[Plot] ...or can you?

[Samantha McManus]

If there's one person on campus who genuinely can punch their feelings, it's Sam.

And as she works the speed bag, it seems like she's making an honest go of it.

[Narrator]

It is weirdly introspective, like she's more in tune with herself. Herselves? One of them anyway. Much easier to put into action than the other two and it's comfortable.

Until each punch suddenly comes with flashes of less wholesome violence. The rapid thwack-thwack-thwack of the bag turns into a gut-wrenching sound of tissue tearing and cartilage popping, then that of muscles stretching and yawning and then there's a voice in her head. It's something she should be somewhat familiar with but this feels different. It doesn't feel like outside thoughts intruding, more like it's bubbling up from inside herself. "What is it you're trying to beat answers out of, little Raven?"

[Samantha McManus]

I would have thought you'd be further away by now, she frowns.

[Cailleach]

The impression Sam gets in return is almost giddy.

"I am! I'm not in your thoughts. We share a special bond, you and I, and no distance or fancy barriers shall break it. Our beings burn with the same flame, the same Spark in the vastness of the soul."

[Samantha McManus]

You sure you want to let me in on that little secret?

She starts taking out more of her frustrations on the bag.

[Cailleach]

"To... whom else would I talk of these deep secrets. The Parasite cares only for the power it grants him, the Singing Wire only for her machines and the Messenger would simply seek to sully the divine."

The words swell with meaning, impressions of Hazard, Conduit and Reach rising from them like mist over the water and in it flickering, abstract shapes of light are dancing like will-o-wisps.

[Samantha McManus]

If I can't hide from you, you can't hide from me either.

[Cailleach]

"I thought you a pretender, an usurper. I've learned much since then and much as I loathed it, had ample time to think in the pit you banished me to. But you're misguided, blind to the truth as I was and may yet be made to understand."

[Samantha McManus]

Was the mess you left at Muir supposed to win me over?

[Cailleach]

"They chained and shackled us, stripped me of my rightful claim and purpose!" The thoughts come with intensity that like a blinding bolt of light that seems to burst forth from inside of Sam and with a sudden lurch she sinks into it. The speed-bag in front of her turning into one of older materials, then simply stitched leather stuffed with hay and finally just a skull, danging from a gnarled tree standing at the edge of the water. Behind her, the familiar feeling of an ancient forest spreading across the land and past the tree and jagged cliffs a vast ocean, stormclouds roiling in the distance.

"They took up arms to oppose me, they were warriors at heart and invited death to their doorstep." the woman crawling from the waves says as she settles on a small outcropping of rock. "In your heart of hearts you surely must know this."

[Samantha McManus]

Sam for her part looks decidedly less modern herself, a bit of what she channeled in the club lingering.

"You've mistaken a slaughter for a battle."

[Cailleach]

"They chose to stand against forces beyond their ken. One of you knows this."

[Samantha McManus]

"All of me knows that it's customary to give them a chance to fight."

[Cailleach]

Cailleach scoffs. "Like I had a chance, reduced to a whimpering shell."

"But cling to what you belief to be just, maybe it will help you, maybe it won't, but know that you and me both stand on the precipice of a yawning abyss and I am willing to guide you. Maybe you use it to find me and we will clash again properly, maybe you will shy from what rests inside both our souls, maybe you will understand." she says, unfurling one arm studded with finned spines to extent a clawed hand to Sam.

"I have seen others. So many others. Of you. Of me. Reflections in the Deep." and even if she's not saying it and her tone is the same scratched up croak as always Sam can tell that Cailleach is afraid of something.

[Samantha McManus]

"...it's not me you're running from, is it?"

[Cailleach]

"When I willed to split you to join in your flesh I felt it and though I thought it yours it was not. There festers a being at the heart of our Spark, reaching into so many worlds... even yours. It's envy burned at what I was doing. Usurping a vessel. Or attempting to."

[Samantha McManus]

"So you're telling me there's one of us that's even worse than you."

[Cailleach]

Cailleach snickers to herself, her whole body convulsing a little.

"Worse. Stronger. More broken. I do not know. But you will see. Much easier than to explain. No harm will come to you from me and I will not lead you into more danger than I place myself in. Let me guide you through the Depth and maybe you will understand."

[Samantha McManus]

"I'm starting to wonder if there's more of us that turn out wrong than right," she sighs, reaching for her counterpart's hand.

