Derpy stood in the ember-dark again, the air thick like smoke that never rose.
Celica’s outline crackled with pink-white electricity, her expression too satisfied with itself.
Across from her, the green one watched like a scholar watching a blade test its sharpness.
Blight Vein.
Blight.
“Why the sudden shift?” Celica asked, voice sweet enough to be a threat.
Derpy swallowed. “I don’t know. It’s like… something moved in me.”
Blight stepped closer, her gaze sliding over him in quiet, clinical passes—measuring breath, pulse, posture.
Like he was a problem she wanted to solve.
“My bearer cares for you,” Blight said.
Derpy’s throat tightened. “Lewd…”
Blight’s mouth shifted, teasing but exact. “You changed her. You altered the equation. She sees you as lover, family, brother—she cannot decide which variable matters most, so she keeps all of them.”
Celica made a low, pleased sound. “She’s messy.”
Blight didn’t look away from Derpy. “She is alive. That is the difference.”
Derpy’s hands curled. “Then why are you here? Why show up in my dream?”
Blight’s eyes narrowed, like she’d been waiting to be asked.
“I appeared because I wanted to meet the boy who changed the way I think,” she said.
Celica’s voice cut in, sharp with delight. “And because you’re interesting to watch when you’re afraid.”
Derpy’s stomach dropped. “What do you two want?”
The two calamities looked at each other.
A pause.
Not hesitation—calculation.
Then they looked back at him together.
“We want peace,” Blight said.
Celica’s expression twitched, like the honesty irritated her. “Don’t look at me like that. We can want it even if the others don’t.”
Derpy frowned. “The others?”
Celica’s electricity snapped once, a warning without words.
“This world is on the brink of chaos,” Celica said. “That’s why I came back.”
Derpy’s voice went small. “Came back from where?”
Celica didn’t answer.
Blight’s gaze slid to Celica, then back to Derpy, and for the first time her teasing eased into something like caution.
“There are counterparts,” Blight said.
Derpy blinked. “Counterparts to the calamity books?”
Celica’s stare stayed hard. “Someone is making them.”
Blight’s voice was calm—poison as math.
“Countless souls are being used as a catalyst,” she said. “A conversion. A manufacturing process. A theft of identity.”
Derpy’s chest tightened. “Is that why you’re trying to gather in one place?”
Both calamities dipped their chins.
“Maybe,” Celica said lightly, like she wasn’t talking about an apocalypse. “Maybe we stop it. Maybe we don’t let the copies finish cooking.”
Derpy pulled his hoodie up, instinctively shrinking inside himself.
The emberdark around him thickened.
And then—
A presence.
Close.
Too close.
The shadow in his mind stepped forward from the smoke like it had been waiting behind his ribs.
Its face wore his shape like a dare.
“Let me take over,” it whispered.
Derpy’s breath hitched.
The shadow slid behind him and wrapped around him from the back, chin near his shoulder like a lover pretending to be gentle.
“Let me burn this world to the ground,” it murmured. “Let me make it better for you… partner.”
Derpy tried to move.
Tried to speak.
But the dreamscape began to peel away.
He started fading.
The last thing he heard—right against his ear—was a low, delighted promise.
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
A sound followed—soft, wrong, and satisfied.
Sinister.
Chaotic.
It sent a cold line straight through his spine.
Night: Derpy Wakes
Derpy jolted awake, breath shallow.
The room was still night-dark.
Lewd slept in the chair beside the bed, curled forward like she’d refused to leave even in her dreams.
Blight Vein lay near his bracelets, close enough that the air between them felt charged.
Derpy stared at Lewd for a long moment.
Guilt.
Gratitude.
Fear.
He carefully lifted Blight Vein and placed it on the bed—gentle, like setting down something that could bite.
Then he crept out, quiet as a kid sneaking out to see friends.
Mia and Sphinx padded after him without a sound.
Forest: A Safeguard
The night air outside was cold and honest.
Derpy walked until the inn lights were distant.
Until the trees swallowed the world.
He summoned Celica’s Embers.
The book didn’t appear as a book at first—just heat under his skin, the bracelets warming like they were waking up.
Celica’s voice drifted through him.
“What are you trying to conjure?”
Derpy spoke out loud, because it felt safer than keeping the words trapped in his head.
“Something to take the bad thoughts away,” he said. “A safeguard.”
Celica’s voice slid into a purr. “You must know, Derpy… safeguards always cost something.”
His tail flicked back and forth—too fast, too anxious.
The bracelets shifted.
Yellow to black.
Then—
Red.
Derpy’s breath caught.
He focused.
And a doll formed.
A doll that looked like him from head to toe.
It slumped against a tree, unmoving.
Its bracelets were black.
Not active.
Derpy stared at it, unsettled.
Then he closed his eyes and stepped inward.
Mindscape: The Chaotic Side
Smoke curled around him.
The shadow waited there, wearing his shape like a joke.
It leaned in, voice low.
“Are you looking to let me out?”
Derpy exhaled. “I know you’ll always be part of me. You won’t fade. You’ll always be there.”
The shadow’s mouth shifted.
