Flashfires (collected snippets thread)

[Aeshdan]

[AN: MiniMinou's Prince Charming is one of my favorite fanworks, and I couldn't help but speculate as to what might happen in the character's lives after the Epilog. So here is a glimpse into the future I imagine for them.]
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There had been celebration across the breadth of the land when Prince Adrien had made Marinette Dupain-Cheng his Princess. There had been quiet rejoicing when he had been crowned King, though nobody had wished to mock the son's grief by being too open with their happiness. There had been rejoicing upon the news that the Queen was pregnant. But this celebration, the celebration of the birth and christening of their king and queen's twin children, put them all to shame.

Two children, the succession doubly secured. Emma Agreste, firstborn and Crown Princess, with brilliant green eyes and hair like spun gold (what little of it had yet come in). Half the kingdom was whispering that her birth proved the King blessed with the gift of prophecy, for how else could he possibly have known months in advance to change the laws and make the royal succession by order of birth regardless of gender? And then there was Louis, in whose black hair and blue eyes poets were already finding visions of a mighty champion, worthy of his renowned grandfather.

There were celebrations throughout the land (or would be as soon as the news reached the various towns and cities that their Queen had given birth to twins). But the capital was practically one vast party, and the royal palace was the eye of the storm.

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We'll have to stop this soon. Adrien thought as he surveyed the seemingly endless line of well-wishers. He was probably good for another few hours, the cat's instincts blended well with his training on occasions such as this, but Marinette was starting to fidget. Nino and Alya had disappeared left just after the noon feast, before the show even started. They'd already given their congratulations well before the children were even christened, and their duties as godparents did not include dealing with an endless parade of celebrants. It was easy to forget just how many people lived in his capitol, until a moment like this when they all wanted to come into his palace and see his newly christened children.

And then yet another well-wisher turned aside, and Adrien jolted to full alertness as he saw the next figure in line. She looked to be a girl of about ten or twelve years, just beginning to blossom into womanhood, clad in a knee-length dress of pale pink. Thick red curls framed a round face dotted with freckles, and two sky-blue eyes shone above a small nose and a broad smile.

Adrien wasn't fooled for a second, and the overlarge black cat that wrapped around her ankles did only a little to reassure him. Lady Luck, he thought. Well, I suppose this could be a good thing.

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Marinette saw her cat stiffen out of the corner of her eye, just as she too recognized Lady Luck.

"Your Ladyship," Marinette said with a mostly genuine smile. "A pleasure to see you on such an occasion. What brings you here?"

Lady Luck's laughter was as clear and beautiful and inhuman as the chime of bells or the babble of a brook. The whole audience chamber fell silent at that voice, background chatter ending as though cut off with a sword. "How could I stay away when the most remarkable human I've met in many a long year and my kismesis's newest pet have brought forth not one but two children? This is an occasion deserving my presence, and my blessing."

"Thank you for the thought, Your Ladyship," said Adrien, a little too quickly, "but you really don't need to feel obligated. I'm quite happy with what I have."

Lady Luck giggled again. "Very polite of you, little king," she said. "But you needn't fear repeating your father's mistake. Only one blessing is compelled of me today, and that by the mother's line."

She reached into the pocket of her dress, and produced a small locket on a chain, made of rose gold and decorated with a stylized ladybug. "Emma, descendant of ancient Mulan," Tikki said, bending over the cradle in which Emma slept obliviously "receive now that which she won for you." She fastened the chain around Emma's tiny neck, the locket coming to rest on her stomach. "Keep this charm sealed tight and close at hand, and my favour shall always be with you."

She straightened back up again. "And so that which I was bound to do I have done," she said. "But when all others are wishing these newborns well, how can I refrain? Another blessing I will give today, and this to them both alike. Now, what would serve these two well…"

Marinette tried to calm her nerves.

Surely this will be good for them, she thought. My cat's blessing was a very special case, and even then it worked out for the best.

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Tikki looked down on the twin babies, the paths they might walk and the potential within them spreading out before her mind's eye.

Such potential! she thought. Healthy bodies, minds that could grow keen, and they're both mages. Strong ones at that, though of course not on the same scale as their father.

And these two stand at the crossroads of history. Adrien and Marinette have already done so much, and will do far more before they die. Their reign could start a golden age throughout this whole part of the world that would last for centuries. But it'll be up to Emma and Louis, and the others who are yet to come, to finish what Marinette and Adrien will start and bring that age to its fruition. Just a little nudge, that's all I should need to make sure that all this potential isn't wasted.

She took a deep breath. That was mostly for show, but it also let her mentally review the wording of her blessing. While her intent would shade how the blessing manifested, the exact words could still be critically important. And of course, she needed to choose her words such that Adrien wouldn't panic too badly. She didn't want him losing his head and trying to make another bargain with Plagg or something equally idiotic.

"Emma, daughter of Marinette, daughter of Adrien," she said, and roseate sparkles began to fall from her splayed fingers, drifting like flower petals over the twin infants. "Louis, son of Adrien, son of Marinette. This is my blessing upon you, that you may be in all ways true heirs to the greatness of your parents. May all the potential of their blood be brought forth in you, and may you learn all that they shall seek to teach you. May you inherit your parents' keen minds and kindly hearts, your father's mighty spirit and your mother's valiant soul."

She clenched her fingers into a fist, and there was a momentary flash of pinkish-red light as she sealed the blessing.

"And now," a familiar voice drawled from around her ankles, "my turn."

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Adrien started slightly as Plagg spoke.

What in the lamb's blood? he thought.

Plagg's form suddenly blurred, his size doubling and doubling again, his limbs elongating, his form changing, until a single deep breath later there stood next to Lady Luck a figure that bore a surprising resemblance to Cat Noir near the most bestial end of his transformations. The head was almost purely feline, with the slitted green eyes of the kwami's feline form, twin ears perched atop the head, and a feline mouth complete with whiskers. The mane-like ruff of Plagg's normal shape seemed to have been rendered into shaggy locks of black hair that tumbled just past Plagg's shoulders. Below the neck, Plagg's form was mostly human save for too-thick fingers from which curved claws emerged. Lean, wiry musculature like that of a runner or duelist was slightly obscured by close-cropped black fur, and absolutely nothing else. Out of the corner of his eye, Adrien saw a blush stain Marinette's face, and he stifled an absurd temptation to snicker. The silence that Tikki's presence had brought was suddenly broken by dozens of whispered exclamations, the gathered mass of Adrien's subjects expressing their bewilderment and surprise.

"Lord Misfortune," Adrien said. Plenty of practice with juggling names and titles made it easy to remember which of the dark fae's names could be used in public, and which were to be kept a secret. "Might I enquire what you intend to do? Should you lay a curse upon my children, I doubt very much you would like the consequences."

Plagg grinned, jaw dropping open and ears and whiskers quirking forward in what Adrien recognized as the feline equivalent of a belly laugh. "Don't worry, I'm not about to risk my cheese supply that way. This is the best deal I've had in ages. Actually, I'm hoping to keep it going into the next generation. If you'll wait just a second, you'll see what I mean."

Plagg raised one hand and flexed the muscles slightly, claws retracting into their hidden sheaths. He then stuck one leather-pawed thumb into his mouth and bit down hard. He removed the thumb, and Adrien saw a drop of blood, ink-black and thicker than human blood, ooze from the pad of the thumb.

Plagg quickly pressed his bloodied thumb to first Emma's forehead, then Louis's, leaving behind glistening black fingerprints on the pale skin.

"By this mark," Plagg said, voice echoing through the throneroom, "let it be known to all the powers of darkness and destruction that these two enjoy my favor. They are now and henceforth under my protection, and should any subject of mine do them harm, I shall know of it and my wrath shall fall upon the offender."

As Plagg spoke, the black blood sank into Emma and Louis's skin, until by the time he'd finished the matching black thumbprints could have been a pair of oddly detailed birthmarks. With a broad grin, Plagg tugged on one feline ear, and promptly vanished in a puff of black smoke. Only then did Adrien notice that Lady Luck had also vanished at some point.

The throne room exploded with conversation, and Adrien let out a long breath.

Well, he thought, that's that. Hopefully Plagg will be willing to explain exactly what he and Tikki did next time he shows up for cheese.

For now, though, I have a crowd to deal with.

 

[Aeshdan]

[AN: One possible AU of the Triwizard Tournament choosing scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Even for the wizarding world, the idea of using a device that allows one person to enter another into a binding magical contract, with no safeguards, seems a little nuts. Suppose that it was not actually that easy... ]
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As the judges, the champions, and Harry marched out into the Great Hall, the hall exploded with sound once again, applause and boos and frantic discussion mingling into cacophony.

A sharp flick of Professor Dumbledore's wand produced a sound like a crack of thunder, and the noise vanished as if cut with a knife.

"Thank you," said Professor Dumbledore, voice booming out as Ludo Bagman's had at the Quidditch World Cup. "Now, Mr. Potter claims he did not put his name into the Goblet, nor did he ask anyone to put it in for him. I have made an extensive study of the Goblet's enchantments in preparation for this tournament, as I am sure my fellow Heads did, and I am pleased to say that this may be simply and easily tested."

There was a vast sound as the entire school seemed to draw in breath at once.

"The enchantments on the Goblet," Professor Dumbledore said, gesturing to the now-extinguished cup, "are at their base contract-magic, of much the same sort as the Ministry uses today. As such, they react principally to intent. There are many esoteric magical details involved, but suffice it to say that if young Mr. Potter is telling the truth, and his name was placed into the Goblet without his consent or knowledge, then the Goblet will not have bound him to the tournament. Instead, whoever it is who truly placed Mr. Potter's name in the Goblet shall have assumed the binding magical contract. Moreover, with the proper incantation, the Goblet may be made to reveal those whom it currently holds bound. If Harry is telling the truth, then the Goblet shall point not to him, but to the one who put his name in the Goblet."

Dumbledore turned to the Beaubaxtons Headmistress. "Madame Maxime, would you care to do the honors? As Harry is one of my students, I feel it would be best if I were not the one to test his claim."

"Very well, Dumbly-dore," Madame Maxime said frostily. She strode over to the Goblet, raised her wand, and began to recite a long incantation.

Harry could feel his hands trembling. The horror and resignation that had filled him when his name emerged from the Goblet were warring with a sudden bright hope. All he'd wanted was to have one normal year, one year in which he didn't need to fight for his life and soul. For those few minutes, that had seemed too much to ask, but perhaps, just perhaps, he might actually get his wish.

With the final word of her incantation, Madame Maxime struck the Goblet sharply with the tip of her wand. With a whoosh, the Goblet burst into flame, the blue flames dancing within the cup rapidly rising into a swirling pillar of flame. Suddenly, four bolts of fire shot out from that pillar like striking serpents. Three struck Cedric, Krum, and Fleur, connecting them to the Goblet with lines of blue fire. The fourth bolt shot towards Harry, and he felt his heart sink… but then the bolt shot over his shoulder to strike Alastor Moody, haloing him in blue-white flame.

Harry stared at Professor Moody, his jaw dropping. Moody's hand flashed to his wand, but before he could even draw it twin bolts of red light flashed across the room, slamming into him an eyeblink apart and sending him flying back to land crumpled against the wall.

Professor Dumbledore rushed to Professor Moody, ropes shooting from his wand to tie up the unconscious Professor. At that moment, seeing the cold fury in Dumbledore's eyes and the power blazing from him like heat from a fire, Harry knew why it was that Dumbledore was the only one Voldemort ever feared. Dumbledore knelt beside Moody, pulling the flask from his pocket and sniffing at it. "Polyjuice Potion," Harry heard him mutter.

Before he could say anything further, Mister Crouch's face suddenly twisted, and he broke into a charge towards Dumbledore, hands extending. Before he'd taken two steps, a flash of red shot from Dumbledore's wand and Crouch slumped to the floor, unconscious.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Dumbledore murmured. "Professor Snape!" he said in a louder voice.

"Yes, Headmaster?" Snape drawled.

"As Chief Warlock of the Wizenagamot, I am officially authorizing the use of Veritaserum on this man, to find out who he is, how he comes to impersonate Alastor Moody, and why he attempted to enter Harry Potter into the Triwizard Tournament. If you would kindly fetch some from your stores and meet me in the Defense Professor's office?"

"At once, Headmaster," said Professor Snape, and he promptly spun about and billowed out of the Great Hall.

"My fellow Heads, Ludo, Harry," Professor Dumbledore continued, levitating the unconscious Professor Moody and Crouch into the air with a flick of his wand, "if you would please follow me?"

"You mean to let Potter be present for this?" said Karkaroff in disbelief. "He is just a boy!"

"The matter intimately concerns him, Headmaster Karkaroff," said Professor Dumbledore. "He has more right than most to know whatever truths may come to light tonight."

Harry mutely trailed behind the three Headmasters and the floating form of…

Who? Harry thought. If he's not Professor Moody, then who is he?

They made their way into the fake Moody's office, Harry momentarily distracted from his bewilderment by the multitude of strange devices, almost as many and as odd as he'd seen in Professor Dumbledore's office. With a wave of Professor Dumbledore's wand, the unconscious Crouch and Moody were deposited in two chairs, with two more waves the magical eye popped from its socket and the peg leg wriggled out from the ropes binding the unconscious Professor. With a final wave of Dumbledore's wand, a bunch of keys slipped between the ropes and flew into his hand.

Dumbledore turned to the chest in the corner with the seven locks, turned a key in the first lock, and opened the chest. It contained a mass of spellbooks. Dumbledore closed the chest, turned a different key in the second lock, and reopened it. The spellbooks had vanished, and it now contained an assortment of broken Sneakoscopes, some quills and parchment, and what looked like a silvery Invisbility Cloak. One by one Dumbledore turned each of the locks, each revealing a different interior to the chest, until finally he turned the seventh lock and opened the lid.

Harry stared in amazement. He was looking down into a pit, far deeper than the trunk, and at the bottom lay what could only be the real Mad-Eye Moody, horribly thin and missing his eye, his leg, and chunks of his grizzled hair.

Dumbledore vaulted the edge of the trunk and descended into the pit, touching down feather-light at the bottom.

"Stunned, and probably Imperiused as well," he said as if to himself. "Someone throw down the imposter's cloak, he's freezing. He'll have to see Madam Pomfrey, of course, but I don't think he's in any immediate danger. The imposter had to keep him alive and at least reasonably healthy, if only for the Polyjuice. And I fancy…"

The door opened, and Professor Snape swept in, holding a small bottle.

"Right on time, Severus," Professor Dumbledore said brightly, rising up out of Moody's trunk as if on an elevator. "Does Veritaserum interact with Polyjuice, by the by?"

"It does not," Snape said.

"Then let's go ahead and interrogate him," Ludo Bagman said. "I, for one, wish to know what in Merlin's name is the meaning of this!"

At a wave of Dumbledore's wand, the fake Moody's mouth opened slightly, and Snape carefully tipped three drops in. Dumbledore pointed his wand at the man's chest and said "Ennervate"

The fake Moody's eyes fluttered open, and Dumbledore knelt in front of him.

"Can you hear me?" he said.

"Yes," the imposter tonelessly.

"What is your name?" Dumbledore said.

"Bartemius Crouch."

"What?" Bagman blurted out. "How is that possible? Barty is right over there!"

"That is my father," the imposter replied.

"Merlin!" Bagman whispered. "Barty Crouch Jr? How are you still alive?"

"My mother saved me," the man who still looked like Alastor Moody said. "She was dying, and she loved me greatly. She persuaded my father to save me. They came to visit me, and my mother and I switched places by means of the Polyjuice Potion. My father smuggled me out in my mother's shape under the Imperius Curse, and she stayed behind. She continued to take Polyjuice Potion for a few days, until she was certain that the switch had not been noticed. Then she took a poison that would kill her swiftly and painlessly, so that she died in my shape and would not change back. She was buried in my place."

The three Headmasters, Bagman, Snape and Harry all stood silent, transfixed by Barty Crouch's emotionless recitation. "Meanwhile, my father staged my mother's death. A quiet, private funeral. That grave is empty. The family house-elf, Winky, nursed me back to health, and my father kept me under the Imperius Curse to keep me quiet, to keep me from seeking out my master."

"How did you come to be here at Hogwarts?" Dumbledore said.

"My master came for me," Crouch whispered. Before their eyes, his form began to change. Scars faded, the damaged nose grew whole and shrank, grizzled hair retracted into the skull and grew fair. Crouch continued talking without pause, seeming not even to notice. "He arrived at our house late one night, carried in the arms of his servant, Wormtail. My father answered the door, and my master had him under the Imperius before he could react. I was free, and my master told me his plans. He would need a faithful servant here at Hogwarts, a servant who could enter Harry Potter into the Triwizard Tournament, guide him in secret, and at last deliver him over to my master. Wormtail and I went to Alastor Moody's house. We had prepared the Polyjuice in advance. Moody put up a struggle, but we were able to subdue him just in time and stuff him in his own trunk. I took the Polyjuice, with one of Moody's hairs, and donned his eye and leg. I had time to move some dustbins around and make them shoot rubbish before anyone from the Ministry arrived, and I claimed that a Muggle had set off my security system. They believed me, Moody was so eccentric that they would have bought anything I said. Then I packed up Moody's clothes and Dark Detectors in the trunk with Moody, and set off for Hogwarts."

"And who is your master?" Dumbledore said, voice growing intense.

"The Dark Lord," Barty Crouch said, a disturbing gleam flashing in his eyes even through the Veritaserum haze. "Lord Voldemort." A causual wave of his wand silenced Ludo Bagman, whose mouth opened and shut soundlessly.

"And Wormtail?"

"Peter Pettigrew," Crouch said, and Harry felt a sudden surge of hope.

"So Sirius Black was not the traitor who betrayed the Potters?" Dumbledore said.

"No. Sirius Black was loyal to his blood traitor friends, it was Pettigrew who was their Secret Keeper. I heard the whole story from my master after he rescued me."

"And where are they now?" Dumbledore asked, voice taut with suppressed triumph.

For the first time, Barty Crouch seemed to be fighting the serum, but after a few moments of thrashing, "The Gaunt Manor!" slipped through clenched teeth.

"Enough," Dumbledore said, stunning Barty again with a flash of his wand. "Snape, kindly take Alastor down to Madame Pomfrey, then join me at the Ministry. Ludo, if you would come with me, Amelia Bones will want your confirmation of what Barty here just said. Headmistress Maxime, Headmaster Karkaroff, I would suggest you return to your students. Three voices should be enough for Bones. Harry, you should probably return to your dorms. Your fellow students will wish to know what is going on, and it will be some time before I am back from the Ministry."

Harry walked from the Dumbledore's office, still stunned. In the space of not even a full hour, his life had been upended more thoroughly than it had been since Hagrid had told him he was a wizard and finally delivered his Hogwarts letter.

But as he walked through the corridors, a spark of hope was slowly building in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, things would start getting better from here.

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Months Later

Harry stared down from the stands in horror.

"I would have had to fight that?" he exclaimed, pointing at the massive dragon now nesting in the center of the arena.

"Thank Merlin you don't, Pup," said Sirius Black from where he sat next to Harry. "For once, you just get to sit and watch as some other poor soul faces the horrifying danger. All you need to worry about is finding a date for the Yule Ball."

"The what?" Harry asked.

"Shush, he's coming out!" Ron Weasley said from Harry's other side.

Harry grabbed his Omnioculars and looked down, seeing Cedric Diggory emerge from the champion's tent.

Here we go… thought Harry with a grin as he settled back to enjoy the show.

 

[Aeshdan]

[AN: In Wildbow's world, precognition is the king of powers. From the Simurgh to Contessa to Coil, those with the power to see the future are responsible for the horrifically broken nature of life on Earth Bet. What would happen if a certain God Tier Hero, one whose signature power is the ability to blind precognitives all throughout her session, entered the picture?]
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In the space between spaces, two gods contemplated a world.

"yoU can see that the place is qUite a mess," said the one whose skin was green and whose face was like a skull. "i sUspect that this Universe's genesis frog has developed parasites."

"i c wat u mean," said the other, a young woman with wine-colored eyes and snow-white skin and hair. "nasty wriggly things, and so dumb. what really gets me though, is the humans. i mean, we did some pretty horrible things, i'm not denyin that. but at least we had some excuses. we were kids, raised by nutjobs more than half of us, and paradox space depended on us bein a bunch of screwed-up dysfunctionals. these are supposed to be grownups, but they're actin worse than we ever did. so focused on their path to victory that they're burnin the world down around them like a bunch of subjuggulators. enough to drive me to drinkin again."

"they need to be taUght a lesson," said the first power. "and i believe yoU are jUst the one to do it."

"no kidding," said the second. "ok, so how we doin this?"

"in a moment, one of these parasites shall attempt to attach itself to a yoUng girl, one who has been betrayed by her closest friends and trapped in a manner i woUld not wish even Upon my brother. yoU shoUld be able to preempt this parasite, and offer her instead a portion of yoUr powers. i have no doUbt that she shall accept. introdUce yoUr power, the void that blinds the seer, into this world, and these conspirators will be forced to consider the paths before them as mortals do."

"right, got it. and here we go…"

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Taylor hammered frantically against the walls of the locker. Her voice had given out, her fists were bloody, and she was becoming terribly certain she was going to die in there. She could feel the bugs moving beneath her flesh where they had chewed through her skin, and…

Something vast, enormous, a fractal impossibility. Something vast as a continent broke free and floated down. It reached out a tendril glowing with countless promises, reached down—

uh-uh.

Cobalt-edged blackness swirled around Taylor, the tendril vanishing.

sorry, a voice said in her mind, but you really don't want that thing's help. it'll do horrible things to your mind, and nfw am i puttin up with that when i don't have to. bright side, i can get you out of that locker. i have my reasons for wanting an avatar in this world, so i can give you a bit of my power. it'll get you out of that locker, i've gotten out of much tougher prisons in my time. deal?

"Yes," Taylor whispered. "Please…"

Emptiness filled her. She was nothing, was one with the void. Frantically, she lunged forward, passing through the metal of the locker door and leaving behind filth and rot and bugs.

She landed on all fours in the hallway in front of the locker, staring down at the snow-white skin of her hands.

wups, said the voice in her head, sounding slightly embarrassed. sorry about your colors. i've never actually done this before, at least not in this particular way. looks like you ended up with my skin and hair color, or lack thereof.

All around Taylor, the hallway exploded in a babble of multiple overlapping voices.

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At his desk at the PRT headquarters, Thomas Calvert started and almost fell over backwards off his chair. The other timeline, the one where he was inspecting his secret base, had just snapped shut. Frantically, he tried to split the timelines again, to figure out what had just happened and get some options to work with, but his power… stuttered, the divergent timelines collapsing again the instant he opened them.

In a blind panic, he leapt to his feet and fled for the stairs, trying to split time again every few feet. Whatever this was, a Trump effect, some kind of Tinkertech device, his only hope was to get out of range. Without his power, there was no way he'd be able to juggle all the balls necessary to keep his double life going.

His power still would not function.

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Step 3297, turn latch.

Contessa reached out and rotated the latch.

Step 3298, enter room.

Contessa stepped into the room.

Step 3299

The Path vanished.

Contessa stood there for a moment, waiting for the next step towards her goal to appear in her head as it always had since she was a small child. Nothing happened.

Path towards destroying research that might incriminate Alexandria, she thought, hoping that the path she had been on would reappear. Nothing happened.

Path towards finding a bathroom, she thought experimentally. Nothing happened.

She racked her brain, trying to recall what it had been like to have to think, figure out the next step towards her goals rather than having it handed her by her power.

"Door to Cauldron Headquarters," she said after a moment.

Nothing happened.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, Contessa felt genuine fear.

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"I can't see, I can't see."

Doctor Mother stared down in horror at the Clairvoyant. In company with his partner the Doormaker, the Clairvoyant was one of Cauldron's greatest assets, giving them faultless surveillance of Earth Bet and most of the parallel Earths, and the ability to open portals that would let them go anywhere, penetrate any security. But it was Clairvoyant's gifted sight that allowed the Doormaker to open his portals. If someone had, impossibly, blinded the Clairvoyant, then Cauldron had in one stroke lost their surveillance capabilities and been cut off from the wider multiverse.

Who could do this? she thought.

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In orbit around Earth Bet, the Simurgh suddenly halted, freezing in her perpetual circuit. In between one moment and the next, her pre- and post-cognitive senses had suddenly been blinded. A power she could not begin to comprehend had thrown a veil over the past and the future, leaving her completely blind.

On the world below, her countless manipulations began to slowly come unraveled.

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In the space between spaces, the Muse of Space turned to address the Rogue of Void.

"and now we wait."

"and now we wait," repeated the Rogue.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: At the beginning of "Cats And Dogs", Butch tells Lou a story of how the war between cats and dogs began in Ancient Egypt, with the cats enslaving humanity before the dogs rose up and drove them out. But when the second movie revealed the existence of M.E.O.W.S., a equally heroic feline counterpart and rival to D.O.G., it occurred to me to wonder what their side of the story looked like...
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"It all began back in Ancient Egypt."

Catherine's awed glance flicked back and forth from Tab Lazenby to the screen he had just revealed behind a trick panel in the wall of his human's house. She'd heard of M.E.O.W.S., of course, almost all cats did, but she'd never thought she'd be inducted as an actual agent.

Tab tapped a key with one claw, bringing up a stylized mural showing cats and humans facing each other.

"Back then, cats and humans lived together in harmony," he said. "With our ingenuity and cunning combined with human drive and musclepower, the first true civilization began to flourish. Writing, agriculture, architecture, all discovered as a result of feline genius."

As Tab talked, he advanced through a number of slides showing humans and cats harvesting fields, building pyramids, catching fish, and other activities.

"Unfortunately, that was when the dogs entered the picture," Tab said, advancing to the next slide. This one showed a horde of stylized dogs descending on the humans and cats, driving them into retreat and setting fire to the buildings and fields. "They envied us the fruits of our progress and civilization, our soft beds and sturdy roofs and abundant fish. So they made an alliance with human barbarians, and one day they launched a massive assault, seeking to take what we had made. At the time, we were a peaceful race, so between that and the dogs' greater natural size and strength we were routed in those first battles. The dogs tried to co-opt our work and our discoveries, but just as it has been ever since they could only break what they tried to take, looting the fruits of our civilization but unable to keep the mechanisms running."

"Meanwhile, we turned our cunning to the arts of war, and soon were able to level the playing field, regaining much of what the dogs took from us. And that was the beginning of what would eventually become M.E.O.W.S., those few among the cats who work to protect everything that our fellow felines and our human partners have spent millennia building from the threat of jealous canines. We are the thin furry line, all that stands between civilization and anarchy."

