For the Living and the Dancing

Julie had been born to a strict father who so desperately wished for her to be a genius that he didn’t hesitate to do whatever he considered necessary to present her as one.

For as long as she could remember, she was seated at her desk for hours on end, her father looming behind her.

As soon as she was old enough to hold the tools of an enchanter, for that was the bloodline of their family, he taught her how to carve the sigils and runes and symbols and how to keep her lines perfectly straight, her circles perfectly round.

"A genius is capable of using both hands," her father told her, tying down her dominant hand and putting a pen in the other. "Learn."

"A genius knows how to present themselves," her father said as he taught her how to speak with people, drilling titles and manners and what to wear when meeting people of rank into her head.

"A genius speaks clearly," her father said as he had her read books out loud until she got her lisp under control.

He demanded that she memorize knowledge, that she overtake her peers in class whenever possible. He dedicated every ounce of his free time to her education, and once she was old enough to pretend along with him, he took her to the academy where he taught.

He seated her in classes and boasted that she understood the material but wasn’t ready to join the academy fully yet.

She didn’t understand the material, but she was a shy child, a quiet child, so people considered her either cute or annoying instead of seeing her as the fraud she was.

"You must be a genius," her father told her, his hands big and heavy on her shoulders. He never touched her unkindly, but his hands always felt like they were pressing her down into the earth, making her shrink smaller and smaller.

"You must be because we are enchanters, my dear," he told her with a grimness that she wished she could hide away from. "Mages already look down upon us for being lesser. But if you are more than that, they will praise us at long last."

She didn’t fully understand; the mages she had met had been quite friendly, but she had noticed her father’s coolness towards them. And she had noticed how he was never invited to their parties and meetings, to their special little clubs, despite his skill as an enchanter.

In one of her few, cherished good memories, her father had gifted her handmade enchanted toys. Little birds that flew around her and chirped the most beautiful songs. Fish that swam through the air and shimmered in a multitude of colors.

"So you are less alone," he had said back then with a smile.

But she had been very little then, and he had been kinder, softer. He had smiled more back then.

Her mother was a quiet woman, as well, but it took Julie a while to understand that she wasn’t shy. She was cowed into silence, resembling more a ghost than a person as she drifted through their home, the servants casting concerned looks at her.

When her mother got pregnant again against all expectations, Julie felt excited for the first time in years. She had been so very alone for so long. Her father only allowed her to play with other gifted children and they were all... awkward. Like her.

And like Julie, they were all weighed down by expectations.

Sometimes, she looked at her little circle of carefully-selected friends and thought that they were all trying to be adults without knowing how.

Her mother’s pregnancy progressed well and Julie felt ever more hopeful for a sibling. For someone to play with, to talk to. She’d teach her sibling how to walk and talk and she’d make sure to be a kinder teacher than her father.

She hoped her father would leave her sibling be.

It was that thought that made her work harder. She did her best to keep all the attention on her as the date of the birth grew closer, but her father was so very eager for the child that it was difficult to keep his focus.

And then the child was born, a little girl, and Julie loved her. She took one glance at the little one, her mother looking more like a ghost than ever, and she wanted to protect her from everything.

The last thing her mother did was name the child Anne. Julie had learned how to cry quietly years ago, and as she held her little sister, the midwife having showed her how, she promised in a tear-shaky whisper that her little sister was going to have a better, happier life.

Her father did not shed a tear, though he wore mourning garb for weeks on end.

He picked up the lessons with a vengeance, and Julie kept her head down. She kept quiet, stayed soft and pliant and agreeable, sneaking away to help the wet-nurse with her little sister whenever she could.

That tiny bubble of joy was soon popped when it became clear that something was up with her little sister. She seemed to be unwell more often than not.

"She’s been born with a sickness," the doctor said when he came to thoroughly examine the babe.

Julie didn’t like his tone, and she didn’t like how her little sister squirmed, her pudgy little face puffing up in upset. She wanted to go and scoop her up, but her father was in the room, and she didn’t dare do anything that he might disapprove of. She didn’t want him to take her sister away.

She had no idea what the doctor said next, a complicated name that sounded almost too elegant, too sophisticated for what ailed her little sister.

Anne had been born ill, her body would always be weak, and it would deteriorate the older she got.

"She won't get old," the doctor warned quietly, but Julie heard him, anyway. "There is medicine to delay the decay, but it won’t cure her. If you are diligent, if the girl does exactly as I say, if she doesn’t get ill often, she might make it to twenty."

Twenty years. That was... that was so very little time. Julie stared at her little sister, her throat suddenly so tight she couldn’t even breathe, her stomach rolling with horror.

She would have to bury her sister before she even fully finished growing.

It took Julie a couple of days to digest the news as much as possible, and then she decided that no matter how much or how little time her sister had, she’d make sure it would be the best life possible.

Her father had lost all interest in his new daughter after the doctor’s visit, the grimness of his demeanor deepening further. It was like he was already grieving.

Julie didn’t understand because Anne was right there and she was alive. Not well, perhaps, but she lived. She was a pudgy, often stinky little baby that Julie loved with all her heart.

So she studied harder, and when her father dropped her off at the academy, she asked if she was allowed to sit in on the medical classes.

She had never asked to be put into specific classes before because they were all hard, and she struggled to understand even part of what was going on despite her father helping her study at home.

Her father brightened a little at that and agreed readily.

Julie understood even less in those classes, but for the first time, she approached the professor afterwards and asked questions.

The woman was surprised at first, and the longer they spoke, the more puzzled she seemed, but she answered all questions readily, dumbing things down until Julie finally understood.

She came back again and again, to the point that she secretly scurried out of the other classes to join the medical ones.

