Lenora. Lewd. And the Seams.
— Previously — The Medical Ward
The air tightened.
Lenora felt it first — pressure shifting, sound thinning, the room briefly remembering what it felt like to be under divine attention.
A seam opened near her.
Not a gentle seam. Not a careful one.
A tear.
Celica was shoved through it — Derpy’s Calamity book forced across reality like a command made physical. It hovered for a heartbeat in front of Lenora, then settled as if it had chosen her hands.
A message formed — burned into the wall as if the stone itself had been forced to remember:
Lenora… thank you for everything. But I’m afraid I need you to watch her for a bit. Take care of Lewd… and Celica… and phantasm.
A magic circle formed in front of Derpy’s pets.
They touched it — and understanding moved through them cleanly, wordless and absolute:
Protect Lewd. Keep her from losing it.
Lewd was already shaking.
She could feel it happening. The seams opening. The books moving. The way the air tasted like goodbye.
A message formed for her too, and it hit like a blade:
Lewd… I’m sorry. But for now, this is where we say goodbye. It’s not permanent. It’s temporary. But get stronger. My body’s changing, and I don’t want you to get hurt.
“That’s not fair,” Lewd whispered.
Tears gathered fast, bright and furious in her eyes.
Then Blight — Lewd’s Calamity book — lifted as if caught in a current only it could feel. The pages flexed, trembling, and then the book shot toward a seam like it had been called.
“No—!” Lewd reached for it, fingers grazing air.
Blight slipped through the tear in reality and vanished — pulled away from her and sent to Derpy.
Lewd’s breath hitched — panic, grief, fury all tangling together.
Then the seam pulsed again.
A different book pushed through — black-edged, familiar, heavy with Derpy’s presence.
Phantasm.
It hovered in front of Lewd’s hands like an offering that felt too sharp to accept.
And Phantasm — the girl — moved with it.
She crossed the room in a single silent motion and dropped into Lewd’s arms — warmth and weight and a promise made physical. Her head pressed against Lewd’s chest like she was anchoring her to the world before she shattered.
More words burned into the wall, sharp and final:
Phantasm can’t hurt you. Because she won’t. That was the condition.
Then the next line — colder, but not cruel. Just… necessary.
I’ve learned how to wield your Calamity book. Now it’s time for you to learn how to wield mine. The next time we meet… in the real world.
Lenora and Lewd looked at each other.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
The seam began to close.
And just before it sealed completely, an eye peered back through the narrowing gap.
Derpy’s.
A single tear slid down his face.
Then the seam snapped shut.
Lewd’s scream tore through the ward like something dying.
Chapter 1 — A Goodbye For Now
Lewd sat in the corner.
Not because she was told to. Not because anyone asked.
Just because the corner was there, and right now, corners made sense in a way that open rooms didn’t.
Her knapsack sat at the edge of the bed — packed, half-closed, like she’d started to do something with it and forgotten what. She hadn’t forgotten. She just didn’t know where she was going anymore.
She pulled her knees to her chest.
I was innocent before him.
The thought arrived without bitterness. Just fact. Before Derpy, she hadn’t known what it felt like to want to follow someone into a burning room. She hadn’t known what separation felt like — the kind that lived in your chest like something had been removed without asking.
She’d had bad separation anxiety once — the kind that made rooms feel too large and silences feel like abandonment.
And he’d helped her through it.
Sat with her. Didn’t make her feel small for it. Didn’t rush her.
He helped me before—
The air split.
Not a seam. Not a tear.
A gate — clean-edged, deliberate, crackling red and green at the threshold like something had punched through from the other side with intention.
And out of it stepped a rat.
Dark grey fur. Green-streaked hair falling over one mismatched eye — one red, one green, both sharp. A bow in his hand already — red and green, glowing like a threat made beautiful — and the kind of stance that said he hadn’t come to ask permission. Black pants runed and heavy, rat skulls mounted at the knees like trophies, chains trailing at his wrists. A red hood sat open at his collar. He looked like something the sewers had sharpened into a weapon and let loose.
He looked around the ward once.
Then his gaze landed on Lewd.
“...So you’re the one he left behind.”
Lewd scrambled back.
Her back hit the wall before she’d even decided to move, instincts firing faster than thought. He moved like the dark was just somewhere he lived — easy and unbothered, no hesitation, no adjustment to the light.
He didn’t lunge. Didn’t threaten.
Just reached into his coat and held something out.
“Your friend wanted me to give you this,” Whitty said. His voice was low, unhurried. “And these—” he set a wrapped bundle beside it, “—are for the maids up here. He said they’d know what to do with them.”
