i thought you left

who are you, then?

It started with rumours. Whispers that there was dissatisfaction among the Dark Moon Cultists, that someone was planning an uprising, a coup. That they were going to overthrow Pearl as leader, take over her position.

Par for the course, to be honest, when you're dealing with worshippers of Shar. It seemed like it was going to be part of the usual cycle - all Pearl had to do was throw her weight and credentials around, wait for the new moon to pass, and things would be quiet again.

Then, it reached her ears that an initiate had gotten hold of a contract with a demon.

A demon! Of all things! If you were going to go the power-hungry route in the first place, why not just go straight to Shar for Her blessings then? It made no sense. Sure, Pearl may be a favourite of Shar at this point, but it isn't too hard to ask Her for power to overthrow balance in Her favour if you were already worshipping Her. 

Just. What was Sara thinking?

To her credit, the initiate was a fast worker. By the time Pearl had arrived, she and her priests had their work cut out for them - they had to carve their way through crowds, killing anyone who didn't have a quick enough change of heart to bow before her might. She detested unnecessary death, but she hated traitors more.

Finally, they came upon the summoning circle. Sara and her compatriots were locked in ritual, their mouths moving with unholy words, their eyes unseeing. Dealing with them would be as easy as a quick slice of the neck. 

"Fan out and search the rest of the temple for stragglers," Pearl barks, and the other priestesses disperse.

With a practiced familiarity, Pearl draws her black moonstone dagger, and takes position behind Sara. The girl whimpers as Pearl curls her fist into her hair, unable to break from her trance but still feeling. Good. She deserves to feel this.

Someone rests her hand on her clutched fist. The voice is familiar - soft, whispered into her ear "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

It's an incredibly gentle touch, almost as if they were trying to take a toy away from a child. But Pearl is no child, and she whips around to stab-

-smoke. Nothing but black smoke curling away and around her, like a shadow passing over her figure. "Can't exactly have something bad happen to my charge," says the familiar voice. "Wouldn't go well with future contracts."

Pearl turns around, dagger at the ready, spell on her lips - and lets the syllables slip off her tongue, powerless, as she stares in shock. The demon is already here, and when it straightens up from having repositioned Sara, it looks at her with Sibbim's eyes, speaks with Sibbim's voice. "Can you run?" he asks Sara.

Eighty years. Nearly eighty years, and he doesn't look a single hour older than the day he left her. "I want to take Seetha to see the world," he had told her, all those years ago. "I promised her that."

She didn't like it, didn't like the idea of him being gone away from her for so long, but he had supported every single one of her ventures without question and she would do the same in return.

A mistake, perhaps.

Sara shakes her head, and he sighs - a little thing, through the nose, that she knows graduates to a full-blown eyeroll and mouth sighing when he's alone with her and only her. "Can't be helped, then," he says. He - it, Pearl reminds herself - sweeps Sara up into its arms and runs for it.

It's a little too slow, a little too late, but Pearl tries anyway, and hurls her dagger at Sara. It slices off the girl's hair, bites into her neck - but only draws blood as the demon jerks her out of the way in time.