She had smiled at him.

Nia felt like a goldfish that had been let out of the plastic bag and into an all new aquarium. The world was just so much larger now. Excess energy was unloaded by her striding up and down in front of the invisible wall that separated her spacious cell from the rest of the pure-white room. There were barely any sounds.

She had told him that she loved him.

Nia felt like dancing. However, she also knew that it would feel wholly inadequate on her own. Yearning for the day where John would put an arm around her hips and whirl her around again, she felt the tiny smile creep back on her face. Now that she had found out how, it felt completely natural to let the emotion take over some of her features.

She had heard about the Magryph.

Nia felt like she hadn’t scratched anything adorable in months. It had only been about a week, sure, but that was already torture. Before locking her in here, Alice had let her go around and pat whatever she could find, but that was only a final fix before withdrawal. Not even her Nevr’est was around.

Almost stumbling over the tray that had held the food she had finished a few minutes ago, Nia reined in her excitement and just stood in front of the glass. The smile slowly vanished and she was left concentrating. She searched for that revelation, that particular state of mind, that Alice had told her about.

So far, she hadn’t found it.

In the first place, it wasn’t clear what she was meant to do. Alice’s explanation had been convoluted and full of nebulous terms. People that were ‘here’ and that were ‘everywhere’. On a philosophical and theoretical level, Nia understood. Understanding and implementing were two entirely different beasts, however, and on the practical front, Alice had no advice.

‘You’ll either manage to think that way or you won’t,’ she had said. ‘And if you’re powerful enough, the world will take issue with you wanting to break its rules. That’s the core of it. I give you a week.’

A week that was, presumably, coming to its end soon. There weren’t any things that let her tell the time in the pure white room. By counting how often she had been brought food, however, she was able to make a pretty good estimate.

Nia considered putting her hand on the glass, but the gesture had proven useless even after three times, so she didn’t do that anymore. To the same end, she wasn’t lying down or kicking things anymore. She was where she was and no physical motions were of any use. Neither was desperation. The efficient way to go about things was to keep her calm and continue deconstructing her view of reality.

‘I am a blank,’ she thought. ‘I can’t be an ‘everywhere’ but I’m also never a pure ‘here’. I don’t get wet when I touch water, dust doesn’t stick to me. If I fade to the other side, I maintain a clear shape. I follow rules from both sides but not all of them… I follow rules from both sides…’ She felt that the breakthrough was there. She had reasoned herself to that point.

“An ‘everywhere’ does not think about ‘but’ or ‘except’,” Alice had explained. “We can’t do that, but we have to take a page out of their book.”

‘The rules of both sides apply to me,’ Nia thought, not for the first time, and nothing happened. That had to be the answer, but she didn’t quite believe it yet. It was difficult but, as Alice had demonstrated, it was true. She had been tanned, despite sunlight not applying to pariahs. She had returned, despite the veil being impenetrable from the other side. She had changed positions in a way that went beyond teleporting. Without a doubt, what Alice said about herself was true.

Yet Nia, no matter how hard she thought to break out of her understanding of reality’s rules, had no success. She hadn’t felt any tingle of success, she only estimated that this was the right course, because it was most in line with what her mentor had said. Something was missing from her thought process.

If calm failed, then desperation, perhaps, had its time.

Emotions she held back, because they meddled with her decision making, were left to flood through her mind. ‘I want to see John again. I want to pat Stirwin. Eliza can cuss at me, that’s okay.’ She felt a stir in the world around her. It could have simply been the chemicals pumping through her brain making her see things in the depthless white around her. Even so, it was the first change Nia had seen, so she continued out loud. “I want Aclysia’s cooking and I want Copernicus’ fur,” she said, the slightest bit of irritation echoing in her voice. “I want kisses and hugs, adorable, sweet and wholesome things. I want to be called naïve and I want to be pampered and I want to pamper.”

Now there was a definitive change. There was a smell in the air like copper and paprika. It laid thick on her tongue, too thick to be imagined. Tossing all of her reason to the wind, she pressed her hands against the glass.

“I demand out!” she almost shouted and raised her powers at anything. It wasn’t a guided effort. There was no magic to neutralize, no mana to extinguish. The majority of her supernatural might rushed up and uselessly receded back into her. Like a wave crashing against a pier, almost all returned to the ocean.

Except for the amount that found its way on land.

Her perception shifted as her subconscious surrendered to her potential to defy the rules of reality. Suddenly, there was a path through the glass. Not a direct one, no, rather she had to bounce to another place, but she had the right to be at another place in reality. As long as she understood that, she could decide where she was. Where her soul was positioned was all that mattered, her body was hers to command and to make follow.

She let go of the floor under her feet and reality screamed in protest.

With a sound like unoiled metal grinding, a creature shaped from turbulent air. Thin claws swiped at Nia, and the pariah barely managed to dodge to the side. All of the feelings of understanding suddenly vanished, but the wraith remained.

She was a humanoid of entirely blue skin. Spindly limbs reached from an equally thin torso. The curves were vaguely female, but calling her a woman would have been overstating it. The texture of her skin appeared like untreated leather. Long extensions grew from her shoulders and waist, invoking the feeling of a tattered dress, the end of which fluttered around her footless legs. The creature balanced entirely on the pointy stilts that extended from her knees downwards.

Her face was the withered husk of what could have been a noble visage. Eyeless sockets and dried lips parted to reveal nothing but an empty skull, over which her skin stretched. Bone-like outgrowths on the top of her head created something like a pointy crown.

