#Intertwined by Nesha

[neshatriumphs]

XIV. A New Destiny

The army that had come with Amelia were all captured and imprisoned for the time being. Lucy would have to assess them with the staff, to know what type of sentencing they deserved, and she was quite busy just trying to get the kingdom to understand that the crown had skipped over Grace, someone who they planned on being their next queen for at least 18 years. It was a HARD realization for folks that not only did the King and Queen die in battle, but even the Princess was not going to be on the throne. And what would they do for a King? Lucy had not been attached to a soul mate. The girl barely made friends! 

“I don’t know,” Grace said, “but everyone will figure it out, I’m sure.”

She had been tasked to visit the Institution, to rescue any children there, bring in any adults and take the structure down. 

On this mission, Simon discovered his worst fear had come true. “I don’t have my power,” he said, after everyone was safely removed. “I’ve toppled mass communities within minutes, but I can’t do anything about this…” 

Grace frowned and said, “Walk me through it. Maybe, this structure is protected by magic that we didn’t sense.” With Simon’s instructions of how to perform the spell, Grace made the entire school and all of the annex buildings crumble to piles of dust. She looked at Simon, sadly. “You didn’t need magic like that, anyway. That felt gross.” She shivered, but he knew that didn’t feel gross. It felt amazing. It always had. It filled your core with the peak of your magic and then for several moments, it rushed through your blood, invigorating every part of you. 

She assisted Lucy with things that the girl couldn’t do herself, despite the fact that there was a legion of others, waiting to be of help to the new queen. Simon perused Grace’s collection of magic books to figure out if he would be able to do her type of magic, or if this was his punishment - to never wield it again. 

He was laying in her bed, on his belly when a boy, about his age, maybe slightly younger, with pink hair stepped in, but didn’t say anything. 

Simon’s eyes lifted from the page and he sat up, and stared at the boy. The boy dipped his head, very politely, and still said nothing. 

Simon and he stared at each other for a moment longer, before Simon asked, “What is it that I need to do in order to get you to do whatever it is that you need to do?” The boy smiled slightly and flicked his fingers, which turned to a page. “Summon your Familiar…” He furrowed his eyebrows, “My familiar is dead. Punished for my crimes.” But, he still read the instructions. Grace interrupted whenever she entered the chambers and the boy swiftly transformed into a white crane with pink accents, which flew to her and perched on her arm. 

“Was… was that your familiar?” Simon asked. 

“This is my familiar,” she corrected him. “Have you summoned yours yet?” 

Simon frowned and shuffled on the bed to put the book in his lap. “I don’t understand. How can I summon her when she’s been destroyed?” 

“Oh, Simon… Not her specifically. It’s not really like that. But, you are naturally magic. You should be able to call upon a familiar. I don’t think The One would take even THAT away from you…” But, she wasn’t sure. Her crane settled in her lap and she stroked his feathers. “Sorry that you didn’t get to meet him sooner. He had to feel like he could trust you first. A good witch never tries to force their familiar. They ask them for their help and if they’ve treated them well, their familiar is not likely to deny them.”

Simon read the spell and said, “I don’t know where I would find these items.”

“The Royal Apothecary literally has everything but the blood of my enemies.” He flinched when she mentioned that. He used to do QUITE a bit of work with that. He now had what appeared to be a birthmark of the symbol he used to wear drawn in it on his face. It was a stain that he had to remember any time he looked into a mirror. She handed him a scroll. "Here. Make a list and go get it. It'll be nice for you to get out."

He didn't think so, but he had nothing else to do. His entire life had been turned around. Grace was handling the sudden changes much better than him. Maybe a familiar could help… do… something.

The girl with the broom gasped whenever she saw him and it occurred to him that everyone only knew about the mark on his head from reports of conductor attacks. 

"I'm Simon," he started and she sighed,.with relief. Introductions usually went one of two ways. Either the person wound up MORE terrified, having heard rumors of his past, or they relaxed, thinking that the Queen surely would have handled him if he were still "tainted." "I'm trying to find some items." 

The girl reached for the list and whenever.she saw the symbol on his hand, she stared at it, worried. "It's the only one I've got," he promised. 

She nodded. She went to a spot behind the counter and pulled out a basket full of items. She hadn't collected them or searched. She just had them in there. "Here it is," she said, and set the list on top. Whenever something was checked off on the list, it glowed green in the basket, until Simon saw that indeed, she already had a basket with all of his needs. 

"Do you frequently get people coming for a summoning kit?" 

She thought for a moment before saying, "I am a familiar. I know when someone seeks one." He looked at her small frame and miniature afro. She looked like a little girl, but the jewelry that she wore, alone, radiated more power than Simon could even stand to sniff out. 

"Who's familiar are you?" He wondered.

"I belong to House Monroe. I've been with the family since this kingdom began."

"You're old!" 

"Yes. Spirits have a longer existence. We are allowed to split our time between various forms. You know what that is like, in a way." Her eyes returned to his hand. 

"Have you seen this before? On someone else?" He wondered. 

"No. But I've heard about it. There was one, long before I existed, and there is nothing to state that it was like this one at all, but the message is the same. "Do not kill him. His debt is for The One."  

"What did that guy do?" Simon wondered out of curiosity. 

"Committed the first act of murder against his own brother."

"Wait. He only killed one dude and he had to go through…" he whispered the last word, "This?" 

"That's how the story goes. I wasn't there. It may simply be one of a long list of fables. Or maybe someday, people will speak of the last of the Laurents in similar confusion."

"Last of… I mean… I'll be able to have children. I won't be the last… wait. You meant… because I still will be here when they're gone. I'll outlive the others."

She blinked sadly. "Do you need help, with your spell?"

"Yes!" He was desperate to change the subject and grateful that she knew that. After helping him with the magic, a mist came out of the cauldron and it formed into the shape of an old woman. Samantha. "Samantha!" He cheered. She stared at him, confused. 

"That is not her name," the Monroe familiar said.

The spirit in the mist asked, "Who seeks my help?"

He cleared his throat and announced, "I am Simon Laurent. The last of the Laurents…" the mist evaporated and Simon blinked. 

"She declined," the familiar said. "You're known as a murderer of magical beings and an enslaver of souls."

"But, I'm not dangerous anymore. I can't even do magic."

She giggled and it was the most childlike she had sounded. "Of course you can. You have some of the most powerful magic I've ever encountered."

"I'd love to know what it is or how to use it." She took his arm and led him to a mirror. The mirror was not doing what he was doing… "What is that?"

"That is your reflection."

"No. My reflection does what I do. It has to. It's reflecting the image in front of it. AND! It looks like old me."

"Is there much of a difference?" The mirror asked.

"If you were me, you'd KNOW that!" 

The reflection smirked and he said, "Here is the thing. I have been with you up until now. I know you in a way that you could never look at yourself to see. We love and loathe the same things. You make mistakes and we feel the same brutal consequences."

Simon frowned. "Aside from the curse of living for however long, do I have magic?" 

"Yes. Though. I suppose that you would want to call it something else. It's still magic, to be sure, but it's inverted. So, counter magic or anti magic could be applicable. What I can tell you for sure is that it is going to work very different from the magic you had before. Hence why you got this gift." The reflection pointed to his hand, which had the infinity symbol on it."

"Gift," Simon repeated.

"This will help you to come back in the event that the counter magic takes too much from you to fulfill the attempts." He smiled, "Also, I spoke to everyone and I'm basically the only line of communication you'll have with the spirit world. So… I'm the closest you get to a familiar. Lucky for you… I'm as powerful in inverted magic as you were in what you did." 

Simon turned to the Monroe familiar and she offered him a smile. "I've got just the thing for this." When she vanished, Simon stared at his reflection. It was covered in runes, still. With his hair hanging down, checking his fingernails.

"What did you mean when you said that the counter magic takes from me?"

Mirror Simon frowned, "Which words are confusing to you?" They glared at each other a moment, then the reflection scoffed. "You spent years stealing the energy from others to fuel your magic, but you'll spend the rest of your existence drawing it from yourself. That's why you had to visit the other planes and know every version of yourself. You will have to draw from that. You will have to pay back what you stole, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many versions of yourself have to fall."

"And you'll.. guide me through that?" 

"What? No. You're dragging me along, like you always have. I'm just able to help now."

"Here it is!" The childlike voice announced. She handed Simon a gauntlet. When he simply looked confused at it and didn't take it, she put it on him and showed him a mechanism that made a mirrored surface blade come out… and the reflection stepped out of it, actually startling Simon.

He had on the same outfit as Simon, but he pulled up the top part of his hair into a half ponytail. "You can tell us apart, now," he joked. (He was chrome. You could always tell them apart). But, one thing that was bizarre to Simon was he was wearing a red coat. It was the only thing about him that wasn't reflective. 

"The coat. How did you…" and the coat transformed into a large majestic bird, and it's wings spread, reflecting off of Mirror Simon like flames. "A phoenix!" 

"Mm hmm."

"So… I can still use my magic. I just have to draw it from myself," Simon said as they headed out of the apothecary together.

"That's not what I said and I hate how bad at listening you can be. I said that your magic is inverted. Stuff like destroying, killing, and trapping… you can't do ANY of that shit anymore. But you can do the reverse. You can make things grow, live, free…"

"Can I… undo what I've done?"

"You can break curses that you've instilled, but… you can't have some sort of mass awakening for all of those deaths. To bring something back from the dead, it has to be extremely recent. Three days MAX."

"WAIT, WHAT?" 

Mirror Simon frowned, "I told you already…"

"But, I thought that was impossible without tremendous sacrifice and the deaths of a surplus of magic beings!" 

"Yeah. And you've DONE that part. Now, you're on the other side. The side where you can bring others back to life. That's the catch of it. To be able to bring others back to life, the ultimate sacrifice is you. It's meant to keep people from pursuing such power, but the rest of us never fully estimated the absolute nerve of mankind." 

"So.. I… don't have to lose Grace," Simon said, almost relieved, because that had honestly been his biggest fear since this fate had descended on him. 

But now, Mirror Simon was extremely serious. "No. You still have to say goodbye to her. But… I would not recommend using that more than thrice."

"What is it with you and the number 3?"

"It's powerful. And your inverted magic is powerful, but it has restrictions and they're going to be tight." You won't be able to just bring her back over and over and if we're being honest, if you love her like I have good reason to believe you do… I don't know that you should do that to her at all. She'll remember her life, but she'll also remember her death. You've seen how much it hurts her to heal others? When she dies, that will be her actual pain, and there's just not enough known to be sure of how that might affect someone."

"Then… why have it, at all?"

"Animals who help the ecosystem. Children who mysteriously passed without having a chance to even have their first cohesive thoughts. Someone who had a freak accident that would have traumatized them anyways. There's like… so many other reasons to have it! BUT, most importantly, because you killed so many without thinking about it. You learned magic and used it to harm and now you can't." They paused outside of Grace's bedchamber, "If you'd be able to live with yourself if it drives her mad or makes her have chronic pain or something terrible… then I still wouldn't suggest doing it. I know how you feel about her. I also… have the ability to consider the other sides of things." The Mirror Simon draped his coat over his shoulders and slid back into the dagger.

But, even when he wasn't communicating with Simon, Simon noted little differences in his reflection at times that he had never seen before that day. 

.

Grace smiled brightly whenever Simon returned sans familiar. "The spirit world hates me," he said. "I have to like… use my reflection."

Her eyes widened and her smile went away. "You mean like, inverted magic?" 

"Yeah." 

She shook her head, "Simon, inverted magic is super dangerous. The magic comes from you and most people aren't strong enough to do more than a few years of successful magic."

"That's why I have this gift," he said and showed off his infinity symbol. She took off her glove and reached for his hand, but he resisted. That hurt her feelings. He saw it in her face. He just… didn't want to burden her with everything. Grace clenched her glove in both hands until he allowed her to touch his hand. 

To feel his feelings and feel his memories and know his truth. She sniffled and he jerked his hand away, ashamed of himself for allowing her to see when he knew it would hurt her. 

"It…" she struggled for words, "can't be that lonely, Simon. You have me. For however long you have me, you have me, fully." He cupped her face and rested his forehead on hers. She put her bare hand on his forearm and whispered, "This feeling. Remember it, okay? Pull it out whenever you feel that loneliness.." 

He couldn't describe the magic that her healing hands were providing right now, but it felt like safety… it felt like support. She could even heal the heart, when it was him. He may have been in a lifeline loop, but however many lifetimes he would live, he knew that she would always be not just his first love, but his only love.

She looked slightly up to see his face and was thrown back by the intent look in his eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I want you to spend the rest of your life with me. Not in some “we were tethered as infants and we're drawn to each other” way. But in this way… I know you and I love you and I have no idea how much time we have left together, but I want us to be together, like you said, fully." He took off her remaining glove, took both of her hands into his and got down on one knee. "I want you to be Mrs. Laurent. I know that you're not going to be on the throne, but you'll forever be my princess, even when you're… no longer with me. I want you to… agree to that?" 

She stared at his hands, holding hers, and her shaking hands, being soothed with his thumbs. She never touched people this way. Their feelings made it difficult. But, all she read from Simon was love and determination… maybe even desperation. He meant it. She nodded her head, “I agree to that.” 

.

Lucy placed the children from The Alrick Institute of Magic into the care of the caverns. They would each have separate journeys and tests, given to them by The One, until they were proven to have been recovered and ready to reenter society as reformed members of the community. They would have various problem solving puzzles and life skills tests to have the runes on their bodies removed and when they were cleared of it, they could be placed in the care of someone in the kingdom. Over the past few years, The Conductor had devastated a lot of the land and with that, many families and creatures that no longer had safe habitats (if they survived at all), had lost most of their loved ones. Simon had taken every orphan, runaway, and even the slightly disgruntled children he found and made them into her soldiers. The thought of taking the time to undo the work made Simon almost not want to get out of bed.

He was exhausted. Grace had been teaching him healing magic. She taught him how she challenged his curse at the lagoon and took him to the ruins of Lucy’s village, his first mission of that sort, for his training. 

Simon had learned more about Grace than he knew before through the lessons. He learned that her ability to sense magic was a branch of her gift of empathy. She was able to get as close to the border of the curse as possible without touching it. If she touched it, she would feel it, and curses hurt more than memories, more than physical pain. Curses were felt in her body and her soul. 

Grace clenched her fists hard enough to draw blood and she and Simon both winced about it. It amazed her that someone who was so used to and fond of violence couldn’t stand to see her have even the slightest bit of pain. She placed her hands on the ground, feeling around for magic. Somewhere in the grounds, she could sense it. Another little paw print. Samantha may have left one at every site, knowing that someday, a proper Witch of the One could restore it. “Okay,” Grace poured water from a canteen on her hand wounds and wrapped them as she explained, “There is but a handprint of magic still here. I think Samantha did it on purpose, after you took everything. She would leave a paw print in blood, and as a magical being, the magic can be detected. It’s not a bridge so much as it is a small space in which magic can communicate, to get inside.”

“It’s like if you lock yourself out, but you can cut open the screen to get in through the window,” he clarified.

“Yes. But, your home has been demolished and covered in blood and you have to go through reliving what happened to even get the curse to lift. It will try to latch on to you and instead of it overtaking you, you have to duel and you have to win. Your magic has to be a match for it’s magic, or it will reduce you to rubble.” He looked horrified. “You’re totally strong enough. I was.”

“No. I mean, yes. I just… You could have died trying to lift the curse?”

“I was pretty confident that you weren’t stronger than me, Fake Witch,” she said with a wink. Before he could refute, she put her hands on his shoulders and nudged him downward. Simon dropped to his knees and opened his hands. “They’ll need your blood.” He nodded and used his dagger to slash marks on his forearms. He didn’t want to lose the usage of his hands. But, he collected it in his hands and touched the cursed rubble. “Now, you will alert the curse to your magic and like a ghom, thirsty for the essence within you, it will move against you to challenge your presence…” He felt like he was hit by a windstorm and she nodded, “That was it. Now, remember when I faced the ghom and I told you that you have to show them your power? It’s probably similar to whatever it is that you used to do when you used to activate those runes? Whatever you did then, do it now.” A light shined from his hands and the rubble began to glow and Grace swooshed her cloak over both of them and grabbed him up to take cover. He watched from beneath the cloak as the entire village appeared to explode and debris flew everywhere as a geyser of blood fired into the sky and rained down on everything nearby. He saw glittering, green things floating and flying out of the chaos and he smiled as his green eyes glowed.

Grace looked at his face and at the destruction and then reminded herself out loud, “Oh, right, he sees magic.” He blinked and looked at her, eyes normal. “Look again, Dude.” He did so and it was honestly just… wreckage and blood. No curse, but no magic either.

He had a flashback to how it looked whenever he first barged in. The children ran rampart, raiding everything. Amelia sat on her armored horse, cloaked with only her glowing runes visible. Her voice was deep with the magic as she said, “The children get the treats, but you will get the treasure.” The people in the town looked terrified as imposing witches dressed in black with pale faces and blue light in their eyes descended upon them, murdering and stealing. It looked even worse now. 

Grace’s team began to take the remains away, foul with the odor of death and decay, and stained with the evidence of terror and defeat. Grace shook her head, “That staff really would have come in handy,” she mused as she dug her toes into the dirt and the blood staining everything began to wash away. 

“Hey,” Simon said, softly, and took her hand. “Use me.” With their hands and eyes locked, the blood washed away and while Grace normally would have been spent after magic like that, instead, she shone brighter and the rubble began to right itself. When she finally felt faint, Simon caught her and held her. Then they looked at the village. It was just as they had remembered it from before. 

Lucy walked towards the border, with the warriors who were tasked to watch over it and she almost dropped the staff in her emotional reaction, before straightening her posture and clenching it tightly. 

Her magic wasn’t powerful enough for her to be confident about her protective spell before, but with one hit of her staff onto the ground, they watched as a green glimmering protective fence surrounded the village, then went invisible. 

She turned to look at Simon, but wore no expression. 

It didn’t feel right to her to thank him or forgive him for what he had done to this place, even if he fixed a huge portion of it. Some parts never could be. The lives that were lost. The years the spirits wandered or worse, were enslaved. The time that it was cursed and she could only look upon her first home as a place of desolation and destruction. No, she wasn’t thankful to him for this work and she hadn’t forgiven him of his previous work. But, she was going to be fair. Technically, he had been punished for his crimes and now, he would make restitution. “It was the least you could do,” she finally said to him, before turning and transmitting herself back to the Mothership. 

