TheWiseTomato
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With Grace and Genre Savviness
🕑 Added 2022-04-06 15:22:59 +0000 UTCA friend of mine, let's call her Irene, subscribed to the Leviathan tier because she's cool like that. Because she also takes great pleasure in twisting the knife, she had me write the most degenerate of commissions: a xianxia friend insert. I know nothing of xianxia, and have yet to read a single example of the genre, but here is my attempt at writing it nonetheless.
I had more fun doing it than I should have.
X
The bedroom was cluttered with books, mostly medical texts and fantasy novels, and the laundry basket was at least three days overfull. The computer was on, chatroom comments scrolling by in a discussion about defence against unusual weapons, and steam wafted off a still warm mug of tea by the keyboard. The sound of cars drifted in through an open window, but there was no one there to hear it. There was only the hum of the computer, the slowly cooling tea, and the setting afternoon sun peering through a window. Minutes earlier there had been a young woman, tired and thinking about investment strategies, but now there was only the last fading motes of gold dust and a half heard chime.
It would be some time before she returned.
X
A portal, ringed in gold, opened abruptly and spat a young woman out onto the forest floor. She landed face first in a mound of moss and came up spitting and cursing, shattering the serenity of the clearing she found herself in. By the time she had regained her poise, the sound of a chime was fading, and soft beams of sunlight were the only illumination to be seen.
With inborn grace, the young woman clambered to her feet, taking in her surrounds. She was clad in comfortable pants and an old shirt, and wore slippers on her feet. “What…the fuck,” she said eloquently.
Birdsong filtered through the clearing, and a small creature ambled along the ground near the treeline. It was a strange hybrid between otter and sugar glider, and it cocked its head when it noticed the woman’s attention, returning her gaze.
She blinked slowly. “Is this…no, surely…”
The words appeared to startle the creature, because it splayed its limbs out, showing off the stretches of thin skin between them. An unseen gust caught it and carried it straight up into the air, and it disappeared into the canopy.
A grin began to spread across the woman’s face. “Oh fuck yeah. Irene isekai, full steam ahead.” She breathed in deeply, and it energised her. She picked a direction, and began to march. “This is going to be great.”
For a time, it was. The forest seemed more like a curated park than an untamed wilderness, no unpassable undergrowth or steep terrain, only pleasant greenery and old growth trees, the scent of leaves and flowers in the cool air. The creatures of the forest froliced around her, stopping only to watch her pass. They showed no fear of her, and there was not so much as a pawprint of a larger predator to be seen. What creatures she did see were no normal animals, and it was as she inspected a sort of platypus-hedgehog that she grew more and more convinced that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The very air tasted fine, and with each breath it felt like her lungs were getting stronger, though that was ridiculous, of course. Her legs certainly weren’t growing tired, but then the long hours she spent working in hospital wards, rarely off her feet, had to count for something.
As time passed, however, the local levels of ‘greatness’ began to fall. For all the forest appeared to be the platonic ideal of beautiful woodland, it was still a forest, devoid of the creature comforts to which she was accustomed. Even if she had her phone she doubted she’d have any reception, and she didn’t even want to think about what the complete lack of plumbing meant for future ablutions. She began to feel a thirst, and she swallowed in a vain attempt to soothe her parched throat. Still, she marched onwards.
Several hours after arriving, as she ignored the gaze of a bird that licked its own eyes, a faint noise caught her ears. She paused, head tilted as she listened intently - at the very edge of her hearing, there was the sound of a bubbling brook. Her thirst was strong, and she immediately reorientated to head towards it.
It was a small stream that she found. A sweeping bank perfect for picnics was beside it, and the stream burbled past shallow rocks, but lay still and serene where it pooled. Irene knelt down and drank greedily, her thirst making it taste unbelievably delicious. A blue frog almost half the size of her head watched curiously from nearby, half-submerged. It had aggressive eyebrows, and they bristled as it observed. The strange creature was ignored however, all her attention focused on what felt like liquid energy spreading from her belly to fill every extremity. After drinking what felt like half the stream, she rocked back, not just sated, but energised.
More than energised. A crackling buzz crawled up her spine, and every breath felt like she was breathing in freezing temperatures, but with none of the discomfort.
