Gwen rubbed her brow in irritation as she and Angi stalked down the street. Before apologizing that, due to her injuries, Mira felt she should go into hiding for a few days and would thus not be able to help them hunt their attacker, she had explained that, aside from her grandfather, who she was confident did not want to kill her, there was only one being in The City of Sinners that could produce the hellfire that had destroyed The Lucky Girl. Supposedly she was an Infernisk, a fire demon from the outer edges of Hell, named Aski, but Aski, by all accounts did not exist. No one at the café had even heard of her, let alone seen her when she started the fires. So, with nothing else to draw from, Angi and Gwen had been chasing rumors and false leads for nearly four hours. Now they only had one lead left, and Gwen was growing increasingly furious worrying that their target had already got away.
Apparently Angi realized her steadily souring mood because she said, "We will find them you know. We won't rest until we do."
"I know that!" Gwen snapped a little harsher than she meant to. "But," she corrected, lowering her voice as Angi raised an eyebrow. "I don't know. I'm just-" Gwen stopped walking and tilted her head to the sky. It was little more than a gray fog stretching in every direction as far as the border mountains of The Fell; if you walked far enough from Nagarais even Morgane's Sun was blotted by that fog. Gwen closed her eyes and remembered that other sky, the blue sky of Requiem and the time she spent under it. The worriless amazing time she spent living under that sky, with Angi by her side. Then, the vision burned, fire licked the edges of her memory eating everything in its path until Gwen was left alone in the darkness surrounded by purple smoke, just like the explosions at the café, Just like when House Lust had dragged them back to Hell.
"I'm sacred that he isn't finished with us. I'm scared this is his punishment... and, I'm scared I'll lose you all over again." Gwen admitted turning to look Angi in the eye. "and I can't lose you again."
Angi sighed and gazed at Gwen in that strange way she did whenever she was trying to be supportive or relate. It was a look that saw her past all her physicalities. A magical gaze that never failed to lay her soul bare to its user.
"I know, I am too but he has left alone for a full year now, I don't think it would benefit him to come after us now," Angi's voice was steady but even she could not conceal the uncertainty hiding behind her eyes.
"Besides," she grinned, changing the subject. "I think you're underestimating me Darling, I may not be the fabled assassin of the Angel of Sin, but…" Angi, for the first time in a very long time, allowed her finger nails to lengthen into their natural claws. All succubus had them and most only concealed them when hiding among mortals, but Angi hid them perpetually for reasons Gwen did not totally understand and she often forgot just how well Angi could use them. "I am not helpless either. I can fight. And," Angi leaned forward, resting her chin on Gwen's chest as she looked up at her with a smirk, "just so were clear, even if I should die, which I will not, my ghost will haunt you forever."
"I know you can, pet." Gwen smiled, ruffling Angi's fluffy ears again, trying to make herself laugh at the joke, but feeling no less anxious than before, she barely managed to fake a half-hearted chuckle. I know you can. Gwen repeated to herself, but I'll do whatever I can to keep you from having to.
***
Angi and Gwen arrived at their destination a few minutes after their conversation. That destination was nothing special. A simple and long abandoned tunnel entrance hidden behind two buildings in the center of the alley. Mist and dust floated up the cobbled steps; out of the darkness of that tunnel, before it swirled around their feet and eventually settled somewhere behind them. It was an eerie place, even by Hellish standards and neither woman was particularly keen on going inside.
"Why exactly do we think Aski is here again?" Gwen asked skeptically, trying to find a reason not to go in.
"Mira said that Aski was an Infernisk right?" Angi replied slowly, knowing the answer but half hoping that circumstances had somehow changed.
"Yes?"
"Well, I've never met Aski before, so my true sight is useless. I don't know exactly what her emotions look like, so I'm honestly guessing, but infernisk naturally live in the magma lands. Literally within the volcanoes of Shirak-Drac so it stands to reason that she would feel very out of place in a city as cold as ours." Angi put air quotes around the word cold and gestured at her one shouldered tank-top. "This hole in the ground is actually an entrance to one of Hell's abandoned forges. To my knowledge they haven't been started in years, but, if someone were to light those forges, the chambers underneath would heat right up. If I were a fire demon missing home," Angi sighed, probably mourning the fact that Gwen hadn't found any holes in the logic of her analysis, "I'd hide here."
"Then I guess I'm going in." Gwen sighed, exasperated. Despite Angi's explanation she wasn't convinced there was anything to find in this building or underneath it, but she wasn't taking the chance.
"Wait, you? Why just you?" Angi protested.
Gwen sighed, she knew this argument was coming, "Because I'm not willing to put you in more danger than necessary. The two of us are in enough trouble as it is. There's no reason to put you in even more."
"There is if going in alone puts you in even more!" Angi argued.
"No there isn't!" Gwen snapped. "I've already lost you once today... and once before that. I've come too close too many times, Angi! I won't let you risk yourself if you don't have to!"
"I lost you too Gwen! You don't think I felt just as horrible watching you blow up! But I'm not trying to sideline you! I know you're capable! I've never once doubted it in my whole life! So why! Why Gwen? can't you believe that I am too?" Angi cried, her eyes misting even as she refused to cry.
"Because you're not!" Gwen shouted back! "You're an excellent spy, but the truth is you are not capable of holding your own in a fight! You can't even make a deal without Mira's power and Mira doesn't have any power to lend right now! You have no one to support you right now!"
Angi gaped at her girlfriend, looking more horrified than hurt as tears silently streamed down her face. "But..." She choked, "but I thought we were supposed to support each other."