Grace bit her lip and looked at Simon. “That’s the best you’ll get from her on a good day.”

“She’s nicer when you aren’t looking,” he said.

“She’s more careful when I’m not there to protect her,” Grace corrected. 

He looked at the village again. Nearby magical creatures approached with caution to see if they were allowed to go near it and were happy to find that they could enter the barrier. Simon reached his hand out, to test and was met by an instant barrier. He nodded. That was fair. Lucy cared about him, after having spent time around him, but if it would take longer for her to trust him, especially with safe spaces in the kingdom, he couldn’t fault her. Maybe eventually, that would change.

“This is my life now,” he announced. “Spending my time, energy and power fixing whatever I can of the mess that I’ve made.” She nodded her head and touched his wrist to give him a little jolt of healing support. “Hey!” He took her hand into his. “You’ve worked way too hard today to be wasting your energy like that.”

“I am so close to passing out,” she acknowledged with a little laugh.

He collected her to himself and pressed his lips against her forehead. “Let’s go home.”

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Intertwined by Nesha Story || Soundtrack

[up-the-tube]

Omigosh Nesha, so as usual of course I have my fair share of things to say...

First of all, contrary to what some other voices are saying I’m loving the slow pace of this fanfic. As much as I adore slow pacing and slowburn, I don’t read nearly enough of it. And knowing that something super satisfying will lie ahead is only doubling my interest in reading these little intricate details about their lives now. Henry’s is so, so interesting. I’m loving it.

That little joke about the Holdin’ Out For a Hero chastity challenge landing Henry some... er, partners... was deliciously ironic. I love how sharp your wit is and how you intertwine dry humor so seamlessly here. It’s very satisfying!!

Also — can we just talk about poor Henry? His family sees him as nothing more than a man-whore, he lost both loves of his life... my poor baby!!

I’m glad the next chapter is already up. It’s too late to be reading this now but it’s midterm season and I have had no other time to enjoy it properly and I have time now and I can’t just not read it so—

Yeah, I’ll see you on chapter four. So much love.

Poly Wanna? Ch.3

A/N: Anonymous Guest - If you’d like to have a chat about these things, say it with your chest, and I’ll say my part. We’ll have an exchange. If you want to use the space set aside for reviews without identification or giving me the opportunity to reply to you personally, then I have to give you the two cents here and everyone has to be subjected to it. It’s an M rating story, so I’ll presume you have your big girl panties on and can take a reply and for anyone else around, in case they have some confusion about my stand on these things, this applies to all.

I just want to remind everybody that this is free labor and if you want somebody to do anything on your timetable, you oughtta go ahead and fund them. You don’t? Cool. Take wtf they’re willing to give you. Or leave it. None of us have to be here. If you’re here because you would love to read a story that I am currently writing, I’d love for you to stick around and will give you the best story that my skills have to offer, free of charge and therefore not obliged to demands. If you’re here to be an executive producer with a production schedule, you made a wrong turn at the intersection of Fuck You and Pay Me. Thanks for your time. I understand if ours together has come to an end. Read what brings you what you want to see and feel, and I’ll write what brings me that WHEN I write it! 

I will abandon this and delete it before turning over authority on what happens here to anybody, or subjecting myself to being treated like a content mule. Juneteenth happened, Sis. You don’t have no slaves here. In the immortal words of my mama, and many-a-Black-mamas, “I’m not one of your lil’ friends.” You better approach me like you got some sense if you trying to ASK ME to do something for my consideration. Peace and many blessings. And now, my update…

@adorkable-blackgirl  @chenoahchantel @cactus-con @up-the-tube @riebellion  @itsyaapollochild@oof–musicals @lesbian-so-what @woahjusttakeiteasy-man @meadowstryingtobepretty @imma-sensitive-btch @okaygal21 @midernacht @divinereign4ever @xoxoemille

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[neshatriumphs]

XIII. The New Queen

With the others out of harm’s way, the Queen dug her hands into the ground, feeling the earth for better access to stronger magic. The Conductor may have her staff, but she hadn’t sat on the throne yet, otherwise magic as the world knew it would be ruined, and the Queen still felt it in the earth. Without her staff, this battle would surely kill her. Well, as long as she could take out Amelia with her, at least the kingdom would be safe. Magic would be safe. The One would be safe… Grace would be. She let roots from the plants come reaching through the ground wrapping around her arms as she said, “All that I must use, may I give back. Thank you for lending me your power.” The vines seared into her skin, creating tattoos all over her body. She was as covered in magic as The Conductor, now. Only… she was willing to give hers back when she was done. This much magic, she feared, had to be worth a Queen’s life, at the very least. But, she couldn’t let that fear overtake her. 

Amelia wandered through the green mist, frustrated with all of the mazes in this place. It didn’t function properly, or it was trying to make her confused. “I’ve been working on defeating you for years. This maze won’t stop me,” she said and stabbed the Queen’s staff into the ground. Her runes and eyes glowed green, her cloak blew in the winds that rushed around her as she absorbed more magic into her body. With the staff, it was easier than any sphere. Why would the Queen never take the magic and make things better? Whenever she sat on that throne, she would envision a new world. One in which she had the power to wake the dead. To bring back Alrick… Her eyes dimmed and filled with new power and determination, she lifted the staff and pointed it forward. Stewards flew in through a portal and set out like wraiths, ready with their spheres to take all that they could, to weaken this maze and help her find the throne. 

“There you are,” she said. Whenever she advanced towards the throne she saw something that gave her pause. Alrick. She frowned. She knew he wasn’t real. 

“It’s actually quite peaceful for me,” he said. “I was never tainted, after all. They thought I was, but I had only found another way to access magic. If used properly, I might have shown them how it could be done. The boy has the gift. Sure, he was born with natural magic, but he uses ours, now, doesn’t he?” She stepped around him and he was there again, with a handkerchief, “You could help restore things. You could help to marry our magic and theirs… to help them see that the two are the same and can coexist. But you can’t keep abusing it. Amelia. You’ve undone so much balance, I worry that you’ll be destroyed by this, or not have enough time to work on your redemption.”

“Redemption? I don’t NEED redemption! THIS SYSTEM needs redemption! I seem to be the only person able to do THAT!”

“I beg you to stop,” he said, sadly and softly. “I can see that this will not work the way that you wish…”

She let out a growl as she lunged and stabbed the form with the Queen’s staff. He looked truly horrified as he melted and then disintegrated. “I will take on whoever ELSE gets in my way!” She yelled to the sky of the place and then stepped over the pile of ashes that the staff made. She reached out to touch The One. “Nothing but a sphere,” she said. She knocked on the top of it. Whatever type of stone this was, she couldn't say where it came from. But she picked it up and threw it to the ground. "The One. Ha! Where all magic comes from?"

"What you call magic I simply call existing," a voice said. She stared at the stone and it moved, sprouting little legs and scuffled quickly back to its seat on the throne. "Magic is a word to describe the existence of things that your brain thinks are abnormal. That which used to exist, I simply call energy. And certainly, it doesn’t come from me. I simply help to transfer it from one being to another, while they are passengers in this world. When their journey ends, they forfeit it back into the world, for others to be able to exchange. The best way I believe to describe who I am is to call me “the one who makes balance in this world.” The One is simply a name given to me by the passengers who safely exchange energy with each other and the universe.”

“I don’t care about that,” She said and lifted the staff, “I will sit there and I will control where the magic goes.”

Now, The One had a different voice. “I’m afraid that you aren’t qualified to sit here. You don’t comprehend the way that the energy should be used. You don’t care about the balance of these things. You would not make choices that would help others to live.”

“You think you DO?” She squealed. “Because of your precious witches, MY Alrick was murdered! Snuffed of his beautiful life. Never to love or laugh again. I’m going to fix that. I’m going to make this world work for the heartbroken that your ways leave behind.”

“You’re welcome to try, but I’ve already made extensive calculations and I'm certain that you do not qualify. You haven't even experienced your journey properly. You're covered in the stains of your mistakes and I've given you good obstacles to help you learn. You destroy them, each time. You usurp and then you cause ripples of disaster. I'm afraid it is you, dear passenger, who is responsible for so many of the problems that are haunting you."

She swung the staff and punted him off of the throne again before moving to sit in it. Before she could, the Queen appeared, like out of nowhere and sat there, instead. Amelia growled, ripped off her cloak to reveal her chiseled body beneath a tank top and a pair of utility trousers, her runes glowing, and her body emitting power. 

The Queen's vine tattoos came to life to wrap around the arms of the throne, then her legs, then seeped into the ground where they extended, as roots and began to burrow into the earth, securing her there. "Even if you kill me, you can't move me now. This PLACE doesn't want you here, Conductor. This throne doesn't want you." 

"We will see…" Amelia said and lunged forward with the staff, attempting to stab the queen with it as she had the Alrick form. But the vines wrapped around it and before she knew it, she was wrapped up, up to her arms in the magical plant that was protecting the throne and the Queen. 

With a hiss and the flex of her muscles, she broke the vines that had a hold on her, but the staff wasn't in her hands anymore and the vines were retreating from her with it, to bring it to the Queen.

"Foolish Witch," Amelia said. "You can only do so much with your limitations. I've amassed magic that you can't even comprehend. You don't deserve that seat and I am going to remove you from it!" 

The Queen was already feeling weak, but once she had the staff in her hand, she knew that she would have enough to get rid of Amelia, and then die in peace.

.

Grace tucked in the children and spun her finger around to start the mobile of paper cranes above the toddler's crib while Simon handed the 6 year old the handmaid doll that he had built just for them, as a toy and a protector. 

A scream sounded through the cottage and she was startled, then horrified as she realized that it had come from someplace within her, but far off in distance, but… it sounded like Simon. She looked at Simon again and he was nothing but a form of static as she felt a sharp pain in her heart, like it had been ripped out of her. "Simon!" 

Grace woke up abruptly, cocooned in something like the silk webbing of a spider… People didn't know, but her mother's familiar had a spider form. She lost her whenever Grace was a child and had coped by leaning very deeply into arts and skills that could relate to spiders. Much like Lucy did with birds. Like Grace did with… "Mom," she whispered, before freeing her arms, only to lean over and choke up a glob of sleeping magic. She tore part of the webbing…and fashioned a crane with it.

 It multiplied and they picked at the webbing until it no longer covered her. "Mom?" She called out, hoping that wherever she was, she could hear her. "Find her," she told the cranes. She reached into her satchel and pulled out Simon's wooden bird, breathed into its mouth and commanded, "Take me to him." She looked at where she was… still inside of the Mothership, but in some cavern that she hadn't taken herself to. Obviously, her mother had placed her here and tricked her into accepting sleep. She had been engulfed in that false reality. She almost cried at the loss of it… but something more painful distracted her instead. The wooden bird had led her to its maker. Simon was within her sight, being overtaken by a ghom and that was why his screams had penetrated her sleep. "No!" She called and tried to rush to him. Her cranes swept her up to carry her to him quicker but he was… gone. "No!" She said desperately, in a smaller voice as she landed and collected to herself a pile of ashes that… sat where Simon had just been moments before. "Please.." The ghom burst into a puff of green smoke and crept out in glittering particles. Grace cried into the pile, wishing that she could fix this.

.

Lucy clenched her fists and spun in circles, looking around her in paranoia. "Lucy. Honey, what are you doing?" 

"Grace," Lucy said. "She's hurting.."

Her mother adjusted her hair lovingly, "Who is Grace, sweetie, someone from the village?" 

"The Princess. My Princess. Our Princess. I have to help her." She felt a pain in her gut as she looked up at the gentle faced woman who she had forgotten how pretty and soft she was. She cried and blew her kisses as she realized… her mommy was dead. She had been that way for a few years. This was some type of magic. Protective, if she had to guess, but she couldn't stay in it's safety any longer, even though she missed her and it felt so nice to have her again. Grace needed her. Grace's heart was breaking.. 

But when Lucy awoke, she wasn't in some cavern, wrapped up in a web. She opened her eyes and saw in front of her a sphere designed like the glyphs of The One. "Please don't be alarmed," he said in a soft, but kind voice. "I awoke you because I needed you here. The Queen is about to die." Lucy gasped and looked away from him and for the first time realized that she was in the throne room of the Mothership. The Queen was on the throne and the Conductor was in front of her. "Stay put," another voice said from the sphere. "For now, simply behold. I will tell you when action is needed."

.

Grace sobbed. Usually, if she was sad, Lucy rushed to her, almost like a familiar would. She had her cranes, but no Lucy. Oh, One! Had Lucy met a similar fate? Was she in this place somewhere, too? “Find Lucy,” she said and another waved of cranes flew out to do just that. She let the ashes slip through her fingers and thought to reach into her satchel for a container to collect some, but she didn't want to even wipe off her hands. Because… that would be him, wouldn't it? These were Simon’s remains. He didn't deserve this. Sure, he had done things, terrible things, but he hadn't known better and the moment he did, he had… she heard a sound like fire crackling and looked to see what appeared to be some type of little bean emerging from the ashes. She leaned closer, unfamiliar with such magic, but when she got closer, she realized it wasn't a bean at all. It was a baby! A little bean sized fetus, rapidly growing right in front of her eyes. She shuffled backwards and stared wide-eyed at the glowing spectacle. "I… I don't believe this," she said. 

.

Lucy was terrified to have to watch this. Was the Queen really going to die? Right in front of her? Like her mother had? Like her village? The Queen was the clearest example of safety and protection that she had in her mind, next to Grace, "Please, don't make me…"

"I'm afraid that I've considered as many outcomes as possible, and this one is the best way to restore the balance," One voice said. "It won't happen immediately. But this part needs to take place to even level the field again," said the other. Lucy covered her mouth to try to stifle her whimpers. 

Amelia was glowing green and rushing towards the Queen, ready to overpower and dethrone her. She sliced the vines, disconnecting the ones holding onto the staff. The Queen screamed in pain and the vines bled, some of the blood coated Amelia’s clawed hand and the staff went flying in Lucy's direction. 

Amelia and the Queen watched it hover above the girl, as though awaiting instructions. The Queen could feel the pain of the chopped vines, so severely that she knew she couldn't survive this, if she had even an inkling of hope before. Amelia marched towards Lucy, who panicked, wondering what she should do. But the remaining vines grabbed the Conductor and pulled her across the floor, groaning. 

"How many times do I have to show you what I'm made of, Your Highness?" Amelia asked mockingly and flexed her muscles. Nothing happened. Her runes were still glowing, but her magic wasn't working. "What's… going on?" She wondered. 

"Simon is gone, I'm afraid," the Queen said. "At least in the way that you knew him. The stolen magic that you've held inside of him, to yield at your whim? The One has taken that away and without it, all you have is what you learned years ago."

"You killed Simon?" Amelia asked, with a laugh. "YOU ended the Laurent bloodline, after all of that?" She cackled and relaxed into the vines. "Well, that's so utterly just like you. And now, you're dying. I'll just wait until you do. These vines will fall and I will take the staff and resume. I don't need Simon. Not for what comes next. I have many conductors in my possession. I can take power from any of them. I may take that little pet of the Princess's and make her my next project. I wonder what it would take to convince her to kill for me." They both looked at Lucy and Lucy watched the Queen in worry. 

Amelia was right about one thing, the Queen was dying. "Lucy…" tears built in Lucy's eye as the Queen whispered, "I need you to do something for me…" Lucy wiped her eye and stood tall. "Take the staff," the Queen said. 

Lucy frowned. The staff should be in Grace's possession after the Queen's. In fact, it wouldn't even work for anyone else unless they also sat on the throne to use it to connect with the power of the tool. Oh shit. Did the Queen expect her to get that staff and sit on that throne? She hesitantly reached for it. "I can't hold her much longer," the Queen told Lucy. 

"Now is the time for action. Please do as she asks," The One said. Lucy's tiny hand wrapped around the staff and a flood of memories, feelings, lifetimes came coursing through her body. All the knowledge of the staff, all of the saves and sentences, all of the histories of every Queen who had ever held it. Everything in the room was knocked down as Lucy stood, floating in air and holding the staff, her hair flowing and flocks of birds flying around her.

"Behold, the New Queen," Grace's mother said, weakly. "And by her staff you shall be judged." 

Lucy came down onto the floor with the slam of the staff and cracked the foundation of the throne room. The crack opened and Amelia saw several versions of herself coming out to grab her. "Stop. Stop this!" The woman called. "How are you doing this? You're only a child. How can you have this much power?" 

Lucy said in a surprisingly calm and mature voice, "Power is energy. The power of the One is to take energy from one place to bring to another. You filled me with energy the day you took my village. Energy of loss, of mourning, of grief, of sorrow and rage… energy that was too much for such a small body, but I couldn’t let go of any of it, until now… and now I simply return that energy to someone more deserving." She lifted the staff and Amelia's runes were being ripped from her flesh by the Amelia creatures. The woman wailed in pain and horror and sobbed. "Alrick. I just wanted Alrick back." 

"I sent him to you," the One said, "and you didn't accept him," its darker voice chimed in. 

She shook her head, "That wasn't him. That wasn't real!" 

"It was his energy. Energy that came here when his body no longer existed. He was at peace. The only thing that could hurt him again was you.”  “And you did." 

Amelia shook her head, crying and bleeding where her skin had been ripped and falling into the crack in the ground. Her screams were only silenced when the crack closed and the floor was made whole again.

Lucy rushed to the throne. "What can I do?" 

The Queen tried to smile, but everything hurt, "Could you just tell Grace that I'm sorry? That I couldn't save her father… I know that she blames me. I didn't even give her the chance to tell me how she felt about it. I was so concerned with this fight.."

"My Queen, Grace will be here soon. She will heal you." 

"No, no. Magic this strong, without the staff’s protection? There's nothing anyone could do. If she comes in time, it'll just be in time enough to watch me die." Lucy cried. "Hey. You did so well. I knew that you would be a wonderful Queen."

"I don't understand. Why is it me? All I know how to do is play with birds and wind! Grace was supposed to be next. She's a healer, like you. You're the Queen! She's the Princess!"

"You're the Queen now, Lucy. It wasn't Grace's destiny." 

"Why was it mine?" Lucy wondered, shaking her head. 