“This better not be some kind of crack-water,” Irene said to herself. She ran a finger down the side of her face, and echoes of sensation followed it. It was her heartbeat; she could feel every pulse of blood in the skin she had touched.
The sensations were only growing, and she could feel a growing pressure in her skull, like something was trying to burst out from her forehead, and she skittered down the waterline, coming to a stop by a still pool. Despite the building force and the pounding of blood in her ears, her face looked the same as it always did.
She began to sway, feeling dizzy, and she staggered away from the water, falling to all fours. Soft green grass burned against her hands, and a gentle breeze alternated between refreshing and scything. Sensations battled against one another with every breath, swapping between pleasant and hellish too fast to register.
Irene retched, the choking sound breaking the peace of the flowing water. Some scorching liquid began to crawl up her throat, and she heaved, vomiting onto the ground. A putrid green and black mass came forth, sizzling where it hit the ground. Grass dissolved where it hit, and withered nearby it. The scent of rot began to fill the air, almost visible. She spat the last of the foul substance out, pushing herself away from the puddle.
“Oh god, that’s foul,” Irene said, spitting again, but her mouth felt strange. There was no aftertaste, no lingering remnants of whatever the hell she had just expelled. If anything, she felt cleaner than before, purer.
“Eye. Reen.”
Irene froze at the voice. It sounded like someone speaking through a throatful of blood and razor blades. Beyond that though, it almost sounded like-
“Sis. Ter.”
Slowly, Irene turned towards the speaker. There was no one with her on the smooth bank by the stream, but still the words had been spoken.
“I. See. You. I-rene.”
From the noxious puddle the words came, in a voice that sounded eerily like her own. It began to bubble and rise, and more plantlife near it died, rot and decay spreading out from it in a circle. It reached the stream, and the blue frog croaked in alarm. It hopped away but it was too slow, and its flesh began to slough off the leg that had been caught in the aura of rot. The animal screamed in terror and pain, feebly trying to drag itself away.
The sight of the suffering animal broke her from her shock. “Hey fuck you!” Irene shouted. She stooped to pick up a broad river rock, heaving it overhead, and took two quick steps towards the puddle of poison. She brought it down with all the strength her skinny doctor arms could muster.
The puddle screeched wetly as the rock impacted. It didn’t splatter as might be expected, but the aura of rot stopped expanding. Irene hopped back in a hurry, realising that her response had brought her within its range, but she felt no pain, and her skin and flesh was still on her skeleton where it was supposed to be. The rock slowly began to sink, though the puddle couldn’t be more than a centimetre deep. She watched in stupefied horror as the puddle began to rise, slowly taking on a humanoid form.
“Why. Do. You. Hate. Me. Sis-ter.” The growing figure seemed to bubble with each word, for it had no mouth to speak them.
“No way, you’re not putting that on me,” Irene argued. “You were decaying everything around you, you almost killed that frog!”
“I cannot. Help. My nature,” the thing said. A face began to form as it neared Irene’s own height.
“Like hell you can’t, this is some half cocked inner evil bullshit,” Irene said. “This isn’t supposed to happen until I need to discover an inner truth to overcome some great enemy.”
“Well, I tried,” the thing said, as its face finished forming, speaking with its mouth now. It looked almost identical to her, clothing included, save for the midnight black substance it was made from, and the oily green tint to it all. “Be a good sister and die.”
The thing raised a hand at her, and from its palm a long shard of stone erupted, speeding towards her head. Irene yelped and flinched, pulling a stupid face as she raised her arms in a panicked defence. She heard the sound of shattering stone, and she opened her eyes, unhurt.
The last remnants of a glowing golden barrier faded, splinters of stone falling to the ground before her. Slowly, she began to grin. “Aw yiss. Call me Neo.”
“The Matrix sucked,” the noxious thing said. It pointed at her again.
Irene tried for that same rush of panic and desire not to be hurt, grin stretching even further as a transparent golden barrier formed, catching another shard of rock. “It wasn’t amazing, but it didn’t suck,” she argued.
“You’re so argumentative. This is why no one likes you,” the foe said, flinging more and more shards. “External beauty can’t hide internal ugliness.”
“Wow, the rejected evil from within me is trying to make me doubt myself,” Irene said. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“There are many things you don’t see coming,” it said, a cruel smile slipping out.
