I'm standing on my toes and kissing Hilde.
With my arms around her shoulders, I realize far too late what I'm doing. Our lips are pressed together and her eyes are locked onto mine and she's gone completely stiff with her hands clawed at either side of me as she stands frozen and caught completely by surprise.
Hells, so am I. I don't know why I'm doing this. It's a mistake. It's a grave, grave, grave mistake. We've both known it all along, but it's gone unspoken for all these years. Now it's as clear as day. Impossible to deny. Unable to be disregarded and left in the dark, where this horrible, ugly, disastrous truth belongs.
I still love Hilde.
In this space between moments, time is impossibly stretched. It's like every single heartbeat is an hour, a day, a year. With Hilde and I locked in this kiss, with my having initiated it, one half of the equation is irrefutably defined. The other half? Oh, the other half. It's still up in the air. And every year that passes with my every heartbeat drives a nail deeper and deeper through my sense of self worth, and it's bleeding out by the second.
Hilde takes hold of my hips.
Hilde takes a sharp breath.
Hilde kisses me right back.
She jams my body up against hers and ties our tongues in a knot and I gasp and exhale and surrender and burn up in her oceanic fire. It feels unreal. Transcendant. Miraculous. Painful. It hurts. It hurts. No, this doesn't make sense. This shouldn't be happening. This can't be happening. She's not supposed to love me back. She's supposed to be over me, and I'm supposed to be over her.
No, I'm supposed to hate her for throwing me away like trash. Instead, the only feelings I have toward Hilde are weepy-eyed yearning and utter fucking desperation for her to want me again.
How low can I get?
I'm so fucking pathetic.
"Tell me," she whispers between forceful kisses. "Tell me. Damn it. Just fucking talk to me. And what, red? And what? What were you really going to say?"
It feels so good. I'm overcome. My mind is hazy. Catching my breath, our lips still touching, I whisper, "And I love you too much to be the reason you lose everything."
"I thought so." She kisses me again, one hand on my waist, the other caressing my face and holding me close by the back of the neck. "Tell me what's hurting you. Tell me what you're running from. Tell me everything. I'll help you. I'll protect you. I'll fight for you. Please. Just let me in, Crimson."
She's lying. Again. She's lying. I know she is.
So why is it still so damn convincing?
"It's sacrilege, Hilz. Treasonous. Heretical."
"I'm never going to say a word of it. Please."
That much, I do trust. Why did I ever doubt it?
"Hilz. Hilz… They're lying to us. About everything."
"Who is? Who's lying? I'm listening. I hear you."
"The Goddess. The Primarchs. The Church."
She stops, pulling back to look at me closely.
"History has been rewritten. Changed. Revised."
"What history? Changed in what way, Crimson?"
"Penny! Zip!" I call them over, ignoring the raised eyebrows and sly grin Zip is giving me. "Listen up. I'm going to tell the three of you mymad ramblings, which you are going to hereafter dismiss as utter fucking nonsense that you want no part of. Do you understand me?"
"Got it, speedster."
"Okay. Sure. 'Nonsense'."
"Wait… So this is… fake?"
"No, pinky, it's 'fake'."
"I'm confused… Sorry…"
"Penny, she's telling the truth, but we're acting like she's crazy to separate ourselves from it."
"Ohhh. Okay. Yes, 'fake'."
The three of them turn to me.
"The Church is lying to us. History has been rewritten. I think Vander the Black destroyed the Divine Archives of his own volition, and did not become Wretched until after he was smited. But the records state that he did it because he was Wretched. Changing the timing of his corruption to before the Incineration erases the very concept of Vander choosing to do this, and instead replaces it with the lie that the Fell made him do it. Why? Because the simple fact that a Legend draconid decided on his own to act against the Church sets a precedent. It makes Vander a victim not of the Fallen Queen, but of the Goddess. That one simple alteration shifts the blame entirely."
The three of them digest that with different expressions.
"This shit is already nuts," Zip huffs. "Mad ramblings…"
"I see the merit to that, sure," Hilde nods.
"It makes perfect sense," Penny adds. "But can you prove it, Crim Crim?"