Gwen opened her mouth, then closed it again. That's not what she'd meant. In reality she hadn't meant any of it. Angi had almost beaten Gwen on a few occasions in their daily duels but that hadn't stopped her from trying to stop her from coming, but now Gwen could see it in Angi’s eyes. She had gone too far. "Angi I..."
"No, I get it!" Angi fumed, pulling and turning away as she began to cry in earnest. "I'd just be a burden right? Just a puppet without its master right? A weakling who schemed her way to the top and only gets to stay there because her demoness think's she's a cute plaything, right? It's fine, I know everyone else thinks that, but I... I really thought that you knew better."
Gwen moved to reply once more but realized it was pointless. She'd gotten what she wanted. Angi would be safest on the surface, but as she descended the stairs into the dark of the tunnel Gwenothin couldn't stop her eyes from misting as she wondered if it was worth the price she'd paid. If protecting Angi was worth hurting her so deeply? Some anniversary this was shaping up to be.
***
"Gweny?" Angi asked, resting her hand on her forehead as she lay in bed. The pair of them were settled comfortably in the sheets of their bed back home as the light of the rising sun filtered through the shades. "Hmm?" Gwen answered, rolling over still very much asleep. "Do you think I'm strong?" Angi continued, raising her hand and scrutinizing her fingers with unnecessary care.
"What do you mean?" Gwen replied, yawning and propping herself up on one elbow, not bothering to hold her sheets in place with the other. "Of course I do.”
"Well, I don't know. Sometimes I just feel like I'm not really worth much to Mira or the Trifecta-" Angi paused, "or you. Every time I bring it up Mira assures me that I'm wrong, but in reality all my power comes from her. I'm not much more than a conduit for her, and anyone could do that."
"Angi darling." Gwen murmured, caressing her cheek. "You are anything but worthless." She said firmly. "You're such a calm person, you never let your emotions get the better of you and you never act without considering the consequences first. Mira made you her deal maker because you are the only one of us with the mindset to do it and she is willing to lend you her power because you are the only creature in all of Hell that she truly trusts. No other soul has ever invoked her name and lived to tell of it. You should be proud not only that you can do but that she trusts you to."
"Yeah but what does that actually make me?" Angi sighed, sitting up and hiding her face in her hands. "Mira's puppet, or better yet, just her loyal bitch?" Angi began to cry.
Gwen scoffed and hugged Angi from behind, riddling her shoulder and neck with kisses as she spoke. "Angi Darling, how could you think that about yourself? Nobody else does. Mira trusts you because you keep her in line, not because you roll over to her every whim. I never would have fallen in love with someone like that. The fact that you don't punch as hard as me or Mira doesn’t make you weak and helping when you're needed does not make you a puppet. Your wit and charisma are what built the Trifecta after all, never doubt that those are strengths more powerful than physical force."
Gwen paused her speech and affection and straightened before gently pulling Angi's forehead back towards her, forcing her girlfriend to look up into her eyes, "Angi, I'm not as good with words as you are, I can't make people stop and listen the way you can, and I don't know exactly what to say to make you realize how amazing you truly are. But what I can say, all I can say really, is that you are special to me. You are the most exceptional girl I've ever laid eyes on. I'm grateful every day that someone as magnificent as you chooses to stay by my side. I wish I could take all your pain and doubt away from you; I wish I could silence all the people who call you a puppet, but I can't. All I can do is let you know just how much I love you and hope that that is enough to let you love yourself."
***
"It was a lie. You know it was a lie. She doesn't believe it."
Angi repeated the mantra over and over and over again in her mind. But the tears continued to stream down her face. It was true. She knew it was true because if it wasn't true then that meant Gwen had been lying to her all those months ago... No! No, Angi could see it in her eyes. She was trained to see it! Gwen had lied today, not back then! On top of that Gwen had only lied today because she was trying to protect her. Angi knew that, she knew it as certainly as if it were written in stone and yet… if she knew, why did the words still hurt so badly?
"Stop crying!" She told herself. "They're just words. Empty words!"
But Angi knew the power of words better than most. She was a master of weaponizing them. Empty or not she knew the damage the right words could do to the wrong person.
"Worst anniversary ever." Angi sniffled and lay her head against the cold stone of the building behind her as she steadied her breathing.
Even though she knew in her heart that Gwen had been lying, a part of Angi, that horrible incessant, nagging part of her, still believed what she had said, and the worst part was that Angi didn't understand why! Gwen – and Mira for that matter – had never been anything but supportive. They had never made her feel anything less than invaluable. Mira had always given her the hardest jobs, the ones only Angi could do, and Gwen, Gwen trusted her with so much of herself. Angi knew things about her girlfriend no one else in the world had been trusted with, so why! Why did Angi still feel so small?
"Because Gwen is wrong," Angi thought. "She sees something in you that isn't there. Sure she thinks that you're amazing, but in the end, you're never there for her. She fights all your enemies for you, and you let her! You let her face Lubick alone and you're still letting her fight your battles right now! You fear that you will fail her, that you'll get her killed too. You will always be weak because you are to much of a coward to trust yourself!"
"No!" Angi breathed aloud as she rose to her feet and wiped the tears from her face. "Right now, standing by is just as good as murder. I won't let you do everything alone, Gwen. Not this time!" Angi sighed as she stared into the blackness of the tunnel entrance and only eerie silence stared back. "I won't lose anyone else." Angi let one foot fall onto the first step, and then a second, and the further she went, the quieter the world became, until only the steady beat of her heart and the quiet click of her heeled boots accompanied her into the dark.