Lewd stared at him.
He stared back.
Then, almost as an afterthought — like it simply occurred to him and he saw no reason not to say it:
“You are very beautiful.”
The blush hit her like a wave. Lewd made a small, involuntary sound and pulled her hands up over her head, ears flattening, face burning.
She reached down anyway.
Derpy’s discarded dragon horn. Left behind when his body changed — shed like something he’d outgrown without meaning to. She picked it up with both hands.
The energy hit her immediately.
Raw. Unfiltered. His.
It pulsed against her palms like a second heartbeat — warm and wild and too familiar, the kind of magic that didn’t know how to be quiet.
“Thank you, sire,” she managed.
Whitty tilted his head once. The ghost of something moved across his expression — not quite a smile, but close.
“No problem, princess.”
The gate opened behind him. He stepped back through it without turning around.
It snapped shut.
The ward was quiet again.
Lenora moved fast — crossing the room in three strides, dropping beside Lewd before she could fold inward. Lewd was already clinging to the horn with both hands, knuckles pale, her whole frame pulled tight around it like it was the only solid thing left in the room.
The energy kept pulsing. Slow. Steady.
Like it was trying to tell her something.
“Hey, Lenora,” Lewd said quietly, still clutching the horn to her chest. “Do you think we should give these to the maids?”
She held one out.
Lenora reached for it.
The moment her fingers closed around it, Celica’s Embers moved.
The book didn’t float. It didn’t glow gently. It rattled — pages slamming, spine cracking with the sound of something ancient being woken up badly — and then the authority came down like a fist.
Dragon’s authority.
It snapped around Lenora’s wrists before she could pull back. Two black bracelets, sudden and cold, and then the book dissolved — pages and cover and spine folding inward until the bracelets flared yellow and went silent.
Lenora stood there.
Stared at her wrists.
...What.
Then it hit her.
Not through her ears. Through the back of her skull — a scream so sharp and so full it felt like something had reached directly into her mind and opened its mouth as wide as it could go.
WHY WOULD HE DO THAT—
The voice was bright and furious and breaking all at once. Lenora got flashes with it — not images exactly. Impressions. Something vast. Something Derpy had shown Celica, some glimpse of wherever he was, whatever was happening to him — and then nothing. Cut off. No reply. No time.
He showed me something — what was happening in his world — and then he didn’t give me TIME to answer — I didn’t get to TELL him—
“Hey.” Lenora pressed two fingers to her temple. “Hey. Can we — can we talk about this? I can tell you’re going through something, I really can, but could you please stop screaming directly into my brain—”
Celica did not stop screaming.
She manifested in a burst of blue and red — wings snapping open wide, one red and feathered, one scaled and deep blue, knocking the air sideways. Blue hair wild, gold horns catching the ward’s dim light, golden halo sitting slightly askew over the chaos of her. Her yellow-gloved fists were balled at her sides and she was crying — full, furious, ugly crying, the kind that had no interest in being dignified. Her dragon-frill dress flared around her like the storm she was currently embodying.
Like something that had waited an age to finally speak — and been silenced before the first word left her lips.
“I would have told him—” she choked out. She grabbed her own horns with both fists, wrenched her head back, and screamed — ice and fire launching from her in opposite directions, twin streams blasting up toward the ward ceiling and dissipating harmlessly into cold mist and fading embers.
It did nothing for her.
She did it again anyway.
“I’m hurting too,” Lenora said. Quiet. Firm.
Celica didn’t answer. Just kept crying.
Lewd moved.
She was still crying herself — slow tears, steady, the kind that had been falling long enough they didn’t need permission anymore. She crossed the ward on unsteady legs and placed her hands on both of them.
Phantasm’s grimoire on one side. Celica’s Embers on the other.
The ground shook.
Both of them went still — eyes rolling back in a single, synchronized motion, heads tilting, the ward going absolutely silent for three full seconds.
Lenora saw it.
Just a flash — through some crack in the connection Lewd had made — a dragon. Beautiful and enormous and completely undone, throwing itself against nothing, scales dark and glittering, voice raw:
Derpy.
I wish you had given me more time. I would have told you.
Then it was gone.
Celica sucked in a breath like she’d surfaced from deep water. Her eyes were wet and her hands were shaking and she grabbed her horns again — not to scream this time, just to hold onto something. Ice crept quietly down her fingers and melted before it reached the floor.
Behind Lewd, the light shifted.
Puffy clouds rolled in from nowhere — soft, violet-edged, gathering at the ward walls like weather that had followed someone inside. And in the middle of them, Phantasm rose.
