out.” Andromeda said. She flicked her wrist, and ropes and chains all around them started snapped one after another. Followed by tarps tearing into shreds, tools dissolving into dust, and every window on the deck shattering. The deck below them groaned again and shook under the pressure of being broken down.

One man stared intensely at her, more than the rest. For a moment she wondered if he would rush her, but the light in his eyes died and he looked defeated. “Someone go get that man. His money isn’t worth this, I’ll take the heat, just go.” The man said. Within the space between two heartbeats, the deck was restored to perfect condition. Windows were restored, ropes and chains mended, and everything else put just as it was a moment before.

A few minutes later, Eli appeared around a corner near to Andromeda, while Aldir come from the other side of the ship.

“Oh thank god you’re alright. I was worried.” Andromeda said. Eli looked a bit worse for wear, his eyes seemed distant and foggy, though she couldn’t amount that to much more than going through something traumatic.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. What’s going on?” Eli asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Andromeda said, then she turned a burning eye toward Aldir. He put his hands up defensively.

“Alright, I can see the entire situation has gotten wildly out of control. I just ask that we take a moment to clear our heads.” Aldir said. He tried to take a step forward, but the moment he did, a nearby rope snapped with enough force to sound like an explosion.

“Aldir, you have absolutely no idea what you are getting yourself involved in right now. Even what you and the rest of these idiots have done already is enough to ruin you all.” Andromeda said.

“Yes, of course, I understand that, Ms. Noelle. But you see, it’s quite important that we do cooperate. The situation is more delicate than you understand.” Aldir said.

“That is an understatement. Now I suggest you explain.” Andromeda said. There was a strange moment where Aldir looked lost, then just as quickly as it came, it went.

“Of course. I think Eli might be able to explain better himself.” Aldir said.

“Eli, what happened? Whisper said she got kicked out of your mind while you were talking.” Andromeda said.

“We were just talking, some glass shattered and I caught the knife it launched.” Eli said.

“You caught the knife? What knife?” Andromeda asked.

“It was sitting on the glass. I guess it got launched.” Eli said.

>I don’t remember hearing that.<

“Did anything else happen?” Andromeda asked.

“No, we were about to head to his room and talk about things, then we heard people yelling about a fight below deck.”

“I was told that I was being detained, but no one would explain why. I had to fight my way through the ship to get up here.” Andromeda said, the surrounding crew looked concerned, as did Eli. She trusted what she saw with her own two eyes, but everyone around her looked like they didn’t believe her.

“Mr. Algoer, I’m sorry about this confusion. She assaulted several of our crew and, well, she seemed to just walk through walls. We tried to control the situation, but she threatened our lives.” The captain said, walking out from the same corner that Eli had.

“That’s a lie! I was just sitting in my own room when your men locked me down!” Andromeda said. She looked back to Eli who was giving her a concerned look.

“Andromeda, what happened?” He asked.

“I told you!” Andromeda said.

Andromeda, calm down, they’re trying to get in your head. We know what we saw. They don’t know that you have witnesses.

>Something is wrong, I can’t move between anyone here. Not even Eli. Their minds are all locked down.<

“No, Eli, we’re being manipulated. Something is wrong here.” Andromeda said.

“I want to believe you, but everyone is saying the same thing but you.” Eli said.

Then something clicked in her mind.

“Eli, why does he know my name? I told him my name was White.” She said.

-----

Andromeda suddenly felt an explosive pain in her back, she swung around to see Eli holding a dagger in his hands, now covered in her blood. There was a terrible screaming pain throughout her body that simultaneously made her want to scream and curl into a ball. The adrenaline still in her system kept her upright long enough to disarm a now confused looking Eli and plunge her fist into his exposed throat, dropping him to the ground in agony.

The crew of the ship all took up whatever was close at hand, She looked through blurred eyes as she felt the blood pour out of her open wound, the pain was so great that her mind was thrown into madness. She could faintly hear the terrified waves of emotion radiate through her mind due to White and Whisper.

Before the others got close, she tried to mend her wound, but the pain was already so intense and the damage so great that she might fall unconscious right there if she tried. Aldir stepped toward her, he said something she couldn’t hear, but from the shit eating smile on his lips and his seeming laughter, he knew that something like this would happen.

Then she felt something that felt distant in her mind, but so close to her heart. Rather, it was not a feeling, it was a lack of feeling. There was a strange calmness that she in her that she couldn’t place.

There she was, bleeding out from a wound through the back from a dagger larger than hand, surrounded by those who meant her harm, betrayed by someone she thought was an ally, in the middle of an ocean, in a land that wasn’t hers.

So why was she not scared?

Her heart slowed, her breathing evened out. She wasn’t scared, or upset, she wasn’t even worried. There was a soft warmth in her chest, like the warmth of a warm fire after spending an evening in the snow.

There was also the cold in her stomach, a deep and all encompassing cold that spread through her body. Not the bare cold that one feels in a cold night, nor the depressing cold that one feels when they were sick and dying. This was like the embrace of a loved one who walked out of the rain.

Aldir was upon her, but it wasn’t Aldir. His hair was shorter, black. His bespectacled faced now empty of glasses. He seemed to have gained twenty years back as well. He looked faintly familiar. It was distant, but she could hear him speak.

“Of all the ways I foresaw this happening, I thought someone like you would be so much more interesting.” He said. “Don’t worry, the powers that be will finally get what they asked for, and you finally get some peace of mind. Sorry it had to end like this.”

Andromeda tried to speak, but she spit up blood. She tried to move her arms, but there was no strength left in them, her body was weak and numb that she couldn’t move a muscle. Her mind was empty, devoid of any thought or feeling, even the ever present comfort of her two sisters was absent. Her only regret was that she couldn’t give them a longer life.

This was it…

This was finally it…

This is how she would die…

…

So why was she not scared?

In her last moments, she stared at her outstretched hand sat in front of her. On one of her bleached white fingers, there was a small ring. If she could do nothing else, she didn’t want to die by someone else's hands. She would die by her own. She used the last fragments of her waking mind to imagine a small creek, one moving so quickly through it’s banks that it tore them apart. The ring on her finger cracked, and splintered, then finally broke.

Her blood turned to fire, and her nerves to ice. Her mind raced at the speed of light. For a brief moment, she felt as though all space and time would collapse into a black hole. There was a great, sundering force in her soul, it felt as though the very concepts of reality and un-reality would break down before any logical being would understand what happened next.

A being, so similar to the red haired girl who laid there a moment ago, stood.

This being looked much the same as Andromeda, the same face, the same eyes, the same body, everything was the same, save for one detail.

Her Hair was Silver.