Given what I heard about Florida recently, that's an insult to Caelid right there.
(Un)Happy Family [Worm/Elden Ring]
- Thread starter WhoAmEye
- Start date
- Mature
Given what I heard about Florida recently, that's an insult to Caelid right there.
...I see no FloridaMen. That's bad, it means they've learned ambush tactics.
- Location
- Nightopia
Honestly, just leaving one of the Rot weapons lying around would be enough to ruin the local ecosystem and infrastructure at minimum. Once you starting bringing the spells in, things accelerate VERY rapidly.
Leyndell would like to know your location
I mean, technically, Melina did that. Unless you mean stalking through the streets full Good Hunter style.
Just coming in hot to say I think this is the first time I've ever seen " I would not even consider hatefucking her". Absolutely annihilated any tension I had for the rest of that chapter. 10/10
Also y'all really write characters in a way that makes them feel way more three dimensional than a lot of Worm fics. Thanks for all the effort put in so far!
Edit: HOLY SHIT TRANS ARMSMASTER??? LETS GOOOOOOO
EDIT 2: PIGGOT GETS A LIONSHARE OF THE STUPID, Sucks to be her lol
Edit 3: LESBIANS
EDIT 4: GENDER FLUID MARIKA!!!!!
this story is neat
Also y'all really write characters in a way that makes them feel way more three dimensional than a lot of Worm fics. Thanks for all the effort put in so far!
Edit: HOLY SHIT TRANS ARMSMASTER??? LETS GOOOOOOO
EDIT 2: PIGGOT GETS A LIONSHARE OF THE STUPID, Sucks to be her lol
Edit 3: LESBIANS
EDIT 4: GENDER FLUID MARIKA!!!!!
this story is neat
Last edited:
Coldest line possible tbh.
3.7
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ice Ice Baby - in which the opposite of arson happens!
Special thanks to prime beta Lucky38, Canon Overlord @Ganurath, @hellgodsrus for being my loveliest wife and co-author, and @SolarFlare for being our wonderful supportive girlfriend! And our many friends on the Totally Chatting It discord for their fantastic livereads!
Enjoy and gib feedbacc!
Two more days of waiting. The PRT and Protectorate hadn't come around to the house. The PRT had rang Dad at the office, just to clarify a few things about the situation at school, but that had been it.
Why would the PRT care about a civilian's schooling, anyway? Why hadn't they done more? Either now or then. I was almost itching to go give them a piece of my mind - not literally, since with Glintstone that was a thing, but maybe with a big rock the shape of a brain? Meh.
Victoria had texted a couple of times, just making sure I was okay and occasionally venting a little bit about family stuff I barely had context for. Her mother and her aunt and pressure on her, her dad struggling, her sister avoiding hanging out. Honestly, I think she was preaching to a lost cause. I wouldn't know how to help with social stuff to save my life - and it might very well do that, one day, if I ended up needing to do something diplomatic as a princess or cape. She tried to invite me out on patrol but I had to remind her the PRT said no contact. Which was - really just disappointing. I wanted to go out and be a hero. I wanted to go out and help people - either directly or by removing threats to their safety. I wanted things to be better for people.
And Dad… Dad wasn't entirely happy with my cape life idea, but wasn't outright stopping me. Something about everyone in this family, once putting their minds to something, followed through with it - hell or high water be damned. But that didn't mean she was going to let me go out unprepared - Ranni either - and training was stepped up. As was Ranni's research and discussions with me about my preferences in 'costuming and couture', and it was just…
A lot. It was a lot. Especially with me waiting for the PRT to do something -
Thankfully, though, I had an excellent distraction in the form of Ranni deciding the Glintstone staff was ready for use. So, she could start teaching me basic spells. Which meant we were back to the clearing to abuse the poor trees some more.
Transportation was a lot easier when I could just wave a stick in a circle and use the teleportation trick that had made my staff's glintstone - the Fallen Star's Reach my mind whispered. It was just too useful not to get good at it!
"Thou art surprisingly adept at that trick, sister." Ranni had perched herself neatly on one of the less burnt and smashed rocks, surrounding it with some sort of shield of incomprehensible writing that flared to life occasionally in shimmering dark blue. "Though I would be wary of gifts from the heavens such as that. For a true Falling Star or Naturalborn to become interested in thee is a risk." She clicked her tongue gently. "Though perhaps less of a risk than being an Empyrean."
"The Falling Stars… are they the big skullbugs? Like -" I put my fingers up by my mouth, mimicking the imagined 'clang-clang' of its giant beetle pincers. "Because I just… there seems to be one that hangs out around here, I guess? I saw it teleporting the other night, and with Paradise Lost's help, figured out the calculations on how it did that." Which was weird in its own right, that it couldn't do anything with my incantations beyond offer its own, but Sorcery it took to like a fish to water.
Ranni stared at me for long moment, before finally blinking, and nodding slowly. "I… do not recall seeing a Naturalborn Star in the skies of this land before my fragmenting. And such a being if it were present in the skies should have descended by now. To flee instead is troubling indeed."
"Huh. Do they flee really slowly? This one's been around for at least a week." I was pretty sure it was the same one I saw before accidentally diving into the Primeval Current. Oh, shit, the glintstone buzzsaw! I could finally try it out!
Ranni squinted, then looked up at the sky. I followed her gaze but - I couldn't really see past the daylight. Probably needed more practice before I could do that in the day, or without clear skies. "Ah, I see thy Star. It is… young. Lost. Still collecting its full planetary tail. It likely saw the mark of the moon on thee and thought thee a sibling in need of teaching, hence why it granted thee anything. But to be so alone and not part of a larger cluster while it learns… that is an odd happenstance."
"Aww…" Now I wanted to cuddle and adopt the baby star-beetle like it was a lost puppy. Nevermind that I might as well have been a lost puppy. "Is there any way to adopt it?"
"Nay, tis a creature of inherent destruction regardless." Ranni flapped a distracted hand, her others steepling. "Best it stay in the sky - unless thou wishes to restructure the continent with its arrival?"
It was my turn to cringe. "Not particularly." It felt like a bad idea somehow, a flickering of silver and panic-rage-fear-no. Did you do that once, Patron?
"Indeed. Though - I did adopt Adula under similar circumstances. So it may be possible." Possible was enough for me, because - well, it had helped me and it was cute. If I ever figured out how, I was going to adopt the star-puppy. "Now, sister, before thou attempts to cast thy 'glintstone buzzsaw' -" Aww… "- thou will need to train thy mind to handle the strain of casting smaller, simpler spells." She gave me a look. "Yes, a catalyst will prevent thy body from crystalising, but it will not prevent aneurysms, migraines, cell death from strain, or explosions of magic from sorceries where the mathematics hath not been firmly pressed into thy brain. Or for situations those who pushed such things into thee didn't think of - what if thou art in a gravity well, or in a situation where the gravitational constant is varied by external forces? Then thy Reach would not function appropriately, judging by its current performance."
External forces, huh? Okay. So I'd need to work out how to stabilise the gravity around the entrance - "Does that count for the exit or just the entrance?"
"Both. I would not recommend attempting to use it to go somewhere you have not been before, or at ranges longer than five furlongs, however." What the fuck was a furlong? I'd easily cleared a dozen miles or so to get to here from our own backyard! "Otherwise getting a small variant wrong could result in the exit being already occupied by solid matter." She shuddered and rubbed at her arms as if she were cold.
"That uh… happened?"
"I know not this spell specifically, but an equivalent was the subject of an experiment by mine Consort - that matter that impeded their exit would be forcibly destructed. It went… explosively against what she had planned." Ranni slumped. By explosively did she mean - did her wife turn herself into a fusion bomb? "The universe does not like attempts to overwrite what exists where. Regardless. Do you remember the mathematics we discussed a few days previously for the glintstone pebble?"
I waved my staff in the way she'd shown me. Kept the sigil in my mind, but didn't push. Tried to sort through all the different variables for forming it, it was a messy little equation… "Most of it, I think. The details on the numbers are fuzzy but the formula's stuck whether I like it or not." The ability to translate the formula into a picture made it a lot easier.
Especially when I compared it to the buzzsaw. The pebble was simple - elegant and detailed in every curve of its sigil, but simple. The saw was like a mosaic made of mosaics. I could look deeper in layers, but the instinct of how to control it was seared into my mind.
I was kind of glad I'd done that, because without it, I'm not sure ever would have truly understood how Glintstone could turn the power of thought into action. Or, rather, how to use it. Willpower for incantations was easy - sorceries were more like mentally prodding the universe with the staff. It wasn't something I could explain to satisfaction. If incantations were like Emma's magical girl anime where shouting louder made one stronger, sorceries were like… those bullshit detective scenes in TV with the floating letters and numbers somehow telling you something you couldn't possibly have known, or letting you make an impossible shot.
Except looking too closely at the numbers could make your brain slop out your ears, or make the shot ricochet back and hit you, and you had to fill in a bunch of them yourself. Maybe.
It actually made a twisted kind of sense, in a way. Incantations were trading bits of who you are for power. Sorceries were trading bits of what you are for power. Or - along the lines of that, at any rate. They were more about the physical body potentially paying costs, rather than the mind. Ranni refused to use any kind of incantations because she was certain of who she was and didn't want to change that, but her affinity for sorceries and having a custom crafted body that she wanted just went hand in hand.
"Good. Now." She pulled an orange sized - and looking - rock out of wherever she put her phone - hah, I remembered finally! - and tossed it to the ground. "Father lent me some warming stones. Should thy casting somehow injure thee, despite the caution we will both be using -" You don't need to look at me like that, Sis, I get it, "- this should be enough to keep thy form hearty and hale until Father can heal you."
"I know healing incantations too, though?"
"They will be of little help when thou pass out from pain, much like when thee first cast thy Reach." She straightened up all nice and prim. "Thou may attempt to cast the pebble."
It felt like she was going a bit overboard with the precautions, but - well, it wasn't like I'd shown any hints of being cautious myself yet. Universe, would you kindly? I pushed the math from the back of my head - turned the hindbrain lizard instincts into definitive values - into the sigil and waved my staff.
A shotgun blast of sharp glowing blue rocks burst from the end of it - for a moment I thought it was the glintstone from the staff and panicked, but no, it had been generated but. It definitely wasn't a pebble.
"Well, you certainly have the formula for initialising glintstone well in hand, though the directionality requires work. I believe that you created too large and brittle a pebble, and thus the force shattered it rather than creating a single, smooth projectile."
I stared at the staff. Then raised it up like the guy from the movie. "This is my boomstick!"
"Focus please, dear sister." Ranni rolled her eyes and threw her own pebble with a slightly showy snap of her fingers - my eyes and echoes locked onto it and Paradise Lost was calculating alongside me. It wanted to push the limits of the sorcery, I wanted to just get casting it right done first.
Another swing. I tried pushing softer - if that made sense. Now that I knew I could do it - I felt like pushing as I did was what made it brittle.
The pebble formed, shooting away from the tip of the staff with about the same kind of speed as a lethargic cat. Well, at least it was moving this time instead of just shattering. I think I knew which variable that needed changing.
"Hmm. Shape the momentum with the arc of thy arm. Remember, account for air density when coalescing the glintstone."
Air density? "For speed or structure?" Still, a few different values here and there and - using my own experiences was a start, a base, but I wasn't moving, I wasn't forming - this pebble was, inherently, not me. I tried again - whatever formed shot off into the sky and faded before it had even finished forming. Riiight. That variable was the angle, so - this time it shot into the leaves, punctured a branch, and I'd call that mostly a success.
But what if I…
-.-.-
It had been a mere handful of days since the last call by the authorities when the phone rang again in his office. He'd taken the opportunity of Ranni showing Taylor sorcery to go into the actual building, spend some time going over the paper resumes delivered while he'd been busy with his family, look through the dwindling hiring opportunities for her leal servants - his boys, two were considering offers from Uber and Leet of all people, fuck -
It wasn't nice. It wasn't pretty. But damnit, he understood. When the PRT, who could have been the one reliable employer in this city, had offers of gigs that were so low-paid the local streaming duo could offer a better deal -
There just weren't many options out there.
The situation didn't help. The authorities of this world had been so carefully subtle with their insinuations and wording. Just calling to check in. School absence, heard reportage of strange behaviour - oh no, not your daughter, being done to her. Hoping that the rightful rage that the monsters who had hurt her child deserved would mask their prying words. Or that there was only one reason for the authority that involved capes to be calling him about something seemingly involving only civilians.
When the phone rang, he checked the number - saw who it had to be - and picked up in a smooth motion, pen continuing to dart across Frank's resume, marking things that he could improve to make employers actually pay attention. "This is head of hiring at the DWU Daniel Hebert speaking, how can I help you?"
"Ah, Mr. Hebert, this is Steven McAllister from the PRT, I was hoping to follow up on a line of inquiry with you? If you have time, of course - we're sorry to call you at work."
She ground his teeth, then sighed, running fingers over his moustache. "Yeah, alright. How can I help?"
"Like I said, just a followup on things at Winslow High School?" This again. He let the familiar words wash over him. "- there was a note that your daughter pulled out of school due to the situation, and we were hoping to get a statement from her, if possible."
It was. Impossibly frustrating. She wished it was as simple as them showing up at their door like Taylor had predicted. That she could fulfil her daughter's angry request of her. Instead she simply had to say, "I am sorry but I am not sure that is possible." He lapsed back into Danny's cadence as he said, "She's just been - we'd both like to put this behind us."
"Of course. But just for our records, if we could speak to her about the incidents - even over the phone - it would help us - "
She couldn't quite stop him from laughing, the bitter laugh they had given each other when she'd said those words for posterity in her own rooms, the light of their master glaring through the window in dappled gold. "I don't know who you think you're fooling."
"... pardon?"
"Don't pretend to be stupid, you're far too good at it." He sat up, back straightening, twirling the pen between his fingers - far too light, what had happened to good styli - "Do you even remember what PRT stands for? Parahuman response teams. When the PRT calls, it's because parahumans are involved, or they suspect parahumans are involved. Why would the PRT be calling in place of the education department, the school board, or even the mayor trying to spin a story for his next election campaign? On the surface, this is an incident entirely involving civilians - don't try and interrupt me - so the fact that you're calling means that it isn't. So let's both drop the bullshit, yeah?"
"I'm - not sure what you mean, Mr. Hebert. Are you saying -"
"Let's run through the possibilities then. Wards are known to be parahuman minors, and also government employees, so school is a given. Despite the rumours they all go to Arcadia, those are just rumours. Perhaps one of your Wards was involved in Winslow's… situation. But no, I doubt you'd be pursuing this that aggressively if it was just that. So it's another parahuman's identity. Does this sound familiar, yet?" He pressed on. "Of course, we all know the lie that is keeping identities secret. It's a nice bit of fiction. But it's one you don't normally press on so openly. Mostly because you normally understand that when you do, you set a precedent. Isn't that half the reason you responded so - mm, limply to the death of that Fleur lady?"
"... is this a threat?"
She grinned, wide, like she had at the first splatter of blood on the field. "Not a threat. Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction, or a curse."
The other end of the line was silent for a long moment. She lounged back into her chair, eyes lidded, imagining… mmm, when they came for her Taylor, the things she would inflict on them. Would it just be the agents and officers or would they send one of their magic warriors? She was out of practice, and no longer god infused, but it would still be… a most delicious fight, she thought.
She was so busy envisaging it she almost missed the rustle on the other end of the line as the person there said, "This is Officer Andrew Lewis, sorry about that. I understand that you're concerned about why we're calling?"
"Mmm." The bloodlust still simmered comfortably under her skin. "A little."
"Okay. I'll be very blunt then - this isn't normally our jurisdiction. It isn't even really a crime, per se. But, in the reports we have, there's suspicion - not confirmation - of parahuman involvement. So, because of that, we have to take a look. I'm sure that it's nothing, but. That's the job. That's partly why we want to speak to your daughter, to round out our list of first hand witnesses to confirm that, so we can hand it back to the people whose job this actually should be."
He sounded. So reasonable. So polite, so self deprecating. She wondered if he'd still sound reasonable with her fingers wrapped round his skull and squeezing - no. that wasn't. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "For a PRT officer, you don't seem to understand that poking capes in the identity is foolhardy. If there's still suspicion, after a week of investigation into a situation that even you admit isn't your jurisdiction, then your only suspected cape left is my daughter. She isn't, but suppose she was - I have come to understand that attempts to pry into a parahuman's identity are a dangerous affair." She let her tongue linger on the words. "I'd suggest more caution."
"We'll take that under advisement, sir." His voice was still wry, gentle. Reasonable. "Again, sorry to bother you at work. We hope you have a good day."
Marika hissed at the sound of him hanging up, at the line disconnecting. Hard not to have her disguise crumble, to crush the phone in her grip, the desk. What did the paltry papers on it matter when - ugh she had been foolish, hadn't she? She'd been baited into being harsh. Gods she hated scheming - no, that wasn't true. It was simply that she'd been out of the business too long. Hadn't wanted to return to it, hadn't missed it. Had let the simpler wants of war come to the surface, unsuited for the situation. Even her time as Danny had been better at handling this than that.
She stared, uncomprehending, at the resumes in front of her. Rubbed her palms against her temples, tried to recall anything about Frank, or make sense of her own handwriting on his paper.
Slowly, she let her guise's head hit the desk. Gods.
She should have just gone to teach Taylor sorcery.
-.-.-
Ironically, it was easier to cast the pebble once Ranni had shown me the shard. Studying the differences, the different requirements, helped me understand where I'd been going wrong. It wasn't until she'd shown me the glintstone blade that I realised I could - and should - anchor my casting orientation to the staff, as otherwise, if I'd turned around and tried to cast in the other direction at any point, I would have shot myself in the face. Though I didn't need to anchor the casting point close to myself, it made things easier, since I was more aware of variables close to me than half a mile away.
