Duffy strode to the skeleton with a deranged expression. He could not be sure if it was due to the thrill of battle or the crackle of static and the ringing in his ears. With the image of Ruby pirouetting between raking claws and thin air in the corner of his eye, the bard raised Nail’s point to neck height and deftly pierced the creature between the fourth and fifth vertebrate.

On the far side of the battle, Ruby gained some ground. Lucrezia sliced elegantly through the skeleton’s wrist, swooped around it’s hit, then thrusted clean through where it’s windpipe would have been. Whereas Duffy’s heavy blade dislodged from the spine and left him stuck and tangled up with his opponent, the spellsinger’s sword cheered triumphant as the skull rolled to one side and thudded to the dirt. When she caught sight of Duffy’s predicament, she burst into song.

“We wanted to remember everything we’d forgotten. We wanted to believe were not fading. In the temple, we were unfolding in the crooked shadow of the morning. In the half-light, we saw a window to the door.” Her hair danced with umbra fire and as she advanced towards her brother, she stomped a heel onto the skull to stop it’s incessant and futile biting at thin air.

“You’re not supposed to tickle it,” the mage quipped.

Duffy snarled, pulled his sword free, and grabbed hold of the skeleton by the ribs. He yanked it back. The song filled him energy and focus, and sent away the last clinging doubts of his other self. At last, there stood a black haired, stoic man with no intention of dying on the road to nowhere. A heavy boot kicked into the skeleton’s hip and pushed it back. It was a short-lived victory as it turned, bloodied fingers splayed, and lunged. As he parried each raking hand he picked up the bridge of the song.

“We were just lonely kids, living in a faded town. We were just lonely kids, just…”

Tooth clashed against the right wrist and severed it. The still twitching hand tried to crawl away, the magic holding it together strong enough to force every bone in its body to maim and kill. Duffy ducked, swelling with pride as Ruby’s spell song came to power. They sang the second verse in harmony, baritone and an angel’s voice forming a swirl of heat and melody around the bard. He tossed Tooth to one side and it snicker-snacked away through a crack in the void between this world and the Tap. He reached into the aether, and produced a black handled katana with an elven curve and too many tales to tell.

“We were living in the moment, and the past became the present, the memory unfurling a truth returning. In my mind I hear you laughing, through the pines I hear you calling, the little bird was saying that I hear you remember everything!”.

The blade began to hum, and then vibrate fiercely. When Duffy cut it full force through the skeleton’s midriff the spine gave little resistance. It shattered open the ribcage and sent the skeleton unfurling in a cloud of fossilised marrow and regret. His brow ran slick with oily sweat and his lungs struggled to take in air between pained breaths.

“Get down!” Ruby roared. Duffy didn’t want to stay upright long enough to ask why.

With a flick of the wrist and a tortuously wicked smile, Ruby let lose the formation of her spell song. Three spheres of energy bounced up, then down, then smashed into the road. They bounced on, leaving craters in their wake as they closed in on the skeleton to the gentlemen’s rear. The concussive force sent the skull shooting off into the woods and bits of its limbs raining down across the road and the pearl waters of the swamp. The woods became a little less populated, save for one remaining creature finally cresting the verge and making headway towards the only smell it remembered from its former life. Blood.