[AU where this time it isn’t Sancho!]

The fourth area of La Manchaland yawns open like the mouth of some ancient beast, darkness spilling out in waves of choking silence. You’re barely able to breathe through the scent of iron and something older — something buried deep in the bones of the City. The others are frozen, but you take a step forward, watching as she moves. Don Quixote — no, not quite.

She walks barefoot now, her boots left behind like shed skin, each step deliberate as though the ground itself might rise to reject her. Her eyes are wide, too wide, not with fear but with the awful clarity of remembrance. The blood she once took such joy in spilling now stains her from within. It does not belong to her enemies. It is hers.

Area 4 is nothing like the others. The attractions are silent. The rides don’t move. There is only the Ferris wheel, impossibly tall and impossibly still, its center impaled by a cathedral of blackened spikes. And at its heart — crucified, petrified — rests something that bleeds through your senses before your mind can name it. A being. A presence. It does not open its eyes, but you know it is watching.

The First Kindred.

Spikes have skewered its ribs like pins holding together a failing tapestry. The Golden Bough juts from its heart, golden light leaking out like a promise long broken. And from the cracks in its stone-gray skin, vines of blood bloom outward, wrapping around the core like a crown of thorns.

Don Quixote walks until she stands directly before it. The rest of you can only watch.

And then the Kindred speaks — not aloud, but within, a voice that roots itself behind your eyes and resonates inside your ribs. “ You came back. “

The words are not angry. They are tired. Immense. A quiet mourning wrapped in reverence. “ My daughter. My knight. My Sancho. “

Don Quixote trembles. Not from fear. From recognition. She does not reply at first, but something in her face shifts — the joy, the mania, the ever-glorious delusions flicker like dying starlight, falling away. Her hands reach up to the sides of her head, fingers twitching as if trying to peel away a mask no one else can see. She grips at her own skull and laughs — not the theatrical laugh she always gave, but a hollow, broken breath with no pretense. “ I am.. Don Quixote! “ she whispers. As if saying it aloud might convince herself again.