Tab tapped one last key, and the trick panel slid back over the screen. A moment later, a second panel next to it slid open, revealing a passage disappearing into the darkness. "And you," Tab said, ears quirking forward in a feline smile, "have been found worthy to join us, to walk in the pawprints of Bastet and Puss-In-Boots and Cat Sith."

"Congratulations, Catherine. And welcome to M.E.O.W.S."

 

[Aeshdan]

[AN: Inspired by Silently Watches' Black Queen series. Excellent worldbuilding, though I cannot endorse his plot choices.]

[AN2: Happy All Soul's, everyone!]
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Molly Weasley had never really believed in the Old Ways. Oh, she'd heard the stories as a little girl and later at Weasley family reunions, and had told them to her children. She'd joined in with the other wizarding families in the neighborhood to wassail the orchards every Christmas, and celebrated on the summer solstice when the powers of Light were supposed to reach their peak. But she'd never truly believed, never expected or wanted the Powers to be more than children's stories and an excuse to get together with other witches and wizards for a feast and a fun activity every so often.

But now, as she carefully peaked in the door to see her daughter slumped facedown and quietly sobbing on her bed, she was desperate enough to hope. Desperate enough to pray.

She slipped off to her own room, and locked the door. Arthur wouldn't be back for hours, but she didn't want any of her younger children coming in. She already felt ridiculous enough just doing this, she didn't want any witnesses.

"Mother Danu," she whispered, dropping to her knees next to her bed. "Titania, guardian of children. Please, if you're real, if you actually hear our prayers, help my daughter. Please, bring her peace, heal the wounds that abominable diary inflicted on her. Please…"

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Ginny felt herself walking into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. A sibilant hiss came from her lips without her mind's prompting, and the sink ground open. Helpless, trapped in her own mind, Ginny felt herself slide down the twisting pipe. The walls blurred around her, and then she was standing in front of the serpent-marked door. That same inhuman hissing issued forth from her lips, and the door swung open. She felt herself walk down the long avenue between the serpent statues, until she finally came to the pool before the oversized bust of Slytherin. She felt herself pull the diary out from her pocket and set it on the ground in front of her. There was a ripple in the air, and then the translucent form of Tom took shape in front of her.

"Hello, Ginny," Tom said.

"Tom?" Ginny said, suddenly able to move herself once again. "How… where am I?"

Tom laughed. "You are in the Chamber of Secrets, my dear."

"You look real," Ginny said.

"Not quite yet," Tom said, smile growing cruel. "I am a memory, preserved in a diary for over fifty years. I have to thank you, Ginny, for giving so much of yourself to me. If you had not poured your heart into my diary, I would never have been able to continue Salazar Slytherin's great work, let alone stand here before you."

"No," the dream Ginny whispered, horror filling her, "that's not possible".

"Be at peace, my child," an unfamiliar voice said. The Chamber and Tom seemed to melt, colors running together into a shapeless blur, and suddenly Ginny found herself standing in the Weasley's apple orchard.

"Wait, what's…" Ginny began before interrupting herself. "This is a dream, isn't it? Shouldn't I be waking up now?"

She looked around for a moment, and then her gaze returned to the tree in front of her. Which now had a face looking out of it. The face frowned for a moment, and then pressed forwards, smooth bark flowing like water as a woman's shape stepped out of the tree. The figure's face and chest were human and maternal, plump and curved like Ginny's mother, though the flesh gave way to bark along the back and limbs.

"Fear not, little one," the tree-woman said, her voice breathy and inhuman as the rustling of leaves. " He has no power here. Here, you are safe."

"Who are you?" Ginny demanded.

"I have been known by many names," the figure said, plump lips quirking in a slight smile. "I have been Gaea and Holda and the Mother of Mercies, but your ancestors called me Danu. That will do for now."

"Danu…" Ginny said slowly. "Like in the stories Mum used to tell? You're real?"

"Indeed I am," said the tree-woman laughingly. "Few remember the Old Ways in these days, and even fewer believe. Take your mother, for example. She heard the stories, she told them to you, she even participated in a few of my rituals. Yet she did not truly believe, or want to believe. Not until this summer, when in her concern for you she found… not belief, perhaps, but hope. She loved you enough to wish that I was real, so that I might bring you peace. And for the sake of that wish, and for the sake of those who came before you and served me well, I have come."

Her expression turned almost impish. "Yet I don't think it is my comfort you wish. You are not your mother, and it is a different facet of the Light that shines brightest in you."

There was a blinding flash and a sound like a crack of thunder, and when Ginny's vision cleared a man was standing next to the tree-woman. He stood what had to be at least seven feet tall, with golden-blond hair that stretched to his shoulders, a trim beard and mustache covering a squared jaw, and clad only in a kind of leather kilt that exposed a chest, arms, and legs rippling with muscle. In one hand, he grasped an oversized hammer with a square head, runes along the shaft and head glowing with the same vivid blue-white light as their bearer's eyes.

"GREETINGS, GINEVRA WEASLEY!", the figure said in a voice like the roar of thunder. The words hit Ginny with an almost palpable force, driving her back a step.

"Now, brother," scolded Danu. "Indoor voice, remember?"

"I AM JUPITER AND MARDUK AND THOR!" boomed the man. "I AM THE RAGING STORM, THE THUNDER AND THE LIGHTNING AND THE WRATH OF THE ALMIGHTY. I WILL NOT BE TOLD TO USE MY 'INDOOR VOICE'!"

To Ginny's slight surprise, a snicker escaped her at that.

"Nevertheless," the man continued, voice dropping from its thunderous boom to a more human volume, "I do take your point, my sister."

"Again," he said, casually switching the hammer to his left hand and extending his right to Ginny, "greetings to you, Ginny Weasley."

Ginny took the hand, feeling shaken. It was hotter than a human hand, with a grip that somehow felt both delicate and firm, as though only the tiniest trickle of a strength too vast to imagine was being employed.

"What's going on?" Ginny said, letting go of the hand. "What are you two doing in my dream?"

"I am here, Ginny," said Thor, "because you have known the touch of true evil. It has scarred your mind and wounded your soul, and you now know, as few do, what evil truly is. You know that the one of whom your tormentor was only a shadow is still out there, and the boy you love must fight him still ere all things can end. I would give you the strength to fight beside your love against the servant of our enemies."

"Me… fight V-Voldemort?" Ginny whispered.

"Not, I hope, for a while yet," said Thor quickly. "But there is valor and strength in you already, enough to fight well against the poisons of the one you called Voldemort, and you will grow strong in magic and body should nothing interfere. In time, you could be a great warrior for the Light, and ensure that others need not suffer as you have. There are too few who bear my mantle these days, and the one who claims the title of the Light's Leader has fallen to the mirror blindness."

"The what?"

Danu winced. "The mirror blindness. It's a term we've heard used among our followers, to speak of one who believes that he is following the way of Light but has twisted it into madness. We say that he sees the true Light, but only sees it reflected in the warped mirror of his own mind."

"In any case," said Thor quickly, "do you accept my bargain, Ginny? We cannot hold you in this dream forever, and once it passes I cannot extend this offer anew until the longest day comes round once more."

Ginny bit her lip. "Please don't take this the wrong way," she said, "but how do I know I can trust you? Tom sounded nice, but he betrayed me. And you appear in a dream like this, with an offer I have to accept now…" she trailed off, unable to find the words.

"By our fruits shall you know us," said Danu. "You have heard the tales from your mother, have you not?"

"Yes…" Ginny said.

"And what did those tales say of us?" Danu followed up. "Did we sound like beings to be feared or mistrusted? Or, if you like, judge us by what we shall ask of you. All my brother has asked you to do is to fight against the one whose shadow so harmed you, and against those like him. Is that not a worthy purpose?"

"That's not what I mean," Ginny said. "How do I know you are what you say you are?"

"What would be the point of lies, in this situation?" said Thor, looking slightly perplexed. "If we were not what we say we are, if I were… say the Baron, then how would getting you to swear to the service of Thor help the Baron's agenda? And if we did not need your assent to do what we propose, then why would we be having this meeting in the first place?"

Ginny nodded her head reluctantly. She was still scared, but Thor's words made sense. And she wanted to believe, she realized. So much of what she wanted was tied up in this offer: A chance for vengeance upon Tom, the chance to save Harry as he'd saved her, the desire to be more than just a housewife…

"I accept your bargain," she said, screwing up her Gryffindor courage.

Thor raised his hand, and a bolt of lightning shot down with a crack that almost deafened her. The lightning became a blazing mass of blue-white fire in his hand, which then solidified into a hammer much like the one Thor still held in his left hand, only smaller, proportioned for Ginny to wield. Thor flipped the hammer around, catching it by the head and extending the hilt towards her.

"Then take up your weapon, my champion," he said.

Ginny reached out and grasped the hilt of the hammer. A shock of white fire leapt up her arm, and she jolted awake, her arms flailing out, one hand rapping against her bedside table.

Nimue's tears, Ginny thought, breathing hard, what a dream!

Or was it…

Please let it have been real.

She turned her focus inwards, and she felt something in the back of her mind like a tiny ember of fire. She reached for that warmth, and after a couple of tries she felt something within herself touch it. White heat shot down the nerves of her arm, and her bedroom was lit up as tiny lightnings danced between her fingers.

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A fire burned high from the center of the white marble cube, and the wizard knelt before the icon, his colorless robe pooling as it met the stone floor. "Your follower comes at Your call, Your Holiness."

Footsteps sounded from behind the cube. The wizard glanced up just long enough to see a golden man step into view, a long leather skirt the only clothing the figure possessed, before returning his eyes to the flame. The figure strode next to him and turned to regard the fire, as well. "Our finest servant," the golden man finally said, "Our ever-faithful priest. We have a task for you."

"You need only tell this one what You desire, and it shall be done."

"So it has always been, even when your heart cried out in sorrow at what needed doing," the golden man said, "Yet in this task We hope you may find true joy. A young witch has accepted Our mantle, newest of Our still-few champions. She is untrained, and though those around her are pure of heart, they have not the skills to train her in the weapons We give Our servants to wield."

The wizard felt a surge of relief. He knew now what his master wished of him, and to train a fellow white mage would be a pleasure indeed compared to his usual duties. Even among black mages, few had fallen so far he could feel no pity for them, no sorrow at his role as their appointed executioner.

The fire flared, twisting into an image before him. The wizard studied the face, committing it to memory.

"In five week's time, she will arrive in the land of the Pyramid Kings, in the new capital of the country. You shall meet her there, and instruct her in the use of her new powers and in the nature of both Our siblings's and Our enemies' servants. To prove your identity to her, tell her that Thor bids you tell her he still refuses to use his inside voice."

The wizard kept his surprise from showing on his face. That was most certainly not something he would expect his master to say. Still, on a moment's reflection he could see the sense in the passphrase. As it was not anything anyone would expect his master to say, no imposter would be likely to guess it. Perhaps the girl had suggested it during her meeting with his master, when they had made their contract.

"All shall be as you desire, Your Holiness," said the wizard, bowing before the white cube of his altar.
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Luna Lovegood was dreaming of a dance. She wore a billowing gown of silver, covered in sparkles like constellations, and her partner wore robes black as night, though his skin and hair were as pale as hers. They spun and leapt and twirled in a grassy clearing within a shadowy forest, dancing to music that came from nowhere.

Luna felt a tugging sensation, and glanced down at herself as the dream froze. Ribbons of silvery-white light wrapped around her, twining around her limbs and wrapping her chest. From any distance, the ribbons would appear to be undifferentiated streaks of white, but from this close Luna could see that they were words. Runes etched in silvery-white fire, packed so close together that from any distance they blurred into ribbons of light. All the ribbons came together in the middle of her chest, wrapping around each other in a knot of luminous words too bright to read.

And coming out of that knot, another ribbon of luminous silver-white runes stretched off into the distance. Even as Luna watched, the runes flared brighter and she felt the same tugging sensation.

"Fascinating," she said. "I wonder what this is about. Only one way to find out, I suppose."

She grasped the ribbon of words and tugged back. Immediately, there was a much harder pull. Luna was yanked out of the dream, which burst into brilliant fragments of thought and idea. The pull of the ribbon of light dragged Luna through the memetic chaos, ripples of distorted thought spreading out in her wake and throwing nearby dreamscapes into chaos.

Soon, the ribbon pulled her out of the fog of dreams and fragments of ideas into emptiness. Before her there shone an enormous, blazing beacon of silver-tinged white, countless layers of luminous runes shining over and under each other, extending outwards into eternity. The ribbon of light that had pulled Luna this far extended into that blazing light, where it vanished beyond Luna's ability to track it.

Luna instinctively flinched, covering her eyes. Under that Light, she was suddenly horribly aware of all her flaws and failings, her jealousy of Ginevra for still having both her parents, her anger at the Almighty for taking her mother from her, her failures to share truth with her classmates when she had the opportunity, her pride at possessing knowledge hidden from others, every flaw or stain on her soul was laid bear. For this was Truth itself that shone before her, and in its light no lie could persist.

But these were sins she had faced before, and under the light of Truth she knew also that they could be forgiven. Not excused, but pardoned. She lowered her hand and gazed into the blazing silver-white sun.

"You called me, my patron?" she said.

This was so.

"I am of course at your service." Luna said. "What would you have of me?"

She hadn't been summoned to receive a task, but to learn information. A new white mage had been contracted.

"I see," Luna replied. "May I enquire as to who? Is it anyone I know?"

That information would not be shared tonight. The Pact between the Light and Dark powers did not permit Truth to share any information beyond the bare fact that a new white mage had been contracted, unless one of the Dark Powers first bent the terms of the Pact by sharing further information with one of their servants.

"Understood," Luna replied. "Thank you for the information, my patron."

Her thanks was appreciated, and it was now time for her to leave.

The light flared brighter, a wave of silver-tinged white slamming into her like a wave at the seaside, flinging her back into the memetic haze. She tumbled through the many-colored fog for a few moments, and then a curved arc of powder-blue light unfurled from her back like wings of pure magic, catching the memetic currents and turning her tumble into a swoop.

She backwinged, coming to a metaphorical halt, and the wings faded away again. Luna made a quick twisting gesture with both hands, and the memetic haze rippled with colors and shapes before becoming an ocean of something too thick to be water, the color of copper with streaks of blue-green patina across it. Enormous creatures like jellyfish with too-thick tentacles drifted above the coppery sea, some dipping their tendrils into it.

Luna - now a jellyfish like the others - drifted on the breeze. She'd remember what she learnt when she awoke, but right now she had a dream to enjoy.

 

[Aeshdan]

[AN: While I understand why Oblivio had to end with the Miracle erasing Ladybug and Cat Noir's memories, I've always felt that Ladybug should have been able to keep her memories. At that moment, she clearly wanted to remember, so I would expect that the Miracle would respond to her desires and leave her memories intact. Suppose that it did...]
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As Cat Noir released her from the kiss, Ladybug felt her heart twist within her. Even with only having known the feline superhero for maybe fifteen minutes, she already knew she loved him.

I wish I could remember this, she thought, then she threw the teapot upwards with a shout of "Miraculous Ladybug!" Above her, it exploded into a cloud of sparkling magic ladybugs. Some ladybugs swirled upwards, wiping away the massive memory bubble, others spiraled downwards into the building beneath, and one swarm swirled around her and Adrien. She felt the cool light of the Ladybug magic wash through her mind, and in its wake her memories were restored. She remembered everything…

I remember everything. Oh God, I remember everything. I remember… Oh god, Adrien is Cat Noir. AdrienisCatNoirIkissedAdrienOhmyGodohmyGod…

She was barely aware that her jaw had dropped and she'd taken a step back. In front of her, she saw her partner-love's eyes suddenly widen, and she knew that the same frantic thoughts were swirling through his mind.

"Uh, Ladybug, Cat Noir?"

At the sound of Alya's voice, Marinette suddenly remembered that they were not alone on the rooftop. With a supreme effort of will, she shoved down her confusion and surprise and focused on the now. She could afford to fall to pieces later.

"Pound it?" she said, raising one fist.

"Pound it!" Cat – Adrien – chorused, meeting her fist with his own.

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Cat Noir had no idea how his Lady managed to get through the hours after Oblivio. He was completely certain he wouldn't have been able to do it without years of practice at hiding his true feelings, presenting the emotions and appearance that he wished regardless of what was actually in his head.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the day was over. He was safely in his room, his father was gone, and he was finally free to call for Plagg and dash across the rooftops to his Lady's balcony.

He found Ladybug there waiting for him in civilian attire. He gazed across the street at her for a moment, feeling a sudden nervousness. He knew that Marinette had a fangirl crush on his civilian identity, which could make the upcoming conversation… awkward.

He bit down on his nervousness and leapt across the street, touching down on her balcony with a thump. She jumped, one hand coming up to her chest.

"Cat – Adrien!" she exclaimed, breathlessly interrupting herself. "You startled me!"

Adrien stared at her for a moment, marveling anew at how blind he'd been. Plagg had explained that there was magic on the Miraculouses to keep people from making the connection with their civilian identities, but he still would not have believed until today that he could go to school with his Lady for the better part of a year and not recognize her.

"Bizarre, isn't it?" he said, after the pause had stretched on long enough to become awkward, "For a year I've been crushing on Ladybug, waiting for her to acknowledge my feelings, when all the time she was crushing on me. All this time, we could have been enjoying each other's company."

Ladybug's cheeks turned as red as her suit, but then she shook herself and he saw the familiar spark of focus in her eyes.

"We'll have to be careful, going forward," she said. "More so even than before. You saw what happened on Heroes' Day, how knowing each other's identities threw Rena Rouge and Carapace off. There were reasons I insisted we had to keep our identities secret."

Cat Noir flinched slightly. "I know," he said quietly. "Believe me, I would rather anything than risk you."

"Still," he continued, pulling a smile onto his face, "Now is not the time to think about such things. Whatever the price will be for knowing each other, we're going to have to pay it anyway. Might as well enjoy the good parts of it."

He stepped forward and leaned down, pursing his lips. Marinette turned her head up, and their lips met.

No lightning and thunder. No sunbursts and angels singing. But then, we'd want to pay attention to that instead of to this.

I think I like this better.

He felt his lady's fingers tangling in his hair, pulling his head down against hers. He wrapped one leather-clad arm around her, holding her close, reveling in the feel of her lips on his and her body pressed up against him. He slid his tongue between her lips, twining his tongue around hers.

Eventually, he felt Marinette pull away from him. He opened his eyes, feeling a silly grin on his face and not caring, and smiled down at his Lady.

"So how are we going to do this?" he said. "Alya caught us kissing in the masks, so I doubt there's any point hiding our relationship as heroes. Might want to keep it a secret for a week or two as civilians, though. No point giving out any more clues than we have to, and it'll give us time to think through how to deal with Chloe and Lila and my father."

Marinette sighed. "I don't want to make a big deal about our relationship, not as heroes. We're superheroes, not celebrities. Whether or not we're dating shouldn't be anyone's business. And I don't know how well I'll be able to hide the change in our relationship as civilians." She blushed. "I wasn't exactly… circumspect… about my feelings towards you, and I don't see how I can fake that kind of desperation, not when I know that you actually do reciprocate my feelings."

Adrien shrugged. "Can't say that I feel the same way as you about the media, but I suppose that's just because I'm Adrien Agreste. Ever since I was old enough to understood what dating and relationships were, I've known that my romantic life would be scrutinized to the nth degree by the media. That just feels normal to me. And of course, now that I've finally gotten you to return my affections, I want to shout it from the rooftops. Still, if you don't want to make a big deal about it, we don't have to. I just don't want to have to hide it. Just do as we feel inclined, as if Alya weren't watching, and let her draw whatever conclusions she feels like."

"I can live with that," Marinette said. "I don't know how natural it'll feel, but I can work with that. And you're right, I don't want to hide. I love you, and I'm not going to act like I'm ashamed of it."

Deep within Adrien, something shifted. A pain he had lived with for the past year faded just a tad.

"Thank you, Milady," he said, then leaned down to kiss her again.

 

[Aeshdan]

Cat Noir flung himself sideways, a twisting double-helix blast of white light flashing past him. Even as he came up into a roll, he saw the bolt of magic continue on to strike a woman pushing a baby stroller near the end of the street. In a flash of white, a near-duplicate of that woman, noticeably more slender and dressed in a Gabriel suit rather than jeans and a sweater, appeared next to her.

Cat winced slightly as he sprang forwards, trying to get closer to the akuma hovering over the middle of the street on feathery white wings. According to Clarence Odbody's rants, these near-duplicates were the "yous" of alternate timelines, the people you could have been if you'd made different choices at the critical turning points in your life. It hadn't exactly been hard to figure out what Hawkmoth was hoping to accomplish here. Hit Ladybug or him and the akuma would probably get a duplicate who hadn't picked up the Miraculous, one who could be recognized. The akuma spun and fired another of those duplicating blasts up at Ladybug, who was on top of one of the house roofs. She ducked back behind the chimney she was using for cover, and the bolt shot off into the sky.

Cat ducked behind a car to evade another of those duplicating bolts, then lunged for the akuma, trying to get close enough to grab the photo sticking out of the akuma's breast pocket, the only thing on him that wasn't bleached white. But even as he lunged the akuma shot up into the air like a rocket. Cat's staff lashed out sideways, connecting with a car and sending him flying off at an angle before the akuma could hit him with one of the duplicating bolts. He rolled over and sprang to his feet to see Clarence Odbody soaring over the rooftops, raining duplicating bolts as he flew.

"Milady," Cat whispered, then leapt up, springing off a balcony to vault up onto the roof. Ahead he could see Ladybug weaving back and forth, dodging the duplication bolts as she dashed across the rooftops. Cat broke into a charge, baton held in one hand. But before he could catch up to the akuma, it tucked its arms in and suddenly sped up, slamming into Ladybug and knocking her sprawling. Then before she could recover, the akuma fired one of those duplication bolts at point-blank range. There was a flash of white… and a second figure in red with black spots appeared out of nowhere, lying next to the real Ladybug.

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Marinette stared in astonishment at the figure that had just appeared next to her. This certainly wasn't her. This Ladybug had coppery skin and almost golden eyes behind that black mask, and her hair was the warm reddish-brown of cinnamon dust.

"What?" the akuma exclaimed. "Another Ladybug?" He spun in midair and fired a bolt at Chat, who was leaping towards him from behind. The bolt connected… and in a flash of white a second black-clad figure, this one with feminine curves, golden eyes, and hair so black it seemed almost blue, appeared out of nowhere. The two Cats Noir landed, the new one landing in a sprawl on the tiles and the real one landing on top of Ladybug in a tangle of limbs.

"What?" the akuma exclaimed. "I didn't ask for more superheroes! This is totally unfair!" At that, he spun and shot off sideways, disappearing down the street before any of them could react.

Cat Noir rolled off Marinette and to his feet, and she got up. But before she could do anything, the other Ladybug grabbed her, holding onto her arm with both hands in a deathgrip. "Why, goddamn you," she hissed, and Marinette was startled to see tears in her eyes. "Goddamit, why did you give me this?"

Alya… Marinette thought as she recognized the alternate Ladybug's voice. Then it suddenly clicked. "That's it, isn't it," she said out loud. "You're not who I would have been if I'd made a different choice, you're who Ladybug would have been if I'd made a different choice. You're… I gave away the earrings, didn't I? That's the choice, after I failed to capture Stoneheart's akuma and tried to give away the earrings, I didn't take them back at the last second."

"Milady," Cat said, looking stunned. "You… you tried to give away the earrings, after Stoneheart?"

Marinette winced. "I… I just… I'd screwed up, all those people were turned into stone statues because of me. I'd convinced myself that I was the wrong choice for Ladybug, that you'd be better off with someone else--"

"NO!" Cat Noir snapped. "Milady, are you mad? I can't do this without you! Not without Ladybug, without you. You… I love you, because you're brave and clever and…" he trailed off, blushing.

"He's right," Ladybug-Alya said, voice quiet and oddly toneless. "I can't do this. It's… it's been a year and change since that day, in this timeline, right?"

Marinette nodded, confused.

"It's barely been two months in mine," Ladybug-Alya said. "After Stoneheart… Paris hates us. A lot of people believe Hawkmoth when he says that this would end if we gave up our Miraculouses. Sometimes people hunt us, try and capture us to take our Miraculouses so that the attacks will end. We've had so many close calls, we've had to hurt people to get away and they remember even if the Miracle fixes everything… Goddamit, Ladybug, I can't do this! I can't be you!"

Marinette pulled the echo of her friend into a hug, and Ladybug-Alya began to sob into her chest.

"And I suppose," the alternate Cat Noir said in a clipped tone, "That this would be my cue."

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Cat turned to face his alternate, his stomach twisting.

"Can we not discuss this?" he said. "I think I know what choice you are, and it's something I really would rather not talk about. Especially in present company."

"I am what I am made to be," the alternate Cat Noir responded. "And even were I not, I believe that these words need to be said. There was a reason you almost gave up your Miraculous that day."

"Wait," said Ladybug, "you tried to give up your Miraculous too? But you love being a superhero! You're always so excited, so confident… what happened?"

Cat Noir sighed. "Syren, right?" he said to his double. "That's the choice?" She nodded, and he continued, not looking at Ladybug.

"You remember how we had that mission, just before Syren, when you called in Rena Rouge to help with the panthers?"

"Yes?" Ladybug said after a moment's pause.

"I think that's when it really started getting to me," Cat said, still not looking at Ladybug. "I mean, I liked Rena Rouge, I still like her, but the fact that you were bringing in new team members, that you knew her identity when I couldn't, that you were getting Miraculouses from somewhere that I knew nothing about and knew all this important Miraculous-related information I wasn't allowed to know… I know Miracle and purification make you the more important partner in battle. That's fine, it is what it is and anyway it's because of the way our powers work, not because of anything you chose. But outside of battle… I'd always thought that we were equals, partners. And then that wasn't true anymore and I didn't know why."

Cat felt an odd sense of relief as he continued talking, as words he'd kept bottled up inside came pouring out. "It was during Syren, when you went off to get the potions, that I hit my breaking point. Always before there'd at least been some reason I couldn't come, something that I was doing while you went off to do whatever it was. I was needed to hold off the Sapotis or keep the panthers busy, and that was at least some excuse. But with Syren… there was nothing I could do, no purpose for leaving me behind. I just wasn't allowed to know what you knew, and I wasn't even allowed to know why I couldn't know. And you'd just demonstrated that you could replace me, that there were other superheroes you could call on if you needed a partner."

He started as two arms wrapped around him from behind, almost falling off the roof. "Cat," Ladybug whispered in his ear, "I could never replace you. You think I could do this without you beside me? Not without your powers, without you. Sure, I could find other heroes, other Black Cats. But they wouldn't be you."

