"I didn't hear an answer, Fern darling. Or shall I pick out a proper potable for your pate myself?"

  Fern shook her head, a little woozy from the heat and water vapor of the bath. It was getting a touch difficult to think, but she still had enough self-respect to stand firm on this mubsp; Or sit firm, anyway. "Water... please," she managed, realizing as she spoke just how dry her throat felt, especially whehought about all the water that surrounded her.

  "And the blood-red for me, Sapphire darling," Ravenna purred zily, tilting her head back with another rexed sigh.

  The maid bowed slightly. "As you wish, Mistress. I shall return momentarily." She turned and headed dowairs, the sound of her already quiet steps soon vanishing.

  Fern lifted one hand out of the bath - her right hand - and stared, eyes unfocused, at the back of it where the sigil of a hero clearly showed, like a bck tattoo on her normally fair but heat-flushed skin. It felt as if it was mog her; she certainly didn't feel like much of a hero at the moment, regardless of her overcss.

  "What a sour and scary expression you're wearing," the dark mage murmured, sounding almost sleepy. "I was w what was written uhose worn wrists of yours. Tell me, darling-" She slid her arms bato the bath with a little spsh. "Why be a hero? Why take the middle road, instead of pushing one disciplio its limits, simply to see how far you ? Or to put it more directly, as you Lightsiders prefer-" She smiled, dulling the implied barb. "Why are you a hero?"

  Dropping her hand into the water with a quiet spsh, Fern tilted her head back to look up at the ceiling and its diffused lighting. "Why indeed..." She closed her eyes after a moment. It wasn't as if expining herself could realistically create additional problems at the moment, sidering how far off the rails she'd gotten by now. "If I had to pin it down... probably because I was never forced to choose otherwise. It's been easier to just be a generalist, so I have something up my sleeve for whatever life throws at me and the people I'm with. Or... it was supposed to be like that, anyway."

  "Hmmm~. Couldn't measure up when it mattered most?"

  A spear made of pain and bitterness a pierced all the way through her at those words. She wa it out of her, but it wasn't anything physical she could get rid of. "... No. No, I couldn't."

  Too slow. Too weak, in both offense of defense. Too short of a reabsp; Too many useless skills that didn't close the gap when she hem to do the job. It hadn't always been like that, of course; she could support well enough at first, fill every slot that needed filling, shore up the arts in a team. But one slip-up at a crucial moment had fractured her self-fidence, and that led to more and more failures as she desperately tried to reverse course and prove herself. As a hero, and never anything beyond that - not even one of the subcsses. It was foolish, in hindsight, but somehow it seemed the only decision at the time.

  "The only way forward is through," she murmured, half to herself.

  "What a dire way of looking at the world. Is that how you see things, darling? If you only ceive of a course that cshes, that cruises into cliffsides, why - I'm frankly impressed you're still standing at this point! Or sitting, perhaps. But never mind that." Ravenna tapped her cheek with a fiip. "I would love to show you some alterhs, some possibilities, perhaps; I just don't knoell you'd take to an offer from somewhere in the shadow, even if it's not quite the deep darkness you dread to discover."

  "Before that, Mistress, Miss Skysh," Sapphire added, the maid haviurned silently from downstairs, "please enjoy your drinks and bath salts."

  Fern gratefully accepted the sturdy gss stein full of water and ice, and took a quiet sip of it as she watched the blue-haired maid first present a crimson-filled winegss to Ravenna, then casually toss a curious-looking ball, or clump of something, into the bath. Nothing happe first - but as she stepped back to stand he stairs, the water shimmered slightly, then started to fill up with vibrant bubbles of every imaginable color. A few of them popped he hero's face, misting her with a fresh floral st, as the... texture of the water itself seemed to shift subtly.

  "I've heard of bath salts before but never used them myself," she murmured. "Are you some sort of noble dy, is that it?"

  The dark mage blihen burst out in a fit of giggles. "Noble!" she wheezed, eventually. "Me - a noble dy! Why, I never - my goodness. Sapphire, darling - please, tell her, I 't. A noble!"

  Sapphire sighed quietly. "Pray five Mistress's amusement, Miss Skysh. If she could tain herself, she would no doubt expin that not only is she not a noble, she quite detests the aristocracy, for a sizable number of reasons. The idea that you would mistake her for one is indeed ughable, though it also shows you have some misuanding of the noble css that we should correct."

  "But that wait," Ravenna interjected, finally suppressing her ughter long enough to speak properly, though the sparkling grin remained pstered between her flushed cheeks. "We're discussing your collected traumas, darling, not mine - at least for the moment. But holy - no bath salts, ever? Do you have even the slightest sparkle of joy in your history, or is it all wilted flowers and cold ash?"

  The question, and the metaphave her pause. When was the st time she did something for fun, e to think of it? For so long she'd been grinding away at mission after mission that it had bee her everything. What was she, before all that? What was she now, for that matter?

  "I didn't have the funds to spare for amusements, I guess, is what it es down to. Excesses like this - rexing, taking it easy - are meant for those who have the time and moo fritter away on them. Not for adventurers like me."

