Chapter Text
When they were young, the Holidays were like family to them.
Mr. Holiday was their cool uncle. He was a lot of fun, and he could be trusted to never properly scold them when they did something wrong. With some puppy dog eyes, they could convince him to let them do pretty much anything.
Mrs. Holiday was their no-nonsense aunt. They always struggled to get a smile out of her, but they felt like a million bucks when they did. She may have looked ice cold, yet when she guided their hands on their piano, teaching them to play, they were warm.
Noelle was their crybaby sister. Easy to scare, easy to make cry, and always a blast to prank. But they never really hurt her, and if anyone else did, they’d punch their lights out. She was pretty much their best friend after their brother.
December…
She was their big sister when they were really young. The cool big sister who playfully beat them with her wiffle bat when they terrorized Noelle, or pranked them in revenge in her stead. Who sometimes grumbled when their parents made her look after them but always had fun with them anyways.
At the same time, she unlocked the parental controls on the TV to show them the movies their mom didn’t want them watching. She taught them how to play guitar, and how to play the punk songs she loved on piano. She would even let them sing along with her, curses and all. She’d let them play scary games and watch scary movies, even the ones she didn’t let Noelle see, but still never let them play the really scary games they knew she had.
Then they got older, she got cooler, they got older still, and she only ever got even cooler.
She took them out on camping trips she told their parents were for stargazing, but then she’d pull out her paintball gear and flashlights. Noelle and Azzy always tapped out after getting hit a few times, but she and they would chase each other through the woods until it was midnight.
She taught them how to ice skate, rollerblade, and play hockey. She’d race them around the frozen lake and never, ever let them win. But sometimes she’d pick them up on her shoulders and speed around so fast they nearly fell off. When they fell down while rollerblading and hit their head, she’d stop and sit with them until they were ready to go again.
At some point…
At some point, sometime around when she hit middle school, she stopped hanging out with them as much. So they stopped pranking Noelle because it was funny, and instead pranked her because it was guaranteed to get a reaction out of Dess.
At some point, they stopped staring at her out of awe at how cool she was, and started staring because the sun made her black hair look just a little brown. Because if they made her laugh hard enough, she’d forget to cover her mouth and her chipped front tooth. Because sometimes, when they were playing outside at night… the reflection of the stars made her teal eyes look like they were glittering ocean waves.
At some point, in their mind, Dess stopped being their family and started being the older girl next door they had a crush on.
They always thought she was cool, but then words like ‘pretty’ or ‘nice’ started popping into their head too.
Like when they accidentally broke their horned headband, and she never told anyone how hard they cried. She just held them, and they breathed in her smokey, pine needle scent until they calmed down.
Or when they ate that weed she had hidden at the back of her closet (at the time they thought it was weird moss or mint), and she wasn’t mad but instead worried. She sat with them for hours, watching them with wide eyes. Waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, she hugged them so tightly they almost didn’t blush.
The first time she fought with her mom about having to take them along with her and Azzy, they ran away, and she was the one who found them at the edge of their property. They were sulking, but she didn’t drag them back to the house. She just sat with them until they told her they were upset because she didn’t want to hang out with them anymore.
That made her laugh so hard they not only saw her chipped tooth, but she started snorting.
Then she said, “It had nothing to do with you, Kris. I’ll always want to hang out with you.”
For a month after that, they carried those words in their heart like a little campfire, keeping them warm. Even after that, sometimes they’d remember them out of nowhere, and they’d feel on top of the world.
The first time they actually realized they were crushing on her, it was when they were watching her figure skate.
She was good. She was really, really good. But no matter how many times her mom told her she should try to enter a competition or get some real training, she’d say no. She’d say, “It’s just for fun!”
But she was good.
She was beautiful.
She was always beautiful. Always, all the time, they never thought she wasn’t. But most of the time she was beautiful in a strong way. In a proud way. In a ‘I don’t give a fuck and I’ll beat the shit out of you’ way. She was what popped into their mind whenever they thought the word ‘powerful.’
But when she was figure skating, she was beautiful in a graceful way.
On the ice, there was a lightness to her movements that left them in awe. She was like snow, blown this way and that by a wind only she could sense. Like she was seemingly treading a path through the air itself, never quite touching the ground.