Instinct and basic genre-savviness caused Irene to dive to the side, away from the stream, and it saved her life. A thin spire of rock erupted up where she had been standing, and had she not moved it would have impaled her.
“You’re kind of bad at this, huh,” Irene said, hiding the hot feeling of nerves and thumping heartbeat behind sass. She willed another golden barrier to form under her feet, and after a second’s consideration, surrounded herself in a golden bubble entirely. It was like reaching out with a limb she hadn’t been aware of and shaping the world around her. It took effort, but no more than one would need to take a step, or raise their hand. The barrier was even beautiful, in a way.
She hoped air could pass through it.
“I’ve been alive less than a minute,” the thing growled. “At least I can do more than turn myself into an egg.”
“Ok Toph,” Irene said. “Playing with rocks has done real well for you so far too.”
A growl and another useless shard of rock was her only answer.
“What’s your name, anyway?” Irene asked. “Do you have one?”
“I am your opposite and superior; the antithesis of all that is weak about you,” the thing said. It took a breath and stopped shooting stone spikes, warming to its subject. “This world would have broken you, but I-”
“If you don’t have a name, I’m going to call you Puddle,” Irene said.
“...do not.”
“Would you prefer Emesis?”
Rather than answer, Puddle shot another spike of rock at her, just as useless as all before it. The being of toxin and bad attitude screamed in impotent anger at its failure and charged, a club of rock sprouting in her hands, and she began to beat the golden shield with it. It predictably failed, and the club snapped under the force of the blows. Puddle’s fury only rose, and she continued to attack with the remnants, until those too broke, leaving her with nothing.
“Keep going, you nearly had it!” Irene said, almost laughing, unable to help herself.
Puddle gave a wordless shriek of rage. Deprived entirely of her weapon, she beat her fists upon the shield - and large chunks were carved out of it. There was a sudden pause as woman and purged-negativity-given-form stopped and stared at the gaps in the shield. Then, Puddle began to smile.
Slowly, she pushed one hand through the shield, effortlessly making another hole, and she aimed her palm at her enemy. “Bye, Irene H-”
Panic beset Irene once more as she stared down her death. She reached out with the sense that let her summon the barrier, hoping for something, anything - and then she felt like she was being squeezed through a tube from all sides and angles, her eyeballs and eardrums being compressed back into her skull. She blinked, and with a pop, she was staring at some trees, a short distance down the bank. Had she just - ?
“No!”
The shriek came from behind, and Irene spun to see Puddle cursing at the fading remnants of her golden shield, rock shard embedded halfway through a tree beyond it. She saw her chance and took it.
“Avada Kedavra!”
Nothing happened.
Puddle spun, black eyes zeroing in on Irene. “Avad - you tried to kill me!”
Wordlessly, Irene gestured angrily in her direction.
“Fuck off. At least I’m not trying to use Potter spells like some nerd.”
“Hey, fuck you,” Irene said eloquently.
Puddle raised a hand, as if to fire another shard of rock, but reconsidered, narrowing her eyes. She seemed to focus, and then exhaled forcefully, directing it towards Irene. A black mist emerged with her breath, and more of the grassy bank shrivelled and died. It did not go far, but it pooled on the ground, and didn’t seem to be fading. The creature of blackness grinned, and began to advance.
A golden shield summoned in her path did nothing to stop her, only making her grin widen. As she walked she spewed more poison, creating more dead zones, and Irene was forced back to keep her distance, quickly nearing the treeline. It was no true barrier, and she could keep fleeing, but she baulked at the idea. Like hell would she flee from this evil twin.
Irene reached out, twisting her new muscle just so, picturing the outcome she wanted. She felt an extra limb coalesce, invisible, and she reached out with it.
Puddle walked into it face first, and she staggered back like she’d collided with a glass door. Her face screwed up in angry confusion. The expression made Irene laugh, and the confusion turned to rage. The copy spat at her, and she flinched away, a glob of hissing black sludge barely missing her head. She felt the heat of it as it passed by her ear, and it burned through the tree it hit behind her. Puddle laughed and spat again, but this time Irene raised her golden shield, and the attack splattered against it. It slid to the ground, where it bubbled and frothed in the dirt.
The two stared each other down, whatever violent levity that had been present fading away. The time for games was over. Puddle’s slipper-clad feet crumbled dead grass as she shifted her balance, readying herself to charge. Irene called forth her unseen limb again, her shield flickering ever so slightly as her attention was split.