If she left quickly enough afterwards to go meet her father where she was supposed to wait for him, he had no idea where she had been. The professors had such full classes that no one noticed her slipping away, either.

Anne grew well despite the odds stacked against her, and the day Julie saw her get up on wobbly knees, she was so excited that her little sister fell over again because she was laughing too much at Julie whooping and clapping her hands.

Anne was the best thing in Julie’s life. Perhaps even the only good thing.

Once her little sister was old enough to play with more things than cubes and stuffed animals, Julie made toys. Like her father had once made for her.

She made frogs that hopped just slow enough that her sister could catch them. She made a snake to coil around Anne and help her walk up and down the stairs, catching her before she could fall.

She made Anne a small prancing horse that she could ride up and down the hallways, since she could rarely go outside and wasn’t allowed to ride an actual horse. The little toy horse couldn’t go very fast and would not spook or toss her. With her sister properly strapped in, she was safe, and she could still have fun.

Her father examined each toy, looking impressed, and soon the remaining theoretical lessons on enchanting were replaced with more and more practical ones.

"You might not be a conventional genius, but perhaps we can make you a prodigy," he mused as he handed her even finer tools and even more material. "Invent something to make me proud."

By now, Julie was old enough to understand what he actually meant: "Invent something I can brag about." Her father felt so inferior to mages that it had consumed every part of him, even the parts that had once been loving and kind.

Enchanters had no magic, but they could create magic, and in her opinion, that was just as valuable, just as amazing. Sure, mages could enchant, too, but their work would always be rougher and rather unwieldy compared to an enchanter’s.

Enchanters, on the other hand, could do nothing without tools and materials.

Julie had no idea what exactly inventors were supposed to do or how to make something that her father could impress others with, but once she thought of making things for her sister, to her surprise, she succeeded.

It wasn’t anything big, not yet, but the little dog she made at her sister’s request satisfied her father quite a bit.

The little dog could perform simple tricks, it could fetch things both pointed at and named, if the words were spoken clearly, and it caught things that fell if it was close enough.

She had to make a second dog for her sister, since her father took the first to the academy and she never saw it again.

But making her little sister happy was worth it. All the hardships were worth it, all the ways her fingers ached and all the scratches and burns she hid under long sleeves and gloves, her sister too little to find such things odd.

Her sister was a happy child for all that she couldn’t be like the other kids, and yet, Julie found herself weeping sometimes, thinking of all that her little sister couldn’t have.

Of all the years she would never live.

Julie stared down at her experiments, her hands scarred and calloused after years of hard work.

Her mind felt empty as she looked at the partially-assembled focus for a mage, a commission that had caused her father to puff up like a preening peacock.

The mage in question was a very influential, very rich one. He only ordered from the best of the best, and he had wanted her.

Julie was almost done, but she couldn’t bring herself to finish her work. Not when Anne was too weak to get up. She had been too weak for a while now and it filled Julie with a terrible fear.

Anne was only ten years old. That was half of the time the doctor had said she might have if they were careful, if they cared for her.

Julie’s eyes welled with tears, and she got up, for the first time abandoning her work while her father was awake and in the house, and she left the cellar that had been remodeled for her.

There were shelves upon shelves of materials and books and various sketches and ideas she had written down and shoved wherever possible when she thought they weren’t good enough.

Her father was in his study on the other side of the house, so he didn’t notice it when she walked up the stairs to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Her sister greeted her with a sweet, if tired, smile. But the smile trembled around the edges, and it made Julie’s throat tight.

Anne hadn’t really understood her sickness when she had been younger. And while she had been upset about having to stay inside and having to rest a lot, it had been... easier to deal with, in a way. She hadn’t been scared then, hadn’t known to be sacred.

But she knew so much more now, was so much more aware. Julie had taught her things in the evenings, in the little bit of time she had between finishing her work and heading to bed.

Anne was such a bright child, and Julie had wanted to brighten that glow whenever possible.

Anne now knew she was dying, and she was so very scared.

Her little sister grabbed her hand the second Julie sat down on the bed beside her. Her sister’s smile trembled and then shattered as her eyes filled with tears.

"I don’t want to die," Anne said, her voice shaking and the look on her face broke Julie’s heart worse than anything else ever had.

Even the one time she had gone out with a boy only to find out he had pretended to like her to coax a free invitation to an inventors' event out of her hadn't hurt like this.

Her sister swallowed, and in a quiet whisper that sounded so very helpless and scared, she added, "Please don’t let me die."

Julie closed her eyes against the sting of tears and leaned forward to press a kiss to her little sister’s forehead, hugging her tight when she started to cry.

She sat with her sister until she had cried herself to sleep, and when she quietly left the room, her father was waiting in the hallway.

His face was stony, and that suffocating, heavy grimness was back in his gaze. "Go back to work," he said quietly. "There is nothing to be done."

Julie bit down on a surge of unexpected rage that surprised her with its intensity and abruptness.

She almost shouted at him that such things had never stopped him from trying to make her more than she was. It had never stopped him from lying and posturing and making everything bigger and grander than it was.

It had never stopped him from pretending.

But she stayed quiet and walked down the stairs until the coolness of the cellar greeted her, along with all its familiar scents. She sat down and mechanically finished the focus before she stared at her shelves off to the side.

An entire bookshelf was dedicated to medical texts. She had tried so hard to find ways to help her sister, to make her live longer, but there was indeed no cure. Her body was going to decay until it set her soul free.

It felt like something fell into place in her mind in that moment, something terribly blasphemous and illegal.

The temples had decreed the flesh sacred. It was a gift from their gods and was to remain unchanged, no matter the circumstances. Nothing was ever removed unless it was a matter of life or death.

If someone was born with parts or limbs that didn’t work, or even without necessary parts, it was considered a punishment for sins in a previous life that required repentance now.