Cat laughed, though even to his ears it sounded dry and hollow. "That's just what Plagg said," he said. "I'd detransformed, told Plagg that if he wouldn't tell me what was going on then I was done. I wouldn't be kept in the dark, not about this. And of course Plagg said that I couldn't do that, that he needed me. And so I asked if he just meant he needed me to give him cheese, and he said 'Oh, I'm sure there will be another Cat Noir to give me cheese, but he won't be you.' And that's when Ma—the Guardian showed up."

Ladybug's arms tightened around him. "I'm sorry, Cat," she whispered. "I should have seen how bad it was, should have pushed more for Fu to reveal himself and given you more information. I should never have let myself think that it was all on me, or let you think that you were just a… I don't know, a soldier to be ordered."

"Incidentally," the alternate Cat Noir said in an emotionless voice, "Plagg was entirely correct. I could replace Cat Noir after you renounced the Ring, but I could not replace the boy behind the mask. In my timeline… I was the Guardian's third choice. The first two both failed dramatically, one badly enough that the Guardian had to risk entering the field personally to prevent disaster. I at least had the combat skill, and that was enough for me to replace you for a while, but… I wasn't you. In my timeline, my Ladybug was being viciously bullied in her civilian life, and I offered her no support when we met in costume. In fact, I didn't even realize anything was wrong until Ladybug had been tormented so severely that she broke and became akumatized. The Guardian had to use the Rabbit Miraculous to send me back in time. I was able to intercept the akuma and Cataclysm it, but the strain of using the Rabbit caused the Guardian to suffer a stroke. I've had to take temporary possession of the Miracle Box until he recovers, if he does. Worse, Hawkmoth appears to have realized that Ladybug's civilian identity is someone important, and has yet further redoubled his efforts to break her. Just before the akuma summoned me here, we met and she gave me her earrings, charging me to find another Bearer, someone whose identity she did not know and who she could not give away when she broke again."

"My God," Cat whispered. He realized that his hands were shaking. It had been bad enough, looking back on how close he'd come to breaking that day, how close he'd come to losing everything he held dear in a fit of pique. To learn that he had come so close to bringing ruin on all Paris…

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked his double.

"Because it is what I exist to do," she said. "Remember, I am not in fact Kuro Neko or Kagami Tsirugi. I am an echo, a shadow of a person who could have been, created by magic for the purpose of showing you what might have been if you had chosen differently on that day."

Suddenly, Ladybug let go of him and jumped back. "Oh my god!" she blurted out. "The akuma's still out there! Alright, come on, let's hunt him down. Other Ladybug, other Chat, you want to join us?"

Kagami Noir nodded, but the false Ladybug shuddered. "I… I can't," she whispered. "I just… I know I'm not real, that I didn't actually do any of those things, but, well… I feel like all that just happened. I can't go up against another akuma, not when you're here."

"Don't worry," she added with a wonky smile. "I'll just go poof when you purify the akuma. You won't actually be sending me back to that timeline."

"That's ok," Ladybug said gently. "I'm sure the three of us will be more than enough. And Cat, after this we're going to need to have a talk. I…" she halted, then continued in a more subdued tone, "I shouldn't have kept you in the dark like I have been, even after Syren. You're right, we're supposed to be partners, and I haven't always been treating you like a partner. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Cat responded instinctively. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you, ever put my own good over yours. I've said I love you, I've said we're partners, but I wasn't acting like I loved you or like your partner on that rooftop."

"I believe you need to have this conversation later," not-Kagami said, looking at her baton's extended screen. "It would appear that the akuma has been sighted near Le Grand Paris, I believe it is trying for the mayor. But do not forget to have that conversation. Even I can tell that you both need it."

"Right," Ladybug said. "Come on, Chats. Let's go!" And with that, she turned to leap off over the rooftops.

"Right beside you, Milady," Chat said, grin back on his face.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: As far as I can recall, this began when I was reading over some Worm fanfiction, came across a part about Taylor discussing Emma's bullying with others, and imagined Taylor saying something like, "As for Emma, my working theory is that she's been Mastered." And really, if you live in Earth Bet, a setting full of mind-warping parahumans, and you come back from summer camp to find out that your best friend has undergone a total personality flip and that there is someone you have never met before hanging out with her all the time, it's a logical enough conclusion to draw.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taylor stared down at her mother's flute. It had been one of the very few things that had been spared from her father's boxing away of her mother's things, one of the few mementoes that had helped her get through those first weeks after Anette's death, before Emma turned from her best friend to her worst enemy. And now it was… ruined. Bent and battered and caked in substances Taylor didn't want to think about.

Taylor had known this would happen. She'd known that if she brought something as personal and valuable to her as the flute to school, Emma would somehow get her hands on it and desecrate it. But the bullying had been going on for months, with no mercy, and she had needed something to help her get through the day. She'd hoped that she could make it, get away with bringing the flute to school for just one day without Emma somehow sneaking it out of her locker and ruining it, but it seemed that had been too much to hope for.

How could she? Taylor thought. What happened, why is Emma doing this to me?

Suddenly, a thought flashed across her mind, and she froze.

Could… could that be it? she thought. The longer she held that idea in her mind, the more since it made.

And if I'm right… then Emma never betrayed me. I can get her back.

For the first time in months, Taylor felt the beautiful pain of hope. There was a chance that her torments might soon end. And more than that, there was actually a chance that she might be able to get back her best friend, her sister in all but blood.

I'll probably have to talk to Dad about this, she thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Send them in, please."

Emily Piggot stared at the door at the other end of the conference room, and tried not to drum her fingers on the table nervously. Any report of a new cape in the Bay was bad enough, the place was like a pile of oil-soaked rags just waiting for a spark, but a human Master? That was only just short of the worst-case scenario, and she wasn't going to be unlucky enough to go up against two Nilbog-tier S-class threats in one lifetime, right?

The door opened, to reveal three figures. In the lead was a tall, rather skinny girl with long curly black hair. Behind her was an equally tall man, whose dark hair was slowly thinning out. Where the girl carried herself with what Emily read as a deep-seated fear, the father radiated a blend of fury and self-loathing.

Behind the two guests Miss Militia stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

"Please, take a seat," Emily said. They complied and she continued. "I am Emily Piggot, Brockton Bay PRT director. Now, before you say anything, you should know that you are being recorded, it's part of our standard procedure when there is the possibility of Master or Stranger involvement. Now that said, you said you had information on a possible new Master in Brockton Bay?"

"Yes," the girl said, not meeting Emily's eyes. "I… used to have a friend, Emma Barnes. My dad and hers knew each other, she was my best friend growing up. And then… last year I went away to summer camp, and when I got back… she'd changed. Totally changed, it was like she was a different person. She… she mocked me, told me I was weak, and ever since school started she and Sophia have been spending their time tormenting me."

Emily froze. Sophia? she thought. Oh god, please let it not be...

Taylor was still talking. "They steal my work, pour juice on me, insult me, punch me..." she trailed off, shuddering. "That doesn't matter. The point is, ever since I came back from that camp, Emma has been acting totally differently from how she acted before. And there's this girl, Sophia Hess. I never met her before, but Emma's been sticking to her like glue ever since. So… that's it. I think Sophia Hess might be some kind of Master."

Emily closed her eyes for a moment, thinking quickly.

"This Sophia Hess," she said, "Can you give me a description?"

"She's a black girl," Taylor said. "My age, obviously. We all go to Winslow, she's on the track team there. Physically fit… I don't know what else to say about her."

"And can you provide any evidence about what you're saying?" Emily pressed, her heart sinking. "I'm sure you'll understand, we can't just take your word for it."

"That's what they always say," Taylor muttered. "That's part of why I think Sophia must be a master, actually," she continued at a more regular volume. "It's not just her and Emma, everyone seems to be in on it. The students, of course, but also the school staff go out of their way not to see anything Sophia or Emma does to me. I've reported them dozens of times, at first nothing was done about it and lately they've been labelling me a troublemaker and threatening to punish me for speaking up."

"As for evidence…" she said. "You could talk to Greg Veder. He's in some of the same classes as me, and… he might be the only person who's offered me any measure of support since I started at Winslow. He's too much of a coward to do anything on his own initiative, but if you ask him he should be able to corroborate my story. And then there's my student emails. I've got… I don't even know how many now. Dozens. They fill them up with hate mail: 'Go die in a fire,' 'Do the world a favor and kill yourself', that kind of thing. They should all still be there in the school servers. And maybe Mrs. Knott could testify as well. She knew at least some of what those three – ah, I should mention that there's kind of a third girl involved as well, her name's Madison Clements. I don't think she's the Master, though. As far as I can tell she only showed up after we all started at Winslow. The rest of the students are just hangers-on, those three are the ones that put in the work to torment me every day."

With an effort of will, Emily kept her expression neutral. "Very well. Mr. and Miss Hebert, could you please wait here? There are a number of steps Miss Militia and I will need to take before we can move forward with this."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gallant looked up as the Director and Miss Militia stepped into the empty conference room where he had been waiting, next door to the one the Heberts were in.

"Gallant," she said as soon as she closed the door. "Your thoughts?"

"I don't think she was lying," he said. "I sensed anger and self-loathing from the father, pain and anger and some confusion from Taylor. All the emotions matched up with her telling the truth."

"That was my impression as well," said Miss Militia. "Obviously I don't think Sophia Hess is actually a Master, but I do think Miss Hebert believes what she was saying."

"Fuck," the director said. "So to sum up, it's entirely possible that one of our Wards has been participating in what sounds like a pretty severe bullying campaign for months. Her handler certainly hasn't reported it, so… goddamn it, it almost sounds like there is a Master at work here. Not Sophia, of course, but someone else. Maybe this 'Madison Clements'."

"And if Miss Hebert's recounting of the timeline is correct," Miss Militia began, "this started before Shadow Stalker was brought into the Wards, which might explain why none of us detected any incongruities. She'd have been under the influence of this hypothetical Master since before we met her, that would be our baseline for any personality analyses."

"And that might explain why she's so abrasive to the rest of the Wards," Gallant said. "Judging by Miss Hebert's story, this Master might have the power to induce hostility or anger. If Sophia's under his influence…"

The director raised her hand. "We can speculate on that later," she said. "Right now… first thing to do is see the Heberts home. Second thing is to see if there is any evidence regarding the bullying. Under the terms of Sophia's probation, we can investigate her phones or other possessions anytime we like, without needing a warrant, so let's start there. Miss Militia, you go back in and show the Heberts out of the building, please. After that, we can arrest Sophia and take a look at her phones. Both of them, of course. She probably wasn't stupid enough to use her Wards phone, but her civilian phone might be another matter. Even if she deletes anything incriminating, I bet Armsmaster can fish it out of memory. If we can find anything there, it might give us enough evidence to look into the rest of this whole fiasco. And then we can figure out whether Miss Hebert is right about there being a new Master in play, or if this is just Shadow Stalker having gone off the reservation and the people who were supposed to be responsible enabling her."

She sighed. "How did things get to the point where one of our Wards, several personnel, and the bulk of the students and staff of a school all being Mastered was the good option for what's going on?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sophia glanced up from her math homework as someone knocked on her bedroom door.

"Come in," she called. The door opened to reveal her mother, followed by Miss Militia and the Halbeard.

Sophia tensed. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I'd like to have a look at your phone, please," Armsmaster said.

"Seriously?" she replied, fishing her Wards phone out of its hidden compartment in her bedside table. "You came over here at like 8 at night to ask to look at my phone? Couldn't this wait until tomorrow?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Miss Militia said. There was a tension in her voice that Sophia didn't like, and when her eyes dropped to the flag-masked heroine's hands, she saw that Miss Militia's power had shifted into a taser. Sophia felt a trickle of fear down her arms, but ruthlessly stomped on it.

"Some disturbing allegations have been made," Miss Militia continued as Armsmaster fiddled with Sophia's Wards phone. "Allegations regarding unsuitable behavior by you at Winslow. Tell me, Sophia, do you know a Taylor Hebert?"

Oh shit, Sophia thought. "Taylor?" she said out loud. "Kind of. I mean, she's not really someone I know, but she kind of… I don't know, draws attention to herself? She's always making up crazy stories, turning somebody bumping into her in the hallway into three days of beatings. I know she's accused me of things a few times, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's told those stories about half the school."

Miss Militia's face is unreadable behind that bandanna.

"This is clean," Armsmaster said, handing her Wards phone back. "Now your personal phone, please."

"What?" she blurts out. "That's private!"

"Not to us," Armsmaster says, tone completely level. "As a probationary Ward, we are entitled to search your phone or anything else we feel the need to search, without a warrant or explanation. So unless you want to go to juvenile detention for violating the terms of your parole, hand over the phone."

Fuck, Sophia thought. They suspect, at least enough to know what they're looking for. And there's no way I hid my texts with Emma well enough to fool Armsmaster.

She flung herself sideways, planning to roll off her bed and go to shadow to drop through the floor. But before she even got off her bed, there were two spikes of pain in her back, and her body suddenly went rigid, electricity shooting through her as she spasmed. Then the current cut out, and she went limp across the bed.

"Alright," Armsmaster said, "Given that you just attempted escape, I believe that qualifies as sufficient cause for restraint." She felt cold metal tighten around her limp wrist, and fury began to well up inside her.

"Miss Hebert's master theory is looking increasingly probable," she heard Armsmaster say as he followed up the Tinkertech bracelet with a pair of mundane handcuffs.

"Miss Hess, if Miss Hebert is correct and you are not in control of your actions, then I apologize," the blue-armored hero continued. "Now where is… ah, there it is."

Sophia lay there, bewildered, as feeling returned to her limbs. What is Armsmaster talking about? I'm not Mastered, why would Hebert… oh hell.

Suddenly it was all clear. Hebert had gone to the Protectorate, spun some crazy story about her being Mastered, and somehow the Director had fallen for it, and sent Armsmaster and Miss Militia to bring her in. Hebert probably hadn't even known what was going on.

Of course, she's prey. She couldn't possibly win, not properly. The only way she was ever going to win was sheer dumb luck.

But sheer dumb luck was all she'd needed. Somehow, impossibly, against all nature, Hebert had won.

 

[Aeshdan]

[AN: This story is slightly AU. As will become clear, the relationship between Emma, Sophia, and Taylor developed slightly differently in the aftermath of the alley scene. Further installments in this series may elaborate on exactly how things turned out.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emma almost couldn't believe she was doing this. She'd heard the rumors, of course, but she'd always thought they were scams. Powers in a bottle, the ultimate in impossible offers. But this… based on what little research she and her father had been able to bring to bear, this might actually be genuine.

I will not be prey, she thought as they drove through the night, repeating it to herself like a mantra. I'm not strong, not like Sophia is, not like Taylor is. If Sophia hadn't been there in that alley, I would have died. If I'd lost my mother, I would have broken beyond repair. I will never be that helpless again. No matter what it takes, I will become a predator.

She glanced over at her father for a moment. His eyes were on the road, his face stony. If Emma almost couldn't believe she was doing this, she was even more amazed that her father was going along with it.

Lord Almighty, he's as broken as I am, isn't he? she thought, feeling a slight shiver run down her spine. Seeing me in that alley… He needs this just as much as I do.

The address they'd been given was an abandoned warehouse, one of far too many in the Docks. They pulled to a halt, and Emma's father pulled the gun – Emma had no idea where he'd gotten that and wasn't sure she wanted to know – out of the center well.

Emma felt terror well up inside her. I will not be prey, she repeated to herself, pushing the terror down, and stepped out the door.

Inside, the place was empty, a vast and echoing cave without contents. Emma's father glanced at his watch. "Still a few minutes till the time in that email," he said.

The two of them stood in awkward silence for a few minutes, and then it happened. In between one breath and the next, without any special effects or prelude, the back half of the warehouse vanished, giving way to gleaming white tile and stark white walls, illuminated by a soft even glow from behind the glass ceiling.

A woman stood just past the line of transition, dark-skinned and with her hair cut short and tied back in an unflattering but practical style. She wore a doctor's lab coat and held a white plastic clipboard with both hands.

"Excellent," she said, her voice rich and with a hint of a French accent. "You are right on time."

"Who are you?", Emma's father asked.

"Some call me Mother, but that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Those with a more professional attitude know me as Doctor."

Emma nodded.

"As for you, while we of course know who you are I have found that there is a great deal of symbolic value in having you maintain an illusion of anonymity. Pick a name, and I will use it for the duration of this meeting. It doesn't need to be permanent or long-term."

Emma bit her lip. "Anette," she said after a moment's thought.

"Anette it is, then," the dark-skinned woman said. "As for you, sir," she continued, turning to Emma's father, "I am afraid that I will insist on meeting Anette here in private. I doubt that this preliminary meeting will take too long, so you may simply wait here for her to return."

Emma's father gave her a look, and she saw his fear there, blended with the shame of having to admit he couldn't protect his daughter.

I will not be prey, Emma repeated to herself, and stepped across the boundary onto the tiled floor. There was a rush of wind, and the surroundings swam violently for two or three seconds. When the image had resolved again, they stood in the middle section of a long hallway, white tile and white walls extending in both directions until they reached T-junctions.

"Welcome to Cauldron," the woman said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I am afraid I have some bad news," the Doctor said.

Emma's heart sank. "What?"

"While your father's resources are no doubt substantial on the scale you are used to, measured against the scale of those who we usually deal with they are small indeed," she said. "You must understand, what we offer is among the most valuable of commodities, and we charge appropriately. People pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for even a mediocre vial, and the premium blends can cost in the tens or even hundreds of millions."

"Premium blends?" Emma said.

"As you have no doubt noticed," the doctor said, "powers come in all manner of forms and strengths, ranging from a Legend or an Alexandria to someone who can detach their limbs and control them remotely or someone who urinates acid." Despite herself, Emma snorted at that image.

"We rank our powers on three primary axes," the doctor said. She pressed a key on her computer, bringing up an image showing cubes of various colors on a three-dimensional grid, shading from white to sky blue to darker blue, purple, red, and finally crimson as they radiated out from the origin.

"The P-axis, power, measures the raw strength of the power. The higher the rating, the more versatile and effective your power. The second axis is O, for originality, and it measures how… novel, for lack of a better word, the power is likely to be. It is far easier to stand out as a hero, or as a villain for that matter, if you have a power that nobody else possesses than if you are another Alexandria or Legend package."

"I see," Emma said. "And the third axis?" She squinted at the graph. "What is 'R'?"

"The R-axis measures a sample's reliability," the doctor said. "Two doses, even of the same sample, never produce precisely the same effect, but with a high-reliability power we can predict more precisely what form of power you will receive, and the chances of undesired side effects are minimized. For example, in sixty-one out of the sixty-three tests and purchases thus far sample T-6001 has produced some form of flight power, and in only two of the sixty-three did it produce any physical mutation. By contrast, of the six doses of sample J-3112 we have thus far used, one granted the ability to launch electrical bolts over short ranges, a second caused all the subject's limbs to be replaced with clusters of flexible tentacles coated in stinging cells, and a third granted the ability to vomit up amorphous blob creatures under the user's control. The other three test subjects were killed by the sample."

Emma shuddered in horror. "There's a chance this could kill me?" she said.

"If you were willing to risk a low-reliability power? Yes," the doctor said. "It is minimal, we have discovered methods to reduce the danger greatly over the years, but it cannot be avoided with certain samples. But in any case, unless you have access to additional resources beyond what we have so far discussed, this is roughly what you could afford." She touched a key, and almost all the cubes vanished from the price graph. Only the white and a few of the sky-blue cubes remained.

"As you can see, you could at best reach a little above the average on one of the three axes, but at considerable cost in the other two. You could have a reasonable amount of control over what power you received, for example, but that would require that you be content with an unremarkable ability, one that is not especially potent and which is similar to many other powers. A mild Alexandria package, perhaps."

Emma chewed nervously on a bit of her hair. "I'm not that worried about originality," she said. "I want these powers to make me strong, not to get people's attention."

The Doctor made a few rows of cubes vanish.

Emma closed her eyes for a moment. Have to take the risk, she thought to herself. This is just like in that alley. Sophia saved me because I fought back, because I took the risk. No strength without danger.

She glanced down at her body. She'd once been so proud of her beauty, but ever since the alley that pride had been tainted with horror and loathing. It was her beauty that had made those thugs play such cruel games with her, her beauty that they'd threatened to deface so horribly.

Taylor will love me no matter what I look like, she thought. And Sophia cares about whether I am strong, not whether I am pretty.

"And you can cut down on the reliability as well," she said out loud. "I'm willing to take the risk."

"As you wish," the Doctor said, and she made some more cubes vanish. Now there was only a slender column of cubes stretching along the P-axis. But even this only barely reached the six-mark.

Emma looked at that. "So this is what I can afford?"

"Perhaps," the doctor said. "It is our standard policy to insist that every client must do us a single favor at a later date, something simple like conveying a message or delivering a package, as part of the price for their power. Past a certain point, there simply are things you cannot buy with money, especially when you must retain the level of secrecy we require, and we have found that having a wide assortment of people who owe us debts opens up all manner of options. Now, if you were willing to perform three such tasks, I believe we could extend you a certain discount."

The slender column of cubes grew, adding another layer in both reliability and originality and adding several cubes further along the power axis.

Emma tasted hair in her mouth, and suddenly realized that she'd chewed all the way through the curl of hair.

I will not be prey.

"Deal," she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As she walked into Cauldron for her fourth and hopefully final meeting, Emma found herself rather paradoxically both more nervous and more determined. She couldn't deny that she was running a terrible risk. Even the Doctor had warned her that between the low reliability of the vial she'd chosen and her choice to leave out the balancing agent so as not to suffer that reduction in power she had a very real chance of coming out of this crippled or inhuman, or even dead. But on the other hand, the past several weeks at Winslow, the stomach-turning, crippling terror she had felt every time she spotted someone with Asian features in the colors of the ABB, had only strengthened her determination to never be weak again.

The Doctor was waiting for her. A metal canister sat on a table, and there was a sturdily built, cushioned chair sitting close by.

"You're ready?" the Doctor asked.

Emma nodded.

"If you'll change into this, we can preserve your clothes for the return trip home."

Jamie took the offered clothing, a plain gray bodysuit that would cover everything from the neck down. A word in blocky black letters on the front read 'Anette' while one on the back read 'Client'. There was a screen across one corner of the room, Emma ducked behind it to change. Stripped down to her underwear, she took a moment to look herself up and down before donning the bodysuit.

These might be my last minutes with this body. I'd better take one last look while I still can.

I will not be prey.

She slipped into the soft gray bodysuit and came back out, clothes held folded in her hands.

"Sit."

Emma put her folded clothes on the table and sat in the chair. Comfortable.

"Sample W-3301, with the offer of sample C-0072 waived. This is correct?"

"Yes," Emma said.

"Read and sign here. And there are stipulations on, let me see… pages twenty-six and twenty-nine that you need to sign as well."

Emma leaned forward and carefully read through the contract. It was every term they'd agreed upon, legalese and politely worded warnings about the hell Cauldron would try to bring down on her head if she broke the terms of the contract. There were stipulations regarding the three favors she'd agreed to perform, pages of receipts covering the financial transactions, and pages more of details about her own medical and psychological evaluations.

"You haven't eaten?"

"Nothing since this time yesterday."

"You're comfortable?"

"Sure."

The Doctor unscrewed the canister and withdrew a vial. It was no longer than a pen and no thicker than one of the Doctor's fingers. "The faster you drink it all, the quicker and cleaner the transition is. Some people experience a kind of dream quest as part of the process. That is normal. Simply relax to the best of your ability and stay focused. The higher and more pronounced the physical reactions like your heart rate, sweating, adrenals, and emotional response, the greater the chance of a physiological change. I recommend that you keep from dwelling on any stressful thoughts or memories. Just stay calm and try to relax as much as you're able."

The Doctor removed the stopper from the top of the vial and carefully handed it over, not letting go until she was sure Emma had a firm grip.

Emma held the vial for several long moments. "Now?"

"When you're ready."

I will not be prey.

Emma tossed it back like she'd seen people throw back shots of hard liquor on the television. She coughed as it coated the inside of her throat, her saliva doing little to nothing to help it down. The Doctor reached out, and Emma handed her the vial.

It began to burn, the intensity increasing second by second, until she was convinced it couldn't get any worse. It did.

"Hurts," she groaned, trying to push herself to a standing position.

"It'll get more severe before it gets better. Stay in the chair."

"Didn't tell me," she could barely speak with the way her chest felt like it was caving in on itself.

"I didn't want to alarm you before we began. It's normal, and it does get better. A minute, maybe two, and you'll be surprised at how fast the pain goes away."

She clutched the arms of the chair. Once, she'd chugged an entire mouthful of super-hot hot sauce on a dare from Taylor. That had been nothing compared to what she felt now. She had to endure another two minutes of this? It felt like the burning inside of her was melting through the walls of her throat and stomach. She could imagine the tissue blistering and dissolving, expanding outward until it touched on her lungs and her heart.

As it seemed to consume her lungs, her breathing began to dissolve into breaths too quick and small to bring enough oxygen into her lungs. Darkness began to creep in at the edges of her vision.

"Relax." The Doctor's voice sounded far away.

The darkness swallowed her field of vision and she felt as though it were creeping over her skin.

What had she been thinking, doing this?

I will not be prey.

An image flickered across her mind, an enormous shape like the full moon, luminous and white. The moon seemed to shatter, spraying knife-edged shards of luminous white crystal. She seemed to be floating outside her body, watching as the shards of silver carved strange glyphs into her flesh. She was aware of the pain of those cuts, but it was oddly detached, as though her sense of pain was operating at one remove in the same way as her vision. And then she was back in her body and the pain slammed into her, the cuts burning as though drenched in lemon juice and ice. She felt her body warp around those symbols, bones cracking, muscles tearing and knitting back together…

And then suddenly, without any discernable transition, she was on her hands and knees on a floor of smooth cement, breathing hard. She blinked, climbing around and looking to her feet to try and orient herself.

There was what might once have been a cot in one corner of the room, now thoroughly smashed into a mess of splinters and stuffing. Water gushed from a hole in the wall near the broken remnants of a sink, and more water flowed over the threshold from another room, about half a broken door swinging in the doorway. Even the walls were covered in gouges and scrapes, as though attacked by a wild beast. Glancing down at herself, Emma realized that she was almost completely naked, clad only in a few tattered scraps from that grey jumpsuit.

What in the world happened to me?

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something change. Spinning, she saw one of those portals Cauldron used, opening back into the room where she had drunk the vial. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, and instead a young Hispanic-looking woman in a very well-tailored suit was standing just inside the portal.

"Anette," she said, a slight hint of an Italian accent to her words, "If you will come this way, please?"

Emma stepped through the portal, which vanished behind her.