If Alice had to slay the Red Queen to negotiate with reality, then it appeared that Nia had to defeat the blue one.

Nia conjured her weapons while the wraith went after her. Screeching like the slammed brakes of a car, the Blue Queen mindlessly slashed at the blank without any form or carefulness. The attack was just quick enough to allow Nia to react. Dodging out of harm’s way, she raised her lance and plunged it into the wraith’s stomach.

A pariah’s weapon did not cut or otherwise penetrate a physical form, it dealt damage to magic and soul. No wound and no trace of the attack being visible was expected. That the wraith acted like it hadn’t been hit at all, however, wasn’t.

The black liquid of her visor manifested in front of her eyes. Her view of the world was replaced with one that was more accurate. Where she could only see shapes and textures before, she could now see magic itself. A blur of colours, a spectrum of lights, the magic in the air mingling and interacting.

While more accurate, she couldn’t see the Blue Queen through it.

She had immediately moved to rectify her mistake, the black liquid fading away again, but the reality wraith already slashed at her chest with her long claws. They cut through dress and skin like paper, and blood spurted, ruining both the perfect white of the room and the blue of the creature. Nia stumbled back, dismissed her weapons and concentrated on avoiding any further harm.

It was difficult to keep dodging in the tight space behind the glass, especially against an opponent that was just wild fury. The cascade of attacks didn’t seem to end and Nia wasn’t sure what to do. Driven into the smoothed corner of the room, she stumbled up the incline and wound out of the way of a penetrating kick from a pointy leg.

A minimal opening, but Nia took it. Darting forwards, she attempted to do with fists where weapons had failed her – and succeeded. Her knuckles landed square in the Blue Queen’s face and there was a loud crack, like a dry piece of wood snapping. Her neck broke backwards and the reality wraith collapsed like a scarecrow whose central elementals had been removed.

For one moment, Nia breathed lightly. Then, with an intense shudder, life returned to the Blue Queen and she rose with a renewed shriek. Now sure that she could hurt her opponent, the blonde backed away and looked for the next opportunity. With her opponent’s mindless fighting style, that didn’t take too long.

One sloppy slash of the Blue Queen’s claws and Nia grabbed her by the arm. With a basic over-shoulder throw, the blank sent the reality wraith onto the floor. The simultaneous breaking of many parts made it sound like someone was twisting bubble wrap. Half a second, there was silence, then all about the Blue Queen snapped back into place and she tried to get up.

Mercilessly, Nia stomped on her throat. The effective and quick tactic was always the best one. A snapping sound, silence, then a shriek, then another snap. Over and over, the Blue Queen died, was revived and killed again. It was a battle of her regeneration against Nia’s stamina and, the blank soon realized, she would be the one losing that battle.

There was no end to the power of the Blue Queen. ‘As I should expect,’ Nia told herself, ‘I’m fighting the protest of reality. I don’t have more power than the laws of nature.’ There had to be another way to win this fight. A way to defeat the wraith without killing her. Nothing really came to mind. Nothing logical anyway. ‘Perhaps I should do something illogical then? That could work, but… no, no buts.’

Shoving the hesitation and the denial from her mind, Nia stopped in her repeated killing of the blue creature. The second she was alive again, the reality wraith stormed onto her feet, more hovering than standing up, and attacked Nia again. Dodging the swipes of both arms, Nia then grabbed the Blue Queen by her upper arms.

As quick as she was and as sharp as her claws were, the creature was fragile and weak. Squeezing her hands too tightly would have caused the spindly arms to break. Immobilized by just a bit of pressure, the Blue Queen could only shriek and shriek. Her toothless maw was wide agape and her protest continued to ring out.

Then Nia started shaking her. Not in any hostile fashion, but like a friend that wanted to wake her up. The shrieks of the Blue Queen transformed into a confused gargling and then, slowly, into the pleasant chirping of a songbird. The thing Nia was holding shrunk and changed shape, became so small that shaking it was quite difficult.

At the end, a blue bird sat in the joined palms of her hands. “May I get past the glass?” Nia asked and got a small series of notes in response. The bird looked at her, confused. Nia put power behind the question, a bit more tactfully than the wild throwing she had done along her earlier demand. “May I get past the glass?”

The bird bounced in her palm, pecked at her, sang, then vanished. Nia looked up, only to realize that she was much closer to the door than she had been moments ago. Unsure whether she had succeeded, she walked forwards, one hand extended in front of her. Until her fingers touched the actual wall next to the door.

‘I did it,’ she thought and felt relief and joy spread through her limbs. She touched her face, felt the wide smile there. Those muscles still felt odd to use, but she was able to do it. With relief and joy also came pain. The wound in her chest was now more present than ever. Red with black and white swirls in it, taking symmetric shapes, it flowed from the gashes. ‘Could I...?’ she wondered and tried to negotiate again.

The feeling was different this time. There was no manifestation to present her question to. She simply presented intent, power and rationale. She wanted to get healed. She had the necessary power to mend her wounds. She wasn’t part of just this world so its rules didn’t have to apply to her in its totality. Surely it would be acceptable for her to mend the flesh attached to her empty soul?

Reality, reluctantly, agreed. Her wounds closed as if they hadn’t ever been there in the first place. Even the blood she had shed disappeared. The dress fixed itself moments thereafter and left Nia standing in the room, halfway faded but less afraid of the prospect than ever before.