Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The dreams are a constant thrum, an echo chamber to its unwilling audience. They stutter and stall, fragmenting further and further until all she can see are these brief snippets. They rank and rake across her dreamscapes, thundering shards on empty plains.

Tonight though, it presents her with something softer.

“Ner Cyakar.” The words dance across her skin, an electric current along an empty pathway. It’s not her name and yet Zoey responds to it. She takes it in. Devours it. Leans into it until it etches itself into her very being.

My Darlingheart.

So selfishly hers, so wholly hers.

Their souls are sewn into every word, every syllable, every brush, every lingering gaze, every—

She settles into this dream taking in these senses that aren’t quite hers.

This alcove is something they’ve claimed ages ago. It sits nestled along the cliffside, overgrown with vines and midnight blooms, overlooking the village below. Pinpricks of firelights dance in the streets, lighting up each and every corner of her lovers’ beloved home.

Zoey lays there now, head resting in one lover’s lap as she gently cards her fingers through another’s hair. Each stroke sends waves of warmth through her, a want building deeper beneath.

“We could run, you know.” This one’s voice is close. Wisps of frosted breath brushing against her eyelashes, nipping at the tip of her nose. She hums, absently thumbing at the lace hem tickling at her ear.

“We could,” she accedes, tonally amused. “What do you think?” she whispers to the other, lightly tugging on silken hair. 

“Where would we go?” one asks, eyes closed and leaning into Zoey’s touch. The thought of leaving is both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure.

Zoey opens an eye, heart stuttering like when they first met. Brilliant silver hair and effervescent golden eyes that dress her down and lift her up all at once.

She can’t look away. She doesn’t want to.

The other moves then, sidling up and pushing Zoey’s legs to make room. She finds she can tear her eyes away then, gazing upon a canvas of dahlias, dressed pink with darker undertones.

Golden remains silent, raising her gaze to her hometown below. “I’m coming with you,” she states in lieu of an answer.

Zoey sits up then, the warmth cooling into a leaden mass. “The Alor and Alom would never allow it,” she starts, rubbing her fingers together.

“I would not either,” the Dahlia says.

‘If it were my choice’ remains unsaid, but their lover picks it up all the same.

“You cannot stop me,” she rebukes, her voice taut. Her hand bunches up at the hems of her silk gown, creases branching out like cracks on a window. Zoey knows she isn’t angry with them, not really. “Neither of you.”

“We know,” she accedes, turning to face Golden and reaching for her hand, untangling them from the spider web of creases. 

“We would never cage you, love, we wish only for your safety.”

“And I, yours,” Golden says, her voice crumbling to a soft concern. She lifts her hands to cup both Zoey’s and Dahlia’s cheeks, bringing their foreheads to touch.

Zoey can feel both of her lovers’ rough hands, remembers the many spars between the three of them, the days of simple training they conducted together in the woods, bandaging each other’s blisters and soothing sores.

She remembers hands exploring her very being, calluses scratching every itch she never knew she had. She remembers everything about her lovers’ trials, even though she has never lived through them.

She trembles, gazing into scintillating grays that bathe her in a certain tenderness she isn’t sure she deserves. She trembles, feeling the soft heat at the base of her neck, echoes of a kiss never pressed.

“Veka,” she whispers, a reverent little thing. The name—Golden's name—is foreign on her tongue, but it tastes sweet in all the ways only familiarity can. She wants to repeat it until it is the only thing left in her bones.

A heady groan echoes behind her before teeth nip at the tip of her ear, soft and teasing. “Asharad,” she moans, lips quirking with amusement.

“I cannot bear the thought—”

“I know.”

It’s not a fight she wants. Not now, not ever again. Not when she must leave come daylight.

“Have faith in me, ner riduure,” Zoey pleads, teases, pulling Veka into a chaste kiss.

She chuckles around the kiss, the sound a perfect melody that Zoey wants to engrave into her skin. She wants to wear it like silk, draped in comfort and clouds, as she drifts off to it.

Asharad bites then, teeth lightly sinking into the crook of Zoey’s neck, eliciting a breathy gasp, before she ultimately sinks into it.

“You are much too soft, ner Kebii’tra,” Asharad teases, confidence oozing in the way her hands glance at Zoey’s sides. 

“Mhi’gar,” Veka whispers into her ear, possessively caressing Zoey’s neck, her hot breath wrapping around liquid gold, burying her deep into fissures that threaten to crack further.