Sometimes she’d spin so fast they wondered how she didn’t take off. Sometimes she took corners so sharp and so quick they could blink and miss it. Sometimes she jumped so high, they got scared the ice would break under her when she landed, but it never did.
She was grace incarnate, just like she was power incarnate, and cool incarnate, and beauty incarnate, and-
She was-
Mrs. Holiday’s ice cold hand on their shoulder startles them, but they don’t show it. They’re already frozen solid, breath caught in their chest. Eyes locked dead ahead of them.
When they don’t say anything, her grip tightens. “Now, Kris, I… I know you may be shocked, or upset, o-or maybe even scared. But I assure you… even though she may look like… that… she’s still the same December you knew.”
They almost scoff, because that’s ridiculous. This is ridiculous. It’s impossible. She’s gone. She’s been gone for years.
She’s dead. She has to be. No matter how hard their dad and the other adults back then searched the shelter, they never found her. They walked the woods with everyone, everyone in town, for miles and miles and miles. Held hands with Azzy as he relentlessly called her name, even when they knew deep in their soul she wasn’t out there.
She’s dead, or if she isn’t, she’s somewhere so far away she’ll never come back. She’s gone. She has to be, because if she isn’t, if that really is her, then-
Then that means they-
The shelter door swings shut behind December, thudding as it automatically locks. The pillar of black smoke that had been billowing from it, now cut off, dissipates into the night sky.
She’s taller.
She was tall back then, but she’s even taller now. Taller than Noelle, than Azzy, taller than even their dad, but not as tall as she should be. Not at the moment.
Dess always stood tall before. Back straight, chin raised, like she was daring the world to come at her.
Now she stands in front of them hunched over, huddled in on herself. Her head hangs low, tilted up only just enough so that one eye can stare out at them from between her draped hair.
She’s thin, too. Not just thin like she hasn’t been eating, but thin like she’s been stretched out. Even her waist seems unnaturally narrow, as if strained inwards. Her clothes, the same ones they last saw her in years ago, are short on her now.
Her lower legs are exposed, along with her forearms, even more of her midriff than before… her army jacket, her jeans, her white undershirt… all of them now numerous sizes too small. Their edges are tattered with odd tears and holes dotting their entirety. Yet they’re clean. Oddly clean.
Her hooves are bare. Those shoes she never needed yet kept buying more of are nowhere to be seen. Despite the fact they used to make fun of her for them, the sight of her without them seems… sad, now. Especially since her hooves seem thinner than they used to be, and darker.
Her piercings are gone too. The rings in her ears she used to hang silver chains from, and the snakebites she did herself; the turquoise studs that used to adorn them are nowhere to be seen. Even the holes are long sealed up, leaving only black gaps in her fur.
The moonlight doesn’t hit her right. Or enough. She’s darker than she should be, and less colorful. From her body to her clothes, it’s as if the color has been leached from her until only a faint hint of it remains.
Even her baseball bat, left leaning up against one of the shelter doors, isn’t the same. It’s longer and warped, the turquoise paint nearly all chipped away, leaving blackened wood underneath. It almost looks rotten, and the various nicks and scars in it gleam like black glass deep within.
Her black hair is now pitch, and where it used to be wild and short, it now hangs all the way to her legs. The weight pulls it straight, and while it isn’t quite dirty, it is slightly greasy; clumped together into locks. The soft orange streak she had dyed in it is long gone. Her fur is darker now too, and grayed save for the barest of bare hints of the auburn it used to be.
The teal color of her iris is almost just a memory, nearly lost in a milky white film that covers the whole of her eye. The same goes for her antlers, though they’re blackened instead of pale. They rise tall above her head, dark and gnarled, the burrs swelling and climbing up the beams like some sort of lichen.
There’s other oddities too. Patches of black something instead of fur, reflecting light dully like leather, along the backs of her hands, her cheeks, and lining her lips. They think they can even see some by the collar of her shirt. And her jacket is oddly strained at the shoulders, sharply, as if something is starting to tear through.