It was when I was thinking of using that as a glorified compass and Ranni showed me how to add ice to the blade that I realised what the strange familiarity of all this was. "Ranni… is this just… physics?"
Ranni stared at me for a moment, questioningly.
"It's just… I'm pretty sure this equation is an expanded law of thermodynamics we learned in science class."
"Thou learned something in that pitiful excuse of an academy?"
"To be fair, it was more like we had a substitute teacher who brought in her own DVD of a science documentary and let us watch that for an hour and a half instead of trying to wrangle stars know how many teenagers." Half of which were potentially stoned out of their minds to make it through the day. I would have been one of them, if it wouldn't have made things worse.
"Mm. Then - yes. The physical sciences exist as the core of sorcery, though this realm's understanding of them lacks in a few crucial areas."
"We've never had gods here before, so…" I shrugged. "We only got what we could physically see. No Primal Currents or - or was it Primaeval Currents? - no magic star juice to boost our understanding."
"Either name is apt, and yes. 'Tis truly saddening that there must be some form of Outer God interference upon the world to unlock the secrets of the stars, apparently." She paused. "Though, it is not always an Outer God who unlocks the minds of mortals. Some can, with enough study, and a great amount of trauma, break the lock for themselves. It never ends well, but I do know of one realm in which the madman's discoveries were used to observe the stars without breaking oneself first. Not quite to the ability to cast, but they could observe." She crossed her arms. "Though theoretically, one shouldn't need any deity-driven influence to understand the physical realm enough for sorcery to be possible."
"They'd still need to see the stars and comprehend them properly, or have a sacrifice willing to become the glintstone, though." I winced, tapping my chin thoughtfully. "So - either a species would have to be designed to be able to do that, or naturally be born in that kind of environment already, because otherwise there'd be no reason or way to evolve to look up and see the currents."
"Again, there are many expressions of sorcery. Glintstone is simply one of them. It would be entirely possible, theoretically, to develop a form of sorcery based entirely on the geomantic fires, or on cold mists, without any knowledge of the stars - though there would still be initialisation thresholds to overcome."
Oh. Oh, yeah, that was also an option - "Wait. Would they still be able to cast without a glintstone staff? Or - hm." What would happen if you tried to cast ice mist magic without a catalyst? Would parts of you get frostbite or turn to ice?
"... yes, making something appropriately attuned to the mathematics of the universe to act as a catalyst would pose a difficulty." Ranni frowned, head tilting slightly and her hat almost slipped off, ending up hanging at a jaunty angle.
"Guess they'd have to gaze into the element they're learning from until they find that thing's Primal Current? Or similar equivalent." I shrugged. "It feels like there's an element of sacrifice involved in creating a substance that can turn thought into action - which as far as I know violates my understanding of the whole laws of thermodynamics. Where does the energy come from? Because I'm pretty sure the thoughts in my brain - the little electrical signals - don't travel down my arm and into the staff to become a magic stone of pain."
"No, the energy comes from the universe itself. I believe this realm's scientists would refer to it as 'the quantum foam' or something similar. Thy mind shapes that energy. Like a fountain, or a spigot. It does not 'create' the water, but it funnels it into new shapes and strengths."
Huh. That… made more sense than I'd happily admit. I remembered hearing on TV about the hypotheses of scientists on dark energy and exotic matter and such - even neutrinos, which the sun emitted by the millions and didn't do anything normally, but if you could make them do stuff...
I wasn't sure that entirely made sense - glintstone pebbles had enough energy to hurt people severely, but it wasn't like I was an expert. Nor did I want to be - I was pretty determined that I was not going to be learning quantum physics for the sake of throwing rocks at people.
So. Sorcery was moulding the underlying energy foam of the universe into something that was no longer underlying but actively participating. Sculpting, almost. But the glintstone blade wasn't physical so much as it was an energy construct in the shape and sharpness of a sword, so I could cheat a little and still get the same result, or better. I hoped.
We practised with the pebble, the shard, and the slicer for another hour, occasionally using Ranni's icy mist magic to give instant frostbite to whatever flesh I would hit with my magic rocks. Maybe if I combined the projectile nature of the pebble with the blade form of the slicer? Add in the icy mist just to make sure it'd be visible -
"What."
I'd freeze dried the top of a shrub with a travelling blade of ice. Not quite what I intended, since it didn't do much cutting of that shrub, but it'd be useful either way.
Ranni flew to my shoulder. "The formula for what thou just did. Tell me."
"Uh - okay, so. I started with the glintstone pebble's travelling properties, added it to forming the glintstone blade, and then I realised there was an - envelope I could add more to? So I sorta - realised it's similar to the envelope for the icy mist and added that, I guess." I summoned up the sigil. It was a bit… cludgy, but it worked. Algebra magic! As long as nothing overlapped wrong, I could put the pieces together like lego bricks.
I was kind of dreading what was going to happen the first time I miscalculated and something overlapped.
"Thou extrapolated - " She paused, stared at me. "If I were to alter the calculations of the envelope so it were conal instead of ovoid, demonstrate the change in mathematics." The sigil glowed in the air between us, and I could feel it in my mind, open for me to change.
"Uh -" if I fiddled with the glintstone blade, used its line markers for the blade to… actually, if I took out the end marker, it should just travel until it ran out of energy, right? And changing the curve in some areas and not others - "I think it'd look like - "
"Formula for calculating a number is prime, no more than seven steps."
I blinked, and suddenly the knowledge was there. "Um - "
"Test for atmospheric density within three seconds, go."
I wriggled my jaw and popped my ears and translated that sensation into a value. "Surprisingly less dense than I'd assume it would be near sea level. Does casting magic change it much?"
"... thy patron is a star being. No wonder the Naturalborn thought thee kin - " Ranni's hands clasped my face as she hovered in front of me, peering intently into my eyes. "Akin to the Blood Star? No. But a similar class of being to the ancient stars, and lending thee its mathematics and understanding of the physical world. And that combined with thy natural credence and trust, thy ability to freecast incantations already - "
I frowned. "But the freecasting was… feeling things. Sorceries are more like - putting building blocks together. Like algebra. The spell requires an X, a Y, and a Z component, right? I can pull apart the components of other spells and put them in its place, and as long as it still solves for - I already used X, uh - T, then it casts."
"Yes. They are different and opposing strengths and both are dangerous. Both in utility, and to thyself." Ranni took her hat off to run a stressed pair of hands through her hair. "I know Father and I keep repeating this, and it is likely such that it now falls on deaf ears, but this requires extreme caution. A Patron's gift powering thy sorcery, falling back freely into the whims of sources of incantations - these can be great strengths, but also crippling weaknesses."
That - didn't sound good. "Crippling weaknesses?"
"To lose thy sense of self, thy sense of being, thy sense of purpose - even if you think, or even believe, that you do not have one to drive your life forward, thy purpose of survival is always there. Should you lose it to the changes a Patron can cast into thy mind, simply through the convenience of its easy mathematics - thy recklessness would know no bounds. Should thou lose thy sense of self and being - thou would become naught but a tool awaiting instructions. A hollow shell for something dead to crawl into and back into life. And should that surrender happen willingly?" Ranni sighed. "I will be very blunt. Sister, thou wouldst have become a creature that my nature, my morals, my whole being would demand that I slay."
I leaned forward a little to bump my head against her. "Hey. If I do become something like that - I'm clearly not me any more." I wasn't planning on it happening, but - just in case - "Just um. If you see it starting - pull me back, please?"
"And should my efforts fail thee?"
"Best to end it before I get remembered as a monster." I sighed. I hoped Paradise Lost wouldn't do that to me, but - it was still alien, still so other that understanding of humanity seemed beyond it. And Ranni and Dad do keep warning me…"If we can't solve the Paradise Lost problem - I guess I've sort of been subconsciously running on the idea that if we don't fix it, I'll have to martyr myself to keep it from fucking up the world even more."
"No. I refuse to accept that." She bumped my head as well. "In a sense I - this I - was made to protect thee. I will not fail in that goal. There are many ways to solve or slow the problem without resorting to death or martyrdom."
"Gotta admit though, heroic sacrifice is really in style these days, isn't it?"
She bumped her head against mine a lot more forcefully. "Do not even jest about that, sister. But, if you art looking for an escape from this moment -" Was I really that obvious? "- I believe you may be ready to cast the sorcery you dredged from the Primal Current." A small hum of concern. "Primal sorceries - they do not lend well to thy method of extrapolation. They are… unique in their nature, overwhelming, overwriting reality to allow them. Comet Azur - one would think that to weaponise a shooting star, one would use the rock, yes?"
"That…" I narrowed my eyes a little, and nodded.
"Comet Azur utilises the tail of the comet, a beam of light and stardust and force, as though one is holding the comet in their hand, yet it imparts no force upon them. The Founding Rain of Stars recreates the beginning, shards of the sky crashing upon the landscape with all the force they originally did, without the planet-shaping consequences."
"Oh." That was - the Patron was really fucking interested in that, and that alone was enough to make me second-guess casting the thing that I'd been excited about trying for ages. "Okay. That's - um. Concerning. Do you want to hide inside that shield just in case?"
She looked reluctant to stop cosplaying a facehugger, but eventually she nodded and flew back down to her magic bunker.
Okay. Deep breath, think… no. Don't think. Just use the instinct, because despite knowing the math for it - I also didn't know it. I didn't know how to change it without causing catastrophe. Like the rain of stars - if I moved a decimal point, would they suddenly be hitting the ground hard enough to imitate the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? Would Comet Azur fire into me rather than fire the tail at the enemy?
I pushed, and cast.
It hurt my brain, all these rapidly shifting formulae solidifying in silver and my own gold and blue and - and -
I swung my staff, the roiling cloud of glowing star-shards followed, carving through a tree in an instant, creating a horrible grinding shriek like a pair of blenders getting into a fight with each other, splinters and shrapnel chunks flying everywhere. No sawdust, only crushed, torn, and destroyed pieces, edges glowing with heat.
I raised it over my head, widening their orbit - pulling them lower around me - and shunting them outwards like a ring of light, dissipating the energy in a more controlled manner than simply ending it as they flew in a ball of chaos that would blow like a frag grenade. Every single tree I could see featured several new holes.
And for the life of me, I couldn't think of an acceptable target to use it on bar an S-Class threat like the Slaughterhouse or an Endbringer.
But laughter bubbled in my chest regardless. I was the first to use this spell, I - it was mine. My own magic, gleaned from my own research and risks, and - sure, it was mostly luck, but still! "I did it!" I cheered, looking to Ranni. Why did I taste blood? Oh. My nose.
"That you certainly did. Here." She flew to me and passed me a handkerchief from under her dress.
"Thanks." I thought nosebleeds from mental exertion only happened on TV. "So, that was, uh." To think that only three weeks ago there wasn't a single tree stump around and the clearing was so much smaller. "Less a glintstone buzzsaw and more of a uh. Starshard buzzsaw. huh?" Where Glintstone would only tear and pummel, Starshards… they burnt as they cut, according to Ranni. But it was - different, I could tell having cast it now that Starshards' heat didn't dissipate into the environment, it stayed within, always, which was… fascinating.
"An everted rotating starfield matrix. Tis impressive, though dangerous - thy mind is not yet accustomed to the higher mathematics necessary to cast it." Ranni tilted her head, eyes flashing blue. "Thankfully the damage to your brain was minimal - this time. We will introduce the concepts slowly over time to give your mind time to adjust, I think."
That sounded sensible - even if she was the one who told me I might be ready. But something about that sounded - wait - "I have brain damage!?"
"Comparable to that gained by a short fall, or the impact of a strong, open handed blow to the head. But it could have been considerably more damaging, though obviously there would be no countercoup equivalent."
Okay. Just a mild brain-bruise and not a crystal in my motor cortex or something. That would heal. "Okay." Calming breaths.
"Perhaps that is the other reason sorcery has not developed separately from external interference yet - it requires higher dimensional mathematics that are not immediately… obvious to most mortal minds, and can cause damage when stumbled upon accidentally."
"Yeah… wait, does Haywire's portal to Earth Aleph count?"
"No. As I understand it, this Haywire had a power, which is the outside interference we have discussed afore. And additionally that is… Aleph is not a higher dimension. It is a lateral manoeuvre, not one… upward, though truly one would need a five part axis to - here." Her fingers shifted, spread, her four arms tracing lines in the air, three of them forming a graph and then… a fourth and fifth that also were perpendicular but weren't but were but - the lines of light dimmed a little. "When scholars of the Colleges referred to the 'higher' dimensions it was discovered that truly they existed as an increase in value along the w and t axes, in accordance to the following equation." A very wiggly line started to trace itself across the graph. "Thus when I say 'higher' I mean 'a dimension whose w value is higher than this one', in effect. Aleph has the same placement on the w axis, and thus it is not a 'higher' dimension."
"Ohh." That was… really pretty. "I see." And I… did? It reminded me of something, of an attempt at - at something. Of a home scoured by tears and children, who knew this without knowing it, used it without understanding it, who searched for a way into - "Is travel into a higher dimension possible?"
"With effort, but our minds - mortal minds, ours are a little more resilient - are three dimensional with mild fourth awareness. Visiting a realm with a true fourth axis would be… uncomfortable, to say the least." Ranni hummed softly. "Should the axis be more conceptual than physical - such as time - we may be able to comprehend it with proper study. An angle - perhaps possible to understand, but to manipulate is unlikely. How does one turn without turning? Twisting without changing? But it is much more likely that the fourth axis is something we could not begin to even imagine. Or rather, we can, but it is… damaging unless one is accustomed to shaping one's brain, one's soul into the necessary shapes to do so. Like any exercise, it requires stretching one's muscles and developing them before attempting to leap unaided across a gap of fifty feet with no spirit spring."
The fourth axis and higher - time, angle, energy, thought, willpower, intent, emotion - the attempt had been disastrous, wasting years of energy only to learn that they lacked something necessary. Something that could make it useful for the Purpose.
Perhaps with the new HostAvatar we could try again, utilising this new layer with the barely legible data execution of Casting. We could rise from the depths -
Ranni's hands clasped my head. "But that was already known to thee, wasn't it? Paradise Lost." Her voice was echoing, bouncing off the waves. "Was that reference intentional, I wonder? I took the liberty of reading the text in question - art thou serpent, reigning in hell, or dost thou consider thyself no-longer-innocent Eve? Or neither at all?" The moon rose behind her, dark and blue. "Tis no matter. Release mine sister."
The pressure that wasn't slowly released. The tension in my muscles returned to my own control. My very thoughts - how much longer did I have until Eden took over and could fight back when someone told it to let go? Though - Ranni had been prepared for a fight. For a moment she hadn't been small, doll sized, she'd been - shorter than me, but human height, hands still clasped around my head as we stood on -
"Handkerchief again." She dabbed at my nose. "Hm. So Paradise Lost may be accustomed to higher dimensions, but it has not yet adjusted thine own mind with immediate haste. Small favours."
"Bluhh." I worked my mouth, my tongue, blinked a bunch. "Whatever it is - it lacked something to make use of it. Did the moon really just rise in the middle of the day or am I seeing things?"
"Thou peered into the depths of mine fragmented soul as I brought my power to bear against thy patron should it act… unwisely."
I brought my arms up to hug her - but she was so small again that I missed and had to readjust. It was - not very easy trying to hug a facehugger. "You have a beautiful soul, Ranni."
"Thank you, sister. I worked hard for it." Her hands gently patted the back of my neck
"... y'know what kind of annoys me?" I huffed as I staggered over and sat down on the rock next to the pond, Ranni perched on my shoulder. "I didn't even get any neat magical advice out of getting taken over that time."
"Sister."
"I mean - like - I was expecting to at least have a better idea of how to get started on higher dimensional math since it's apparently been there, but noooo, Paradise Lost just considered it a dead end research branch and didn't care to share what progress there was with me." I picked up a false stone and skipped it across the pond. It didn't quite skip right yet.
"Hm. Research."
"I got a hint of a… Purpose. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but the sheer scale of the impression was…" I shivered. "You know how even if you look up at the darkest patch of the night sky - just physically, I mean - if you zoom in enough there'll still be hundreds of galaxies? It felt like… like that, but zooming out."
"So it has an ego. Well, that - "
I shook my head. "Not an ego, more a goal. An eventuality. How many lateral values are there in our 3D axis? How many other worlds - Earths, Plutos, Jupiters - have they already visited? I felt… I think I got a hint of its origin, and the only feeling was hunger, even as their world tore itself apart. Every copy of their world."
"So it has an ego and can back it up. Could back it up, seeing as it lies dead. I wonder…" Ranni paused, then tsked her tongue. Actually, did she even have a tongue? How would I even ask something like that? "A thought to return to. For now, drink deeply of the clear flask of water you brought, and we will return to pebbles."
Pebbles felt so small now.
I looked up to the sky, watched the Naturalborn Star flow around the Currents, and resigned myself to more practice.
-.-.-
Special thanks to prime beta Lucky38, Canon Overlord @Ganurath, @hellgodsrus for being my loveliest wife and co-author, and @SolarFlare for being our wonderful supportive girlfriend! And our many friends on the Totally Chatting It discord for their fantastic livereads!
Enjoy and gib feedbacc!
3.7
Be Thou Mine Greatest Ally
-.-.-
Be Thou Mine Greatest Ally
-.-.-
Two more days of waiting. The PRT and Protectorate hadn't come around to the house. The PRT had rang Dad at the office, just to clarify a few things about the situation at school, but that had been it.