“Mhi’gar,” Asharad repeats, wrapping an arm around Zoey’s midsection like a shield, constant and protective in its embrace. 

Her breath hitches, clinging to oh-so-familiar words.

We are yours.

They are her ruin. She doesn’t care. 

Zoey traces her fingers across Veka’s collar as she delves lower and lower, relishing in the heat searing with every kiss, dedicating a focus to them only the most devout would lay claim to.

Asharad begins to descend as well, trailing down Zoey’s neck with love bites and savours every whimper, every moan, as if it were her last. 

“Ni’gar,” Zoey finally replies, her fingers ghosting lower and lower on Asharad’s gown.

Yours.

Yours.

Yours.

Always, always yours.

She takes in this scene, this life that is not wholly hers, and commits it all to memory—the way Asharad’s lace feels between her fingers, the cool granite beneath her legs, the threateningly tantalizing kisses against her inner thighs—because she’ll soon wake up, leaving with only an impression of what was.

“Nauvii,” one of her lovers breathes and Zoey feels herself crumble; the name, an alien thing, yet so intimately familiar to her ears.

“Ni’gar,” Zoey rasps again, clinging to Asharad’s neck as she peppers Zoey with kisses anywhere the gown separates, baring nude beauty. Against her nape. Along the stars of freckles painting her shoulders. Behind her ear, where she fights to suppress another whimper.

“Ni–”

* * *

“–gar,” Zoey mutters, waking up beneath layers of snow, clothes soaked to the bone, and a crawling sense of nausea building at the back of her head. She bites back the bile that crawls up her throat and scans the immediate area, anxiety etched in every movement she makes.

“Fucking—where…,” she starts, seeing only snow-clothed trees and carpets of white in every direction she looks. She pats her pockets and groans, finding nothing but flattened fabric. Great. Left my phone at home, she thinks, wondering where home even is.

She runs a hand through her hair, disrupting the layer of snow that clings to her and finds a curtain of brighter greens peeking around the side of the barks. She looks to the sky, finding that the sun sits dead center, albeit slightly clouded.

She glares at it, willing it to shift, even a bit.

It refuses, leaving her to huff in annoyance.

Picking herself up with all the grace of a newborn foal, Zoey stumbles her way to the tree and confirms what she saw. Moss, she blandly celebrates, before glancing around for more moss-ridden trees.

Each one she spots sits facing opposite of her, almost like the cicada infestations she saw in her youth. North or south, she notes, walking the opposite direction they face. Rubbing her hands together and huffing hot air between them, she hopes for somewhere at least a little warmer.

* * *

Teeth chattering and arms full of just-dry kindling, she rounds an outcrop and trips on something firmer than the crunch of snow, while the sticks fly out of her arms in a clatter of snow and the slapping of wood.

She picks her face up, snow falling in clumps and glances back to see—

—a body sits directly underneath the outcrop, bloodied and pale. Her heart shoots to her throat, panic flooding her system—

—wisps of barely-visible air eke out from the body and she scrambles over to where the woman’s head lays, propped up by a slab of shale.

Zoey lays the back of her hand across the woman’s forehead and mentally tallies any injuries she can see—no visible head injuries, a puncture wound just under her left arm, a dried cut on her leg, and a… corked bottle in her right hand. The liquid is red, almost ribbon-like, still swirling as if it were recently jostled.

She glances at where the satchel sits, an arm’s length away, as if it were thrown to the side. She grabs the satchel and tears it open, hoping to find any kind of supplies for the woman.

A hide-bound journal and a stick of graphite are tied together with twine. There are bundles of plants and roots, a flattened waterskin, and—yes! Bandages, she celebrates, pulling out the woolen roll with haste.

Zoey’s mind works on overdrive, mentally drawing up the technique to bandage a shoulder, as well as any means of aftercare she could apply, all while sitting the kid up so that she can do her job as quickly as possible. 

“Sorry if it’s not that comfortable,” she mumbles absently as she slips the woman’s shirt off. She moves a smidge slower on the woman’s left side and sets about with the bandages. Zoey rips a chunk off to serve as the absorbent layer before she wraps it twice around the woman’s left bicep, intending for it to act as the anchor, before wrapping it under the armpit, over the shoulder, slipping on the wad of bandage, and then across the chest. She loops it under the opposite armpit back to the affected shoulder and then wraps it back around their chest.

Left armpit, shoulder, chest, right armpit, chest. Left armpit, shoulder, chest, right…, she continues, the mantra only lasting as long as the length of the roll. She turns her attention to the cut, prodding around the wound to see if any blood still flows.

