The Woman didn’t like sleeping in the tent alone because it left her vulnerable to attacks, but she was prepared. Her knife rested next to her pillow, and her saber was right next to her, like another woman filling her bed in a past life when The Woman would have been comfortable with the idea of another person sleeping in her bed, her bow rested against the side of the tent with three arrows out of the quiver so they could be quickly fired. She had been ambushed in the past and had optimized a strategy to quickly defend herself.
If someone burst in she would grab the knife and quickly cut their neck. It would get the tent dirty, which bothered her, it would get her soul dirty to see another dead body she had created, which didn’t bother her at all. A year ago a librarian left her village and died and now a monster was inhabiting the shape that the librarian used to.
A year ago she hadn’t thought about these things, her life was simpler and had a lot less killing. The nights of the nocturnal elf woman would be filled with organizing books, keeping track of which ones were leaving her care, which ones needed to come back soon, what flowers Adelina left out on the main counter, and if their smell reminded Artesia of her.
Thiil was a slow place. A small village away from all of the strife and war of the world, filled with scholars, and some bird people that were good at making books for them to fill. Everyone’s life was simple and easy. Alchemists and Scientists would write down their knowledge to be shared with others and try to use their knowledge to create more things to be knowledgeable about. Historians would chronicle the changing times in as nonbiased a fashion as someone who had never known the suffering of being a poor person in a kingdom losing a war possibly could. The papermaking bird folk would prepare new books to either be filled with the knowledge of others or be traded away for food and things less permanent than a book. Poets would write all sorts of fancy words, words Artesia would steal in her journal to describe her feelings for Adelina. And Philosophers did whatever exactly it was a philosopher did, Artesia was still not certain as to what they did aside from being alone for weeks and then return talking about metaphorical abysses. She knew the Philosophers of Thiil and she knew that none of them had killed anyone. Now she had. Now she had killed enough people that she couldn’t keep count of them. Perhaps she knew more about that abyss than them now.
She wondered if Alexander, her romantic rival, mayor, and friend, was taking good care of her cat while she was gone. She didn’t know how long it was going to take her, or if she’d ever be back at all. She was the second most important person to her, she was a small little black cat who liked taking naps in the sun and chasing around the little jingly ball Artesia had bought for her. Her name was Lili. She was a good listener. Artesia spent a lot of her time on her bed with Lili on her chest, telling her about how much she loved Adelina, and all the ways she would brutally torture Alexander if he ever hurt her.
She felt conflicted about Alexander. He was a good fiance to the girl that she was in love with, but now she was sick and a man who has dedicated most of his adult life to making magic drinks that made people stop being sick couldn’t make a magical drink to make Adelina stop being sick.
Artesia had chosen to leave the village to find a cure, for a sickness that a village filled with some of the greatest scholars on the continent didn’t understand. It might be impossible, the entire idea was foolish, but Artesia would do anything for that woman. She had helped her too much for Artesia to do anything less than all she could. When she took her first step she did not realize that she had started to stop being Artesia. She was gone. She died and now her shape was filled with a broken woman who would go to the ends of the earth to save her friend, and would swiftly kill any soul that dared to get in her way. The old Artesia perhaps existed in some cold corner of her self that The Woman started to understand less with each passing murder. Maybe this was who she really was deep inside, and the shy librarian was the mask. The girl who peeked through bookshelves to stare at her crush, because she thought her beauty standing in the light reflected from the library’s windows made her too picturesque and perfect for her to interrupt. Her long thick black hair and dark baggy robes would be an inky stain on a painting created by the master of masters. The Woman wondered if she’d ever get the opportunity to hug Adelina and smell her hair again.
The breeze of the night carried with it the scent of a peach tree. She allowed her mind to drift and become unfocused for just a second. Thinking of the days when Adelina had smelled like peaches. She thought about sharing a bath with her and helping her wash her naked back, which she had of course never seen but knew that it would be perfect because it was Adelina's back and she was perfect. Many of her thoughts from her past life were gone but in moments of arousal The Woman still thought about what touching Adelina's naked skin would be like, and what touching her naked skin with her lips would be like, and what touching her naked skin with her naked skin would be like.
Rumbling in the forest behind her, something moving through a bush, too much noise to be the wind. Her thoughts used to be more elegant than that, with more prose, but she had to abandon that now, she had to be an efficient murderer.
She focused on her hearing and slowed her breathing. Footsteps, too small to be anything dangerous, probably a rabbit or a small fox at worst. She resumed more normal breathing and felt herself fall into a light sleep. Hopefully, if someone murdered her she wouldn’t have time to think about her failure.
She had been a dark ruined person when she came to Thiil. She was a miserable mess of a girl, but then like the sun peeking through the clouds of a storm, Adelina was there. She fixed Artesia, healed her wounds, and set her on a path of self-improvement. But of course, the storm clouds would cover the sun again, a curse had taken Adelina, her sunlight, away. This time Artesia had to be the one that pierced through the dark clouds. Artesia was not the moon to her sun, Alexander was her moon, and as much as Artesia wished it was not the case, one person can not make such a big change to the world as to replace the moon that orbits it. Maybe. At best. Artesia could be one of her stars, not as close to her as the moon, but not so far far away that she was incapable of bearing witness to her beauty. Maybe. At best. That sun could see her, and say or do something nice to her. “You look pretty today.” “I like your glasses.” “Thank you for being my friend”. Maybe. At best. Adelina would say those words to her again, maybe not the same way she said it to her fiance but good all the same. “Arestia, I lov-
A man opened the flap of her tent. She got up in a fast pre-planned motion and hated him with her knife. She continued to hate him with her cold blade until there was nothing left of him for anyone to hate again. She retrieved the knife from the dead thing’s neck and felt satisfaction that would have scared a past self when she felt it grind against the bones in his throat. She stowed the knife and picked up her bow and arrow and exited the tent. One more. Before the woman might have tried to talk to this person, but now she knew that these people did not speak her language, so she spoke to him in a caveman language instead. The arrow quickly found its way into his heart, and the man’s story turned to its final page in a brutal instant. In the time before the current time, her hands would be shaking from the previously unfathomable violence she had committed on the two things that used to be people, but she had grown comfortable.
They didn’t have much on them, perhaps leaving valuables back at some hideout that she didn’t care enough to find. She could probably sell the horse and their weapons for some gold and spend a few nights sleeping in a bed where she didn’t have to be ready to murder at any moment. There was something that she was afraid of, she had gone from caring about killing, in the sense that she didn’t want to do it, to not caring about the killing, in the sense that she was no longer phased by killing people that wanted to do the same to her. But what if she went back to caring, what if she started to like this, what if the feeling of ending people started to excite her. She wasn’t afraid of many things anymore. But she was afraid of that one.
What had happened to the shy librarian from Thiil who thought only of books and her love for her blonde haired co-worker. She was gone. She died and now her shape was filled with a broken woman who would go to the ends of the earth to save her friend, and would swiftly kill any soul that dared to get in her way. The old Artesia perhaps existed in some cold corner of her self that The Woman started to understand less with each passing murder. Maybe this was who she really was deep inside.