But…
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, her entire upper body rising with it. She’s staring at them with shock on her face, her one visible eye wide and almost unseeing. The moonlight hits her iris just so, and the washed out teal brightens. Just ever so slightly.
They step forward, and Mrs. Holiday doesn’t follow them. Her hand tries to cling onto them for a single second before she lets them go.
Dess flinches slightly as they move. They think they can hear her gasp, and her arms curl tighter around herself.
They stop a yard short, staring at her.
It’s like the world cuts out save for the two of them. They can’t hear the wind in the trees, the calls of any animals, or even Mrs. Holiday right behind them.
All they can hear is their heartbeat, and the quiet rasp of air in and out of her chest.
One heartbeat… two… three…
On the fifth one, they mumble, “Dess?”
Her entire body twitches, but she doesn’t flee. She stands there, her gaze locked with theirs. This close they can see her other eye in the shadow of her hair.
“K… Kri-iiis?”
They gasp, and goosebumps race across her skin.
Their name comes out haltingly, her voice breaking on the single syllable with a croak as if she’s trying to grind it out, but…
But it’s her voice. Hoarse and raspy and croaking, accompanied by the phantom sound of some garbage noise and distortion, but… hers. Husky, deep except for I’s which she speaks weirdly high, breathy on the S’s…
Their arms are around her neck before they can even think, dragging her down low enough they can shove their face into her shoulder. It’s strangely rigid.
A sob rips its way free of their throat, and then another, and another, until they’re blubbering into her hair like a little kid.
Her breath hitches, and then she’s crying too, tears wetting the fabric of their sweater. With a thud, they think she kneels, and her arms find their way around their back.
She pulls them in tight, tight enough to hurt, but all they do is hold her even tighter as well.
“I-I’m sorry!” they whisper vehemently into her hair, nearly clawing at her to pull her closer. “I’m sorry… I-I… I never should have- I tried to s-save you, but I-I stopped looking, I t-thought you were dead, I-I’m sorry-!”
They feel her shake her head. “I-It’s okay! You’re here no-ooow… I-I’m here!”
It’s not. It isn’t okay. She’s been here, or at least somewhere out there, this whole time. And they never found her. They stopped looking.
Guilt is an acidic poison in them, eating away at their insides, and it makes them want to puke.
But she’s here, in their arms, and she smells like she did all those years ago. Like smoke and pine needles and a hint of mint bubblegum and weed, even if it’s now all underneath a layer of coppery dust and the barest hint of rot.
They dig their nails into their hand behind her back, deep enough they feel the skin break and the sharp burning pain, and yet they’re still here. They don’t wake up. This isn’t a dream.
She’s here. She’s here, she’s back, she found her way back, she found them, she’s here-
She presses a kiss into their hair, and they do the same, struggling to hold their breath for even the split second it takes to purse their lips and do it. It feels like their heart has swelled in their chest, choking them and pressing against their ribs. They can’t hardly breathe as they cling to her, yet the relief that continues to flood through them again and again is so overpowering as to wash away everything else.
They hold each other for a long, long time. Long after they’ve both stopped crying, and a headache has begun pounding at their temple from shedding so many tears. They don’t want to let her go, too scared that if they do, she’ll disappear again.
When finally she pulls away, though, they let her. She doesn’t go far; she pulls back just far enough to look them in the eye, a watery smile on her face, as she raises her hands to their cheeks.
This close, they can see what it is that’s coating her cheeks. Except it’s not coating them. The fur has merely been stripped away to reveal something like leathery skin underneath, or maybe scars, dark as ink at the edges though somehow flushed pale at the moment.
It stretches away from the corners of her mouth, a sinewy texture to its strain despite her sunken face. Her eyelids are the same, and it makes the milky white of her eyes all the more noticeable.
And… her tears aren’t clear. Or thin. They’re black and goopy, like some sort of oil. It coats her eyelids and cheeks, matting her fur and sticking her hair to her face. A quick glance at their shoulder shows whatever it is has seeped into their sweater, not that they care.
After a second, she chuckles wetly. “W-When the fuck did you get so bi-iiig?”
They snort. “L-Look who’s talking.”
The words are out of their mouth before she can stop them, and there’s an instant where they freeze, worried they fucked up. They shouldn’t be making fun of how she looks. Clearly something happened to her, something she probably didn’t want to happen.