It doesn’t and she lets out a sight of relief and sets about rooting through their satchel for any more bandages. Just in case, she reasons.

She clicks her tongue, finding only another bottle of that red liquid, before she spots the dagger hanging on the woman’s waist. Zoey unhooks it from her waist and ties it to her own, before repacking everything into the satchel. She adorns it, strap one shoulder, satchel opposite waist.

Then, she carefully maneuvers the woman onto her back, groaning a little under the weight and sets off, her kindling long forgotten in the snowbanks.

* * *

The woman stirs just as Zoey sets her down in a nearby cave. It sits just under a cliffside, blocking the setting sun from shining even a single ray down on them.

She grumbles, beginning to raise their injured arm.

“I wouldn’t do–”

She gasps, immediately doubling over and cradling her arm.

“–that,” she finishes, setting down one of the corked bottles and sliding over to her. “Lay down,” she instructs, pushing on her good shoulder with a finger.

The woman reaches past her, making grabbing motions toward her satchel. 

“Your bag?” Zoey asks.

The woman tries to speak, but it comes out almost like a record scratch before devolving into a coughing fit. Zoey huffs, patting their back until the coughs subside. She tilts the woman’s head up and checks her throat for any signs of trauma. She offers no resistance.

“No signs of physical trauma,” she mumbles, turning the woman’s head this way and that. “Did you scream a lot or somethin’?” she asks, dropping her gaze to the bandage. It hasn’t bled through, thankfully.

The woman nods, eyes alight with wariness and a touch of curiosity.

“Awesome. Bruised throat is probably all it is,” she concludes, dusting her hands off on her cargos. She leans over to grab the satchel and digs out the waterskin.

“I’m gonna go fill your pouch before the sun sets,” she says, standing up and beginning to walk out the mouth of the cave. 

A slap echoes around the cave then, startling Zoey into freezing. She glances back and finds the women glaring at her, as if Zoey were the cause of all her misfortunes.

The woman points again at the wall opposite her, or more specifically, the bottles resting against it. “The bottles,” she says incredulously. The woman nods, resolute in the way she stares her down, hand held out expectantly.

She shifts a little uneasily, taking in the woman’s appearance in her entirety. Her color has yet to return, remaining a horridly pallid hue. Her clothes are… Surprisingly stylish—a collared blouse tight enough to be near form-fitting, dark leather pants worn from chafing, all tied together with a leather shoulder pad that goes from her uninjured shoulder to the opposite waist. If Zoey didn’t know any better, she’d assume this woman was like one of those adventurers in the fantasy stories she reads.

And not that it exactly helps, but Zoey’s mind echoes with familiarity every time she looks at the woman. The woman raises the hairs on Zoey’s arms and neck, sets her nerves alight with an excitement that feels wholly unwarranted for how little she actually remembers of this woman. She wonders if they might have run into each other at the mall or if she was a classmate or

“Not exactly sure alcohol’s what you want right now,” she leads, then pauses. “Numbing effect notwithstanding,” she adds with a dismissive wave, picking up the bottle and popping the cork to take a whiff. The smell practically forces her to recoil, its stench acrid and strong. 

“What the fuck,” she spits, holding the bottle as far from her as she can. “This is not alcohol.” Her hands desperately recork the bottle, the smell producing a tang that burns at her nostrils and leaves her gagging with every renewed whiff.

The woman breathes out a wheezing laugh, letting out intermittent coughs into her arm. She beckons for the bottle once more, scratching at the edges of her bandage.

Huffing, Zoey sets the bottle down between them. “Fine. One condition, though,” she says, mock seriously, holding up a finger. “You’re sleeping after this. You’re hurt and it’s late and you need energy. Deal?”

After a moment, the woman nods and snags the bottle, lifting it to her lips and biting down on the cork to tear it off with a pop!

Instead of drinking it, like Zoey had assumed, she pours it on her shoulder and leg, drenching herself in red. Zoey remains stock still, a little more than surprised at what the kid’s doing, but not finding it in herself to actually stop her.

Zoey watches. Watches as the liquid dries as quickly as it was poured, vapour trailing from the drying areas. Watches as the color returns to her cheeks, painting a cream canvas and rich umber eyes. Watches as she peels off her bandages. Watches as the wound closes, the skin pinching into itself and leaving a puckered scar the size of Zoey’s thumb.

