>>96342884
I want to tell Lilith that none of this matters anymore compared to our friendship but she's atop me, taking a bit out of my throat. This is all wrong.

...

...No.
This is /just like her/
"Hey. Hey! Pay attention or I'll have your ribs out next!" she barks, slapping me upside the chin.

"Yes. Yes, you would" I say, eyes alight with understanding as she sinks her fangs in my throat. "You always...taught me...to do what's...necessary..."

"See, she gets it. Was that so hard?" says the Winnower, looming behind Lilith. Around Lilith. In front of Lilith. In side of Lilith. I understand now. I have to get rid of it, I have to carve it out of Lilith.

I don't eat Lilith back. Instead, I grab some of the seeds in my hand and I force them into her flesh. "Fuck yeah! Give it to me rough!" she says, laughing as my blood makes them germinate. The heat in my palm makes the white saplings burst from her breast, her spine, her arms. Her ribcage. She helps them wrench it apart as she laps up her own blood. It was there all along. The Blackest Heart.

And suddenly I feel a profound and intuitive connection to all Darkness, everywhere in the universe. If the universe is a dark forest, I can be it's greatest hunter. I can kill lightyears away with a literal heartbeat.

"Welcome. Friend" says the Winnower.

"Thank you" I tell Lilith sincerely, "I needed that"

"Anytime, partner" she says, spraying gobbets of my own flesh back at me.

Instead, I CRUSH the heart in my hand.

...

I open my eyes. The Veil looks like one of those potatoes left in a net with roots coming out every what way, except the roots are branches of silver wings.

"It's done. I have...I have slain the Winnower" I tell the Vanguard. I am almost certain it is true. I am...I am almost certain it is true. The Veil is truly silent.

But for some reason, I appear to have donned a cowl of all the Darkness within it at some point.


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