But she just laughs loudly, shaking her head. Despite all the much more obvious oddities with her appearance now, she still covers her mouth. “You a-are such a li-iiitllle asshole.”
They laugh too, even as they want to cry again.
She’s here. She’s here and she’s laughing and she’s calling them a little asshole like she used to when their parents weren’t-
Their head whips around to lock onto Mrs. Holiday.
She’s stood where they left her, though she’s dropped her hand back to her side. A soft smile is on her face, and it’s the warmest expression they’ve seen from her in years.
Then she realizes they’re staring at her, and her smile disappears, replaced by a raised eyebrow.
They steady their voice as they turn to face her.
“How?”
She huffs.
“I never gave up looking,” she replies, striding forward. And though they know she doesn’t mean it that way, her words cut deep, blame seeping into their very soul. “I searched, and researched, and I searched some more. Eventually I found it.
“The way to open a path to the Dark World.”
They tilt their head at her quizzically as she comes to stand beside them and Dess. “’The Dark World’?”
“There is dark, then darker, then darkness, and then something even darker.” The way she’s looking at them and the way she’s speaking makes it sound like she’s reciting from a textbook, not describing what sounds like a fairy tale. “The Angel’s Prophecy describes it. There is our world, one of light, and then another. One of dark. I don’t know how or why, but when you and December went into the shelter… you were somehow transported there. She was taken deeper while you were left behind.”
They stare at her, mouth agape, even as they feel the unintentional blame claw at them again.
Is she serious? The Angel’s Prophecy is just that; some prophecy a religious nutjob came up with centuries ago.
“It’s true, Kris,” says Dess suddenly, and when they turn to her… her gaze chills them to the bone.
There is such a depth of emotion there that it makes them feel lightheaded.
Anguish, terror, rage, despair, desperation… loneliness.
Hope.
Their eyes flicker to her hands. The patches of leathery black skin on the fronts and backs of them are sunken a centimeter, maybe more, into her flesh. Impossibly deep, at least while still leaving them functioning.
The keratin of her fingertips is chipped and worn down. As if she had spent a long, long time scratching at something. Digging or… or maybe scraping.
They suppose that unless this is some twisted fucking nightmare… her appearance is evidence enough they’re telling the truth.
Plus… why would they lie to them?
“I believe you.” They turn their gaze back to Mrs. Holiday. “Both of you.”
A quick, cold smile flickers across her blue lips. “Good. I knew you were a smart child.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” they sigh, rolling their eyes, pleased when it earns them an amused huff of a laugh. “So… what? You opened a Dark World here, and you found her?”
Mrs. Holiday’s nod is sharp and pleased. “Precisely. That is the black smoke you saw, when the shelter doors opened. However…”
She trails off, and her gaze turn to Dess. Their eyes lock together for a moment, mother and daughter staring at each other, before they tear their gazes away.
“The dark disto-orts.” Dess can’t look at them for more than a heartbeat while talking to them. Her eyes flicker away nervously, and it’s maybe the first time in their life they’ve seen her do something like it. “You remember? How we lo-oooooked? I-In the Dark World, your form shi-iiiiifts. C-Change-eeesss. And I was there for a long… lo-ooong… time.
“I… I ca-aaan’t… can’t…”
She shuts her eyes, shaking her head, and they reach out to hold her hand. Something, maybe a frown, maybe a smile, twitches at her lips. But she still doesn’t speak.
“She can’t remain outside a Dark World for more than a few hours a day, and only in low light,” Mrs. Holiday finally says, and there is cold, cold anger in her voice. Not directed at them or Dess, but at the situation itself. “Anything brighter than a dim streetlight… it burns her. Even in the darkness, after around two hours, she starts becoming weak. Tired. Past three or four hours, and she starts feeling pain and going numb, losing control of her body. After that…”
When they look at her, she furrows her brows and shakes her head minutely. “Trust me when I say that we have tried almost everything to fix it, Kris.”
They latch onto that immediately, squeezing Dess’ hand tighter. “’Almost’ everything?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Yes. ‘Almost.’”