“What the fuck,” Zoey repeats mutteringly, stricken with morbid curiosity as what should’ve taken several weeks to heal had closed up in less than a minute, leaving nothing but a superficial scar.

She has half a mind to begin prodding at it, to see if what happened wasn’t just a hallucination, but receives a grunt from the woman that knocks her out of her stupor.

“Right—sleep,” Zoey says, dropping back on her butt. “I’ve got questions, but those can wait for the morning.”

The woman stays silent, watching her, before eventually laying down on her discarded shirt. Her face relaxes almost instantly.

Laying down, Zoey thinks back to what she just witnessed, and wonders distantly just how fucked she is if she’s seeing potions of healing like in Minecraft.

* * *

She wakes up to the woman leaning over her. Zoey’s heart seizes, jumping into her throat and lodging itself there. Her fists are wound up, nearly out the door, until she takes another breath and drops her head back down.

“Please don’t do that,” she whines, laying an arm over her eyes.

“You have my knife,” she says, voice scratchy yet somehow commanding. The woman leans back, arms crossed and frowning. She thinks it would have been intimidating, had she not been treating the woman just hours earlier.

Instead, it just makes Zoey think of her cat, Derpy, commanding in his own right, but absolutely adorable and irresistible to cuteness-aggression.

She smothers a snort, sitting up and resting her chin on her raised knee. “I do,” she says, smiling crookedly.

“Gonna give it back?” the woman asks with a raised brow.

“How about… a name?” Zoey tries before cringing. I sound like one of those creeps, she thinks. “Nevermind.” She quickly unties the knife from her belt loop and tosses it to the woman, who catches it by the handle with quick hands.

“Mira,” the woman says, tying the knife to her own waist. Zoey stills for a beat, her heart singing a different name—Asharad—even as she processes the one she just heard.

“Not Asharad?” she asks impulsively.

“What?”

“What?”

They stare at each other for a beat, one unsure of what they just heard and the other now playing the oblivious nitwit.

Mira sighs, settling back against the opposite cave wall. “Do you at least know where we are?”

“A cave,” she replies, tongue-in-cheek. 

She narrows her eyes at Zoey.

“No clue,” she tacks on after a moment. “I woke up maybe ten-ish minutes before I found you on the rocks bleeding out.

“We could head out and try to figure out where we are?”

“Sure. You had questions though, didn’t you?” Mira asks, rolling her scarred shoulder, eyeing her expectantly.

“How about a game? Ever play ‘21 Questions?’”

*  *  * 

“Have we met before?”

“Never met anyone with blue hair before.”

“Blue?”

“Black. Sorry.”

“You’ve never met someone with black hair?”

A thwack! comes muffled through the snow.

“Ow!”

*  *  * 

“Where’d you come from?”

“Depends. We still on earth?”

“Yes…?”

“California.”

“Cal-i-forn-yah…?”

“Lemme know if you ever visit.”

*  *  * 

“What’s the red stuff?” 

“This?” A slosh rings between them. “The guild calls it a healing potion. Guy I used to travel with called it a ‘last resort.’”

“Why?”

“‘Why,’ what?”

“Why ‘last resort?’”

“Cause it hurts.”

*  *  * 

“You highborn?”

“Sorta? Either way, not high enough.”

“‘Not high enough?’”

“You ever have a slice of bread and ketchup and call it a day?”

*  *  * 

“You’re not from this world.” It’s not a question, but a statement. Mira’s paused by a boulder buried by layers of snow, a hand balancing on her cocked hip.

“Nope.”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

“Yeah, well. When you read a bunch of stories with this kinda setting, it helps a little. Call it a coping mechanism.” There’s an edge to her voice that Mira catches—something closer to insanity than the desperation that she’d been expecting. 

A flicker of pale brown catches her attention—a divot carved into one of the trees. She smothers down a smirk.

“What about you? Shouldn’t my presence be surprising to you?” Zoey asks, flicking her wrist between them.

“Outlanders are like rats, fortunately enough. Too small to do any real damage, but enough to be an annoyance. Can’t say I’ve ever met any like you, though,” Mira explains, whisking her hand over the snowpile and the snow melts.

Zoey watches, still as a deer in the headlights, as smoke flows from Mira’s hand, flickers of embers hissing against snow banks. Her own hands twitch and fidget, eager to mimic what they don’t understand.

“You’ve got magic,” she whispers, attentive to the way Mira raises her hand and the flames gather at her fingertips, coating and gliding over her skin like a second skin.

