The silence was a presence, a physical weight that pressed in from all sides. It was a heavy, sound-dampening blanket woven from the thick mist and a sorrow so ancient it felt like a geological feature. The air, thick with the scent of wet stone and the sweet, cloying decay of forgotten things, was utterly still, clinging to Veridia's skin with a damp, chilling touch. Before them, the Sorrow-Eater waited, a colossal, shifting form of placid grief, its hollow eyes fixed on the two sisters. Veridia could feel the life-link between her and Seraphine, a cold, humming wire of shared peril that was stretched taut with a hatred so profound it was a physical thing in the oppressive quiet.
A low, psychic hum vibrated in the marrow of Veridia's bones. It wasn't a sound, but a texture of feeling, a clear and immediate demand for tribute. It was the psychic equivalent of a king's bored, impatient sigh. The pressure in the air intensified, squeezing the breath from her lungs and making her ears pop. It was the silent, mounting threat of a predator telling its prey to sing for its supper. The message was unmistakable: if it was not fed the cloying sweetness of harmony, it would take the exquisite, raw vintage of their hatred by force, and it would not be a gentle meal.
Veridia, ever the performer, was the first to move. She forced a smile that felt like cracking plaster on her cold face and turned to her sister, her voice a weaponized confection of saccharine poison. "I just wanted to thank you, dear sister," she began, the words tasting like ash and bile in her mouth. "For your unwavering support through all of this. Your wise counsel has been a beacon in the darkness."
Seraphine's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of pure shock, before the mask of the consummate host snapped back into place. She understood the performance instantly. With a grace that was entirely theatrical, she placed a hand on Veridia's arm. The touch felt like a brand of ice on both their skin, a jolt of revulsion arcing across their life-link. "Of course, Veridia," Seraphine purred, her voice a perfect simulacrum of warmth. "My pride in your growth, your resilience… it's immeasurable. You make the show what it is."
The psychic hum from the creature deepened, the note of dissatisfaction sharpening into a predatory hunger. The performance was failing. The beast could taste the lie, a hollow shell of sweet words with nothing but bitterness inside. The air grew colder still, the mist seeming to draw closer. Veridia felt a faint, draining pull at the edges of her soul, a cold, exploratory tug, as if the creature was attempting to bypass the performance and siphon the truth directly from them.
Panic flickered in Seraphine's eyes. It was a brief, uncontrolled crack in her perfect facade, but it was genuine. A raw, undiluted terror. The Sorrow-Eater seemed to notice it, the psychic pressure easing for a brief, curious moment as if to savor that single, honest drop of fear before its greater hunger returned. Veridia registered her sister's terror with a flicker of cold satisfaction. For once, the fear was real, and it wasn't just hers.
Words were not enough. The realization struck Veridia with the force of a physical blow. This creature was not a mortal to be tricked with flattery. It was an ancient, emotional gourmand. They had to sell the lie with their bodies.
She closed the space between them, wrapping an arm around Seraphine's shoulders in a stiff, alien embrace. Her sister flinched, her entire body going rigid as a statue, the revulsion palpable. Veridia leaned in, her lips close to Seraphine's ear, twisting a memory of pure torment into a weapon of false sentiment. "Remember when you left me to face that goblin tribe, dear sister?" she murmured, her voice thick with a sincerity she did not feel, recalling the filth and degradation before Grolnok. "You knew I had to face my own weakness. You taught me self-reliance. I've never been more grateful for a lesson."
Forced into the role, Seraphine leaned into the embrace, her own voice a strained whisper against Veridia's cheek, tight with repressed fury. "And I knew you would triumph, Veridia. I always have. Your strength inspires me every day." The lie was so monumental, so utterly contrary to the very bedrock of their existence, that it felt like it should have shattered the air around them.
Instead, the Sorrow-Eater's hunger became a palpable, physical force. The world at the edges of Veridia's vision began to grey out, the colors of the misty lake desaturating as if the creature's disappointment was turning to active feeding. It was draining the ambient despair from the landscape itself, and soon, it would turn to them for the main course.
*It's not just unconvinced,* Veridia's mind screamed, a frantic alarm bell of pure terror. *It's getting angry.* It didn't want their performance. It wanted the real thing. It wanted the exquisite, five-star meal of their mutual loathing, and if it took that, they would be left as nothing more than empty, soulless husks for the cameras to watch dissolve into static. Cancellation by consumption.
Her mind raced, a frantic scramble for an exit in a collapsing tunnel. Words had failed. The forced affection had failed. They needed a spike of emotion. A gesture so powerful, so grandly, shockingly loving, that its performative energy could overwhelm the creature's senses before it ripped the truth from their souls.
She looked at Seraphine. The mask of the witty host was gone, replaced by the naked, primal terror of a creature facing its own unmaking. Her sister's beautiful, illusory face was pale, her eyes wide with a horror that mirrored Veridia's own. In that shared fear, a desperate, utterly insane idea was born. It wasn't about love. It wasn't even about harmony. It was about spectacle. It was about creating a moment so unexpected, so narratively absurd, that it would register as a massive emotional event, true or not. It was about producing a season finale for an audience of one.
Veridia's decision was not a thought. It was an instinct, forged in the fires of a hundred humiliating performances.
Without another word, she grabbed Seraphine by the shoulders, her grip bruising and real. She pulled her sister close, ignoring the strangled gasp of protest. Seraphine's body was stiff with shock and revulsion, her mind clearly scrambling for a witty retort, a cynical dismissal, a way to regain control of the narrative.
But there was no time. Before the next word could form on her lips, Veridia pressed her mouth to hers.
It was not a kiss of passion or of peace. It was a hard, desperate, silent act of war. A clash of cold lips, a violation born of pure, strategic terror. For Veridia, it was a move on a chessboard, a final, all-or-nothing performance to sell the ultimate lie. For Seraphine, it was a sudden, shocking silence, a complete system failure. The psychic pressure from the Sorrow-Eater wavered, the insistent hum faltering for the first time, thrown into confusion by the sheer, baffling energy of the act. The creature had demanded a performance of love, and what it got was a spectacle of desperation so profound it tasted almost the same.