Three years passed.
I was seven and a half.
And it was time.
I'd grown, but only as much as expected - I looked like a seven-year-old.
I closed Geshich's book and breathed out. I was looking at the previous pages I've written. It all leads up to this moment.
The girls stood behind me, ready and quiet, warriors waiting for a signal.
"Father?" Catherine asked.
I looked up but remained silent, like a sentinel.
Waiting just a moment longer would give it more weight than it actually had.
I'd told the girls that for years I had fought a quiet war, one of dreams and visions and so on.
I told them there was always a presence looming: the Prophet of Entropy. He was pushing and probing and trying to invade lesser minds. Even my own - a battle of will and imagination, one I refused to lose.
Elizabeth tightened her gauntlets. Juliet adjusted the straps on her chest piece.
They had armor - not elegant, but still. It was a mix-and-match of their own handiwork and pieces they'd scavenged over the years. They had repaired and repainted it a dozen times.
They'd had to refit it anyway. I had changed over the last three years, but they had barely, or so it seemed. I'd been with them for four years, and they hadn't changed much since the first time I laid eyes on them.
It was clear they didn't age like normal girls.
I thought it was understandable for Juliet and Elizabeth - being an elf and what seemed to be a dwarf, or maybe a gnome; I wasn't very sure, one of the smaller races at least - so they might age differently. But Catherine, in all ways I could see, was human, and she still hadn't changed.
I have to make a mental note of that and look into it later. It was a bit irresponsible to let that go for three years.
Anyway, they had painted their armor - or at least the parts that could be painted - a radiant white.
Their helmets covered their heads, but the lower halves of their faces were exposed.
They were proud of it. And so was I.
They shifted behind me, their armor giving soft clinks and muted scrapes.
The paint they applied wasn't perfect; it was thin, and sometimes thin lines revealed the dark leather and metal beneath, like scars.
They were trying so hard to look fearless.
Sometimes I wondered whether they trusted me more than they should. They saw certainty in every word I spoke, even when it should have been obvious that I was bullshitting them. It was strange, holding that kind of authority at my age - well, at my apparent age.
And the worst part was that they didn't just want to follow me; they wanted to believe in me. They needed to.
I nodded slowly while looking down over the rooftops of Astar. "He's close."
The city stretched out beneath us in uneven layers of slate roofs and crooked chimneys. Astar always looked peaceful from above.
I sure hope we won't destroy too much in the coming fight.
The girls stiffened - not with excitement, but with fear. Real fear.
They had never met Shadowboon, but they knew they feared him as the Child of Darkness and the Prophet of Entropy.
Entropy was watching. His prophet and those under him might have eyes everywhere.
I kind of hated lying to them this much, but there had to be a clash between us someday, and that day was today.
They'd asked me once - Catherine, timidly - whether darkness could ever swallow the light completely. I remember the way the others scoffed at the question, pretending to be braver than they were. I told them no, of course not, that light always pushes back or some such. I don't really remember.
They believed me instantly.
Anyway, some terror was necessary.
I summoned my own armor. It first coiled around me in a dark, almost-liquid form, then formed plates of rainbow darkness across my whole body. When the helm locked around my head, I heard Juliet whisper:
"He really looks like an angel…"
They put me on a pedestal so high that if I jumped down, I'd break my legs.
The armor was made of the goo from the trunk. I'd spent a lot of time over the past three years shaping it to look like a paladin's armor. Shadowboon and I had trained for a long time to shape it.
At first, it was almost a hopeless process because the only thing we could create was sheets. But the more I learned about chaos magic, and the more I told him about it and trained with him, the easier it became.
The goo was related to chaos magic somehow, or at least those who could use chaos magic could transmogrify the goo into much more complicated and detailed forms.
I remember the early days when Shadowboon and I used to sit cross-legged across each other, tapping his fingers impatiently as we both tried to coax the goo into something other than sheets.
The first time it hardened into a true plate, solid and unbending, we stared at each other with startled triumph. It was a eureka moment.
The armor wasn't the only thing. I was tall - or at least as tall as the average man.
It wasn't really armor, more like liquid power armor I controlled.
It was like walking on stilts with extended arms - it was a whole thing, and that was kind of the point.
I looked like a dark crusader. But even with the looks, I was playing the good guy.
While we moved through the city, we reached the northern part near the harbor, and atop a wall, I could see him.
He was standing there, high above, waiting.
His armor was the opposite of mine: completely black - he almost blended in with the night, but there was a shine to it that made him stand out.
He really had the "dark lord" aesthetics down. He was taller than me, even with the power armor goo.
Behind him, three figures stood - his own girls, who stood utterly still. Three dark silhouettes in the night.
Medea, Regan, Morgan. I wasn't too familiar with them, so I couldn't tell who was who.
I'd seen them before but never interacted with them, just as Shadowboon had never interacted with mine, except when you count the times he and I were still the same person.
His girls had armor similar to my girls' - a patchwork of different pieces, but in black. Their hoods hung so far down they hid their eyes completely, and the darkness swallowed any other hint of expression.
One was slightly taller than the rest; that was probably the orc-girl, Regan.
If I had a closer look, I'd see a tail on one, which would mean she was the fox girl, Medea.
Each of them mirrored the tension of my girls so perfectly that for a brief heartbeat, I saw a strange symmetry - two trios shaped by different… masters?
When we discussed it, all of the girls were about as strong as each other, which was a good thing.
They watched us.
They believed this was a real battle too.
Good.
Shadowboon lifted a hand - not waving, just acknowledging me or telling his girls to stay back.
To mine, it looked like a threat.
"Father…" Catherine whispered. "He's… he's looking at you."
The girls stepped closer and drew their swords, shielding me as if I needed protection.
Shadowboon's girls did the same on their side.
I stepped forward.
"Stay behind me," I said.
Three voices answered at once:
"Yes, Father."
There was a stillness in the air afterward.
Even the nightingales seemed to sense something unnatural and left the harbor; their cries faded into silence.
The wind that came off the sea carried a salty chill.
It tugged at the girls' armor and made the dark cape Shadowboon wore swirl.
I wondered if any city folk noticed the figures standing above.
The girls tightened their formation instinctively, and across the distance, Shadowboon's girls did the same, as if mirroring us through some kind of invisible thread.
The air grew thick with expectation of battle.
It was like the moment before a storm breaks, and then without warning, Shadowboon stepped off the wall.
He dropped to the ground without bending his knees. The impact cracked the stone and left a crater because his armor was so heavy.
The impact must have rattled buildings far off.
The armor rippled, and darkness seeped from him like smoke.
It was the perfect entrance.
If I didn't know better, even I might have believed he wanted me dead.
I cast Sol and placed it beneath my armor, letting the glow shine through the cracks.
Shadowboon spoke, his voice booming across the fields:
"Father of Light. You kept me waiting."
The girls behind me trembled, taking a step back as if they were pushed.
And Shadowboon's girls looked at my light as if I were the monster here.
Perfect.
I stepped forward until I stood alone, facing him.
"Child of Darkness," I said.
Two actors, center stage.