She reaches out to touch it, thinking it akin to reaching into a lake, only to pull back with a hiss as the flames bury themselves into her fingers, needling her nerves as the skin turns pink with irritation.

“Why would you touch it?” Mira asks, amusedly stunned with her.

“You have magic,” Zoey repeats, her voice raising an octave with excitement. “Do something else!”

Mira snorts, watching as Zoey bounces in place, and thinks of the village kids crowding around her, asking and begging for shoulder rides, to teach them how to fight, to—

“Another time,” she says instead, rapping her knuckles on Zoey’s forehead. “Figured out where we are.”

Zoey pauses, taking a moment to process her words. “How long have you known where we were?”

She smiles affably, lightly grabbing Zoey by the shoulder and turning her around to where the marked tree is. “Since I called you a rat.”

“That’s rude,” Zoey remarks offhandedly, fiddling with her fingers as if she were trying to mimic what Mira had done.

Mira has to steer her away from walking into a tree thrice.

Chapter Text

“Mira’s back! Mira’s back!”

Children crowd around her legs, clawing at patting at her like some lodestone. “Back off, brats,” she drawls, giving some of the taller ones headpats. 

That is, until one of them decides to test her patience. 

“Gian’! Up, up, gian’!”

Mira’s smile sharpens, her brows ticking a little more rigidly, as she hones in on one of the younger brats. She grabs him by the back of his shirt and lifts him to level with her. “And who’re you calling a ‘giant,’ huh, shortstack?”

The kid squeals, flailing in air as he stammers exhilarated apologies. “‘m sorry, ‘m sorry!” Mira keeps him up in the air a couple more seconds, swinging him in circles, before she sets him down and watches as he giggles, stumbling around—and promptly faceplants into the ground, still giggling.

She snorts, lifting and setting him back on his feet, making sure he stays on his feet this time. Just as she’s about to ask if the kid’s alright, a new set of arms appears in front of her face. “My turn!”

Zoey hangs to the side watching Mira get swarmed with kids with a smile on her face and thinks that it suits her, being so good with kids. It strikes a chord in her head, thrumming with an unfamiliar nostalgia that leaves her reeling. 

For a split moment, she sees a completely different view; cobbled streets instead of dirt paths, multi-storied buildings instead of simple thatched houses, carriages and horses instead of men pushing beat down wagons.

But none of it catches her attention as much as the woman that stands in Mira’s place. The woman is a little shorter with pink hair shorn at the sides, but the length is still the same. They smile too similarly, like someone had thrown a mirror in front of Zoey and asked her to tell the difference between the two. 

Mira’s doppelganger echoes her movements, a visage overlapping the original’s. For that moment, Zoey isn’t sure who is the original. Her heart sings somberly, whispering a single name over and over—Asharad, Asharad, Asharad.

It leaves her stuck. Stuck staring at this… vision. Of her new friend, blanketed with this other version, echoing each other’s movements with such precision and perfection it feels almost uncanny.

The sight leaves her almost dazed, as she pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to force the two images back into one.

"You good there, Outlander?" Mira's voice cuts through, her knuckles rapping against Zoey's forehead.

"Yeah," she lies, attempting to ignore the pang of something other when she registers the nickname. It's not that she expects Mira to say her name, or, hell, even want her to say it—they barely even know each other for her to care so much.

She does, though. It sits there, buried just beneath her skin, needling like an itch inside her lungs. Scratch all you want, she thinks bitterly, exhaling through her nose. "Just a passing headache."

Mira gives her a look like she barely believes a single word Zoey says, but doesn't bother trying to push the issue. She sighs, picking at the threads of her torn leather pauldron. "We need to head to the guild," she starts, "let 'em know I didn't finish the request."

If Zoey hears her grumble something about 'annoying bastards,' she doesn't voice it.

* * *

The doors creak open noisily and Mira steadies herself, waiting for the jeers and taunts to roll past her. Instead, the hall is silent and empty save for the few stragglers dotted throughout the room. Some are engrossed in their own business while others watch her and Zoey with piercing gazes she's sure would put her off-kilter any other time.

Right now, though, she's more annoyed with having to come back empty-handed to Bobby that their eyes are nothing more than embers to a burnt out log.

She sighs, stalking to the front desk, listening as Zoey's steps fall in line with hers. For a moment, she wonders if bringing this girl with her to the guild hall was a good idea, but Zoey's just as unbothered as an akk dog getting slashed with swords.

Which is to say, not at all. Mira wonders if she's truly that unbothered or that she's not as attentive to her surroundings as she seems.