The One spoke now, "I am attempting to fix some of the damages. To restore balance. The staff, therefore the throne, now belongs, not to someone who has always had everything and has always been expected to, but to someone who had nothing and still managed to have what little she possessed stripped away. The Queen's role starts anew with you, Lucy. Someone who was not darkened by the evils done against her. Someone who still believes in the balance of the world and will lead her people in fairness back to that healthy balance…" 

"May I rest?" The Queen… No… Grace's mother asked. 

"Of course," The One said and she breathed once more, then not again. The throne was transformed, to host a likeness of the Queen on the throne as her body was quickly collected by the denizens who did such things. 

Lucy watched at the One climbed back onto the throne, looking like a little pet of this statue of the former Queen, seated there, with a peaceful expression much warmer than any of the ones Lucy had ever seen her wear as long as she knew her, with marbled vines wrapped around her arms and legs, going into the ground. Lucy's eyes trailed to the ground at her feet and she saw what looked to be a glass where an image of Amelia seemed to try to bang on for assistance. 

"It is your duty to commemorate the former queen's triumph for her plaque," One told Lucy. A plaque appeared at the base of the throne and Lucy trembled, suddenly aware of how heavy the staff felt. It hadn't seemed that way before. It may have been in her mind. She didn't FEEL like a Queen. Even if she had taken the mantle after Grace, she would be old and wise and powerful by then. Lucy was just a kid. She hadn’t even yet had her Lucky Seventh. The doors of the throne room opened and Lucy turned around and was filled with relief and glee.

.

Grace watched this bean-like being sprout, grow, and fully form, from a fetus to a baby, to a child, a teenager and then she was looking at Simon..  covered in his own ashes, marked across his face with a squiggly red line that conductors wore and he had an infinity symbol on his hand, green and glowing, like his runes, but only that one symbol, on his hand. The runes weren't there and that squiggly line, she couldn't explain, but it appeared to be a part of his face now. He choked up some type of magic himself, when he was his rightful age. She could smell it. It was necro magic. His body still looked the same, she noted, having seen him naked before. 

She made a few gestures with her hands and the cranes flew in with garments for him. Grace helped him to get dressed. He was visibly shaking, though she couldn’t tell if he was cold or traumatized.

"What… happened?" She asked, after a while. He shivered and conjured a ball of fire in his hand to warm himself. He didn't answer, at first. He simply remembered the events in his mind, as he understood them to have happened..

He was face to face with the ghom. It began to drain him of his magic, then his identity, then his life, then his physical form. He died. 

It wasn't like he thought it would be. He thought he would die and just cease to exist, but he existed in a format that could travel out of body... and there were infinite universes and multiple parallel worlds. He wasn't the same version of himself in each one, but in that moment of death, he knew them all. He felt their lives, their deaths. He went barrelling through his own past, from birth to death and through potential outcomes of his life before death. He saw his future. He saw his next lifetime, and an extended graphic of every lifeline that he would eventually have. He envisioned everyone he would love and lose. He saw everyone that he had taken away. He felt guilt in a way so intense that even out of body, it felt like it was embedded inside of him. He felt the concept of burning for all eternity. He felt the effects of every wrong he had ever committed and imagined the pain of every wrong he ever would commit furthermore.

And then he learned the worse part. That he wasn't allowed to escape that. He would not just die. He would not cease to exist. He wouldn’t even be joined with loved ones after death. He would have to live with the things that he had done. He would live again, love again, and lose again. And until every single soul he ever wronged was at peace, he would do this every time he died. His destiny had been rewritten. He could have Grace. They could even be happy. He could be a better man than he had been raised to be… but someday, they would be separated… and he would have to relive so much pain and then return. He would burn again, and then with this new magic bestowed upon him… he would arise again…. And at some point, she would pass on, know peace, find rest… and he won’t be there. He’ll still be here. He would die, probably many times after her, and he would never forget her… but never hold her again, someday.

"I escaped death," he finally said to Grace and then offered her a smile. 

She looked skeptical. After all, she had spent The One knows HOW MUCH time in a reality that was too good to be true, only to realize it was her mom’s sleep magic... 

Simon clenched the flames in his fist and opened his hand to look at the infinity symbol. "The One gave me the power of the Phoenix. I can die, but I can be reborn and at the end of the cycle, I’m restored to where I left off.." That wasn’t fully accurate, but close enough and probably the easiest and most gentle way for him to explain it without making her sad. 

"Mercy has been had on you!" She cheered and threw her arms around him. He didn't have the heart to correct her as he settled into the hug, remembering the ones that he had with her in his first life. The One has passed judgment, and it will be carried out, even if I die, because I'll simply return to keep paying for it. It was possible that he may never find rest, something that he had purposefully inflicted on as many denizens as he came across. 

The cranes she sent to find Lucy returned to her and she helped Simon up from the ground, "Come on. Lucy is in the throne room. We've gotta go to her." It hadn’t even occurred to her that the ones she’d sent to find her mother never returned..

Lucy's face when she saw them reminded Grace of the purest joy a child could have. She rushed to them and threw her arms around both of them, sobbing uncontrollably. Grace picked her up and held her tightly to herself. Lucy let herself have this moment before climbing down, and that was when Grace noticed the staff in her hand. Then she noted the cranes at the base of the throne, and her mother’s form on the throne… it had not always been that way. She had been here as a child and that throne definitely didn’t look like that…

"I regret to inform you that I could not save the Queen…" Lucy spoke. "She wanted me to tell you…" Grace's knees gave out and she stumbled back, falling onto Simon as she shuddered from the words that Lucy had to tell her. 

"As a member of the royal bloodline, you may touch this staff if you need a clearer image of…" Grace shook her head. She didn't need to see it and she didn't need proof that Lucy was the new Queen. She just… was so hurt that both of her parents were gone and she hadn't been able to do anything to help them. 

At least she still had Simon. She squeezed his hand and.The One broke into their moment. "I don't mean to be rude, but I am waiting on the words for the plaque, Queen Lucy." Lucy had almost forgotten. She turned to Grace and wanted to offer her the chance, but the other One said, "It isn't up to her." 

Lucy nodded and kneeled at the throne, watching her words be scripted on the plaque as she spoke, "Queen Apollonia. She did not rest until the kingdom was safe." 

[neshatriumphs]

XII. The One

Grace held out both hands reaching towards Simon, scared more for him as she saw the horror in his features while she was snatched away… but then she was seated on grass, with her toes in the warm earth. Her father was showing a golden toned child with a huge poof of blond hair sparring. She gasped and got up. "Daddy!" She went running and rushed to him, throwing her arms around him. "Daddy! You were dead…" she said. 

There was a warm laugh approaching her from behind, "Have you been sipping the Oracle's tea leaves again?" She turned and there he was. "Simon!" She whispered, relieved. He was holding another child, darker skinned than the first, with loose curls that fell passed their shoulder. 

"SOMEBODY got into a scuffle with a few sprites," Simon teased the toddler in his arms. Grace smiled and the child reached for her. She held out her arms to receive them and whenever they were in her arms, she thought, "This is my baby. This is my child…" "I don't have a child," She said out loud, "Daddy died and Simon… I was taken away from you…" 

All of the entities present looked alarmed, but she knew that she hadn't imagined that all. She would have remembered having a baby… "Mommy, what's wrong?" The blond one on the ground said. She DEFINITELY would have remembered having two of them. And that one appeared to be 6 or something… near Lucy's age.

"Lucy!" She said dropping the toddler to search around. Lucy had been removed from her. Then SHE had been. "Lucy!" Grace called, ignoring the "family" as they cried out to her to stay with them, where it was safe. She glanced at them and they were translucent figures, accented by green. She gasped. "It's just magic. They're not real. This is…" she looked around, "This is not real…" She shut her eyes and began to reach out, to see if she could locate something real, to get her bearings. 

"Grace. Please… Just, look at what we could have had. This should have been our life. My destiny was stolen. But be with me, here." She heard Simon's voice say.

"You aren't real. You aren't him. He's looking for me, I know it."

Illusion Simon's voice laughed. I can show you exactly what he's doing. It isn't looking for you." Reflexively she opened her eyes and she was in a different place. Across a body of water, with Simon on the other side… with...her. No, with NOT her. "Simon!" She called out.

"He's fine. He's safe… He's. Good." She turned to face the other Simon, who looked like walking mercury. He was like if Simon had walked out of a mirror made of it. "Grace, come back to the yard. It's not safe out there. It's safe here. Here, you have Simon, untainted by the magic you loathe. You have your father, unharmed by the Conductor. You have two beautiful children, bountiful in magic AND in love. Love to give you. Come back…" 

"You aren't REAL!" She screamed and the mirror like Simon figure shattered, the shards blew backwards from the force of her voice. She headed towards Simon in the distance and from the sea, a beast rose up. She screamed and fell back. It… was also Simon, but not that creepy mirror one or even the pristine illusion her fantasy conjured. This was something else. He was huge, for one thing. Towering over her like a building, covered in glowing green runes and holding the biggest sphere she could remember seeing… "The One!" She whimpered. 

Enormous Simon held the sphere towards her and she felt herself being drained of her magic as she fell to her knees. Her eyes glowed green and she was in a trance. As she fell onto her side, she heard him say, "You made me do this. I told you to go back…" and then she was… sitting in the grass, her feet in the dirt. Her father and her eldest child were sparring. Simon was approaching, holding their younger child. She smiled at them and looked across the lagoon. It was a beautiful day. She could stay here forever. 

"Where is…" Where is what? Or where is whom? What was she just thinking about? "What happened to…" she furrowed her eyebrows. Something wasn't right. Something was missing… "Girl. Bird.. girl… the…" a toddler waddled onto her lap and she lost her train of thought, smiling at them. "Hi! How is Mommy's baby?" She asked the child who looked so much like her, but lighter. They hugged and Grace was content. When Simon and the other child joined, she snuggled into them. Her father had vanished and she didn't even notice. 

"I never want you to leave here," Simon said.

"You mean you never want us to leave here?" His eyes glowed green for a split second and he seemed to glitch, but so quickly she didn't perceive it. "Yes, my beautiful queen. That's exactly what I meant…" He kissed her on the cheek and she rested in his arms, not even noticing that the children were fading away like static on tv. She was just so content. She deserves this rest.

.

Simon clenched his fists and assessed his cell. "You're difficult," he heard Grace's mother say. "Keeping you safe won't be easy. Never was. I promised Abelard, but then lost you. It won't happen again. But. You are difficult." 

"Where are Lucy and Grace?" Simon roared. 

"Safe.You should rest." 

He took in the room. It was made to look like the cottage that he had been in, but because he could see magic, he saw it for what it was… Just magical illusions. An entire structure produced by magic. "Grace, please… hear me…"

"She can't. She's accepted her safe place."

"Lucy…"

The Queen's voice laughed. "Do you care about that child? You would kill her just as easily as you did her entire village…" 

Simon narrowed his eyes, "Queen Apollonia wouldn't say that to me. Who are you?" A form stepped from behind something in the disorienting scenery and she looked like the figure that he had seen whenever he first found Grace. An outline of a woman, glowing green and sparkling, like magic did in his activated eyesight, but he knew that it wasn’t her either… because he had watched something take Grace away from him. Whatever that something was, he knew it was probably manifesting itself now, with this form. It angered him that he was powerless to figure out where Grace and Lucy were.

“Who would you like me to be?” it asked, now in Grace’s voice. 

He felt weak, but he knew that if he rested, if he let his guard down, even for a moment, this thing might win. But, hearing Grace’s voice did something to him. It lowered his guard just a moment. Just enough for his eyesight to fail and him to see her face. Grace’s face. “Let’s just run away together. You know… that’s what I came to you for that night? When the Winged Woman was killed. That’s why I was in the King��s Woods… to find you, so that we could leave here and be together.” She touched his face and tears blurred his vision, to where everything was a green mass. He shut his eyes to squeeze the tears away and kept him shut to try to block the growing headache. It even smelled like Grace, though he wasn’t sure if that only started when he closed his eyes. This entity really wanted to torture him using her…

“You aren’t her…” He whispered. “Is she dead?”

A laugh… a chorus of laughs, actually. “We would never harm our Princess. As we said. They are safe. The Queen would protect you too, but unfortunately for her, more unfortunately for you… You’ve cursed our spirits, so that we may wander without her permission. How interesting it is that Our Queen would try to tuck you safely away… You… The One Who Has Slain Us…”

Simon’s green eyes opened and a form was in front of him. It looked like one of the crystal spheres that conductors used as a conduit, but it was much larger. About the size of a fully grown head, perfectly round, white, with a black line with two circles donned on the line. Behind it stood a hoard of spirits, angry spirits, denizens… “This isn’t real,” he said. “You can’t be… Are you The One?” He asked.

The sphere scanned him with a green ray of magic. “His payment has been received for his crimes,” it said in one voice. “But those who he has hurt have not been freed from his curses,” it said in another voice. 

“He used his familiar to pay for his crimes. He killed us and then he killed her,” the groups said.

“No…” Simon argued. Then, they parted and through them, Samantha walked. He shook his head, “It’s another trick…”

She lowered her head and said, “I’m so sorry, Simon. I tried. But there are too many souls. You stole too much magic. You killed too many… I have no power against them…”

“Samantha…” He said. 

She put her finger to her lip and whispered, “It will be over soon…”

The souls merged together, into one large form and Simon couldn’t breathe at the sight of it. He had seen this form before. It was the Ghom. “It will be over soon,” he said to himself, as the Ghom advanced on him and he began screaming in pain, as it sucked magic from his body.

[neshatriumphs]

INTERTWINED: An Infinity Train Book 3 Magic AU

I. He Had a Destiny

II. She Had a Dynasty

III. A Blood Oath

IV. Ability and Accountability

V. The Venom

VI. A Fair Assessment

VII. The Winged Woman

VIII. Long Live the King

IX. Soul Mates

X. Mothership

XI. Why Do We Need a Queen?

XII. The One

XIII. The New Queen

XIV. A New Destiny

Intertwined Musical Playlist

I don’t plan on this fic being very long, but felt like having some fantasy magic Grace & Simon, so here we are. List will be updated as the story is updated. 

[neshatriumphs]

I. He Had a Destiny

The baby had been crying for hours. People rarely gave these creatures their proper credit for the instincts they had. Sure, they could do nothing for themselves for a very long time, but they often knew things. He knew that he was dying, not just that he was sick and in pain, but dying. The cruelty in creating something too small to care for itself but being aware of its needs. Whoever was responsible, Amelia was certain was just as cruel as the one responsible for taking people away. That was what happened to her true love... what would happen to this disgusting suckling. "He's dying," she told it's mother.

"Dying? he's only two!"

"Some don't last that long. Some are snuffed out in the womb, some die suddenly in their cribs. You've had him two years, you say. You’ll surely not have him a third."

"There must be something that you can do! Please..." 

Amelia looked at the pleading woman, then back at this child. She hadn’t been able to get her own lost love back, but the way this person felt about this child was probably as deeply as she had felt for him, and for a moment, she took pity on her.

She lifted her arm to reveal glowing green runes as she reached for the boy, chanting something in a voice that sounded distorted and somewhat robotic... the mother stood back, glancing around nervously. 

Amelia's eyes glowed and projected from their light was a vision that she knew the mother wouldn't be able to see. A blond boy, broken in sadness, uplifted by a girl with dark coils, joined together at the hands and eventually hearts, a crown placed on his head. This boy had a destiny. As she looked at the girl, turning into a woman, she didn't recognize her, but she did recognize something about her... the mark of the One. She was one of those witches that condemned Amelia for her “perversion” of magic...

Amelia shut her fist and blinked her eyes. They no longer glowed and now she stared at the boy. He wasn't going to die. He had a very important destiny... one that could make him her enemy, and if the vision was true, it would begin with the witches of the One. It would begin with a girl from their coven saving him. She looked at the mother. The woman remained hopeful.

“I think that I can save him, but it's risky and the cost will be too high for you.”

“There's nothing too high. Should I have to become a criminal or an outcast. Simon is worth all to me.”

“If the child lives, he must come with me.”

Hesitation. Everyone knew that Amelia was into forms of magic that weren’t necessarily approved. That was one of the reasons that the widow Laurent had sought her out when doctors couldn’t tell her why Simon wasn’t getting better. “What will you do to him?”

“Train him in the art of wizardry, of course. He'll be very powerful. He'll be very skilled. But, you won't see him again and he will not know your name.” 

The woman picked up her son and held him to her heart. Nothing eased his crying. She couldn't imagine his suffering, but she would do anything to end it for him. "When I said anything, I meant that. Take him. If he will live, I beg that you take him." 

Amelia smirked and retrieved the boy from his mother. It wouldn’t stop screaming. Ugh. She hated children. But, they were malleable and if she wanted to prevent what she'd seen in his future, she needed to bring him back to her lair, fix him and mold him in her own image. His mother cried and took off her scarf to swaddle him. Amelia rolled her eyes, though under the hood, the woman wouldn't see.  After sad goodbyes she walked out of the cottage with the crying boy. It didn't take her long to vanish.

The widow Laurent was crying over her boy's crib whenever she heard a knock. It surprised her, so she rushed to answer it. There were three witches there, one holding a girl, about Simon's age. "Ma'am, we came as soon as we could. Where is the boy? We believe that our Grace can save him."

Mrs. Laurent looked at the little girl, with a purple dress and gloves. She looked more like a doll than a child and she certainly wasn’t old enough to save lives. "Is this a joke?" 

"We would never joke about the life of a child. Especially one like your son. He has natural Magic. He's one of us and he has a destiny, intertwined with our heiress. Her touch could heal him." 

"He's gone," she announced sadly. "I went with the one called the Conductor, who arrived the fastest, and her magic is known to work wonders. He will live, even if I never see him again..." 

16 years later

Simon crawled out of bed in his small bedroom and stretched his arms with a cracking noise, then his neck. The room was filled with shelves of supplies of his magic, treasures he had collected from his missions, and enchanted figures that he collected and made. A white cat jumped on his desk and he glanced at it. “Tell her that I’m on my way.”

“She doesn’t like to wait…” She warned.

“I know.” He stood in front of the mirror, tied onto his bicep his lucky scarf that he had since he was a baby, then dipped his pinky in a bottle labeled “the blood of my enemies,” to draw a squiggly line across his face. On the way out of the door, he summoned his brown robe to himself and let it cover him as he walked. Through the fortress, he passed several groups of others studying their magic or lounging, until they saw him and pretended to be busy being productive. He was the eldest of all of the children there, at 18, and ready to be fulfilled as an adult. They had the best quarters and went on the most courageous quests. 