Mirrathys. Dream-Forger.
Dark hair spilling in every direction, the red streak catching the light. Purple horns curved and deliberate. Wings spread slow — massive, dark, the kind of wingspan that filled a room and knew it. The glowing sigil on her chest pulsed once, pink and steady, like a heartbeat that had decided to be dramatic about it. Runes shifted lazy across her legs. Clawed fingers flexed, trailing magenta smoke.
She looked down at Lewd.
Her gaze moved over the room with the unhurried patience of someone who had all the time in the world and knew it. It stopped on Lewd. Stayed there for a moment — long enough to be a decision.
“...I get paired with this runt?”
A pause. She tilted her head, purple tail curling slowly behind her.
“She’s cute.” Another pause. “Not my style.”
She stepped past Lewd entirely, rolled her shoulders back, and stretched — wings flaring to their full span, spine popping, the kind of stretch that announced very clearly that she had been in a book for too long and had opinions about it.
Celica was still sniffling in the corner.
Lenora looked at the yellow bracelets on her wrists.
Nobody spoke.
Then Celica moved.
She crossed the ward in a single wingbeat — dragon-frill dress flaring behind her, blue and red, the lace snapping like a war banner — and she hit Phantasm before the taller woman had time to finish her stretch.
One arm wreathed in fire.
One arm encased in ice.
The combo landed clean — a single two-hit sequence, frost and flame in the same breath — and Phantasm stumbled back a step, more from surprise than damage.
“This is your fault.”
Celica’s voice cracked on it. Still wet. Still furious.
“You wanted to train him. You pushed him. You put him through all of it.” Her golden halo flickered. “And you never once told him — I have a mixed child just like him. How stupid are you—”
Phantasm smiled.
Not cruelly. Just slowly. The way someone smiles when they’ve already thought twelve steps ahead and can afford to let you be angry.
“Cel.” Her voice was smooth, unhurried. The magenta smoke drifted from her fingers. “You always see things small.”
“Don’t—”
“I was looking at the bigger picture.” Phantasm rolled one shoulder back — the wing on that side shifting like punctuation. “Getting him ready for godhood. We can’t protect him forever. He’s growing — every day, faster than either of us expected.” She tilted her head. “And if he comes into trouble — his mother will be there. Blight will be there. He won’t be alone.”
Celica’s jaw tightened. “That’s not what I—” She stopped. The ice on her arm crept to her knuckles and held there.
“He gave me orders. For you. When we were in the cloud space together.”
That made Celica go still.
Phantasm let the silence sit for a moment before she continued — quieter now, but no less final.
“He wants you to think long and hard before you come back to him. Train — with Lenora. I’ll work with Lewd.” Her blue eye caught the dim light. “He needs people he can count on when gods start coming for him. Not people who’ll fall apart the moment he’s out of sight.”
The ice on Celica’s arm crept to her knuckles and stopped.
She didn’t answer.
“I miss him so dearly.”
It was Lewd who said it. Small voice. Steady, somehow, even as fresh tears slid down her face — unhurried, like they’d made peace with falling. She wasn’t looking at either of them. Just forward. At something that wasn’t in the room.
Phantasm looked at her.
Something shifted in her expression — not softness, exactly. But an acknowledgment. She turned, dragon tail curling behind her, and moved toward Celica. One arm extended — not rough, just present.
They left together.
Lewd stood in the empty ward for a long moment.
Then she walked.
Through the hall. Down the stairs. Through the corridor that smelled like cold stone and old magic. Past the guards who didn’t stop her.
She found the dungeon door and opened it.
The darkness beyond was deep and still and it smelled like him — faint traces of warmth and calamity energy that had seeped into the stone, the way powerful magic always left a fingerprint on the world it passed through.
Lewd stood at the threshold.
And gold wings unfurled from her back — quiet, luminous, spreading wide in the dark like a lantern opening.
She looked down into the dungeon.
“Derpy...” Her voice barely carried. “I don’t know if you can hear me.”
She took a breath.
“But I have a song for you.”
I made a choice,But I don’t know if it was right.We lost our wayIn different oceans, different tides.
Wherever you go,Whatever you do,I’ll cross the darkJust to get back to you.
Her voice filled the dungeon slowly — not loud, not performed. Just present. The gold wings caught no light because there was none, but they glowed anyway, soft and stubborn.
I keep on focusing on you,Like you’re the only star in view.But all this space between our handsCould break me before I understand.
I need your comfort,I need your comfort,Or I will break.I need your heartbeatClose to my own,Before I fade away.
The stone walls didn’t echo it back wrong. They held it. Like even the dungeon had been waiting for something to fill the silence he’d left behind.