"Only by proxy. Here, look at this. My notes from when I just spoke to the Elder. Does this seem like a sound basis for determining what is and isn't the truth?"
Penny takes a look, and the other two read over her shoulders. With a vexed scowl, her antennae rub against each other as Penny scans the page. "Defaulting to… the Goddess? Well… That depends, doesn't it? The Elder's logic is indeed sound, so long as the assumption he makes about the Goddess's infallibility is true. For the sake of argument… If that assumption is false…"
Hilde exhales a long breath, looking down at me. "I see why you kept this quiet now."
"Huh." Zip scratches her head. "Blind faith in a potential liar or abject certainty from a truly perfect source?" She glances around. "What? I've read a book or two in my day."
"There's one problem," Penny hums, handing my notes back. "No proof either way. Because of Vander… And if all the surviving records were tampered with…"
"Not all." I hand her the book.
When she checks the title page, she nearly drops it. The pinks of her wings and antennae glow much brighter as she quietly screams, "No! No! Fell's fangs, Crim Crim, where did you find this?"
Here is where I hesitate. I've gone this far already.
"I stole it. From the Fallen Queen, Umbra."
The wind whistles through the Archives' towers. It is well into the night by now. The moons are resplendent overhead, shining plenty of light to see by. We stand here in the darkness, in the Fell's domain, and yet nothing is yet to harm us. Penny, Hilde, and Zip stare at me with mixed expressions of horror, disbelief, and intrigue.
"I didn't defeat her, or the Wretched," I explain in a low voice. "She captured me. Kept me on a chain. But we spoke at length. About everything. About this. Eventually, she just… let me go. And then she retreated the Overgrowth on her own. After telling me to… lie and pretend I'd triumphed. That was that. And I stole this book on the way out. That's what happened, Hilde. And by the time I came to my senses, I had already told the lie. If I went back on it… If I told the truth… That the Fell had gotten to me, and put doubts in my mind…"
"Shit." Hilde looks mortified. "Your skylands. Your pets."
All three of them know exactly how much those animals mean to me. Zip comes in to embrace me, and then Penny does the same, before Hilde embraces us all. It feels good. I did something to help myself. I confided in people who I know care about me. I finally told the truth. And they accept me anyway.
In the middle of our four person nest, shielded by all our wings, Penny flips through a few pages of The Luminous. "There… There it is. Right away, a discrepancy… Not Legend Vitalius. Legend Lumos. Who's that?"
"Haunt. The Fifth Thorn." I meet their eyes one by one. "The Bastard Terrelyx's slayer, a draconid who later became Wretched just the same? A hero, choosing to join the Fell? Too much room for nuance. But Vander destroyed all written records of Lumos ever having existed, so…"
Zip groans. "Hells. Let's just swap him out for this other drag. Damn."
Penny is busy reading. Hilde is scowling over me.
I poke her hard stomach. "What do you think?"
After emitting a low growl, she looks down and tells me, "That this book is extremely dangerous for you to be carrying around. And all of this is just as dangerous to even be talking about. Especially here, out in the open."
"Right." Zip looks around too. "We should move. We can keep talking at your place, Crim. Didn't you say you had another stop to make?"
"I do. Just one. The Lifespring."
"Damn it, Hildegard, did you put hatchlings in her?"
"Now isn't the time to be joking around, Zip."
"Oh, come on. That was low hanging fruit. Sure, sure, let's go to the place where everybody's fertilized eggs are laid and not make jokes about it. Why are we going there exactly, Crim?"
"To get answers." I attempt to take the book back from Penny but she refuses to let go of it. "Penny. I need that back."
"Let me finish," she pouts. "I'm halfway through."
"What?" Zip blurts out, aghast. "That thing has hundreds of pages! You've had it for five minutes!"
"Eight and a quarter. Shhh."
If it's safe with anyone else, it'd be Penny.
I let her have it for now, nodding to Zip.
She wolf whistles to the others. "Lifespring!"
Hilde is still holding my hand. She meets my eye.
I take a deep breath and she does too.
Together we fly higher into the Heavens.