Doctors and mages were, therefore, ever searching for techniques to heal the body back to its original state, but not even medicine, not even magic, could fix everything.

Anne’s body was going to abandon her before long.

Julie would be locked away for life if what she planned to do was ever discovered. But if she succeeded... if she could do this, her sister would get to live longer. Far, far longer.

That was worth everything.

The materials Julie had were only partially useful for her endeavor, so for the first time in her life, she ventured beyond the city for things she couldn’t commission at the adventurers guild.

Julie had already run a few tests on various materials in her possession, and, to her surprise, slime from monstrous, sentient slimes and skin-bark from special trees worked best to simulate flesh and skin.

She returned with injuries hidden under her clothes but victorious all the same. Her father wasn’t going to be home until the end of the month; he was off delivering the focus and networking and socializing in the capital, so she could work uninterrupted.

Julie didn’t tell her sister anything, not yet. She didn’t even know if it was going to work.

It felt like a highly-focused haze settled over her, the world around her turning into a blur that faded into some kind of mist, still there but obscured.

She built a test body that didn’t work. So she built the next one, fixing the mistakes she had run into. That body didn’t work, either, but it was an improvement.

She had no idea how many fake bodies it took her to finally realize something. The body would never work, for it lacked what made living things: a soul, a heart, and a mind.

She needed to transfer all three things from Anne to the puppet. Except, how could she do that without killing her along the way? How could she keep the heart and brain alive and get the soul to accept the new body?

She experimented and experimented until she figured out a solution, only to run into the next problem: How to control the body as finely as a flesh-and-blood one. How to ensure Anne could still experience the world with all her senses.

That was when she realized she couldn’t avoid human test subjects. Living ones, for nothing could bring the dead back, and while necromancy existed, it wasn’t what Julie needed. Necromancy, in this case, would be akin to using a sledgehammer to open a banana.

She looked down at her own hands and grimly thought to herself that perhaps it was a good thing, after all, that her father had forced her to be ambidextrous.

The next thing she invented, before anything else, before even a halfway-functional fake body, was a way to suppress pain to avoid losing consciousness.

Julie stared down at her research, hope clawing up her chest to scratch at her throat, her heart beating faster.

She had bled countless times for this, had seen more of the insides of her own body than she had ever wanted to for this.

There were scars on her body now, thick, older ones that turned into fine, thin ones as she had learned how to most effectively cut herself open and then stitch herself closed again. How to heal herself afterwards.

There was pain, now, in her limbs, not always, but instead an ache that came and went, and some days it was worse than others.

And after one monster had tossed her up in the air and slammed her down on the ground two years ago, she now had to regularly get up and stretch, or her back would be in terrible pain before long.

Some mornings, she had to move slowly for she had slept wrong that night, and the old injury was back to digging teeth of pain into her spine.

But it was all worth it.

Swallowing, she set everything aside before she headed up the stairs to her sister’s room. She was lucky that Anne had held on for so long.

It had taken Julie three years to figure out how to make her a new body – a proper, good one.

Her little sister would die soon, however. Their father was rarely home anymore, so the house was empty aside from them and the staff, and Julie knew he wanted to not be here when Anne died, at last.

Only, no one was going to die here.

"Hey, Anne," Julie said quietly as she entered the room. Her little sister looked like a wraith, thin and washed out, and her eyes were dull when she opened them.

Her hand was so bony in Julie’s, her wrist so very delicate, it felt like she might accidentally crush her fingers if she held on too tightly.

"I figured out how to give you a new body," Julie whispered, and Anne’s gaze cleared properly for the first time in days. "But you know what that means, right?"

They’d have to be on the run; they’d have to hide what her sister was for as long as she lived. But Julie would do it. She would even walk to the execution block with her head held high so long as her little sister got to live.

"Please," Anne rasped, and her eyes filled with tears. "I don’t want to die."

"Alright." Julie leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead. "You won’t. Come on."

She picked her sister up and carried her down to the cellar, laying her down on one of the tables. A table Julie had not bled on.

"Go to sleep," Julie whispered, pulling out a circlet she had created to force a mind into unconsciousness. "Everything is going to be alright, I promise."

It was a long and bloody process. Julie had found out through numerous trials and errors that she could use parts of the original body, that it was good for the heart, and, most likely, the mind and soul as well.

It gave them something to recognize, gave them something to latch onto, and once they settled in, they accepted the rest of the new body as theirs. At least, in theory.

The mind and soul she hadn’t been able to experiment with; the soul did not take kindly to being tampered with, and she could hardly play around with her own mind while also staying awake and in full control of her faculties. But she had run enough simulations that she was confident this was going to work.

It had to. It was Anne’s only chance.

It took her seven hours, all in all, and when at last she transferred the soul, her hands covered in gloves she had created specifically for this purpose, she held her breath.

The soul sank into the body she had made for her sister, an exact replica of her real one, only healthy and strong. It even looked like it was made of flesh and blood, but it wasn’t.

Julie had used the hardiest materials she had been able to find to make her sister as indestructible as possible.

Not that she was impossible to kill, but it would be hard. Hard enough that Anne would be able to escape should anyone ever be after her.

With the soul settled into the new body, Julie stripped off the gloves. She ignored the smell of hot blood and the feeling of it staining her hands, and she carefully slipped the circlet off of Anne’s new brow.

Setting it aside, she then gripped the edges of the table tightly, whispering a near soundless, "Please," over and over.

Like a prayer. As if the gods were going to listen now that she had desecrated everything the temples stood for.

Anne’s eyes opened, and she drew in a deep breath, one that didn’t rattle, that didn’t wheeze, that wasn’t weak.