He paused at the large painting of the namesake of the place, The Alrick Institute of Magic, and he saluted, by mimicking the wavy line on his face. “You’re late,” he heard his mentor’s firm voice state.

“I was paying tribute to our founder,” he said. He turned to see the bemused look on her face and nervously laughed, holding the back of his neck. 

“Come now. You have an assignment.” As they walked, it was always a different energy. The students and staff always stopped to salute, even though Amelia had never once paid them any mind. That was a practice that Simon had put into place. She explained, “We found a cavern that we believe the Witches of the One use as a conduit for their magic. You are to take everything that is in it. I will grant you six stewards.” The white cat rushed up and leapt onto his shoulder as they walked. “And of course, her. I don’t want her just roaming around here.” Simon frowned and petted the cat. “When you’ve taken the magic, decimate the cavern. We wouldn’t want their parasites to rejuvenate it.” She handed him a crystal globe and he nodded once.

Simon was the expert of this. He paid attention to detail, moved like a soldier, and thought strategically. There were numerous magical creatures here - all denizens, no witches that he noted. He made some hand gestures towards the stewards, in their black robes with their ghostly white faces. They moved in to slaughter the creatures. The cat on his shoulder shivered and said, “Is it really necessary to wipe them all out?”

“They’re either wanderers or the familiars of the One. They are enemies, Samantha.”

“They’re my brethren, Simon.” 

He rolled his green eyes, “You chose the right side.”

When the slaughter was done, the stewards returned to him and one said, “We detected no magic in them.”

Simon smiled, “That’s why she sent me.” His eyes glowed, the green burning brightly as the runes on his arms did too and he saw in the spilled blood that same green energy, and all over the trees, in the water, shimmering and glittering was the magic in this place. It wound up in a tornado form and he captured it in the sphere. There was no magic left here, only the blood of many slain denizens. He grabbed a bottle, with his empty hand and held it before him, now suctioning some blood from each of those who lay fallen into his collection. His green runes stopped glowing, as did his eyes and he placed the sphere and the bottle in his satchel. A few movements of his hand and the cave collapsed unto itself and bled, eternally, as was the curse of every spot that he claimed for the Conductor.

He pointed two fingers at the rubble and waved them across, painting their symbol in blood. Then, he turned on the balls of his feet, ready to return home with another easy victory. Samantha merely looked at another fallen magic place, put her paw in the blood, and made a print at the site. She rushed to catch up with Simon, climbing onto him and into the satchel. He smiled at her and gave her a pat on the head.  

[neshatriumphs]

IX. Soul Mates

Lucy was the first one out of bed and working on things in the room whenever Simon stirred. “She sleeps hard. You won’t wake her,” she said, not facing him. He was startled by her voice, not expecting her, then he looked around, seeing Grace curled up into his side, dried tear stains on her cheeks, blood and dirt in her clothes - and last night came flooding over him like the blood that shed from Samantha’s body. He had for a moment forgotten that everything in his life had been a lie… that he had nothing else left…

“What, do you have eyes in the back of your head or something?” he asked, irritated as he tried to separate himself from Grace without waking her.

“Just the one,” Lucy said, deadpan. He was startled again. Surely, she was joking. Probably had some kind of magic to check on her surroundings.… “Whenever Grace tried to heal what your raid did to my eye, she messed up. It wound up literally in the back of my head. We’re the only three people who know that.” Simon frowned and he came over. She parted the hair in the back of her head and he jumped back with a yelp. Surely… there was an eye! “You think it startled you? You should have seen when I discovered that I was like this.”

“Ugh… Can she fix it?” He asked, covering it back up with her hair.

“I’m used to it now. It gives me an advantage, most of the time and only had my balance and stuff off until I mastered the new me. Besides, I would never ask anything else of her. You saw what happened last night.” They both looked at Grace and Lucy added, “I know that you think you’re the center of the universe right now, but she’s going through a lot too. Soul mates and all that.”

He wasn’t even going to argue with the rest of it. Grace had a bad night, surely. Seeing her live through the pain of being stabbed by a conductor’s dagger was terrifying. But, she hadn’t actually lost anyone, and certainly not the last person she had. “I don’t fucking understand what that even means.” 

Lucy sighed and she folded her arms. “It’s sort of like a magical dating engine. The magic looks out into your future and reveals the person best suited for you, and someone tells the royals and nobles. There are oracles whose ONLY job is to prophecy soul mates for them.”

“So, it’s not destiny. It’s just a presumption.”

“No. It’s more than that. Because without it, non magic people… and some magic ones, I guess… they marry whoever, or date whoever. They wind up going through ugly relationships and being hurt or disappointed. These people never have to do that, unless of course something happens to their soulmate, or they aren’t able to be with them. But, after an oracle gives the prophecy, usually, the royals will tether those souls, to draw them together. They call it intertwining their destinies.”

“So, it isn’t a presumption. It’s orchestrated.”

“Look, if you don’t like Grace, I’m sure the Queen will find someone to untether you. She doesn’t like you.”

“No!” Simon shook his head, “That’s not… I’m trying to understand it. understand why my choices in life aren’t my own. Why I’m trapped between being with someone or trying to kill her.” Lucy brandished her weapon and pointed it at him. He flicked his finger and it flew from her little hands. “I obviously didn’t mean right now, Lucy.” He had his hand opened, summoned the weapon back and handed it to her. She stared at him, suspiciously. “What, were you just waiting for a reason to attack me?”

“Things were better when you didn’t exist to us.” She put her weapon away and checked on Grace. “We knew what we were going to do. Now, we have to try to refigure things. Her soul mate is damaged. Tainted by fake magic. That means SHE’S tainted, too. She’s tethered, and even if she weren’t… you aimed to kill her.”

“I didn’t know. Anyway, this is the Queen’s fault. She put me in Amelia’s clutches in the first place by cursing me!”

“I’ll be sure to tell the spirits the next time I pay my respects to my destroyed village.”

He kneeled next to Lucy and she reached for her weapon again. He pushed it right back into the sheath and said, “I am truly sorry… I’m not used to that feeling…”

She sighed and replied, “It isn’t orchestrated, either. Imagine that someone custom ordered a person to be the love of your life, the Queen and the King created the order for you, put it on hold and labeled it yours. So that whenever you finally come to pick it up, you automatically have everything you wanted, and its reserved for you.”

“What the hell is this analogy? What is a custom order?”

“Does… do the Conductor realms really not have markets?”

“Markets? Like… in storybooks?”

“Wow. Okay, how do you get supplies?”

“Raid the One’s realms.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Hey! Don’t use that language with me. I don’t care if you use it, but not with me. But, please… what the fuck is a market?”

“We go there with payment. We give them payment. They give us supplies.”

“Wait… So… they just let you take what they have in exchange for something else? Is it like the fair?”

“Sort of… But, there’s usually a price, and we usually have at least an idea of what we intend to buy. Like… say that someone wanted a dress like Grace’s. A person who makes dresses very nicely would make a dress like Grace’s, and the someone could go to them with the amount that they tell them the dress is worth, give them that amount and take the dress.”

“I guess… I don’t understand the work you put into this. Is the dress maker a skilled fighter and deadly wizard? Can they thwart a raid?”

“No,” Lucy said through her teeth. “The dressmaker doesn’t fight. She. Makes. Dresses.”

“How does she keep them if she can’t fight?”

“You know what, forget it. Also, I’m definitely gonna be using the word fuck if I have to explain basic lifestyle to you.” Grace began to stir as Simon was about to give her a piece of his mind, so he went silent. Lucy strummed Grace’s face and Grace settled back into sleeping and drooling. Lucy shook her head. “Gross.”

“I think it’s kinda cute…” Simon said. Lucy glared at him. “So… what did she mean when she said that you’re her heiress?”

Lucy took a deep breath. “That doesn’t matter anymore. She has you now. A real heir will soon come.”

Simon looked deep in thought, “I didn’t come here to take more away from you… I didn’t even… I just… I wish Samantha was here…” He said, tears welling in his eyes as his mind was vividly reminded of how she looked the last time he saw her, that graphic burned into his memory.

“I get that. I wish that my mommy hadn’t been killed in front of me, too,” Lucy said. She had A LITTLE sympathy for him, but only a little. “I have work to do. I’m going to trust you two at least to not make your heir while I’m gone.”

“I’m mourning,” Simon said, with a scoff.

“I’ve heard that’s how people mourn sometimes,” she said, with a shrug. A few birds later, she was gone. Simon curled up around Grace again and he couldn’t sleep, even though he hadn’t gotten any rest when he had slept, but, he at least wasn’t alone. He somehow felt like that was the one upside. The one thing to hold on to. He wasn’t alone.

“I’m going to kill Amelia,” he said, to nobody, as Grace was sleep, Samantha was dead and Lucy had left. He didn’t even realize that the pendant was still in Grace’s possession. That Amelia had heard everything. That she was already about to give the treacherous prince his chance to try.

[neshatriumphs]

VI. A Fair Assessment

Guess What Loves???  I got a soundtrack for this story: Here on Spotify

Simon was awakened by the sounds of trumpets, tubas, and… other instruments and he jumped out of his sleep, ready to fight. Was there a war starting? Was that a battle song? He reached for his personals and rushed through the curtains to see… what appeared to be… a parade? There were four massive, purple gorillas with instruments on the shoulders… or coming out of their backs. He couldn’t tell… and on a litter, being carried by them was a little girl. She was brown and had long wild blond hair, but there was a mask shielding the bottom of her face and leaves in her hair. She turned suddenly as the townspeople celebrated her arrival, and she looked right. At. Simon. He glared at her, feeling uncomfortably scrutinized. He couldn’t read the face that she was making at him, but her head turned and they held the stare down until the moment that her litter was out of sight. Following it was the biggest of the large purple gorillas, who glanced at Simon, but didn’t linger. 

Simon exhaled when they were out of eyesight, then glanced around at all the creatures and witches who had come out of hiding to follow the parade and head to the fair. He pulled his hood over his head and secured his bag around himself. The pendant was out for Amelia’s viewing pleasure and he began to walk in the direction that everyone else was going. He and Grace hadn’t been clear on what they would do today, so he presumed that she could find him whenever she wanted to. When a bird landed in front of him, he paused and stared. The bird took flight, and he followed. There was something about Grace and birds, so he just figured this was someone sent by her. The bird led him to Lucy. He groaned.

“I feel the same way,” she said. “Do you transmit?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Do you travel elsewhere really fast or instantly?” she asked, annoyed.

“Like… teleport?”

She glared. “Yeah. Like teleport.”

“Yes,” he said. “We call it vaporing or vanishing…”

“Don’t. Care.” She handed him a black stone, carved into the shape of a bird. “Blackbirds represent beauty, intelligence, and wisdom. A good omen, representing protection and safe passage. This will lead you directly to the princess.” She turned around and was taken up immediately by a flock of birds. 

“Always trying to make me learn natural magic mythology,” he grumbled, moving his hands to cast the spell to make him vapor to the princess. Whenever he reached her, she was once again surrounded by children… and barefoot. She was going to ruin those sweet new feet! Wait… she had on sandals of some sort? No… They were footless sandals… basically just anklets that decorated the foot and latched onto the toe… They were pretty… She… was pretty. She was wearing pearls and crystals - the all white a bit abnormal for her, as he had gotten used to purples and pinks. But, she had bird accents in her hair, makeup and jewels on her face, and was adorned in jewelry and drawings that looked… sort of like runes, but were definitely some type of other design that he didn’t know and it appeared to be body paint, not tattooed. The children cleared away and she smiled at him, “You made it!”

“Yeah… I had a little birdy help me out.” He extended his hand to give her the blackbird, but she closed it in his palm and smiled.

“Consider it your first gift of the day.”

“First gift?”

“I told you… The fair is for us to come together and share our gifts. That’s part of my earth magic, bonded with my animal magic!” Grace got onto her knees. She grabbed his hand and pulled him down with her. He put her little blackbird away and watched her. She dug her gloved hands into the ground. He had just noticed that she still had on gloves, though they weren’t as long as her usual ones, and she shut her eyes and the dirt seemed to shift for her, digging and pulling something out of it. There was a crystal in her hands after the soil sifted through her fingers. She clasped it in her hand and light glowed from inside of there. When she opened it, there was another bird, this time made of the crystal that she had just called forth from the earth. “Blue Quartz. Amplifies healing, intuition, empathy and clarity, and it enhances clear and open communication. The bluebird is the harbinger of happiness. The earth told me that these were the gifts that you could use.” 

He was reluctant to accept it. “You just gave me that blackbird…”

“That one was in case you ever need to find your way back to me. This one is simply to help you find your way. You’re… very unhappy, Simon. Your aura is filled with tense energy, anger, sorrow, spite…” she slipped the bluebird into his left pocket, “I’m at least going to make your aura a little less messy for me to be around.” She was so close to his face that she could kiss him if she wanted to… and he sort of wanted her to. They stared at each other a moment, a longer moment than was comfortable. He broke the stare and got up. She sighed and followed, then grabbed his wrist and led him around.

There were witches and creatures exchanging things and showing off skills all over the place. Simon even spotted Lucy, laughing with a bunch of children as her swans put on a dance performance. He hated to admit it, but either the bluebird, or this place was making him relax and he didn’t like to relax, because that could leave you with weak spots… then again, the place felt so comfortable, he felt like for the first time ever, he was some place where there was nobody who might try to harm him. It made no sense. Because he was surrounded by the enemy. His nemesis had her hand wrapped around his fingers, and yet… complete calm in her care, in her presence. She felt like… home. 

What a stupid thought! She’s death. She is leading you through lies and would send you to your destruction. Never forget that! She hissed and pulled her hand away from him. She threw him a look and he was startled. “What is wrong with you?” She asked, irritated, shaking her fingers, as though he had somehow hurt her… could it be? That whenever he went into that calm state, touching her, she was susceptible to his harm, without her spell repelling him away from her? 

He smiled and grabbed her hand, about to try to check to see if she was hurt, but she snatched it back whenever he reached for her glove. “No. I’m good.” She held her own hand and he raised an eyebrow suspiciously. She was lying. He didn’t know about what, but continued, like nothing was wrong.

“Hang on, gotta stop to see Hazel, my oracle!” She cheered, with excitement. “You wait here, or like… mingle, if you want? The worship of the nymphs might be up to your speed.” She rushed towards a tent and he tried to follow, but was cut off by that huge monster of a gorilla he’d seen earlier. It roared at him and pounced and was about to murder him with the nearest boulder it could grab. 

“Tuba!” They heard a little girl’s voice say. The gorilla paused and set the rock down. 

Grace helped Simon up and glared at Tuba. “He’s a guest, Tuba.”

“He’s a conductor,” she corrected. “And one stained with the blood of my brethren.”

Grace nodded, “I’m pretty sure that they just have it everywhere around there. I don’t think he’s actually a murderer, Tuba. This is the Fair. We don’t attack unless we are attacked.” She turned to Simon and said, “And I told you to stay over there. You got into Hazel’s bubble. Tuba is sworn to protect her.”

“I don’t know any of that shit!” he complained. 

“That’s why I need you to trust me whenever I tell you something.” He glared up at Tuba who Grace bowed her head to and gave a pineapple. Tuba settled in front of the tent and ate the pineapple, staring at Simon as he waited outside of Hazel’s bubble, with his arms folded, wishing that Grace was back next to him, because without her, he suddenly felt extremely unsafe. He had a pain beneath his arm and he tried not to look too comfortable.

.

Hazel gave Grace a smile and held her hand out to an empty space on the floor in front of her sitting table. “He seems nice,” she teased.

“I can’t figure him out. He says things that trouble me to my core. His aura…”

“A disaster!” Hazel said, nodding her head as she sat on the floor in front of Grace. “And yet, you can’t pull yourself away from him.”

“Is it THAT obvious?” Grace asked, blushing and trying to cover her face, like that would matter to Hazel, anyway. “He just.. From the moment I saw him, I was drawn to him and even though I should have already sent him packing, I haven’t. I can just feel that there’s something special about him… but I can’t be sure that isn’t my lady parts doing the feeling for me.” 

Hazel removed tea leaves from her hair and put them in a cup. “You want me to tell you about him.” She grabbed a kettle of hot water that was on the table and poured it into the cup. After tea, she looked into the cup and gave Grace a smile, “Your lady parts might be feeling, but you’re absolutely right about him. He’s your soulmate.”

Grace gasped and covered her mouth with one hand. “The One selected me another soul mate? Finally? But… why this one? Why would he send me a conductor to be my king?”

“Hazel shook her head, looking into the cup, “You’ve got it backwards. The One didn’t send you a conductor. The Conductor stole your soul mate.”

“Wait… So… He’s the last of the Laurents?” Grace asked, and nearly fell over, even though they were sitting. 

Hazel removed more leaves from her hair. They just manifested as she needed them, and she ground them and crushed them into a pipe. She handed it to Grace and Grace took a particle of wood, placed it to the small fire that heated the kettle and smoked the leaves in the pipe. She was transported into a smoke hazed vision. A boy crying in a crib. Amelia, hooded and deceptive. Her keepers coming too late to rescue him from her clutches. One of the witches transformed into a white cat and rushed off to find him. The smoke clouds became too dark for her to see anymore and she blinked and was back in the room with Hazel. “The Cat!” She said.

“You’re gonna be a little disoriented. That journey went back 16 years.”

“The Cat!” Grace said… “She was one of us. She knew me… She was with us…”

“All familiars come from natural magic, you know that, Grace. The Cat is bonded to the Laurents. Of course she would go with him.”

“But… why wouldn’t she guide him back to us? Why would she let the Conductor KEEP him?” She asked, frustrated to the point of tears. Plus, she was certain that she was extremely high. “Pbbbbrrrrrrr… We need to find her and bring her to justice for treason and treachery and kidnapping and almost crumbling the system of power as we know it!”

“Here,” Hazel said and gave Grace a loaf of lavender and chamomile bread, and the princess tore off chunks and stuffed them into her mouth. Hazel calmly explained, “There is something inside of him now, Grace. He belongs to the Conductor. She saved his life and she raised him. There was nothing that The Cat could have done to turn him from her, but she’s kept her loyalty and remained his familiar, and he is very attached to her. She’s probably the only person that he cares about.” She poured more water, to make them more tea. “But, he’s suffering. He needs his soul mate just as much as you do. You two were meant to complete each other. Your destinies are intertwined.”

