Gemma at the very least was more tolerant of us than any of the other Knights would've been. She gave us a chance to walk away without a fight back when we were freed, and seemed willing to live and let live so long as we didn't hang around and hurt her friends. As Morgan, we're a good enough friend that she's up for us effectively eloping with her.
I wonder if part of her, the spell notwithstanding, is aware of who Morgan really is. Maybe dying and being resurrected even somehow broke our illusion spell on her and she's actually perfectly aware of who we are. Maybe.
It wouldn't be an easy acceptance thing, I think. At a certain point any greater friendship between Morgan and Gemma would make the subsequent reveal sting more; she'd be questioning our every action related to her, whether as an act or as a replacement goldfish "Mordred wants his old buddy back and doesn't really like me for me" thing.
Nope I'd like some interesting drama and it's high time we came clean with our Once and Future Bestie. The longer we draw it out the worse it will be if Gemma finds out before we tell her ourselves.
No, no. I agree we shouldn't draw it out too much longer, but we need something a bit more dramatic for a reveal like this. Though a Sailor Moon elevator reveal seems like it might be more appropriate for the rest of the group.
No, no. I agree we shouldn't draw it out too much longer, but we need something a bit more dramatic for a reveal like this. Though a Sailor Moon elevator reveal seems like it might be more appropriate for the rest of the group.
Well, I'm going to vote for casually dropping it in conversation.
Just "Hey, I trust you enough not to do anything stupid with this."
It also means it can't be used against us!
Annabelle is still staring at you, her expression getting less curious and more suspicious by the second. You have to tell her you weren't involved. Well, you were involved, a little bit, but Gemma came to her own decision. You certainly didn't kidnap her, and you'd rather not have the rest of the Knights thinking that you did.
"Look, I know what you're thinking," you tell Annabelle, straightening up and crossing your legs under you. "But I told you before, my quarrels were with-"
"Quarrels?" Annabelle asks, aloud. Her eyes widen as she remembers that you two aren't the only people in the car. There's a few moments of confused, awkward silence before Matthew speaks up.
"I have quarrels," he says, conversationally.
"Why do you have crossbow bolts?" Ginny asks, looking up from the window.
"I think he means quarrels as in arguments, not quarrels as in crossbow bolts," Piper says.
"Well, I have some of those too," Matthew admits.
"Again," Ginny asks, "why?"
"Better question," Piper says before Matthew can answer, "how does Belle not know what quarrels are?"
"I know what they are!" Annabelle says, her face reddening. "I just…who says that? Who uses quarrels?"
"I use quarrels to end my quarrels," Gavin says, his eyes still on the road.
Annabelle pounds her fists against the dashboard while the rest of the Breakfast Club groans in a single, unified voice. "Minute!" she says. "I need a minute!"
"We're in the car," Bailey says.
"I need it now," Annabelle says. "I need it, pull over…please."
"Hey, of course," Gavin says. He jerks his car through a few lanes of traffic and pulls up against the curb, putting his left turn signal on. "Take your time. We'll be here." Annabelle shoots you a look through the mirror, flickering her eyes towards the sidewalk, then gets out of the car. "Was it my joke?" Gavin calls after her, to no response. He sighs. "Are my jokes that bad?"
"They're not awful," Piper says.
"Yes," Matthew says.
"They're worse," Ginny mumbles.
"If I had something to throw at you I would," Bailey calls from the back seat.
You float through the roof of the car and out over the sidewalk, following Annabelle as she makes her way to a nearby back alley. You can't feel the cold, but you are aware of it, though Annabelle seems not to be. "What's going on?" You ask her.
She glances up at you. "I need to talk to you, and I can't do that in the car." She shrugs. "We all take minutes sometimes. But if I'm out here too long they'll send Piper to make sure I'm okay. So just tell me what you were trying to say."
You stuff your hands in your pockets, slowly lowering yourself to ground level. "Well, as I was saying, my quarrels-"
"Fuck you," Annabelle says, but there's no heat behind the words.
"-were with my mother," you continue, "and her Knights. Not Annabelle Pilgrim and her friends."
Annabelle looks at you strangely. "You don't see her?" She asks quietly. "When you look at me?"
