Once, there were three of them.
One who was almost an angel.
One who was almost a doll.
One who was almost a person.
The three of them were almost friends.
Friends try to kill each other sometimes, right? Well, they were disappointed when they each realized that they couldn’t yet at the same time rather charmed to discover how much they all had in common.
Now, for better or for worse, it’s just two of them.
Sprawled on a cozy blanket at a cliffside that offers a breathtaking view of the world’s dying throes, the Malignant refills her friend’s glass from the last remaining bottle of a vintage that once commanded some considerable price among those who cared about such things.
Belladonna takes a delicate sip, letting the liquid tumble around her mouth and coat her tongue while she watches the forest below tip inward, trees spinning into self-intersecting, cancerous fractals that choke their own lives out.
“Poisoned, isn’t it?” she asks. “We taste your secret ingredient.”
The Malignant breathes a comfortable sigh and raises her own glass in a toast before taking a sip for herself. “Just once more for old time’s sake,” she replies.
The not-quite-a-doll nods and tips her glass back again. Poison was never an issue for her, but the gesture brings a comfortable familiarity in its pantomime of an old rivalry that long ago mutated from merely murderous to something deeper.
“Poison was always more our thing, though, wasn’t it?” she asks.
That which is not a person raises an eyebrow. “Of course it is your ‘thing,’ but… do you not remember? This is the same poison you killed me with that first time. I am simply bringing us full circle.”
Belladonna nods, wearing a slight smile. “Of course, that’s right. It’s been so long since we last used a poison so primitive, we’d forgotten.”
“Primitive, is it? It works well enough. I can already feel the nerves breaking down inside this body.”
As if to illustrate, she slumps to the side, finding it difficult to keep balanced and upright. Her friend makes her lap available as a pillow, and soon cradles the drugged Malignant, stroking her hair comfortingly.
“It definitely works well enough on flesh, sure,” Belladonna explains, “but the stuff we took with us deep into the caverns under the roots of the world… Well, it wouldn’t have done much to slip that into the earth’s blood.”
“Mmm…I surmised it was you who poisoned the world,” the Malignant says, breaths growing shallow.
“And we’ll guess you’re somehow responsible for that…” Belladonna gestures with her glass at the disturbing scene of the forest below, “whatever’s going on there?”
“A tumor in the heart of geometry itself,” the dying creature mumbles with a self-satisfied look.
“You gave math cancer?”
The Malignant laughs weakly. “Hahaha, yeah.”
“We wouldn’t understand the explanation, would we?”
“Probably not.”
The two enjoy some time in silence together.
Poison tightens its grip on the dying body lying with its head in the lap of a false body, and all is well in a world where all has become deeply unwell.
The sunset festers around the boil the world once called a sun as it slides slowly down toward the horizon, leaving a putrid green streak behind it.
“Was that one yours too?” Belladonna asks, not wanting the evening to be over yet.
The Malignant stirs, feeding her body just enough energy to pry open one eye and work out that her friend must be referring to the diseased sun.
“The idea, maybe.” Words come slowly and with great effort. “Suggested where she might take her throne. She listened.”
“Ah!” Belladonna exclaimed in recognition as the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “We wondered where she had gone. A thing like her wouldn’t die from the wrath of some god or another. We’d never forgive her if it didn’t turn out to be either of us who ended her.”
“Gods’re dead too I hear.” A weak mumble. “She got ‘em all.”
“Good,” Belladonna says, holding the Malignant gently.
In moments, she feels her friend slip away at last, the poison finally running its course.
She’ll be back soon enough, wearing a new body.
There’s a little time left before things decay to the point when even the various flavors of immortality the three possess lose their efficacy.
Maybe there is time yet for some last few games.