It was a full, strong, and healthy breath, and as her sister smiled, awed and delighted, Julie burst into tears.

They had been lucky, Julie thought as she watched her sister admire a beautifully embroidered dress at the market. She looked like any other human, and so long as they didn’t return home, Anne was most likely going to be safe.

Julie had ensured they put enough distance between them and their old home that they could outrun the outrage of the academy and temples alike.

It had helped that their father had been away on business the night she had given her sister a new body, ensuring no one was going to look for Julie for a time, and she had left a letter that told the staff she had taken her sister to the hospital.

That, and neither her father nor the staff entered Julie’s cellar, since she always brought her inventions to him directly now. It likely had taken weeks before they thought to check downstairs, only to find a butchered, cloth-wrapped corpse.

On their way out of the city in the middle of the night, Julie had stopped by the academy and had dropped off her entire collection of research about pain and surgery with the professor who had taught her about medicine and health.

She hadn’t mentioned anything about making new bodies and what materials worked best for such things, but all her other findings she had happily handed over.

The professor had been nothing but kind and encouraging in the past and had done her best to help Julie as much as possible.

She deserved to use the beneficial discoveries Julie had made and the inventions like the circlet that she had kept secret to avoid getting dragged away from her experiments just to smile while her father bragged.

Last Julie had heard, she was wanted for committing sins against the natural order of the world as well as the murder of her sister.

While Julie had carefully prepared Anne’s remains for burial, her cellar had still looked quite gruesome, and she was sure it had given both her father and the academy quite the scare.

Not that she particularly cared. Not when Anne was so happy she was glowing. Not when Anne could finally do everything she had ever dreamed of doing. Her little sister was growing in leaps and bounds, both in body and spirit.

By now, she was a teenager who wanted nothing more than to go dance at the festival at the end of the month, and Julie couldn’t be happier.

Her sister had adjusted to not having a flesh-and-blood body astonishingly well and had taken all the other adjustments that came over time in stride.

Maybe it was because Julie had kept as many parts of her original body as possible, even maintaining her ability to eat and metabolize the food into energy that powered the artificial body.

It had been a bit tricky to figure out how to adjust her body along with the growth of her mind, but Julie had found a way, in the end. Her sister would get to become an adult, and she’d get to live beyond that.

Julie bought the dress, her little sister giggling in delight, and then she was pulled along to a stand that sold baked goods, her sister’s eyes sparkling.

It felt like Anne wanted nothing more than to catch up on everything she had been denied growing up. She refused to eat anything that had been part of her strict diet, and she couldn’t even smell certain herbs now without feeling nauseous.

Even now, a good two years after their escape from the city, she was chasing freedom and joy like a bird that had learned at long last how to fly.

That had been set free after being forced to sit in a cage for years. Julie couldn’t help but indulge her, trailing in her wake with a smile on her face.

Julie’s wings may never spread like her sister’s – her father had clipped her too thoroughly for that – but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be happy as well. It didn’t mean that she didn’t feel content.

Even if she found herself missing her experiments and playing around with materials and figuring out a new enchantment until she managed to create something that worked.

Julie did manage to work whenever they found a new place to settle down for a while, recreating old inventions to sell, but it couldn’t compare to what she had done before.

She wouldn’t complain, however, not when she still had her sister in her life. Traveling and handling her pain whenever it flared up offered enough of a distraction that she could focus on the here and now just fine most days.

They spent the rest of the day exploring the new city. Anne was excitedly chatting with other young folk about the festival while Julie sold a focus to a mage-in-training.

She walked away from the conversation with a hefty enough coin purse that she would be able to buy new materials and keep herself and her sister housed and fed for another couple of weeks.

As the sun began to set, they left the city to head to friendly elderly couple's the farm on the outskirts in which they had rented out the hayloft.

The place was fairly priced and rather nice, especially since the couple left them be and Julie wouldn’t have to lug all her tools around to keep them from getting stolen.

The evening breeze was warm and smelled of flowers and warm earth as they walked, and Anne talked about the new friends she had just made. She wanted to go to the festival together with them, her eyes sparkling.

Her sister had an easy time making friends wherever she went and remained in contact with some of them even after moving on, sending letters back and forth in the belly of an enchanted raven that Julie had made for her.

It felt all the more jarring, therefore, to see a person slumped over on the side of the road, the surrounding grass bloodstained. Sucking a sharp breath, Julie jolted into motion, Anne right behind her.

"Get my bag!" Julie shouted, dropping to her knees in the grass, and Anne sprinted past her, running faster than most humans ever could. She usually held back, careful to not let on that her new body was far hardier and stronger than her old one could have ever been.

The stranger was still alive, Julie noticed with relief, but his condition did not look good. There was a terrible cut along his side, and when she carefully pulled up the sodden shirt, she got a glimpse of a thick cloth tightly binding the chest as flat as possible and swelling and bruising covering the stranger’s belly.

Julie had long since stopped being squeamish, so the moment Anne returned to her side, she got to work on the open wound.

Anne hurriedly slipped the circlet over the stranger’s brow while Julie set to stitching the injury closed with her enchanted needle.

It had been one of her most delicate works, and it had taken hours just to etch the tiny symbols into the metal. Now, however, it allowed the needle to easily pierce any and all things, from flesh to metal, as though they were fine, thin silk.

Once the stranger was patched up, his breathing evening out a little further, Anne removed the circlet again, and together they brought him up into the hayloft before washing the blood off.

Julie sent Anne to fetch some food and water from the kind farmers who let them stay while she settled in to wait. Her sister returned with dinner within minutes, and they set aside some water for when their unexpected companion woke up.

It was in the middle of the night when the stranger sharply inhaled and tried to sit up, only to groan and cough and slump back down, jolting Julie out of her doze.