"No," you say, and you know it's the truth. Annabelle isn't Artura, Piper isn't Percila, Gavin isn't Gwynn, Gemma isn't… "You look similar. But it isn't the same. I don't want to fight you, I just want…" you trail off.
"I know," Annabelle says, and you know it's the truth. "But I can't just take your words at face value. It's not that I don't..." she shakes her head. "If I trust you, and you're lying, and someone gets hurt, I..."
"I can't make you believe me," you say. "But I do know something that might help." It had been months ago, that fateful job Bone had asked for your help with. You probably should've realized it before, but you feel like you've barely had a moment to breathe since you awoke in the cave. Even if you had noticed that Bone was supplying the Unseelie Court, would you have put a stop to it? You know better than anyone that sometimes survival meant lying down with dogs. "What Matthew was talking about? Whatever Tylwyth is building? Not long after the cave, the Unseelie Court stole an Artifact Enchantment Matrix from Morgana."
"You think it might be related," Annabelle says. "What does the matrix do?"
You run a hand through your hair. It had been so long ago that you had seen your Aunt use that device, a thousand thousand years and change, but you have seen her use it. "It's some kind of weather manipulating device," you recall. "Morgana used it sometimes when we were sailing, and once during the siege, to turn away a storm."
"Architect weather controller, okay," Annabelle says, nodding. "Do you know anything else? If you're in a helpful mood, I'm squeezing it for all it's worth."
You've told her everything you know, excluding Terri and Bones' involvement in the deals. You don't see much reason to bring the Knights down on them. But the more you think about it, the more comes back to you. Innocuous conversations you'd had with Bone, throwaway comments you'd overheard while sweeping floors. The pick-up you had gone on, the man whose fingers you had broken – hadn't Bone mentioned the Unseelie Court then, too? That they had been looking for things, artifacts? The device you had been studying before Annabelle asked you to the soccer game – hadn't that been for a regular customer? How many regular customers did Occult Ingredients have? It was such a small store, with such a limited clientele, financed mostly by Bone and Terri's side work…
"Oh, God," you whisper under your breath.
"What was that?" Annabelle asks.
"Nothing, I –" You run a hand through your hair. "I mean, I know more." God, why is it so hard to talk? The more you grasp for lucidity the faster it slips through your fingers, the world rippling as you try to put your thoughts to words.
"You know more?" Annabelle asks. "That's great." Then her eyes narrow. "How much more? Have you been involved with this?"
"Well, maybe?" You say. Annabelle's eyes flash, and you practically trip over yourself trying to speak. "I didn't know! I didn't realize until just now."
"Come on," Annabelle says, exasperated. "You didn't know? How do you expect me to believe that?"
"I know it sounds shifty," you say. "I don't have an excuse for that. But I'm telling you now. I want to help…I'm trying to help…I've helped you before. I told you about your curse!"
"I don't even know how you knew about that!" Annabelle shouts. She freezes when she realizes how loud she's gotten, throwing a glance back towards the car to make sure nobody is coming to check on her, then drops her voice to a whisper. "And now you're telling me you've been in the middle of whatever it is Tylwyth's planning?"
"Not in the middle," you say. "Tangential, at most. Look, we don't have much time. Just let me tell you what I know. Squeeze my helpfulness for all it's worth."
Annabelle doesn't seem entirely convinced, but neither does she try to argue further. "Okay" she says, crossing her arms over her chest. "Let's hear it then."
You wrack your brain, trying to remember everything Bone had ever said about the Unseelie Court. What had you picked up that day when you broke the man's fingers? "Tiger's blood," you remember. "It's used in rituals, it opens pathways in the body, helps energy flow. And a device…it's hard to describe…it could've been a mirror. Or some kind of laser bomb. It focuses light."
"So, he's got weather control, light focusing, and tiger blood," Annabelle says, counting off on her fingers. "I really hope you're telling the truth, or I'm going to look like a complete fucking idiot." She sighs. "I'm taking a risk here...why am I taking a risk on you?"
You say nothing. What could you say, in this situation, that wouldn't only make things worse?
