Verily, it was good to be awake again. Darkness smiled. "Very well, I will tutor you."

  Violet stared at Darkness. "You aren't my guardian."

  Darkness did a fancy curtsy. "I am her headmate, Darkness. I let Camity front again if you need reassurahat she wanted me to take charge for this."

  "...She sucks at history, huh," Violet said.

  *Hey, I don't!* Camity said in Darkness's head.

  "I would not quite say that she sucks at it, rather that the subject is more my forte than hers." Darkness looked at Violet. "What topic are you having trouble with?"

  Violet shook her head. "I'm not having trouble, just I want to ace this remedial history css so I get it over with."

  Darkness nodded. "Let us then start with the current topic being covered in your css and we go forward from there."

  Mirn looked at Darkness. "Dark Mom. And Camity is Cursed Mom."

  Darkness chuckled. "Indeed."

  *How cute.* Camity ented.

  Violet shrugged. "This is still kinda weird but I go with this. So, we're starting with this Fotten Era."

  Darkness nodded. "Ah, prehistory. A topic we have very little info on but I review what is known about the era. Let's start with..."

  ~~~

  Darkness stood on a roof overlooking the nearby cemetery while she pohe briefness of life and how easily it was taken away.

  *You are so goth.* Camity's mental tone was amused.

  Darkness a surge of irritation. *Camity, our parents died, several of our friends died, and I was forced to kill people I didn't want to kill.*

  *Yeah, sorry, you have plenty of reason to be goth.* Camity sounded sincerely apologetic. *But you didn't have to take those assassinations upon yourself.*

  *It would have broken you.* Darkness sighed as she brushed her hand through her hair.

  Camity was quiet for a moment. *It nearly broke you.*

  *Yes.* Darkness could not refute that.

  She stood there for a moment then reached out her hand, at the same time drawing upon her Word of Death. A wisp slowly maed above her hand. The wisp spoke, "In that mood again?"

  Darkness he wisp was the summoned soul of one of her victims, who oddly had formed a rapport with her after his death uhe others who had either simply accepted her apology and gone away or expressed that they did not wish to speak with the source of their trauma. "I 't quite remember that bastard who made me do all that, but I know he must pay."

  The dead man's wisp bobbed in agreement. "He must pay."

  *He must pay.* Camity was in perfect agreement.

  Darkness stood there in silence for a moment, the turo depart. She had done enough refleg. Pulling on her Word of Shadow, she faded into the darkness of the night, disappearing as if she was here.

  ~~~

  Camity had taken trol of their shared body's hand and y-pung Darkness in the cheek. *That's what you deserve for insulting my fashion sense.* Her mental voice had a tone of mock e.

  *Denim, really?* Darkness had a wry smile. Teasing her headmate like this was always quite enjoyable. She could've fought her for that hand, but she didn't, letting the mock-punches nd. *But people iore are giving us strange looks.*

  *Denim is eternal!* Camity let go of Darkness's hand, giving the reins fully back to her. *Okay, I've punished you enough.*

  *You have.* Darkurned her thought to searg for the perfect outfit. Like the other outlets, she didn't find anything that she felt fit her. So she left to resume searg, walking to the store on the list, when she suddenly stopped by a different store. Ah, she had spotted it. The perfect dress.

  *Darkness, that's goth as bzes, curse my inability to swear.* Camity's mental voice pauses. *But I guess that's a good fit for you.*

  The dress had multiple overpping straps around the shoulder area and upper chest, elegant ruffles, skull buttons, and was entirely bd red. Darkness immediately headed io buy its pattern so she could shift Camity's denim outfit into the form of the dress she saw. That and badass boots and gloves, plus a rge bck ribbon for the back of her head pleted her new look. She admired herself in the mirror and she could feel that even Camity approved.

  ~~~

  Camity sat on the sofa w on her hing, after she had finished abs the curses from Darkness. That thing being merging her curses to make them easier to keep track of and manage. Already she had fused a bunch of her more silly curses into the Curse of edy. Sadly, she still couldn't swear.

  Right now she was w on fusing together the Curse of Afflis, which would apply random afflis to her. Just as she finished, Voice spoke up with a new notification.

  [You have embraced afflis as part of yourself, granting you the Avatar sigil. All your afflis will be more powerful, afflis will have less effe you, and you will gain strength the more and worse afflis are on yourself.]

  Welp. Looked like she wasn't getting rid of her curses anytime soon. At least Darkness no longer was suffering from the miasma of curses she'd been bogged in, and most of Camity's curses wouldn't affect Darkness. With the exception of the mystery curse that apparently roteg both Camity and Darkness from something. The two of them also were nearly back to their old strength, about three fourth of the way there by Camity's estimate.

  *Guess you're really going int yourself.* Darkness's voice was quiet.

  *Yeah, I'll have to think of what to stito myself that won't mess me up too much.* Camity nodded.

  Darkness mentally smiled. *Thanks for pulling all that nastiness off me. I don't remember anything from when I was out but waking up was like waking from a nightmare that left you exhausted and feeling afflicted by malign illness. I had to push through with my owless word. I feel much better now.*

  *Great! I'm happy to help you. After all, you're my beloved friend! Family too!* Camity sounded upbeat.