"Easy, you’re hurt," she murmured, the stranger startling and staring at her in surprise, his hand pressed over the bandage that covered his wound. "How are you doing?"

"I’m not dead," he muttered, voice raspy and croaky, and it made Julie wince in sympathy.

She helped him sit up and handed him cup after cup of water to drink before he slumped back again, asleep once more.

Relieved that he was most likely going to be alright, Julie herself fell asleep, as well, curled up between the stranger and her sister, the scent of hay and wooden floorboards in her nose.

Julie woke when the stranger shifted in the morning, groaning and blearily opening his eyes, looking around and slurring out a confused, "Wha-?"

"You’re safe," Julie promised, voice scratchy from sleep as she sat up, and the stranger’s gaze fell to her, frowning the faintest bit like he struggled to focus on her. "You’re in a hayloft with me and my sister, Anne. I’m Julie."

"Killian," he answered, still sounding sluggish, and his blinks grew longer as he began to fall asleep again. "Am I dead?"

"No," Julie answered, quiet but firm. "And you won’t die, either."

Killian exhaled with relief, the breath shivering out of him, and there was a hint of tears before his eyes fell shut, and he succumbed to exhaustion once more.

Killian was incredibly tight-lipped about what had happened to him. His body recovered quickly, especially with the medicine Julie provided, but his spirit seemed to be another matter entirely.

Grim and downright sullen most days, he spoke little and stared off into nothing whenever he thought no one was paying attention to him.

As soon as he was healthy enough, Julie was surprised to find him hovering near her, a frown on his face, and a strangely expectant air surrounding him. He still didn’t speak much, and for lack of a better idea, she started to give him tasks. Considering the way he straightened and did as she asked without complaint, that was what he had been hoping for.

He seemed to have no desire to leave, and instead trailed after her whenever she went out, and when Julie and Anne went to the festival, Killian readily helped Julie shoo away anyone who looked at her sister in a way she didn’t like. Especially if they were older.

"Like herding a bunch of geese," Julie grumbled under her breath, but she smiled when she saw her sister dance and laugh, her new dress swirling around her in billowing waves.

She glanced at Killian. "Do you want to dance, as well? You can go, if you want to."

He was silent for a long moment before, to her surprise, he offered her his hand, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. She found herself smiling and accepting his silent offer.

It had been years since she had last danced, and the parties her father had so often dragged her to hadn’t exactly been the kind where unrestrained joy was welcome. They had been networking events, after all.

Killian was a little bit shorter than her, but he was a good dancer, and Julie soon found herself relaxing into his guidance, a bright smile appearing on her face.

When she glanced at him, Killian seemed a little less grim and world-weary for the first time since she met him. His expression was downright peaceful and the hint of a smile tugged at his lips.

They kept dancing, occasionally glancing at Anne and making sure that she was doing well, her little sister happy as a clam. Anne was downright glowing with joy, dancing with boys and girls her age, and she laughed bright and free as one of them lifted her off the ground to twirl her around.

It was the best night of Julie’s life.

Things shifted afterwards between her and Killian, who slowly began to open up, becoming more talkative. He did tell her the reason for the attack one evening as they drank wine and Anne taught the farm dog tricks with little cubes of cheese.

"I got fucked over," he said, a dark sort of anger curling around his words. "Was loyal to the wrong people and got stabbed in the back for it."

Julie was quiet for a moment before she leaned forward a bit to catch his gaze. "I’m sorry that happened to you," she said, her voice soft. "You didn’t deserve that."

"Well." He looked away, blinking, and his throat worked as he swallowed heavily. "Whatever."

"And fuck them," she added, and his gaze snapped back to her, surprised. "Morons like that probably regularly toss diamonds down the shitter, as well."

He barked out a brief laugh, the grimness breaking open in favor of a little smirk, even if the ache and pain still lingered in his gaze.

Julie offered her hand and a smile of her own. "Besides, they didn’t win, did they? You’re still here."

Killian sucked in a sharper breath, staring at her before he reached back to clasp her hand in his, his fingers calloused and warm.

"Yeah," he answered, and his voice sounded both thick with emotion and a little stronger. "They didn’t."

Anne whooped in victory and joy in that moment, crouching down to enthusiastically pet the dog. The animal was over the moon in return and immediately performed the trick again when she asked it to.

Yeah. Life was good, Julie thought, and when she didn’t pull back, didn’t let go, neither did Killian, his hand warm and strong.

After that conversation, it was as though Killian allowed his true self to come to light. He revealed a sharp tongue and dry sense of humor that caught her off guard and left her breathless with laughter more often than not.

He seemed quietly satisfied every time he made her laugh, and he just... stayed. Neither Julie nor Anne asked him to leave, and he seemed relieved about that, traveling with them as they left at last to follow the winding path of the road.

They didn’t really have a destination, which seemed strange to him.

"You don’t know where you’re going?" he asked as he insisted on carrying as much of the luggage as they let him. Julie was grateful for his help, since her limbs ached this morning, a steady sort of almost dull pain. "How does that even work?"

Julie shrugged and looked at her sister who had walked ahead to pick flowers growing at the side of the road.

"I go wherever she wants to go," she answered after a moment. "For now, that’s enough."

They’d probably settle down somewhere one day, but for now, it was good to be free. To no longer be shackled down by anything, neither Julie by her father, nor Anne by her sickness.

Killian was quiet for a long moment before he asked, voice almost hesitant, "Will you expect me to leave?"

A part of Julie thought that it would be the smartest decision to ask him to go. She had no idea how he’d react to what she had done to give her sister a better life, and it did worry her a little.