"I got the curse lifted," Annabelle says after a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Matthew did it. It was easy, once he knew what he was looking for. You didn't have to tell me about that. I wasn't really...civil, the first time we dreamed." She exhales sharply through her nose. "I was kind of a playground level dickbag."
You shrug, uncertain. "Well, I did show up in your head uninvited," you admit. "I've been a dickbag for way less than that."
Annabelle opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but then she closes it again. "Come on," she says finally. "We should get back before my friends get worried." She trudges off back towards the street, and you follow her, toes just barely skimming the ground.
By the time you make it back into the trunk, Annabelle has relayed the components you gave her to the rest of the breakfast club.
"That helps," Matthew says, scribbling something into a small notebook he carries. "Where'd you hear about this?"
"I have sources," Annabelle says. "Let's go, the park isn't far."
Matthew looks troubled but doesn't ask any more questions about Annabelle's mysterious sources. The rest of the Breakfast Club talks idly about non-Knightly concerns until Gavin pulls up to the park, coming to a stop at a free spot on a curb. Down a small hill is a thick grove of trees, a miniature forest of red and gold leaves - a tiny slice of wilderness that thrives despite the modern city surrounding it.
The breakfast club makes their way down the hill and into the cover of the trees. "We're all clear," Piper says, glancing up at the branches above them. You follow her gaze to find a bluejay perched in the tree, keeping careful watch of the surrounding forest.
"We'll call you when the ritual is ready," Matthew says, "and if we get any hits on about whatever Tylwyth's building."
"You girls keep in touch," Gavin says. "We can open a door right to you if we have to."
"Well, I can open a door," Matthew says.
"We'll be fine," Ginny says, doing a few toe touches. "Get going already."
Matthew waves his hand in front of him and mumbles a few words, and space crinkles and warps, as if it were a picture someone had folded. He, Gavin and Bailey step into the warp, vanishing without a trace, and the moment they're gone the world returns to normal.
"We still good?" Annabelle asks Piper. The blue haired girl nods.
The ray of dawn that slays the night. Excalibur, Excalibur, EXCALIBUR.
On wings of cobalt do I soar. Bluejay, Bluejay, BLUEJAY.
Fist of heaven, split the storm. Jupiter, Jupiter, JUPITER.
Three simultaneous flashes of light, three simultaneous explosions of power. Light flows like liquid along the shining bodies of the three girls, solidifying into colorful armor that covers them from head to toe. In Camelot the Knights rarely chose to manifest helmets, preferring their faces be visible to the men they lead. But here and now all three girls have chosen to keep their identities hidden.
Annabelle, her golden armor fringed with white, is the most heavily armored of the three, though Excalibur's armor is less bulky than Caledfwlch's. Every inch of plate is covered in intricate carvings, depictions of her victories over her foes. To your slight surprise, you see that Annabelle's carvings do not match those of your mothers – but you're unable to see exactly what they portray. Her helmet, a slab of solid gold with no joints or openings, has a stylized white sun plastered across its face – you know from experience that a Heraldry can act as one-way glass when needed, allowing its user to see out without anyone else seeing in.
Ginny is more lightly armored, her plate white and light blue with gaps around her joints. Electricity crackles in the air around her, and the light blue on her armor seems to move in sync with it, never coming to a rest. Her own helmet is cut off at the top, letting her hair flow free, but her faceplate bears no decoration.
Piper's armor is the lightest, blue and black metal that shifts to lighter hues around her arms. Her visor has no slits for her eyes, but falls over her mouth and nose, coming to a point that resembles a beak. From the back of her helmet springs long feathers falling nearly to her shoulder blades, which rustle softly in the breeze.
It's been so long since you've seen Heraldries without having to fear for your life. You'd forgotten how beautiful manifestation could be.
"Should we go Mirror-world?" Annabelle asks, her voice strangely distorted by the helmet. "Or just invisible? Piper, do you have birds up?"
"I do," Piper says. "But I wouldn't mind not having to scout this time."
"I vote invisibility too," Ginny says. "I hate jumping back and forth."
"Suit yourselves," Annabelle says. She clears her throat, and the light around her pulses, expanding in a circle until it envelops Ginny and Piper, and by proxy you. You spy a distortion in the air not far from you, a bubble of refracted light that would hide the girls from any outside onlookers. "We're good. Take us up, Piper."