"Bobby, you there?" she calls, watching the backroom for any movement, whether it be a sheaf of paper or a stray shadow.

"I'll be with you in a second!" A voice returns, their shadow moving erratically even through the small window of time that Mira sees it.

Mira leans on the counter, arms rested one over the other, as she fiddles with the splintered counter. The eyes on them have dropped, she notices, save for two pairs closer to the commission board.

She thinks she would have called them out on it, if she were alone, but. Some small part of her wants to keep a more leveled impression in front of Zoey, ridiculous as it sounds. Especially considering the girl had already tended to her injuries from a stupid mistake.

Instead, she grins as a rotund man walks through the doorway, a stack of paper in his hands and several pouches dangling from his fingers.

"Bobby," she greets, smiling.

Bobby had been her rock when she first stumbled into this backwater town. She'd been completely out of her depth and he'd been the first to offer her a hand; a night at his to gather her bearings and enough food that could have put a noble's dinner to shame.

She's stayed in the town since, as a way to pay him back.

"Mira! Hey kiddo!" Bobby drops the stack of paper onto the counter with a thump, the pouches clinking as they follow.

"Let's see… You were on that yinchorri commission, right?" he asks as he thumbs through a collection of files, guiding a finger over her file's last notes.

"Yup," she answers, rapping her nails on the counter, before tacking on, "no dice, though."

Bobby looks up then, stilling as he takes in her appearance; torn shirt and padding, blood spatters around her shoulder, dried and edging downwards, her skin a shade paler than he remembers, and—

—a girl beside her?

Mira follows his gaze. "This," she starts, plopping her hand on Zoey's head to a startled 'ah!' "Is Zoey. She helped me out when this—" She points to her torn padding, the hole the size of her thumb. "—knocked me out."

"If keeping her from bleeding out is 'helping,' then yeah, I 'helped' her," Zoey mutters, leaning against the counter with a raised brow.

Logically, Mira knows Zoey's right. Without her help, Mira likely would have bled out on that outcrop. Unfortunately, there's a minute part of her conscious that gets its hackles raised and refuses to back down, clawing to the forefront of her mind.

"Hah?" She breathes, annoyed. "You would've still been wandering up in those mountains if I didn't bring you down here," she retorts, shaking Zoey's head back and forth.

"I think I would've been fine, considering your tall ass decided that pulling out an arrow was a smart idea!"

"And what makes you think it was—"

"Oh, please, in what world would that not be an arrow wound—"

"Oh, I don't know—yours!"

Bobby drops a coin bag onto the counter with a clinking thump, drawing their attention. "While I'm glad you've got a friend—" Mira wrinkles her nose, bemused with Zoey's new label more than anything, because who argues with their friend like that? "—I do need a more detailed account of the yinchorri you encountered," he finishes with a smile, quill pen tapping across an empty page.

* * *

Mira drops onto her bed, the woolen blankets sinking to meet her. She groans, throwing an arm over her eyes.

Zoey trails in after, hands buried in her pockets, as she takes in the room. "Your room's even worse than my college dorms," she remarks bluntly.

Sure, Zoey's dorm may not have been the best, but it had at least been clean. Mira's room, on the other hand, looks as though a hoarder had just been evicted and the landlord hadn't bothered with cleaning any of the leftover rot and residue.

Her window is riddled with rot that edges inward, expanding to the closest corner where it even spreads along the floor. The opposite wall is pricked with random dents and old stains that Zoey's almost certain was blood at one point. The table, Mira's only furniture, save for the bed she has just collapsed in, is missing a leg. It's torn maybe twenty centimeters from the bottom and balancing precariously on its remaining three legs.

There's not even a chair.

"You're welcome to sleep outside if you're so concerned," Mira retorts, flippantly waving her off.

Zoey ignores Mira's threat for what it is—empty and weak. She sits on the end of the bed and pulls out a worn deck of cards she'd swiped from one of the empty tables in the guild hall. "Bobby's pretty cool," she says, beginning to shuffle the cards.

"He is," Mira agrees, sitting up to watch Zoey's shuffling. "Got a game in mind?"

"How about 'Poker?'" Zoey asks, having already looked through the deck. Despite the differences between their worlds, the cards are consistent in both—four suits between two colors starting from ace to king. There's even a joker that she'd placed to the side, except the art is some sort of lizard-monkey hybrid that gives her the heebie jeebies whenever she looks at it a little too closely.

"And what're we wagering?"