But she liked him. Very much so. She liked his sharp wit and dry humor, his biting sarcasm, and his gentle hands. He was never unkind to those who didn’t first treat others badly, and he had always spoken softly to the cat that had liked to wriggle into the hayloft for a nap.

He had recently started to give her backrubs without prompting whenever Julie groaned in pain one time too many while she worked.

He seemed to know when her aches flared up, wordlessly helping her where he could. His kindness was quiet but warm and caring.

"No," she answered. "Please stay."

Her sister joined them with a grin and a flower wreath in her hands.

"We’ve never had a traveling companion," she said, revealing that she had listened in on their conversation. She plopped the wreath on Killian’s head and grinned at him when he blinked in surprise but didn’t object, either. "You can stay with us for as long as you want, right, Julie?"

Julie hummed in agreement, giving Killian a smile, and his shoulders relaxed as he smiled back ever so faintly, the expression making him look softer than ever before.

And that was that.

Of course, things with Anne had to come to light sooner or later, especially when Anne took Julie aside and said that she felt too small.

It had been a strange and unexpected discovery that her mostly artificial body would start to feel like too-tight clothing whenever she was due to hit another growth spurt.

At least, that was how Anne explained it, and Julie promised her sister she’d go and gather materials soon.

"I’ll go with you," Killian said immediately when Julie dropped him and Anne off at an inn and told them she had to go slime and monster hunting.

"If you promise to be careful," Julie agreed after a moment, though she needn’t have worried.

Killian was an excellent fighter, fast and lithe, and she found herself stopping and watching him move. It was mesmerizing, a beautiful kind of deadliness that stole her breath away.

"What do you need all this for?" Killian asked when he helped her harvest what she needed, unafraid of getting covered in blood and gore and slime residue.

It was not a pleasant combination, Julie knew that from experience. Slime, especially, made things very sticky and goopy.

Julie sat back and selected her words very carefully as she told him the story. The truth. The blasphemy that her hands had committed and that she would never regret. If the gods were so cruel as to give her sister a ruined, short life, she had every right to fight back. To disregard them.

Anne would not live for forever; her mind, heart, and soul were not made of eternity, after all, no matter what the rest of her body was made of.

Julie wasn’t cheating death, she was just... righting a wrong. Faith was worthless if it forced people to kneel down and die at the whim of others, like helpless sheep getting slaughtered.

"If you want to leave, I understand," Julie said and looked up to find Killian staring at her in complete and utter astonishment mixed with thoughtfulness.

"It goes against everything the temples say," he said quietly, only to add, "well, in these lands it does."

That made Julie pause, and Killian shrugged. "Our country is the only one with such laws; other places believe in different things." He stared down at his hands, the blood smeared across them, and the sharp knife he held steadily.

After a moment, he added, "That was one of the reasons why I worked with my last employer. I had hoped to earn enough money to eventually leave."

Julie had always thought that the rest of the world held the same beliefs as the temples in these lands. Her father had certainly made it sound like that was the case – but then again, her father had always been a liar, hadn’t he?

"You can still go," she said, and Killian looked at her, surprised. "You can go with us, in fact."

If there was a place somewhere where Anne could be safe... Julie would crawl there on her hands and knees if she had to.

Killian pursed his lips, his grip on his knife tightening.

"Traveling is easily done most of the time, but staying in one of the other countries? That’s expensive," he murmured. "They have laws about paying to change citizenship unless you get invited by the government."

Julie couldn’t help but laugh, brief and humorless.

"Do you know how much money I made my father?" she asked, a bite to her words at the bitter memory. "I can get us whatever money we need, don’t you worry."

He didn’t answer, but he kept throwing her thoughtful looks, a small frown on his face as they finished harvesting the monsters, bundling everything up and returning to the inn. The skin-bark was quickly dyed the right color for Anne’s skin, which was something Julie could do in her sleep by now.

Anne didn’t mind Killian staying and watching as Julie worked on her arms and legs, though she ask him to stand outside and guard the door as she worked on the rest of Anne’s body.

"How does that feel?" Julie asked once she was done and had slipped the circlet off of her sister’s brow. Anne sat up, giving her ever-so-slightly bigger body a stretch and then she grinned.

"Perfect!" she chirped and threw her arms around Julie. "Thank you so much."

"Of course," Julie answered, hugging her sister back. "Now go and get familiar with yourself again."

Her sister eagerly jumped to her feet to get fully dressed as she chattered away, "I’ll go and chat with the innkeeper’s daughter. She’s really sweet."

"Have fun," Julie answered, half-distracted as she began to gather the replaced parts of Julie’s body off the floor. Thankfully, slime was a really forgiving material, allowing her to add to it easily for growth, but she always had to replace most of the skin-bark if she wanted to avoid putting seams that looked like scars on her sister’s body.

Anne chirped a cheerful hello at Killian as she left to head downstairs, and Killian poked his head in, looking hesitant as he offered, "Can I help with anything?"

"I got it," Julie reassured him, crouching down to wrap up the last of the pieces to be discarded later. When she noticed the way he hovered, she paused. "Is everything alright?"

He closed the door and then kneeled down beside her, hands clenched on his knees. He took a deep breath and asked, "The thing you did for Anne, was that a one time-thing?"

Julie sat back on her heels a bit, shifting slightly to face him properly, the discarded materials forgotten for the moment. "No," she admitted. "I can replicate it easily enough."

He swallowed and held her gaze as he asked, "Can you do the same for me?"

Julie felt her heart lurch in her chest in sudden panic. "You’re ill?"

"No." He hesitated and took a deep breath. "I was born in the wrong body," he said, the words steady like he had said them a number of times in the past. "For a while, I thought the gods were punishing me by not giving me the right one, but then I decided that was bullshit. I wanted to leave the country to try to get the surgeries that other places offer."

