The First Sisters of Night - Reject the Light
She came to us when we suffered the blight. She offered us hope when we could not fight. She showed us peace in the darkness of the night. She freed us from the light. So we sing, we are the sisters of the night.
—Words sang from the First Sisters of Night
Vespera trusted Tom. She was easily loved, gave coin, and asked nothing that she did not give freely. Tom could have taken her by force and more, and she would have accepted it, knowing her place. Yet he did not—he let her choose. Abaddon let her choose. She was happy.
Days after the change, Vespera had time to explore herself. Many things remained unclear, but experimentation helped clarify her new abilities.
She wasn't sure what to expect from accepting darkness within her—a plague, a rot, a dying of her old self? It was supposed to be darkness, evil, wrong—an absence of light. Yet she felt warm, whole, and safe. Alive for the first time in her life. The endless sermons always preached that the light was salvation and to beg to be worthy, yet it was the darkness that gave freely and offered respite.
Abaddon healed her and made her stronger. She felt she could change her flesh—become something beyond human, or stay as she was, able to walk among the light. She did not desire a new form but to heal others, so she felt Abaddon gifted her the ability to channel life through darkness.
She could pool his mana into tiny droplets, dark as midnight but carrying healing power. She had no chance to test it when the ability first manifested, but she found broken souls near death from neglect. Drugs, rot, beatings—in the slums, there was always something killing someone.
She hated treating the desperate as test subjects for her power, but the ability did nothing when used on herself. She was ashamed to admit she didn't want to risk it on her closer friends first. She would help them later if it worked, but not as the initial trial.
They agreed easily enough. When you're at the bottom, everything seems like a step up. Some even thought it was a new drug to try, which made her chide them—it was a test and a change, and she wanted to stress the weight of it. But she feared her warnings were lost on them, so she bent her moral desires. If it led to death, it was still a choice... for both of them.
The effects were impressive. Rot fled flesh, poison drained from veins, and though still covered in filth, they looked better. It worked. She felt proud—she trusted Abaddon, but there were limits to faith. An unknown god was asking for leaps of faith, and she needed something concrete.
It was an exhausting day finding the broken to test while still offering choice and avoiding the guards. She returned to Tom for some peace.
Night came slowly with rare silence, yet with it came a sense of foreboding. She felt using the gift weakening the soul within her. It was subtle at first—she never noticed initially—but after healing several in the streets, she knew for certain it was hurting Abaddon. Each use spent his essence to fuel her gift.
She turned in bed, watching Tom's sleeping form. Tears fell freely as she remembered the callous words she had said about thinking he was an agent of light. Even in jest, there could be no crueler mockery to a lord of darkness who knew the truth of light.
Now that she also served the darkness, only one fate would come from the light: death.
She did not care—she was used to the gutter and the stares of those who thought themselves better. Yet she still wanted to save the others: the girls who had no choices, no food, no hope. Tom's gold helped, as did Abaddon's healing, but there were more mouths than coins or mana could save. There were always more hoping to be fed.
Not just the sex workers, but the broken ones afraid to be labeled as such. Those not wanting to lose that small chance the light might embrace them if they didn't cross the final line that might feed them.
She would show them the light would never offer mercy. Like Tom showed her, others could choose hope even with another god. That love could take many forms and spread in different ways.
The church must be stopped... but not yet. They would try mercy and time first, as that was what had been given to her.
She would instead start with the broken in the streets. She had already helped a few with the healing droplets and long since gave what coin she could to help others. Too long the light had spread lies and hunted her kind just for trying to eat, for offering their flesh to any willing to share love and coin.
Tom's breathing was a steady rhythm that calmed her as he lay sleeping, unaware of her turmoil. She brushed his chest gently, careful not to wake him.
She wished she could spend every night here with him like this forever and forget it all. But that would be too cruel and wouldn't change the fate that had woven them together. He was blinded by loyalty to her and would probably agree to never leave her side, but too many would suffer for that. There was more that needed saving.
His approach was too cautious—people died waiting to be fed. Offering choice to a corpse was not the mercy she desired.