Why would the PRT care about a civilian's schooling, anyway? Why hadn't they done more? Either now or then. I was almost itching to go give them a piece of my mind - not literally, since with Glintstone that was a thing, but maybe with a big rock the shape of a brain? Meh.
Victoria had texted a couple of times, just making sure I was okay and occasionally venting a little bit about family stuff I barely had context for. Her mother and her aunt and pressure on her, her dad struggling, her sister avoiding hanging out. Honestly, I think she was preaching to a lost cause. I wouldn't know how to help with social stuff to save my life - and it might very well do that, one day, if I ended up needing to do something diplomatic as a princess or cape. She tried to invite me out on patrol but I had to remind her the PRT said no contact. Which was - really just disappointing. I wanted to go out and be a hero. I wanted to go out and help people - either directly or by removing threats to their safety. I wanted things to be better for people.
And Dad… Dad wasn't entirely happy with my cape life idea, but wasn't outright stopping me. Something about everyone in this family, once putting their minds to something, followed through with it - hell or high water be damned. But that didn't mean she was going to let me go out unprepared - Ranni either - and training was stepped up. As was Ranni's research and discussions with me about my preferences in 'costuming and couture', and it was just…
A lot. It was a lot. Especially with me waiting for the PRT to do something -
Thankfully, though, I had an excellent distraction in the form of Ranni deciding the Glintstone staff was ready for use. So, she could start teaching me basic spells. Which meant we were back to the clearing to abuse the poor trees some more.
Transportation was a lot easier when I could just wave a stick in a circle and use the teleportation trick that had made my staff's glintstone - the Fallen Star's Reach my mind whispered. It was just too useful not to get good at it!
"Thou art surprisingly adept at that trick, sister." Ranni had perched herself neatly on one of the less burnt and smashed rocks, surrounding it with some sort of shield of incomprehensible writing that flared to life occasionally in shimmering dark blue. "Though I would be wary of gifts from the heavens such as that. For a true Falling Star or Naturalborn to become interested in thee is a risk." She clicked her tongue gently. "Though perhaps less of a risk than being an Empyrean."
"The Falling Stars… are they the big skullbugs? Like -" I put my fingers up by my mouth, mimicking the imagined 'clang-clang' of its giant beetle pincers. "Because I just… there seems to be one that hangs out around here, I guess? I saw it teleporting the other night, and with Paradise Lost's help, figured out the calculations on how it did that." Which was weird in its own right, that it couldn't do anything with my incantations beyond offer its own, but Sorcery it took to like a fish to water.
Ranni stared at me for long moment, before finally blinking, and nodding slowly. "I… do not recall seeing a Naturalborn Star in the skies of this land before my fragmenting. And such a being if it were present in the skies should have descended by now. To flee instead is troubling indeed."
"Huh. Do they flee really slowly? This one's been around for at least a week." I was pretty sure it was the same one I saw before accidentally diving into the Primeval Current. Oh, shit, the glintstone buzzsaw! I could finally try it out!
Ranni squinted, then looked up at the sky. I followed her gaze but - I couldn't really see past the daylight. Probably needed more practice before I could do that in the day, or without clear skies. "Ah, I see thy Star. It is… young. Lost. Still collecting its full planetary tail. It likely saw the mark of the moon on thee and thought thee a sibling in need of teaching, hence why it granted thee anything. But to be so alone and not part of a larger cluster while it learns… that is an odd happenstance."
"Aww…" Now I wanted to cuddle and adopt the baby star-beetle like it was a lost puppy. Nevermind that I might as well have been a lost puppy. "Is there any way to adopt it?"
"Nay, tis a creature of inherent destruction regardless." Ranni flapped a distracted hand, her others steepling. "Best it stay in the sky - unless thou wishes to restructure the continent with its arrival?"
It was my turn to cringe. "Not particularly." It felt like a bad idea somehow, a flickering of silver and panic-rage-fear-no. Did you do that once, Patron?
"Indeed. Though - I did adopt Adula under similar circumstances. So it may be possible." Possible was enough for me, because - well, it had helped me and it was cute. If I ever figured out how, I was going to adopt the star-puppy. "Now, sister, before thou attempts to cast thy 'glintstone buzzsaw' -" Aww… "- thou will need to train thy mind to handle the strain of casting smaller, simpler spells." She gave me a look. "Yes, a catalyst will prevent thy body from crystalising, but it will not prevent aneurysms, migraines, cell death from strain, or explosions of magic from sorceries where the mathematics hath not been firmly pressed into thy brain. Or for situations those who pushed such things into thee didn't think of - what if thou art in a gravity well, or in a situation where the gravitational constant is varied by external forces? Then thy Reach would not function appropriately, judging by its current performance."
External forces, huh? Okay. So I'd need to work out how to stabilise the gravity around the entrance - "Does that count for the exit or just the entrance?"
"Both. I would not recommend attempting to use it to go somewhere you have not been before, or at ranges longer than five furlongs, however." What the fuck was a furlong? I'd easily cleared a dozen miles or so to get to here from our own backyard! "Otherwise getting a small variant wrong could result in the exit being already occupied by solid matter." She shuddered and rubbed at her arms as if she were cold.
"That uh… happened?"
"I know not this spell specifically, but an equivalent was the subject of an experiment by mine Consort - that matter that impeded their exit would be forcibly destructed. It went… explosively against what she had planned." Ranni slumped. By explosively did she mean - did her wife turn herself into a fusion bomb? "The universe does not like attempts to overwrite what exists where. Regardless. Do you remember the mathematics we discussed a few days previously for the glintstone pebble?"
I waved my staff in the way she'd shown me. Kept the sigil in my mind, but didn't push. Tried to sort through all the different variables for forming it, it was a messy little equation… "Most of it, I think. The details on the numbers are fuzzy but the formula's stuck whether I like it or not." The ability to translate the formula into a picture made it a lot easier.
Especially when I compared it to the buzzsaw. The pebble was simple - elegant and detailed in every curve of its sigil, but simple. The saw was like a mosaic made of mosaics. I could look deeper in layers, but the instinct of how to control it was seared into my mind.
I was kind of glad I'd done that, because without it, I'm not sure ever would have truly understood how Glintstone could turn the power of thought into action. Or, rather, how to use it. Willpower for incantations was easy - sorceries were more like mentally prodding the universe with the staff. It wasn't something I could explain to satisfaction. If incantations were like Emma's magical girl anime where shouting louder made one stronger, sorceries were like… those bullshit detective scenes in TV with the floating letters and numbers somehow telling you something you couldn't possibly have known, or letting you make an impossible shot.
Except looking too closely at the numbers could make your brain slop out your ears, or make the shot ricochet back and hit you, and you had to fill in a bunch of them yourself. Maybe.
It actually made a twisted kind of sense, in a way. Incantations were trading bits of who you are for power. Sorceries were trading bits of what you are for power. Or - along the lines of that, at any rate. They were more about the physical body potentially paying costs, rather than the mind. Ranni refused to use any kind of incantations because she was certain of who she was and didn't want to change that, but her affinity for sorceries and having a custom crafted body that she wanted just went hand in hand.
"Good. Now." She pulled an orange sized - and looking - rock out of wherever she put her phone - hah, I remembered finally! - and tossed it to the ground. "Father lent me some warming stones. Should thy casting somehow injure thee, despite the caution we will both be using -" You don't need to look at me like that, Sis, I get it, "- this should be enough to keep thy form hearty and hale until Father can heal you."
"I know healing incantations too, though?"
"They will be of little help when thou pass out from pain, much like when thee first cast thy Reach." She straightened up all nice and prim. "Thou may attempt to cast the pebble."
It felt like she was going a bit overboard with the precautions, but - well, it wasn't like I'd shown any hints of being cautious myself yet. Universe, would you kindly? I pushed the math from the back of my head - turned the hindbrain lizard instincts into definitive values - into the sigil and waved my staff.
A shotgun blast of sharp glowing blue rocks burst from the end of it - for a moment I thought it was the glintstone from the staff and panicked, but no, it had been generated but. It definitely wasn't a pebble.
"Well, you certainly have the formula for initialising glintstone well in hand, though the directionality requires work. I believe that you created too large and brittle a pebble, and thus the force shattered it rather than creating a single, smooth projectile."
I stared at the staff. Then raised it up like the guy from the movie. "This is my boomstick!"
"Focus please, dear sister." Ranni rolled her eyes and threw her own pebble with a slightly showy snap of her fingers - my eyes and echoes locked onto it and Paradise Lost was calculating alongside me. It wanted to push the limits of the sorcery, I wanted to just get casting it right done first.
Another swing. I tried pushing softer - if that made sense. Now that I knew I could do it - I felt like pushing as I did was what made it brittle.
The pebble formed, shooting away from the tip of the staff with about the same kind of speed as a lethargic cat. Well, at least it was moving this time instead of just shattering. I think I knew which variable that needed changing.
"Hmm. Shape the momentum with the arc of thy arm. Remember, account for air density when coalescing the glintstone."
Air density? "For speed or structure?" Still, a few different values here and there and - using my own experiences was a start, a base, but I wasn't moving, I wasn't forming - this pebble was, inherently, not me. I tried again - whatever formed shot off into the sky and faded before it had even finished forming. Riiight. That variable was the angle, so - this time it shot into the leaves, punctured a branch, and I'd call that mostly a success.
But what if I…
-.-.-
It had been a mere handful of days since the last call by the authorities when the phone rang again in his office. He'd taken the opportunity of Ranni showing Taylor sorcery to go into the actual building, spend some time going over the paper resumes delivered while he'd been busy with his family, look through the dwindling hiring opportunities for her leal servants - his boys, two were considering offers from Uber and Leet of all people, fuck -
It wasn't nice. It wasn't pretty. But damnit, he understood. When the PRT, who could have been the one reliable employer in this city, had offers of gigs that were so low-paid the local streaming duo could offer a better deal -
There just weren't many options out there.
The situation didn't help. The authorities of this world had been so carefully subtle with their insinuations and wording. Just calling to check in. School absence, heard reportage of strange behaviour - oh no, not your daughter, being done to her. Hoping that the rightful rage that the monsters who had hurt her child deserved would mask their prying words. Or that there was only one reason for the authority that involved capes to be calling him about something seemingly involving only civilians.
When the phone rang, he checked the number - saw who it had to be - and picked up in a smooth motion, pen continuing to dart across Frank's resume, marking things that he could improve to make employers actually pay attention. "This is head of hiring at the DWU Daniel Hebert speaking, how can I help you?"
"Ah, Mr. Hebert, this is Steven McAllister from the PRT, I was hoping to follow up on a line of inquiry with you? If you have time, of course - we're sorry to call you at work."
She ground his teeth, then sighed, running fingers over his moustache. "Yeah, alright. How can I help?"
"Like I said, just a followup on things at Winslow High School?" This again. He let the familiar words wash over him. "- there was a note that your daughter pulled out of school due to the situation, and we were hoping to get a statement from her, if possible."
It was. Impossibly frustrating. She wished it was as simple as them showing up at their door like Taylor had predicted. That she could fulfil her daughter's angry request of her. Instead she simply had to say, "I am sorry but I am not sure that is possible." He lapsed back into Danny's cadence as he said, "She's just been - we'd both like to put this behind us."
"Of course. But just for our records, if we could speak to her about the incidents - even over the phone - it would help us - "
She couldn't quite stop him from laughing, the bitter laugh they had given each other when she'd said those words for posterity in her own rooms, the light of their master glaring through the window in dappled gold. "I don't know who you think you're fooling."
"... pardon?"
"Don't pretend to be stupid, you're far too good at it." He sat up, back straightening, twirling the pen between his fingers - far too light, what had happened to good styli - "Do you even remember what PRT stands for? Parahuman response teams. When the PRT calls, it's because parahumans are involved, or they suspect parahumans are involved. Why would the PRT be calling in place of the education department, the school board, or even the mayor trying to spin a story for his next election campaign? On the surface, this is an incident entirely involving civilians - don't try and interrupt me - so the fact that you're calling means that it isn't. So let's both drop the bullshit, yeah?"
"I'm - not sure what you mean, Mr. Hebert. Are you saying -"
"Let's run through the possibilities then. Wards are known to be parahuman minors, and also government employees, so school is a given. Despite the rumours they all go to Arcadia, those are just rumours. Perhaps one of your Wards was involved in Winslow's… situation. But no, I doubt you'd be pursuing this that aggressively if it was just that. So it's another parahuman's identity. Does this sound familiar, yet?" He pressed on. "Of course, we all know the lie that is keeping identities secret. It's a nice bit of fiction. But it's one you don't normally press on so openly. Mostly because you normally understand that when you do, you set a precedent. Isn't that half the reason you responded so - mm, limply to the death of that Fleur lady?"
"... is this a threat?"
She grinned, wide, like she had at the first splatter of blood on the field. "Not a threat. Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction, or a curse."
The other end of the line was silent for a long moment. She lounged back into her chair, eyes lidded, imagining… mmm, when they came for her Taylor, the things she would inflict on them. Would it just be the agents and officers or would they send one of their magic warriors? She was out of practice, and no longer god infused, but it would still be… a most delicious fight, she thought.
She was so busy envisaging it she almost missed the rustle on the other end of the line as the person there said, "This is Officer Andrew Lewis, sorry about that. I understand that you're concerned about why we're calling?"
"Mmm." The bloodlust still simmered comfortably under her skin. "A little."
"Okay. I'll be very blunt then - this isn't normally our jurisdiction. It isn't even really a crime, per se. But, in the reports we have, there's suspicion - not confirmation - of parahuman involvement. So, because of that, we have to take a look. I'm sure that it's nothing, but. That's the job. That's partly why we want to speak to your daughter, to round out our list of first hand witnesses to confirm that, so we can hand it back to the people whose job this actually should be."
He sounded. So reasonable. So polite, so self deprecating. She wondered if he'd still sound reasonable with her fingers wrapped round his skull and squeezing - no. that wasn't. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "For a PRT officer, you don't seem to understand that poking capes in the identity is foolhardy. If there's still suspicion, after a week of investigation into a situation that even you admit isn't your jurisdiction, then your only suspected cape left is my daughter. She isn't, but suppose she was - I have come to understand that attempts to pry into a parahuman's identity are a dangerous affair." She let her tongue linger on the words. "I'd suggest more caution."
"We'll take that under advisement, sir." His voice was still wry, gentle. Reasonable. "Again, sorry to bother you at work. We hope you have a good day."
Marika hissed at the sound of him hanging up, at the line disconnecting. Hard not to have her disguise crumble, to crush the phone in her grip, the desk. What did the paltry papers on it matter when - ugh she had been foolish, hadn't she? She'd been baited into being harsh. Gods she hated scheming - no, that wasn't true. It was simply that she'd been out of the business too long. Hadn't wanted to return to it, hadn't missed it. Had let the simpler wants of war come to the surface, unsuited for the situation. Even her time as Danny had been better at handling this than that.
She stared, uncomprehending, at the resumes in front of her. Rubbed her palms against her temples, tried to recall anything about Frank, or make sense of her own handwriting on his paper.
Slowly, she let her guise's head hit the desk. Gods.
She should have just gone to teach Taylor sorcery.
-.-.-
Ironically, it was easier to cast the pebble once Ranni had shown me the shard. Studying the differences, the different requirements, helped me understand where I'd been going wrong. It wasn't until she'd shown me the glintstone blade that I realised I could - and should - anchor my casting orientation to the staff, as otherwise, if I'd turned around and tried to cast in the other direction at any point, I would have shot myself in the face. Though I didn't need to anchor the casting point close to myself, it made things easier, since I was more aware of variables close to me than half a mile away.
It was when I was thinking of using that as a glorified compass and Ranni showed me how to add ice to the blade that I realised what the strange familiarity of all this was. "Ranni… is this just… physics?"
Ranni stared at me for a moment, questioningly.
"It's just… I'm pretty sure this equation is an expanded law of thermodynamics we learned in science class."
"Thou learned something in that pitiful excuse of an academy?"
"To be fair, it was more like we had a substitute teacher who brought in her own DVD of a science documentary and let us watch that for an hour and a half instead of trying to wrangle stars know how many teenagers." Half of which were potentially stoned out of their minds to make it through the day. I would have been one of them, if it wouldn't have made things worse.
"Mm. Then - yes. The physical sciences exist as the core of sorcery, though this realm's understanding of them lacks in a few crucial areas."
"We've never had gods here before, so…" I shrugged. "We only got what we could physically see. No Primal Currents or - or was it Primaeval Currents? - no magic star juice to boost our understanding."
"Either name is apt, and yes. 'Tis truly saddening that there must be some form of Outer God interference upon the world to unlock the secrets of the stars, apparently." She paused. "Though, it is not always an Outer God who unlocks the minds of mortals. Some can, with enough study, and a great amount of trauma, break the lock for themselves. It never ends well, but I do know of one realm in which the madman's discoveries were used to observe the stars without breaking oneself first. Not quite to the ability to cast, but they could observe." She crossed her arms. "Though theoretically, one shouldn't need any deity-driven influence to understand the physical realm enough for sorcery to be possible."
"They'd still need to see the stars and comprehend them properly, or have a sacrifice willing to become the glintstone, though." I winced, tapping my chin thoughtfully. "So - either a species would have to be designed to be able to do that, or naturally be born in that kind of environment already, because otherwise there'd be no reason or way to evolve to look up and see the currents."
"Again, there are many expressions of sorcery. Glintstone is simply one of them. It would be entirely possible, theoretically, to develop a form of sorcery based entirely on the geomantic fires, or on cold mists, without any knowledge of the stars - though there would still be initialisation thresholds to overcome."