“Well, I can’t not fuck him, then,” Grace said, a mouth full of bread. “Oof. I’m still under the influence. I meant to say…”

“You’re going to be drawn to him in that way, because you were destined to mate with him. He’s going to have the same proclivity towards you. But, there’s a blockage. Something is keeping him from you. Probably whatever magic was used to save him from his illness.”

Grace looked at her hands and wondered, “Could I remove that?”

“Maybe. She severed your spiritual connection. But, the magic inside of him - the magic that he was born with, his Laurent bloodline… it is trying to reach you. The magic is trying to do what natural magic does, connect the lifeform to what it needs to grow.”

“She put fake magic into his system whenever she stopped his illness.”

“Don’t call it fake magic. It isn’t fake. It works, and isn’t inherently bad. Alric didn’t abuse the forms of magic that he created. He simply found a way for those who weren’t born with natural magic to be able to utilize it. If one is willing to give and take, it works in a balanced manner. It isn’t as strong as natural magic, but that’s simply because it is younger and not yet fully incorporated into the universe’s magical ecosystem. In other words, it hasn’t had the chance to evolve yet.”

“Wait… So… that magic that the conductor uses is… valid?”

“No. The magic that the conductor learned is valid. But, she’s used it in such a way, taking so much and giving nothing in return, building a small empire that does the same… the ecosystem hasn’t been able to adjust. It needs a very powerful conductor to help begin to restore balance.”

“Is… that Simon?”

“I don’t think any other is more powerful than him except for Amelia.”

Grace drank some tea. “I don’t know what to do. Can you tell me what to do?”

“You’ll have to try to connect with him. Get his guard down and he’ll let that wall down. If he can turn away from Amelia and reject her ways, your touch may be able to both remove whatever magic is keeping him alive, and heal him, the way that you would have been able to all of those years ago if she hadn’t taken him.”

“If not?”

Hazel shook her head, and pointed at her divination table, “All that I can assure you of is bloodshed.”

.

It was a long time whenever Grace came out of the tent, but she could sense that Simon would be waiting on her. She found him sitting on a large rock, carving something out of redwood. She approached him, looking at him with brand new eyes and her heart beating furiously in her chest. This man… she was meant to… be with, for the rest of her life. He was concentrating hard as he carved the wood with his conductor’s dagger and she didn’t want to disturb him, but he must’ve felt her approaching, because he looked up and his tenseness smoothed away. His shoulders dropped and his eyes softened. “Took you long enough,” he complained, but she could tell that he was relieved that she was back. He stood up, blushing and sighed. “I made you this,” he pushed the gift towards her, offering her no explanation whatsoever. She wasn’t sure if he even knew himself why he made her that. 

But, it was made from redwood, a tree that symbolizes “forever” and he carved it into the shape of a dove… a bird associated with love. Grace cupped it in her hands, certain that no matter what happened between them, she would never get rid of this. She placed it into her sack, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She could hear several gasps all around her, as the princess was NOT supposed to do such things! But, she didn’t care at the moment. This was actually her rightful property and she could do whatever she wanted. Plus, his hands had moved to her waist and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. He had to have felt it too… She paused to look at him and he looked like he was in a lot of pain, probably fighting it, like Hazel warned her about. But, he was at least content to be resigned for now. He rested his forehead against hers and they took a moment to gather their wits. 

Amelia ran her hand through her hair, glaring at the princess through the pendant. “She’s seen an oracle… Does she KNOW?” She wondered. 

“If she does, you’re in trouble,” Samantha said, hopping onto the table and looking into the basin. You know that if Simon falls in love with her, she’s going to be powerful enough to defeat you.” 

“YOU know that Simon took a blood oath. Whether he falls in love with her or not, if he doesn’t kill her; he will die.” 

“I know.”

“So, where do your loyalties lie, Samantha? With Simon, a boy you’ve raised for a family you served for generations? Or with the witches that have let you wander through enemy territory for nearly 20 years, alone, cut off, watching your own kind killed at the hands of the one who you love more than anything… I need a warrior witch, now. Simon needs her.” 

Samantha stepped off of the table and transformed into an elderly, but obviously strong and powerful woman with white hair and yellow eyes. “In Simon’s name, I need you to return home. He’s in danger there.” Amelia pulled out a conductor’s dagger and Samantha opened her hand to receive it, “In Simon’s name, I will do what I must to keep him safe.”

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Intertwined by Nesha Story || Soundtrack

Now, also available on Archive of Our Own, for those who prefer that medium: 

Intertwined on AO3 

[neshatriumphs]

VII. The Winged Woman

Simon was in the waterfall of the lagoon, a golden god standing before her, glistening in the sun. Where… where were his runes? His body was flawless. There were no off-putting marks of distorted magic. She moved closer, and he turned around. There was that smile that took her five days to win from him. The moody scowl was no more, just like those horrid marks and he was reaching for her. She felt herself lured into his arms, like she was floating. She had no control over herself. She was his. Powerless...

Grace awoke with a start. She glanced over at Lucy, still asleep on the small round bed that Grace refused to call a “pet bed” even though that was what her mother had it commissioned as. She climbed out of bed, her nightgown sticking to her body, via sweat. But… It was chilly in there. She covered Lucy with her fuzzy blanket and gave her the little ragdoll with one button eye that she had carried to safety with her, and maimed out of frustration, kissed her on the forehead and went to change her clothes. 

Grace put on a pair of capris pants and an off the shoulders shirt, pulled her locs up at the top, clicked her satchel onto her body and threw on some socks and sneakers. She floated her mask over to herself and sealed the door behind her as she transported from the fortress.

She and Simon had parted ways at the cottage, mainly because she was being summoned to the queen, because of her poor decision to kiss Simon in front of the entire fair. And now? He was going to be sent through the labyrinth tomorrow. By sunrise, her father was going to erect a labyrinth leading from the earth cottage to the academy. It would only vanish whenever Simon came out on the other end. This was a way to keep wanderers and intruders from getting back to them, but Simon had her blackbird tourmaline, so he would always be able to find her, unless her mother made the parameters stronger. Both of her parents were terrified that she had been enchanted (read tainted) by a conductor, and neither of them gave her a chance to explain who he was! Not even her father!! They banished her to her room “until he is out of the kingdom.”

Naturally, for her, that meant until they went to sleep and she could get out of the fortress, because she knew that they expected her to just respect their wishes. Maybe tomorrow, she would have magical restrictions keeping her trapped in her room. But, if she could see Simon one more time, it could be worth it. Maybe, they could even... run away together? She felt silly for thinking that, but... she had waited her entire life for him, and now that she had him, just sending him away felt so... wrong.

She trekked through the woods, not wanting to be spotted out in the yard by the guards, but not wanting to use her magic and set off anyone’s sense of her presence, either. By the time she reached her cottage and hiked down to the front door, she knew she was probably filthy and smelly. She didn’t care. She opened the door and saw Simon, fast asleep. He was making noises and she approached, only to touch his face. “Grace...” he moaned. 

She kissed him on the forehead. Maybe she could... wait.. think it through. She was considering leaving with someone who she didn’t know anything about except for the fact that he was quite possibly the Conductor’s right hand! Maybe once upon a time he was her soul mate, but... she didn’t have time to change him, UNLESS she left with him. She didn’t even know if he would want her to. The tears were forming in her eyes and she got up and transported out. 

.

In the moonlight, near the lagoon, she was wearing practically nothing… It was fabric,  but so thin he could make out every outline of her body, and he did. He watched intently as she danced beneath the moon whether worship or summoning him to herself, he was enchanted and driven by desire to come closer. He reached her and she turned to see him, her cheerful smile gone, replaced with a deep, lustful stare, and he bowed at her feet, ready to give her anything that she wanted. She didn’t even have to ask... “I’m yours, Grace.” 

Simon got up and looked at his shaking hands. The venom in his system had given him a fever and he was sweating and apparently having fever dreams, because he had thought about Grace every single time that he closed his eyes. He opened his bag and searched through his potions. The only thing that MIGHT satisfy the bloodthirsty magic inside of that blood oath was the blood of his enemies. The only bad part about that was that they would either sense, see or smell it on him. They would know their own kind had been slain by his hands. They would know who he was… not some misguided wanderer getting ready to go home, but their worst nightmare. 

He settled on another pain deterrent, checked the source of his discomfort and saw it was now spreading. He said an incantation to drain it, and knew that was only a temporary measure and that it would come back more relentless soon, but that shit hurt and he needed the fever to go down so that he could plot out how to get near the queen in order to kill her, to break her spell of protection around Grace… who… probably didn’t deserve to die, but if it had to be her or him, he was always going to be for himself. No matter how delicious her lips looked. He grabbed his satchel and stepped into his shoes. There was probably something that he could sacrifice in those woods to keep the bloodlust at bay.

Simon walked through the woods for a while, feeling extremely weak and tired. He didn’t know if there was something in the air causing this... perhaps to make sure that he didn’t escape before being placed in the king’s labyrinth the next day? Whatever the case, the he figured that if he didn’t kill something and appease the oath, he would die before he had the chance to do anything else anyway... He saw someone moving around. He thought maybe a woman? She was barely clothed, very beautiful, with flowing hair that seemed to be her only covering and wings. She didn’t look real. His eyes glowed and she was easily one of the most powerful pieces of magic that he had ever seen. His eyes returned to normal. Could he even overtake her, feeling how he felt?

.

In the woods, Grace heard something moving, felt a very unsettling presence. Not necessarily a sinister one, but one that was desperate and most likely dangerous. She pulled out slips of paper and tossed them into the sky. They formed origami birds and flew off for reconnaissance. One of them returned with a mirror like surface, and her reflection turned into a hooded figure slaying a winged woman. “No!” She hissed and outstretched her arms to summon the birds back and guide her to this crime... She was too late. 

Grace rushed to the body... practically DRAINED of blood, her throat sliced by a conductor’s dagger, her chest stabbed and her heart hollowed out. She cradled the woman’s head and took off one of her gloves to touch her. Light, came from her fingertips and the woman gasped. “Come on, Grace. You can do this. You don’t need to be ‘complete.’ You’re enough! You can save her!” She told herself, as her vision became blurry with tears and the woman’s wings flapped weakly and her arms flailed. She was too far gone for Grace to turn this around... She took her hand off of her and let her die. She placed her glove back on her hands and pulled out a raven made of crystal. 

When she released it into the air, it shot into the sky like a firework, creating a beacon and an alarm. Grace pulled the woman closer to herself and held her in her arms, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.” It took only a moment for the soldiers to arrive. “There is a murderer in our realms. Find them and execute them,” Grace said. 

“Yes, Princess,” they said and vapored away. Meanwhile, those who collected their dead took the woman off of her hands and she stormed to the cottage. Simon was asleep, or pretending to be whenever she came in. She ungloved her hand and walked over to him. He was the ONLY person in the area that might do something like this. It HAD to be him. She reached out, her fingertips glowing red and noticed the necklace on him was pointed at her. She picked it up in her palm and it burned her hand, but she didn’t let it go. How the hell had he gotten this past her solitude spell? See? He’s more powerful than you thought. He’s dangerous. He’s a murderer...

“Grace?” he said, sounding all innocent, looking all... feverish? She let go of the pendant and her hand stopped glowing, as well. He sat up and wondered, “Are you okay?” His hands immediately went to her bare shoulders and she wanted to be vulnerable with him. She wanted the thumbs stroking her skin to be safe for her. She wanted his hands to collect her and hold her until she didn’t feel betrayed and terrified and enraged.

“No. There was a brutal murder in the woods tonight.” She glanced around the room. His boots had tonight’s earth on them. His scent smelled of the trees and flowers. But... there was no sign of blood... “Someone from your territory slayed a winged woman.”

“You have harpies here?”

“Not a harpy. A winged woman. They are manifestations of hopes and dreams. They are signs of greatness and elevation... And someone murdered her, like she was nothing.” She fought not to cry. Simon sat up fully and pulled her into an embrace. She let him hold her. It. Felt. So. Genuine. Like her cared. “You don’t smell like blood.”

“Why would I?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. He scoffed and let go of her, “You think that I did this? Why would I do this, when as far as I know, I’M the only conductor here? I would be the obvious suspect, Grace.”

“You ARE the obvious suspect,” she slapped some rings onto his wrist and they bound him. “And, someone in this kingdom will be powerful enough to find out the whole truth.” A tear ran down her face at his hurt expression.

“Grace... You CAN’T think that I’m capable of this? that I would do this to you? I wasn’t even going to leave in the morning. I was going to just try to find my way back to you! I wouldn’t do something this reckless, even if I was on a hunt, you would NOT catch me! I thought... I thought we were connecting.” He. Really. Seemed. So. Hurt.

“I did too. Then I watched a symbol of hope die in my arms.”

Simon lowered his head and let out a shaky breath. “I couldn’t kill anyone if I tried. Something’s wrong with me. I’m sick. I’m sure I’m dying. I will admit, I came here with bad intentions, but I swear to you, I didn’t do this.”

“Well, my mother will be able to tell me everything that I need to trust you... or not trust you.”

“I... get to come before the queen?... Ah.” That was it then. Amelia must’ve orchestrated something to get him in that position. She always had a plan. 

Grace reached out and snatched the pendant from his neck. “Yeah. She might be one of the last things that you ever get to see.” She got up and opened the curtain. Her guards came in and carried him towards the fortress, towards the queen of the witches of the One... His target. Despite what he had been starting to believe, Grace obviously wasn’t the woman who she seemed to be... the woman that he was about to die not to hurt. She didn’t believe him. That actually hurt more than the venom in his system or the forceful rings around his wrist. I thought we were connecting... and I wasn’t going to use it against her... 

They looked at each other. All he wanted right now was for her to believe in him. To just take these cuffs off and run off with him. He could drop dead in her arms. He just wanted her to believe him! As she accompanied his escorts to the queen, they passed by wailing witches who all glared at him. Lucy was emotionless as he passed. The two of them stared at each other and she... didn’t even seem angry or upset with him. She looked like she felt bad for him... or maybe for Grace, whose hand she grabbed them pulled back suddenly. Grace replaced her glove and then took Lucy’s hand again. She would need her.

[neshatriumphs]

X. Mothership

It was true. There was no way that she could get in there without him. Amelia needed Simon on her side to even be able to break through the barriers that were put up around the Magical kingdom. That was the reason that she kept him around for so long even after she realized exactly who he was. And it was the reason that she was going to be able to get in now even though she no longer held his heart. 

What was tethering her to Simon now? Why it was the rage. It was the betrayal. It was the entire life of lies and being a tool. Amelia knew that Simon would feel the way that he felt if he ever found out. So while she needed a connection to him with that necklace, his rage was just going to have to do right now. 

The stewards flew through the enchanted forests like wraiths, seeking out the magic of the witches one the one. Amelia sat on her horse, donned in her ear gear, a sphere containing all the magic that she had ever collected through Simon's dedication, and she pointed her Conductors' dagger forward. All of the children from the institution charged, and as Amelia lifted the sphere in her hand green lightning struck from the sky and a wall form to become a portal to lead her right to Simon and right to that kingdom.

The pendant shattered and poured green light all throughout the room. The staff and others who were around crumbled as the portal opened inside of the castle. And through the green light and the ashes it created of those unfortunate enough to be near the necklace came Amelia and her Army…

.

Simon had not coped at all. Instead he spent most of his time training for war. He knew it was coming - he could feel Amelia. He could sense her bloodlust. His nearly matched hers at the moment, after finding out all that she had taken from him and all that she wanted to take away. Grace. He looked over at her, next to her father as he instructed soldiers to reinforce any weak spots into the fortress. 

The Queen watched from the tower. She and Simon made eye contact and she turned away. Every time she looked at him, she saw her deceased friend, but she also saw an enemy. Someone who did harm to her kingdom, most times irrevocable harm. Someone who intended to bed her precious daughter, a daughter only fit for a true king, which he might have been destined to be at some point, but she simply couldn't see that realistically in her mind today. But also… guilt. She felt like he may never have lost his way if only she had done a better job of looking after him when Abelard died. Guilt over the curse that was supposed to bring him home, but instead led him into the Conductor's clutches. 

She had just vanished from the few of the window when everyone heard a tremendous chorus of noise and the tower collapsed! 

Grace screamed, "MOM!" And she, her father and Simon rushed towards the falling tower. There was a bright ball of light that crashed to the ground and left a crater. Grace reached it first, sliding down on her knees to get to the bottom. Her mother was sprawled out, the staff in hand. 

"Fortress.. infiltrated…" she said, weakly. 

Grace removed her gloves to heal her mother, screaming in pain as she did.

The King looked at Simon, "You're with me." Simon nodded once, brandished his blade and rushed towards the castle with the king. Grace groaned through her own pain to pull the queen from the crater, and noticed Simon and her father going inside, where most of the noise was. She let out a loud war cry and every available warrior came rushing. 

“There’s children! There are children everywhere!” she heard in her headset… which technically was just magical earrings.

“Are they real?” She wondered.

Simon replied, “They are. They’re students from the Institution.”

“Well, we can’t hurt them…” Grace said, as though it were obvious.

“They won’t hesitate to kill your people, Grace,” Simon told her.

“Lucy!” Grace called.

“On it!” Lucy said. 

Grace saw a multitude of birds swarm into the castle and heard in her earpiece, “Great, now there are birds everywhere. I can’t see anything.”

“Give it a moment… Lucy?”

There was the noise of the birds, screaming children and confused soldiers, but then Grace saw the swarms carrying children out of the castle (out of harm’s way) and Lucy said, “Done.” 

“Who uses children as pawns?” Grace wondered. 

The Queen sat up and cracked her neck. She hadn’t been involved in a battle in a long time. “Take my daughter to her safe haven,” she told the guards.

“What? Mom! I can fight! I can help!”

“You’re the future of this kingdom. The best help that you can give us is to stay safe and to stay put.”

“But I-” Grace watched her mother point the staff at them within moments, she had been relocated. “-’m the only one who can heal others!” She touched her ear, “Lucy?” Nothing. “Simon!” Nothing. She looked at her sphinx guards. There was no way that she could get over on them. That was why they were commissioned for the duty of guarding her. 