I hear your nameUnder every wave that falls.I reach for youThrough empty rooms and broken walls.
I try to smile,I try to breathe,But something insideKeeps begging, “Don’t leave.”
I keep on focusing on you,Because without you, I come loose.All this space could bury me,If your voice stops reaching through.
I need your comfort,I need your comfort,Or I will break.I need your heartbeatClose to my own,Before I fade away.
Tears fell freely now. She didn’t stop them. Didn’t wipe them.
She reached the bridge and her voice dropped — not weaker. Just closer. Like she was speaking it directly to him across whatever distance separated them.
Derpy, I’m scared.Not of gods.Not of war.Not of death.
I’m scared of standing hereAnd not feeling you beside me.
So don’t disappear.Don’t let them take you somewhereMy hands can’t reach.
I need your comfort,I need your comfort,Or I will break.I need your warmthAgainst the storm,Before my heart gives way.
Wherever you go,Whatever you do,I’ll be there for you.Across every ocean, every ruin, every scar,I’ll find you wherever you are.
The last note held.
Then released.
I made a choice…And maybe it hurt us both.But even lost in different oceans,You are still my home.
Lewd closed the dungeon door softly.
She turned.
Celica was standing in the corridor.
The halo was dim. The crying had stopped. She had the look of someone who had run out of storm and was standing in the quiet left behind.
“How about an agreement,” she said. “A contract—”
“Absolutely not.”
Lenora didn’t even let her finish. Flat. Immediate. The voice of someone who had been burned by that road before and could see it coming from three sentences away.
Celica’s eye twitched.
“I know your game,” Lenora said. “So how about this instead — you tell me what was in that memory. What he showed you.”
A silence.
Then Celica sighed — short and sharp, like it cost her — and pressed two fingers to her temple.
The images came through clean.
Lenora felt her mind go quiet as it arrived.
Not a vision exactly. More like weight. The shape of a world settling over her thoughts like a second sky.
Derpy. In the world they’d sent him to.
She felt it before she saw it — the texture of how people had looked at him there. The way a room changes when someone walks into it and decides it doesn’t want them. Small moments. Repeated. The particular exhaustion of being treated like an inconvenience in a place you hadn’t chosen to be.
Then the other things.
Two girls.
Lenora caught the impression of them — warm, present, connected to him in a way that had roots. Not new. Not shallow.
Her bunny ears went hot.
Girl.
Girl.
Girl.
Girl—
“Lenora,” Celica said mildly.
“I’m fine,” Lenora said. Her ears were still pink. “Keep going.”
A teacher. A mentor. The name floated up — Ms. Kline — and with it the feeling of structured learning, of something being built in him deliberately. The weapon-making. The forms. The way Derpy could construct things that shouldn’t exist and make them hold together through sheer instinct.
That’s where it came from.
She taught him.
“Interesting,” Lenora said quietly.
Then the last thing rose — and it made her stop.
A dragon. Not separate from Derpy exactly, but not fully him either. Living in his shadow like a second presence that had learned to be still. The name arrived with a particular weight:
Noxis.
Sealed. Deliberately. For reasons that hadn’t been shared — personal ones, the kind that have edges if you push on them wrong.
The images released.
Lenora stood quietly for a moment, turning it all over.
“So,” Celica said, watching her. “Those girls have a deep connection to him.”
“I noticed,” Lenora said.
“And Noxis—” Celica paused. “She’s sealed away. I don’t think Derpy talks about it.”
“Wait.” Lewd’s voice came out small. She’d been listening the whole time, still holding the horn. “Noxis. The dragon in his shadow.” She looked up. “She. What did she do? Did something terrible happen?”
The question landed in the corridor and stayed there.
Phantasm and Lewd looked at each other.
Then they both looked at Celica.
Celica said nothing.
Phantasm was the one who spoke — quiet, measured, final.
“What matters,” she said, “is why Noxis is attached to him. Not what came before.”
Nobody argued.
The silence that followed lasted about four seconds.
Then Lenora moved.
She crossed the ward in three strides, grabbed her bag off the bed, slung it over her shoulder, and reached back to close her hand around Lewd’s wrist.
“We’re leaving.”
Lewd blinked. “Where — where — where are we—”
“To a place where we can get stronger.”
She said it simply. Like it had always been the plan. Like standing still had never been an option she was willing to accept.
She bent down and scooped up Mia and Sphinx — one under each arm, both of them immediately alert, eyes bright, bodies taut with the understanding that something was beginning.
Lenora straightened.
And she sang.