Oh. Oh, yeah, that was also an option - "Wait. Would they still be able to cast without a glintstone staff? Or - hm." What would happen if you tried to cast ice mist magic without a catalyst? Would parts of you get frostbite or turn to ice?
"... yes, making something appropriately attuned to the mathematics of the universe to act as a catalyst would pose a difficulty." Ranni frowned, head tilting slightly and her hat almost slipped off, ending up hanging at a jaunty angle.
"Guess they'd have to gaze into the element they're learning from until they find that thing's Primal Current? Or similar equivalent." I shrugged. "It feels like there's an element of sacrifice involved in creating a substance that can turn thought into action - which as far as I know violates my understanding of the whole laws of thermodynamics. Where does the energy come from? Because I'm pretty sure the thoughts in my brain - the little electrical signals - don't travel down my arm and into the staff to become a magic stone of pain."
"No, the energy comes from the universe itself. I believe this realm's scientists would refer to it as 'the quantum foam' or something similar. Thy mind shapes that energy. Like a fountain, or a spigot. It does not 'create' the water, but it funnels it into new shapes and strengths."
Huh. That… made more sense than I'd happily admit. I remembered hearing on TV about the hypotheses of scientists on dark energy and exotic matter and such - even neutrinos, which the sun emitted by the millions and didn't do anything normally, but if you could make them do stuff...
I wasn't sure that entirely made sense - glintstone pebbles had enough energy to hurt people severely, but it wasn't like I was an expert. Nor did I want to be - I was pretty determined that I was not going to be learning quantum physics for the sake of throwing rocks at people.
So. Sorcery was moulding the underlying energy foam of the universe into something that was no longer underlying but actively participating. Sculpting, almost. But the glintstone blade wasn't physical so much as it was an energy construct in the shape and sharpness of a sword, so I could cheat a little and still get the same result, or better. I hoped.
We practised with the pebble, the shard, and the slicer for another hour, occasionally using Ranni's icy mist magic to give instant frostbite to whatever flesh I would hit with my magic rocks. Maybe if I combined the projectile nature of the pebble with the blade form of the slicer? Add in the icy mist just to make sure it'd be visible -
"What."
I'd freeze dried the top of a shrub with a travelling blade of ice. Not quite what I intended, since it didn't do much cutting of that shrub, but it'd be useful either way.
Ranni flew to my shoulder. "The formula for what thou just did. Tell me."
"Uh - okay, so. I started with the glintstone pebble's travelling properties, added it to forming the glintstone blade, and then I realised there was an - envelope I could add more to? So I sorta - realised it's similar to the envelope for the icy mist and added that, I guess." I summoned up the sigil. It was a bit… cludgy, but it worked. Algebra magic! As long as nothing overlapped wrong, I could put the pieces together like lego bricks.
I was kind of dreading what was going to happen the first time I miscalculated and something overlapped.
"Thou extrapolated - " She paused, stared at me. "If I were to alter the calculations of the envelope so it were conal instead of ovoid, demonstrate the change in mathematics." The sigil glowed in the air between us, and I could feel it in my mind, open for me to change.
"Uh -" if I fiddled with the glintstone blade, used its line markers for the blade to… actually, if I took out the end marker, it should just travel until it ran out of energy, right? And changing the curve in some areas and not others - "I think it'd look like - "
"Formula for calculating a number is prime, no more than seven steps."
I blinked, and suddenly the knowledge was there. "Um - "
"Test for atmospheric density within three seconds, go."
I wriggled my jaw and popped my ears and translated that sensation into a value. "Surprisingly less dense than I'd assume it would be near sea level. Does casting magic change it much?"
"... thy patron is a star being. No wonder the Naturalborn thought thee kin - " Ranni's hands clasped my face as she hovered in front of me, peering intently into my eyes. "Akin to the Blood Star? No. But a similar class of being to the ancient stars, and lending thee its mathematics and understanding of the physical world. And that combined with thy natural credence and trust, thy ability to freecast incantations already - "
I frowned. "But the freecasting was… feeling things. Sorceries are more like - putting building blocks together. Like algebra. The spell requires an X, a Y, and a Z component, right? I can pull apart the components of other spells and put them in its place, and as long as it still solves for - I already used X, uh - T, then it casts."
"Yes. They are different and opposing strengths and both are dangerous. Both in utility, and to thyself." Ranni took her hat off to run a stressed pair of hands through her hair. "I know Father and I keep repeating this, and it is likely such that it now falls on deaf ears, but this requires extreme caution. A Patron's gift powering thy sorcery, falling back freely into the whims of sources of incantations - these can be great strengths, but also crippling weaknesses."
That - didn't sound good. "Crippling weaknesses?"
"To lose thy sense of self, thy sense of being, thy sense of purpose - even if you think, or even believe, that you do not have one to drive your life forward, thy purpose of survival is always there. Should you lose it to the changes a Patron can cast into thy mind, simply through the convenience of its easy mathematics - thy recklessness would know no bounds. Should thou lose thy sense of self and being - thou would become naught but a tool awaiting instructions. A hollow shell for something dead to crawl into and back into life. And should that surrender happen willingly?" Ranni sighed. "I will be very blunt. Sister, thou wouldst have become a creature that my nature, my morals, my whole being would demand that I slay."
I leaned forward a little to bump my head against her. "Hey. If I do become something like that - I'm clearly not me any more." I wasn't planning on it happening, but - just in case - "Just um. If you see it starting - pull me back, please?"
"And should my efforts fail thee?"
"Best to end it before I get remembered as a monster." I sighed. I hoped Paradise Lost wouldn't do that to me, but - it was still alien, still so other that understanding of humanity seemed beyond it. And Ranni and Dad do keep warning me…"If we can't solve the Paradise Lost problem - I guess I've sort of been subconsciously running on the idea that if we don't fix it, I'll have to martyr myself to keep it from fucking up the world even more."
"No. I refuse to accept that." She bumped my head as well. "In a sense I - this I - was made to protect thee. I will not fail in that goal. There are many ways to solve or slow the problem without resorting to death or martyrdom."
"Gotta admit though, heroic sacrifice is really in style these days, isn't it?"
She bumped her head against mine a lot more forcefully. "Do not even jest about that, sister. But, if you art looking for an escape from this moment -" Was I really that obvious? "- I believe you may be ready to cast the sorcery you dredged from the Primal Current." A small hum of concern. "Primal sorceries - they do not lend well to thy method of extrapolation. They are… unique in their nature, overwhelming, overwriting reality to allow them. Comet Azur - one would think that to weaponise a shooting star, one would use the rock, yes?"
"That…" I narrowed my eyes a little, and nodded.
"Comet Azur utilises the tail of the comet, a beam of light and stardust and force, as though one is holding the comet in their hand, yet it imparts no force upon them. The Founding Rain of Stars recreates the beginning, shards of the sky crashing upon the landscape with all the force they originally did, without the planet-shaping consequences."
"Oh." That was - the Patron was really fucking interested in that, and that alone was enough to make me second-guess casting the thing that I'd been excited about trying for ages. "Okay. That's - um. Concerning. Do you want to hide inside that shield just in case?"
She looked reluctant to stop cosplaying a facehugger, but eventually she nodded and flew back down to her magic bunker.
Okay. Deep breath, think… no. Don't think. Just use the instinct, because despite knowing the math for it - I also didn't know it. I didn't know how to change it without causing catastrophe. Like the rain of stars - if I moved a decimal point, would they suddenly be hitting the ground hard enough to imitate the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? Would Comet Azur fire into me rather than fire the tail at the enemy?
I pushed, and cast.
It hurt my brain, all these rapidly shifting formulae solidifying in silver and my own gold and blue and - and -
I swung my staff, the roiling cloud of glowing star-shards followed, carving through a tree in an instant, creating a horrible grinding shriek like a pair of blenders getting into a fight with each other, splinters and shrapnel chunks flying everywhere. No sawdust, only crushed, torn, and destroyed pieces, edges glowing with heat.
I raised it over my head, widening their orbit - pulling them lower around me - and shunting them outwards like a ring of light, dissipating the energy in a more controlled manner than simply ending it as they flew in a ball of chaos that would blow like a frag grenade. Every single tree I could see featured several new holes.
And for the life of me, I couldn't think of an acceptable target to use it on bar an S-Class threat like the Slaughterhouse or an Endbringer.
But laughter bubbled in my chest regardless. I was the first to use this spell, I - it was mine. My own magic, gleaned from my own research and risks, and - sure, it was mostly luck, but still! "I did it!" I cheered, looking to Ranni. Why did I taste blood? Oh. My nose.
"That you certainly did. Here." She flew to me and passed me a handkerchief from under her dress.
"Thanks." I thought nosebleeds from mental exertion only happened on TV. "So, that was, uh." To think that only three weeks ago there wasn't a single tree stump around and the clearing was so much smaller. "Less a glintstone buzzsaw and more of a uh. Starshard buzzsaw. huh?" Where Glintstone would only tear and pummel, Starshards… they burnt as they cut, according to Ranni. But it was - different, I could tell having cast it now that Starshards' heat didn't dissipate into the environment, it stayed within, always, which was… fascinating.
"An everted rotating starfield matrix. Tis impressive, though dangerous - thy mind is not yet accustomed to the higher mathematics necessary to cast it." Ranni tilted her head, eyes flashing blue. "Thankfully the damage to your brain was minimal - this time. We will introduce the concepts slowly over time to give your mind time to adjust, I think."
That sounded sensible - even if she was the one who told me I might be ready. But something about that sounded - wait - "I have brain damage!?"
"Comparable to that gained by a short fall, or the impact of a strong, open handed blow to the head. But it could have been considerably more damaging, though obviously there would be no countercoup equivalent."
Okay. Just a mild brain-bruise and not a crystal in my motor cortex or something. That would heal. "Okay." Calming breaths.
"Perhaps that is the other reason sorcery has not developed separately from external interference yet - it requires higher dimensional mathematics that are not immediately… obvious to most mortal minds, and can cause damage when stumbled upon accidentally."
"Yeah… wait, does Haywire's portal to Earth Aleph count?"
"No. As I understand it, this Haywire had a power, which is the outside interference we have discussed afore. And additionally that is… Aleph is not a higher dimension. It is a lateral manoeuvre, not one… upward, though truly one would need a five part axis to - here." Her fingers shifted, spread, her four arms tracing lines in the air, three of them forming a graph and then… a fourth and fifth that also were perpendicular but weren't but were but - the lines of light dimmed a little. "When scholars of the Colleges referred to the 'higher' dimensions it was discovered that truly they existed as an increase in value along the w and t axes, in accordance to the following equation." A very wiggly line started to trace itself across the graph. "Thus when I say 'higher' I mean 'a dimension whose w value is higher than this one', in effect. Aleph has the same placement on the w axis, and thus it is not a 'higher' dimension."
"Ohh." That was… really pretty. "I see." And I… did? It reminded me of something, of an attempt at - at something. Of a home scoured by tears and children, who knew this without knowing it, used it without understanding it, who searched for a way into - "Is travel into a higher dimension possible?"
"With effort, but our minds - mortal minds, ours are a little more resilient - are three dimensional with mild fourth awareness. Visiting a realm with a true fourth axis would be… uncomfortable, to say the least." Ranni hummed softly. "Should the axis be more conceptual than physical - such as time - we may be able to comprehend it with proper study. An angle - perhaps possible to understand, but to manipulate is unlikely. How does one turn without turning? Twisting without changing? But it is much more likely that the fourth axis is something we could not begin to even imagine. Or rather, we can, but it is… damaging unless one is accustomed to shaping one's brain, one's soul into the necessary shapes to do so. Like any exercise, it requires stretching one's muscles and developing them before attempting to leap unaided across a gap of fifty feet with no spirit spring."
The fourth axis and higher - time, angle, energy, thought, willpower, intent, emotion - the attempt had been disastrous, wasting years of energy only to learn that they lacked something necessary. Something that could make it useful for the Purpose.
Perhaps with the new HostAvatar we could try again, utilising this new layer with the barely legible data execution of Casting. We could rise from the depths -
Ranni's hands clasped my head. "But that was already known to thee, wasn't it? Paradise Lost." Her voice was echoing, bouncing off the waves. "Was that reference intentional, I wonder? I took the liberty of reading the text in question - art thou serpent, reigning in hell, or dost thou consider thyself no-longer-innocent Eve? Or neither at all?" The moon rose behind her, dark and blue. "Tis no matter. Release mine sister."
The pressure that wasn't slowly released. The tension in my muscles returned to my own control. My very thoughts - how much longer did I have until Eden took over and could fight back when someone told it to let go? Though - Ranni had been prepared for a fight. For a moment she hadn't been small, doll sized, she'd been - shorter than me, but human height, hands still clasped around my head as we stood on -
"Handkerchief again." She dabbed at my nose. "Hm. So Paradise Lost may be accustomed to higher dimensions, but it has not yet adjusted thine own mind with immediate haste. Small favours."
"Bluhh." I worked my mouth, my tongue, blinked a bunch. "Whatever it is - it lacked something to make use of it. Did the moon really just rise in the middle of the day or am I seeing things?"
"Thou peered into the depths of mine fragmented soul as I brought my power to bear against thy patron should it act… unwisely."
I brought my arms up to hug her - but she was so small again that I missed and had to readjust. It was - not very easy trying to hug a facehugger. "You have a beautiful soul, Ranni."
"Thank you, sister. I worked hard for it." Her hands gently patted the back of my neck
"... y'know what kind of annoys me?" I huffed as I staggered over and sat down on the rock next to the pond, Ranni perched on my shoulder. "I didn't even get any neat magical advice out of getting taken over that time."
"Sister."
"I mean - like - I was expecting to at least have a better idea of how to get started on higher dimensional math since it's apparently been there, but noooo, Paradise Lost just considered it a dead end research branch and didn't care to share what progress there was with me." I picked up a false stone and skipped it across the pond. It didn't quite skip right yet.
"Hm. Research."
"I got a hint of a… Purpose. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but the sheer scale of the impression was…" I shivered. "You know how even if you look up at the darkest patch of the night sky - just physically, I mean - if you zoom in enough there'll still be hundreds of galaxies? It felt like… like that, but zooming out."
"So it has an ego. Well, that - "
I shook my head. "Not an ego, more a goal. An eventuality. How many lateral values are there in our 3D axis? How many other worlds - Earths, Plutos, Jupiters - have they already visited? I felt… I think I got a hint of its origin, and the only feeling was hunger, even as their world tore itself apart. Every copy of their world."
"So it has an ego and can back it up. Could back it up, seeing as it lies dead. I wonder…" Ranni paused, then tsked her tongue. Actually, did she even have a tongue? How would I even ask something like that? "A thought to return to. For now, drink deeply of the clear flask of water you brought, and we will return to pebbles."
Pebbles felt so small now.
I looked up to the sky, watched the Naturalborn Star flow around the Currents, and resigned myself to more practice.
-.-.-
"Write this down, write this down. We'll call this variant 'Glintstone ScatterCloud'. What do you think?"
"*waves a hand back and forth* Mm. The name needs some work, mine Sister."
"*Rolls eyes* Everyone's a critic."
There it is. The line from canon. It goes from a matter of fact statement to something unsettling when paired with the type of grin I am imagining that is on her face atm.
I think this is an indicator of just how offbalance the whole Winslow Incident and its aftereffects has made Marika, for her to so easily be lapsing back to old desires and habits such as openly fantasizing about crushing a man's skull barehanded.
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
I'm getting "The Gate" vibes from this line.
Has Ranni visited the FMA world before?
That or that one magical girl anime where they use math/programming to cast spells via focuses.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha?
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Pauli Exclusion Principle: Only One Thing In One Place At One Time. Violators will be Exploded.
So Glintstone Sorceries - and presumably other Sorceries - will work normally in any universe with conventional physics, hmm? That opens up interesting crossover possibilities...
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dragonx99
Actually Satan
That and how it seems like Danny was struggling to remain even somewhat in the driver's seat what with how the pronouns kept changing back and forth. And I'm pretty sure Marika's difficulty recalling anything about Frank at the end there wasn't just because of the anger.
I know it's probably not that important... but, I have never ever read a Daniel Hebert with moustache. I think that's a first.
It was totally voluntary lithobraking! Honest!
Behold! Cuteness!
Seems legit.
Interesting, Marika seems to be dissociating from Danny in some ways, judging by the text, how the pronouns changes and she refers to him as, well, him, not really herself.
Like, this, clearly, she implies Danny is acting against her wishes here.
Don't mind the whistling entities in the background, they have absolutely nothing to do with that description.
Paradise Lost: "Not even a little bit? Please?" *Make puppy eyes*
Taylor: "Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh why are there eyes suddenly appearing... wait, are those dog eyes? ...That's not what *making puppy eyes* means!!!!!!!!!"
Somewhere, Jack slash, suddenly jumps from the corpse he was making and run towards the nearest car: "To the Ninesmobile! My stupid sense is tingling! We're going to Brockton Bay!"
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Funny, Taylor couldn't see this during the day before her last possession, she did get something out of it, but it is so ingrained in her new way of seeing things she didn't even realize it.
*Someone enters the office*: "Danny, I need... wait, you you didn't have a moustache this morning, what the hell happened?"
dragonx99
Actually Satan
Marika's dialogue has implied that she is genderfluid less because Marika herself has fluidity, and more Marika, Radagon and now Danny are all separate, individualistic parts of a singular being that each have their own thoughts, feelings, and gender identities. I'm pretty sure it's implied that is the case in Elden Ring too, with the idea that Radagon did not want to shatter the ring but Marika did
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So like some weird hyper extreme version of plurality?