[Cailleach]

Cailleach snorts out a brief laugh before pulling Sam forward and the two stumble headfirst into the waters. Everything seems to tilt all the way around and they find themselves beneath the waves, the land they were just standing on only existing above the surface like some kind of mirage and all around them only open water. Cailleach grows flowing fins around a fish-tail and swiftly pulls Sam deeper. The light quickly fades around them as they dive but somehow the waters remain comfortably warm. And as the light fades and Cailleach grows bioluminescent bulbs at the end of her fins Sam can catch glimpses of streams of light filtering down from where 'her' island rests above, streams that Cailleach is following down until they're the only thing giving them any kind of reference point in the endless dark. The pressure must be crushing but instead of it there's only the increasing feeling of sinking into nothing, like the abyss beneath them only grows wider and deeper as they swim and they become smaller and smaller. Two specks suspended in the faintest of light-beams disappearing into nothing... That's when Cailleach's hand slips out of Sam's and for a moment she's not even sure if she could swim back up by herself. Which direction even is up anymore as all directions just seem to make the emptiness around them swell...

And then, just like before when they breached the surface everything seems to flip and fold in on itself and all around them things bloom into existence from the dark, like eyes finally adjusting to the blackness...

They're suspended in water, air, nothing at all, awash in an Astral sea and below them the extending branches of an enormous tree, glowing with scintillating light. And then it's a giant sea anemone with it's arms drifting lazily. Like a magic-eye picture it seems to shift between her own and Cailleach's interpretation of something beyond their ability to truly perceive. And from all around them smaller lights float towards the tree. Raven, flying with sparks of light clutched in their beaks or claws, landing on the tree and placing the sparks in it's branches. One of them comes close to Cailleach and she lifts her clawed hand and the Raven turns into a nightmarish fish of pure black, light clasped behind it's needle-thin teeth. It swirls around Cailleach's hand and she actually smiles for a brief moment before the fish dashes away towards the tree.

Here and there a raven lets go of the light it carries and it dances through the air as it gently dissipates, and a few throw back their heads and swallow up what they carry before darting away.

"They're using their gift. Our gift." Cailleach says quietly. "You tell me how many of them turned out 'wrong' or 'right'.

[Samantha McManus]

"If I'm honest, some days I don't even know which side of that I fall on," she admits.

"It's beautiful, though."

[Cailleach]

"That's all that matters." Cailleach says, the harshness returning to her voice.

"You could follow them, though I doubt you could breach the veil to their world. The only path that wasn't barred to me was you."

[Samantha McManus]

"But it wasn't barred for the one that's hunting you."

[Cailleach]

"It is. It lives here now. Trapped. It's not hunting me. I sensed it's presence because I did something akin to what it longs for. A body into which to pour itself. Don't you see? Our gifts, thoughts and minds, it's all... intertwined. I use my power and I draw from this place and that moment, the thoughts, the patterns of how we twists and shape our gift it all flows through here and it leaves grooves in the bark. How do you know how to make a stomach, a tooth, a muscle? It's all in here, patterns that have been well-worn, shaped and honed by us and countless others. And when I called on it to fill the cracks of your body with myself the groove ran too close to it's seething heart, it saw. It saw me. And it saw you."

[Samantha McManus]

"So it's not hunting you, it's hunting us."

"You taught it a new trick, and now we're both on the menu."

[Cailleach]

"T'was an accident." Cailleach snarls... sheepishly?

[Samantha McManus]

"Suppose it doesn't matter," she sighs. "We're in this mess together, now."

[Cailleach]

"Could have thrown you to the 'beastie'. Still could." she mutters.

"Should leave before we're noticed, but remember this. What it means. This is why we're powerful. I know you've done it once. I can see it in you." she says, piercing eyes contrasting against her dirty skin. "Took it for yourself and... used it." she says with hushed realization. "How, how did you do it!?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I'm not sure I know," she admits.

"I was in a tight spot, literally. It was the first time I'd actually touched one."

[Cailleach]

"Hrmph... Come now." she grunts and propels herself back upwards, away from the Spark.

[Samantha McManus]

"What, were you hoping you could eat a few?" She asks as she goes to follow.

[Cailleach]

"Just one..."

[Samantha McManus]

"Oddly specific. Have one in mind?"

[Cailleach]

"Yes. Don't worry about it. They 'deserve' it."

[Samantha McManus]

"We tend to disagree on who deserves what."

[Cailleach]

"Never said you would approve. Never expect you to."

[Samantha McManus]

"It's not what you expect it to be, anyway. I wasn't able to get it to work for long."

[Cailleach]

"Pfsh..." she grumbles. It'd be a more human gesture if it wasn't hissing past needle-sharp teeth.

[Samantha McManus]

"Let me guess, my failing rather than yours?"

[Cailleach]

"Probably." she mutters.

"Not as weak as I thought. Just soft and squishy."