He looked at the materials beside Julie, the old ones and leftover bits of new ones she hadn’t needed in the end. "You could do more than the doctors and mages could, couldn’t you? You could change everything."

"I could," she said. "But I can’t undo it. Your old body would be too... damaged." That was the nicest way to describe the mangled mess his body would become. She frowned and added. "And I have no idea how to give you a proper flesh-and-blood one."

The reason why Anne’s artificial body worked was because none of the materials would rot, at least not for centuries to come. The skin-bark, if treated properly, remained intact and flexible for decades, and the right parts of slimes didn’t decompose at all, and anything wrapped within them was preserved, which was why the monster bones Julie had gotten for her sister didn’t grow brittle and dry.

Julie had experimented around relentlessly with actual flesh, but it refused to cooperate and was impossible to enchant, which was also why the blood and flesh of monsters didn’t work either. Just their bones and hides and other specific parts.

"I’m fine with that," Killian said quietly after a moment, his brows furrowed in thought. His gaze was determined when he looked at her. "If that is the only price I pay to become who I want to be, I will gladly pay it." He offered a hesitant, almost shy little smile. "And if anything makes me unhappy, you can always change it again, can’t you?"

"Yes," Julie answered readily. "Especially once your heart, mind, and soul have settled into the new body, it becomes malleable enough to change whatever you want."

"So... will you do it?" he asked, a badly-hidden hope wrapping around his words, and he sat up a little straighter, leaning forward slightly.

"If you can give me a painting or at least a sketch of what you want to look like," Julie said. "Then I can do the rest."

To her surprise, Killian smoothly got to his feet and grabbed his traveling bag. He pulled out a piece of parchment that had been carefully wrapped in weather-proofed leather and unrolled it, showing her a beautiful piece of art of a young man that looked almost identical to Killian.

A twin, if a little different. The face was a bit more angular, the shoulders broader, the hips narrower, the hands not quite as delicate. The young man retained Killian’s elegance, but he looked a little stronger, as well, like a dancer or one of the lithe warriors they had seen while traveling.

"I can draw anything you want," he offered and sat back down beside her, holding out the portrait, and she accepted it with careful hands. "I’ve... I drew this one a while ago. I wanted to let go of my dream this way, back before I found out that I could change if I left the country. What I want hasn’t changed since then. Not once."

Well, then, that definitely made things easier. Julie nodded. "Alright, we can start hunting for materials tomorrow." When she looked up at him, Killian’s eyes were bright with hope, and she smiled at him. "I will do my best to be worthy of your trust."

The next second, he threw his arms around her, and with a squeak of surprise, Julie toppled over, his hand swiftly cushioning the back of her head, keeping her safe, and then she hugged him back. When she felt his grin against her shoulder, she was smiling herself, giving him a squeeze.

Anne was more than eager to tell Killian everything about how it felt to have an artificial body, namely that it was stronger and more durable and faster and that otherwise, there wasn’t much of a difference.

"I can still see and smell and taste and touch, and if I bump into a corner, my shin hurts." She threw Julie a dry look. "Could’ve really done without that feature."

Julie couldn’t help but laugh, leaning against Killian when he slowly wrapped an arm around her middle. "You need to know when you get hurt," she said with a chuckle. "I also don’t need you getting reckless."

Anne just pouted and stuck out her tongue, so Julie stuck out her own in return, and soon the sisters were giggling, and Killian was masking his own soft chuckle with a little cough.

They soon finished making a list of the materials Kilian wanted to make his new body out of. Since he was there to help her hunt, Julie wasn’t constrained to the things she could take down on her own. While she was really good at killing slimes and carefully easing skin-bark off of trees without damaging them, everything else was still kind of dicey.

She certainly couldn’t complain when she got to see Killian’s beautiful fighting form while she stood back and watched him masterfully dispatch monsters.

Ever since Killian had joined her in her hunts, she hadn’t gotten so much as a scratch on her. He was both quite skilled and very protective.

It was a novel feeling. A lovely feeling, if she was being honest, to have someone at her back who she could trust. To have someone defend her.

It gave her a feeling of safety and security that she hadn’t felt in... years. Not since she had been very little and her father had not yet been consumed by his envy and greed.

"That was beautiful," she praised once Killian struck the finishing blow on their final target, and he turned to face her, breathing heavily, with only a small scratch on his cheek. He seemed to perk up a little, pausing where he had wiped sweat from his brow.

"Really?" He sounded a little proud and happy, only to quickly clear his throat. "Well, I’m glad I can be helpful."

"You’re more than helpful," Julie reassured him. "Aside from Anne, no one’s ever been this important to me."

His smile was sweet and glad, and they got to work, harvesting his kills in companionable quiet.

When they walked back to the little cottage they had rented to build Kilian’s new body, she felt fingertips brush her hand, careful and downright shy, and she moved her hand to catch Kilian’s.

His fingers laced with hers, warm and callused and strong, and Julie’s heart had never been happier.

Killian looked at the mockup of his new body with a sort of longing awe. Julie had the materials to properly make his body off to the side, and all that was left was for Killian to let her know he was ready.

"I can’t believe this is really going to work," he murmured, before he bit his lip and glanced at Julie. "You will still like me in this body, won’t you?"

Julie stepped forward to cup his cheeks in her hands. "I will love you in any form you come in," she murmured and gently touched her forehead to his. "Your heart, mind, and soul have called mine home."

Killian reached up to cover her hands, lacing their fingers together as he pulled them off his cheeks to press a kiss to her scarred knuckles.

"Let’s do it," he said, quiet and fierce. "You’re ready, right?"

"Yeah," Julie answered. "Let’s do this."

She got Killian comfortably situated, and she slipped the circlet over his head, with a whispered, "See you soon."