For several heartbeats, there was quiet. Then, the moment was broken by a scream of pain from the blue frog, and both acted. Puddle charged, poison flowing from her, but Irene was ready, lashing out with a wall of force. It collided with the midnight black doppleganger, and it hardly had time to scream as it was splattered across half the clearing. The last echoes were slow to fade in the suddenly quiet forest.
“This was self defence,” Irene announced.
There was no answer to her attempt to justify the apparent death of a thinking being, but this was an isekai, and bad guys didn’t count anyway. Satisfied with her reasoning, she took in the once picturesque waterway, turning slowly. It was now marred by patches of rot and death, though the poisonous mist had already mostly faded away. The pieces of Puddle that had been scattered about by her blow were doing the same, going from shiny black to calcified white, though each left a small patch of death in their wake.
A pained croak drew her attention to the wounded frog, and she hurried towards it, reminded of the original cause of the fight. Its once rich blue skin was now a washed out cyan, and she could see decayed tendons and exposed bones on its injured leg. The furry eyebrows still made it look incredibly angry, though.
The frog croaked again, but there was something insistent about it this time, even through the pain. It was looking at her, demanding, as its throat swelled and pulsed. Croak.
“I’m not a vet,” Irene said, but she knelt beside it nonetheless. Wetting her hand in the stream first, she reached out and laid a hesitant hand on its back. It was clammy to the touch.
Croak, insisted the frog.
“What kind of Mary-Sue adventure do you think this is?” Irene asked. “I can’t just whip out another power whenever the situation calls for it.”
Croak, the frog said, pointedly glancing about at the evidence of her fight with Puddle.
“That doesn’t count,” Irene argued.
Croak, the frog said, unimpressed.
“Alright, fine,” Irene said. “We wouldn’t be having this trouble if you’d been faster to hop out of the way.”
Croak, the frog said, even more unimpressed.
“Don’t guilt me about what my evil twin did,” Irene said. “She is - was - her own person.”
Croak.
“Ugh.”
Discussion ended, Irene reached inwards, searching for the undefinable new sense that she had discovered. She closed her eyes, wishing for some kind of helpful graphical metaphor to explain what it felt like to twist the energy to the purpose she desired, but unfortunately this was real life, not some escapist fantasy.
She breathed in, and the world became her.
As without, within, and as within, without. As she breathed and drank of the world, she supped of its vitality, but there was no theft, for there could be none. She was an empty vessel, and the world an ocean rushing to fill it.
She breathed out, and she became the world.
White mist spilled from her lips, carrying her will with it, and it gathered along the wounded leg of the frog. Like the bone dry desert when the rains came, the half rotted limb drank of it greedily, and as it did, it healed. By the time the mist had disappeared, it was like the leg had never been injured at all.
Gingerly, the frog tested its healed leg, growing more confident when it felt no pain at the movement. It hopped around Irene in a circle, giving a gleeful ribbit, and came to a stop before her once more. She smiled, drained in a way she had never felt before, but sharing in the frog’s joy.
Croak, the frog said as it stared up at her with large, soulful eyes. The middles of its bushy brows tilted upwards, adding to the effect.
“Yeah, I’m awesome,” Irene said. “I mean - you’re welcome.” With each breath the strain she felt eased, until she felt well enough to stand again, and she did so slowly.
Without warning, she suddenly found herself with a passenger, the frog hopping up onto her shoulder in a single bound.
CROAK, it said, right in her ear.
Irene flinched, but the frog had no troubles maintaining its perch, and it made itself comfortable. A soft padded hand tugged imperiously on her ear.
“You’re just inviting yourself along then?” Irene asked, trying to peer at the frog from the corner of her eye. She received no response, and she sighed. “Fine. Further up and further in.”
Onwards she went, leaving the stream behind, her thirst quenched and a number of new superpowers under her metaphorical belt. This whole isekai thing was off to a fantastic start.
X
For hours she walked, and the forest still stretched before her. Still it seemed surreal in its gentle ideality, almost uncanny in how perfect it appeared. The gentle afternoon sun still drifted through the canopy, and still a gentle breeze stirred through the boughs. Despite the hours she walked, her thirst for water did not return, and her hunger did not grow, and her legs did not grow tired.
