Homecoming
5th of July 2006 A.D.
"That..." you nod slowly thinking the whole thing over. "That would be best I think, talk to someone more senior who is likely to be sympathetic." You smile at the wizard, knowing it probably comes out more tired than anything. "Thank you for everything you have done, helping save me and dealing with my nonsense."
"Making sense out of nonsense is what wizards are for," he tries to make light of it, but you can read the worry on his face. You are not out of the woods yet, not by far, but for now at least you can have a few days reprieve. "I'll be in touch once I have a meeting set up," he adds to your mother.
"Thank you as well Mister Dresden."
So he rates a 'mister' now, you note. Good to know she is warming up to him, though you guess after Arctis Tor everything can only get warmer. Usum actually laughs at the mental pun in what might be his most egregious act of toadyism.
"Let's go home baby, " your mom says after a moment and so you do.
***
From inside the cab the house looks almost black against the glow of the streetlights, the burgundy and ivory it had been painted hidden such that it seems the rambling old Victorian into which your family had moved when you were nine. Falling in love with it then might have been the start of your liking for all things creepy, but now the house had been brightened up, almost tamed from the bright flowers in the front yard to the literal white picket fence around it. Not that your parents stopped at two point five kids, there had already been four of you then and Amanda on the way
There are lights in the windows and many faces pressed against them waiting for your return.
What am I going to say? What am I going to say? The question runs through your mind like a hamster in its little wheel. You can't see the damage to the backyard from here, but you remember the things that had come to the house, the things that had taken you. They would have taken Daniel or Mathew just as readily, they would have taken anyone really. Fear was fear and that is what they fed on... and they had been there because of you. Now you had taken something from the Winter Court, something old, something powerful. Who was to say they would not come again?
"Molly!" Your mother's voice breaks you out of your reverie where you had just been standing on the sidewalk looking up at the house. "Come on, let's go inside and get you out of
those clothes."
Looking down at yourself you cannot for once disagree with the scornful tone, jeans T-Shirt and jacket are all ripped in very much un-artful ways.
"Don't throw them out I can fix them," the words come out almost reflexively, remembering Lasciel's parting words about boots.
There is something reassuringly familiar about Mom's sigh. You are not sure what it says about you.
Keys jingle in the lock for a moment then the door swings open and you open your mouth to speak...
You do not get a single word in edgewise before the avalanche of 'are you OK?'s and 'Did those things hurt you' and 'where did they take you?' wash over you. Everyone but Hope and Hank are here even Amanda though it's way past her bedtime, she rushes in to hug mom then you and stops cold.
"Wha' happened?" she squeaks.
"The realms of the fey are known for changing those who pass through them," Usum offers and that is as good as anything you had come up on the way here. "It turns out you getting kidnapped by wicked faeries doesn't leave one quite the way they used to be."
"So it's like a curse?" Matthew asks.
"No," the word comes out more firmly than you thought it would. "It's like... superpowers I guess."
"Well show us then." Leech asks, eyes wide behind her spectacles.
"No," Mom cuts her off sharply, adding. "And why isn't Amanda in bed?"
Daniel clears his throat, as the eldest one at home that's his question to answer. "I let her stay up since she said she could not sleep anyway with worry about you guys being gone so long."
"How long were we gone?" Mom asks with dawning realization.
"You've been gone for two days, its Wendsday," your brother replies.
Add 'missed two days of school' to the trouble I'm in, you sigh inwardly. "I'm going to take a shower," you proclaim to no one in particular and then duck out of the room before anyone can stop you. You had hoped that dad would be back by now. Even if he is angry at you dad always gives good advice when you are in real trouble.
***
The shower feels strange as the water cools almost instantly off your skin you can barely feel it. You turn it hotter and hotter and hotter until the bathroom is filled with steam. But it still doesn't feel like it used to. I'm always going to be cold, like that place, like those things. You don't know when you started crying, but you are and you can't
stop.
"Yours is not the cold of that realm Most Dreadful Flower of the Endless Night," Usum speaks in your mind again.
"Yours is the chill of Kakuri, the Night Realm where dwells Emma-O mighty among the Yama Kings, pretender to the throne of hell." Sensing your fear the demon adds."Your power comes not though him, nor through any other of the so-called-lords of that place. It echoes the surging essence of Yomi Wan..."
So sitting in the steam filled bathroom in your parent's home you learn about the Thousand Hells and the tainted spirits that live there tormenting the wicked, about the Wuan Kuei, the Ten Thousand Demons who are reborn of those sinful souls who manage to escape, by strength, by cunning and sometimes even by the machinations of the dark lords themselves and crawl back into their corpses to live again s hunters of the living. And you learn a little bit about where your power had come from before the black ice tree.
"The power which is now yours and I bound to was unearthed from a place of great, power darkness between the realms of Lanka and Kakuri known only as the Scar by the Rakshas of Lanka. Bound was it in black jade and taken as a trophy. Though they could use only the merest sliver of its might it was a great weapon in the wars of the demons, but they were ever careful not to bring it too near a living mortal soul for then it might be unleased. They questioned me under torrent for I knew many old secrets, though I did not remember what I had been before the Scar or whence I dwelt."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," you interrupt fervently, not caring if he is a demon.
"I am well now mistress, I will not be put back," he replies with the same conviction you had felt when talking to mom earlier.
"When the Demon City was broken by its own hubris the shard of power was taken by the servants of Emma-O who use it much as the Rakshas had, but less cautiously, for they did not know that it was a crown meant for the Chosen. So they bore it up to realms nearer to the world of men where, in fields of snow and crushing ice, they battled the servants of Queen Mab. In the last of those battles the fey were the victors. They feared what my whispers would do to them so they bound me in black ice in the heart of their fortress and then in their folly they brought near you who would be Chosen and on their heels one with the power to break the prison...."
"Molly stop hogging the bathroom already!" Leech's voice and banging on the door cut off the dark history of your power and you realize that at some point in the account your tears had all dried up.
"Use the other one!" you shout back though the door.
"Can't Matthew's in there, but not for
an hour!"
It seems not even unspeakable demonic powers can save one from the scourge of little sisters.
What do you do tomorrow?
[] Go to school, you have already missed too many days
[] Skip,you have more important things to do
-[] Visit Rosie in the hospital, it's the least you can do
-[] Take another go at those bookshops about magic this time with Usum fora guide so you do not pick up duds
-[] Go talk to Harry, you have a lot more to tell him and it would be nice to do so without Mom listening in
[] Write in
OOC: We are going to play day by day until the meeting with Ebeneezer then we will get into bigger time increments.