"Questions? I still have a bunch I want answered, but I figured this'd be more fun," she explains, already dealing Mira her two cards.

"So… whoever wins the round gets to ask?"

"Yup."

"And we're betting with… more questions?"

"Unless you got some moolah you wanna let me borrow," Zoey snarks, rubbing her fingers together, a greedy look settling in her eyes. "Can't say I'd turn down a chance to make some cash."

Mira rolls her eyes, lifting her cards as Zoey does the same. Five of Clubs and Eight of Hearts. Not a bad hand, per se, but not exactly the best either.

Zoey, on the other hand, is glaring at her cards like they'd just shouldered past her in the streets and ignored her protests to apologize.

Mira reaches for the dealer's deck, slowly flipping one card after the other as Zoey's brows furrow even deeper. Six of Spades. Four of Hearts. Jack of Spades.

She hums, considering her options. "I'll open with two questions," she says after a moment.

"Call," Zoey says, voice surprisingly tight.

Mira raises a brow. "You good?"

She gets no answer as Zoey reveals the next card. A three of Clubs. "Check," Zoey spits.

Mira bites back a snort as Zoey's knuckles start to whiten and her cards start to crease. "Call."

"Call," Zoey says, sounding almost like she was mocking Mira, especially with how narrow her eyes get.

Mira flips the last card, not even looking as she leans back, closes her eyes and cracks her neck and back. She sighs contentedly, hearing each individual pop, and cracks open an eye—

—Zoey is staring at her, an easy smile plastered on her lips and all the creases of agitation smoothed out to near nothingness. Almost like her entire demeanor earlier had been a facade. Mira can only tell that it wasn't because her veins are still popped and bulging, accentuating the curve of her neck—

—Mira coughs once, turning her attention to the cards.

King of Spades. And seven of Clubs.

"Raise," she says immediately.

"Call," Zoey follows, eerily calm, that same smile still etched and a little haunting.

Mira drops her cards first, splaying them out wide and open like a trophy viewing. A solid Straight. She preens, smiling confidently as Zoey eyes Mira's cards, no doubt in her mind that she's won this round, even with Zoey's switchup with that last card—

—only to choke on that same building confidence when Zoey drops her hand nonchalantly, revealing a higher Straight. A ten and queen of spades.

"Read 'em and weep 'em, nerd," she crows, grinning widely.

Mira does, staring gobsmacked at the win being pulled from under her feet, almost conceding the round to Zoey and awaiting her questions, before she zeroes in on the edges of something peeking from under her thigh.

Zoey catches Mira's look a moment later and realizes what she'd seen. She slowly tucks the cards further beneath all while eyeing Mira with a grin less smug than before.

"You cheated," Mira breathes accusingly, laughing lightly. She understands then, that the moment she looked away, Mira had been had.

"We'll call it a draw," Zoey acquiesces, gathering up the cards to shuffle again. "Best of seven?"

* * *

Mira's cards come down like a hammer, frustration written in the way her veins bulge on her hands. She'd spent the better part of the last five minutes studying Zoey's face, attempting to pick up any tell to latch onto. Zoey's face is chock full of tells, ranging from the way her eyes twitch to the way her lips curve downward, even to how she scratches her knee.

However, if everything's a tell, it just leaves Mira scrambling to reread her own cards and the dealer's deck.

Two of Hearts. Seven of Spades.

The absolute worst hand she could have been dealt.

So, that leaves her with the thrown cards, groaning out a sigh as she leans back on her hands. "Did you cheat?" Mira asks, halfheartedly glaring at Zoey.

Zoey grins, revealing her own cards. Ace of Spades and five of Hearts. "Not this time," she singsongs, already gathering up the cards to shuffle once more. "You should really work on your poker face," she adds, dealing out the next round.

"Whatever. Lemme hear 'em," Mira says, make a beckoning motion with her hand.

Zoey hums, resting her head in her palm. "What's this thing?" she asks, holding up the joker card, the abomination that is some sort hybrid monkey practically jumping out of the card.

"That's what you want to ask? Really?"

"I bet two questions—" Zoey holds up two fingers, teasingly wiggling them as she does so. "—so I'll use them how I want to."

Mira clicks her tongue, wishing she'd folded immediately after picking up her cards instead of calling. "It's a kowakian monkey-lizard," she explains, "annoying pets more trouble more than they're worth. Next?"

"Wait—hold on, a monkey-lizard? Like, it's scaly and can climb things?"