.

Simon and the King actually fought quite well beside each other. They hadn’t practiced any drills, so a lot of it was simply paying attention and anticipating the moves of the other, some of it was gestures, signals or facial expressions from the other, and a little of it was probably magic. Simon couldn’t see Amelia anywhere, but he could sense her. She was moving away from them. Where was she trying to go? He wanted to give chase, but he definitely couldn’t leave the King in the heat of battle. What if something happened to him? Grace would never forgive him. 

They cleared the castle and workers rushed in to begin using their magic to rebuild. Simon felt that was the time to seek out Amelia. “I’m going after the Conductor,” he said.

“I’ll come with.”

“Your Highness, I know her. I know how she fights and what she’s capable of. I can’t let you face off with her…”

The King and several of the warriors laughed. “I was trained as a warrior and a wizard before that woman even came in contact with a spellbook. Besides, if I let something happen to you, my little Fuzzy Bunny would never forgive me. Now, let’s get to it.” 

“Fu.. Fuzzy Bunny?” If Grace didn’t know, Simon was NEVER going to let her live that down. “Grace?” He called, trying to contact her through the link that she seemed to have to everyone earlier.

“Her mother hid her away,” the King said. “That’s her prime directive as Queen. Protect the throne and the kingdom.” Simon nodded, once. “That’s also Grace’s prime directive, as Queen. The King protects the Queen. The Queen protects everything that matters to him.”

“Where is the Queen, right now?”

“Fortifying the Mothership.”

“Is that where the One lives?”

“It is where we are able to commune with the One.”

“That will be where Amelia is heading!” The King grabbed Simon and transported them to a cavern that appeared to be covered in sparkling crystals. There was a glittering green dome around it that was nearly blinding to Simon. It didn’t seem to bother the King at all, but maybe he couldn’t see magic the way that Simon could… But, wait… Simon looked at the appropriate runes and they weren’t glowing. None of his were… Had he been using natural magic today, without realizing it? Was he using it now, to look at this cavern, “the Mothership,” or was the magic barrier simply so powerful that he couldn’t help BUT to see it. 

The King walked through it and for him, it became an intangible gel that encased the man and allotted him within. Simon walked right into it and it was solid and impenetrable. His runes began to burn his flesh as they glowed and attempted to break through the barrier. This was unconscious. He backed away, hoping that would stop whatever he was doing. But, even ask he backed away, he felt power stirring in him, much like whenever he would go on a raid and rob a place of it's power… He would have himself a sphere. A conduit which would harness the power, absorb it as he drew it out… He gasped and looked behind him. 

There she was, perched on her horse, her body covered in glowing runes, as well as her eyes, green and blazing as she siphoned the power of the barrier through Simon’s body, tracing more runes on him with her wand to do so. “Oh, Simon. You could have had the world at your feet. You were going to be at my side…” He was screaming in pain and had both hands on the barrier now as his body was being covered in runes to facilitate the power that she needed to draw away. 

“Had you do what you were supposed to do, you would still have your meddlesome pet, AND, you would be the future of the magical world. Alas… You weren’t strong enough. Fret not. Your years of work will not be in vain. You are going to be a perfect tool for me getting into this cavern and dethroning the One. Goodbye, Simon.” She pointed her wand forward and green lighting shot from the ends and he watched glowing vines cover his entire body, formulating so many runes that he couldn’t find one portion of blank space on his skin. He screamed, laughed, cried, and then he collapsed, and with him, the barrier. The King and Queen were at the ready, with their weapons. 

Amelia stepped off of her horse and walked over, stepping over Simon’s body, as she did. “You mustn’t blame the boy. He thought that he was powerful. He never knew that most of his power came from me.” She smirked. “And most of my power, I’ve won from defeating you.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” The Queen said and began to twirl her staff and charge at Amelia. Amelia teleported from one place to another, just missing being struck with the staff. She snuck up from the side, punched the Queen in the side of the head and took the staff from her hands. The Queen groaned as Amelia hovered above her, but that was short lived as she had to block the King’s sword with the staff and her Conductor’s dagger. He was a much more skilled fighter, but not as powerful as a wizard, considering that some magic was “taboo,” Amelia would always feel like she had the upper hand in that regard. With the exception of the Queen (who wasn’t as pure as everyone would think. Ha! Cursing a child to trick his mother out of hiding)… And they consider ME evil.

The Queen crawled along the ground over to Simon and cradled his head in her lap. His eyes were glazed over and she could tell that the Conductor had him trapped in some kind of trance. She began to recite a chant and placed her bare hands on his burning hot skin. He blinked, and she frowned down at the young man, whose entire body was covered in those runes… runes that had trapped the magic of the barrier in his body. “Son of Abelard, this will hurt. It can’t be helped…” She said. Her fingernails became long and sharp and she stuck them into his skin. He. Screamed. 

A lot of physical pain had visited the young man today... Amelia turned to the sound of the screaming, looked at the cavern and rushed inside. The King was right on her heels. Simon’s eyes ran and he honestly felt as though all of his flesh were melting, but it was the magic seeping from his runes. The ones that Amelia used to lower the barrier were leaving his flesh like green slimy, burning worms, or green blood, spilling from his orifices.He was kicking his legs and screaming. He had never been in so much pain in his life. Whenever he had been cleansed of those, all that remained were the ones from before and a few new ones that had formed as part of the effort to keep him alive through pain that would have sent most people into shock.

He cried in the Queen’s lap as she cried, silently from the agony of healing without her staff. She withdrew her fingernails and looked at the cavern. Neither herself nor Simon was physically able to help at this moment, in the pain and recovery that their bodies were facing. But, the barrier began to form again as the elixir of those runes seeped into the ground and Simon and the Queen watched it position itself where it belonged. 

“If she gets on that throne…” Simon managed to say, then began trying to pick himself up. 

“I need you to get something to my daughter…” The Queen said. Simon was hardly paying attention to her as she cut open her arm, with her long fingernails and began to draft something onto a scroll. He was trying to see if he could pass the barrier now. He could! “Simon,” the Queen said. Now, THAT got his attention. He turned and she handed him the scroll. “Give this to Grace. It is everything that she will need, as Queen…” 

“Okay,” he said and tucked it away, close to his heart. “But, you’re okay, right?” He saw a light from inside of her, flickering. 

“I’m… feeling years of pain that having my staff made me unaware of. I’m sick, and taking on that healing exacerbated my illness…”

“Your Highness… If you fucking die because you decided to save me, I’m going to suspend your soul in purgatory, just to punish you for doing something so stupid!”

She laughed, then choked up some blood and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Believe it or not, that is exactly the type of vile thank you that I would have gotten from your father.” She began to imitate a male’s voice with a French accent, but it sounded real, like she was tapping into a voice, “For fuck’s sake, Apollonia! Who would save a knight before a future queen? The Princess of Fucking Fools. If you were wondering, that’s YOU right now!” She laughed, her normal voice back. “Find her. I know that she gave you a way to.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna find her and take you to her so that she can fix this.”

“Simon…”

“We can’t lose anybody else! We couldn’t take it!” Simon fussed and gathered her up into his arms, carrying her bridal style as she coughed again and rested her head on his shoulder. 

“Abelard, what kind of life would I have without my best friend? I’d say it was worth being Princess of Fools. You’re still here, aren’t you?” she said, faintly, having a conversation that he knew that she had long before he was thought of. As he summoned the bird that Grace had given him, he saw the King, stammering towards the exit of the cavern. The Queen’s staff was impaled through his torso and blood was spilling from his mouth. Amelia removed the staff and she and Simon looked right at each other as he and the Queen began to dissipate… Simon’s eyes went to the King’s struggling body and tears fell from green eyes, because he knew that he had to make a choice… and he had already made it. 

The cavern was gone. The king was gone. Amelia was gone. But… the Queen was still holding on. Just barely, though. “Grace?” Simon called and two sphinxes were upon him within minutes. Grace rushed to her mother and began her healing process. The painful process that Simon hated to see her go through, but held her through. Whenever they were all settled in the haven, Grace looked around, “Where’s Daddy?” She asked. Simon opened his mouth, trying to form words, but only tears came. 

She looked at her mother and the Queen admitted, “I no longer feel his soul kissing mine… I’m afraid, he’s dead.”

Grace covered her face with both hands and ran from the room, crying. Simon stood but the Queen flicked a hand and the force sat him back down. “She and her father were close. There’s nothing that you can do to comfort her right now, but give her some space. Meanwhile… you and I have to strategize how to take back the Mothership. You are the next king in line, after all..”

[neshatriumphs]

IV. Ability and Accountability

By the time they made it back to the fortress, Simon was so weak that he was crawling. Grace walked unto the property while Lucy directed some of the other witches to carry him away. He couldn’t pass the fortress’ barrier without the proper passage, and Simon had none. “What do I do with your new pet rat?” Lucy wondered.

Grace sputtered some air through her lips and thought about where there might be space. “Well, we’ve occupied most of the backup places because of the Conductor’s attacks on the outer realms. I think that the best place for him is my solitude cottage.”

“Are… you going to be in there while he’s in there?”

“I’ll check up on him, make sure the healing process flows.”

Lucy reached for her dress to pull her attention lower. Grace kneeled to Lucy’s level to hear what she had to say. “If you give the Queen a conductor’s baby, she WILL implement a sterilization curse on all of us.”

“Lucy!” 

“Don’t think about your loins. Think about the future.”

Lucy didn’t have anything else to say. She was a junior master of animal related magic. She knew how pheromones worked and with those two, there was almost an instant trigger of Grace’s body… responding to that blond heretic. Lucy had not yet gotten the chance to assess him around the princess, but she certainly would. There was no way that she was leaving her to her own devices with him, or worst - to his devices. “Take the heretic to the princess’ cottage. Instill the highest degree of security and put him in stasis. Have two guards stationed at all times. Armed ones. He’s dangerous. I can smell it on him.” 

Lucy smelled nothing but blood whenever Simon was near. She didn’t know if that was because he had been covered in it when they first saw him or because he regularly had it on him and it had become part of his natural scent - but she knew the smell of blood very well. The smell of a massacre. Of the hunt. Had she not been as good as magic as she was, it would have been the smell of her fate. When she was 4, she flew on her first bird to escape the Conductor’s raid of her village and lost her eye in the process of trying to tame the thing long enough to convince it that she was a friend who needed help. The princess had saved her and taken her in. The princess had been moved by her bravery and her strength. When so many other raid refugees were sent to recovery camps, awaiting safe spaces to become denizens, now that their homes had been ravaged, Grace had said, “Let me keep this one.”

The Queen looked at her and figured that Grace just wanted a pet. A little orphan girl that was good enough with magic to communicate with animals, despite never having had a lesson a day in her life. “If you can give back a working eye, you can keep her as your pet.”

“Mom, she’s a witch and a survivor. Have some respect.” Grace had brought herself to Lucy’s level for the first time that day. She pulled off her glove and said, “I’m sorry for what they’ve taken from you, but I’m glad that you’re still here.” She reached out, touched Lucy’s damaged eye… and Lucy felt like her brain was on fire. She screamed an agonizing scream and Grace quickly tried to comfort her and regretted ever attempting the fix. She pulled her glove back on and collected the girl, cradled her and carried her into her room.

“You didn’t fix it, Grace!” Her mother called out, but never bothered her about Lucy again. Lucy just belonged to Grace, now. Grace had bandaged the girl up and nursed her, herself. It was the first person that she had actually physically taken care of herself, and Lucy was confident that she just always would, so she made it up in her mind that she was going to take care of her too.

.

Simon was down for three days. He tried to get up several times, but wound up feeling drained and had to sit right back down. Whenever he was resting someone would come in and do things around the room. He was awake one time, and saw Grace, blooming flowers and he could literally see the healing properties flow from their blooms in pink and purple mist form. She danced around, moving the energy of the room, inviting in the good and ushering out the bad. He clutched the fluffy, heated, weighted covers to himself and watched her eagerly, but weakly. She made a pink and purplish cloud in the room and Simon inhaled it and felt his pain subside and his body going to sleep…

By the time he was able to get up and get out, he wandered out into what appeared to be training grounds. He stumbled out, and sat on a rock, tired. "Okay, so what Lucy's going to do is summon the owls, swirl them for a windstorm and use the windstorm to collapse this wall. Ready, Lucy?"

"Yes, Grace."

"Okay. Because if you fail, you know we'll have to kill you."

"Understood, Grace!" The girl said with a smile. 

Simon was intrigued. 

That seemed a faulty way to conduct lessons, but at the same time, there were plenty of students that had he killed them during lessons, they might not have had costly failures in the field. But, if someone messed up in the field and it cost you, they died right there. That was Simon's method. The Conductor couldn't suffer mistakes. Now Grace? She put on that sweet act, but this might show him the ruthless side of Grace that he knew she had, from the stories. This might show him the beast that he believed was beneath the beauty… the indescribable beauty...

Lucy waved her arms and made a sound that sounded like an owl. Her eye began to glow and her hair blew in the wind. Grace and several witches watched as owls flew to Lucy, flying in circles around her to match her hand movements. The winds were very severe. Simon had to get his footing and hold on to the rock. But, the wall only slightly shifted and the owls flew away without it having been knocked down. Lucy frowned and folded her arms. 

Grace gave her a sympathetic smile and said, "Next time, I'm sure. Everyone take a break." The other witches rushed away, while Lucy stayed to practice. 

"When do you kill her?" Simon asked from the rock. Grace and Lucy both looked at him, then each other. He walked over and explained himself. "You said that if she failed, you'd kill her and she failed miserably."

"It was a joke," Grace said. "Do they not have those in Conductor Territories?"

"Yes, but why joke about something so crucial? The difference between getting that spell right and whatever it is she just did are life and death. It makes sense to take away life for such failures. If she isn’t powerful enough to do simply training tasks, how can you even trust her beside you when it really counts?"

"Lucy, please excuse us." Lucy walked away slowly, adjusting the hair in the back of her head as she did. Grace blinked her eyes at Simon… 

"I'm not sure exactly what made you think that I wanted or needed your input, but Lucy is a child! You don't get to talk about how miserably you think that she did and you don't get to speak about her like she's nothing just because she didn't do so well, in your eyes."

"I just think that you should be honest about your expectations and serious about your penalties."

“Well, I think you should be honest about minding your business whenever it comes to my magic. You’re alive because of it. Furthermore… You kill children? Over mistakes?”

“What? No. But… is Lucy a real child? Like… You have a real child as your bodyguard?”

“As my…” Grace laughed and held her belly as she did. “My bodyguard? Dude… Lucy isn’t my bodyguard. She’s just very cautious and trying to do her best.” She didn’t want to say more to him about who Lucy was, because that could put the girl in danger, but definitely had to clear the air about having a 7 year old bodyguard, despite the fact that Lucy was extremely advanced in magic for her age and that was one of the main reasons that she was chosen. 

“I thought it was a familiar that took on the most bizarre alternative form…”

“Familiar? You have familiars in the Conductor’s practice?” Grace asked, horrified. Simon didn’t know why her tone was so alarmed, but he laughed and shrugged his shoulders. The truth was that he was the only person that he knew of to have one, but he didn’t want to say that, considering Grace’s reaction. He wanted to see her have a genuine reaction to SOMETHING. “Familiars are explicitly bonded to natural magic. They would DIE before committing to a fake witch, so all of your familiars are either some type of horrid abomination, or enslaved souls being forced to serve at the behest of the unclean by some new unspeakable horror that the fake witches call magic.”

He glared at her. “I’ll have you know that The Cat is VERY committed to me and I haven’t ever known of her to have any complaint whatsoever, and if you’re suggesting that she’s any less of a companion than your weird little cyclops failure witch, we can fight about it right now.”

“The Cat,” Grace said, suspiciously. She remembered the paw print of a cat whenever she crumbled the curse a week ago. Surely… the same person who did that wasn’t bold or stupid enough to just come back into their territory, flashing skin and green eyes, thinking that he could… whatever he was here for. Surely… This was not the person who was attacking her people. This was a student of the Conductor, yes. But, he was just a simple student who had gotten lost and attacked, and they were mending him and sending him back, because they had no proof that he had committed anything beyond heresy, and due to the fact that there was a school that preyed upon orphans and poor children, The One had become lenient to young Conductor practitioners in Grace’s lifetime. They were allowed to experience the realms of the One and to be assimilated, to be salvaged from the Conductor’s grasp. But, if Simon was the wizard slaying her denizens, citizens, and allies…

“Yeah. The Cat,” he said. You couldn’t give a natural witch the name of a familiar, because they could call upon them and possibly utilize them for their bidding. To protect Samantha, Simon had taken to calling her “The Cat,” no matter who he was speaking to about her. The only person that he knew for sure even knew her name was Amelia.

“I’d like to meet her,” Grace told him. 

“That’s an important sign to me to keep her away from you.” 

Grace bit her lip, in thought and walked away. She might have to try to bring a witch with her that was good at assessing the story of scenes through touching the things left there. But… until then, maybe Lucy was right and this was a dangerous conductor. He certainly had a lot of runes for a lot of magic. She supposed that his age and his looks got the best of her. Because, even with wondering if he might be a horrible wizard… she still took note of the fact that he had on a crop top long sleeved hooded shirt that covered his arms but left his V and his happy trail exposed. His pants hung low on his waist, bogged down a little bit by the things on his belt, the weapons and other things he must’ve felt it necessary to carry around. And… his eyes. She stared at him, looking into them was like being washed away in deep seas of green waters, sparkling in the sun’s majesty… “When can I leave?” he asked, and it was like the waves crashed into her and splashed her out of a stupor.

“Whenever you want. But, if you need a guide, you’ll have to wait for an available escort. Otherwise, we’ve gotta activate the labyrinth. You feel ready to defend yourself against another ghom?”

He considered his options. He didn’t know if he would ever feel ready to defend himself against another ghom, and he had yet to get enough intel to bring in a raid party. Plus, he hadn’t gotten closer to her trusting him and being able to get close enough to slay her. He gave her a small, almost bashful smile and shrugged, “No… I guess not. Well, Princess. I guess for the time being, I’m all yours.” She heard a muffled whimper that she knew came from her, even though she couldn’t feel herself make that sound. His eyebrow raised. “I can help you teach your students better magic. That wall should’ve come down no problem.”