Piper presses a hand to the ground, and there's a sudden surge of wind at your feet. You yelp despite yourself and Annabelle laughs, but her reaction is drowned out by the ecstatic whoop Ginny lets loose. Ethereal feathers float in the air around you as you ascend into the sky, buffeted by the wind.
"Oh, I missed this," Ginny groans. The four of you are up now, high above the trees, held in place by Piper's spell. The blue-armored girl gestures off towards the other end of the park and with another gust of wind you're soaring through the sky, pulled along by your connection to Annabelle. Ahead of you Ginny tilts her body back and forth, deftly weaving through the sky, but always staying relatively close to Piper. Upon closer examination you can see that the limits of the spell don't extend that far – if one of the Knights was to stray, they would find themselves outside the extent of Piper's spell and be facing a very long fall. But the prospect does not seem to damper their enthusiasm. Annabelle waves her hand in front of her face, as if miming pulling up a visor, and her helmet vanishes in a burst of liquid light. Her hair explodes out behind her as the wind catches it, whipping back and forth like a tail of sunlight that trails after her. She looks…content.
Annabelle rolls onto her back and regards you coolly, gears spinning behind clear blue eyes. Her gaze still makes you uncomfortable, but it no longer paralyzes you like it did when you had first awoken from your imprisonment. Annabelle is not your mother, and while her own force of personality is intense, it doesn't dominate you the way Artura's had.
Hiding your presence from the rest of the Knights, trying frantically to keep you in the dark while not letting anyone else in on what was happening - your mother would never have permitted this charade to continue so long. At the very least, she would've demanded the rest of the Knights leave her, give herself time to sort through your presence on her own, and they would've obeyed her commands without question. Does Annabelle not hold that kind of power over her friends? Or does she merely choose not to exert it?
There's a tingle in your chest, and the world ripples around you. Discomfort flashes across Annabelle's face, replaced quickly by confusion. You both touch your hands to your hearts simultaneously.
"Hit him again!" Someone shouts. You recognize the voice, a man's, but you can't quite place it, and it seems like it's coming from so far away. You turn midair, searching out its source, but find nothing.
Pain hits your body in a dizzying surge, beginning in your heartbeat and screaming through your veins. You gasp and seize up, fighting to suppress the instinctual panic that is your body's natural reaction to pain.
Pain is a warning that something is wrong, and even as you scramble to reassert control over yourself, it strikes again, its voice insistent. Your scream is quickly drowned out by Annabelle's, wordless and terrified.
"Belle!" Piper shouts.
"Again!" The man roars. More pain, pins and needles crawling along your extremities, limbs flailing wildly. Annabelle's scream redoubles, the sheer force of it rattling your skull. With an effort of will you turn to face her and see that Excalibur has vanished, leaving her naked despite the clothes she wears. Her hair shimmers in the sunlight, whipping around her face, a thousand thousand writhing snakes.
Another shock, and suddenly the bright sunlight is replaced with smoky darkness. You sit up with a start, lung greedily sucking in air. It tastes like cigarettes and sex but you gulp it down, lights dancing in front of your vision.
"Morgan?" Gemma's voice asks. "Morgan, are you okay?"
"He's breathing," says the man's voice you heard in the sky. Alexander's, you remember. He sounds genuinely relieved. "Thank fuck."
Your arm lashes out at the source of the voice, fingers grabbing Alexander's collar and pulling him to you. You turn to face him, suddenly aware that you're soaked in sweat, hair plastered to your skull and neck and forehead, shirt clutching every inch of your skin. "What," you ask between gasps, "the hell…did you do?"
Alexander slowly pries his collar free from your grip. He's far stronger than any human, and though you could take him under normal circumstances, you're still shaky and weak from whatever just happened. "I saved your life," he says calmly. "You're welcome."
"I asked him!" Alyse says, her face coming into view, studying you critically. "I asked if he had any afflictions!" She whirls on Gemma, who you now see is standing behind her, both hands covering her mouth. "He might be a newbie, but you know better! You should've told us he had a soul bond."
