"Stab the body and it heals,

but injure the heart

and the wound lasts a lifetime."

-Mineko Iwasaki

When you have made a decision you regret, you run. This was true of the half-Wiccan child, the young anomaly who had escaped two slaughters just to betray the woman who taught her everything she knows.

Yara walked through the desolate battleground with a heavy heart, the Wiccan blood spilled about still convulsing and twisting with its magic. Tears threatened to spill, but she wouldn't allow it. She wouldn't jump to conclusions until she knew for sure. With a shift of smoke, she appeared in the forest in front of her master's old home. Without hesitation, she lightly knocks on the door, praying to Hecate for an answer.

"Who goes there?" Bellator shouts.

Shocked at the voice, Yara pulls back from the door and says nothing.

Bellator walks downstairs, and grabs the sword mounted over the door frame, and opens the door. "What brings you here? Be warned I am armed."

"An old friend of the woman who used to live here, Veronica. I want to know what happened to her."

"Fair enough. Besides, another being is a sight for sore eyes. I haven't seen anything but frogs and deer for two months. Come in."

Yara holds out a hand and opens the door lightly, still worried that she might get ambushed.

Bellator leans the sword against the doorframe.

"Fear not, violence is the last thing I wish to see after what happened."

"I have more to fear than violence." Yara steps in gingerly and looks around. "I'm guessing nothing good came out of the big fight."

"Only blood, death, and anguish. Things I once thought were the sign of a man."

"Yeah, your society always managed to baffle me each day I studied it. Where is she now?"

"Which part of her, spirit or body? The former only Hecate knows, the latter I can help you with."

"I suppose her body since with one I'll find the other."

"Follow me." Bellator leads the woman through the house, and out the back door, onto a stone path, leading deep into the forest. Yara follows behind, holding something in her pocket so tightly that blood starts to seep through her clothing.

The path widens into a courtyard of sorts, in the middle a tree carved with thousands of sigils, in front of which is a stone table, the sides carved with images of a life. Surrounding the table are bouquets of flowers, all in various states of decay. Some look as if they had been plucked from the earth only a minute earlier, some barely retaining color. On the table lies Veronica's lifeless body, a silk cloth wrapped around her eyes and another around her right hand, out of which seeps a black mist that disappears just before hitting the ground.

Yara pulls a small glass from her pocket, carved into a gem-like shape. The edges are tipped in a dark crimson, not unlike human blood, but dark enough to be unsettling. The half-blood peeks through the glass, and her neutral expression fades into sadness as she loses the strength to stand, collapsing to her knees in front of the table.

"I should be here, not you. What was I thinking?"

The tears from before now spill down her cheeks.

Bellator goes and sits on a nearby bench, facing away from Yara, as to leave her to herself.

Yara wipes the tears away and wipes the blood off her crystal

"You probably hate me."

"If you are referring to me, I don't." Bellator says, still staring off into the forest.

"You should if you really loved her. You should want to kill me."

"I did love her, I still do. But there is no room left in my heart for hatred."

"Good, I want to do the honors." She stands up and begins to walk back to the house. "You're in luck, there may be a way she can return."

Bellator stands up and turns to face the retreating figure. "If only I could believe what you say."

"Heh, you'd be surprised. I'm living proof that what I'm hoping to do works."

She lowers her collar enough to show a scar from what looks to be a stab to the heart.

Bellator looks away from her breast, shocked, but says nothing.

"If she is happily at rest, who am I to disturb her out of my own selfishness?"

"Do you remember nothing? Witches can't rest, especially her. Not after her deal with Hecate."

"My memory is clouded with tears. Who are you?"

"Yara, better known as the girl who started the apocalypse or your girlfriend's old apprentice."