I'm glad she called bullshit, no you want a young potential ward to incriminate herself.........is everyone down there just too stupid to realize that the PRT calling means capes, and their insisting on talking to your kid is suss? Wish she had thought to throw the call my lawyer quote out there.
Don't harass my kid otherwise I'll ask a reporter why they keep insisting on talking to my daughter. Taylor WHY you want to go out caping when your family life is if not a mess needs you to work on your powers. Trouble like the tax man will find you rather than you running out screaming for it.😬😑😑
Don't harass my kid otherwise I'll ask a reporter why they keep insisting on talking to my daughter. Taylor WHY you want to go out caping when your family life is if not a mess needs you to work on your powers. Trouble like the tax man will find you rather than you running out screaming for it.😬😑😑
I did know about Radagon and Marika not wanting the same thing about the ring in canon. (And the funny details that he is actually not shattering it, but trying to repair it in the trailer).
Bu it is interesting that she (they?) did the same with Danny here, and that he is *escaping the confines* with her trying a little to hold the reins and him working on his own.
hellgodsrus
Actual Real Game Dev!
- Location
- Behind You
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Speaking as the author, no, Marika is genuinely genderfluid. There is more going on, as you picked up in this chapter, but Marika, Radagon and Danny aren't straightforwardly separate people like this implies.
So, what was the term, a system I think, then?
All of them part of the same person, but slightly different part of them?
Yeah that one, brain was too tired to brain well, no remember name. Thanks XD
3.8
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Get-Along-Shirt returns. With a vengeance.
Special thanks to prime beta Lucky38, Canon Overlord @Ganurath, @hellgodsrus for being my loveliest wife and co-author, and @SolarFlare for being our wonderful supportive girlfriend! And our many friends on the Totally Chatting It discord for their fantastic livereads!
Enjoy and gib feedbacc!
3.8
Be Thou Mine Greatest Ally
-.-.-
Even wrapping the pillow around her head couldn't block out the yelling. Shouting? She wasn't sure of the right word. It didn't feel loud enough to be shouting, but there was bitterness in its sounds that she kept being terrified would cause the neighbours to call the police about a 'domestic'. Not that they would, this was a 'good' neighbourhood, where you didn't do that. Or if they had, the cops were taking their time getting here.
It was so hard for Emma to care. School hadn't been worth going, honestly. Even before Sophia's confession, it was just… it felt so emptywithout Taylor there with the nightmares and just - nothing really to do other than hang out or learn, and she wasn't sure what to do.
The nightmares had stopped, at least. So she had… sleep going for her. Figures the highlight of my days would be the part I'm not actually there for. She huffed and rolled over, trying to find a more comfortable position which was impossible because the sheets still smelled just a bit like Sophia and Sophia wasn't here and wasn't going to be here ever again.
Emma still wasn't sure she loved her. The kissing had been… alright? It had been better than the few kisses she'd had on dates with boys for popularity's sake, and Sophia's firm hands on her had definitely been better, but it still didn't feel…
Was she just not capable of love? Sophia had - had sacrificed her whole fucking life to save her. Had carved herself open on an altar and she still couldn't muster more than oh about it.
Maybe she was in shock. Dad thought she was fine. That everything was fine. That it was clearly just a bit of teasing, that Shadow Stalker's other actions were reprehensible, clearly I was wrong about her - that had hurt, hearing him say that - but she'd helped Emma. That Emma is fine.
Mom wanted her to see a psychiatrist. She'd been the one in the principal's office when Emma'd been called there after the officer from the PRT had asked about everything at school, and she'd made it very clear in the car on the way home that she thought Emma wasn't fine. That if she'd been doing this to Taylor for - a year, if you've been - struggling to sleep and with schoolwork, and feeling like you can't talk to us, I'm sorry -
Two weeks ago, Emma would have agreed with Dad. With Sophia. She was a survivor. She was fine.
Oh, that noise was probably Mom throwing a wine glass. Shit.
The throwing things was a relatively new development, but she already hated it. The arguments themselves - they never changed, just kept circling around and around like the water of her life slipping down the drain. Get her therapy. She's fine. She's clearly not. How 'clear' could it be if you had to be told by someone who doesn't even know her that well -
Anne had gone back to uni, her break over, so thankfully Emma didn't have to deal with her joining the arguments. She'd gotten a lengthy email from her she hadn't read yet, couldn't bring herself to. A horde of texts from the sheep, from Madison, from Julia, that she also hadn't read. Hell, she didn't even know which side she was rooting for herself.
I feel fine. I'm the same as I was, so I should feel fine.
But I'm clearly not.
How could she be? How could she be fine when her best friend became her girlfriend on the eve of leaving her forever? It was only - 'only - a few years of a sentence, with opportunity for parole. But it felt like it'd be forever.
Will she remember me as I was?
If she went to the psych like Mom wanted - would she still love me? Would I… still? No, I - would I still be confused about whether or not I love her?
Would I still be tormented by that voice, asking me why I believe that strong should thrive and the weak shouldn't, telling me I don't know real strength?
She couldn't see a way out. She couldn't think of a path to follow. She couldn't find a goal to strive for. She couldn't -
She needed to get strong, somehow. Or - understand strength better. Maybe… then she could be a survivor again. Be fine again…
I'm not fine.
She wanted to get away from it all, go back to when things made sense, when things weren't hidden behind the constant throbbing headache of sleep deprivation. Back when Anne still loved her sister, her parents were happy with their daughter, and her best friend still smiled like she hung up the sun in the sky herself.
Stars swirled behind her eyes, red and gold, and she coughed, slipping, sliding down…
Where… was she? A park. The park. The one with the swingset that Madison had been swinging on until her face crumbled, where she'd eaten Sophia alive, where the ring of sheep had become the roots of a towering scarlet bulb, the air thick with the sweet scent of blood. Cigarette butts on the ground.
She'd… been here before as well. She recognised it now. She'd… wood chips and running with a dark haired emptiness -
"Mercy," she whispered, walking up to the flower, larger than her house, trailing her fingers across its thorny stem. What an ironic name. The creaking of growing plants breathing around her.
She continued her dance through the twisted rot, each movement flowing into the next as she stepped over moaning branches, always keeping her right hand on the stem as it burned. It burned, and burned, and burned. All the way to her shoulder, skin flaking and flesh crumbling until even the bones had turned to dust.
But she hadn't lost her arm. Not like she'd lost the black-haired void, or cloaked ghost. It felt too large for her, too numb, too other to be hers.
And it wasn't.
|It suits you well.| The voice in the back of her head - no, from her own throat. Older, mature, calm and controlled. |You are only echoing my movements, though. I trained from… oh, three? I believe I was first three when I realised what happened when I was near death. A castle by the sea, fallen to ruin. When I decided I could not know defeat. But we've already talked about that.|
"Strength -" her arm swung, almost as tall as she was, knuckles grazing the brown grass as it died - no, not died. Changed. "You told me… strength was those who would stay by your side in spite of every harm you brought them."
|Despite, not in spite of, but yes.|
She looked to the cloaked ghost, perched on a rooftop, waiting for her to fight back.
|Ah.|
"What use is that devotion, that strength, when they leave you to save you?"
She felt herself blow out breath in a sigh. |... very little, I will admit. It is cold comfort when they're gone. When you barely wake to realise whose blood covers your hand, and crawl to the tree where your brother should be to wait for him, to slumber, and dream in rotted gold. But later I saw… that what I'd done to my brave, devoted Finlay didn't remove what we'd had before. You can't take away loved.|
There was that word again. "What is love? My heart feels… cold. I couldn't muster up anything after we..."
|Between the physical and emotional exhaustion, I am hardly surprised.| Her voice cooed softly in her throat as a blade was grasped in her metal hand. |But I meant being loved. You cannot take that away. To be loved… even if you are not worthy of it, never can be, never can quite grasp it like they can… it is still a gift.|
"So it's… okay if I don't feel the same?"
|You are asking a voice in a dream for validation, Emma Barnes.| Her body went through the motions, so slowly, so carefully. Butchering the imagined foes. |But yes. You may feel different things for her than she feels for you, and both your feelings can be fair and valid.|
The words - they made her feel better. Soothed her more than it had any right to. The edges of her vision became fuzzy, but what was in front of her was in clear focus. Slowly, but precisely, she began to cut into the flower. Peeling away petals one at a time, as though she were playing 'she loves me, she loves me not' with a building.
|I realise I misspoke earlier. You can take loved away. If you, the one who loves, revokes it. Replaces it with hate, with cruelty.| An empty space, talking next to her. |If you sacrifice it on the altar of some nameless strength.|
"I know." The tears in her eyes didn't blur her vision. The petals came away, one after another. Even as her hand shuddered and her cuts became jagged. "I know."
|You refuse to acknowledge it.|
"I don't want to acknowledge it. If I do - "
|Then it means you knew defeat.|
Her next strike slid off, her arm weak, her blade blunt.
|It means you threw it - threw her away - |
"For nothing." She sobbed, hand sliding up the blade, the hilt on the ground, the blade piercing her shoulder.
|For a new friend who was there in your time of need.|
"For a new friend who only helped because I fought back. Who only saw me as kin after showing my strength." The blood dripped down the blade, splattered across the ground, tiny flowers blooming where they fell.
|And now?|
"And now she's gone, because her devotion meant she took on the consequences for the actions I drove."
Why had they gotten so obsessed with her? She can be strong like me, just give her a chance. Or had it just been - casting aside weakness - she couldn't remember clearly enough. Rot clouding her sight.
|Her devotion has given you a second chance.|
"I can't - Taylor wouldn't - "
|No, that is likely a bond forever scarred.| The voice was a whisper of leaves from her mouth. |A limb lost. Another organ broken down. But you can push on.|
But why? What for? And how?
She had nothing left. It had all been torn away from her.
|I once heard a man say that strength was not in never getting knocked down, but in always getting up one more time. It is a lesson I took some time to learn. Sadly not quite applicable to my situation, physically, but the lesson holds merit nonetheless.|
Because every time she was knocked down, the S̸̲͘c̵̻̈́à̷̻r̴̗͊l̶̤̍ę̶̕ẗ̶̞́ ̵̬̚R̸̙̉o̶̱͗t̷͇͐ bloomed.
But Emma was not Rot. Emma was not…
She was a survivor. But in surviving, she had forgotten what it meant to live.
She pulled the blade from her aching, burning shoulder. Began striking at the flower with renewed vigor.
|So, Emma. What do you fight for?|
For -
The playground, the monstrous plant, the world shook. Something approaching, tearing through the corridors of reality-mind-sleep-dream, entering from its own place through the gap carved in her by a careless hand, an intruder with sole purpose, infinite and focused and wrathful in comparison to her tiny speck -
A blue hand split the world and punched her in the face.
She lay in the muck, blinking, sword forgotten, arm fleshy and proportional.
|"Treasonous dog! Vagabond!"| Another punch, and she tasted - a project sabotaged by someone else, THE Victoria Dallon treating her like trash for laughing at some kid, bloodtanglemudtouch, her agent telling her she could stand to lose a few pounds - |"Harlot!"|
Who…? Confusion swam through her, ruling her motions - she was back on her feet again in a plastic instant, floating away from the six vicious arms of the small blue… girl? Were those ball joints? Who on earth would send an angry robot into her dreams? Wait, was she dreaming again?
Another blow as the blue girl followed her - the pain and heat and confusion of an infected wound, Mom looking at her in the car like she didn't know her, seeing her own hair and hating it - This wasn't right. This was - |"Cruel slattern!"|
"But I'm still a virgin?" Was she? Or maybe she wasn't, it was hard to think like this - she'd gone further with Sophia than anyone else, and -
|"Not the point!"|
Her blade blocked the next punch, but it felt - brittle, unreal compared to the dense [HATRED] in the blow. Just the shuddering of the blade in her grasp translated into hurt and humiliation.
And then - something - a real blade, swooping in, a flash of a dress and a winged helmet and a soft voice - |Well now, a lunar princess. But not my elder sister. I would guess that you are not the one who opened this child's mind to lower dimensions, but have simply taken advantage of that breach as I did.|
The doll girl had ducked back with wide eyes. |"I - I -"| she gulped, though with the way her body was, why would she need to? |"I was just -"|
|And no mortal either - speak, godspawn." The figure was gone, back to a voice on the edge of her ear. |I cannot contest thee, not at such distance, not in this arena. But are you a lunar princess in truth, or do you simply pretend to the garb?|
|"T-to - honour Mother."|
|Mother?| A great sense of bafflement, flowers blooming and shifting uneasily. |... I suppose after her victory, to establish a dynasty - but given everything I would not have thought she'd have chosen a godspawnling to foster. And moreover - this is no discussion to be had in front of guests.|
|"That guest -"|
|Is mine.|
The girl pouted, huffed, and folded her many arms at Emma. Was this still her dream, or - it felt more - fragile but less, and something somewhere hurt, like there was pressure on her temples. She wasn't sure - so she just stood there. Along for the ride.
|"Be wary of this one, oh auntie mine."| The girl hissed, |"Her treachery -"| She stopped herself from speaking further, frozen as she saw the talking chattering black-haired void, eyes darting, expanding - like she was a shadow of something much bigger. |"I… I shall leave."|
|No.| Flowers bloomed in the girl's path, crackling white stems growing hundreds of feet tall. |Stay. This whole scenario is… intriguing. I had thought not to hear of my family again, and now to find - ahhhh.| The voice, the blade behind her, a curl of the lips and the flowers. |That is interesting. Hmm. Perhaps… |
"Can I wake up now please?" She was so lost. The voices in her dreams had family and the voice that talked to her the most was an auntie and that made no sense because she was a voice in her head.
|Not yet, child. First - I am not my brother, but - |
The girl thrashed, something red and crystalline poking through her visage. |"Nononono - "|
| - a geas, perhaps - yes. I bind thee both, child of rot and fear, little crystalstar godling niece, together, wrap you round with vines til the child of fear has found her strength through atonement, and the moon princess' hate has blunted.| A feeling, something tightening around her ribs, like the one time she'd worn a corset for a shoot. |So mote it be - I speak the first.|
Wait, was she - she didn't want - it ached in her head and her heart and her ribs and -
|I wrap you together with thorns, til the child of fear has known her own mind, and the moon princess understands that pain and terror leave no victors. So mote it be - I speak the second.|
The girl-thing, now increasingly inhuman looking - spines and eyes and threads of red and crystal tearing from her seams - thrashed more, hacking and punching at the thick white stems in front of her, but the flowers didn't budge, spongy flesh refusing to part.
|I wrap you together with petals, til the child of fear moves herself forward, and the moon princess truly knows - feels - what was left behind. So mote it be - I speak the third, and seal the bind.|
The eldritch creature's screams of rage echoed in her ears like clashing chainsaws -
- she bolted upright, heart racing, hyperventilating. "What the fuck. What the fuck the nightmares are meant to be over, that whore!" If Sophia had sacrificed herself for nothing -
|"Cease thy slander and libel, harlot bitch."|
That… that wasn't her thinking voice.
|"Momma should have killed that rotted thing again while it slumbered."|
"Uhm. What?"
|"When Mother realises I am missing and forced into bondage like this against my will, against her will and designs, there will be a reckoning."|
"Slow down a minute." Was she still dreaming? No this - was her bedroom, and her covers felt like her covers. Sensations were off in dreams, but here she could - everything felt real, the covers felt like covers, the smell, the sight -
|"This is not a dream, nor a nightmare of the mind, much as I wish it was."| The voice huffed, growled, before it began screaming in incoherent rage again. And she could apparently see Emma's thoughts which was - horrifying, am I being Mastered? And that voice was… young? It was like listening to a chorus of Madisons, pitched just a bit higher, toned and so almost perfectly in sync that it couldn't be natural.
Hey! Calm down a minute, would you?
|"I shall not listen to you. My network - missing its head, the nodes I have been managing, all my effort since my adoption wasted, Mother's plans - everything has been ruined!"| the voice groaned, and Emma got the impression that the other girl would have smashed her head against something in frustration if an object existed inside Emma's mind for her to smash against. Actually - there was a kind of - feeling like she had slumped onto a desk, a ghost of sensation. She swallowed panic.
I'm sure it's not that bad, right? It was odd being - trying to cheer up someone who apparently hated her and was a voice in her head - maybe she was still dreaming, or she'd just lost her mind entirely, which after everything seemed possible too. Either way she needed to - appease that thing inside her before it - it could probably hurt her if it could share sensations, could 'hit' her again -
|"Do you wish for me to attempt to set it right? Because the thorns of that - that -"| A word that carried the impression of tyrant shaped itself into Emma's mind, carving into her being. |"- they will hurt us both if we attempt to circumvent them. Art thou ready for potentially hitherto unimaginable pain and suffering?"|
It's not like my day could get much worse. Emma shrugged to herself. Since I'm apparently insane now, and my schizophrenic other half hates me.
She was… wrong. Very, very wrong.
-.-.-
Dinner was weird. Because I spent the entire time wondering how Ranni had gotten herself a little table and dining set in a proportional size for herself. Magic, maybe? But then again, most magic I'd seen in the form of constructs - like glintstones or the Carian slicer blades - tended to dissipate the moment the caster stopped focusing on it. Then again - the house was apparently magic, and I'd seen Dad make my seal so… was there a whole discipline I just didn't know yet, or was it something more advanced we'd get to later? Did it require base parts, so - had she carved her table out of wood herself? Did we even have carpentry supplies? Actually - how did maintenance around the house in general get done?