The as-yet unnamed frog was drowsing on her shoulder, still balancing easily. Briefly, she had considered kissing it, just in case, but after a moment’s thought had decided that she wasn’t that desperate for human conversation yet. She still didn’t know what genre her little adventure was anyway.
Something interrupted the background noise of birdsong and rustling leaves, and she paused. She had grown used to the soundtrack of the forest in her hiking, but now she heard a new sound, one that didn’t belong. Faintly, distantly, the soft notes of a flute were carried in by the wind.
Irene shifted her path, heading towards the music. If she was lucky, she’d find some elves, and she could finally get some exposition on what was going on, though at this point she’d settle for some halflings. The music grew clearer as she walked, and there was no denying its beauty. To her ear it sounded as if played by a master, and no longer did it jar against the sounds of the forest. It complimented them, weaving amongst the birds and the trees and the sighing of boughs.
In time, she came to a large clearing, and she peered around a tree to see who was playing such a lovely song. There was a single person within, a man, and their eyes were closed as they played, bringing beauty to the remote forest clearing. They wore a simple black hanfu, and it gleamed like silk in the soft afternoon light. The song came to an end, and the final notes of the tune faded away, lingering longer than they had any right to. In their wake, she felt a strange absence in her chest, a yearning for what was lost, and she sighed.
The man was some distance away, kneeling in the centre of the grassy clearing, but somehow he heard her. His eyes opened, staring unerringly at her where she was still half concealed by a tree.
“Is that an audience I spy?” he asked, voice smooth like honey. “Please, join me.”
Irene swallowed, but she wasn’t about to hide behind the tree like a child, and she stepped out. The frog on her shoulder roused itself, staring mistrustfully at the man, but it stayed on her shoulder.
The man watched, his black hair shining and perfectly straight, draped over his back and shoulders. Everything about him from his spotless clothing to his perfectly plucked eyebrows was a direct contrast to Irene’s comfort clothing, ratty slippers and sweats and thinning shirt. The wooden flute he held looked expensive enough to buy an entire apartment building.
“Hello,” Irene said as she reached him. He was almost intimidatingly attractive, with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and dark, mysterious eyes.
He seemed to drink her in, gaze fixed on her face. “This must be what it is to see Mount Tai,” he breathed.
Irene’s face froze as she worked through his words. Oh no, she thought, it’s a xianxia. Aloud, she said, “you’re not too bad yourself.” She resisted the urge to check her hair, or give him fingerguns.
“I am Xue Yingjie,” he said, inclining his head the barest fraction. “You must be mighty indeed to walk this forest unescorted.”
“I have my frog with me,” Irene said, gesturing to her frog.
“Of course,” Yingjie said. His gaze flicked to the frog, watching it in much the same way one might regard a hungry grizzly bear.
“Your song was very nice,” Irene tried.
Yingjie smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. “It held not half the beauty you wear effortlessly. Please, you must permit me to capture it.”
Irene had half a second to think of all sorts of skeevy implications, before Yingjie plucked a single blade of grass from the forest floor. He did - something - that couldn’t be seen, only felt, and the blade began to stretch and change, growing into an impossibly thin sheet of jade. From voluminous sleeves, he produced a delicate chisel with a redwood handle. He made a gesture, and a patch of grass before him grew and wove itself into a mat. She hesitated, but only for a moment, and she joined him in kneeling on the ground. Already she could tell that this would be hell on her knees.
With another twist of whatever power people here used, the tablet of jade became fixed in midair, and Yingjie began to etch and carve, gently tapping the end of his chisel with a single finger. For long minutes, there was only the faint scritch of steel on stone as the unfairly pretty man worked, absorbed in his craft.
“I must apologise for my abruptness,” Yangjie said, not looking up from his work. “It is a failing of mine, I am told - I see beauty, and I am compelled to record it.” He flashed a smile. “But I am sure you are weary of such compliments.”
“I mean, if you’re compelled,” Irene said, smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear.
“My works could purchase petty kingdoms if I cared to debase myself by selling them, even with the meanest of subjects,” Yangjie said. “Inspired by you, this work will be worthy of a year in the Emperor’s palace.” Scritch scratch scritch went his chisel.