He had a faint smile on his face as the circlet put him to sleep.

It took Julie just as long to build his body as it had taken her to make Anne’s, who was out with newly-made friends to visit a nearby traveling circus.

She’d be back late, which gave Julie and Killian all the time they needed for this event.

His heart, mind, and soul slipped into his new body with an eagerness that felt like she had water flowing between her fingers.

The moment she was done, she straightened, groaning at the pain in her back before she swiftly covered the remains of his old body with a blanket and pulled the circlet off his head, holding her breath.

He inhaled and opened his eyes, blinking at the ceiling before he abruptly sat up, staring down at his hands.

"Oh," he whispered, and suddenly, his eyes filled with tears. Before Julie could fret, her stomach and heart clenching in sudden worry, he had launched himself off the table and at her, hugging her tight and laughing and crying.

Julie hugged him back just as tight, laughing with tears stinging her eyes. When he pulled back his hands framed her face, his fingers warm but free of calluses, calluses he’d have to regain, and she met him in a kiss.

They both ended up grinning too much to keep kissing, and she peppered kisses all over his face, brushing the tears away while Killian, still a tiny bit shorter than her, laughed.

He cleaned up, telling her to take a break and humming under his breath. The moment he had buried his remains, he went and trained to reacquaint himself with his body. Julie sat outside to watch him with an adoring, admiring smile.

When he walked towards her once he was done, out of breath and gaze bright and alive as he often was after sparring or fighting, she asked, "Is this what you hoped it would be?"

"Yeah," he answered, his grin bright and toothy, and he stepped between her knees to gently rest his sweaty forehead against hers.

A low chuckle escaped him as he added, "If I ever meet those morons from the temples, I will tell them their gods are bullshit."

"I will join you for that," Julie answered, her hands reaching up and settling on his hips.

He looked a little different from before, but she easily recognized him, and some things hadn’t changed at all, like the way he smiled and looked at her. How gentle his hands were.

When Anne came back later, she found them curled up together outside the cottage, having fallen asleep as they had watched the sunset together.

"I’ve been thinking about something," Anne said as she watched Julie count their savings. They finally had enough to get all three of them new citizenship in one of the countries where they would not be judged or prosecuted.

Killian sat beside Julie, his hand warm on her thigh as he flipped the pages of the book he read with the other.

Julie made a noise to let her sister know she was listening as she carefully put the money into three different purses, pushing one to Anne and one to Killian.

"Why don’t you offer your skills to other people?" Anne asked, making Julie pause and Killian glanced up from his book. "You could give people new limbs, and you could give the sick and dying a new chance, like me. And anyone who wants to change their bodies, who wants more than the surgeries offer can come to you as well."

Julie mulled it over for a long minute. They had talked about settling down in their chosen new country before. About finding a home to call theirs and maybe adopting a pet along the way. Anne had talked about going to festivals and going to school. She wanted friends she wouldn’t have to leave behind again after a couple of weeks.

Julie glanced at Killian, who gave her thigh a gentle, encouraging squeeze.

"I have always wanted to fight for someone," he said quietly. "And I always wanted to fight for a good cause. I will gladly slay any monster you ask me to."

"And I want you to be happy," Anne added. "I know you aren’t unhappy now, but don’t you want more out of life than to go wherever the wind blows us? And if you don’t want to do this, or you find you hate it, you can always do something else."

Her sister reached out to grip her hand, gaze earnest and imploring. "You told me I’m free to do whatever I like, to be whoever I want to be. Doesn’t the same go for you, as well?"

Julie couldn’t help but think of the joy experimenting brought her, even with her father’s shadow hanging over many of her memories, many of her skills.

She thought about clipped wings and about how she had no idea how to be as free as her little sister or as determined to stride towards tomorrow as Killian was.

But... if she could give new bodies to the people she loved more than her own life, maybe she could craft new wings for herself, as well.

Something she made with her own hands and with the help of Killian’s steady love and unwavering loyalty and Anne’s bubbling joy and bright spirit.

She had no idea what those wings would even look like, or what to make them out of, but, well, she had always liked experimenting, hadn’t she?

It was both daring and a little scary to think about learning how to fly after so many years of telling herself that she was content being bound to the ground.

But deep in her heart, in the place where her inner child clung to enchanted toys and dreams big enough to rival the sun, an eagerness took root.

An eagerness to reach for the things she wanted and to walk, head held high, away from the shadows of the past that clung like brambles to her ankles.

"Alright," she said, and Anne whooped, throwing her arms up in victorious joy, while Killian wrapped his arm around her to pull her closer and press a kiss to her cheek.

"You won’t be alone," he promised quietly, his voice glad and warm, and her sister almost threw herself across the table to grab her hand again.

"Yeah," Anne promised, a bright grin on her face. "You did the impossible for me, now let me do the same for you." Her grin got a wicked edge. "And anyone who disagrees gets kicked in the butt."

Julie was sure her mock-lamenting sigh came out far too amused. "Look at what you did, Killian. Your fighting lessons made a scoundrel out of our dear Anne."

He hummed, and his grin held an even fiercer edge. "I think I did everything right," he murmured against her temple, his lips brushing her skin for a moment. She leaned into the touch, a pleasant little shiver gripping her. "Between the three of us, we can take care of any problems we may encounter."

"Ugh, get a room," Anne groaned, her nose wrinkling a little before she brightened and let go of Julie to snag her coin purse. "Come on, let’s pack, I can’t wait to go home."

A home, new and unknown and beyond the horizon. A home they’d get to build together, made of joy and solved arguments. With lazy mornings spent cuddling in bed with the one she loved.

A home in which they all could follow their dreams and work on having the best lives they could make for themselves.

Julie couldn’t wait to go home, either.