"A soul bond," Alexander says, shaking his head. "It's so 1940s it hurts."
"He…you have a soul bond?" Gemma asks quietly.
You look up at her, feeling just as confused as she looks. You've never really stopped to consider the nature of your connection with Annabelle's mind, but a soul bond makes a strange sort of sense. It was formed through your Heraldries, after all, and Merlin had always said Heraldries were physical manifestations of the soul. The thought that that the drug might interact with that hadn't even crossed your mind.
"I need someone to explain what just happened," you say through gritted teeth. "Now."
"How much time do you guys have?" Alexander asks Alyse.
The blonde looks down at her phone. "A few minutes."
"Okay, sparknotes then," Alexander says. "The second rush is an out of body experience. The drug forces your soul out and keeps you alive until the rush ends. You float around, listen to music, see some pretty colors, it's a good time. Only souls follow the path of least resistance, so when yours got booted out of your body-"
"It followed the soul bond," you murmur, a sinking feeling in your stomach.
"Exactly," Alexander says. "The rush ends, but the drug can't find your soul, and it can't keep you alive anymore either. Luckily, I'm a responsible adult, so when I noticed you shuffling right off the mortal coil, I did something about it."
"Something what?" You ask, still remembering Annabelle's screams.
Alexander sets his jaw. "Well, I'm a club owner, not a fucking doctor, so I just sort of pumped you full of energy and prayed a lot." He holds up his hands and you notice them shaking for the first time. "Alyse had to help, towards the end. Put enough lightning in you to kill an elephant, but you're alive, so, you're welcome."
What happened starts to take shape in your mind. "The energy went through the bond," you say quietly, still half working through it. "Hit her to get to me."
"Her?" Gemma asks.
"Oh, fuck," you mutter. If the energy followed the bond, then it went straight to Annabelle's soul – right past any defenses her Heraldry might afford her. True Fae changeling or not, you doubt Alexander could put a dent in Annabelle under normal circumstances. But with a direct path into her heart...Intentionally or not, Alexander had just taken a crowbar to Annabelle's soul.
She could be hurt. She very likely is hurt, and seriously. You push yourself to your feet. You need….you need.
"Hey," Alyse says, putting a hand on your chest. "You need to sit down. Third rush hits in three minutes."
You shake your head. Three minutes. You have three minutes to do…what?
You need to call one of the Breakfast Club. If Annabelle's hurt, they might have no idea what's wrong with her. But...she's Annabelle. It could be she recovered as soon as you woke up…
You need to call Occult Ingredients. Bone and Terri are mixed up with some incredibly dangerous not-people, and if you don't warn them, they could find themselves on a collision course with the Knights themselves…
You look up. Gemma stands in front of you, looking like she wants to say something but just can't find the words. She be must confused. She's probably scared. You need to calm her down, let her know that you're okay, that this isn't her fault…
You need to do all these things, and a lot more besides, but you only have three minutes of lucidity left before the Cat Sith kicks back in. You only have time to…
[] Call the Breakfast Club
[] Call Occult Ingredients
[] Tend to Gemma
[] Write In
Adhoc vote count started by Gally on Dec 16, 2017 at 1:07 AM, finished with 4022 posts and 71 votes.
A note: Please reserve the write ins for doing something actually unique, and not just trying to squeeze all three options into three minutes. I guarantee it won't work out for you.
Gonna need some time to think on this one.
Morgan can't call the Breakfast Club and suddenly explain that 'oh hey shit just happened to Annabelle'.
We can warn Bone though that 'bad shit is happening' and he knows we're strange enough to somehow know.
And then Gemma. Who is very worried about us and may start blaming herself.
We do need to tend to Gemma, but we can do that later as lives may be at stake. We need to talk to either the Knights or Bone, and the Knights are going to wonder how we know.
I think now might be a good time to seriously consider giving up the ghost.
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[X] Call the Breakfast Club
Screw it, shit is seriously fucked. If Annabelle is healed by now then this is going to be awkward, but if she's not then her life is going to be at stake. Annabelle is by far the most immediate of our priorities, Bone and Terri can wait until however much time it'll take for us to come out of the next rush. Right now is probably the best time we're ever to going to get to confirm to the Breakfast Club (or at least Annabelle) where our sympathies lie.
