Email to Amanda

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To: [Amanda Sefton]
From: [Illyana Rasputin]
Subject: So about that question.

Do note that I often say things that make sense. This will only smooth our interactions in the future.

So, the whole Limbo thing. You were here for the kidnapping part, weren’t you? I don’t actually remember it all that well, to tell you the truth. And I’m not going to sit here and write you my traumatic life story, because that would be immensely stupid and boring, so I’ll just skip to the relevant parts and let you fill in the blanks yourself.

The demon who kidnapped me called himself Belasco. There are lots of rumours about him, some of which are true, but most of which are hubris he put out there himself - all that publicity you’ll find about the annihilator of worlds, speaker of darkness, whatever, I’m pretty sure he put it all out there himself. That kind of thing appealed to him - he called me Darkchilde, for God’s sake. What he did have was a contract with a dimension of elder gods: In exchange for his sacrifice of a pure human soul, he would gain enormous power. Become one of them, was I think how he understood it, although I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about the dangers of dealing with elder gods.

So, that pure human soul would be me. Or it is now, anyway. Kind of. It’s hard to explain, and if I hear one whisper of that old she’s evil blah blah from you, this is all you’ll ever hear on the subject. He tried the ritual on two girls before me - one called Beatrix way back in the 14th century, and Maire, in the 16th century. Beatrix was too old, so she died on the first try. Maire was also too old, but she lived through two ceremonies and went insane. She apparently drowned herself, which, given the circumstances, was probably the best death she could hope for anyway. The rituals both require and create an enormous amount of energy, which go into opening up pieces of the subject’s soul to the elder gods - corrupting them, essentially. It’s like opening a gateway they can’t quite get through; good luck for us, for now.

That’s where I came in. I was young, obviously. So I survived the first ceremony, and spent some time recovering from that, and some time getting thrashed about, and some more time getting lessons on things I couldn’t do in preparation for the day when I was supposed to be able to do them - demon magic, basically. He had to take his time between rituals or I’d’ve died, too, and that would have been the end of it for a while.

(I still can’t do anything particularly magical. And, just so we’re clear, I have no desire to do so anyway.)

Then one of the other people who lived in Limbo came and rescued me, and by the end of a couple of years she had died, and so did the next one, though she taught me some human magic - I don’t know what you know of creation magic, creating something tangible from something intangible. Once she was gone - right after the last ritual, the third one - he cast me out into the dead of winter, where I’d probably have died, only I was starting to get some control over the magic in Limbo. I made that sword I tried to use on Jubilee's demon from creation magic there.

And I spent some time gaining strength and then I challenged him, and won, which is when I came back here. I left him alive: I had to, for various reasons, up to and including the fact that I would have been stuck there, if I’d become like him. I don't know where he is now, which I suppose counts as one of the stupidest things I've ever done, but he shouldn't be a threat.

Which undoubtedly means he'll be one, probably.

Anyway, that’s what happened. I figure there’s about two rituals left before it’s complete, although obviously someone should kill me before that last one, if I’m about to plunge the world into eternal hell. Which I think just about sums it up.

Illyana

P.S. As we are missing people again, and you seem to have things to do regarding that, I’ll manage things here. Please try to find them.