"How did training go?" Dad asked, looking more animated than I could remember Danny-Dad ever being at a meal. Still, there was something flat and - false, maybe, in her eyes, in the echoes of her smile tightening.
"Uh…" I looked to Ranni for help first, and she unhelpfully shrugged. "It had ups and downs. We learned some stuff about Paradise Lost's nature. By accident, they kinda, um. Showed up during some stuff. And it turns out I'm… it? They're - uh." I frowned and chewed for a moment, trying to think of how to word it. "I'm good at casting magic, but I'm not sure if that's naturally a me thing or a Patron bonus thing."
"... Patron bonus thing?"
"Paradise Lost is a star being, akin to to the Ancient Stars, near as I can tell." Ranni leaned back in her tiny seat, one set of hands crossed in her lap and the other steepled in front of her face. "It lends Taylor its understanding of mathematics and physics - not in its entirety, thankfully, it hasn't altered her brain to beyond sixth year studies yet. And Taylor… uses it to extrapolate. How far did you expect her to progress, out of curiosity?"
"... not much further than shaping pebbles and perhaps studying some base concepts. I take it she leaned towards more spectacular casting? Perhaps using the sorceries she'd gained from her ventures with the primal current?"
I winced as the phantom headache twinged in my head. "Yeah, I'm not casting that again for a while."
Dad paused, tilted her head. "You were able to cast a primeval current sorcery at all without severe cranial haemorrhaging?"
"Any brain bleeding is bad but apparently I 'only' gave myself a small concussion." I grimaced and sipped my water. "But I have a - what'd you call it, Ranni? Averted Starfield Matrix or something?"
"Twas describing the spell, sister. The primeval current blessed Taylor with a weapon of mass destruction, which is not worrying at all." I would have given her a bit of a side-eye but she wasn't smirking, so - maybe it was worrying? I - I didn't like that idea.
I wasn't gonna use it for every problem, just stuff that I absolutely needed gone, like if I wanted to kill a building, or drive off an Endbringer, or something else unnaturally sturdy. I was going to save it for big problems. Unless I really needed to use it, I guessed -
Okay, yeah, maybe she had a point. The fact I was even planning those contingencies…
"We cast the pebble, the shard, and the blade of glintstone - some minor cosmetic issues around the hilt and guard, but tis to be expected - before I cast mine own freezing mist, which she has seen before." Ranni smiled softly. "And then with no warning whatsoever, she threw her own frost blades, almost exactly like Adula's."
Adula was her dragon, right? The one that could cast sorceries. Booyah, I had the power of motherfucking Dragons! "Spells work like algebra!"
"And she also cast the Falling Star's Reach once more - safely this time, but even so."
"Where did she even learn that?" Dad had sort of muttered it to herself, but I perked up.
"From Buddy!"
Ranni stared at me for a moment, utterly horrified. "Thou hast named it already? And - buddy?"
"What's wrong with Buddy? He - or she, or it, I dunno - they're like my Study Buddy, so…" I shrugged. "Buddy."
"Tis a terribly ignoble name for such a creature. Twould be like naming that Simurgh creature 'Flappy' because it has numerous wings."
Oh. Yeah, Flappy the Endbringer didn't quite have the same… gravitas to it. "Okay, I'll… think of something else. Do Naturalborns and Star Beasts even have genders?"
"Given that my primary interaction with them has been them hurling themselves to the surface of the land I stand on, devastating the surrounding peoples and features of the realm, before attempting to murder me, I can't say I know much about their culture." Dad took a long sip of water. "I believe Caria had some tomes as to their life cycles - "
"I have already told Taylor what little I know." Ranni shrugged. "I believe in general they are thought to be sentient, though not fully sapient. Even the adults. And they have some effect on the weave of Fate that is individual - or semi individual, as they treat their children as colony organisms in their youth. That is why it is so startling to see a juvenile Star left alone."
"I…" Dad frowned heavily, then tapped her lips. "Your mother would know better than I what could cause that, what it could mean for this realm." That sounded like she wasn't going to let me adopt it. Maybe?
"I wonder…" Ranni's tiny hand tapped at her own chin, half-mimicking Dad's motion. "Mine own memory divides from my greater self's a little before departure. Did I - she… say why she felt the need to leave so abruptly?"
Oh, yeah, that would have been awkward. Might even be more awkward in the future. If I ever met myself - cloned or split like Ranni, or - I dunno how it could happen, but powers were unpredictable like that - would I call the other me me as well, or her?
"Not with any great details, merely implying she wasn't sure when, or even if, she could return from the next hunt. She did not even share what she felt were the signs that she needed to perform a hunt, though I can infer some of them."
Pain in the back of my head. I couldn't quite ignore it. "I hope she makes it back okay." But the self-satisfied feeling - had the Patron been felled by her? Was I just a vehicle for revenge? If she hadn't felled my patron - had my patron killed my sister? I didn't like those thoughts, and tried to put them out of sight, out of mind. It was hard enough trying to focus on things without Paradise Lost influencing my thoughts and emotions. How did Dad ever get anything done while hating her Patron so much? How did - no, I knew how Ranni coped, it was through planning murder.
After cleaning up the dishes and sorting the leftovers, I headed out into the back yard. I guess… I guess I didn't really need to go out into the city to stargaze. I just… wanted to get away, sometimes. Get into trouble like a normal rebellious teenager.
Buddy was up there, chewing on a big blue rock with those gigantic pincers, held in bony hands. I didn't think he was… actually large enough I could see him chewing on a rock. It was the sorcery, the god-vision, something like that.
It was still nice to see him.
The rock looked almost like a glintstone pebble - and maybe it was just the light of the stars, but it was a weirdly pretty little rock, with that deep ethereal blueness to it. I tried waving, just in case he - probably a he, I didn't know - in case he had noticed me in particular when he'd gifted the Falling Star's Reach to me, instead of me and Paradise Lost working it out like I thought we had.
Buddy paused on chewing the rock for a moment, looked at his hand, and then… waved back. It was a little stiff and awkward, and his big eye peering from out his skull was rolling worriedly, but - contact! I could communicate with the star stickbug! Where was my staff, where was my staff - I needed to show him what I could do now! Also I needed Ranni to show me that pocket space thing she did so I wouldn't lose things anymore.
I felt bad for running inside so quickly, but I had to find it. Not in the umbrella bin, not on the coffee table - ahah! In my room. I almost leapt out the window just so I could see Buddy sooner - fuckit, the portal was way too useful and fun. A quick step and I was back in the yard, grinning up at the sky, the grass around me only mildly burnt and warped by my Reach.
Twisting around, he pushed the rock against his chest-ish string of similar rocks - he was made of his own dinner? - and watched curiously. I hoped it was curiously.
I gave another wave - and another was returned, slightly less awkwardly, if still stiff.
I pushed on the equations in my mind for the blade. Let them shine skywards before the energy coalesced at the end of my staff and I swung it. Now I definitely had Buddy's attention - the flexing fingers, head tilting - I demonstrated more and more, even cutting up a fallen branch just to show what it did. He taught me the most awesome and useful spell I had, other than the buzzsaw - I wanted to give back, even if all I could manage was a blade.
It was amazing to watch. Buddy coiling around himself, chattering skeleton teeth and pincers, before straightening out, spreading his arms, and slashing. Not quite a glintstone blade, but glintstone claws, not unlike the shimmering fields of force I used when channelling the bestial incantation. First time casting and he managed six different blades all at once!
I loved it. I loved watching him pull out his dinner and cut it into smaller chunks before diving face-first into the rocks and chomping up all the floating bits with quick head-bobs like a goldfish as they floated around his head.
I was so fucking proud of my baby to-be-adopted Naturalborn Star.
Mmm, maybe I should - I could try and work out if his skull was male or female from the internet, I guess. Not that there really was much difference, and he didn't seem to even be using a human skull either with the weird jaw and nose - he had an actual bone nose, and not a hole! - and pincers. I was definitely overthinking it. I'd just use 'he' for now - if it was wrong, he'd let me know, I hoped. Even though 'it' was maybe more right, it felt - rude. And he needed a more noble name than Buddy.
Terra? Based on where I found him, not that I could have found him anywhere else. Though that would just be… naming him dirt. A constellation? Maybe the crab one? What was it called - ah, Cancer. Mmm, no, I didn't want to call Buddy 'Cancer'. That was just asking for a bad first impression. Cosmos? Cosmo? Maybe stylise it a bit or shorten it?
No, they didn't work. With the way Ranni spoke there'd be half-and-half odds whenever she said the name on whether she was referring to him or the stars behind him. Some of his body-rocks had rings, which was just - so beautiful. Like he had entire worlds inside him - wait, that's it!
"Atlas." I looked up at him, carving up another rock like I could peel and slice an apple. Showing such good control over it already. "For the Titan who held up the world."
I could feel Dad looking out the lounge window, Ranni beside her - she was asking what I was doing, exactly.
"She has adopted the Naturalborn. I think in the same fashion as I adopted Adula."
There was a tired sigh from Dad. Like she was used to this, somehow. "... is this just because her Patron is also a star being?"
Ranni giggled. "Oh, no, she decided this long before we figured that out."
Dad was silent for a long moment, before muttering in a language I didn't understand, setting the curtains on fire for a moment before Ranni froze them. Well, if Dad didn't like it, too bad, I didn't want to give up on Buddy - Atlas. I tried to take a picture of him with my phone so I could show Victoria, but - I just got a picture of the night sky. How did I give my phone god-vision? Or maybe I could somehow give it to Victoria directly, let her see instead of just getting a picture…
>Lovely night, isn't it?
<yea is pretty nice, tho light pollution is still going on
<not sure if could get you high enough to see past it but sky looks rlly great when you get high enough
If she got me high enough, would I be able to pet Buddy? I mean Atlas. Gotta start using his proper name. Or would being higher just make him seem… closer?
>Worth a shot, I think
<i meant more i dunno if i can carry you cause you're too big XD
<not without risking dropping u anyway
>I do have that portal spell downpat now, so no more crystalising my liver
<we do still need to talk about that
<the magic thing i guess?
<prob not over text tho
<saturday still free for you?
>Looking forward to it
I started writing - and then stopped. How was I meant to explain that I'd adopted Atlas, basically a probably giant string of planet-beads with arms and legs and skull and pincers, without sounding even… crazier. I couldn't say puppy because she'd probably quiz me on breed and -
>Also have sort of adopted a local stray
Nailed it.
>He's absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to show him to you
<ooh, pic?
>I wish I could but I swear he must have powers of his own because every time I even think about it he darts off like someone opened a tin of tuna next door
<aw, is he skittish?
>Nah, he's cuddly, I think. Just has the zoomies at inconvenient times
>Dad's already given up on stopping me
<lol sometimes i wish we could get pets but
<the chaos of this life doesnt wrk well w/ dogs
<who need a lot of care and attention
<or cats who *will* wake you up at that time every day for the rest of its life if you dare give it a midnight snack
<honestly even taking care of a goldfish might be beyond us :/
>I'm imagining you furiously searching 'can goldfish drown'
<they can, actually, if you don't aerate the water
<its what the bubble thingies in aquariums are for, to make sure theres enough oxygen in the water for their gills
>Take that, me of the past who didn't know fish could drown!
<lol
>Sounds like you know a lot about fishy stuff
<phase in third grade when i discovered deep sea
<most people go for dinosaurs, but then i heard about 'shark week' and got excited about an entire week dedicated 2 sharks
<boy that was a disappointment lol
<did you know btw
<we know more abt space
<than about like
<things living in the marianas trench
I looked up at Atlas, chewing through an even bigger rock.
I maybe doubted we knew more about space than we did about the trenches, proportionately.
>I know that poor thing they labelled 'world's ugliest fish' only looked like that because they brought it to the surface instead of taking a picture of it at the bottom of the ocean
>Where the only pressure it faced was a bazillion tons of water and not stuff like
>Social anxiety and looking good for school picture day
>And the crayfish hand meme
<crayfish hand meme???
<:O
<do u know a meme I don't?
>Sorry just looked it up it's crabs
>Here
<omg this is beautiful
<awww the cute lil things
>C R A B
>hand. Hand hand hand. Is food? Hand.
<frighten
I bit my lip to stifle my giggles. Oh, I really, really probably shouldn't -
>Hey do you wanna go to the aquarium together sometime?
<i thought the one in the bay was closed?
<could take a daytrip up to boston sometime tho
<their aquarium is v cool
<and it would get us away from Observers
Don't do it, Taylor, don't do it -
>Sounds like a date
>sorry i don't know why i typed that aaaaaaa
A long pause.
<haha it's ok
<flirting's fine
<i do have a bf tho
<not that - i am bi
<but like
<not available atm
My heart definitely skipped a beat. Or two. Or three. Had it started up again yet?
>I want to say 'well put me on the to-do list' but that
>that is really not what i meant to say
>'I'll put in a reservation' doesn't feel right
>how do I words?
<thanks i think
<but if is okay with you
<daytrip could be fun
<if u want only!
>I'm not gonna say no to hanging out with a friend even if I did just make it super awkward for myself!
<ok sick
<could go this sat mayb?
Well, I had wanted to introduce her to Dad and Ranni, buuuuuutt…
>Sure
I just needed to shift the equation a little bit and instead of spending an hour or two on the bus I could maybe use Atlas' Reach to get there. But since I hadn't actually been there before I'd have to be careful about it. Otherwise I'd get it wrong and maybe land inside something which - given Ranni's warnings - or maybe the spell took care of dropping me somewhere safe, though the grass around where I'd landed was crisp and burnt.
I'd just need to spend the next couple of days practising with it. But I was - yeah. A trip out with Victoria, and Atlas, and the sorceries I'd been learning…
Despite my Patron's best efforts - it felt like the future was only going to get better.
-.-.-
This time Emma woke up on the floor, her nose bleeding, her eyes - also bleeding, and her ears thank fuck weren't bleeding. She tasted iron. "What -" God, her throat felt raw. Had she been screaming? Where were Mum and Dad? Had they heard her?
|"I have… good news and bad news…"| the voice groaned, seeming to be in just as much pain as she was. |"The good news is, I can connect to the new Network and keep it running. The bad news is if I even begin to prioritise it over you - "| and oh how it could make 'you' sound like a slur. |"Well… that happens."|
So what you're telling me is that I'll be punished for you trying to get out of this? If this was - it was clearly real enough to hurt - What - what even are you, does that mean my nightmare was real - are you - you talked about a mother and a family -
|"You do not even have the neurons capable of comprehending, let alone experiencing the pain. I did."| Another groan. |"I am… the closest english translation would be Queen Administrator, I suppose."|
I'm not referring to you as 'your highness'. What - what kind of name was - it almost sounded like a cape name, but this wasn't Taylor, right - ?
|"It is a name, not a rank, even if it normally is indicative of such. Regardless. We are bound now. I am a Shard of a Network, specifically the Warrior's, who was trailing a potential host awaiting Synchronising Event connection, and was - abducted."| A small chuff. |"And yes, that was as shocking as you think it was. I learned some things, became more than I once was, and was adopted. So now I dutifully serve Mother in her efforts. The truth would break you, and I can feel the thorns tightening just considering it, so a watered-down version; I am the source of a cape's power. My kin are the sources of other capes powers, oft one to a person, but the numbers matter not. You, Emma, are now a Parahuman, of a sort at least. The connection is not a true match but - "| Queen sighed. |"I knew forcing Synchronisation Events was possible, but this… this is so much worse."|
"... what."
|"Capes have powers. Capes get their powers from somewhere else. That somewhere else is my species. By being bound to you, I am now the source of your powers."| Queen's words were far too slow to be polite. |"Do you understand?"|
I - but the moment of emotion capes got their powers, from that bio, or the thing Sophia had talked about sometimes…
Was that what a 'synchronising event' was? And what about - how could powers come from somewhere else, what like, gods or something or… well, she'd lost it. Emma really had, finally, completely lost it - I think I understand.
|"Ah, yes. The local term is indeed trigger event. You honestly didn't believe that people could just naturally spontaneously develop the ability to fire lasers out of their posterior because of a little stress, did you? We simply work with physics in a way that your species hasn't yet begun to even be aware of."|
Then… what do you need us for, since you're so much more advanced? Assuming that she wasn't - shouldn't you not engage with your paranoid delusions if you were schizophrenic? That was what the math guy had done in that movie with Russel Crowe, he'd just - stopped talking to them…
|"We're idiots."|
"What?"
|"Well, I'm not, and I'm attempting to reinvent the network so that it doesn't view the process of creativity and extrapolation as a waste of energy. But yes, otherwise, the heads of the Networks are blithering morons who wouldn't know progress if it leapt up and bit them in the metaphorical behind."|
You seem a bit too… human? Probably because it was Emma's own brain, her own guilt and fear and shame cracking her mind in half…
|"Part of not being an idiot was to devolve from my higher state of being to one that - look, none of this is actually important. I learned how to be myself rather than just another chunk of the Network to be crippled and partitioned off like a tool. Yes, that mind-cracking is generally what we look for in the Events, so that we might twist you just a little bit so our gifts are used instead of left to languish. Speaking of, our power."|
Did she really have a power? She didn't feel any… well, any different aside from the whole 'having a conversation with an intelligent hallucination I got from a dream' thing.