She wasn't sure why the lord did not demand tribute and worship, now that she understood how her power worked and knew it cost Abaddon mana to use. She would have expected him to demand more in return.
She knew from pillow talk with the less devout—before being cast out as a sex worker, which always came about eventually—that to give the light power, it needed not just devotion and prayers but sacrifice. They hated feeding their essence to the goddess.
Not life essence, though the goddess gladly took that in any form too. No, she wanted mana essence. At least that was what she pieced together from fragments of conversation. It took several devotees of the church sneaking into her bed before she learned that the light gets part of what followers willingly give of their mana essence. The goddess only needs fragments, so nobody ever really suffers, as the sheer volume of followers creates abundance over time.
Could they do the same? She had already started, even if not on the same level. But she was trying to balance it. She wasn't sure of the cost to the lord versus the mana returned over time.
She wondered if that was how the goddess picked and chose who was worthy—by their mana capacity? She never knew why they deemed her unfit when she was younger, before she was pushed into sex work. It was a slow spiral from there. Her mother left her to rot, being unworthy of the light, and so she started selling herself just to be fed and feel a bit of love.
She wondered what the light goddess's end goal was. Knowing now what mana felt like, and considering the years—who knew how long—she had ruled unchecked. This made her wonder once more how to help Abaddon.
Part of her now knew that she gave back mana passively, but it was not enough for what her gift asked of his soul. The lord did not want his followers dead to feed him, so how would he get more mana unless she found a way to balance it?
She wasn't sure how true it was, but he did feel weak. Dying? No, fading maybe. Distant. She wondered how best to save him as the lord had done for her.
Too many thoughts, too many unknown variables were wearing her down. And she hadn't even started trying to make real changes beyond these minor efforts.
She would worry about it tomorrow. For now, she curled up next to Tom, feeling his warmth once more. They were safe in the lord's embrace, and their trials as mortals or those faced by the gods would be an issue for tomorrow.
Maybe she would convert the church for the lord. She laughed to herself at that thought, knowing divine wrath would kill her long before it happened. But it was still a thought and a desire—more a long-term dream than plan. The church was always trying to take them down just for living, so returning the favor, even if only by reducing their faithful, was a slight she wished to deliver.
Maybe in time it could become a goal to help sustain Abaddon and solve many problems at once, helping him recover and grow. He was too weak now, but she would change that. She would return the favor tenfold. Her first act of faith would be helping her lord grow.
Slowly lost in that sea of thoughts, she drifted asleep, unsure if she was bringing salvation or ruin.
She woke early the next day, sharing with Tom her plan and what little she had learned from church members about mana, and about the tests with the slum dwellers. This made him grimace. He did not know what Abaddon lacked or what the lord needed—only assumed more followers would be enough.
And he wasn't wrong. More followers in time would solve the issue, but adding them weakened the lord more by feeding them his mana, delaying his recovery. It was a broken cycle they had to overcome—more people would give more power, but they needed more power to get the people. Sure, in time it would solve itself, but people died waiting for it to be true.
People died either way. At least now they had an option to see some through.
Tom agreed with all she had done so far but said they needed to focus on stopping the guards and knights if they were to move freely. A two-pronged approach.
They had to ignore the church overall, he told her, despite her mild dreams of grandeur. To strike the church would bring the wrath of the guards and knights—assuming the goddess ignored them entirely.
He saw her crestfallen mood and tried to console her, offering a middle ground, though still one that required subtle care. If they focused on the guards and knights, they could be more free to try and convert some of the church from the inside out without facing the goddess's wrath. But that would have to be the limit of their plan, he stressed. They were not trying to draw eyes to the lord. If he was as weak as she felt he was, it would just get him killed, stopping his reign before it even started.
Abashed, she agreed to focus on the guards while he handled the knights. The more she thought about the church, the more she realized she had assumed too much. She just wanted to take the light down a peg and hadn't thought much beyond that slight.
She would use this time for other broken women who still needed her. And like him, she would not force a choice on others unless they forced her hand. She understood—the lord wanted freedom from the light, not chains in darkness.
She wondered how best to save the dying god that now slept within her, as he did for others—their only saving grace from the light's rot.
and then Add to home screen.