  ~~~

  "So you're Camity's headmate? Uood." Grace said. She reflected that she would have to get used to this but she wasn't gonna say so, it's only rude to Darkness. Besides, she knew a couple other plurals herself so she khe deal here.

  "Indeed I am," Darkness said with a sweep of her hand indig herself.

  "Cute," Grace said, "Dunno if you wanna hear me say that. What are we to each other?"

  Darkness nodded. "Thanks for the pliment. We are two people with a mutual friend whetting to know each other. What our retionship will turn into is up to time and how we end up reting to each other."

  "I work with that." Grace gave an affirmative gesture. Sure, this person was wearing the face of her lover, but Darkness's different mannerisms and style of speaking made it pretty easy to separate the two. Not to mentiohy dress she was wearing.

  "Oh, Camity wishes for me to tell you that she loves you," Darkness said.

  "Love her back," Grace said.

  "Now that I have introduced myself, I will switch baity." Darkness's facial expression and the way she held herself ged.

  "Hello again, cutie Camity." Grace reached out to hug her lover, and Camity hugged her back.

  "Hottie." Camity grinned broadly.

  "Indeed." Grace patted Camity on the head and scratched behind her ears, in respoo which Camity squeaked happily.

  "Now you give me a little space to switch up this dress?" Camity said.

  "Sure thing." Grace let go of Camity, who immediately did a little spin as her dress ged into a more casual denim dress. Grace couldn't help but find that really cute.

  "Oh, yeah, I o pick Mirn and Violet up from school." Camity waved. "Gonna go, hottie."

  Graodded. "See you when you get back."

  ~~~

  As Violet hung out in front of the school, she wished once again that she could simply murder that jerk on the spot for his many insults and disrespect. At least the teachers were too alert for him to do any pranks like she'd heard bullies did in some other schools. Plus his expression when she scored 100% oh test today a 96% riceless. She'd helpfully rubbed it in.

  "Still feuding with that guy, I see." Annau, one of Violet's school friends, was a goblin with wolf-monster blood. Violet'd heard monsters crossbreeding with other species was rare, but there were ented medies to e, and she'd beeo Annau's parents' house and the couple was so gods damned sappy and passionate. Of course they would hunt down a medie like that just so they could have children. The wolf-monster had another baby on the way too. Anyways, that house was too noisy because of the four younger siblings Annau had.

  Violet nodded. "Yeah, that asshole has it ing. Oh, yeah, I got a perfect score oh test. Praise me."

  "You're so smart," Annau said with a ugh but it wasn't mog ughter so Violet let it slide.

  "Thanks." Violet reflected that having to go to school wasn't so bad. She was ag her remedial history css thanks to her sed guardian's tut aher csses were going pretty well, though math was still her best subject but she'd get there with the other subjects. She liked math; it was logical and even the weird stuff made logical sense once you uood it.

  It was then that Camity arrived, walking with Mirn in tow. Violet waved to Annau. "Gotta go."

  "Seeya." Annau waved back then adjusted their backpack.

  Violet turo Camity. "When do you get a car?"

  "When I bee a and begin earning more mohis school is expensive enough as is." Camity gestured toward Violet. "Ready to go?"

  Violet grumbled. "You know I could've taken the subway myself. Stupid school rules about having to be picked up by parents."

  Camity shrugged. "They assume everyone has a nice car or even a limo or hire a driver, it's that kind of school. Plus it's for safety, you never know where an uncivil monster or a Horror will show up. I'd pick you up anyways, there've been some anti-monster is."

  "Yeah, yeah, let's go," Violet said. She could totally take all those threats on by herself, but she supposed she could use Camity's tanking while she destroyed the foes herself. And Mirn could help out a little too.

  ~~~

  Mirn looked at Darkness. Darkness looked at Mirn. "Final Blow," Mirn said.

  Darkness just sighed. "You're way better at this bame than me."

  Mirn liked winning. Plus they could feel their monster prowing a little from the test, which apparently ted enough as a fight to give a small be. "Dark Mom, you'll win again sometime." They nodded. Luck was enough of a factor for that.

  Darkness began ing up the bame tokens and cards. "You're far mentle about winning than Violet."

  "She boasts too much," Mirn said as they helped Darkness, "But that's a dragon thing."

  Darkness put the st of the tokens ioken bag. "At least she helps me up like you do. Even if I had to ask her at first."

  "She's funny," Mirn said. That was one of Mirn's favorite things about Violet. Plus how much Violet liked to pet them on the head.

  "Don't let her know you said that." Darkness chuckled.

  "I sensed someoalking about me." Violet walked into the room.

  "We were talking about your ess." Mirn packed the card decks into their slots.

  Darkness did a sweepiure. "Indeed, we were praising ynifice."

  Violet raised her eyebrow. "...I doubt that but thanks for saying it anyways."

  ~~~

  Like that, several weeks passed quietly.

  kajarainbow