She smiled and folded her arms, “You knock it down. Using only wind.” 

He nodded his head, shoved his hands out in front of him and began to rotate his wrists. She could see the green glowing shining through is hooded shirt, and of course, the light of his green eyes. She felt the winds power up and noticed the students all watching, with only Lucy’s back being pointed towards him. Simon knocked down half of the rocks that were there making up the wall. The students clapped. Lucy stayed still. Simon looked at his hands and at the only half damaged wall. “I’m not at 100%,” he said. 

Grace gave him a sympathetic smile and said, "Next time, I'm sure.” She patted him on the back and slapped playfully at his hair, causing him to blush, then she gathered up her own winds to set the boulders back up for the next round of practice. But first, she had a lesson to teach them all about ability and accountability. Simon saw the students sitting down in front of her, in the dirt as she lectured, barefoot, in front of them and he sat down too, next to Lucy, who just gave him a look, which he returned. They did not care for each other, but they turned away at the same time to give their attention back to Grace. 

[neshatriumphs]

III. A Blood Oath

Grace was adorned in many plants and flowers. They were covering her body, covering her hair. Only her face was to be seen as she walked through the woods, grounding her energy with the earth beneath her toes. Lucy was there, armed and alert for any type of disturbance. This was the last day of Grace’s recovery process and this was her last ritual. She would bathe in the lagoon and let the flowers and herbs complete her healing. Lucy was to keep watch. Grace danced around in the water, practiced a little floral related magic and some water, twirling her fingers to make a water dome over her head, then collapse it onto herself with a huge splash. 

Lucy collected her, covering her in the flowing purple dress that she had brought along for after the bath. Grace swirled the winds around her to dry herself then reached for her bag from Lucy. Before she could reapply her mark, they heard something.

Grace collected Lucy in one arm and levitated them above the trees, until she saw the source of the noise. It was a man… She lowered them a little ways away, behind some bushes, and studied him. She didn’t recognize him, so he either was not from here, wandering through, or worse… He was from the Conductor. 

The blond had what appeared to be either red dirt or an inexplicable amount of blood in his long hair and when he reached the lagoon, he began to drink with both of his hands cupped. He splashed his face, sputtered and wiped off the flowers she left behind. He picked up one in the palm of his hand and suddenly looked around him, suspiciously. Lucy ducked, but Grace knew that she had them both cloaked, so she didn’t move. He sighed, and flung the flower into the dirt, where he then proceeded to toss his equipment and clothes. Grace gasped. Lucy covered her eye that wasn’t in an eye patch. “We should go,” she suggested. “This boy is just taking a bath, like you were.”

“That’s no boy, Lucy,” Grace said in a stern voice, but she practically whimpered, “It’s a man!” 

Lucy uncovered her eye just to look at Grace with disgust. “Careful Princess, you’ll rust your chastity belt.”

“Lucy!” Grace hissed. They both paused and looked back at the man, Lucy reflexively covered her face again and Grace softly said, “I don’t know him, so we’ll have to figure out who he is. If he’s a wanderer, he should have proof of safe passage from one of the Witches of the One. If he’s new, he should have a coven to account for him. If not… He might be…” He stepped beneath the waterfall and as the dirt began to clear from his pale skin, they saw the runes.

“A conductor,” they both said. Lucy readied her weapon. “He’s unsuspecting. Now is the time to attack.”

“If it isn’t a trap. We don’t know his level of magic, Lucy. I can’t get a reading of him with all of those runes. I need longer to assess him. Go back to the fortress and alert the coven.”

“I can’t leave you here with this heretic!”

“It’s an order, Lucy! I’m fully recovered. I’ll be fine. Don’t take too long.”

Lucy groaned, but made a few movements to help herself summon a flock of birds to fly her to the fortress. Grace watched the man, suspiciously now, but… she wasn’t blind. He was very well put together. He exercised or did some type of body maintaining fake magic. He had one of those interesting little “V”s that she had seen on the pelvis of some of the shirtless warriors as they practiced in the courtyard - not frequently, but at least a couple of them had one. He also had a patch of blond hair on his sleek abdomen. One of her witches had called that a “happy trail,” then they all laughed when Grace asked why it was called that. She guessed that was because of where it led to. She tried to make sure she DIDN’T look at that. She was here for surveillance, not… salaciousness! 

She shifted a little, then leaned down to grab her sneakers from her bag, since she probably had time, while he was showering. The pink and purple shoes were tied and she clicked on her bag to her body and stood, only to be face to face with a naked stranger. She ALMOST yelped, but fortunately, her reflexes were quick and she’d covered her mouth instead. He was peering and reached out a hand, almost about to touch her face, but she did a back bend to avoid his notice. He summoned underwear, thank goodness, but still looked very leery as he stared there, knowing someone or something was present, even though she couldn’t be seen at the moment. When he was dressed, he held his palms in front of himself and his runes and eyes began to glow green. Grace stepped back, ready to try to levitate, when he said, “There you are!” Reached out and grabbed what he could only see as a sparkling green woman with bouncy locs of hair.

She laughed, “You got me. Unhand, please.” She shook him off of her gloved arms and groaned, “How are you seeing me? My cloaking technique is the purest and most sophisticated in this realm. I should literally look like part of the ecosystem right now.”

“You hid in the least magic portion of this place. Nothing right here is magic, except for you.”

She tilted her head and looked around her, then back at him, “You… can see magic.”

He traced a rune on his neck and said, “A gift from the Conductor.” Now, she frowned and he smirked, “I know that you realized I am one of theirs, just like I realize the one you belong to.” His facial expression went cold and his glowing stopped. She made herself visible and she noticed that he blushed whenever he saw her face. “Oh!” He said, then frowned.

“What?”

“You were hiding yourself, so I just presumed that you’d be ugly. I guess you were hiding yourself because you’re too pretty?” 

She gushed, trying not to smile too big, but flattery was her love language and he was very attractive. VERY. ATTRACTIVE. So, she failed and her smile spread like butter. “You’re very pretty, too!”

He glared. “I’m not pretty! I’m a man. A rugged, handsome, male person. Not pretty. Powerful.”

Now, her smile faded into a smirk and her brown eyes were challenging. “Well, I’m pretty AND powerful.”

“There is only one witch in your entire camp that could potentially face off with my skill level, and that’s your little princess,” he said. “The Conductor has told me about your people.”

“My people rarely bother to talk about your kind, but I do hear mumbling whenever I’m among the commoners. They care.” she shrugged her shoulders and began to walk away. 

He narrowed his eyes and followed her, “You think it’s safe to turn your back to a proclaimed practitioner of the Conductor’s magic?”

“Yep!” She answered, making the P sound loud when she did. He was infuriated by the sheer audacity of this One witch! But the purple dress swished in the wind, almost like there were fairies dancing with her and holding on to it and she smelled like flowers and fruit and looked like a religious vision, so his words of protest caught in his throat. But, he had made contact with his target, so, he at least had that going for him. Amelia never mentioned that she might be in a gown with splits up to her thighs… powerful, graceful thighs that looked both incredibly strong and unbelievably soft. 

“You’ve got some kind of enchantment on me,” he said. She stopped and looked at him. “You’re making me attracted to you with magic to keep yourself safe!”

“I don’t know whether to be insulted that you think that I would NEED to do that, or honored that you think I’m so attractive it can’t be your real feelings. I’m right there in the middle at this moment, but leaning towards being insulted.” He grabbed her wrist and turned her around, but whenever she turned, a wave of power rang out and knocked him onto his back, several feet away. She gasped and covered her mouth, “Oh my One! Are you okay?” She asked. “That’s my mother’s magic. I’ve got a barrier that sends out a bit of a magic shock wave when someone intends to harm me.” She leaned over him and smiled, “So, don’t try me again, okay?” She held out her gloved hand to help him up and he begrudgingly allowed her to. 

“How did your mother make something so potent to guard you?”

“It’s natural magic, so it’s just potent on it's own. We don’t need to enhance with runes or talismans. We use the magic that’s already present and we attach it to what we have inside. My mother weaved this protective spell with her love for me and it takes the natural emotion of my aggressor and translates that to an attack, to bounce back on them.”

“What.”

“My mom didn’t make the attack potent. Your negativity did. You’re a very angry person, Fake Witch. Your aura feels disturbing.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I was gonna call you Happy Trail, but that seemed inappropriate,” she giggled.

“Simon.”

“Simon What?”

“Simon... Says,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Simon Sais,” she thought she repeated. “Never heard that name before. Are you one of the orphans the Conductor collects for her fake magic school?”

“She!” He fumed, then took a deep breath. “She saved my life and gave me a chance when the Witches of the One would have let me die an infant in my mother’s arms.”

“That doesn’t sound like us,” Grace said. “I’ll bet I’m the first Witch of the One that you’ve ever even met!” He was frustrated, but she was right. It didn’t matter. Amelia had told him about how his mother’s only wish was that he never trust the witches that refused to help her baby boy grow into a man. She died shortly after he was given to Amelia to be rescued.

“I’ve studied them my entire life,” he said. That much was true. He learned about how they hide, who they ally with, their familiars and wanderers, and the spaces that were conduits for their magic - places where they became more powerful. He spent every waking moment of his life taking out as many of them as he could, and this one would be a challenge, but Amelia wouldn’t have sent him if she didn’t fully believe that he was ready.

.

“So… someone broke MY spell? How is that possible? You’re the only person in the world with more runes than me!”

“I’ve told you before, the One witches don’t use runes, they use surroundings and internal magic. Did you leave anything behind that she could have used?”

“No! I know what I’m doing, Amelia! I’ve never made a mistake before!”

Samantha walked up, “I believe, that perhaps… it was my doing, Simon.” The cat lowered her face and admitted, “I left a small print, as a dedication in a moment of weakness and sentiment. I’m sorry..” 

Amelia rushed towards her, ready to kill her, but Simon stepped in front of the woman. “What are you doing? She said that she was sorry.”

“She IS sorry. Worthless. A useless old remnant of a dead bloodline!”

“My loyalty is to Simon. My apology was for him,” Samantha said. 

Simon collected her and cradled her to his chest. “She made a simple mistake. The first one ever in years. You can’t be mad at her for that.”

“I can and I am. Thanks to her, our power has been challenged, Simon. That princess is going to think that she can counter every attack that we send her way and what if she’s right? What if your fondness for this trifle of a creature makes you weak?”

“Amelia, you’re upset. Samantha and I will give you some space.” Samantha smiled at Amelia as Simon walked away, holding her protectively. “You really put me in a bad place, Samantha.”

“In a way, I put you in a good place.”

“In what way?” he asked, extremely annoyed.

“Amelia is livid. She won’t send for you for days. You can work on your little figures.” She padded her feet onto his chest and he sighed.

“This isn’t funny, Samantha. My record is in jeopardy. Amelia is doubting me now!” He put the cat down and shook his head, “Retire to my chambers. I’m going to figure out what I can do to make this right.” Samantha sighed and reluctantly followed her master’s instructions.

Amelia was looking into an orb, her eyes and runes glowing green and her hair blowing in the wind. He was going to step back out, but her demonic voice called, “Stay. You have work to do.”

Simon came to her and kneeled, “I am your soldier, Conductor. What work do you give me?”

“I entrust you to kill the one that they hail as the Heiress, the Princess who has been ordained to destroy you.” His head snapped upwards at the green smoke, forming a girl, with a mask on that was white, with a black line around it and two circular gems.

“Destroy me?”

“Your destinies are intertwined. If you don’t kill her, she will be the cause of your downfall.”

He stood up and looked at the smoke image. “I will kill her, then!”

“She’s no typical witch. She’s one of their most powerful, and she has magic that is specific to you.”

“How is that possible?”

“You must get her to trust you, to weaken her, and kill her when she has let her guard down.”

“I have to… to get to know her? Conductor…”

“Or you will be destroyed.” He sighed and nodded. The smoke poofed away, the glowing stopped and Amelia leaned onto the basin the orb was in, catching her breath. Her voice was back to normal, as she was no longer channeling the Conductor’s magic. “Simon… She will use anything that she can to make YOU the weak one. You must get close to her, but don’t let her get close to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Simon… if you’re found out, it could endanger this institute, and everything we’ve built. That girl is a poison, a rot. You can’t let her near us.”

“I won’t let her destroy what we’ve built.” 

“I need you to take a blood oath.”

“You really think that she’s that powerful? That she’ll be able to woo me so deeply that you need to swear on my life that I’ll take hers?”

“I need you to know how important this mission is.”

He nodded and raised his fist into the air, “On the duty and honor of my own blood, I will spill the blood of my enemy and take her life.” Amelia reached for her wand and drew a rune beneath his armpit to signify the oath that he was making. 

“Bathe yourself in the blood of our enemies, and cleanse it off in their own waters.” He nodded.

.

Presently, next to the untrustworthy princess with her mother’s love repellent and her… hips swaying like a dancer as she walked, he wouldn’t forget what Amelia told him, and he couldn’t fail. Not only did the future of all of the Conductor’s followers depend on it, but he had sworn on his life to kill her. Maybe that spell was why he needed to get her to trust him? Sometimes, Amelia didn’t seem to get the full grasp of her visions… He froze. 

There was a creature here. He could sense it. The witch had continued marching straight ahead, cheerfully and carefree, but he knew they weren’t alone. Simon moved to activate his sight, but before he could something large and black slapped him to the ground and hovered over him. A. GOHM. 

The story was that if you met one, you would know it, even though nobody seemed to be able to tell you what they looked like. His? It looked like a hideous roach with tentacles in it’s mouth on a dog’s body and it was doing what they were known to do, draining the magic right out of wizards… He heard something that sounded like a loud screeching noise before a blinding light shined and the gohm cowered and rushed away. 

Simon could hardly breath and checked his runes and his body. He was alive. He was safe. He saw the princess, reaching out to help him up again. “Wow! Cannot leave you by yourself for two seconds!” 

He stared at her hand, confused. “You… you saved me.”

She placed her hands on her hips and laughed, “What? Do you fake magic folk let visitors die on your soil when your most dangerous beasts come to attack?” 

He pulled himself up from the ground and said, “If our most dangerous beasts attack, there’s nothing that we could do to help.”

She shook her head, “that’s why i don’t trust fake magic. That little guy was about to drain you dry and turn you to dust. You’re so rich with magic, he’d probably explode from gorging himself. With natural magic, all you gotta do is show him that you’ve got too much to handle and they run… Now… if you didn’t have enough, that’d be a different story.”

“How did you show him your magic? How can anybody tell your levels without seeing your runes?”

“You know how you can see magic with your little fake trick or whatever?”

“It’s real. I can actually USE the magic!”

“Okay. That was an opinion. The point is that I can move it. And I don’t have to see it. I just gather everything around me to myself and HE can sense it. 

“How did you glow all white?”

She laughed and asked, “What?”

“You were glowing white…”

“Maybe you were seeing things because you were getting ghom sucked. Come on… We’ll get you taken care of at my place. Lucy’s got the coven on standby already.”

[neshatriumphs]

XI. Why Do We Need a Queen?

The journey back to the realms of the One was harsh. The Queen decided that they needed to go without magic. With the staff, Amelia would be able to detect the moment magic like theirs was used in the realms. Grace was fairly used to that, as she generally had to sneak out and about without hers in order to avoid being caught by her mother. Simon and the Queen were not nearly as comfortable with it, but both as determined, as he had vengeance to inflict and she had a Kingdom to recover. Grace had a father to send off respectfully and a mother to avoid speaking to. If she had just BEEN there, she could have saved him! She didn’t know any of the details, but she was sure of that much.

It would take a few days. Simon insisted that they didn’t have that long. Amelia would devastate the realms of the One within hours. The Queen was confident that she wouldn’t be as successful in an attack against the witches of the One as she had been sneaking up on the communities of denizens. And even though she was healed from her sickness, she was still not as young as the two of them and not as fueled as Grace, who kept getting out of their range, refusing to wait as her mother slowed them down and Simon tried to be sure that they didn’t just leave her behind…

Three long days and cold nights later, they were back… and Amelia had been busy. 

Firstly, the King’s body was impaled outside of the castle, along with other warriors. There was a wall of bodies around them. It was a monument and a warning. Grace immediately brought him down. She wouldn’t be able to bring him back to life, but she could make him more presentable, for a goodbye. Simon shuffled his feet and looked at the Queen. She refused to look at her husband. He was gone and there was nothing that they could do about it now, but there was something that they could do about the Conductor who had taken over the mothership. The Queen outstretched her arms and winds began to blow. Faithful fighters began to appear. Among them, Lucy. 

Grace rushed to collect her into a hug. The girl was filthy and caked in blood. Her eye patch was gone and her hair was pulled up into a mini ponytail. “Are you okay?”

She kneeled in front of the Queen and began to report. Apparently, while they were gone, everyone looked to Lucy for leadership. She was the most familiar person that they knew of who was close to the palace. They accepted her as their guide through this perilous event and she always had a very detailed and accurate report of everything. Her eyes were everywhere. The Queen nodded her head and then spoke with them about the plans that she and Simon had made. 

Grace spoke up, as well, “Umm… I must have been out of it whenever these plans were made… but what makes you think that you can take this woman on? She has your staff because you couldn’t fight in the first place.”

“She has my staff because I let her get close enough to touch me, which happened because I was sick. Which, thanks to you, I no longer am, and thanks to experience, I won’t make that mistake again.”

“It has to be Simon,” Grace said. “The oracle said…”

The Queen wondered, “Yes?”

“She said that the Conductor messed up the magic ecosystem and it would take a very powerful conductor to restore the balance.”

“That could mean a number of things,” The Queen complained. They thought for a moment. “It could mean that he is meant to defeat her. But, it could also mean that he is meant to rule this kingdom. It can even mean that he is meant to father a savior. That’s a very vague and unhelpful prophecy, Grace!” 

“Aren’t they usually?” Simon asked.

“Yes!” The Queen agreed. 

“If I may,” Lucy offered. They all turned to look at her. “The title The Conductor was not one that Amelia took for herself. It was how she was referred to whenever they didn’t know her identity, only that she had been draining power from the realms. In the first writings about her crimes against the One, the witches wrote that a conductor was draining energy without replenishment. That was referring to a tool. They thought perhaps an entity, but presumed most likely a tool was used. It is my judgement that the prophecy given to Our Princess was not about a person, but about a tool. Whatever type of tool that the Conductor uses to drain the magic.”