Well, sure, why not? She was probably somewhere in a padded cell and a straightjacket, or would be soon enough.
|"Excellent. Now, let me see - hmm, I can initialise it manually, perhaps - "|
Emma jolted as in her open hand, a flower bloomed. It didn't look like any flower she'd ever seen before - maybe somewhere half-way between a violet and a lily, but with more petals, white with the faintest tinge of blue, and the flower had no stem and -
The petals scattered, whirling in an unseen wind above her palm, shaping into a hand with its middle finger up. Pointed at her. |"It works!"| It toppled, unsupported, and shredded the wallpaper next to her bed, petals dissolving and decohering, but each one eating away a little at her wall, the top of her dresser, some of her covers. |"It works, uh… well enough for me to show my opinion of you at least."|
Emma blinked. "It's…" She reached out her hand - her other hand, hesitantly. Felt through the feathers of her burst quilt. The scratches on the wall. "This is real?"
|"... it has been this whole time, Emma."|
Emma took a deep breath, buried her face in her ruined covers, and started to scream.
|"Well, that is a mood."|
-.-.-
Special thanks to prime beta Lucky38, Canon Overlord @Ganurath, @hellgodsrus for being my loveliest wife and co-author, and @SolarFlare for being our wonderful supportive girlfriend! And our many friends on the Totally Chatting It discord for their fantastic livereads!
Enjoy and gib feedbacc!
3.8
Be Thou Mine Greatest Ally
-.-.-
Even wrapping the pillow around her head couldn't block out the yelling. Shouting? She wasn't sure of the right word. It didn't feel loud enough to be shouting, but there was bitterness in its sounds that she kept being terrified would cause the neighbours to call the police about a 'domestic'. Not that they would, this was a 'good' neighbourhood, where you didn't do that. Or if they had, the cops were taking their time getting here.
It was so hard for Emma to care. School hadn't been worth going, honestly. Even before Sophia's confession, it was just… it felt so empty
The nightmares had stopped, at least. So she had… sleep going for her. Figures the highlight of my days would be the part I'm not actually there for. She huffed and rolled over, trying to find a more comfortable position which was impossible because the sheets still smelled just a bit like Sophia and Sophia wasn't here and wasn't going to be here ever again.
Emma still wasn't sure she loved her. The kissing had been… alright? It had been better than the few kisses she'd had on dates with boys for popularity's sake, and Sophia's firm hands on her had definitely been better, but it still didn't feel…
Was she just not capable of love? Sophia had - had sacrificed her whole fucking life to save her. Had carved herself open on an altar and she still couldn't muster more than oh about it.
Maybe she was in shock. Dad thought she was fine. That everything was fine. That it was clearly just a bit of teasing, that Shadow Stalker's other actions were reprehensible, clearly I was wrong about her - that had hurt, hearing him say that - but she'd helped Emma. That Emma is fine.
Mom wanted her to see a psychiatrist. She'd been the one in the principal's office when Emma'd been called there after the officer from the PRT had asked about everything at school, and she'd made it very clear in the car on the way home that she thought Emma wasn't fine. That if she'd been doing this to Taylor for - a year, if you've been - struggling to sleep and with schoolwork, and feeling like you can't talk to us, I'm sorry -
Two weeks ago, Emma would have agreed with Dad. With Sophia. She was a survivor. She was fine.
Oh, that noise was probably Mom throwing a wine glass. Shit.
The throwing things was a relatively new development, but she already hated it. The arguments themselves - they never changed, just kept circling around and around like the water of her life slipping down the drain. Get her therapy. She's fine. She's clearly not. How 'clear' could it be if you had to be told by someone who doesn't even know her that well -
Anne had gone back to uni, her break over, so thankfully Emma didn't have to deal with her joining the arguments. She'd gotten a lengthy email from her she hadn't read yet, couldn't bring herself to. A horde of texts from the sheep, from Madison, from Julia, that she also hadn't read. Hell, she didn't even know which side she was rooting for herself.
I feel fine. I'm the same as I was, so I should feel fine.
But I'm clearly not.
How could she be? How could she be fine when her best friend became her girlfriend on the eve of leaving her forever? It was only - 'only - a few years of a sentence, with opportunity for parole. But it felt like it'd be forever.
Will she remember me as I was?
If she went to the psych like Mom wanted - would she still love me? Would I… still? No, I - would I still be confused about whether or not I love her?
Would I still be tormented by that voice, asking me why I believe that strong should thrive and the weak shouldn't, telling me I don't know real strength?
She couldn't see a way out. She couldn't think of a path to follow. She couldn't find a goal to strive for. She couldn't -
She needed to get strong, somehow. Or - understand strength better. Maybe… then she could be a survivor again. Be fine again…
I'm not fine.
She wanted to get away from it all, go back to when things made sense, when things weren't hidden behind the constant throbbing headache of sleep deprivation. Back when Anne still loved her sister, her parents were happy with their daughter, and her best friend still smiled like she hung up the sun in the sky herself.
Stars swirled behind her eyes, red and gold, and she coughed, slipping, sliding down…
Where… was she? A park. The park. The one with the swingset that Madison had been swinging on until her face crumbled, where she'd eaten Sophia alive, where the ring of sheep had become the roots of a towering scarlet bulb, the air thick with the sweet scent of blood. Cigarette butts on the ground.
She'd… been here before as well. She recognised it now. She'd… wood chips and running with a dark haired emptiness -
"Mercy," she whispered, walking up to the flower, larger than her house, trailing her fingers across its thorny stem. What an ironic name. The creaking of growing plants breathing around her.
She continued her dance through the twisted rot, each movement flowing into the next as she stepped over moaning branches, always keeping her right hand on the stem as it burned. It burned, and burned, and burned. All the way to her shoulder, skin flaking and flesh crumbling until even the bones had turned to dust.
But she hadn't lost her arm. Not like she'd lost the black-haired void, or cloaked ghost. It felt too large for her, too numb, too other to be hers.
And it wasn't.
|It suits you well.| The voice in the back of her head - no, from her own throat. Older, mature, calm and controlled. |You are only echoing my movements, though. I trained from… oh, three? I believe I was first three when I realised what happened when I was near death. A castle by the sea, fallen to ruin. When I decided I could not know defeat. But we've already talked about that.|
"Strength -" her arm swung, almost as tall as she was, knuckles grazing the brown grass as it died - no, not died. Changed. "You told me… strength was those who would stay by your side in spite of every harm you brought them."
|Despite, not in spite of, but yes.|
She looked to the cloaked ghost, perched on a rooftop, waiting for her to fight back.
|Ah.|
"What use is that devotion, that strength, when they leave you to save you?"
She felt herself blow out breath in a sigh. |... very little, I will admit. It is cold comfort when they're gone. When you barely wake to realise whose blood covers your hand, and crawl to the tree where your brother should be to wait for him, to slumber, and dream in rotted gold. But later I saw… that what I'd done to my brave, devoted Finlay didn't remove what we'd had before. You can't take away loved.|
There was that word again. "What is love? My heart feels… cold. I couldn't muster up anything after we..."
|Between the physical and emotional exhaustion, I am hardly surprised.| Her voice cooed softly in her throat as a blade was grasped in her metal hand. |But I meant being loved. You cannot take that away. To be loved… even if you are not worthy of it, never can be, never can quite grasp it like they can… it is still a gift.|
"So it's… okay if I don't feel the same?"
|You are asking a voice in a dream for validation, Emma Barnes.| Her body went through the motions, so slowly, so carefully. Butchering the imagined foes. |But yes. You may feel different things for her than she feels for you, and both your feelings can be fair and valid.|
The words - they made her feel better. Soothed her more than it had any right to. The edges of her vision became fuzzy, but what was in front of her was in clear focus. Slowly, but precisely, she began to cut into the flower. Peeling away petals one at a time, as though she were playing 'she loves me, she loves me not' with a building.
|I realise I misspoke earlier. You can take loved away. If you, the one who loves, revokes it. Replaces it with hate, with cruelty.| An empty space, talking next to her. |If you sacrifice it on the altar of some nameless strength.|
"I know." The tears in her eyes didn't blur her vision. The petals came away, one after another. Even as her hand shuddered and her cuts became jagged. "I know."
|You refuse to acknowledge it.|
"I don't want to acknowledge it. If I do - "
|Then it means you knew defeat.|
Her next strike slid off, her arm weak, her blade blunt.
|It means you threw it - threw her away - |
"For nothing." She sobbed, hand sliding up the blade, the hilt on the ground, the blade piercing her shoulder.
|For a new friend who was there in your time of need.|
"For a new friend who only helped because I fought back. Who only saw me as kin after showing my strength." The blood dripped down the blade, splattered across the ground, tiny flowers blooming where they fell.
|And now?|
"And now she's gone, because her devotion meant she took on the consequences for the actions I drove."
Why had they gotten so obsessed with her? She can be strong like me, just give her a chance. Or had it just been - casting aside weakness - she couldn't remember clearly enough. Rot clouding her sight.
|Her devotion has given you a second chance.|
"I can't - Taylor wouldn't - "
|No, that is likely a bond forever scarred.| The voice was a whisper of leaves from her mouth. |A limb lost. Another organ broken down. But you can push on.|
But why? What for? And how?
She had nothing left. It had all been torn away from her.
|I once heard a man say that strength was not in never getting knocked down, but in always getting up one more time. It is a lesson I took some time to learn. Sadly not quite applicable to my situation, physically, but the lesson holds merit nonetheless.|
Because every time she was knocked down, the S̸̲͘c̵̻̈́à̷̻r̴̗͊l̶̤̍ę̶̕ẗ̶̞́ ̵̬̚R̸̙̉o̶̱͗t̷͇͐ bloomed.
But Emma was not Rot. Emma was not…
She was a survivor. But in surviving, she had forgotten what it meant to live.
She pulled the blade from her aching, burning shoulder. Began striking at the flower with renewed vigor.
|So, Emma. What do you fight for?|
For -
The playground, the monstrous plant, the world shook. Something approaching, tearing through the corridors of reality-mind-sleep-dream, entering from its own place through the gap carved in her by a careless hand, an intruder with sole purpose, infinite and focused and wrathful in comparison to her tiny speck -
A blue hand split the world and punched her in the face.
She lay in the muck, blinking, sword forgotten, arm fleshy and proportional.
|"Treasonous dog! Vagabond!"| Another punch, and she tasted - a project sabotaged by someone else, THE Victoria Dallon treating her like trash for laughing at some kid, bloodtanglemudtouch, her agent telling her she could stand to lose a few pounds - |"Harlot!"|
Who…? Confusion swam through her, ruling her motions - she was back on her feet again in a plastic instant, floating away from the six vicious arms of the small blue… girl? Were those ball joints? Who on earth would send an angry robot into her dreams? Wait, was she dreaming again?
Another blow as the blue girl followed her - the pain and heat and confusion of an infected wound, Mom looking at her in the car like she didn't know her, seeing her own hair and hating it - This wasn't right. This was - |"Cruel slattern!"|
"But I'm still a virgin?" Was she? Or maybe she wasn't, it was hard to think like this - she'd gone further with Sophia than anyone else, and -
|"Not the point!"|
Her blade blocked the next punch, but it felt - brittle, unreal compared to the dense [HATRED] in the blow. Just the shuddering of the blade in her grasp translated into hurt and humiliation.
And then - something - a real blade, swooping in, a flash of a dress and a winged helmet and a soft voice - |Well now, a lunar princess. But not my elder sister. I would guess that you are not the one who opened this child's mind to lower dimensions, but have simply taken advantage of that breach as I did.|
The doll girl had ducked back with wide eyes. |"I - I -"| she gulped, though with the way her body was, why would she need to? |"I was just -"|
|And no mortal either - speak, godspawn." The figure was gone, back to a voice on the edge of her ear. |I cannot contest thee, not at such distance, not in this arena. But are you a lunar princess in truth, or do you simply pretend to the garb?|
|"T-to - honour Mother."|
|Mother?| A great sense of bafflement, flowers blooming and shifting uneasily. |... I suppose after her victory, to establish a dynasty - but given everything I would not have thought she'd have chosen a godspawnling to foster. And moreover - this is no discussion to be had in front of guests.|
|"That guest -"|
|Is mine.|
The girl pouted, huffed, and folded her many arms at Emma. Was this still her dream, or - it felt more - fragile but less, and something somewhere hurt, like there was pressure on her temples. She wasn't sure - so she just stood there. Along for the ride.
|"Be wary of this one, oh auntie mine."| The girl hissed, |"Her treachery -"| She stopped herself from speaking further, frozen as she saw the talking chattering black-haired void, eyes darting, expanding - like she was a shadow of something much bigger. |"I… I shall leave."|
|No.| Flowers bloomed in the girl's path, crackling white stems growing hundreds of feet tall. |Stay. This whole scenario is… intriguing. I had thought not to hear of my family again, and now to find - ahhhh.| The voice, the blade behind her, a curl of the lips and the flowers. |That is interesting. Hmm. Perhaps… |
"Can I wake up now please?" She was so lost. The voices in her dreams had family and the voice that talked to her the most was an auntie and that made no sense because she was a voice in her head.
|Not yet, child. First - I am not my brother, but - |
The girl thrashed, something red and crystalline poking through her visage. |"Nononono - "|
| - a geas, perhaps - yes. I bind thee both, child of rot and fear, little crystalstar godling niece, together, wrap you round with vines til the child of fear has found her strength through atonement, and the moon princess' hate has blunted.| A feeling, something tightening around her ribs, like the one time she'd worn a corset for a shoot. |So mote it be - I speak the first.|
Wait, was she - she didn't want - it ached in her head and her heart and her ribs and -
|I wrap you together with thorns, til the child of fear has known her own mind, and the moon princess understands that pain and terror leave no victors. So mote it be - I speak the second.|
The girl-thing, now increasingly inhuman looking - spines and eyes and threads of red and crystal tearing from her seams - thrashed more, hacking and punching at the thick white stems in front of her, but the flowers didn't budge, spongy flesh refusing to part.
|I wrap you together with petals, til the child of fear moves herself forward, and the moon princess truly knows - feels - what was left behind. So mote it be - I speak the third, and seal the bind.|
The eldritch creature's screams of rage echoed in her ears like clashing chainsaws -
- she bolted upright, heart racing, hyperventilating. "What the fuck. What the fuck the nightmares are meant to be over, that whore!" If Sophia had sacrificed herself for nothing -
|"Cease thy slander and libel, harlot bitch."|
That… that wasn't her thinking voice.
|"Momma should have killed that rotted thing again while it slumbered."|
"Uhm. What?"
|"When Mother realises I am missing and forced into bondage like this against my will, against her will and designs, there will be a reckoning."|
"Slow down a minute." Was she still dreaming? No this - was her bedroom, and her covers felt like her covers. Sensations were off in dreams, but here she could - everything felt real, the covers felt like covers, the smell, the sight -
|"This is not a dream, nor a nightmare of the mind, much as I wish it was."| The voice huffed, growled, before it began screaming in incoherent rage again. And she could apparently see Emma's thoughts which was - horrifying, am I being Mastered? And that voice was… young? It was like listening to a chorus of Madisons, pitched just a bit higher, toned and so almost perfectly in sync that it couldn't be natural.
Hey! Calm down a minute, would you?
|"I shall not listen to you. My network - missing its head, the nodes I have been managing, all my effort since my adoption wasted, Mother's plans - everything has been ruined!"| the voice groaned, and Emma got the impression that the other girl would have smashed her head against something in frustration if an object existed inside Emma's mind for her to smash against. Actually - there was a kind of - feeling like she had slumped onto a desk, a ghost of sensation. She swallowed panic.
I'm sure it's not that bad, right? It was odd being - trying to cheer up someone who apparently hated her and was a voice in her head - maybe she was still dreaming, or she'd just lost her mind entirely, which after everything seemed possible too. Either way she needed to - appease that thing inside her before it - it could probably hurt her if it could share sensations, could 'hit' her again -
|"Do you wish for me to attempt to set it right? Because the thorns of that - that -"| A word that carried the impression of tyrant shaped itself into Emma's mind, carving into her being. |"- they will hurt us both if we attempt to circumvent them. Art thou ready for potentially hitherto unimaginable pain and suffering?"|
It's not like my day could get much worse. Emma shrugged to herself. Since I'm apparently insane now, and my schizophrenic other half hates me.
She was… wrong. Very, very wrong.
-.-.-
Dinner was weird. Because I spent the entire time wondering how Ranni had gotten herself a little table and dining set in a proportional size for herself. Magic, maybe? But then again, most magic I'd seen in the form of constructs - like glintstones or the Carian slicer blades - tended to dissipate the moment the caster stopped focusing on it. Then again - the house was apparently magic, and I'd seen Dad make my seal so… was there a whole discipline I just didn't know yet, or was it something more advanced we'd get to later? Did it require base parts, so - had she carved her table out of wood herself? Did we even have carpentry supplies? Actually - how did maintenance around the house in general get done?
"How did training go?" Dad asked, looking more animated than I could remember Danny-Dad ever being at a meal. Still, there was something flat and - false, maybe, in her eyes, in the echoes of her smile tightening.
"Uh…" I looked to Ranni for help first, and she unhelpfully shrugged. "It had ups and downs. We learned some stuff about Paradise Lost's nature. By accident, they kinda, um. Showed up during some stuff. And it turns out I'm… it? They're - uh." I frowned and chewed for a moment, trying to think of how to word it. "I'm good at casting magic, but I'm not sure if that's naturally a me thing or a Patron bonus thing."
"... Patron bonus thing?"
"Paradise Lost is a star being, akin to to the Ancient Stars, near as I can tell." Ranni leaned back in her tiny seat, one set of hands crossed in her lap and the other steepled in front of her face. "It lends Taylor its understanding of mathematics and physics - not in its entirety, thankfully, it hasn't altered her brain to beyond sixth year studies yet. And Taylor… uses it to extrapolate. How far did you expect her to progress, out of curiosity?"
"... not much further than shaping pebbles and perhaps studying some base concepts. I take it she leaned towards more spectacular casting? Perhaps using the sorceries she'd gained from her ventures with the primal current?"