Derpy forced himself to keep going.
“So I want to ask you,” he said. “Will you help me fix everything… when the time comes?”
The shadow’s expression changed—protective, almost tender.
But the chaos never left its eyes.
“It’s not like I have a choice,” it said. “I want everything to burn… but that’s not an option.”
Derpy swallowed. “Not for now.”
He held out his hand.
The shadow stared at it.
Then it showed teeth.
“When you do let me out,” it whispered, “I will burn the hellscape to the ground.”
Derpy’s fingers tightened.
He nodded once.
And snapped back.
Riven: The Doll Is Eaten
Derpy’s eyes flew open.
The doll against the tree was gone.
Riven crouched nearby, chewing.
Derpy froze. “Riven… what are you doing?”
Riven looked up, mouth smudged with something that wasn’t blood—just magic residue.
“Eating,” she said simply.
Derpy blinked. “Why? That was… that was a doll I made.”
Riven tilted her head. “Tons of magic. Very filling.”
Derpy stared at her.
Then, despite himself, he let out a breath that almost turned into a sound.
“Well,” he muttered, “I guess that takes care of the food issue.”
His tail flicked again—this time slower, like a cat trying to pretend it wasn’t relieved.
They started walking back toward the inn.
Riven moved beside him, quiet.
Derpy noticed it on the way—one of her stitches in the back, loosened, pulling at the seam.
He reached out instinctively.
Riven snapped around and tried to bite him like an injured dog.
Derpy jerked his hand back. “Hey—hey. Sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Riven’s eyes were wide, feral for a second.
Then she blinked, confused at her own reaction.
Derpy spoke carefully. “Would you like me to fix that tear you’ve got in the back?”
Riven’s voice went flat. “Magic fixes everything.”
Derpy hesitated. “Yeah… but you’re still walking around with it loose.”
Riven stared.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
Not trust.
Permission.
Inn: Needle and Thread
The inn was empty and quiet—everyone asleep.
Derpy guided Riven to a bench near the wall.
He focused on his bracelets.
They shifted.
And became a small needle and thread.
The thread wasn’t normal.
It was golden-yellow, like Celica’s Embers had spun sunlight into something sharp.
Derpy began to sew the loose ends, careful and slow.
Riven sat still, watching his hands like she was trying to learn what “care” looked like.
“You’ve been moving around without proper care,” Derpy murmured.
Riven dipped her head once, like she agreed but didn’t know how to say it.
As he finished, the needle vanished back into bracelet-form.
Derpy’s eyes caught something on her neck.
Tiny engraving.
Old.
Elven script.
Not a name.
A stamp.
He leaned in.
Close enough to feel the seam of her neck under his breath.
The letters were shallow, precise—cut to last longer than the thing they were carved into.
He read the first line and his stomach dropped.
ELVEN WAR OFFICE — ARCANE MUNITIONS COMMAND.
His pulse thudded once, hard.
He kept reading anyway.
DOLL-SOLDIER PROGRAM: STITCHBORNE DIVISION.
A cold pressure filled his chest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The kind that comes from realizing someone else’s pain has a filing system.
SPECIMEN: RVN / SERIES: VII / SERIAL: 3-19-0E44.
Specimen.
Not “Riven.”
Not “she.”
A number.
A product.
Derpy’s fingers went still in his lap.
For a second he couldn’t hear the inn at all—only the echo of that word, stamped into her like a brand.
Riven turned her doll-like head, following his gaze.
Then she hugged him.
Quick.
Awkward.
A small thank you.
She let go immediately and walked to the corner, sitting down to wait like a dog told to stay.
Derpy stayed frozen a beat longer, staring at the place where the engraving had been.
Like if he looked away, it would become normal.
Witnesses: Vespera and Vemi
Footsteps.
Vespera stood on the stairs, watching.
Vemi started to come down too, but Vespera lifted a hand—stopping her.
“Quiet,” Vespera murmured.
Vemi squinted. “What are you—”
Vespera pointed.
Vemi’s expression shifted into stunned delight.
They waited until Derpy finished.
Then they approached.
Vemi spoke first, unable to help herself.
“How did you do that? You just… fixed a magical doll.”
Derpy rubbed the back of his neck. “I just thought of sewing and… produced a needle and thread.”
Vespera’s gaze stayed on Riven, guarded. “You are fortunate she did not lash out. We do not know what she is capable of.”
Derpy’s shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
Vemi’s voice softened. “Hey. Was something bothering you?”
Derpy hesitated.
Vemi nodded toward the stairs. “Lewd was worried about you. She’s probably still up in your room.”
Derpy’s throat tightened. “I know.”
He looked down at his bracelets.
Then back up.
“I was going through some things,” he admitted.
Morning: The Spar Arrives
The inn door banged open.
Cold air rushed in.
And Vambasta stepped inside like an eager pup trying to pretend she was still a terrifying pack leader.
Her ears were forward.
Her eyes sharp.
Her tail betrayed her.
She cleared her throat, forcing her voice into something stern.
“Derpy,” she said.
Then, after a beat, like the words escaped on their own:
“…Spar. Now.”