"It would appear," the woman said, "that your sample granted you a powerful Changer/Brute power. However, as we warned you was possible, the power includes an undesirable side effect. If you suffer certain stressors, or remain for too long in your war-form, your conscious mind shuts down and you enter a berserk rage."

The woman pressed a button on a remote she was holding, and an image appeared on the far wall, showing Emma in the grey bodysuit with her eyes closed, gripping the padded chair as though she were having a seizure. Suddenly, her form changed. Her skull shifted like clay being molded, jaw and nose pushing forward into a muzzle, teeth elongating and growing sharp, ears growing and migrating to the top of her head. Her entire body inflated, limbs becoming thick with muscle, chest expanding and tearing her bodysuit to rags. For a fraction of a second her pale skin was visible before she sprouted a full-body coat of fur, the same bright red as her hair.

The wolf-headed monster sprang out of the chair and turned towards the Doctor, but before she could move a portal opened in midair and the woman in the suit stepped out of it, the portal snapping shut behind her.

The wolf-headed monster Emma had become lunged towards the woman in the suit, moving faster than Emma would have believed possible. But as fast as that thing was, the woman in the suit nonchalantly dodged her attacks. Just as the Emma-monster lunged forward, a portal snapped open in the air in front of her, the woman in the suit tumbling past Emma and planting a kick firmly in her tail to send her stumbling through the portal.

"I knew that your rage would only last for a few minutes," the woman said, "and I also knew that even in war-form you would be unable to escape the cells. This is actually precisely why we have those, as a means of containing those whose powers are beyond their control."

"How do you know all this?" Emma asked.

"I am a Thinker of some considerable power," the woman said. "While my abilities have other applications, as you saw, they enable me to discern the nature of most parahuman abilities. In your case, you have gained a Changer power that should allow you to shift between five distinct forms. If you concentrate, I imagine you can feel them right now."

Emma closed her eyes and focused, and sure enough she found she could sense… potentials lurking inside her. Forms she could assume, senses she could tap into, waiting for her to call on them.

"Yes," she said distractedly. "I can feel them… there's a wolf form… no, two wolf forms, one's bigger than the other. And then a human form with a bit of wolf, and that's the one you called the war-form, the one that's equal parts human and wolf."

"Yes," the woman in the suit said. "Now, as long as I'm here, I might as well explain what your different forms offer you. Our standard package does include power testing and analysis, and I can make an excellent substitute. You'll have to learn to use your abilities for yourself, but I can at least explain them to you. Go ahead and get dressed."

Emma blushed scarlet as she suddenly recalled her almost-nudity, and scampered for the corner screen.

"Your first form," the woman in the suit said, "is the human one you now wear. In this form, you have a minor Brute rating, as you heal more quickly and more completely. Scrapes and bruises will heal in seconds rather than minutes, and more serious injuries will heal in minutes instead of hours or days. In addition, given time this regeneration will heal any injury that does not kill you outright, even something like the loss of an eye or an arm. Your senses have been enhanced to the peak of human capacity, and you can tap into the senses of your lupine forms to enhance your perceptions yet further. You also have a mild Stranger power while in this form, making you more difficult to track or pick out of a crowd. All in all, I suspect the PRT would rate this form around a Brute 1, Thinker 1, and Stranger 1 or 2."

"Your next form," she continued as Emma pulled on her pants, "is what we might call the 'wolf-man' form. This form has the same regeneration as your human form, but you grow larger and stronger and develop dangerous teeth and claws, increasing your probable Brute rating by a point or two. You can likewise call more fully on your lupine senses, though probably not enough to bump up your Thinker rating. You lose the Stranger power in this form, but instead develop a minor Master ability, radiating terror to cow any who oppose you and causing potential psychological trauma to witnesses. Perhaps Brute 2 or 3, Mover 1, Thinker 1, and Master 2."

"And then we come to your war-form. This is in many ways like the wolf-man form, but more so. In this form, you are easily a Brute 6. You are even stronger and faster than in your previous forms, your teeth and claws are more lethal, and your regeneration grows far more powerful, healing even serious injuries in moments. Your Master ability likewise grows more powerful in this form, the terror stronger and more penetrating. However, this form is mentally unstable. While in this form, you will find it almost impossible to focus on any goal other than savaging the nearest enemy, and if you remain in this form for more than a very short period you will fall into a berserk fury and lash out at everything around you."

The woman in the suit continued as Emma, now dressed, walked out from behind the screen. "Next on the list are the wolf forms. The smaller of the two is what we might call the true-wolf form, and it is as indistinguishable from a common wolf as your current form is indistinguishable from a human. You retain the lesser form of your regeneration, and your senses and physique are optimized, but you otherwise have no powers beyond those of your lupine biology. Even that will net you a minor Mover and Thinker rating, though. Perhaps Mover 2, Brute 1, and Thinker 1."

"And finally, we have the dire-wolf form. This form is to your wolf form much as the wolf-man form is to your human form, larger, stronger, faster, and with the Master power radiating terror. A total rating of perhaps Mover 3, Brute 2, Master 2, and Thinker 1."

"As you were warned was possible, however, your power also comes with certain innate flaws. As already mentioned, your war-form is mentally unstable, and you cannot remain in it for long without falling into a berserk fury. In addition, exposure to certain stressors will cause your mind and power to destabilize. You will uncontrollably shift into one of your second-tier forms, the wolf-man or dire-wolf form, and if you do not rapidly regain control over your emotions then you will drop into war-form and go into the full berserk fury. You may wish to consider psychotherapy, as my power informs me that improving your emotional stability will decrease the number of stressors that can trigger this reaction and improve your chances of regaining control once you begin to destabilize."

"Finally, all your forms now have a severe vulnerability to silver. Touching it will be uncomfortable but should do no real harm, but if it should get in your bloodstream it will cause severe damage, similar to chemical burns, which your regeneration will struggle to counteract."

"Do not worry," she added. "We shall not share this information with anyone else, not unless you break your end of the contract first."

Emma was almost tempted to laugh. "So… lupine shapeshifting, uncontrolled rages, and vulnerability to silver? I'm basically a werewolf? Well, I wanted to become a predator…"

"And you have," the woman in the suit said. "Given the strength and variety of your different forms, I believe the PRT would rate your full powerset as at least a Changer 7, possibly as much as 8. A very impressive power indeed."

"Congratulations, Anette," she said with a secretive little grin. "You are prey no longer. Now, you are a predator."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[AN: Well, Emma got what she wished for, but she is about to find out that her new powers may well be more trouble than they're worth.

Emma's powerset is based off the werewolves of Werewolf: The Forsaken, by White Wolf.

As for having Contessa explain Emma's powers, if Wildbow went to the trouble of putting a Mary Sue plot device character in his story, I might as well make use of her. And conveniently, running "path to explaining this girl's powers to her" doesn't require she actually know the information in advance, PtV just feeds her the lines.]

 

[00Zy99]

But sheer dumb luck was all she'd needed. Somehow, impossibly, against all nature, Hebert had won.

Click to shrink...

And that's reality for you. It can really be a bitch, bitch. I just LOVE the schadenfreude of somebody's plan or ambitions being annihilated by sheer happenstance. Especially people like Sophia.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: Written in between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, and not canon to Rhythm.
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High in the mountains, on the plateau before the ancient city of Urithiru, two figures climbed the steps to one of the ten Oathgates. One was a young man, tall and broad of shoulder, with the tan skin of the Alethi but distinctly un-Alethi golden streaks in his black hair. He was clad in a dark blue uniform coat, and carried a backpack, light blazing from the seams. The other was a woman, notably shorter than her companion and quite slender, with brilliant coppery hair and freckles dotting her pale skin.

Adolin Kholin smiled at his wife as she climbed up onto the Oathgate platform just behind him. Even now, almost six months after their wedding, he kept being struck all over again with wonder that Shallan had chosen him. One of the first of the returning Knights Radiant, pathfinder of the Order of the Lightweavers, and she had chosen him, even though he wasn't even a Radiant.

Or he wasn't so far, at least. What they were about to do might change that.

Adolin bent down and unfastened the top of the backpack. Inside were dozens of gemstones, larger than the fragments used in spheres, blazing with Stormlight. A highstorm had blown through just the previous night, so the gems were fully charged.

"Are you ready, Adolin?" Shallan asked as Adolin straightened.

Adolin took a deep breath, pushing away his worries and his distractions as he would before a duel or a battle. "Ready as I'll ever be," he said.

With a sharp inhalation, Shallan began to glow softly. She laid her sleeved safehand on his shoulder, and the world shattered. All around Adolin, things – rocks, planters, even the massive mountains and Urithiru itself, imploded into beads of dark glass. Only the white stone of the Oathgate platform remained intact, it and the nine others hovering in a half-arc around him. Above and around Adolin was the black sky of Shadesmar. Far below the Oathgate platform, the glittering sea of beads reflected the dim sun of Shadesmar, stretching as far as the eye could see. In front of him, countless tiny flames spread in a kind of half- curve, the souls of the humans who inhabited Urithiru.

Adolin glanced around. "Where are… Ah." There, standing half a step behind him, were two figures. One wearing too-stiff robes that seemed carved of stone rather than of cloth, with a constantly-changing sigil where his head should be. Shallan's spren, Pattern. And next to him stood what looked like a young woman made of countless finger-thick brownish cords, her nails made of dull crystal and her face marred like a painting whose eyes had been scraped off. Mayalaran, the deadeye spren of Adolin's sword.

Like all deadeyes, Maya had once been the bonded companion of one of the Knights Radiant, before the Radiants had abandoned their oaths, tearing apart the bond and trapping their spren in mindless agony. The more he learned of the Radiants, the less Adolin could understand that. He knew why they'd done it: the revelation that humankind was not native to Roshar, that uncontrolled Surgebinding had destroyed their first world, that they'd fled to Roshar and taken it from the singers who had welcomed them. The ancient Radiants had believed their war won, that the Fused were trapped by the Oathpact and the singers defeated by the sealing away of Ba-Ado-Mishram, and they had sought to remove the last true threat to humanity: their own powers. Noble motives, perhaps. But could any motive excuse visiting such agony on spren such as Maya?

Never mind that, Adolin thought. He didn't need to understand why the ancient Radiants had broken their oaths. What mattered was that, here and now, he might have a chance to undo this tiny part of their betrayal. Before, at Thaylen City, Maya had shown flashes of… herself. She had attacked one of Odium's Fused for Adolin, had whispered her name in his mind and come to him with less than the normal ten heartbeats. The scholars, his cousin and his wife, spoke of Connection, theorized that Adolin's focus and attention were restoring the ripped-out portions of Maya's soul. And now, Adolin hoped he could finish the process.

He turned to face Maya and took a breath. He knew the Words to say, the Ideals by which a Radiant bonded their spren. But as he prepared to speak them, they felt… off… in his mouth.

This isn't a normal bonding, he thought. This is mending what was broken, not creating something new. Maya will still, will always, remember what was done to her.

New Words came to him, and he spoke them clearly. "From death, spring new life. In weakness, find new strength. The destination reached, let the journey begin anew."

To fast to see, Maya's arm whipped forward, her hand tightening around his wrist, chipped crystal nails digging into his arm. Instinctively, Adolin's own hand tightened around Maya's arm, and pain slammed into him.

One.

This was like no pain Adolin had ever before felt. It was as if every inch of his body was simultaneously burnt and flayed and jabbed with needles.

Two

And layered over the top of the physical pain was every kind of mental agony. The betrayal of Sadeas abandoning him and his father on the Shattered Plains, the guilt of knowing that he had broken the Codes and betrayed his father's values, the grief of seeing his cousin die in Kholinar, the horror when he had believed his father's visions were the first signs of delusion, the echoing absence when he'd believed Shallan dead in the chasms and the dull resignation when he'd believed she'd love Kaladin Stormblessed, every kind of shock or suffering or remorse blended together, all that forced itself into Adolin's mind.

Three

And yet he held on. For he could feel Mayalaran's mind now, feel her stronger than ever before, and he knew that she felt this same agony, and that to release her now would be to leave her alone in that suffering.

Four

They were both screaming now, Maya's inhuman screech twined with his bellows of pain to echo across Shadesmar.

Five

He could still feel Shallan's touch on his shoulder, feel something flowing out of her and through him into Maya. Stormlight?

Six

Now he seemed to be seeing with double vision. He could still see into Shadesmar, still see Maya standing before him with their arms clasped, but he could also see the Physical, see the Oathgate platform as it was in the real world. The gemstones in the bag at his feet had gone dun, and a vaguely sword-shaped mass of white light blazed in his outstretched hand, almost too bright to look at, pulsing in time to the beats of his heart.

Seven

He had to hold on.

Eight

No matter what, he would not let Maya go.

Nine

"I will not let you be forgotten," he whispered.

Ten

There was a sudden flash, an explosion of Stormlight that drove Shallan back a step, and the pain vanished like it had never been. Suddenly, Adolin was back in the Physical, an intricate glyph he did not recognize traced in frost on the Oathgate platform in front of him. In his hand was Maya's sword form: massive like all dead blades, with a sinuously rippling cutting edge and designs like ridges of crystal along the back. The only difference from its previous state was an intricate pattern of blood-red light, like coiling vines, along both sides of the blade.

Ow? a voice said in Adolin's mind.

"Maya?" Adolin whispered, gloryspren bursting into existence around him like glowing golden spheres, intermixed with joyspren like showers of blue leaves. "You're… alive? Articulate?"

Apparently? the voice whispered in Adolin's head, sounding just as baffled as he. He felt a slight prod from the Blade, and mentally stepped back. Maya's sword-form shimmered in Adolin's hand, shrinking to the length of a normal side-sword. Then she dissolved into red light and reformed as a harpoon, with wicked barbs along the sides of the head and that same pattern of coiling vines etched in crimson light up the shaft and along the flat of the head. Finally, she collapsed into a coil of greenish vines, studded along their length with luminous red crystals, that twined around Adolin's arm and twisted into a feminine face on the back of his hand.

"Amazing," Shallan said. Adolin turned to face his wife, and saw the smokelike blue ring of an awespren puff out above her head. "It worked, then? Mayalaran…" she started. Though Adolin couldn't see any difference, he guessed Maya must have made herself visible to Shallan. "Mayalaran seems to have regained her sapience," she said, rummaging through her pack. "And you can summon her as a Blade, so either you managed to effectively swear three Ideals at once, or else… something entirely novel has happened, again. Aha!"

She produced a small box of silvery metal, which she opened to reveal a couple of diamond broams, blazing white.

"Aluminum," she said. "Kept the Light from being pulled out when you were… uh, whatever you did to bring Maya back. See if you can inhale this now."

She set the box on the ground, and Adolin concentrated on those broams, imagining the Light flowing out of them and into him, filling him with power. He inhaled sharply, exactly as he'd seen Radiants and squires do. The light of the broams didn't even flicker. He tried again, but still nothing.

"Interesting," Shallan said, rapidly scratching notes in the flowing women's script. "Further testing will be needed, obviously, but this preliminary result would indicate that this new bond hasn't made you a Surgebinder. You can transform Maya, obviously, and summon and dismiss her at will without needing the ten heartbeats, but you don't seem to have any of the other powers the bond would grant. And Maya's coloration is certainly odd… can I see her Blade form again?"

At a thought from Adolin, Maya exploded out into her massive six-foot Blade form. Shallan blinked in the deliberate fashion Adolin had learnt to recognize as the taking of a Memory, then leaned in close, staring with fascination at the crimson etchings along the sides of the Blade. "Normally, a cultivationspren in Blade form will glow white," she remarked. "I wonder why Maya… oh, that must be it. According to what little we know from the spren, and especially from Jasnah's researches, red can connote corrupted Investiture…" she blushed slightly. "Though 'altered' might be the better term in this case," she added quickly. "Power that has been changed from its original state, remade into something new."

"That would certainly make sense," Adolin remarked. "Come on," he added, dismissing the Mayablade and grabbing the pack full of dun gemstones. "Jasnah's going to be fascinated to find out what we did here, and I'm looking forward to introducing Maya to the Radiants."

"I'm looking forward to being introduced," Maya commented from where she looped back and forth across the Oathgate platform.

Adolin laughed. "I'll bet you are."

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: What would happen if, when forced to the crisis point, Anakin Skywalker had had the wisdom to truly understand Padme's heart? What if he had been willing to let her go, rather than commit atrocity in her name? What if he had rejected the ideology of Jedi and Sith alike, and brought the Force back into balance? If only...

AN2: Italicized text at the beginning is from the Del Rey paperback novelization of Revenge of the Sith, pp 364-365.
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Sidious offered an appalling smile. "There is a place within you, my boy, a place as briskly clean as ice on a mountaintop, cool and remote. Find that high place within yourself; breathe that clean, icy air as you regard your guilt and shame. Do not deny them; observe them. Take your horror in your hands and look at it. Examine it as a phenomenon. Smell it. Taste it. Come to know it as only you can, for it is yours, and it is precious."

As the shadow beside him spoke, its words became true. From a remote, frozen distance that was at the same time more extravantly, hotly inimate than he could ever have dreamed, Anakin handled his emotions. He dissected them. He reassembled them, and pulled them apart again. He still felt them – if anything they burned hotter than before – but they no longer had the power to cloud his mind.

"You have found it, my boy: I can feel you there. That cold distance – that mountaintop within yourself – that is the first key to the power of the Sith."

Anakin opened his eyes and turned his gaze fully upon the grotesque features of Darth Sidious.

He didn't even blink. As he looked upon that mask of corruption, the revulsion he felt was real, and it was powerful, and it was –

Interesting.

From that infinite distance, that mountaintop within himself, the future opened up and Anakin seemed to see two paths spread out before him.

In the one, he knelt at the feet of Darth Sidious, accepted his mantle. At the end of that path, he saw a vision of himself and Padme, standing at the right and the left hands of an Emperor Palpatine. In that vision, he was the Emperor's sword, leader of a new Sith Order and queller of rebellions. And Padme was the Emperor's hand, the mistress of the Imperial Senate, who spoke for the Emperor and quelled with words rather than brute force. She was beautiful, but her eyes were dark and cold and hard.

In the other vision, Anakin saw himself rise up, striking down the Sith Lord. At the end of that path was Padme lying on a medical bed. He saw a shadowy figure place twin babies in her arms, saw her look down at them for a moment with love in her eyes before she slumped back down on her pillow, the light leaving her eyes forever.

And from the depths of his mind, a memory drifted up. Padme and him back on Naboo, in one of their conversations at the lake. Her quoting two lines from a Naboo poet and musing on the wisdom in them.

Some prices are too high to pay, no matter how valuable the prize. The one thing you cannot trade for your heart's desire is your heart.

There was no hesitation, no doubt. There was not even a conscious choice. How could there be? To fully understand the choice was to realize that you had already made it.

Is this what Master Yoda meant, when he spoke of being one with the Force? Anakin wondered as he rose to his feet, a blazing shaft of blue plasma fountaining from the lightsaber in his hand as he turned, stabbing upwards to penetrate the Chancellor's skull and incinerate his brain.

Anakin knew, in that moment of perfect understanding, that the Chancellor had never even seen it coming. He was, in his own way, as blind as the Jedi had been. The Jedi could not understand love, so they could never have grasped that Anakin was willing to sacrifice anything else for Padme's good. But Palpatine could not understand sacrifice, and so he could not grasp that Padme would rather die as herself than live as what Anakin had seen in that vision, nor foreseen that Anakin would sacrifice even his own happiness with her in service of her happiness.

With the chancellor's death, the dark energies that he had held erupted outwards in an explosion of ravening blue lightnings, but even as Anakin's one hand had driven the lightsaber through the Chancellor's skull, his other had come up, fingers splaying as his will gathered the Force into a shield around him. The blast of dark energies knocked him back off his feet, but it never touched his skin.

A rift opened in the shroud of darkness that had clouded the Force for so long, and for one single moment, Anakin seemed to see everything. Every path that could spiral out from that moment was spread out before him, and he knew what steps to take to select each possible choice. Almost instantly, the vision began to fade, Anakin's mind unable to hold onto such complexity and insight, but with an exertion of will Anakin grabbed on to one tiny segment of one path, keeping that line of choices in his mind. Which steps to take, who to speak to and how to combine lies and truth to get the result he wanted while leaving no way for anyone to prove him false. It wouldn't solve everything, but it would get him through this night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Chancellor Palpatine was secretly also Darth Sidious."

With seven words, Anakin Skywalker knocked the footing out from under the Senate. Padme stared in horror as she watched her husband standing in one of the Senate platforms, heedless of the explosion of voices and chaos that greeted his words. Nobody, not even she, had known what Anakin was about to say when the Senate was called to this special session. All that had been known was that something had happened to the Chancellor, something that had necessitated that Senator Organa assume the role of Acting Speaker to impose order on this special session.

"The Chancellor was and always has been the mastermind behind the Separatist movement," Anakin continued, "and they were nothing more than pawns in his schemes. He has orchestrated this entire war, from the crises that led the Separatists to pursue secession in the first place right up through the battles that have been waged for the past three years, as a weapon to weaken the Jedi Order and as a tool to condition the Senate to accept his control. Had his plan continued unhalted, he would have framed the Jedi for rebelling against him, then destroyed the Order with a series of co-ordinated attacks before they could react or an investigation could be launched. Having served their purpose, the Separatists would then have been wiped out, and Sidious would have used the momentum and shock to make his emergency powers permanent and seize control of the Republic. But with Count Dooku dead, he required a new Sith Lord to spearhead his final masterstroke. And so, he approached me."

Anakin paused for a moment and closed his eyes, then opened them and continued. "He knew that I feared for the life of Senator Naberrie, that I had seen visions of her death. He confessed everything I have just told you and offered me the power to save my wife's life."

Padme froze, staring in mixed awe and horror as Anakin so casually dropped the secret that she had feared to reveal. The politician in her had to admire the timing in this. Drop this secret now, and the scandal of her and Anakin's secret wedding, of the offense against the Jedi Code, would be swallowed up in the greater scandal of his revelations about the Chancellor. It might not wholly shield them, but it was arguably the best of their very limited options. At the very least it should buy them time.

Anakin was still speaking. "I returned to the Temple and shared my revelations with Master Windu. He gathered the remaining members of the Council and set out to arrest Sidious. I was ordered to stay behind, given my known close relationship with Sidious and the potential for conflict. However, I saw visions of disaster through the Force, and followed after a short time. By the time I arrived, Sidious had defeated three members of the Council but had been defeated by Master Windu. As I arrived, Sidious surrendered. Master Windu accepted this surrender, but the instant he dropped his guard Sidious attacked again, killing him. I engaged Sidious at this point, and he made no further attempts to surrender. I was able to overcome him, but not to take him alive."

Anakin raised his face slightly and fell silent, inviting questions. The Senate exploded with babbling voices, Acting Speaker Organa unable to impose order on the chaos.

The Republic will survive this, Padme thought to herself. It has been weakened, stressed to the breaking point, but Sidious was stopped in time, and without his rot we can survive even this shock and finally begin to heal.

I have to believe that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obi-Wan Kenobi, newly promoted to the Council upon his return from the Utapau system, considered Anakin Skywalker as he stood in the center of the Council chambers. He and Master Yoda were the only Council members present in person, though half-a-dozen more were present as the blue ghosts of holograms. But as holograms, they could not feel what he and Yoda felt. Anakin's presence in the Force had always been slightly different from that of any other Jedi, but now the difference was unmistakable. Obi-Wan had no idea whether this was because Anakin had changed that night, or whether with the shroud of the dark side withdrawn he was seeing Anakin as he truly was for the first time in years.

In either case, the difference was undeniable. Anakin's presence in the Force was not the choking blackness of a Sith Lord, but neither was it the cool luminance of a true Jedi. No, Anakin burned in the Force, his presence hot and bright as a tiny sun.

This was how he felt on Tatooine, back when we first met him, Obi-Wan remembered. His fire is better contained now, channeled and made all the hotter for it. But this is the same fire he burnt with as a slave child, when he still lived with his mother.

"Broken the Jedi Code, you have," Yoda said. "Lied, to this Council you did."

"I have," Anakin said, "and for the lies I apologize. But I will not apologize for marrying the woman I love. I believe this was the path of the Force."

"To the dark side, attachment leads," Yoda said. "A path that should be walked, this is not."

"I disagree," Anakin said. "I believe that this very moment is what the prophecies meant, when they spoke of my restoring balance to the Force. For millennia, the Force has been divided between light and dark, between wisdom and passion, when the two should be united. Passion controlled by wisdom, and wisdom empowered by passion. And when I knelt before Sidious and chose Padme's happiness, I finally understood how the light and the dark could... not merely be brought into balance, but fused, united into something greater than either alone."

He shook his head slightly. "I'm rambling." He raised his chin. "If the Council chooses to expel me from the Order for my actions, so be it. But there are two matters that must be spoken of."

"Your child," Obi-Wan said, speaking for the first time in that conversation.

"Children," Anakin corrected. "Padme is carrying twins."

"Strong in the Force, these twins shall grow," Yoda said. "To the Jedi, they must come."

"No," Anakin said, and his presence in the Force flared with such power that Obi-Wan felt himself flinch. "These are my children, mine and Padme's. I will not permit them to be taken from us. Nor shall I refuse any who would come to me for teaching. I have seen the truth of the Force, a truth that Jedi and Sith alike have been blind to. I cannot and will not deny others my aid in seeking out that same truth."

"Defy us, you cannot," said Yoda. "Strong in the Force are you, but not that strong."

"Perhaps," Anakin said. "But if Chancellor Organa and the Senate stand behind my and Padme's right to retain custody of our children, the Jedi Order would go to war with the Republic. Is that a fight the Order can win? And even if you could, are you prepared for where that path will take you?"

There was a long pause.

"By your own actions, expelled from the Order you are," Master Yoda said eventually. "The disposition of your twins, this Council shall consider."

Anakin nodded. "So be it," he said, then he turned on his heel and left the Council chambers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Padme's body pushed and spasmed, her muscles straining to bring their twins into the world, her hand in his fleshy one squeezing with enough strength to bruise, Anakin narrowed his focus until all that he knew was him and her and their babies. The Force flowed between them like a network of veins around their joined hands. He drew off as much of Padme's pain as he could and poured his strength into her, driving back the ravenous darkness that sought to claim her with white fire. And to their children, subjected to pressures and forces they could not comprehend, he projected his and Padme's love, wrapping it around them like an incorporeal embrace.

An eternity later, it was over. Anakin carefully disengaged his spirit from Padme's, pulling himself back into his own body. As the meddroid laid Luke and Leia in Padme's arms, he gazed down at the three of them with a kind of bewildered elation.

I've done it, he thought. I beat the vision.