"Unless there's some other monkey-lizard thing running around with that name, then yeah." A thought crosses Mira's mind. "Wait, do you not have monkey-lizards from where you come from?"

"No?"

"Hm. Be glad. Next question."

"What's a yinchorri?"

"Giant bastard lizard that lives and breathes hunting anything alive. They know how to communicate, but don't bother with anyone or anything that isn't a yinchorri. So you'll see them as guild targets every now and then when they start venturing to close to towns and such. Otherwise, we leave 'em be as much as possible."

"Bipedal lizard dudes? Like, walking on two feet and using tools—that kinda lizard dude?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

For a moment, Zoey thinks of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and wonders if these lizards are any similar. "Do they have—"

"You ran outta questions two questions ago," Mira reminds her, already doling out the next round of cards.

"Oh, come on—"

"Win another round if you want more answers, shrimpy."

That shuts Zoey up.

* * *

The next round doesn't leave Mira faring any better, with Zoey raising the wager to three questions immediately after her opening of one. It leaves her off kilter and continuously watching Zoey's mannerisms, wondering if she's serious about her cards or not.

Her own cards fare somewhat better—a nine and queen of Hearts. The dealer's hand is in her favor; Jack of Hearts and ace of Hearts. She's one away from a straight flush and she feels confident about the next two cards.

Zoey, on the other hand, is bent forward, her cards held up just inches from her face. She watches Mira over the top of them like a hawk.

"Call," Mira says, feeling goosebumps form along her arm. Not confident enough, apparently, especially under Zoey's watchful gaze.

"Call," Zoey returns, unperturbed.

She reveals the next hand, deliberately, achingly slow, the card dragged between the two of them like an anchor beneath the waves.

A three of Clubs.

Mira feels her shoulders drop, the tension bleeding out in waves. She huffs a breath, dropping her gaze to her lap. "Call," she says after a moment.

"Raise."

Mira snaps her head up fast enough that she's sure will leave her with a crick in the morning, but the immediacy in which Zoey responds slightly terrifies her. What stares back at her moreso, as it feels more like looking at a predator than someone who'd just been dropped in a completely different world less than a day ago.

Zoey smiles and it's all teeth, wide and unsettling. Like a strill before it lunges in to bite her fucking leg clean off. Mira's face must give away how unnerved she feels because all Zoey says is: "You're the one that said to 'lock in,'" right before she draws the next hand because Mira still hasn't moved.

What the fuck does 'lock in' even mean?

* * *

Zoey wins that round, scoring herself another four questions.

She didn't even have a winning hand. Mira had folded in the final stage, convinced she would've lost in the showdown.

"Do the lizard men have shells on their backs?" Zoey asks, shaking with barely contained excitement.

Sue her, turtles were the best! Add onto the fact that her favorite TV show might actually be real? Of course she's excited.

"No."

Just like that, Zoey deflates, visibly disappointed as she rests her head between her knees.

"Next question, Kebii'tra," Mira teases, chin resting on her palm, the next round's cards already dealt. She stills, though, the nickname having come out unconsciously and unbidden, as though it were second nature.

"What's that mean?" Zoey asks softly, her own recognition hidden behind her eyes. The meaning behind the nickname is lost to her, blurred behind a wall of fog and muted beneath rushing waves.

This tension is new, completely unlike the one built within their game. It's charged with familiar emotions through unfamiliar channels and Mira is left floundering, unable to answer Zoey yet still wanting to anyway.

"I… don't know," she lies, the words tasting bitter and wrong on her tongue.

"Mira?" Zoey asks, voice even softer than before, her hand lightly outstretched in a way that's too familiar yet not—

Mira's hand flies to her head, a heavy headache blooming as two versions of the woman across from her spill onto one another and merge in her view. This other Zoey, with her navy hair swept to the side, reaches out in tandem with her Zoey, their movements perfectly mirrored, concern etched on both their faces, contoured down to their dimples and the slight curve in their lips as Mira scrunches her face further as the headache compounds.

She turns away, hoping to erase that other Zoey, hoping to only see one of them. There is too much familiarity in the other that it pains Mira, like a chasm forming inside her heart as she looks at something that once was.

She instinctively knows whoever this other version is no longer exists, whether it's in this world or the next.

Tears spring to her eyes as she wretches out a hoarse, "Go to bed," before snapping her fingers and blowing out the lantern that lit the room.

She buries herself beneath the thin blanket, praying that Zoey doesn't push the matter, even as she still blinks away the memories of Zoey's other.

Zoey doesn't and, somehow, that hurts worse.