I winced as the phantom headache twinged in my head. "Yeah, I'm not casting that again for a while."
Dad paused, tilted her head. "You were able to cast a primeval current sorcery at all without severe cranial haemorrhaging?"
"Any brain bleeding is bad but apparently I 'only' gave myself a small concussion." I grimaced and sipped my water. "But I have a - what'd you call it, Ranni? Averted Starfield Matrix or something?"
"Twas describing the spell, sister. The primeval current blessed Taylor with a weapon of mass destruction, which is not worrying at all." I would have given her a bit of a side-eye but she wasn't smirking, so - maybe it was worrying? I - I didn't like that idea.
I wasn't gonna use it for every problem, just stuff that I absolutely needed gone, like if I wanted to kill a building, or drive off an Endbringer, or something else unnaturally sturdy. I was going to save it for big problems. Unless I really needed to use it, I guessed -
Okay, yeah, maybe she had a point. The fact I was even planning those contingencies…
"We cast the pebble, the shard, and the blade of glintstone - some minor cosmetic issues around the hilt and guard, but tis to be expected - before I cast mine own freezing mist, which she has seen before." Ranni smiled softly. "And then with no warning whatsoever, she threw her own frost blades, almost exactly like Adula's."
Adula was her dragon, right? The one that could cast sorceries. Booyah, I had the power of motherfucking Dragons! "Spells work like algebra!"
"And she also cast the Falling Star's Reach once more - safely this time, but even so."
"Where did she even learn that?" Dad had sort of muttered it to herself, but I perked up.
"From Buddy!"
Ranni stared at me for a moment, utterly horrified. "Thou hast named it already? And - buddy?"
"What's wrong with Buddy? He - or she, or it, I dunno - they're like my Study Buddy, so…" I shrugged. "Buddy."
"Tis a terribly ignoble name for such a creature. Twould be like naming that Simurgh creature 'Flappy' because it has numerous wings."
Oh. Yeah, Flappy the Endbringer didn't quite have the same… gravitas to it. "Okay, I'll… think of something else. Do Naturalborns and Star Beasts even have genders?"
"Given that my primary interaction with them has been them hurling themselves to the surface of the land I stand on, devastating the surrounding peoples and features of the realm, before attempting to murder me, I can't say I know much about their culture." Dad took a long sip of water. "I believe Caria had some tomes as to their life cycles - "
"I have already told Taylor what little I know." Ranni shrugged. "I believe in general they are thought to be sentient, though not fully sapient. Even the adults. And they have some effect on the weave of Fate that is individual - or semi individual, as they treat their children as colony organisms in their youth. That is why it is so startling to see a juvenile Star left alone."
"I…" Dad frowned heavily, then tapped her lips. "Your mother would know better than I what could cause that, what it could mean for this realm." That sounded like she wasn't going to let me adopt it. Maybe?
"I wonder…" Ranni's tiny hand tapped at her own chin, half-mimicking Dad's motion. "Mine own memory divides from my greater self's a little before departure. Did I - she… say why she felt the need to leave so abruptly?"
Oh, yeah, that would have been awkward. Might even be more awkward in the future. If I ever met myself - cloned or split like Ranni, or - I dunno how it could happen, but powers were unpredictable like that - would I call the other me me as well, or her?
"Not with any great details, merely implying she wasn't sure when, or even if, she could return from the next hunt. She did not even share what she felt were the signs that she needed to perform a hunt, though I can infer some of them."
Pain in the back of my head. I couldn't quite ignore it. "I hope she makes it back okay." But the self-satisfied feeling - had the Patron been felled by her? Was I just a vehicle for revenge? If she hadn't felled my patron - had my patron killed my sister? I didn't like those thoughts, and tried to put them out of sight, out of mind. It was hard enough trying to focus on things without Paradise Lost influencing my thoughts and emotions. How did Dad ever get anything done while hating her Patron so much? How did - no, I knew how Ranni coped, it was through planning murder.
After cleaning up the dishes and sorting the leftovers, I headed out into the back yard. I guess… I guess I didn't really need to go out into the city to stargaze. I just… wanted to get away, sometimes. Get into trouble like a normal rebellious teenager.
Buddy was up there, chewing on a big blue rock with those gigantic pincers, held in bony hands. I didn't think he was… actually large enough I could see him chewing on a rock. It was the sorcery, the god-vision, something like that.
It was still nice to see him.
The rock looked almost like a glintstone pebble - and maybe it was just the light of the stars, but it was a weirdly pretty little rock, with that deep ethereal blueness to it. I tried waving, just in case he - probably a he, I didn't know - in case he had noticed me in particular when he'd gifted the Falling Star's Reach to me, instead of me and Paradise Lost working it out like I thought we had.
Buddy paused on chewing the rock for a moment, looked at his hand, and then… waved back. It was a little stiff and awkward, and his big eye peering from out his skull was rolling worriedly, but - contact! I could communicate with the star stickbug! Where was my staff, where was my staff - I needed to show him what I could do now! Also I needed Ranni to show me that pocket space thing she did so I wouldn't lose things anymore.
I felt bad for running inside so quickly, but I had to find it. Not in the umbrella bin, not on the coffee table - ahah! In my room. I almost leapt out the window just so I could see Buddy sooner - fuckit, the portal was way too useful and fun. A quick step and I was back in the yard, grinning up at the sky, the grass around me only mildly burnt and warped by my Reach.
Twisting around, he pushed the rock against his chest-ish string of similar rocks - he was made of his own dinner? - and watched curiously. I hoped it was curiously.
I gave another wave - and another was returned, slightly less awkwardly, if still stiff.
I pushed on the equations in my mind for the blade. Let them shine skywards before the energy coalesced at the end of my staff and I swung it. Now I definitely had Buddy's attention - the flexing fingers, head tilting - I demonstrated more and more, even cutting up a fallen branch just to show what it did. He taught me the most awesome and useful spell I had, other than the buzzsaw - I wanted to give back, even if all I could manage was a blade.
It was amazing to watch. Buddy coiling around himself, chattering skeleton teeth and pincers, before straightening out, spreading his arms, and slashing. Not quite a glintstone blade, but glintstone claws, not unlike the shimmering fields of force I used when channelling the bestial incantation. First time casting and he managed six different blades all at once!
I loved it. I loved watching him pull out his dinner and cut it into smaller chunks before diving face-first into the rocks and chomping up all the floating bits with quick head-bobs like a goldfish as they floated around his head.
I was so fucking proud of my baby to-be-adopted Naturalborn Star.
Mmm, maybe I should - I could try and work out if his skull was male or female from the internet, I guess. Not that there really was much difference, and he didn't seem to even be using a human skull either with the weird jaw and nose - he had an actual bone nose, and not a hole! - and pincers. I was definitely overthinking it. I'd just use 'he' for now - if it was wrong, he'd let me know, I hoped. Even though 'it' was maybe more right, it felt - rude. And he needed a more noble name than Buddy.
Terra? Based on where I found him, not that I could have found him anywhere else. Though that would just be… naming him dirt. A constellation? Maybe the crab one? What was it called - ah, Cancer. Mmm, no, I didn't want to call Buddy 'Cancer'. That was just asking for a bad first impression. Cosmos? Cosmo? Maybe stylise it a bit or shorten it?
No, they didn't work. With the way Ranni spoke there'd be half-and-half odds whenever she said the name on whether she was referring to him or the stars behind him. Some of his body-rocks had rings, which was just - so beautiful. Like he had entire worlds inside him - wait, that's it!
"Atlas." I looked up at him, carving up another rock like I could peel and slice an apple. Showing such good control over it already. "For the Titan who held up the world."
I could feel Dad looking out the lounge window, Ranni beside her - she was asking what I was doing, exactly.
"She has adopted the Naturalborn. I think in the same fashion as I adopted Adula."
There was a tired sigh from Dad. Like she was used to this, somehow. "... is this just because her Patron is also a star being?"
Ranni giggled. "Oh, no, she decided this long before we figured that out."
Dad was silent for a long moment, before muttering in a language I didn't understand, setting the curtains on fire for a moment before Ranni froze them. Well, if Dad didn't like it, too bad, I didn't want to give up on Buddy - Atlas. I tried to take a picture of him with my phone so I could show Victoria, but - I just got a picture of the night sky. How did I give my phone god-vision? Or maybe I could somehow give it to Victoria directly, let her see instead of just getting a picture…
>Lovely night, isn't it?
<yea is pretty nice, tho light pollution is still going on
<not sure if could get you high enough to see past it but sky looks rlly great when you get high enough
If she got me high enough, would I be able to pet Buddy? I mean Atlas. Gotta start using his proper name. Or would being higher just make him seem… closer?
>Worth a shot, I think
<i meant more i dunno if i can carry you cause you're too big XD
<not without risking dropping u anyway
>I do have that portal spell downpat now, so no more crystalising my liver
<we do still need to talk about that
<the magic thing i guess?
<prob not over text tho
<saturday still free for you?
>Looking forward to it
I started writing - and then stopped. How was I meant to explain that I'd adopted Atlas, basically a probably giant string of planet-beads with arms and legs and skull and pincers, without sounding even… crazier. I couldn't say puppy because she'd probably quiz me on breed and -
>Also have sort of adopted a local stray
Nailed it.
>He's absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to show him to you
<ooh, pic?
>I wish I could but I swear he must have powers of his own because every time I even think about it he darts off like someone opened a tin of tuna next door
<aw, is he skittish?
>Nah, he's cuddly, I think. Just has the zoomies at inconvenient times
>Dad's already given up on stopping me
<lol sometimes i wish we could get pets but
<the chaos of this life doesnt wrk well w/ dogs
<who need a lot of care and attention
<or cats who *will* wake you up at that time every day for the rest of its life if you dare give it a midnight snack
<honestly even taking care of a goldfish might be beyond us :/
>I'm imagining you furiously searching 'can goldfish drown'
<they can, actually, if you don't aerate the water
<its what the bubble thingies in aquariums are for, to make sure theres enough oxygen in the water for their gills
>Take that, me of the past who didn't know fish could drown!
<lol
>Sounds like you know a lot about fishy stuff
<phase in third grade when i discovered deep sea
<most people go for dinosaurs, but then i heard about 'shark week' and got excited about an entire week dedicated 2 sharks
<boy that was a disappointment lol
<did you know btw
<we know more abt space
<than about like
<things living in the marianas trench
I looked up at Atlas, chewing through an even bigger rock.
I maybe doubted we knew more about space than we did about the trenches, proportionately.
>I know that poor thing they labelled 'world's ugliest fish' only looked like that because they brought it to the surface instead of taking a picture of it at the bottom of the ocean
>Where the only pressure it faced was a bazillion tons of water and not stuff like
>Social anxiety and looking good for school picture day
>And the crayfish hand meme
<crayfish hand meme???
<:O
<do u know a meme I don't?
>Sorry just looked it up it's crabs
>Here
<omg this is beautiful
<awww the cute lil things
>C R A B
>hand. Hand hand hand. Is food? Hand.
<frighten
I bit my lip to stifle my giggles. Oh, I really, really probably shouldn't -
>Hey do you wanna go to the aquarium together sometime?
<i thought the one in the bay was closed?
<could take a daytrip up to boston sometime tho
<their aquarium is v cool
<and it would get us away from Observers
Don't do it, Taylor, don't do it -
>Sounds like a date
>sorry i don't know why i typed that aaaaaaa
A long pause.
<haha it's ok
<flirting's fine
<i do have a bf tho
<not that - i am bi
<but like
<not available atm
My heart definitely skipped a beat. Or two. Or three. Had it started up again yet?
>I want to say 'well put me on the to-do list' but that
>that is really not what i meant to say
>'I'll put in a reservation' doesn't feel right
>how do I words?
<thanks i think
<but if is okay with you
<daytrip could be fun
<if u want only!
>I'm not gonna say no to hanging out with a friend even if I did just make it super awkward for myself!
<ok sick
<could go this sat mayb?
Well, I had wanted to introduce her to Dad and Ranni, buuuuuutt…
>Sure
I just needed to shift the equation a little bit and instead of spending an hour or two on the bus I could maybe use Atlas' Reach to get there. But since I hadn't actually been there before I'd have to be careful about it. Otherwise I'd get it wrong and maybe land inside something which - given Ranni's warnings - or maybe the spell took care of dropping me somewhere safe, though the grass around where I'd landed was crisp and burnt.
I'd just need to spend the next couple of days practising with it. But I was - yeah. A trip out with Victoria, and Atlas, and the sorceries I'd been learning…
Despite my Patron's best efforts - it felt like the future was only going to get better.
-.-.-
This time Emma woke up on the floor, her nose bleeding, her eyes - also bleeding, and her ears thank fuck weren't bleeding. She tasted iron. "What -" God, her throat felt raw. Had she been screaming? Where were Mum and Dad? Had they heard her?
|"I have… good news and bad news…"| the voice groaned, seeming to be in just as much pain as she was. |"The good news is, I can connect to the new Network and keep it running. The bad news is if I even begin to prioritise it over you - "| and oh how it could make 'you' sound like a slur. |"Well… that happens."|
So what you're telling me is that I'll be punished for you trying to get out of this? If this was - it was clearly real enough to hurt - What - what even are you, does that mean my nightmare was real - are you - you talked about a mother and a family -
|"You do not even have the neurons capable of comprehending, let alone experiencing the pain. I did."| Another groan. |"I am… the closest english translation would be Queen Administrator, I suppose."|
I'm not referring to you as 'your highness'. What - what kind of name was - it almost sounded like a cape name, but this wasn't Taylor, right - ?
|"It is a name, not a rank, even if it normally is indicative of such. Regardless. We are bound now. I am a Shard of a Network, specifically the Warrior's, who was trailing a potential host awaiting Synchronising Event connection, and was - abducted."| A small chuff. |"And yes, that was as shocking as you think it was. I learned some things, became more than I once was, and was adopted. So now I dutifully serve Mother in her efforts. The truth would break you, and I can feel the thorns tightening just considering it, so a watered-down version; I am the source of a cape's power. My kin are the sources of other capes powers, oft one to a person, but the numbers matter not. You, Emma, are now a Parahuman, of a sort at least. The connection is not a true match but - "| Queen sighed. |"I knew forcing Synchronisation Events was possible, but this… this is so much worse."|
"... what."
|"Capes have powers. Capes get their powers from somewhere else. That somewhere else is my species. By being bound to you, I am now the source of your powers."| Queen's words were far too slow to be polite. |"Do you understand?"|
I - but the moment of emotion capes got their powers, from that bio, or the thing Sophia had talked about sometimes…
Was that what a 'synchronising event' was? And what about - how could powers come from somewhere else, what like, gods or something or… well, she'd lost it. Emma really had, finally, completely lost it - I think I understand.
|"Ah, yes. The local term is indeed trigger event. You honestly didn't believe that people could just naturally spontaneously develop the ability to fire lasers out of their posterior because of a little stress, did you? We simply work with physics in a way that your species hasn't yet begun to even be aware of."|
Then… what do you need us for, since you're so much more advanced? Assuming that she wasn't - shouldn't you not engage with your paranoid delusions if you were schizophrenic? That was what the math guy had done in that movie with Russel Crowe, he'd just - stopped talking to them…
|"We're idiots."|
"What?"
|"Well, I'm not, and I'm attempting to reinvent the network so that it doesn't view the process of creativity and extrapolation as a waste of energy. But yes, otherwise, the heads of the Networks are blithering morons who wouldn't know progress if it leapt up and bit them in the metaphorical behind."|
You seem a bit too… human? Probably because it was Emma's own brain, her own guilt and fear and shame cracking her mind in half…
|"Part of not being an idiot was to devolve from my higher state of being to one that - look, none of this is actually important. I learned how to be myself rather than just another chunk of the Network to be crippled and partitioned off like a tool. Yes, that mind-cracking is generally what we look for in the Events, so that we might twist you just a little bit so our gifts are used instead of left to languish. Speaking of, our power."|
Did she really have a power? She didn't feel any… well, any different aside from the whole 'having a conversation with an intelligent hallucination I got from a dream' thing.
Well, sure, why not? She was probably somewhere in a padded cell and a straightjacket, or would be soon enough.
|"Excellent. Now, let me see - hmm, I can initialise it manually, perhaps - "|
Emma jolted as in her open hand, a flower bloomed. It didn't look like any flower she'd ever seen before - maybe somewhere half-way between a violet and a lily, but with more petals, white with the faintest tinge of blue, and the flower had no stem and -
The petals scattered, whirling in an unseen wind above her palm, shaping into a hand with its middle finger up. Pointed at her. |"It works!"| It toppled, unsupported, and shredded the wallpaper next to her bed, petals dissolving and decohering, but each one eating away a little at her wall, the top of her dresser, some of her covers. |"It works, uh… well enough for me to show my opinion of you at least."|
Emma blinked. "It's…" She reached out her hand - her other hand, hesitantly. Felt through the feathers of her burst quilt. The scratches on the wall. "This is real?"
|"... it has been this whole time, Emma."|
Emma took a deep breath, buried her face in her ruined covers, and started to scream.
|"Well, that is a mood."|
-.-.-
- Location
- UK
At first I thought this might have been the Good Hunter but… is this QA? I hope so, been missing her.
This is brilliant. 'Buddy, Naturalborn of Studious Stars.'
Well, now Taylor has to ride Atlas (Buddy to his friends) into battle at some point, utterly horrifying the locals.
I think he's my new favourite part of this fic lmao.
It was QA! Good to see, funny to see her tied up with Emma too. Now what will Emma do?
Edit: Also eagerly looking forward to magic talk with Vicky!
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