Even with all the wonders of modern medicine at Padme's disposal, even with his new strength in the Force and his determination to keep Padme alive, he had never quite been able to believe that he would succeed in this. The cold dragon of his fears had whispered to him that his choice was made, that choosing to strike down Sidious would inevitably take from him the woman he loved. But somehow… somehow he had proved that vision false.

Knowledge blossomed in his mind, as if the Force itself were whispering to him, and he suddenly knew that the vision he had been given in Sidious's office had been a test, false promises given him in order that he might be forced to choose between his love for Padme and his possessiveness of her.

I was willing to give her up, to choose what she would desire even though I believed in that moment it would take her from me and the other path would let me keep her. And because I was willing to make that choice, my wife and my children live and they will not be taken from me. Not by the Jedi, nor by my own actions.

The last whisper of the dead-star dragon's voice faded from his mind, and Anakin Skywalker was at peace.

 

[Aeshdan]

"Miraculous Ladybug!"

Marinette flung the black-and-red spotted trampoline up into the air. It should have been too large even for her magically enhanced strength – she'd needed half a dozen bystanders to move it into position before – but it seemed to practically be pulled up into the air now. It exploded into the by-now-familiar swarm of sparkling magic ladybugs, which swept out over Paris, filling in the craters Jumping Jack had left in the street and repairing the holes she'd smashed through buildings.

Her earrings beeped and Ladybug flinched. It had taken time for her to get her Charm in place and for Cat to maneuver Jumping Jack into hitting it, and even after she'd bounced the two of them into the Seine she'd had to dash over there to grab the akuma once Cat had smashed her talisman, then dash back here to invoke the Miracle. If she had the count right, she was down to her last spot.

"Sorry," she said to the civilians gathered around her, "no time for interviews today. Bug out!"

She tossed her yo-yo up, and let it yank her away from the crowd. But as she jumped out, there was a shout of "Milady, wait!" and Cat leapt up after her. Atop the roof, she spun to face him.

"What?" she said quickly.

"Milady," Cat said in a low voice. "I need to talk to you. Can we meet? Say, the Eiffel tower at midnight tonight?"

Marinette blinked. It was rare for either of them to suggest meeting outside their battles. Her schedule was strained to the breaking point between school, akuma battles, and her new duties as Guardian, and she could not imagine that Cat Noir's situation was much better.

"Of course," she replied in the same low tone. Whatever Cat needed to ask her about, it must be important.

Cat nodded. "See you then, Milady," he said, and leapt away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cat Noir paced back and forth along the beam of the Eiffel tower, spinning his baton idly in his hands as he tried to work off his nerves. The deck above and the ground below teamed with people even this late at night, but here on the framing halfway up he and his Lady could be assured of privacy. He glanced out over the city again. To his altered vision, Paris seemed to blaze with lights, a delicate chirascuro of truesight and his magical nightsight that blended together into something uniquely his.

And there came his lady now. She paused for a moment on the nearest roof, then her yo-yo flew out and yanked her across the expanse. She landed on the same beam as Cat, retrieved her yo-yo, and turned to face him.

"Well, Cat," she said. "What's this about?"

Adrien let out a nervous breath. "I have something to say to you, Milady," he said, "and I need you to just listen and let me say it without interrupting. Can you do that?"

Ladybug nodded.

"Thank you," Cat Noir said. He took a deep breath, trying to muster his courage. "So, you know I love you, right?"

Ladybug winced visibly. "Cat..." she started to say, her tone gentle.

"Wait, Milady," Cat said, cutting her off with an upraised hand. "Look," he continued, "I understand the threat Hawkmoth poses, that if we unmasked he could use us against each other, that with the way he preys on stress and pain it's a risk trying to make a relationship work right now, that we can't afford distractions when each akuma attack already pushes us to the limits… I don't know if I agree with your reasoning, but I do understand it. And I could live with that, if I were sure that was all it was. I know there are others who've caught your eye, and I don't know how I stand in that running. I know that you've rejected me time and again, and I don't know whether that is all down to circumstances."

Adrien took another breath. Once before he'd had to screw his courage to the sticking point like this, on that rooftop during Syren when the secrecy had driven him to the breaking point and he'd threatened to renounce his ring if he couldn't get answers. And now again he was gambling everything, forcing his partner to choose and risking his heart on the wager.

"Milady, I love you," he repeated. "I have since the very first day we met, and I'm pretty sure I always will. I can live with waiting until Hawkmoth is defeated, as long as I can have hope that when we take him down you might return my affections. And…" he ducked his eyes, feeling them burn, "I can live with your rejection. I can live with being nothing more than your partner. But what I can't live with any more is this uncertainty."

He raised his eyes again and met Ladybug's gaze. "So I ask this question one last time, and I swear to you that if you tell me 'no' now I will never ask again: Do I have a chance with you, Milady? Is there any possibility that you might one day come to love me as I love you?"

His heart beating in his chest like a frightened rabbit, Adrien waited for his Lady's reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette stared at Cat Noir in the dim light, her heart in her throat. Her first instinct was to simply blurt out "No!", to seize the chance to stop Cat Noir's flirting once and for all. But the way he'd spoken… It was so easy to assume Cat was just being a flirt, that his professions of love were nothing more than friendly banter with a female teammate. And then he did something like this, poured out his heart to her and knocked all her preconceptions on their head.

She turned away, unable to meet her partner's gaze.

I care for Cat Noir, of course, she thought. He's my partner, and possibly the one person in the world who I trust completely. But do I love him? Could I love him as he loves me?

I could come to love him, I think. Whoever's beneath that mask, he is a good man, one worthy of love. If Adrien were gone, if I didn't have Luka, if Hawkmoth were out of the picture and we could unmask to each other, spend time together outside of battles… yes, I could come to love him very easily.

But that's not the question, is it? she said to herself. Can I give Cat Noir what he is asking for? If I say "yes" now, he will wait for me. I believe him when he says that. And I can't ask that of him, not when Adrien still holds my heart. And even if something happened to put Adrien beyond my reach… it could still be months or years before we take Hawkmoth down, and I'm not sure it will be safe to unmask even then. And Luka is here for me now. If I can't have Adrien, Luka would be the next person I would turn to. I don't love him, but I do like him, and he is someone I could be happy with.

Cat asked me for the truth. However much it hurts him to hear it, lying to him now and giving him false hope would be a thousand times worse.

"I'm sorry, Cat Noir," she said, forcing herself to meet her partner's gaze. "Please don't blame yourself for this, it's not because there's anything wrong with you. I'm sure you will make some girl very happy someday, but it won't be me. I already have… commitments… in my civilian life. Someone I love, and I can't give that love up." She smiled bitterly. "I've tried," she added.

She felt her heart sink as she saw the pain in her partner's eyes, and realized to her dismay that she was going to have to ask a very awkward question.

"Cat?" she said, "Are you going to be ok? I can't imagine you want to talk to me right now, but will you be… safe… if I leave? I don't want to have to fight you."

Cat sighed. "I'll be fine, milady. I knew this might happen, and I've had some time to think it through." He smiled, though it didn't meet his eyes. "Whoever it is you love, I hope he treats you like a princess. You deserve it."

Marinette felt herself blush. "Thank you, Cat," she said. "I don't say this often enough, but you really are the best partner I could ask for. I'm glad to have met you, and I hope that you will always be a part of my life and I'll always be a part of yours, even if we can't be boyfriend and girlfriend."

"Thank you, milady," Cat said, turning away from her. "Until our next battle," he added over his shoulder, and leapt out into the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It would not be until much later that Marinette would learn the connection between what she had said that night and what happened a few days afterwards. At the time, the only effect she noticed was that in their next battle, Cat Noir did indeed keep his promise, and made no flirtatious remarks to her. She wasn't sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved.

It was Saturday, the day after that battle, when her words to Cat Noir bore their true fruit, though she didn't realize that until far later. She was frantically trying to get through her homework when she heard her mother's voice call up from below.

"Marinette? Alya is here to see you!"

Marinette shook her head, but before she could reply, her friend exploded up through the door.

"Come on, girl," she said. "I heard from Nino that Adrien is going to be out in the park today. Just hanging out, not doing a photoshoot or anything."

Marinette froze, glancing back and forth from Alya to her pile of homework. "I really shouldn't…" she said, trailing off.

"Oh, come on, girl!" Alya said cheerfully, grabbing Marinette's arm. "Homework can wait. Right now, it's time for Adrien, and I am not going to let you wuss out before you even see him."

"I swear," she added as she tugged Marinette down the stairs, "I am going to get you to talk to that boy if I have to stand behind you and move your lips with my fingers."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the bushes, the two girls stared out at where Adrien and Kagami sat side-by-side on a bench, holding hands and talking in a low voice that Marinette could not at all make out from where she and Alya hid. Kagami's face showed a rare smile, while Adrien's had an expression that Marinette couldn't quite place. With an effort of will, Marinette forced down her jealousy and tried to consider Adrien and Kagami as she would consider Alya and Nino, or Ivan and Mylene.

They… they do fit together, she thought. It's not perfect, not yet, not like my parents or even Ivan and Mylene, but there is something there. They look like boyfriend and girlfriend, and they look happy.

"Uugh," Alya hissed. "Just look at her, cozying up to Adrien like that." She glanced down at Marinette. "Sorry, girl," she said in a low voice, "I didn't expect her to be here." She paused for a moment. "So, what are we going to do about her?" she asked.

"Do?" Marinette replied. "Nothing!" she said after a moment.

"Come on, girl, have some confidence in yourself!" Alya said. "Ok, fine, the Ice Queen has stolen a march on you. Are you really going to let her just take Adrien from you like that?"

Marinette sighed. "Alya, I was wrong about Kagami, ok?" she whispered. "She isn't Chloe, and she is my friend now." She paused for a moment, remembering how her jealousy, her determination to split up Adrien and Kagami, had lead to Chloe's downfall and Master Fu being forced to renounce his Guardianship. None of which she could share with Alya, of course.

"I've let my jealousy make me do things I regret before," she said instead, "and I won't let it rule me now. Kagami did what I never could, she conquered her fears and went for what she wanted. She deserves a chance at least." She felt a pang of remorse, but ruthlessly shoved it down.

Out on the field, something Adrien had said seemed to have startled Kagami, her smile replaced by a look of visible surprise.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Alya said. "Besides, the contest's not over yet, and if you could just talk to Adrien, I'm sure you could take him back. I mean, it's not like he's about to propose to her or anything."

As if he had been waiting for a cue line, it was at that exact moment that Adrien produced a pair of golden rings from the pocket of his jeans.

Marinette stared at those rings, glinting gold in the sun, and the entire world seemed to narrow to Adrien's hand as he slipped one of the rings onto the ring finger of Kagami's left hand, the finger where one placed a wedding ring. She felt a sudden sharp pain as if her heart were being torn asunder.

No…

"WHAT!?"

Marinette had been so shocked to see those rings that she'd momentarily forgotten Alya existed. The sudden shout in her ear startled her so badly that she exploded out of the bushes, flailed wildly as she tripped over the edge of the raised bed, and faceplanted in the grass. She lay there for a moment, letting the grass hide her scarlet features, heartbreak giving way to embarrassment.

"Marinette?" she heard Adrien say. "Are you ok?"

Marinette groaned into the turf. How could he ask that… Oh, right, he still has no idea how I feel about him, she thought, her mental voice liberally tinged with exasperation.

"What is… Alya?"

"How dare you!" Marinette heard Alya shout.

No, no, no! Marinette thought in sudden panic. She sprang to her feet, just in time to see Alya stalking towards Adrien and Kagami, both of whom had leapt up in response to Marinette's emergence from the shrubbery.

"What are you two doing?" Alya continued, one finger extended.

Kagami's expression shifted from shock to the focused determination she had worn while fencing or during her brief stints as Ryuko. "Adrien just made a promise to me," she said, stepping forward. "An oath to remain faithful to me for as long as I would have him." Marinette saw the ring flash green on Kagami's left hand, and some part of her mind noted that the jewel was the exact shade of Adrien's eyes.

Kagami spun on her heel to face Adrien.

"And I return your oath, Adrien Agreste," she said. "You are mine and I am yours from this day forth, whatever our parents or anyone else may say."

"Listen, Ice Queen…" Alya began to say.

"Congratulations!" Marinette said, cutting her off. "I'm happy for you both."

She wasn't sure how convincing she sounded, but that didn't matter right now. Her pain and heartbreak could wait for later. All that mattered right now was to stop Alya talking.

Alya froze in midstride, then turned her head slowly to face Marinette. "Marinette?" she said.

"Alya," Marinette said, "Maybe we should leave these two to enjoy their time together."

She turned slightly to face Kagami. Behind her, she saw that Adrien was now wearing the twin to the ring he'd given Kagami on the ring finger of his left hand, this one set with a stone the same golden-brown as Kagami's eyes. "Kagami," she said, "maybe we can talk later. You can drop by the bakery." She forced a smile. "Maybe you can get celebration macaroons."

Kagami turned and stared at Marinette for a moment, then nodded slightly and made a quick gesture that reminded Marinette of a fencer's salute before turning back to Adrien, her air of focus becoming a triumphant grin.

Still forcing a smile, Marinette grabbed Alya's arm and tugged her away from the clearing. Above, a violet-limned akuma spun in circles before setting off on a new heading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as they were past the line of trees, Marinette released Alya's arm.

"Marinette," Alya said in a low voice, "what was that back there? Have you just given up on getting Adrien?"

Marinette closed her eyes for a moment, feeling as though her heart were breaking all over again. "Yes," she said, barely above a whisper.

"Alya," she continued in a slightly louder tone, meeting her friend's gaze, "have you ever known Adrien to give up on someone once he's pledged his loyalty to her? I mean, remember Chloe? Remember how, even after everything she did, he remained her friend and mourned when it looked like she was leaving St. Francis? I have no idea what happened, whether it was Kagami's idea or Adrien's, why he felt he had to make such a promise now, but now that he's made the promise he's not going to leave Kagami unless she lets him go, and we both know that's never going to happen."

"I've lost Adrien's love, if I ever had it," Marinette said, feeling tears prickle in her eyes. "I'm not going to let myself lose his friendship as well. In God's name, please don't make this any harder for me."

Alya stared at Marinette for a long moment, half-formed expressions flitting across her face. Before she could respond, her phone sounded the custom tone that signaled an akuma alert.

Marinette tensed, her pain banished by sudden focus.

Heartbreak can wait, she thought. Right now, I have work to do.

And after this is over, maybe I'll give Luka a call.

 

[Aeshdan]

"Go away, Ginny", Ron said.

Ginny flinched internally, feeling as if Ron had just slapped her. "Oh, that's nice," she said, turned on her heel, and stalked off down the train.

"Go away, Ginny," she thought. Even now, even after everything that happened last year, even now that we're both Hogwarts students, I'm still the baby sister, the annoying tagalong to be brushed away and never ever allowed to do or hear anything interesting. Well, Mister Ronald Bilius Weasley…

Ginny paused her internal rant, suddenly noticing the gusts of wind blowing up and down the train corridor, mussing up hair and making robes and clothes flap in the stiff breeze. She could feel the white magic burning within her, stirred up by her indignation. She stood there for a moment, eyes closed, focused on breathing in and out. The hot fire of her white magic quickly faded to a tiny spark within her, and the air of the train fell still.

Opening her eyes, she continued onward until she spotted a pale blonde head leaning out of a compartment window.

"Hello, Ginny!" Luna called. "Would you care to join us? There's room in here."

"I'd love to, Luna," Ginny responded.

She opened the compartment door and froze. Sitting there across from Luna, was a young boy in Gryffindor robes, with mousy brown hair. Colin Creevy, one of the students upon whom Ginny had released Salazar Slytherin's basilisk the previous year under the influence of Tom Riddle's diary.

Colin stared back, looking as awkward as Ginny felt.

"Come on in, Ginny!" Luna said cheerfully. Mechanically, Ginny stepped into the compartment and hefted her suitcase up onto the rack before dropping to the seat next to Luna.

"So," Luna said, "This is Megan Freeman, she's one of my roommates." She gestured towards the compartment's fourth occupant, a dark-skinned girl in Ravenclaw robes who Ginny had momentarily overlooked in the shock of seeing Colin. "Megan, this is Ginny Weasley."

"Hello Ginny," Megan said, looking up from the book she was reading. "I've heard a lot about you from Luna."

"H-hello, Ginny," Colin said, staring at his lap.

"Hello, Colin," Ginny said back, feeling her face burn as crimson as her hair.

"You two really should talk," Luna said. "You were both Tom's victims this past year, and that's something you have in common that most don't."

Ginny froze. Under her robes, the tyet pendant she now wore had flared hot at Luna's words. The pendant had been a prize from her adventures in Egypt, enchanted to shield the bearer's mind against hostile magic.

What just happened? she thought. Was that Luna trying to do something to me, or was it a coincidence and there's something else on the train, or... Danu have mercy, please don't let Luna have fallen victim to something like Tom.

Across from Ginny, Colin paused for a second. "Who's 'Tom'?" he asked.

"That was You-Know-Who's real name, while he was at school," Ginny said quietly. "Tom Riddle."

"Huh," Colin said, sounding slightly bemused. "You know, I'd never actually thought about it that way before, but Luna's right about us both being His victims." He suddenly perked up, expression changing to a smile. "Say, Ginny, what exactly did happen last year? All I know is that I was… uh... going down to visit Harry in the hospital wing, when I hear something slithering and then see a pair of big yellow eyes, and then next thing I know I'm in the hospital wing and the year's almost over. I mean, I got the basics from Professor Dumbledore like everyone else: there was a basilisk, You-Know-Who possessed you or enchanted you or something and made you release it, he ended up taking you into the Chamber and Harry Potter went after you and killed the basilisk and made You-Know-Who vanish somehow. But what happened beside that? It sounds like a pretty cool story!"

Ginny felt herself recoil, memories coming back. "I'd rather not talk about that," she said.

Colin blushed almost as red as Ginny's hair. "Oh, right. Sorry!" he said. He looked around wildly for a moment, then grabbed one of his textbooks and opened it.

Ginny leaned in closer to Luna. "Luna," she whispered in her ear, "something weird just happened, while you were talking." She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to ask the question, but Luna pre-empted her.

"Oh, sorry," she whispered back. "You have some kind of anti-Wrackspurt charm, don't you? Like my mum used to make for Dad, that's what that necklace you're wearing is."

"Um…" Ginny said. "I… maybe?" She could feel the pendant beneath her robes.

"I was just speaking Truth," Luna continued, still whispering, "to get Colin to realize that you were Tom's victim just as much as he was. Didn't realize that would set off your charm."

"I… see," Ginny whispered back. She leaned back in her seat, contemplating that for a moment. Like Ginny, Luna was a white mage, a servant of one of the Seven Powers of Light. But where Ginny wielded the power of Thor, dominion over the elements of wind, water, and lightning, Luna's white magic was drawn from Ma'at and had to do with Truth: finding it out, revealing it, and apparently forcing others to acknowledge it. Ginny wasn't quite sure how she felt about finding out that little trick.

"So, Ginny," Luna said out loud, "How was your vacation? Did you meet any Winged Sun Serpents?"

Ginny blinked, startled out of her train of thought. "Actually, yes," she said. "How'd you know?"

"Just an educated guess," Luna replied with a smile. "I knew you were going to visit some tombs, and you get a lot of Sun Serpents around there. Plus I knew you're the kind of girl who they'd come out to see. So anyway, what happened?"

"Well…" Ginny said, thinking quickly. Some of this story she'd have to save for when she and Luna had privacy, to keep her status as a white mage secret, but most of the trip she could share.

"Let's see, first we spent a few days in Cairo…" she began.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hours later

It was pitch-black and pouring down rain outside the train. Ginny was flipping through some back issues of the Quibbler Luna had lent her, while Luna was sketching a picture of some creature Ginny didn't recognize, something that looked like an enormous dragon with seven pairs of wings. Suddenly, the train began to slow down.

"Why are we slowing?" Megan asked, looking up from her book. "We can't be at Hogwarts yet… can we?"

"I don't know," Ginny said, hand falling to where her wand was tucked into her pocket. "You'd think a prefect would have warned us, I know they did last year."

The train was still slowing. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded ever louder and louder against the windows.

Ginny, who was closest to the door, poked her head out into the corridor. All up and down the corridor heads were sticking out of compartments, none offering any clue as to the reason for the train's slowdown.

The train came to a stop with a sudden jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told Ginny that luggage had fallen out of racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.

"What's going on?" Colin asked in the dark.

Ginny ducked her head back into the compartment and drew her wand. "Lumos," she said. The tip of her wand lit up with a bright white glow, and Luna screamed. It was an earsplitting shriek of utter panic, like nothing Ginny had ever heard before, and it startled her so much that her wand went out again. But the momentary glimpse she'd gotten of Luna's face, and the expression of wide-eyed terror it bore, seemed burned into her memory.

"They're coming!" Luna shrieked, hand fastening onto Ginny's arm with a grip of iron. "They're coming! Oh Almighty, they're coming!"

There was a loud crack and a sudden sense of extreme pressure, as if she were being squeezed through a too-tight rubber tube, and then Luna released her and Ginny staggered, tripped over someone's legs, and landed on top of something covered in fabric and and with protruding ribs and knobs.

"Oof," the thing under her said in Harry Potter's voice, right in her ear, and Ginny felt herself blush as she realized what, or rather who, she was draped all over.

"What's going on?" Hermione's voice said out of the darkness.

"Who's that?" Ron said at the same moment.

"Quiet," a voice said, and then the compartment lit up with flickering light.

Blinking against the light, Ginny finally managed to get off Harry and back to her feet. She was somehow in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's compartment. Luna was lying crumpled on the floor, and a rather weathered-looking man in shabby robes was standing in one corner, what looked like a handful of flames in his hand.

"Ginny?" Ron said, sounding baffled. "What in Merlin's name are you doing here? And how'd you get in here? Wait, is that Loon-... Luna Lovegood?"

Before Ginny could respond, the door opened, revealing Neville Longbottom.

"Sorry, do you know what's going on?" he said.

"Come on in," the adult said. "And sit down, both of you."

Neville squeezed past Ginny and dropped into a seat next to Hermione. Ginny looked around, trying to figure out how to get to the empty seats on the far side of the compartment without stepping on Luna.

"Get behind me," the adult said in a low voice, levitating Luna into the seat he had just occupied with a wave of his wand. He stepped forward, squeezing around Ginny, and she was just getting ready to squeeze in between Ron and Luna when there was a long, slow, rattling breath from behind her. Ginny felt a wave of cold. Beneath her robes, the tyet pendant burnt hot, and Ginny felt its power like a wall of heat around her mind, felt the chill pressing against it and pushing through.

Ginny spun to see a figure standing in the doorway, clad in long black robes, its face invisible in the darkness beneath its hood where the flickering light of the flames didn't penetrate. A hand stuck out from one sleeve, scabby and slimy and gray like something drowned, the other hand hidden behind the doorframe.

The world seemed to swim around Ginny, memories of Tom bubbling up from the back of her mind, and somehow she knew that the thing before her was the same as Tom, pure unmitigated evil. She couldn't see, she was drowning in cold, she could feel it pressing in on her like Tom when he took her over…

She heard the mystery adult shouting, but then white fog consumed her world and she knew no more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AN1: Happy solstice, everyone!
AN2: No, you're not supposed to know what happened in Egypt. I may go back and explore that story later, but for now I think it works better as an offscreen adventure.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: Happy Valentine's day, everyone! I've had this in the slush pile for a while, but it seemed appropriate to get it polished up and posted today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The first time you meet your soulmate's eyes, you know who they are. The first time you kiss your soulmate, you learn their history. And once you have lain with your soulmate, you will always be able to feel them. You will know where they are, you will know whether they are well or ill, you will be able to feel their love for you, from the bond's consummation until the day one of you dies."

"And thus I know what must be done to save you, my heart."

Gabriel Agreste stared down at the blank body before him, the body that was and was not that of his wife and soulmate. By every physical test, the body stored in the capsule before him was that of Emilie Agreste, unconscious but still breathing. But there was a link between soulmates who had consummated their bond, a link that told him that the body was merely an empty shell. His wife's soul had been pulled from that body, drawn an immesurable distance along a direction that bore no relation to the normal six. She was beyond the reach of even modern medicine, beyond saving through drug or surgery.

"But not beyond the reach of magic. And I suspect I know just where to start." He picked up the small box and flicked it open. A violet orb of energy drifted out, before resolving into the moth-like shape of the Kwami of Empowerment.

"Hello, Nooroo," said Gabriel Agreste. "Tell me of the Miraculouses."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time you meet your soulmate's eyes, you know who they are.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette was just settling into her seat when a hand slammed down on the table in front of her. Marinette glanced up to see Chloé Bourgeois leaning on the table.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," the blonde girl drawled, voice dripping with disdain.

Ugh, thought Marinette. Here we go again.

"That's my seat," Chloé snapped. Marinette could almost feel the blonde's scorn striking at her, pushing her to buckle under yet again.

"But Chloé," she managed to protest, "this has always been my seat."

"Not anymore!" chimed in Sabrina, Chloé's minion. Why does she always have to come with Chloé? Marinette thought. Maybe if it was just Chloé I could stand up to her. "New school, new year, new seats!" Sabrina continued.

"So why don't you just go and sit beside that new girl over there?" Chloé said, pointing at where a copper-skinned girl Marinette had never seen before sat in the front row. "Listen," she continued. "Adrien's arriving today, and since that's going to be his seat, this is going to be my seat. Get it?"

"Who's Adrien?" Marinette asked. Almost as soon as the words had left her mouth she regretted them. To ask Chloé questions was only to give her more ammunition.

Chloé laughed, a sharp, obviously faked laugh of scorn. "Can you believe she doesn't know who Adrien is?" she commented to Sabrina. "What rock have you been living under?" she added to Marinette.

"He's only a famous model." Sabrina said.

"And I am his best friend," Chloé added. "His soulmate, even. Go on, move!"

"Hey!" interjected the new girl, glaring at Chloe. "Who elected you Queen of Seats?"

"Oh, Look Sabrina!" Chloé drawled. "We've got a little do-gooder in our class this year. What are you gonna do, super noobie? Shoot beams at me with your glasses?"

"Oh, really?" the new girl said, raising her chin. "Meet my eyes… if you dare."

Chloe raised her own chin, blue eyes meeting brown. There was a moment's pause, and then both girls flinched almost imperceptibly.

"Hah!" the new girl crowed. "Seriously, trying to lie about a soulbond? Does this 'Adrien' know?"

"Come on," she added, grabbing Marinette's hand and pulling her down towards the seat next to hers.

Marinette stumbled, spilling yet more of her macaroons. "Sorry, sorry, sorry…" she muttered.

