Fungal Halo

The rain falls hot on my skin, landing with a sizzling hiss whenever it manages to dodge the brim of my hat and find a patch left exposed by my dress. The burns heal immediately, the spell an automatic reflex I don’t consciously register anymore.

Really? Forbidden magic? I’ve half a mind to transform you into a garden gnome; maybe a decade or two of decorating my stoop will teach you not to ask me about such things.

The warrior who kicked down the door looked immediately familiar, though I’d never seen her before. Hers was the face in the mirror, the mold from which I was cast, the one my maker could never let go of.

As long as I’ve been here, Miss has always been something of a scavenger. Head of a diminished house, she makes her forays into the world in search of suitable replacements for what this place has lost.

Though she used to build us herself, I’m taught, before the heartbreak of loss became too great to bear.

My tits ache, pressed against the hard wood of the pier I lie on. The irregular splash of salt water leaves my clothes just damp enough to unpleasantly stick to me.

Physical discomfort fades into the background. It’s high tide, and the thing kissing me grips my attention.

I wake up, and right away I can tell that something is very wrong.

I lurch upright in a panic, scanning a room that should be familiar—that can’t be familiar—but I can barely process what I’m seeing as real.

Somehow I’ve been sent back to the turn of the last century.

The touch of a hand at my waist guides me down the hall. I know the path by heart, but still she keeps me close and uses gentle pressure to lead me in a turn down one corridor or another.

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this doll, is rightwise witch of this house,” your friend reads aloud.

The blade bearing that inscription has been rammed through the body of a doll lying, limp and tragic, on an otherwise empty altar in front of a dilapidated house.

“Astonishing! Where you come from, they really let humans pilot your own mechs? Just, what, with your hands? Operating buttons and levers like a carnival ride?”

They crowd me, far more curious than I ever expected a bunch of human-shaped machines could be.

Nobody else in the room matters as you drape yourself across your Goddess’s lap, perfectly content to lay your head down on Her while She strokes your hair and the other woman lounges at Her feet.

She likes to keep Her most treasured possessions close at hand.

The water churns with the thrashing bodies of countless swimming parasites. It’s hard to get a good look at them like this. All I can pick out is a handful of individual details—tendrils, rows of tiny teeth, beady eyes. I have to put my arm in there and let one choose me.