Simon nodded, “We collect it into crystal spheres. We can’t just drain magic and take it into ourselves. We collect it and then we’re able to control it with possession of the sphere and the guidance of our runes.”

“So… We need a sphere to take her magic away from her?” Grace wondered.

Lucy blushed, “It was only a thought. I know less than everyone here.”

“Nonsense. You actually READ the royal books, and you REMEMBERED something very helpful!” Grace hugged her again. “Simon, where can we find one of those spheres?”

He shook his head, “Amelia usually provided them to me, but I always thought that they were somewhere in her cave. 

The Queen ordered, “Simon! Show Lucy where the cave is…” She kneeled to be at Lucy’s level, for the first time ever, “Lucy… Find a sphere and immediately bring it to me in the Queen’s hidden chambers.”

“Yes, My Queen!” Lucy said louder than she intended. The Queen had never called her by name before. Simon looked at Grace. “She’ll be fine. She’s with me. I won’t let anything happen to her. It’s my top priority.” Grace folded her arms. She wished that it had been a priority to save her father. 

Still, whenever Simon reached for her, she melted against him. She hadn’t really been that warm or gentle with him these past few days, stuck in her own mind and her deep pain. He kissed her on the forehead and said something, some type of chant. She felt something tickle her wrist and she looked down to see some type of bracelet… tattooed on her. “It isn’t permanent. Just something to let you know I’m alright.”

“And when it fades?”

“That means I’m dead.” 

She frowned. She didn’t even want to think about that. But, she noticed that he had one too. “Is that mine?” He nodded. She threw her arms tightly around him and whispered, “If you don’t come back, I don’t know how I’ll keep going!”

“I’m always with you. We’re a team.”

Lucy tugged Simon’s cloak and the two of them stepped off and vanished together. 

Grace looked around and saw the Queen avoiding looking at her. “I’m going to take Daddy’s body, so that we can grant him a proper sending off. The rest, we will do once we’ve succeeded. But, I’m not going to let Our King… my father… just rot here.” The Queen nodded once. “What are the Queen’s hidden chambers?”

“I’m unable to say. There could be spies. But, if you had read the royal books, you would know, and since Lucy apparently has, she knows.” They brought the King’s body some place that Grace wasn’t familiar with. It appeared to be a mausoleum of sorts. There were statues of kings and queens, familiars and pets… They cleaned him up themselves, dressed him in clothes that the Queen summoned, wrapped him in the fabrics of buried royalty, and performed the usual ritual. Grace had heard that the whole kingdom would be present whenever this day came. That they would present gifts, magic, blessings, and that everyone would give him all of their joy and love, and spend days mourning without them. Whenever joy and love returned to their hearts, it would be their sign that the king was at peace and the kingdom was ready to live without him…

But, it was just the two of them, in an empty place made for the decaying shell that a once beautiful and brave man resided in. 

Once he was in the coffin, the Queen shut it and the ground swallowed it and erected a statue in its place. So, that was how it happened. “How are you okay? Did you even love him?” Grace wondered. She hadn’t seen her mother shed a tear. She hadn’t seen her so much as shiver once. She placed a hand on her shoulder with the intent of turning her around and was hit with a flood of loneliness and grief. She hissed and removed her hand. She noticed that she didn’t have her gloves… When had she taken them off? 

The Queen still didn’t react to the emotions that Grace had just felt inside of her. Instead, she said, “You’d better get your gloves back on. You can’t have everyone’s ailments distracting you from the mission. Our Kingdom is relying on us to protect them and save them from this. Your father trusted me to protect his kingdom. He gave his life to ensure that I would be here to do it.”

“I… I don’t want to have to do that. Why do we have kings and queens? Why can’t we have… something else? Someone who WANTS to do these things?”

“Because nobody would take this job if they had the choice.”

“Well… Why do we need a queen?”

“Grace, we have been without a Queen for three days, and Amelia has taken over and killed our people. There will always be forces of evil, powers of destruction, enemies who seek to harm us and our people. We need a queen to ensure their protection.”

“Why can’t the people protect themselves?” Grace asked, sobbing. “Why did Daddy have to die for you or anybody else? Why couldn’t HE choose?”

“He DID choose!” The Queen said, finally losing track of a few tears. She wiped them away and pretended that they had never been. “And I am choosing to do my duty and protect our kingdom...” Lucy appeared, holding a sphere in her hand. The Queen smiled and accepted it. “And now, the plan is back in action.”

“Where is Simon?” Grace asked Lucy. 

“He didn’t get the invitation, so he said to meet him at the Mothership.”

Grace gasped. “He went after her alone? Did he have a sphere?” Lucy shook her head. Grace looked at her mother, “We’re raised that the Queen protects the kingdom. Simon was raised that the people protect the Queen…” They rushed to the Mothership, where Simon was waiting outside, his green eyes and runes glowing and staring at the barrier. Grace let out a sigh of relief and rushed to hug him. 

He stopped glowing and gave her a half smile. “I couldn’t have been gone that long...” 

The Queen circled her hand around the top of the sphere, as she held it in her palm. Amelia had definitely reinforced a barrier of her own, but the sphere absorbed the power in it and the crew was able to get inside. 

Simon was right at the Queen’s side when he heard a small noise and turned to see Lucy vanish through a door. He gasped and said, “Lucy!” to which Grace turned her head too, and no sooner than she realized that Lucy had disappeared, than a door appeared and sucked her through it too, causing a far more dramatic and painful yell from Simon. “GRACE!” He barely had a moment to process seeing her vanish before yet another door appeared and he felt himself being sucked through it..

.

Amelia cursed this place! Where was that throne??? She had been wandering for days, and the only path that she ever really seemed to find was the one that led outside of the Mothership. The One must have been playing tricks. But, she would show him. She was longsuffering and very persistent. The mazes and challenges in this cavern were no match for her sheer will to take all power for herself and then, MAYBE THEN, she could find a way to bring Alrick back. She had taken the king’s body out and given instructions to her army. They were to have everyone line up and offer their magic, in exchange for their lives. All who refused would be killed and laid to rest at the king’s feet.

She went back into this place, only to find that this time, it looked different on the inside. She tried to specify where the magic was, but the bloody staff would try to show her all magic, used everywhere! She wasn’t in tune with it yet, or it's magic purposefully thwarted her. She wasn’t going to let it go, though. Her visions had shown her that the ruler of this staff would stop her heart with it. 

Visions were tricky business. You could only see a part of a picture, a series of pictures, or a moment in time. You had to receive it from a place of organic magic - the spirit of a dead witch, the heirloom of a seer, or the projection of a destiny from someone’s aura.

That was how she knew she needed to take Simon. She was given all of these things through him. He was magic! His small body, in trying to fight off illness was manifesting magic, without his knowledge. She saw part of a picture: him holding hands with a little brown girl. She saw a series of pictures: Them together, growing up, growing close, falling in love. She saw the projection of his aura: Him wearing a crown and her being stripped of all of her power…

But, if she could twist fate. If she could recalibrate his destiny, she would be able to change that unfortunate future. She thought about killing him. Just telling his mother, “This child will die, then magically snuffing the life out of him. But, there was something about him that stopped her. Perhaps it was magic that she didn’t know of. Maybe there was protection over him. But, she didn’t kill him. She wasn’t even sure if she healed him. But, after her ritual, he wasn’t sick anymore, and he… reminded her of Alrick. She came to think of him like she did Alrick… no, not like he was her person, but a tiny person of hers. It would be a stretch to say that she felt like his mother, or like he was Alrick’s child, but she used a portion of Alrick’s remains in her healing spell, and the first rune, the one that was meant to seal the magic that would keep Simon healthy… it resembled Alrick’s birthmark. So… she did have some type of attachment to him for a time. 

He cried a lot. It was annoying. She was thankful when the cat showed up. “I believe that you have my ward.” She had seen the rune and hissed at Amelia, became a person and tried to leave with him… but the boy began to cry whenever she tried to take him away from Amelia. His attachment had already begun. Samantha dared not to honor it, but she felt compelled. It was a true attachment that Simon had made with Amelia. Samantha would have to… just stay with him, until he no longer wanted Amelia.

That day didn’t come soon enough. “And why the bloody hell am I thinking about that anyway?”

“Because that boy loved you more than himself and you betrayed him. Alrick would be disgusted at what you’ve become,” a voice that sounded like hers said. She turned and saw her own reflection in a clear waterfall that read like a mirror. “You want to bring him back, but you wouldn’t be the woman he left behind. He wouldn’t want to come back to you. You’re a monster. You’re a fiend. You’re worse than the people who killed him. You’ve done terrible things to all forms of life, even to children, even to a boy who would have given his life for you, and you’ve done it in Alrick’s name… He would curse himself if he knew that teaching you magic would lead to this.”

“Shut UP!” Amelia lunged and stabbed the waterfall to rid herself of her pesky reflection. “Magic cunt.” She marched away, angrily. “Alrick saw the best in me. Whenever nobody else did. He was kind and loving and supportive. They killed him for being different! They didn’t care that he was kind, because he broke their stupid laws. He didn’t KNOW! He thought that being able to access and conduct magic meant that he was entitled to it. He thought that if not, magic would not have worked and for exposing the lie that only magical born people could use magic, they murdered him and pretended it was an accident. Brought me his body and an apology. A silly excuse. He fell off of a horse and it trampled him… He wouldn’t have fallen had he not been detained in the first place!” 

“Well, what about Simon? What did he do to make you hate him?” Another voice said. It wasn’t as familiar as her own, but she heard it through the pendant, several times. She turned to see the Princess. But, she was the way that she had seen her in the vision. She was adorned in purple and gold, with a high headdress and jewelry covering her flesh. “You raised him, then you sent him to die.”

“I sent him to kill YOU!” 

“Why? Why did Simon have to kill this princess?”

“SHE WAS GOING TO TAKE HIM AWAY FROM ME!” The Grace-being stood tall as Amelia came towards her. “Some innocent, by chance meeting in the enchanted forest. He would have seen her and fallen instantly. He would have flirted with her. He would have started changing his ways from being around her. He would have begun lying to me to get back to see her. He would have convinced her to run away with him. From her throne. And from me.”

“And if you couldn’t have him, nobody could?”

“No matter what, I couldn’t stop their destinies from being intertwined. So, I tried to make him sever that entanglement. He owed me faithfulness. He owed me his life! I saved him! I made him who he is.”

The being turned into a version of Amelia and she shrugged, “But, he’s rubbish, thanks to you, isn’t he?” Amelia roared and swung the staff to dissipate the haunting. “I’m not leaving here, no matter WHAT YOU DO!” She screamed to whomever was responsible for the magic making her have to look inside and at herself. The scenery of the portion of the cavern she was in changed colors and arrangement. She fumed and continued in the direction she thought that she was going in…

Lucy whimpered when she lost the others. Where were they? Why was she alone? “Grace?” she called. She saw lights up ahead and she went to check on them. It was a crowded event, with a stage of performers, singing and dancing. 

“Lucy!” Someone whispered loudly and waved her over. 

“Mommy?” She wondered and went over. The woman collected her in her lap, kissed her on the cheek and said, “This is a great show, Dear. Just sit here and watch it with me and I’ll protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” Lucy wondered. She felt like there was definitely something here that was dangerous, something she was supposed to be helping to fight… Helping who though? How did she get here? Wasn’t her Mommy gone somewhere?

“Shhhh. Just enjoy the show, Baby Bird.” The woman kissed her on her left eye and Lucy touched her face. She had two eyes! Of course she did. Everyone had two eyes… Of course she did. 

“When I look at you, I see me,” the music was singing. Lucy settled into her mother's lap and smiled at the show that she was watching.

.

“Lucy!”  

“GRACE!” 

After the noise of the portals taking the children in her care away stopped, The Queen sighed and said, “They’re safe. Now, let me at the bitch that killed my husband…”

[neshatriumphs]

II. She Had a Dynasty

Grace was always pampered. She was catered to, given gifts and practiced her magic with the most proficient of practitioners. She was regarded as the brightest young witch in this land, considered the heiress to an empire built upon magic - the Order of the One. The One was considered to be where all magic came from, where all magic returned to, where all magic flourished and died. Those who believed in the One believed that while it was not of this world, it was in charge of this world. The witches of the One believed that all real magic came from a merging of the universe and what's inside of us. Nature pulls out what it needs to complete a movement of magic.

Fake Magic manipulates nature and disregards the unity between mortality and spirit.  Fake Magic was creating a False Conductor, a Mock One, as a conduit for magic, stealing it from where it belonged and using it without being granted this privilege by the One...

Grace wasn’t really that into it, but as heiress and leader of all of the children of the One, she had to push the principles onto her flock and protect her properties. 

Another cavern had been hit. She frowned when she reached the site. “How does he keep doing this?” She wondered. “Spells this powerful, on fake magic?” She folded her arms and looked to her right hand, Lucy. 

Lucy frowned and said, “They steal enough natural magic that they’re beginning to grow stronger than us.”

“No! I refuse to believe that,” Grace said. She wasn’t an avid believer in the One, despite her position, but she was very confident that there wasn’t another witch as strong as her, especially not a fake one. “Stand back Lucy.” The smaller girl not only stood back but gestured for the other children with Grace to do so, as well. She didn’t realize what Grace was doing until she did it. 

Grace cut her own hands with her fingernails, put both of her hands onto the rubble, and sought out any portion of magic that may have been left behind. Anything… She noticed a paw print in blood on the stones. Something magic and still living left it there. She stooped and touched it, a light shone brightly from the spot, the pile began to rumble and Grace yelled, “Take cover!” They ran as the heap shook with the earth and Grace covered the others as the fallen rocks erupted and the blood sputtered up like a volcano and rained upon the nearby areas. 

Grace was tired, but she got up to go collect the fallen familiars that had been entrusted to this place. Her parents would be furious that she challenged a curse on her own, but she would have to remind them that not only had she challenged it… she defeated it. 

When the children cleared out the fairies and the mermaids, properly disposing of their bodies, Grace used the last of her energy to cleanse the grounds of their blood. 

“But… the Conductor’s cult will just come back and take this magic, too,” Lucy said, trying to give Grace some water. 

“You’re probably right. Create a protection spell until we can move in more denizens to guard it. Next time, we’ll place warriors here.” Lucy nodded and dug her hands into the ground, knowing that her magic was nearly as powerful as it needed to be to protect this place and hoping that they could get warriors here before those wizards came back. As a lit up shimmering green fence surrounded the remains, she smiled, proud of her work, then guided the weakened witch back to their own palace. 

.

Oh boy… were the Monroe Witches PISSED at Grace for her “scheme.” You’d think they’d be proud and delighted that she took back what was theirs from magic bandits, but noooooo… Danger, energy, usurping, etc… She was super tired and just wanted to go bath in the waterfalls. She yawned. “Yawning? Now, you’re yawning? She’s probably rendered her magic useless! How can she be tired at this time of day?” Her mother asked. She called out the names of numerous caretakers, giving them very critical instructions to replenish her daughter’s energy and her magic, and offerings to bring to the fortress of the One, on her behalf. 

Grace’s father sat next to her and asked, “How did it feel? To break the curse?”

Grace smiled deviously and she and her father secretly locked pinkies while her mother was stressing about her recovery. “It felt like I was meant to do it.” 

They dropped their hands and looked at the woman, with her hands on her hips, staring at them. “Don’t encourage her. She could have been killed. Then what would we have done?” She sat next to Grace, on the other side of her bed. “We know that you want to be a hero, but that’s not your destiny, Grace. You are meant to be a queen, preordained by the One. Your magic is special, elite, and pure. I hate that others were murdered, but it isn’t your job to make that right. You were only supposed to go and give your blessing to the memory of the fallen.”

“Their blood was just pouring out of the place. He put them in an endless cycle of death. How could I call myself a leader among us and just leave them there with some gifts?”

“The hardest part of this job is the fact that you can probably do other ones, but you shouldn’t, because your job is too important.”

“My job is to hold a title,” she complained.

“A very prestigious title that ONLY a member of our bloodline can! If something happens to you, the Monroe family dies.”

“I have cousins…”

“They are not set for the throne! Let THEM go and break curses, then!” Her mother got up, extremely angry. “Guardians, handle this, and report to me if she dares try to leave before her recovery process is complete!” She stopped at the door, shook her head and said, “Grace… Just… If for nothing else, take care of yourself for me.”

“Yes, Mom.” She thought she saw the woman start to cry before she left her sight. 

Her father sighed and cupped her chin, “She was raised to be my wife, to bear an heir, and to be the next queen. We never found a worthy witch child to make your king, and we lost the one that the prophets believed to be him… She feels like she’s done something wrong, that you aren’t a son, that you aren’t betrothed, that you aren’t a proper princess… Just… don’t think that any of it is your fault. She ultimately blames herself.”

“I don’t think any of it is my fault. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with me being who I am. I don’t think I’d be a better witch or a better ruler if I had some husband or some son, either! Dad, I’m a powerful witch! I’ve got everything needed to protect and fight and serve inside of me! Why do I have to preserve myself just to find the right boy to do those things for us?”

“It’s the way that we do things, Grace. It has kept us in harmony with the universe for many generations. The one time that there isn’t is the time that this wizard from the Conductor has been able to hit us several times over the past few years can’t be a coincidence.”

“Yes it can! Or, it can be a sign that I’m supposed to be out there fighting his ass instead of teaching little kids light show tricks!”

“Hey! Those tricks are exquisite magic!” He gave her a playful smile. “We don’t want you fighting because we never want to see you hurt. Nothing more, nothing less. Even if you had a husband and a son, I would never want you out there trying to fight this wizard. He slayed over a hundred denizens this week. You wouldn’t matter to him more than a mosquito that landed on his arm. But you, Grace. You have a gentle heart. This is most likely a kill or be killed type of fight. You are not a killer, so you do not belong in that fight.”

“I haven’t killed anyone, but to protect our people, our familiars, I would do anything, Dad.”

“I wouldn’t want you to.” He kissed her on the forehead and left her to her caretakers. “Now, I’ve gotta go stop your mother from killing someone in a rage.” 

She smiled a little, then climbed out of bed. They were going to put her through a big process to heal, but the proud smile returned to her face. They didn’t know it yet, but she could do what needed to be done, if she had to, and she was confident that she was stronger than her enemy.