Also if you guys have any ideas on what question I should ask the Big Computer in the Sky that'll be fam.
I'm going to gamble thatOccult Ingredients can wait, they are probably not going to get set on fire in the intervening period. We hope.
[X] Tend to Gemma
Other than waifu appeal, do this because she's right in front of us, she took a chance and let us in a bit with running off with her. Calling the Breakfast Club about Annabelle immediately to make it obvious about the soul bond without first doing damage control is going to drive her off SO hard.
Doing this will make revealing the whole Mordred thing to Gemma inevitable, but I think it's also one of the best ways to start that conversation. Compromising Morgan's true identity to possibly save Annabelle's life will provide solid evidence that he doesn't intend to harm the Knights, which is something that will undoubtably be one of Gemma's major concerns once she finds out. Both out of concern for the group's safety and the possibility that Morgan was getting close with her for that purpose.
I think doing nothing to check on Annabelle will also seriously set-back the mutual understanding we had going on with her this update, as it seems pretty obvious (from her perspective) that her attack had something to do with Mordred and that could misconstrued as purposeful aggression on his part. This'll also make the Morgan = Mordred thing obvious to her, but the thing about providing a relatively positive foundation for that conversation I mentioned before applies to her as well.
Well... she suspected something was going on with Annabelle and us. I guess that wouldn't be that much of a shock to her until later, when she tries to put the pieces together.
Not a bad write-in as far as they go, though even the briefest of explanations would cut into our 3 minutes... Gemma is affected by the same drugs as we are, after all. But hopefully her being on the phone would make the follow-up explanations with the BC shorter or downright unnecessary.
[X] Tell Gemma who you were soulbonded to. Let her deal with any calls needed. She'll be trusted immediately where you aren't.
We're definitely going to have to tell her the truth after this, but this is probably going to be the ideal way to establish a positive foundation for the reveal for our true identity. Or at least, might not make it as much of a clusterfuck as it would be otherwise.
Though, this incident will mean that the Knights are going to start looking for Gemma as they'll think she's implicated in whatever whammied Annabelle. Pity, I was really looking forward to Gemma and Mordred's Bizarre Adventure.
I don't think this is a very good idea. We have three minutes to do something and she won't get over the shock in time. Also she here right now, on drugs, because she wants to get away from the breakfast club.
I don't think this is a very good idea. We have three minutes to do something and she won't get over the shock in time. Also she here right now, on drugs, because she wants to get away from the breakfast club.
Then perform damage control on Gemma at least. Out of all of our current concerns, Bone and Terri are by far the least pressing right now. Bone has gotten this far without fae enforcers showing up on his doorstep, he can afford to wait a bit more before we wash the drug out of our system.
[X] Call the Breakfast Club
The farce we've been playing with the Knights could never last, and this seems like the least terrible way to start letting it out.
Besides that Annabelle's life seems to be in the most immediate danger from this situation and may taint this tenuous trust we've built with each other if she ends up thinking we intended it, compared to Terri and Bones a bit further off looking danger, and Gemma feeling like shit for almost getting us killed, and depending on the winning choice realizing we're ~*soul mates*~ with Annabelle, up until she also realizes we're Mordred and things just turn super ugly on that front.
I think now might be a good time to seriously consider giving up the ghost.
edit
[X] Call the Breakfast Club
Screw it, shit is seriously fucked. If Annabelle is healed by now then this is going to be awkward, but if she's not then her life is going to be at stake. Annabelle is by far the most immediate of our priorities, Bone and Terri can wait until however much time it'll take for us to come out of the next rush. Right now is probably the best time we're ever to going to get to confirm to the Breakfast Club (or at least Annabelle) where our sympathies lie.
Also if you guys have any ideas on what question I should ask the Big Computer in the Sky that'll be fam.
Agreed. Annabelle is our main priority right now. Even if calling has a chance of revealing our identity, it's worth it to save her. She is also our best bet at ingratiating ourselves with the Breakfast Club. It also has the bonus of forcing us to explain ourselves to Gemma in one of the most flattering ways possible.