"Chillax, girl," the new girl commented with a smile. "No biggie."

Marinette shook her head slightly, looking at the new girl without quite meeting her eyes, as most people learnt to do. "Marinette," she said, breaking her last macaroon in half and offering it to the copperling. On a sudden impulse, she brought her eyes into focus, bracing herself for a soulgaze.

"Alya," the girl responded, accepting the macaroon and meeting Marinette's eyes. After a moment, Marinette felt a reaching sensation, her soul stretching out to probe Alya's as they held each other's gazes. Then there was a sudden shock of dissonance, their souls recoiling from the contact of incompatible personalities, and they both ducked their heads, breaking eye contact.

"Kinda expected that," Alya whispered. "I'm pretty sure I'm not gay. But thanks for trying anyway, it's very flattering."

"I so wish I could handle Chloé the way you do," Marinette admitted, once more looking at Alya without meeting her gaze.

"That girl needs a reality check," Alya commented. "Seriously, it's hard enough to find your soulmate already, but if she's trying to lie about it… I'm worried for this Adrien, whoever he is. Are your parents bonded?"

Marinette nodded quickly.

"Mine aren't," Alya said. "Oh, they're happy enough, but I've seen properly bonded couples and you can tell the difference. And it's one thing to marry because you're in love, even if it is with someone who's not right for you, but it sounds like Chloe might be trying to force the issue with Adrien. No way I'm letting that happen."

Marinette winced internally at the note of not-quite-bitterness in Alya's voice. Not everyone was as lucky as her own parents had been. Everyone got at least one chance to meet and recognize their soulmate, destiny always ensured that much. But the flip side of that was that you might get only one chance, one occasion where your and your soulmate's paths crossed. It was why some went around meeting the eyes of as many people as possible, even with the shock of a bad soulgaze.

Granted, if you missed that chance it wasn't the end of the world. As Alya's parents apparently demonstrated, you could find love and be happy with someone other than your soulmate. But even so, there would always be that underlying sorrow, that sense of something missing, the knowledge that you two didn't quite fit together. And since you couldn't form a soulbond if you were already married to someone else, those who chose to marry without a soulbond were accepting that they would almost certainly never find their soulmate. Worse, there was no way to know whether you'd already had your chance and missed it or whether you simply hadn't had your chance yet.

"For those of you who don't yet know me," said Miss Bustier from the front of the room, "I'm Miss Bustier. I'll be your teacher this year."

"Ugh," Marinette heard Chloe mutter, "He should have been here by now."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple of days later, after many things have happened.

Adrien extended his hand, mutely offering the umbrella. Marinette stared in astonishment, and only too late did she realize that blue eyes had met green and held them. There was the familiar reaching sensation, and then...

Connection.

Green eyes had become her entire world. She saw inwards, beyond his eyes to the soul beneath. She saw mirth and joy like dancing flames and kindness like the warmth of a banked fire, all sealed beneath layers of discipline, loneliness, and the wrenching pain of loss like nothing Marinette had ever experienced. As certainly as she knew that water was wet or fire hot, Marinette knew that Adrien was her soulmate, her other half, the only one who could perfectly fill that hole in her soul. And as she saw Adrien's eyes widen, she knew that he was feeling the same thing. He was hers, and she was his.

The honk of a horn shattered the soulgaze like crystal, and suddenly Marinette and Adrien were once more standing in the rain, under the umbrella, and Adrien's driver was blowing the horn to get his attention. Adrien grinned sheepishly, then turned and dashed through the rain to his father's limousine. Marinette felt the umbrella snap shut around her, but she was too stunned to notice.

I just found my soulmate. I just soulgazed Adrien. I'm soulmates with Adrien Agreste.

"Marinette?"

Tikki's head poked up out of Marinette's purse.

"Tikki!" Marinette squeaked, before pausing for a moment and reextending the umbrella. "Tikki, I found him! I found my soulmate! I'm..." she trailed off, her jaw dropping. "Oh my god. I'm soulmates with the boy Chloe wants for herself. When this comes out, she'll try and kill me to get a shot at Adrien. Oh no..."

"Marinette, that's not how soulmates work, and you know it!" said Tikki through a spate of bell-like giggles. "Now come on, you need to get home and celebrate! This is wonderful!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The small hours, that same night.

Marinette was on a deserted rooftop, practicing with her yo-yo and trying to get a feel for her new abilities, when she saw a blur of black come leaping up onto that same roof.

"Well hello, Milady," came a familiar voice. "Guess what I just discovered how to-"

Marinette cut him off with an explosion of surprise. She knew that voice, knew the green eyes behind the black mask of Cat Noir.

"Adrien?" she asked incredulously.

"Marinette?" he replied, equally stunned.

"You're Cat Noir?" she asked.

"A-purr-ently so, Milady," he replied, glancing down at himself and patting his body as if to check that it was there.

"But how is it I know that?" she asked. "My kwami said that there's supposed to be magic that keeps anyone from finding out who we are -- even our partners. She said that we had to keep our identities secret even from each other, or bad things could happen."

"Well..." drawled Cat Noir, drawled Adrien, "I fur-tainly have no idea. Maybe we should de-transform and ask our kwamis? There's nobody else around, it'd be safe enough."

Marinette glanced around. Cat Noir was right, the rooftop was deserted, and there were no signs of reporters with cameras hiding anywhere nearby.

"Good idea," she said. "Tikki, spots off!"

She staggered as she lost Ladybug's poise and energy. In front of her, she saw green lightning flashed across Cat Noir's body, stripping away the black leather and leaving Adrien Agreste. A black, vaguely feline form that had to be his kwami popped into existence in front of him.

"Hey, Sweet Tooth," drawled the unfamiliar kwami.

"Hi, Sourpuss," chirped Tikki from her place bobbing above Marinette's shoulder. The two kwamis shot forward and met in midair in a tight embrace.

"Ahem!" said Marinette. The two kwamis broke apart and turned to face Marinette.

"Tikki, I thought you said we wouldn't recognize each other!" blurted out Marinette.

"You wouldn't have when I said that," replied Tikki. "You hadn't soulgazed yet. You know as well as I do that once two people have soulgazed, they'll always know each other. The glamour's not strong enough to block that bond. But the glamour's still there. So long as you don't do anything foolish, nobody else should be able to guess who you are."

"Well," Adrien said with a smile, "This is certainly going to have some advantages. I'd been wondering how I was going to keep my status as Cat Noir a secret from you, and now I don't have to. We'll be partners in and out of the mask."

Marinette felt herself bend over, laughter rising up from inside her and bubbling out uncontrollably.

"Of course!" she managed to say through the giggles. "Of course I and my partner would be soulmates! Of course! Is that why I got the Miraculous, Tikki? Because I'm Cat Noir's soulmate?"

A pair of arms wrapped around her. "Don't say things like that, my Lady," Adrien whispered in her ear. "You were Miraculous today… or yesterday now, I suppose," he added with a chuckle. "Seeing you defy Hawkmoth like that, make your promise to the people of Paris? That's when I knew I loved you."

Marinette felt a sudden surge of happiness. "Thank you, Adrien," she whispered.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN1: Exalted belongs to Onyx Path. Worm belongs to Wildbow.
AN2: As you might have guessed from the title, this snippet was partially inspired by billymorph's Implacable. I also want to acknowledge my debt to WinterWombat's Daystar, which was my inspiration in writing an Exalted cross. It's the full moon tonight, so it seemed appropriate to roll this out today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taylor hammered frantically against the walls of the locker. Her voice had given out, her fists were bloody, and she was becoming terribly certain she was going to die in there. She could feel the bugs moving beneath her flesh where they had chewed through her skin, and…

Suddenly, between one breath and the next, she was elsewhere. She stood upon a vast plain of shining silver, beneath a black sky speckled with stars. Far above her, seemingly inverted, was a flat disc-shaped world, continents and oceans clearly visible from this vast height, ringed with walls of blazing flame and crashing water, roiling storm and living jungle.

"Magnificent, isn't it?"

Taylor turned to see a woman standing behind her, clad in a flowing robe of almost luminously white fabric. She was tall and willowy, with pale skin and long, curly, platinum-blonde hair. She had a thin-lipped, wide, expressive mouth, turned up at the corners into a fond smile as she stared up at the vast disc of the world. Her eyes were like orbs of shining silver, reflective like mirrors and without visible iris or pupil.

"Who are you?" Taylor asked. "And where am I?" She suddenly realized that the fear and the horror and the anger she should have been feeling, that she had been feeling mere moments before, were oddly detached. She was still aware of those emotions, but they seemed to be at one remove somehow, as though she were looking at them rather than feeling them.

The strange woman dropped her gaze to look at Taylor. "You may call me Luna," she said. "As for where you are, you are nowhere, in a place between places. What you see is an illusion, created from my memories to provide a rather more congenial place for discussion than that locker."

Taylor stared, baffled.

"I have watched you, Taylor Hebert," Luna continued, her voice taking on a rhythmic cadence as she spoke. "I have seen you bear up under trials that would have broken mighty men and driven gods to madness. Such strength, such perseverance, is worthy of reward. As it is written, to the one who is faithful with a little, more shall be given."

"I offer you a place among my Chosen, Taylor. I offer you Exaltation, strength and power and the gift of growth unending." The woman bent down and plunged her hand into the silver ground as if it were water. When she withdrew it again, she was holding a disk of silver, like a medallion or a large coin. On one side was etched a crescent moon, and then Luna flipped it over to show what Taylor thought was supposed to be a stylized wild boar on the other.

"Will you accept my power and my mantle, Taylor Hebert?" Luna said, extending her hand and offering the silver disk to Taylor. "Will you accept the blessing of the Moon and the spirit of the boar?"

Taylor stared at the disk for a moment, then reached out and took it from Luna's hand. She had no idea what was about to happen, but at this point she was pretty sure any change could only be for the better.

"Attagirl," Luna said with a smile. The disk melted in Taylor's hand, silver sinking into her skin, flowing though her veins like ice water.

"Good luck, Taylor," Luna said with a smile. "I have a feeling you're going to need it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Console to Velocity. Reports of unknown parahuman attack at Winslow High School. Say again, reports of unknown parahuman attack at Winslow High School. Possible trigger event. Shadow Stalker engaged and in possible danger. Proceed immediately. Over."

"Acknowledged. On my way. Over," Velocity said, finger on the transmit button of his headset. The Tinkertech communication system would slow down his words to the speed the rest of the world ran at, letting Console know what he had said. Turning on one heel, he set out for Winslow at a steady jog.

For far from the first time, he wished that his powers allowed him more transportation options while sped up. While he could bring his costume and a certain amount of gear with him into his Breaker state, he couldn't bring anything as large as a car, or even a bicycle. And the faster he moved relative to the rest of the world, the less force he could exert on his surroundings, so riding a bicycle was right out at his top speeds. Fortunately, he only seemed to require food and sleep to the schedule of the rest of the world, but it still took him a subjective eternity to get anywhere.

It was about thirty subjective minutes later that he arrived at Winslow High. He did a quick circuit of the place, looking in windows to try and find the scene of the altercation, but couldn't see anything. Back at the front of the building, he had to momentarily drop back into real time to open the doors. Shouts and crashes slammed into his ears as he shoved open the school's door, only to distort again into a shapeless background hum as he shifted back up to his full speed.

After several horrifying subjective minutes searching the halls, weaving through almost-frozen students, he spotted an odd silvery-white light down one of the corridors, one where the lights had cut out for some reason. Following it, he rounded a bend to see what he'd feared. About halfway down the darkened corridor were two figures standing in front of a massive hole torn through the wall. One was a young black girl in civilian garb, sprawled on the floor. Standing over her, fists raised, was what had to be the new cape. The air for a good five to ten feet all around the new cape seemed to glow with a flickering quicksilver radiance, like a cloud of luminous mist rising from its skin, but that didn't stop Velocity from getting a clear look.

The figure was clearly inhuman, looking like some kind of man-boar hybrid. It – no, she, she was entirely naked and definitely female – stood at least seven feet tall, possibly eight. Her frame bulged with muscle and her skin was tanned and leathery. Her head was that of some kind of pig, with a tusked and protruding snout and bristling whiskers, though she had long curly dark hair flowing down her back.

As Velocity drew closer, he spotted black burn marks on the teenage black girl, almost invisible against her dark skin. Shit, thought Velocity, glancing over to see the gleaming copper ends of snapped wires in the hole in the wall. That's got to be Shadow Stalker. He'd never actually seen the ex-vigilante Ward unmasked, but the body type and general proportions were right, and it was the only thing that made sense. While Shadow Stalker's Breaker power let her pass through most substances, she couldn't phase through anything with an electric current running though it without suffering debilitating electrical shocks. Her Ward mask included specialized goggles to let her see electrical flows, but it would appear that she'd been attacked in her civilian garb, had had to jump through a wall (or possibly several walls) blind, and had guessed poorly. And now that he took a closer look at her, her shoulder didn't seem to be shaped quite right, and… yep, that was a break in her arm, almost hidden under her body.

He pressed the "Transmit" key on his headset. "Console, Shadow Stalker has been severely injured by unknown parahuman. Locate Panacea and get her to Winslow, STAT. Over."

He released the key and drew a pair of confoam grenades from his belt, setting them for just half a second's delay after release. While the limits of his Breaker state made most weapons almost useless to him, these were practically perfect. He dropped both grenades at the feet of the unknown parahuman, then bent down, wrapping his hands around Shadow Stalker's ankle. He braced himself, and pulled back as hard as he could. Nothing happened, of course, with him in his high Breaker state he'd have about as much success pulling a solid lead statue as Shadow Stalker's unconscious form. And then he dropped his Breaker state, and everything seemed to happen at once. He fell over backwards, landing on his behind in a crash and yanking Shadow Stalker's limp form into him. The unknown cape's fist came down in a crash, smashing through the tiled floor, and then the confoam grenades went off, and she vanished into a blob of yellow foam, still limned in flickering silver.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny looked at the girl sitting across the table from him, her face bearing an expression of tightly contained fury that he was more used to seeing on his own features.

His mind still balked at his daughter's appearance. Since that morning when she'd left for Winslow, she'd gained at least three inches in height, sprouted dark stubble on her jaw, and put on some serious muscle, so that her formerly baggy clothes now barely fit her. Not to mention that she'd apparently gone up at least a full cup size, maybe two.

He shook his head, trying to wrest his train of thought away from anything to do with that topic, and glanced back down at the pile of papers in front of him.

"How could you?" Taylor almost snarled.

Danny closed his eyes, guilt welling up inside him once again. How could I indeed? he thought.

It had seemed so reasonable at the time. He'd been told out of the blue that not only was Taylor a cape, but that she was facing charges of assault, and possibly even attempted murder, with her new powers. Facing the threat of his daughter going to juvie for three years, and all too probably getting recruited by the gangs while she was there, the offer of probationary Ward status had seemed like a lifeline. Six months as a probationary Ward, and she'd have the chance to become a full Ward with her record expunged. And the terms of the probationary Ward contract weren't that bad either, not on the face of it. It had seemed so reasonable, all because he hadn't known the one crucial fact that turned everything about this case on its head.

"Taylor, I'm sorry," Danny began. She glared at him. He couldn't blame her, the words sounded contemptible even to his own ears. "If I'd known…"

"If you'd asked," came the hissed reply. "If you hadn't just ignored it, tried to make it go away like you always do…" Danny winced, things had been rough since Annette died but it hadn't been—

He cut the thought off halfway. If Taylor had reached the point she'd Triggered, then it had been that bad. He'd thought the bullying had just been a passing phase, but it hadn't gone away; instead it'd escalated again and again.

"But I'm a 'Ward' now, aren't I?" Taylor snarled, doing air quotes with her hands. "I have to work with the bitch Sophia and her god damned 'hero' friends, thanks to you."

Danny closed his eyes. Somewhere in his pile of notes was a way to fix things. To fix everything. He just needed to figure out how.

"Taylor. This is all going to work out. It'll be fine."

She scoffed. "How? They've got me on probation for six months. Six months with her -- I'd rather go villain."

"Please don't go villain," Danny said in a rush. "We can…" He glanced down at his notes. It was a fantastic trap, really. Taylor couldn't break the contract without being charged with attempted murder of a Ward. A charge that Danny did not even begin to have the money to fight. But then, there were two people who could break a contract. And now that Danny thought about it, if you compared what this contract said to what the Wards actually did…

"Taylor. Have I ever told you about malicious compliance?"

She arched an eyebrow but didn't stop him and Danny launched into the beginnings of a plan.

 

[Aeshdan]

"Do you wanna build a snowman?" There was a long pause.

Yes, I do, sang Elsa's heart, but not a word passed her lips. Her eyes gradually closed, blocking out the sight of her room coated in frost. Blocking out the snowflakes that hung suspended in the air. Blocking out everything except her pain and her grief.

Oh, Anna, I want you. I want you so badly I can hardly bear to keep this door shut. But I can't open it. I hurt you once, and I can't do that again. That would be the only thing that could hurt worse than this, if I froze your heart like the trolls warned me.

I wish I could freeze my own heart. Then maybe it would stop hurting so much.

Elsa blinked her eyes open, that last thought flashing through her mind. Shakily, she extended her left hand before her, fingers curved as if holding the hilt of an invisible dagger. And for the first time in years, she deliberately reached for the magic.

Blue-white light swirled in her grasp, shaping itself into the form of a slender dagger. It had no substance, was barely more than a whisper against her fingers, but it radiated a chill that would freeze any flesh but her own.

For a long moment, Elsa considered the icy dagger.

This could kill you, a voice seemed to whisper. The cold may not hurt you, but this? This is magic. Who knows what it might do?

So what? retorted another voice. The succession's provided for. If I die, Anna takes the throne. She'd be a better queen than I any day. How can I be a queen if I can't even go out and meet my people without bringing a snowstorm down on them?

The dagger-shape dissolved into sparkles of magic, then reformed reversed.

And if I die, I'll see Mother and Father again.

Elsa closed her eyes, and drove the dagger of magic into her heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They're dead.

They're dead, and I'm alone.

So very alone.

What am I going to do?

Anna lay on her bed, weeping. She had no idea how long she'd been there. It just hurt, it hurt so much. Ten years and more she'd lived with the gates locked, with the halls empty, and people only coming in when they had to to keep the kingdom running. Ten years Elsa, with whom she'd once been so close, had hidden behind that closed door. And now her mom and dad, the only people who she had been able to talk or interact with, were gone.

And I am alone. Elsa wouldn't come out, not even now when I need her the most.

There was a knock on the door. Anna twitched on her bed.

"Anna?" a clear voice said.

Elsa? thought Anna, bewildered. Then her sister's voice rang out again, singing seven words that instantly grabbed Anna's attention.

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

Anna exploded off her bed and ran to the door, throwing it open. Elsa stood on the other side.

Anna's sister was clad in a black dress, one that echoed Anna's own, but there was an odd smile on her lips.

"Elsa?" blurted out Anna.

"Hello, Anna," said Elsa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elsa flicked her fingers. A spark of magic shot forward and exploded into a shower of snow. Another twitch of her fingers, and the snow swirled up and formed into a crude snowman.

Anna stared in amazement, and Elsa deliberately showed another small smile. It seemed almost absurd how much trouble she'd had controlling her powers, when it was now so simple. Without fear or anger to twist the magic, she no more had to worry about controlling it than she had to worry about controlling her own arm.

It was a bizzare experience. She still remembered what it had been like to feel pain and sorrow and fear and love, though she suspected that her memories no longer conveyed the true depth of those emotions. Yet she couldn't actually feel any of those things anymore. It made for an odd dissonance.

Elsa had already decided not to tell Anna what she had done. She might not feel anything towards her sister anymore, but love was more than feelings. It would hurt Anna to know what Elsa had done to herself, therefore Anna would not know. Hopefully. Elsa wasn't actually sure how well she'd be able to hide her new state from Anna. Of course, ten years alone and isolated, culminating in the death of her parents, could cover a lot of personality changes.

"Elsa…" said Anna, voice tinged with awe, "What… how… when did you learn how to do that?"

"This is why Mother and Father closed the gates, Anna," said Elsa. She realized she should have felt a twinge of sorrow at this point, but of course she could no longer feel sorrow. All she had was a certain detached regret at the loss of time and life. "This is why I hid behind my door for all those years, and why the palace was empty. When I first discovered I had these powers, Mother and Father did the only thing they could. They closed the gates and emptied the palace, to keep everyone safe from me. It was supposed to be only temporary, until I learned better control, but it didn't work out that way. My fear warped the magic, made it harder to control. And of course, the more trouble I had controlling the magic, the more I feared it. It fed back on itself."

"So what changed?" asked Anna, running her finger along the streak of white in her hair.

Elsa closed her eyes. "After Mother and Father's death, I was too sad to be scared," she said. "And without fear to interfere with my control, all that practice made it easy to control the magic. And of course, once I'd proven to myself that I could control the magic I wasn't afraid of it anymore."

True, after a fashion, she thought. If it had not been for Mother and Father's deaths, I would never have been desperate enough to try what I did.

Anna stared at the snowman. "So… what happens now?" she asked. "Do we open the gates? I suppose this is a bit hypocritical, but I don't think I want the gates open right now. Not while I'm still…" she trailed off and turned to Elsa.

Elsa opened her arms and Anna stepped into her embrace. The sisters held each other close, and Elsa felt Anna's tears hot against her shoulder.

"I understand, Anna," she whispered in her sister's ear. "And I can't open the gates just now anyway. Father ordered them shut, and it will take a Queen to revoke a King's command. You'll have your time to mourn. And I promise you, Anna, that the very day I'm crowned Queen, I will open up the gates, and I won't close them again."

"And until then," she whispered, allowing her voice to soften, "At least we have each other."

"At least we have each other," whispered Anna back.

 

[Aeshdan]

At first, Moana didn't realize what the Ocean had done when it chose her. For a time after Te Fiti, life seemed… perhaps not normal, but good. She taught her tribe the art of Wayfinding, and they set out beyond the reef once more. They found a dozen islands within an easy day or two's travel, scoured clean by the Blight, restored by Te Fiti, and now just waiting to be settled once more. There were still storms and monsters, of course, but the storms were now less, and Maui often flew with the ships and drove any monsters that came too near back to Lolotai. Moana would not notice until much later that the weather was always good and the monsters were few when she sailed with her people.

A new village was planted on one of the larger islands, which they named Katamaui. Both Motonui and Katamaui grew, new children being born every year. Moana herself wedded Mattimeo, a handsome young man with bright eyes and clever fingers and a love of sea and wave almost as deep as hers. She lay with him, and bore children, and was happy. And the years kept passing.

At first, Moana thought she was merely aging well. After all, neither of her parents had shown grey hairs until they were well into their fifties. It wasn't until her father's funeral that she was forced to confront the truth. She'd continued aging for the first few years after Te Fiti, but that had long stopped. She was older now than her father had been when she left to find Maui, but she looked barely half her age. For that matter, the eldest of her children looked almost the same age as her.

That night, while the rest of the tribe was scattered around the bonfires, celebrating her father's memory and legacy, Moana slipped away into the night. She found herself up atop the island's tallest peak, in the circle of chiefs. As she gazed out into the night, thoughts chased each other through her head.

I am chief now.

Those are my people down there. Mine to guide, mine to lead, mine to protect. That's the bargain. They gave me their loyalty, and I owe them in return all the skill and all the wisdom I have. To do any less would be to dishonor Father's legacy.

Or would it? Do I deserve to be chief when I am no longer even human? Don't those people deserve a chief who is one of them?

There was a flash of blue-white light behind her, and Maui's voice spoke out of the darkness from behind her. "So you finally figured it out, huh?"

"How long have you known?" asked Moana, not turning around.

"I started to suspect almost as soon as I met you," said Maui. "I know how the gods operate. They don't give out the kind of power you were throwing around without changing you to make you able to bear it. And you were just that little bit too strong, too tough. A human girl couldn't have survived some of what you did. But as for actually knowing… five years, maybe ten."

Moana turned around. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Maui was standing just outside the circle of chiefs, leaning on his fishhook. "At first, because I wasn't sure. After that… I know how hard the life of a demigod can be. I wanted you to have the opportunity to live as a mortal for as long as possible."

"So now what do I do?" asked Moana.

"You're asking me?" laughed Maui. "Moana, I have been trying, and mostly failing, to find a good answer to that question for millennia."

"Then enlighten me with the benefit of your vast experience," retorted Moana.

"Well…" said Maui, spinning his hook around. "You could stay on as a kind of chief of chiefs. You're smart, kind, and charismatic. Your people could do a lot worse than having you as their supreme leader for the next few millennia. Or you could join me, roam the seas hunting down monsters and searching out treasures for humanity. Or you could go the "cryptic oracle" route, set yourself up a little hut on one of the smaller islands and hand out wisdom to those who seek you out." His tone grew more serious. "Or, if you really wanted, there are things that can kill even us. If you went looking, you'd find one eventually."

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Moana.

"I have," replied Maui. "Came pretty close to it a few times on that island."

There was a long pause, and then a thought flashed across Moana's mind.

"Oh Te Fiti, what about my children?" she asked.

Maui winced. "One of the great curses of being a demigod," he replied. "I sired more than a few children before Te Fiti. Even with this face, a man who does the kinds of things I did gets plenty of women throwing themselves at him. And those children grew old and died, just like any other mortals."

"Oh," said Moana.

There was another long pause. Moana turned back around and gazed out into the night.

"Was it worth it?" she asked after a while. "All the stunts, all the fame and glory, was it worth it in the end?"

"Yes and no," replied Maui after a moment. "The glory, the masses chanting my name, that never really satisfied. But then, every so often, I'd meet someone like you. Real friends, people worth getting to know. And I knew that it was because of what I've done that people like you continued to live and be happy. So yes, in the end it was worth it."

"I think I understand," said Moana. She turned around again and continued. "And now, I am going to go back down this mountain, and I am going to join my people in celebrating everything my father was. All the rest can wait for tomorrow."

Maui smiled. "Got it. See you around, Moana." With a flash of blue, he shifted into a hawk and flew away.

"See you around, Maui," replied Moana, before setting off down the path. Her tribe awaited.

 

[Aeshdan]

The docks smelt of fish and tar, with a faint tang of salt. Though this was only the second set of docks she'd set foot on in her lifetime, Rapunzel was already learning that these were the odors shared by all docks.

Arendelle, she thought as the sailors began to haul in the mooring ropes. A new country, new experiences, new relatives.

I still can't believe I have relatives . All those years with only Gothel for company, I would have been happy just to have a real family. And now not only do I have a real mother and father, not only do I have a betrothed, but I have cousins, and uncles and aunts and Lord alone knows what else.