Don’t you know what I’ve done for you?I paved the road beneath your feet.I broke the rules they chained us to,I made a path through gods and grief.
I did what heaven couldn’t do,I held the line when angels fell.I smiled while I was breaking too,And kept your secrets locked in hell.
Her voice didn’t shake. It never did when it mattered.
So we’re doing this the right way,The right way, like we said.No more running from the ruin,No more sleeping with the dead.
I could make it better,I could make it clean.I could stitch the world togetherIf you’d just believe in me.
Mia shifted in her arms. Sphinx rumbled low.
Hush, little one, don’t cry,Close your eyes, the stars still burn.If the gods won’t answer prayers,Then I’ll force the sky to learn.
Could you make it better?Won’t you make me better?Don’t you make it better,Don’t you leave me here.
The magic came quietly at first — just warmth, just pressure — then all at once.
Mia changed.
The small creature in her arms expanded, bones restructuring with a sound like thunder settling, fur darkening, three heads emerging where one had been — each with its own fire behind the eyes, each scanning the room in a different direction. A Cerberus. Ancient and enormous and utterly calm, like this had always been her true shape and the smaller form had simply been a courtesy.
Sphinx followed.
He hit the floor and grew — massive, stone-dense, wings folding out slow as monuments, the weight of him making the ward shudder. A Behemoth. Patient and absolute, eyes like two amber lanterns in the dark.
Don’t you know what I gave for you?Every petal, every flame.I buried all the softer partsSo I could stand beside your name.
Lewd stared. Then she let out a sound — half laugh, half sob — and threw her fists in the air.
“Yes—”
I could make it better,I could make them see.I could turn your curse to musicIf you’d only stay with me.
So tell me I was good enough,Tell me I was brave.Tell me all the things I lostWere worth the boy I saved.
But if I became a monsterJust to keep your heart alive,Then Derpy, look me in the eyes —Was I wrong to survive?
Hush, little one, don’t cry,I can fix the broken sky.Hush, little one, don’t cry,I can teach the dead to fly.
The final chorus came up from somewhere deep — all the love and the grief and the stubbornness she never let anyone see, shaped into sound.
Hush, little one, don’t cry,I’m still here, I’m still yours.Even if my hands are shaking,Even if my soul is torn.
Could you make it better?Won’t you make me better?I did what gods could never do —So why can’t you save me too?
Don’t you know what I’ve done for you?I paved the way, I paid the cost.I made a miracle from ruin…But somewhere in your shadow,I got lost.
The ward was quiet.
Lenora lowered her eyes from the ceiling.
“We’re going to get stronger,” she said. “Just you and me. Derpy’s pets. And our temporary Calamity books.”
Lewd wiped her face with the back of her hand and nodded — fast, certain, the kind of nod that has made a decision and won’t be taking questions.
They walked.
They found Brimelle and Silette on the road outside.
Lewd spotted them first — two familiar figures moving fast, travelling light, the kind of pace that meant somewhere important with not enough time to get there.
“You girls need a ride,” Lewd called out.
They turned.
Lewd held out the small wrapped bundle — the one Whitty had left along with the horn, set aside for the maids. From Derpy. She didn’t have to say it. The weight of the thing said it for her.
Brimelle took it.
She looked down at it for a long moment — then her face crumpled just slightly at the edges, the way it does when someone is holding something in with everything they have.
“Where is he,” she said. Not loud. Not angry. Just the question that had been sitting in her chest since the seam closed.
She tucked the bundle into her pocket.
Lewd pointed. “About fifty miles that way. Moving fast.”
Brimelle and Silette exchanged a look.
They moved.
Mia carried them.
Three heads steady, paws eating distance like it owed her something, the Cerberus form built for this — for travel that needed to feel like urgency without losing its footing. The jungle swamp crept in around the edges of the road first, then swallowed it entirely — thick air, heavy green, the sound of water somewhere beneath everything.
Silette looked up.
“Here is fine.”
Mia slowed. Stopped.
She lowered herself to let them off — careful, deliberate, each of her three heads angling slightly toward the two girls as they stepped down.
Brimelle paused at the edge of the swamp. She didn’t turn around, but her hand moved to her pocket — fingers resting against the shape of the bundle there. Just for a moment.
Then she walked in.
Mia rose again, Sphinx falling into pace beside her, and they were moving before the sound of footsteps had fully faded.
Lewd turned.
“Take care,” she said.
Lenora echoed it — softer, but no less true.
“Hope you have safe travels.”
The swamp took them.
The road stretched ahead.
Lewd looked at Lenora.
Lenora looked at Lewd.
Neither of them said anything.
They started walking.