“What haven’t you tried?” they ask at once, squaring their shoulders. “You brought me here to help, right? How can I help? Tell me.”
Dess sobs once, quickly, and when they look to her she covers her face with a hand. Her free one. Her other one she keeps tightly clasped around their own.
A quiet sigh makes them look to Mrs. Holiday, and the expression on her face is…
It’s soft, warm, and unguarded. Proud and sad at the same time.
Then it’s gone, locked away behind a determined coolness.
“I believe I have found a… a ritual, of sorts,” she says, stepping forward to set her hand on Dess’ shoulder. Through the ice coating her eyes, something like hope burns. “I think that not only can it sever whatever it is tying December to the Dark World, but… reverse these alterations to her body as well. She can live a normal life again. But… we believe beginning it will set the Angel’s Prophecy in motion.”
The Angel’s Prophecy…
They shrug. “Fine. We make some theologian’s day. How do we do it?”
Their joke startles a chuckle out of Mrs. Holiday, but she quickly shakes her head. “It’s not that simple, Kris-”
“How is it not?” they demand, stepping forward towards her. “We have a chance at bringing Dess back. I don’t fucking care what it takes, we have to do it.”
“I-I think I found the whole proph-phecyyy.”
“What?!” they exclaim, snapping their head around to look at Dess. “How? I thought it was incomplete.”
“Our version, i-in the Light Wo-ooorld, isss,” she mumbles, shaking her head. “But I found piec-cesss, in the Dark World. Enough to get more of the pi-iiict-tuuuuure. A-And the girl…”
She pauses, swallowing thickly. When she meets their eyes… there’s terror in hers.
“I-I think it’s N-Noelle.”
They stumble back, and their grip on her hand fails. It slips from their hold, but they hardly notice.
They stare at her in shock, their own terror growing, horror forming a black pit in their belly.
“B-But she-” They stutter to a stop, glancing at Mrs. Holiday who simply watches them with a dark, resigned gaze. “Some records of the prophecy say… the girl in the prophecy, she… she’s supposed to…”
Both mother and daughter nod. “We know.”
They stumble forward again, grabbing Dess by the shoulders. “Are you sure? Are you sure? M-Maybe you got it wrong, I mean… t-the whole thing with the prophecy is that it’s vague, right?”
“M-Maybe,” she replies, the only uncertainty in her tone being what she forces to make them feel better. “But… I’m almost certa-aaaiiin.”
Before they can spiral further, Mrs. Holiday’s hand snatches out to catch their arm. Her icy grip is calming in the moment, and when they meet her eyes, that flame of hope is still burning.
“There may be a way to change the prophecy,” she says before pausing, brow flickering into a deeper furrow. “O-Or perhaps… trick it. You’re right, Kris, it’s vague, and that may work to our advantage. We may be able to replace Noelle in the prophecy with someone else. We may even be able to subvert that part of the prophecy too, to save them as well, but… we can at least make certain Noelle will be safe.”
That fills their stomach with a different sort of horror. The horror of pretty much… of…
The look in both of their faces tells them they’ve already thought of the implications. What they’d functionally be doing, what they’d be risking. But it also tells them that they’ve made their peace with it.
Their breath shudders in and out of their chest.
As the seconds tick by, though… it calms.
They can’t let Noelle get hurt, or worse. They have to protect her.
But they can’t give up on Dess either. They can’t let her down. Not again.
They’ll just have to… deal with it.
They take a deep breath, squeezing their eyes shut. When they open them again, they raise their head and square their shoulders.
“Okay,” they say simply, nodding. “What do you need me to do?”
Immediately they’re engulfed in a hug, from both of them. Dess’ voice in their ear is choked with emotion, and they feel her black tears soaking through her sweater again.
“I-I knew I could count o-ooon you, Kris.”
All Mrs. Holiday can do is let out a shuddering sigh into their hair, pressing a kiss to their head.
They hug them back, even as their heart clenches.
They don’t think they can be counted on.
Dess couldn’t count on them to keep her safe back when they went into this stupid fucking shelter. She couldn’t count on them to keep looking for her after they lost her.
This time, though, they won’t give up.
Not until she’s back.
Safe, sound, and whole.