And those cousins were standing on the docks, waiting for them. The one in the green dress, who was practically bouncing up and down with excitement, had to be Anna. She actually looked like Rapunzel's real mother, though the fiery shades that the sunlight only hinted at in Queen Arianna's locks were brought to their full blaze in Anna's braids. Behind her stood Elsa, elegant in pale blue and with the snow-white hair that Rapunzel knew marked her ice magic, just as the sun's gift had once stained her own hair gold.

I wonder if her hair goes back to normal when it's cut, the way mine did? Rapunzel wondered. Probably not, they'd have discovered it by now.

Suddenly, something occurred to Rapunzel. "Eugene," she whispered. "Did Mom ever say whether Anna and Elsa know that she knows about Elsa's magic? I can't remember."

"How would I know?" he whispered back. "I wasn't there when she told you, remember? The only reason I even know about the magic is that you told me on the way up here. Though I could probably have guessed anyway," he added, gesturing in Elsa's direction.

With a thump, the gangplank settled onto the dock. Rapunzel took a deep breath and, with the ease of far too much practice, pushed away her worries. It wasn't that hard. Today, she got to see a new country and meet actual relatives, and the worst she'd have to worry about was a minor faux pas . Compared to her childhood, this would be nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as Rapunzel hugged her, Elsa knew that she was in incalculable danger.

She really should have seen this coming. She knew that Rapunzel had been touched by magic, just as she had been. She knew what Rapunzel's touch could do. But she had foolishly believed the stories she had heard, believed that calling Eugene Fitzherbert back from the brink of death had depleted Rapunzel's magic.

The stories were wrong. With Rapunzel's hair cut, the sun magic had been buried deep within her, its channel to the surface dammed. But it was still there, capable of being called forth under the right circumstances. The power of light, of life, of healing . Quite possibly the only thing left in the world that could truly hurt Elsa.

If she had still possessed the capacity to do so, Elsa would have panicked. She might have run away screaming or struck out at the arms that enfolded her. Even as she was, she could not prevent a wince as Rapunzel's embrace, and the light and love it carried, began to force warmth into her frozen heart and brought back the tiniest shadow of the agonies waiting for her.

Rapunzel let Elsa go, looking embarrassed. "Sorry," she said, "I should have remembered that ten years and more locked away can make a girl a bit hug-shy."

Elsa took a shaky breath and pressed one hand to her chest, using the motion to disguise the flash of her magic as she renewed the permafrost of her soul. "It's ok," she said with her best fake smile. "One gets used to unexpected hugs living in the same house as Anna."

As if to demonstrate Elsa's point, Anna swept Rapunzel and Eugene into a hug.

"It's so good to see you!" she exclaimed.

"I'm afraid I need to go," said Elsa. "That's the Duke of Wesselton's ship putting into dock over there, and I think I may need to greet him in person."

And with that, she turned and walked off down the dock, her mind racing.

Anyone else, I could just freeze their heart. I did it to the rabbits and sheep and even the bear without any trouble, and a human can't be that different. But I can't touch Rapunzel, not with her heart filled with sunlight. Though Eugene isn't protected the same way, and his death would break Rapunzel's heart, kill her sunshine…

Wait. What am I thinking ? Rapunzel and Eugene are innocent, they have no idea what they're doing to me. And Rapunzel's my cousin !

Elsa didn't know how to describe what it was she was experiencing. There was no horror, no disgust, only the detached realization that there was something very wrong about the direction in which her thoughts had gone. For the first time in months, she wondered just how much that dagger of ice had changed her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was not precisely accurate, Elsa mused, to say that the Duke of Wesselton danced badly . That seemed to somehow both overstate and understate the case.

Bad dancing was shuffling around or stepping on your partner's feet or not being able to keep to the beat. The Duke of Wesselton actually danced very well, in that he was active and clearly knew how to move. The only problem was that he had either completely forgotten or was deliberately ignoring the fact that he was supposed to be dancing with Elsa. Still, it wasn't as though Elsa could feel annoyed, or embarrassed, or frustrated. Humoring the Duke's antics put him in a good mood, while making him look a fool and her look polite and generous to the rest of the guests. And all it cost her was a bit of time.

With a sharp chord, the current song came to a halt, and the Duke touched down once again at Elsa's side.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time, Your Majesty," said the Duke. "When your parents locked the gates and hid you away, there were so many rumors. Some said you were sick, or mad, some that you'd been caught kissing someone unsuitable. Why, some even claimed you were a sorceress!" The Duke quirked his eyebrows in a clear attempt to look knowing, though it more made him look as though he had something in his eye.

Elsa quirked her lips in a false smile, and let out a little laugh. "That's a new one, Your Grace," she remarked lightly, betraying no sign of her concern.

Technically, of course, she wasn't a sorceress. Her powers were her own, blood and bone, not gotten by bargaining with faeries or demons. The fact that she could walk on consecrated ground and even take Mass without it having any impact on her powers proved that those same powers were lawful in the eyes of the Lord.

But there were those who didn't appreciate that distinction, and she suspected the Duke of Wesselton to be one such. Better not to reveal that there was anything unusual about her. The Duke of Wesselton might be borderline senile, but his state was still one of the biggest purchasers of Arendelle's gems and metals, and it was in part Wesselton grain and meat that had allowed Arendelle's population to reach its current size.

"Care for another dance, Your Majesty?" the Duke asked, his manor shifting from a bad attempt at "knowing" to a bad attempt at "seductive" with mercurial speed.

"I've already given you two dances, Your Grace!" said Elsa with a false giggle. "Any more would be quite inappropriate. Besides, I haven't had a chance to sample the delights of the buffet table."

She made a swift getaway before the Duke could come up with anything else to say and glanced around the room.

Huh, she thought, noting the lack of copper-colored hair. Wonder where Anna's got to?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Will you marry me?"

Anna's first thought was an immediate desire to shout out "Yes!". Her second thought was an almost equally immediate desire to say "No!". With an effort of will, she squelched both desires and tried to think.

You can't just marry a man you only met today, a voice seemed to whisper in her ear. It sounded a lot like Elsa.

You can if it's True Love , retorted a second voice.

What would you know about True Love? sneered the first voice.

You know True Love when you feel it, all the stories agree on that, the second voice insisted.

And what about your cousin and her fiancé? the first voice changed its tack. Eugene was willing to die for Rapunzel, and Rapunzel to face worse than death for Eugene. And they still took their time before getting engaged. What's the rush?

Well… the second voice began, before stopping dead in its tracks.

There really is no rush, is there? said a third voice in tones of wonder.

"Anna?" Hans said, and she suddenly realized that he'd been kneeling in front of her this whole time while she debated with herself. And at the same moment, she realized that she'd made up her mind.

"Not yet, Hans," she said with a smile.

"Not… yet?" Hans said, looking confused.

"Look, Hans," she said with a laugh, "I'm not going to marry a man I only just met today."

"But… but this is True Love! Can't you feel it?" asked Hans.

"Of course I can!" said Anna with a laugh. "But just because we love each other doesn't mean we need to rush things."

Hans looked so bewildered Anna couldn't help but laugh again. "Don't you get it, Hans?" she said, savoring each word like rich chocolate, confidence building even as she spoke. "The gates are open , and Elsa's not going to close them again. We can afford to take our time. And I want to take my time with this. I want picnics and balls and dinner parties and everything else. I want to be courted, Hans, courted as a princess should be courted.

"So my answer is 'not yet'. I know we don't have an ambassador from the Southern Isles in the castle, so you can stay on here. You can get to know me, and I can get to know you. And in… say six months, at Christmas, if you still feel the same about me you can ask me again, and I'll say yes or no."

Hans stared at her for a long moment more, and then shook his head and let out an exasperated chuckle that so reminded Anna of her father when she had done something even more reckless than usual that she had to turn away to hide the sudden welling-up of tears in her eyes.

"Very well, Anna," said Hans, rising to his feet. "In that case, I think we had better return to the ballroom. If I'm to court you, then I think another dance or two would be a good place to start."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elsa leaned against the wall, a plate with a few cheese cubes in her hand. She wasn't actually eating anything. She hadn't felt hunger since she had plunged that knife into her heart. She still could eat, and she did so on a regular basis to keep up the façade, but food had lost much of its savor. The plate simply provided a convenient barrier, a way to explain what she was doing standing off to the side instead of mingling with the crowd. She wasn't sure how much of it was ten years and more alone and how much was… what she now was... but she needed a few moments to recover from the whirlwind of dances and conversation.

Suddenly, there was a commotion as Anna came pushing through the crowd, dragging an unfamiliar figure in her wake. After a moment, Elsa recognized him.

Right, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. Haven't seen him in the last hour or two, come to think of it. Have he and Anna been together this whole time?

"Elsa!" said Anna with a giggle. "I… we…" She blushed, then started over again. "Hans just asked me to marry him."

Elsa was not shocked, or startled, for she could not be. But the words did catch her attention, and for the first time that night she focused her full attention on Hans. What she sensed surprised her. Ever since she froze her heart, normal people had felt slightly… off . There was too much passion, too much warmth in the human heart for her to feel entirely comfortable with it. But Hans… something about him felt familiar .

Anna kept on talking. "Don't worry, Elsa, I didn't say yes. But I didn't say no either. I told him he could have six months to court me, and then I'd tell him yes or no at Christmas. Anyhoo, the point is, Hans can't be courting me all the time, so he'll need something to do here. Can he be the ambassador for the Southern Isles? I know we don't have one yet."

For a moment, Elsa had wondered whether Hans might have powers of his own. But after a moment's contemplation, she realized that that wasn't it.

His heart is frozen, but not the way mine is, not by magic. His is naturally that way. I… in so many ways, I am a monster, an abomination out of the stories, the evil witch-queen with a heart of ice. But… I felt love, once. I still remember what it was like. I know the difference between right and wrong, and I still try to walk in the path of Christ. Hans… what is he? What might he do to my sister, without even the memories of love to guide him?

"Can we talk, Prince Hans?" she said out loud. "In private ," she added, with a meaningful look at Anna.

For just a fraction of a second, she saw cold calculation in Hans's eyes, and then the jovial mask was back in place.

"Of course, Your Majesty," he said with a smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Elsa lead him off into a side room, Hans was feeling cautiously optimistic. He'd hoped to provide Elsa with a fait accompli, yet he'd always known the chances of that were slim. And Elsa had no rational reason to deny his suit, and no way of suspecting his true goals here in Arendelle.

It was possible, of course, that Elsa had simply formed an irrational dislike of Hans, or that she didn't intend to let her sister marry anyone . But even in that case, the situation could still be salvaged. Anna had deferred Hans's proposal because she believed she had the luxury of time, but if it came down to a now-or-never choice, Hans was sure he could get her to elope with him. They'd be back in the Southern Isles and safely married within the month, and Hans could start arranging an "accident" for Elsa.

As the door closed, Elsa moved. Fast as a striking serpent, she struck Hans in the chest with the palm of her hand. There was a flash of blue-white light and Hans felt a cold, stabbing pain in his chest. He staggered back against the door, hunched over and gasping for breath.

After a moment, he managed to look up. Elsa's left hand was still extended, and in front of her splayed fingers there hovered what looked like an intricate snowflake design, written on the empty air in lines of blue-white light. Her right hand was busily manipulating the glittering image, poking at some part of it here, pulling at another, twisting still elsewhere. As Elsa's nimble fingers danced across the snowflake, Hans felt the pain in his chest flare and subside and twist, as though someone had driven a dagger into his heart, and was now pushing and pulling and wiggling it around.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime but couldn't have actually been more than twenty or thirty seconds, Elsa's left hand clinched into a fist. The snowflake design imploded in a single flash of white, and the pain in Hans's chest faded almost to nothing. Almost, but not quite. A tiny needle of cold pain still burned in his chest, like a splinter of the pain he'd felt earlier.

"What…" he gasped, then took a breath and started again. "What did you do to me?"

Elsa lowered her outstretched arm. "I placed a sliver of ice within your heart," she said, voice as emotionless as if she were reading off a list of preparations for the feast. "At the moment, my power holds it in check, but should my influence be removed, it will freeze your heart solid and you will die within seconds. At which point, incidentally, the heat of your body will thaw your heart again, leaving no sign that your death was due to anything more than natural causes.

Hans stared at Elsa in horror, but she continued, still in that impossibly level voice. "Think of it as… a safeguard. You see, I know your heart, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, and it is as cold and dead as my own. I know that you no more love my sister than this sofa does, and that your motives for pursuing her are entirely otherwise."

"Yet, though you do not love her, you have shown you can fake it well enough to fool her, and she already more than half loves you. And you are clever, in the prime of health, and come from a prosperous realm. You could make Anna happy, and you would be useful to me as a prince of the Realm. And as yet, you haven't actually done anything worthy of death."

"So, I offer you a choice. You may, if you desire, remain in Arendelle and pursue my sister's affections. If you succeed in winning her hand, then on the day you wed, I shall bind the sliver of ice in your heart to hers. From that day forth, the warmth of her love shall hold the shard of ice in check. But should she die or cease to love you, it will be freed to strike you down."

"Alternately, you may return to the Southern Isles, and make up whatever story you see fit as to why. In that case, or should my sister in the end reject your suit, matters shall remain as they are. As long as my power continues to hold that sliver of ice at bay, you shall live. But should I die, or revoke my protection, so too shall you die."

"And what's to stop me from marching out there right now and telling everyone what you just did to me?" Hans retorted, scrambling desperately for some measure of control.

"What makes you think anyone would believe you?" inquired Elsa blandly. "Nobody even knows I have these powers. My parents kept them secret since they first manifested. If you go out there and tell the world that I am a sorceress and put you under a curse, they'll think that you have rather abruptly lost your wits."

"And even supposing you did manage to get them to believe you, to hunt me down and seek to burn me as a witch, how exactly would that help you? If I die, so do you. And if I don't die, I can give the ice in your heart free rein, and you die."

It had been a long time since Hans had felt this helpless, this terrified. Even against his brothers, he could fight back, or at least hide. But as he met Elsa's pitiless gaze, he knew that he was defeated. She held him in the palm of her hand, hers to crush or spare at her whim. The thought briefly crossed his mind that she might be bluffing, but he dismissed the idea of calling it instantly. She clearly had magic of some sort, and he wasn't prepared to gamble that she'd exaggerated its capacity or her willingness to use it. Not when the stake was his life.

"Well, Prince Hans?" said Elsa. "What's it to be?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AN: Trying to get Elsa's characterization right for this chapter was an interesting exercise. In a lot of ways, she's one of the least human characters I've ever tried to do a viewpoint for, which makes her headspace a very interesting place to get into. Still, I'm pleased with the results.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: This is a poem I wrote to celebrate Good Friday some years ago. It seemed appropriate to share it tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Impossible things are begun

The high honor of Rome is lost

The blazing sun flees from the sky

As a man is raised on a cross



A wandering man he has been

A man without even a home

A stranger wherever he goes

All over the land he did roam



Miraculous gifts in his hands

Gifts of healing, freedom, and food

The multitudes flock to a man

Who once was a worker of wood



But the priests unite in their wrath

And against the wanderer band

For his heart is spotless and clean

And such a thing they cannot stand



Unthinkable crime is performed

For God to a timber is nailed

Incredible mercy is shown

Our sins to the sinless entailed



For behold, life shall taste of death

That we who are dead need not die

He thunders a word from the cross

And that word is "Tetelestai!"

 

[Aeshdan]

AN1: Well, this has been frustrating. SilentlyWatches is a highly gifted worldbuilder, but trying to write in his setting can feel like trying to swim through jelly sometimes. Still, here is the next installation of this saga, and maybe it will get easier from here.
AN2: Happy Easter! He is risen!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ginny? Ginny? Are you alright?"

Someone was shaking her.

"Wha?"

Ginny's eyes snapped open. Ron was leaning over her, looking close to panic. There were lanterns behind his head, and the floor was shaking. The Hogwarts Express had started moving again and the lights had come back on.

"Are you ok?" Ron asked, sounding nervous.

"Yeah," Ginny said. She levered herself up into a sitting position, then glanced around the compartment. Harry seemed to have slid out of his seat to the floor, and was just getting to his feet. Hermione was helping Harry to his feet, Luna was still slumped on the bench, and Neville was huddled in a corner looking very pale. The weathered-looking adult was standing next to his trunk, working the lock. The hooded creature had vanished from the door.

"What was that - thing?" Ginny asked, climbing to her feet. She shuddered as she remembered that freezing darkness that had radiated off the hooded monster, remembered the Chamber, remembered everything that Tom had made her do... "Where'd it go?"

"It was a dementor," the adult said. "One of the guardians of Azkaban." There was a sudden crack that made Ginny jump, and the man turned around to reveal that he was holding an enormous slab of chocolate that he'd broken into several pieces. "Here," he said, offering a particularly large piece to Harry, whom he was standing next to. "Eat it," he said, handing out more pieces of chocolate. Ginny took one and popped it into her mouth. She felt the chill recede a bit from her heart, the dementor's influence fading.

"Someone give Miss Lovegood some chocolate when she comes to," the adult said, leaving a piece of chocolate next to Luna's sprawled form. "I have to make sure the rest of the train is alright." He pushed past Ginny, then disappeared out the door.

Ginny glanced around the compartment again, then hastily dropped to the seat next to Harry and placed her arm around him. The dementor had left her too terrified to care about being embarrassed for the moment, and she needed Harry's touch to drive out the darkness. He stiffened for a moment as she embraced him, but then he leaned into the sidehug, pressing himself up against her. Ginny felt a surge of warmth within her, Harry's touch driving out the last of the chill the dementor had left behind.

Across the compartment, Luna started up in her seat, letting out a sharp squeak of fear and clapping her hands over her eyes.

"Luna?" Ginny asked.

"Is it gone?" Luna said in a small voice.

"It's gone," Ron said. "Professor Lupin… he pulled out his wand, and he said 'None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go.' But the dementor didn't move, so Lupin did a spell, and something came out of his wand - it looked like a wolf made out of silver - and the dementor turned around and sort of glided away."

"Thank Nimue," Luna said softly, lowering her hands. She looked…

She looks like she did when she was nine, Ginny thought, and Mrs. Lovegood… died, right in front of her. She looked like she does now, right afterwards.

And no wonder she looks like that now, Ginny continued in her head. Her magic is all about Truth. That dementor was bad enough for me, if Luna saw whatever it Truly is…

"How did you two get here?" Hermione asked from across the compartment.

"Apparation," Ron said before Ginny or Luna could reply. "Mum and Dad and Bill sound exactly like that when they pop in," he added when Hermione gave him an odd look. "It must have been accidental magic."

Ginny nodded. "Should we get back to our compartment?" she asked.

"No point," Professor Lupin said from the door. "We'll be at the station in a few minutes."

None of them talked much for the remainder of the trip. Ginny leaned up against Harry, holding him tight. Ron kept glancing at them and then quickly looking away. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first melanquist showed up almost immediately after Professor Lupin left, though of course nobody except Luna could see it. It resembled a mottled black-and-grey jellyfish, though its tentacles were broader and flat, like streamers. After floating through the door, the creature hovered in the middle of the compartment for a moment, before starting to pulse towards Neville.

Luna felt a sudden stab of pity at the sight, cutting through the fog the encounter with the dementor had left her in. Melanquists fed off the resonance of sorrow, and the sight of this one reminded her that the dementor would likely have affected Neville just as badly as it had Harry or Ginny. She didn't know exactly what had happened to his parents, but it was public knowledge that he'd been living with his grandmother since just after the end of Voldemort's war. And she'd seen the shimmerlings he'd drawn last year: Melanquists, which were drawn to sorrow; crickaborgs, which were drawn to self-loathing; cereans, drawn to embarrassment; not to mention the nargles which had been attracted by the spite of those who picked on him.

Luna rose from her seat and crossed the compartment to sit down squeezed in between Neville and Harry. She couldn't think of anything to say, so she just wrapped her arms around Neville, holding him tight. Neville stiffened beneath Luna's touch, his face blushing red, and a moment later a cerean came flickering through the door. Resembling a highly stylized bird made from fragments of reddish glass hovering close together, the shimmerling was in Luna's opinion lovely. Ironic, given that cereans fed off the resonance of embarrassment. The cerean began to loop back and forth between Harry and Ginny at one end of its loop and Neville and Luna at the other.

Woops, Luna thought, I think Neville took that the wrong way. I know we're not meant to be more than friends, but he doesn't know that or know I know that. Still, at least being embarrassed should distract him from the memories that seven-times-damned dementor drugged up.

Huh. "Drugged up" is definitely not the right verb there. I think it's either "dragged" or "drug". But which is it?

Never mind, doesn't matter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At long last, they arrived at Hogsmeade station, and there was a great scramble to get out of the train. Ginny was equal parts relieved and disappointed to have to let go of Harry. Even if being pressed up against her crush had made her feel as if she were about to combust from sheer embarrassment, at least the heat of that same embarrassment had held back the awful chill that lingered in the wake of the dementor.

As if to match the mood, it was freezing on the platform, the rain gushing down in stinging sheets accompanied by an icy wind that clawed through cloak and dress alike. Over the mass of the crowd, Ginny heard Hagrid bellowing for the first-years, to take them down to the lake for the traditional journey across to Hogwarts. Ginny, however, followed the press of the rest of the students down the muddy path to where at least a hundred carriages waited to take the rest of the students to Hogwarts. Hitched between the shafts of each carriage was something that looked a little bit like a winged horse, though there was something reptilian about them as well and the wings were leathery like those of a bat. Something twitched in the back of Ginny's mind at the sight, but she couldn't quite place what. Not that she was in much of a mood to think about it. All she wanted to do was get into the carriage and out of the wind and the rain and the press of bodies.

After some further jostling, the six of them ended up in one of the carriages. This time, though, Ron and Hermione claimed the seats on either side of Harry, with Ginny on the other side next to Luna. Ginny wasn't totally sure whether they'd done that on purpose. As soon as the six of them were in the carriage, the winged horse-thing pulling in set off with a jolt, the carriage bumping and swaying in procession.

As the carriage trundled towards a magnificent pair of wrought-iron gates, flanked by stone columns topped with statues of winged boars, Ginny spotted two more hooded dementors standing guard, one on either side. At her side, Luna curled up as if trying to hide, her eyes squeezed shut. As they passed the dementors, Ginny felt the tyet pendant burning hot beneath her robes just as it had on the train, felt the sick chill of the dementor's aura trying to press down on her mind. She turned away from the window, noticing that Harry had gone pale again and Luna was still scrunched up by Ginny's side.

And then they were past the gates, the carriages picking up speed and the sick chill of the dementor's aura fading behind them. Luna uncurled, giving Ginny a rather shaky-looking smile, and Ginny tried to give her a smile back. Finally, the carriage came to a halt, and the inhabitants piled out of it.

As Ginny stepped down, she heard a drawling voice from the direction of one of the other carriages.

"You fainted, Potter? Oh, and you too, Weaslette? You actually fainted?" Looking up, Ginny saw Draco Malfoy coming towards her, his pale eyes glinting maliciously. She heard a sigh behind her, and heard Luna whisper "Oh, Draco…". She was surprised to realize that she heard pity in her friend's tone.

Pity? For Malfoy? she thought. For herself, she felt only anger, pleasantly hot against the cold emptiness that came from passing by the dementors again.

"How dare you!" she snapped. "I'd like to see you go face-to-face with a dementor. Or better yet, see your precious father go face-to-face with one. It's what he deserves anyway!"

"Ooh, Weaslette's got teeth!" Malfoy said with a smirk. "I'm surprised they let you back, after what you did last year. Hoping to finish the job properly this time?"

There was a moment of stunned silence, then Ginny felt a surge of white-hot power in echo of her sudden fury. A gust of howling wind exploded out from her, sending the still-pouring rain briefly horizontal and flinging Malfoy back off his feet, sending him skidding across the wet paving stones.

"You…" Malfoy snarled, face twisted in fury. He whipped his wand out from his robes, but before he could do anything, Professor Lupin stepped between them, his own wand out.

"Is there a problem?" he said mildly.

"She cursed me!" Malfoy said, scrambling to his feet.

"He started it!" Ron retorted. "Called Ginny names, and accused her of… of wanting to do all the things that horrible diary made her do! And she didn't even have her wand out! It couldn't have been on purpose!"

"Ronald is correct, Professor," Luna said from Ginny's side. "Ginevra did not have her wand drawn, and Draco did accuse her of planning to continue Tom's work last year."

"I see…" Professor Lupin said. "Anyone else have anything to add?"

After a moment's pause, he nodded. "Well, I don't see any reason why this needs to go further. A few poorly-chosen words and some accidental magic, neither seems like cause for discipline. Agreed?"

Malfoy glanced from Professor Lupin to Ginny and back again. "Agreed, Professor," he spat, and, turning on his heel, he stalked off towards the doors. The Gryffindors (and Luna) followed him, accompanied by Professor Lupin.

Almost as soon as they were inside, a voice called out "Potter, Granger, Miss Weasley, I would like to see you in my office."

Ginny turned to see Professor McGonnegal calling over the heads of the crowd. The three of them made their way over towards their Head of House, Ginny feeling a sinking sensation as she did so. The stern witch reminded Ginny of her mother in her worst moods, and after what had happened in her first year…

"There's no need to look so worried - I just wanted to discuss one or two matters with you," she said. "Move along, Master Weasley," she added, shooting a stern glance at Ron. "I promise they'll be back down in time for the feast."

Ron nodded and disappeared into the Great Hall, and Ginny followed Harry and Hermione in the opposite direction.

I am a Gryffindor, she thought. Whatever's about to happen, I can face it.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: While I am very impressed with Sleepless Domain 's worldbuilding in general, one of the details I found particularly fascinating was that trans girls can receive the Dream and become magical girls. And when I read that, almost the first thing that occurred to me was "Ok, so what might happen if a cis boy unexpectedly manifested magic? After all, there's no physical distinction between a cis boy and a trans girl (unless surgery enters the picture, of course), it's all about their self-identification. So what might happen if you had someone who was mentally and physically a boy, but who society insisted must be a girl?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lucy Knight (nee Dawn) had feared that this moment would come ever since she'd first learnt she was pregnant. As Magical Girl Dawn Flower, she'd been lucky: she had been a healer, and as such had spent most of her five active years in a safety center or a hospital. She'd only seen actual combat twice: once when a monster had breached the inner barrier of her center and once when a lunatic had tried to set fire to the hospital she volunteered at.

But she'd known the risks other girls faced, seen their wounds, known that outside at night death could come with one wrong move, or even with nothing more than pure bad luck. And since aging out she'd continued to work as a nurse and then as a doctor, continued to see wounded girls come in the doors night after night. For her whole adult life she'd feared what she suspected every mother in the City feared on some level: that one day she would escort her daughter through the door of a registration center, faced with sending her out into the night to risk her life against the monsters.