Irene did not get the chance to respond, because suddenly they were not alone. The air rippled to reveal some kind of bird man with red feathers, a long nose, and scorching yellow eyes. It - he? - held a sword in hand that shimmer with an internal fire, and before she could finish drawing a breath to shout a warning, sliced Yangjie’s head from his shoulders with a single blow.
The jade tablet fell, shattering as it hit the ground, and a heartbeat later a head joined it. Scarlet lifeblood spurted, and a corpse slumped to the side. The grass of the clearing was stained, copper tang thick in the air, and the birdman turned to Irene, violent intent clear in its eyes.
With a battlecry, certainly not a shrill shriek, Irene lashed out with her unseen limb, striking from above and driving the creature into the ground. It was crushed before it could blink, popping like an overripe melon, and she flinched as she was splattered with its blood. Her frog croaked its displeasure, long tongue shooting out to wipe clear the specks that had landed on it.
“...Yangjie?” Irene asked, shocked by the sudden violence.
“Yes?” Yangjie’s head answered, somewhat muffled.
“Holy shit what,” Irene said, scrambling backwards, away from the talking decapitated head.
“If you would kindly roll my head over,” Yangjie said into the grass that his face was pressed in to.
Cautiously, she inched forwards and grasped the head, picking it up. Yangjie blinked as he met her eyes, and she quickly placed him on the ground neck down, backing away again.
“Thank you,” Yangjie said, blinking. “Ten generations of curses on that tengu. It took me seven years to grow my hair.” The glossy, silken hair had been cut along with his neck, and now it fell untidily from his head.
“You’re alive,” Irene pointed out.
Yangjie scoffed. “What kind of cultivator do you take me for, that a decapitation would see the end of me?”
“This is normal?” Irene asked, voice rising in pitch.
“Hardly,” Yangjie said, lips curling in contempt. “Only those closest to Heaven can achieve such a feat.”
“Then why would I -”
A low rumble echoed through the clearing.
“Oh, I don’t like that sound at all,” Irene said.
From the trees prowled a beast. It looked somewhat like a dog, if one were to take everything friendly about a dog from it and replace it with seething hatred for mankind and a hunger for living flesh. It was as tall as a man at the shoulder, and its red fur looked likely to flense the hand of anyone fool enough to stroke it.
“An Outer Ring hellhound,” Yangjie said grimly. “My enemies have gone to great lengths indeed. I cannot help you here.”
The hellhound began to circle, coal black eyes fixed on its prey, and each step left frost in its wake. Irene wasted no time, striking it square in the nose with her magic arm, putting even more force into the blow than she had used to kill the tengu. It did little more than send the beast skidding back, physically rattled but otherwise unharmed. It shook its head and snarled, low and lethal.
“How do I kill it?” Irene demanded of the head beside her.
“They are weak to inverse qi.”
The snarl cut out, and the beast charged, forked tongue hanging from its mouth. Irene reached out again, catching it in the belly with as much force as she could muster, and it was sent flying, up and over its prey. It landed awkwardly on its back on the other side of the clearing, scrambling for purchase.
“What does that mean?!?” Irene shouted. It was already on its feet again.
“Work through your familiar!” Yangjie shouted in answer.
Irene exchanged an alarmed glance with the frog on her shoulder, neither of them knowing what he was talking about. The frog looked away, eyebrows rising as it croaked in warning, the hellhound charging them in perfect silence. Irene felt a sudden desire to be Not Here, and she wasn’t, disappearing with a crack and the sensation of being squeezed, and then she was across the clearing from it again.
Croak, the frog said, making its displeasure known.
“Sorry, sorry,” Irene said. “It was that or get used as a chew toy.”
Rather than answer, the frog spat, and something blue shot out at the turning canine. It landed on its shoulder where it began to sizzle and spit. The beast yelped, eyes near glowing with pain and rage.
“It’s weak to poison types then,” Irene said. Her heartbeat began to settle, panic falling now that she saw a path out of this mess. “Alright then Cujo. Bring it on.”
The hellhound began to circle again, wary now, and she stepped to match it. Xianxia might not have been what she was hoping for, but she wasn’t about to roll over and die. She was going to put this rabid dog to sleep, she was going to find a place where she could have a bath, and she was going to find as many husbandos as she could possibly want, or her name wasn’t Irene H-
The beast charged, and Irene Apparated out of the way again. Internal dialogue could come later, deal with ravenous hellhound now.