  "Wrong. Wrong, wrong, how incredibly wrong you are." The dark mage's expression shifted in a moment, suddenly deadly serious, her stare so intense Fern could almost feel it drilling into her. It was the same iy she'd had when expining her rule before, but thankfully her fog wand was o be seen. Still... "Listen, Fern. This is one of the things I hate, even if it's not your fault. The pattern you've been taught. The weave."

  She swallowed nervously, and nodded, waiting for more.

  Ravenna took a sip of her wine first, and whe it down, her expression was calmer - but her eyes had lost none of their unyielding gleam. "Everyone - everyone - deserves happiness. Deserves hings. Deserves to have fun in life, and not just barely live." She raised a finger. " everyone afford to indulge all the time? Absolutely not. But that is a matter of capability, not worthiness. Do you see it? What I'm getting at?"

  "I... think so," Fern murmured softly. It was certainly something she'd o chew on for a bit.

  "The point. No one deserves to be miserable, regardless of their circumstances." The dark mage closed her eyes slowly, inhaled deeply, a her breath out in a long sigh. "Everyone deserves to feel the sun shine on their fabsp; To see the world's most vivid colors in all their beauty." Her eyes opened, and once again they were sparkling and pyful. "And yes - to indulge in a delightful little bath, too, even if it's in the most mixed-up pany imaginable."

  She took another drink of cold water, ahe thoughts filter slowly through her brain. It was a delightful bath, that much was true. Probably the most rexing time she'd spent in... she couldn't remember how long. The idea that she deserved any of this, though, met some resistahe pattern I've been taught, she mused, eyes narrowing. "Those are certainly a lot of pleasant words to hear," she began, slowly. "And... very much at odds with everything I've ever learned about Darksiders. I 't help feeling like there's something lurking underh all this." A long sigh escaped her. "Even if I 't do anything but wait for you to show your hand."

  Ravenna took another sip of wine, and just grinned iurn. "Why, Fern darling, you wound me, speaking such suspis so starkly. But just as you misuand the nobles and their kind, I see you see the light/dark bance wrongly in your mind~." Her eyes sparkled with mischief yet again. "Is eaew wielder of the light a copy of the st? Is every mind in unison, like bdes panion-cast? And do you have a single cause on which you all agree; or is there flict borne of individuality?"

  Fern squinted. "... Point taken, but must you do it in verse?"

  "Of course I must, darling! Because it's fun, and unless I have a good reason not to, I don't see why I should ever deny myself a good bit of eai." Her smile gleamed even brighter. "All the more because I know how pletely it stands in opposition to your way of life."

  "And I should live the way you do, is that it?"

  Ravenna shrugged, and ughed softly. "Oh, I wouldn't say no to that - though I 't imagine you'd take to it too easily, sidering how you seem to have lived up to now. A." She raised the winegss to her lips for another sip, eyes twinkling with mischief and a little somethira. "Perhaps some sort of ge is in order for you, wouldn't you say? Surely you 't expect things to tinue on as they have before - to just go back to yuild and say 'well you did try to kill me but I haven't anythier to do, let's try again'? If you ever want things to improve, whether that means vengean those whed you or just starting fresh, you must do something differently."

  Fern's forehead wrinkled slightly. "You're not supposed to take vengeahough. It's a cyclical thing."

  "Perhaps it is." The dark mage's eyes narrowed. "Or perhaps you've been taught that pattern by those who seek to escape the retributihtfully due them for their most wicked deeds." She paused briefly, then ughed again. "Or perhaps it is both! Sometimes the answer you need is not something so simple that it easily fits in a storybook for developing minds; sometimes you must go and cw your way through id fire and blood for a mere piece of the truth, a brief glimpse of the path you seek to walk."

  She didn't respond immediately, first draining her icewater in one long swallow aing the stein aside, then looking across the bath at Ravenna. This woman, who defied all her expectations, who turned her world upside down whehought it was going to end.

  "An answer, huh..." Fern's eyes closed for a long moment as the gears in her head turhen opened again. "I 't find an answer until I figure out the right question first. And I keep ing back to the same issue - I still don't uand you. I don't know what you want. So..." She hesitated, but only for a moment. "What exactly do you want with me, Ravenna Direfrost?"

  "Ah! At st, you finally hit upon something good: narrowing your scope." The dark mage fshed that brilliant grin of hers once more. "Far too many distras exist that send us down unhelpful routes of inquiry, no matter how eaining they may be at times. So I shall answer you!"

  With a spsh she rose from the bath, and in one swift motion dowhe remainder of her wine and tossed the empty gss over her shoulder, where it sparkled brilliantly for a moment and then was snatched out of the air, saved from shattering on the mosaic tiles by Sapphire's dexterous fingers. "You, darling, present an opportunity that I simply ot resist. Everyone else I've sidered, I have reservations about; but you - you are simply perfect for what I have in mind. And I daresay it might be perfect for you as well."

  Ravenna shook her head, droplets scattering everywhere, and pced a hand on her hip, staring directly at the hero with a strangely hungry expression. "Bey partner, Fern Skysh. Let me teach you, guide you; show you things you've never seen, never even imagined before." Her grin widened. "I promise you, you won't regret it."