She'd never expected that she'd escort her son through the doors of Twilight Stars instead.

As they walked up the steps, she shot a glance down and to her left, still not quite able to believe what she saw. Arthur had always had her coloring, blonde hair and bright blue eyes rather than Paul's black hair and dark eyes. But on that impossible morning a couple of days ago, his hair color had… not darkened, exactly, but become more vivid, blonde hardening into a true, metallic gold just as hers had when she had been Dawn Flower. And the same thing had happened to his eyes, the blue somehow becoming more vivid than any normal eyes could be. It was subtler than some, but those were unmistakably a magical girl's features now.

The lobby of Twilight Stars was tastefully ostentatious. The walls were paneled with what Lucy was almost certain was real wood, adorned with large pictures of various magical girl teams. There were plush chairs, carpeted and upholstered in royal blue. A tall plant stood in the corner of the waiting area, stretching all the way to the ceiling.

Behind a desk sat a young woman with bright red hair. As she and Arthur drew closer to the desk, Lucy noticed a crimson starburst tattooed on the back of the woman's hand. For half a moment Lucy wondered if the receptionist was an actual magical girl, but that didn't seem very likely. Besides, now that she took a closer look Lucy could see that the roots of the woman's hair were black, meaning that the bright red hair was most likely dyed. The receptionist was probably a former magical girl, one who had gotten a tattoo of her old sigil just like Lucy had. A lot of girls did that after they aged out.

"Hello and welcome to Twilight Stars," chirped the receptionist - Penny, according to her desk nameplate. "What can we do for you today?"

"Lucy and Arthur Knight," Lucy said, gesturing towards Arthur. "I believe we had an appointment to register Arthur?"

"Of course!" said Penny. "If you'll just take a seat, a registration specialist will be with you shortly."

"Help yourself to a piece of fruit if you'd like some," she added, gesturing at the bowl on her desk. "It's all real."

"Thanks," Arthur replied, taking a strawberry from the bowl.

Lucy and Arthur dropped down into chairs next to each other. Neither spoke. Arthur bit into the strawberry with a nervous smile.

Lucy found herself contemplating the pictures on the wall across from her. Some Lucy didn't recognize, but others she knew, either from the news or from seeing the girls come in the door when she had the night shift at Founder's Mercy. There was Team Bow, Team Wild, and of course Team Diamond, the quartet whose patrol area included the Knight house. That particular quartet Lucy had never met professionally, since Pink Diamond was a healer and so the team rarely had reason to darken the door of a safety center. And, thank the Founder, Lucy's home had never suffered a true barrier breach. Though there'd been a couple of close calls… The tattoo of her old sigil Lucy had gotten on her forehead itched, and one hand came up to massage her brow.

"Hello there," a voice interrupted Lucy's thoughts. "I am Jacob Ignave. I understand you are here for registration?"

Lucy started at the voice and turned to see an older man, slightly balding and holding a clipboard with a sheaf of papers and a pen attached.

"'Arthur', is it?" the man said.

"Yes, that's me," said Arthur.

Jacob nodded. "Before we get to the exciting bits, you need to fill out these forms," he said, handing Arthur the clipboard. "Mrs. Knight, there's some things I would like to discuss with you in my office."

Lucy felt herself wince slightly as she got to her feet. She was fairly certain that she knew what this was about. Still, she'd known she'd probably had to have this conversation sooner or later, and perhaps it was better to get it out of the way now.

Jacob's office wasn't far at all. Second door on the right. Upon entering the door, it was quite a large office, yet very simplistic. A long wooden desk sat deep into the room, leaving a large expanse between it and the door. The back wall was lined with shelving, with various boxes all neatly labeled filling them entirely. Various filing cabinets lined the side walls behind the desk. Nothing sat in front of the desk with the exception of three chairs.

It's so empty in here. The space had caught Lucy's attention. Why have such a big office and so little inside?

Lucy settled into one of the chairs, trying not to feel like a little girl called to the principal's office. After closing the door behind him, Jacob took a seat behind his desk.

"Mrs. Knight," Jacob said, "I understand that it can be a surprise, discovering your child is… not what you thought she was. But…"

Yep, Lucy thought, called it.

She sighed and cut Jacob off with an upraised hand. "Jacob," she said, "I know that not all magical girls are girls on the outside. Not saying that was my own case, but I knew a couple…"

"Founder, I sound like a bad stereotype, don't I?" Lucy said, cutting herself off with a humorless laugh. "'Some of my best friends are transgender,'" she said in a false voice, making air quotes with her hands. "But the point is," she continued in her regular voice, "Arthur still identifies as a boy. You can ask him yourself. And if a trans girl's body doesn't disqualify her from identifying as a girl, then surely Arthur's magic doesn't disqualify him from identifying as a boy."

Jacob gave Lucy a rather skeptical look. "I… see," he said after a long pause. "Very well, we'll shelve that topic for the moment. Now, let's head back out and see if 'Arthur' has finished filling out the papers."

They headed back out to the reception area, where Arthur was still filling out the registration forms. After a minute or two, he got up and offered the forms to Jacob. He stared at the first page for a moment, then rolled his eyes. Looking over, Lucy saw that Arthur had scratched out "Girl" from the "Magical Girl Registration" title at the top of the page, then penciled in "Boy" in its place.

"Well," Jacob said after briefly scanning the rest papers, "this all looks... more or less correct. Though I see you left the space for your sigil blank. It's a complex one?"

"Yeah," Arthur said. He rolled back his left sleeve, revealing the sigil inscribed on the inside of his left forearm. The sigil was golden against Arthur's pale skin and more elaborate than most, all curves and arcs coming together to form a stylized sword.

"And I'm no good at drawing anyway," Arthur added.

"Not a problem," Jacob said, holding up a camera. Jacob snapped a photo of the sigil, then he and Lucy took a couple of steps back.

"Ok, Arthur," Jacob said. "Let's see your transformation."

"Here goes," said Arthur. His sigil blazed golden-white on his arm for a moment, then the light expanded to envelop his body. When it faded again, Arthur was clad from head to toe in shining armor. The edges of the larger plates were etched in golden light, and at the joints numerous smaller plates fitted together with unearthly precision, sliding over and under each other as Arthur moved to provide seamless protection.

Arthur raised his gauntleted fingers to touch the side of his helmet, which vanished in a flash of golden light to reveal his grinning face.

"Pretty cool, huh?" he said. "This is the best part, though." He held his hand out to the side, and a sword made of what looked like gold appeared in his grasp with a flash. Arthur flourished the sword, then he held it up in front of himself and it began to glow a brilliant golden-white, almost too bright to look at. Even from several places away, Lucy could feel the heat radiating off the blade.

Arthur made a couple of quick flourishes with the sword, then the sword and armor alike vanished in a blaze of gold, leaving Arthur clad once more in his civilian clothes.

"So I was thinking 'Dawn Blade' for my magical boy name," Arthur said.

Oh Founder… Lucy thought, feeling her heart swell with pride. That is so… I don't even have the words!

"'Dawn Blade' sounds like an excellent name," Jacob said with a smile. "So, any other powers you've discovered yet? Besides the armor and sword in your transformed state?"

"No, I think that's it," said Arthur.

"Not surprising," said Jacob, "That's already quite a respectable powerset. Though do be sure to let us know if any other abilities turn up. Now, I'll need to go through the rosters, check if there are any other girls you might be thematic with and see which teams could use another member. That'll take some time, though, so I'll do it later and get the results back to you. Right now, let's move this to my office and I'll run you through the perks you're entitled to as a registered magical girl."

Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy thought she saw Arthur make a face at that last line.

Why do I have a feeling that this is only going to get more annoying from here on out? She thought. Seriously, Founder, why did you have to give the Dream to Arthur? Putting a child on the front lines who I'd never expected to be there, and giving us all kinds of headaches in the process.

Well, I guess I have no choice but to hope there's some good reason for all this, she thought as she and Arthur settled into chairs in Jacob's office.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: This concept was largely inspired by S0ngD0g's Quorum series. I love stories that do interesting things with identity, and I wanted to see what I could do with the idea of a Taylor with multiple personalities.
AN 2: Portions of this scene were taken from Interlude 19.z of Worm, by Wildbow.
AN3: I am not an expert in Dissasociative Identity Disorder. My apologies in advance if anything I have written comes off as insensitive.
AN4: <<Text in double brackets>> represents members of Taylor's system talking to each other mentally.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emma stood from the kitchen table, aware that her entire family was watching her.

It's all mental.

Three weeks ago, she might never have imagined that she'd be able to resume life as normal, to not be afraid.

Perhaps it was more correct to say that she was afraid, she just wasn't acting it. Faking it until she could make it the truth.

"You're going out?" her sister couldn't quite keep the note of surprise out of her voice.

"Sophia's dropping by," Emma said.

Just want to forget it happened, put it behind me. Move forward.

"Taylor got back from camp this morning," her mother said.

Emma paused, trying to hide her flinch. She didn't want to think about Taylor right now. "Okay."

"She might stop by."

"Okay," Emma repeated.

Emma couldn't resist hurrying a little as she collected her dishes and rinsed them in the sink. She couldn't help thinking about Taylor. Taylor, who when those men had taken her as a little child had broken, and who had broken again not even a year past when she had lost her mother.

"If she comes by when you're not here-"

"I'll talk to her," Emma said. "Don't worry about it."

She made her way to the front hall, stopped by the mirror to run a brush through her hair. It had all been cut to match the piece that had been cut shorter with the knife.

She couldn't wait for it to grow in, as that alone would erase just one more memory that reminded her of her moment of weakness and humiliation, of how close she'd come to dying or being mutilated. Until it did grow in, it was yet another reminder of all the ugliness she wanted to be able to look past.

Sophia was waiting outside by the time she had her shoes on.

"Heya, vigilante," Emma said, smiling.

"Heya, survivor."

She could see Taylor approaching, tan, still wearing the shirt from camp in the bright primary blue, with the logo, shorts and sandals. It only made her look more kiddish. Broomstick arms and legs, gawky, with a wide, guileless smile, her eyes just a fraction larger behind the glasses she wore, a little too old fashioned. Her long dark curls were tied into a loose set of twin braids, one bearing a series of colorful 'friendship bracelet' style ties at the end. Only her height gave her age away.

She looks like she did years ago. Way before her mom died, before she broke again. Like she's nine, not thirteen.

I was her strength then, when she broke the first time. Just as I've been her strength this past year. And I was happy to do it, when I had the strength to spare.

But I can't afford that anymore. Not now that I'm barely holding myself together, not now that I don't have any strength of my own. I can't let myself break like Taylor did, and if I let her grab onto me she'll pull me under.

I'm sorry, Taylor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taylor hurried along the sidewalk in the direction of Emma's house. The friendship beads on her braids swung and thumped against her shoulders, but she didn't care. It would be great to see Emma again, and she could tell her everything that she and her friends done and learned at camp… or at least, as much of it as she could without revealing anything she'd been asked to keep to herself. That had been more than half the point of the camp, to speak with those who understood what you were because they were the same, to share what you would never dare share where it could reach the ears of those who wouldn't understand.

<<Yay! I finally get to meet Emma properly!>> Rose gushed.

Taylor smiled down at the bubbly blonde girl. Rose and Owl had been part of the family for months now - actually, Emma had already kind of met them - but it was only recently that they'd gotten to the point where they were ready to come out in public. That had been a big part of why Dad had arranged for the camp, to give Taylor and the rest of the system a chance to really get to know the two little ones among those who knew how to walk them through that sort of introduction.

<<We're all looking forward to meeting Emma,>> Jennifer commented, ruffling Rose's hair with a fond grin.

As she neared the house, she saw Emma on the front steps. Cool. She's still home. But there was also someone standing at the gate. Someone she didn't know. The girl turned to look at her and Taylor got the impression of dark, glowering eyes, dark skin, and midnight-black hair that blew in the breeze.

Her best friend in the whole world was also turning to look at her. Taylor waved excitedly. "Emma!"

The black girl's expression turned to a sneer. "Who the fuck are you?"

Taylor flinched, startled by the other's cutting tone. Aimee stepped forward, taking control of the body.

"We're friends," she commented, mimicking Taylor's New England accent rather than her own French-influenced tones. She was good at that, much better than Jennifer. "Emma and I have been friends my whole life."

Jennifer let out a muffled snicker at that line, and Taylor felt her own lips quirk up into a smile. She loved - they all loved - word games like that. There was a certain subtle pleasure to saying something that everyone around you would take for hyperbole, while only you knew and perhaps a few others knew the twist of wording that made it the literal truth.

The other girl smirked. "Really," she said.

"Really," Aimee replied, lifting her nose just a touch. "Emma, darling," she continued, pointedly ignoring the dark-skinned girl, "what's going on? Your mom said you weren't taking calls."

Taylor saw Emma flinch. Something about what Aimee had struck home far harder than it should have. What is happening with Emma? she thought.

"I love the haircut," Aimee said encouragingly. "You manage to make any style look great. Though I suppose I'm a touch biased," she added with a coy smile, one hand coming up to fluff her own glossy black bob.

Just for a second, Emma closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Taylor's heart sank. They weren't the warm, friendly eyes of a greeting. Her smile looked almost painted on. <<Something is definitely wrong here,>> Aimee murmured to the rest of the system.

Taylor watched as Emma stepped down to her level and put out her hand towards Aimee's shoulder. Taylor half-stepped forward, not quite displacing Aimee but moving up next to her. She felt Emma's hand on her shoulder like a lead weight.

"Go home, Taylor. I didn't ask you to come over." Emma's voice was as dead as her eyes. There was life there, but it was as fake as her smile. Taylor recoiled, feeling as though she'd been slapped across the face. She felt Veil's arms wrap around her and hold her tight, felt Rose clinging to her leg like a koala to a tree.

"Emma, darling," Aimee said, reverting to her natural French accent. "Why is it a problem zat we have come over now, when it never was before? We have zo much to tell you about! And we miss you. It has been weeks zince we talked."

"There's a reason for that," Emma said, her voice still as hollow as her eyes. "This was just an excuse to cut a cord I've been wanting to cut for a long time."

The world was spinning around Taylor. She saw Aimee recoil, looking as stricken as Taylor felt. Then, without any obvious transition, Aimee was pressed up against Taylor's side, Veil holding them both in an embrace.

"Emma," Taylor heard Veil say, "Why are you doing this?" Her tone was level and clinical, almost as passionless as Emma's had become.

"Do you think it was fun spending time with you, this past year?" Emma retorted, her voice suddenly sharp with a venom Taylor had never before heard from the copperling. "Or even before that, do you think I enjoyed watching you go nuts, having to play along with your delusions-" Veil clapped her hands over Taylor's ears, cutting off Emma's words. But it was already too late. Under one of Veil's arms, Taylor saw Jennifer staring at her clenched fists. Taylor knew what she was thinking. Against anyone else, the copperling would have stepped forward and smacked the offender across the face at the very least. But this was Emma!

Taylor couldn't see, couldn't think straight. She had no idea what was going on anymore. All she could focus on was her alters holding her close, Veil's arms wrapped around them the way Mother had once held her before…

She couldn't finish that thought. She turned and bolted, the rest following close behind her as they fled back to their house. Taylor was vaguely aware of her and her friends pushing past her dad, of him asking in sudden shock what was going on and of Veil's quick-snapped response. And then she was on her bed, weeping into her pillow and the others, even Veil, weeping with her. At some point they must have fallen asleep, for they dreamed of two creatures like the World Serpents of old legend, dancing with each other amidst the stars and shedding their scales to make meteors…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AN: And there we go. I think I mentioned every member of Taylor's system at least once, though obviously some have been more fleshed out than others.

 

[Aeshdan]

AN: In celebration of the conjunction of Lammas and the supermoon, enjoy the first installment of a tale of the children of Father Wolf and Mother Luna.
A Song of Ice and Fire belongs to George R.R. Martin, while Werewolf: The Forsaken belongs to White Wolf (appropriately).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The black-and-brown streaked wolf shot through the shadowed reflection of the forest like an arrow through smoke. Spirits of various kinds flashed by, though most were merely mindless bits of Essence, to the world of spirit what trees and plants were to the world of flesh. And even among the spirits which could see and think and act, few noticed the wolf with the dark of the new moon woven into her fur.

Arya Stark grinned a wolfish grin as she heard the distant howls drawing closer. She pulled to a halt as she reached the killing ground, dropping into a crouch and letting the moonshadows spread over her fur until she was all but invisible against the blackened ground. Any moment now…

Moments later, the strange spirit shot into the clearing. Its form was shadowy, though shadowy in a different way then Arya's. Where Arya was hidden by shadows, this creature was itself a shadow, a hole in the world, its form shifting and indistinct save for the two slashes of crimson light that were its eyes. It did not run so much as flow over the ground like a mist, making no sound but leaving behind traces of biting black chill.

It was swift, but Arya was swifter. As it shot by her, she exploded forth from her crouch, moonshadows streaming from her fur as her teeth sank into something like a leg, tasting the bitter chill of the spirit's essence in her mouth. Lines of power the color of tarnished silver slashed outwards from her bite, carving a sigil into the spirit's corpus and imposing a new definition upon it.

Lame , the scar read in the tongue of spirits.

The strange spirit blurred, its head and mouth elongating, shadowy fangs sinking into Arya's flank. Searing cold and crippling despair flowed through Arya like poison, and she let out a howl of pain. She tried to snap at the spirit again, but the venom in her system slowed her movements, and the spirit twisted impossibly to avoid her fangs. Its foremost limbs grew talons that raked her flanks, cutting bloody slashes into her flesh and drawing another howl of pain from her throat.

As if in answer, another howl sounded from the edge of the clearing, this one a deep-throated bellow of rage. Another form crashed into the spirit like a battering ram, knocking it off Arya.

Arya rolled over and got to her feet, the venom rendering her movements still a little shaky. The newcomer's form was the perfect blending of man and wolf, with a lupine head atop a chest more like a bear's than that of a man, arms and legs bulging with muscle and ending in talons like daggers. The newcomer's body was covered in fur the color of burnished copper, save for the scars that blazed with the pure white light of the full moon, and his eyes were a brilliant blue.

Arya let her jaw drop open and her tongue loll out in a wolfish grin of appreciation. It wasn't often that she got to see her eldest brother really cut loose.

The strange spirit and Robb Stark tangled in a fierce melee. The spirit had sprouted a dozen clawed limbs that ripped and tore at Robb, but the slashes knit shut almost as fast as the spirit could open them, and Robb's own teeth and claws tore great chunks of ephemera from the spirit.

Another wolf, this one with a dark brown pelt and gray eyes like Arya's own, leapt into the fray, his fangs tearing a chunk out of the spirit's form. Arya charged forward herself, the crippling chill of the beast's spirit-venom already fading beneath the hot rush of the wolf's blood.

The shadowy spirit tried to disengage, but the scar Arya had carved still shone black-on-black, branding the creature with lameness and crippling its flight. Robb leapt forward in a great bound, landing square in the center of the creature's back and tearing it in half. The red fire of the spirit's eyes winked out, and it collapsed into an amorphous mass of blackness.

As Arya padded forward, her packmates' forms twisted, Robb flowing from the wolf-man blend into a direwolf nearly as large as a horse while Jon shifted into his fully human - and clothed, thank the gods old and new - form. Jon bent down and carefully picked up the rear half of the strange spirit's remains, blackness oozing between his fingers like tar.

Robb bent down and took one last bite from the spirit's ravaged front half, before taking a step back and nodding slightly to Arya. She returned the nod before burying her muzzle in the remains of the strange spirit. The spirit's essence tasted cold and bitter, but it was still digestible, refilling the essence she'd spent in this hunt. Unlike true spirits, Urathara could eat just about any sort of essence and not risk it corrupting them, their fleshly bodies anchoring them to themselves.

At the edge of the clearing, Jon half-dropped, half-poured the chunk of spirit-Essence he was holding at the roots of the white-barked tree there. " Gathra ," he said, offering the tree-spirit a shallow bow.

Something deep within Arya's soul brindled slightly, as it always did at the concept of gathra . She was the daughter of the Warden of the North, and though she knew intellectually that even her father payed fealty to the King on the Iron Throne, for all intents and purposes her father had been the unquestioned ruler of every place and every time she had known. It still galled just a touch to be reminded that she and her pack were at best of middling rank in the hierarchy of the spirit realm, that they had to pay tribute to the greater powers of this realm and curry their favor.

Bone-white roots erupted from the soil of the clearing, dragging the strange spirit's remains underground. " Gathra ," the spirit of the weirwood replied, its voice seeming to ooze from its bark like the crimson sap that defined the outline of a face. "You have done well in stopping this scout, young wolves," the ancient spirit added, "but this is but a small victory. Prepare your kin, for the true winter is coming. The Others return." The red sap seemed to sink into the white bark of the spirit-tree.

As Jon shrank from his human form back into the true-wolf form, Arya took a step back from what little of the … Other-spawn? remained, offering Jon an encouraging nod. Jon responded with a toothy grin, then quickly snapped up what remained of the other-spawn's essence.

{Do we want to talk about what was just said?} Arya asked in the half-guestural language of wolves.

{No. Later, back at den.} Robb replied in the same fashion, shrinking down into the true-wolf form.

With a mental sigh of relief, Arya turned her nose homeward. It would still be a long run back even in wolf-form, and she wanted to get as much sleep as she could manage. Sansa already twitted her enough about her frequent late mornings and drowsiness throughout the day, no need to give her more ammunition.

It's not as if she doesn't know why I'm up late, she thought as the ground flew by beneath her paws. I wonder… is she jealous, that I have the wolf's blood and she doesn't? She's the only one of Father's children who doesn't, unless you count Rickon and he's barely a cub. Even Bran has the lesser blood, if not the full strength. And so does Alys, for that matter.

Imagine if she did have the wolf blood. Elegant, demure Sansa running through the woods and fields, with blood in her fur and raw meat in her belly…

She let out a bark of laughter at that image as she sped homewards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sansa Stark ran. Her face and arms smarted from crashing through branches, her legs burned and her breath was like knives in her chest, but still she ran. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the copper-furred wolf pursuing her, barely a handful of steps behind her, its blue eyes flashing in the light of the not-quite-full moon. Behind her she heard the wolf howl, and her blood thrilled at that awful cry. She kept running through the endless forest, ducking under branches and weaving around trees, expecting at any moment to feel the wolf's fangs close around her leg or her neck…

With a sudden shock, Sansa snapped awake. Her arms and legs spasmed as they tried to continue her desperate run, pushing her up off the mattress and thrashing her covers. She fell back to the sweat-soaked bed, frantically gasping as she tried to pull air into her lungs. Her legs screamed with pain, and she could still feel the stinging pain of those dream-branches on her face and arms, but gradually her breathing began to slow. She turned her head towards her window, through which shone the icy silver light of the waxing moon.

Mother, Father, and Stranger, she thought to herself. Why? It had been weeks since she'd last had that nightmare, but they were slowly growing more frequent. The first few times it had been months between the nightmares, but now it was down to only a few week's respite. And when they came, they now came in bursts, with two or three in a fortnight before retreating again for a few weeks.

Going to be a bad day tomorrow, she thought. She'd never yet had the nightmare twice in a single night, but it would still be a while before her body calmed down enough to let her sleep. And whenever she had one of the wolf dreams, it left her body as sore and drained as if she'd actually been running all that time.

And she couldn't simply sleep in a bit to recover, either. The next morning, her father was taking her brothers out at daybreak to see a wildling or deserter or somesuch scum executed, and he'd insisted that she and Arya and Alys Karstark were to come as well.

"A lady may need to administer justice when her lord is away," Sansa's father had said. "You may not swing the sword as I do, but if you are condemning a man to die you at the very least owe it to him to see it done in person, to hear his final words and see the blade fall. If you cannot do that, perhaps the man does not deserve to die."

Arya had been excited at Father's command, like the animal she was. Sansa barely knew her sister these days. It was bad enough that Robb and the bastard weren't completely human anymore, but at least they still acted like normal people most of the time. Arya, on the other hand, acted more like a wildling than a proper lady. Carrying that sword of hers everywhere, fighting alongside the boys in the training yards, climbing and sneaking and skulking, and never showing up to practice her needlework or music or the other ladylike arts. And their father encouraged Arya, he'd even brought in that Braavosi man-at-arms especially to train Arya in sword-fighting. He'd tried to get Sansa to carry and wield a sword, but of course she'd declined. Even Alys Karstark had declined to carry a sword, though she did carry a dirk and a throwing knife in addition to the belt knife everyone carried.

In a lot of ways, Sansa approved of her brother's almost-betrothed, and she wished Father would go ahead and actually announce the betrothal. It wasn't as though anyone in Winterfell doubted that the two were eventually going to wed. Alys was a little more spirited than Septa Mordane said was proper for a young lady, and she practiced shooting the bow and fighting with those two knives. But considering who and what Robb was, Sansa doubted he'd be willing to wed a lady who didn't have at least a little wildling in her. Alys at least had some of the womanly arts, she could sew and dance and was better with sums than Sansa herself.

Sansa's only real problem with Alys (and she knew this one was unfair) was her eyes. In general, Alys had the classic Stark and Karstark features: tall and slender, with a long wolfish face and brown hair. But instead of gray eyes like Arya or Sansa's father, Alys Karstark had eyes of silver, reflective as tiny mirrors. And every time Sansa saw the light flash off those eyes or saw her features reflected in them like a mirror, she was reminded that Alys had the wolf's blood in her veins, that those silver eyes of hers saw things that were invisible to human sight.

Stop it, Sansa thought to herself. Stewing over her sister or her brother's not-quite-betrothed was only keeping her agitated. It wouldn't help her find the sleep she craved.

Stranger, please give me rest, Sansa prayed. Let me sleep, let me rest, quiet my mind and lead me into the outskirts of your country. Please, let me sleep.

Gradually, her racing heart and her exhausted mind quieted, and Sansa Stark slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 

[Aeshdan]

Oh once there was a paladin
A champion of Elsh'Addai
He swore an oath in pinewood grove
Another neath the starlit sky

His sword was cast of angel's gold
Of diamond were his helm and plate
His rod adorned with gems fivefold
His shield did cobalt impregnate

He went to war against the Blight
The attercop and devilhorn
He fought the shades that walk by night
And skirmished with the needlethorn.

He hunted thieves, and many slew
With bow and lance and river cold
At Dagorhir, above the cliffs
He drew his sword of angel's gold

He walked a while in twilit paths
And sang the songs of blood and bone
Until a warning sent him back
To walk the ways he first had known.

South he was sent, to burning sands
And north through blowing winter snows
Then called was he to Western lands
Where the rising sunset glows.