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purlturtle · 3 years

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Of Knights and Monsters

For @hgandmyka, for the @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange 2021/22. Hope you enjoy it! The prompt I went with was:

Myka and Helena are assigned to snag bag and tag a dungeons and dragons related artifact that puts them in an alternate high fantasy universe. (Myka’s got to have a sword!)

Sneak peek:

“What the hell?” [Myka] looked down at herself, alarmed by the sudden clanging noise her legs had made on the last step. She was clad in armor. Full, plate, shining armor. She looked at Helena in alarm, and saw that Helena’s clothes had changed too – but what stopped her even more than that was- “What happened to your ears?” Helena’s hand came up to touch her ear and twitched in surprise at what it encountered. Helena frowned as her fingers explored it. “Vulcan?” she offered finally. Myka took in Helena’s attire: soft boots, woolen pants, a belted tunic of fine linen, a felt cloak. The tesla had turned into a dagger at her side. Add that to the plate armor she herself was in… “An elf, I think.”

Read it on AO3!

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/F Fandom: Warehouse 13 Relationship: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells Characters: Myka Bering, Helena "H. G." Wells, Claudia Donovan, OC - Character Additional Tags: dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Gift Exchange, Bering and Wells Gift Exchange

Full disclosure: I'm not a DnD player. I've played some RPGs, but never a DnD one. Still, I did my best to do my research and not mess up too badly. If I did, by all means yell at me in the comments; also feel free to nerd out about these two's stats and alignments and all that!

Or read it under the readmore:

It was a truly glorious day – the sky was blue as blue could be, with only a few poufy clouds bumbling across it like sheep on a really wide, really blue meadow. The road was straight and mostly free of cars, and the artifact that Myka and Helena had been sent to retrieve had been an easy snag. Myka was humming along to the song on the radio, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.

But Helena was quiet, frowning to herself, had been ever since they started out again after lunch.

And Myka had learned not to dismiss gut feelings, even if they weren’t Pete’s vibes. “Something wrong?” she asked finally.

Helena looked over, startled, and weighed her head. “I’m not certa-” she began hesitantly, but then she winced, as if in pain. “Artifact,” she pressed out. “Somewhere in the vicinity.”

Myka blinked, but her hand was already at her ear, activating Claudia’s newest invention: Farnsworth earpieces. “Bering to Warehouse, do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” Claudia’s voice came back. “What’s up?”

“Claud, are there any pings near our location?”

“Gimme a sec,” Claudia said, her keyboard clicking in the background. “Hell yeah, the GPS signal in those babies is nice and strong; got a lock on you already. Hang on while I check… Uh, nope,” Claudia said after a moment, “nothing nearby.”

“Can you look into other incidents?” Myka insisted. In the passenger seat, Helena nodded too – thanks to her own earpiece, she’d heard Claudia’s words as well. “Further back in time, too?” Myka put on the turn signal to take the upcoming exit; Helena gave her a thumbs up and a wan but grateful smile.

“There’s a missing person report one county over,” Claudia said after another long moment of typing. “Filed nineteen eighty-eight. School truancy officer, disappeared right before the summer holidays. Hunter Gustavsson, single, fifty-four, army vet, no rap sheet, handful of citations for being drunk and disorderly though. Town of Fleming, turn right at the next intersection,” she added. “Looks like he was the kind of guy that got hot-potatoed from one job to the next; he’d been at that school for only three months before he vanished, after gigs at half the county’s other schools. Complaints piling up until he’s pushed elsewhere, that kind of thing.”

“Charming,” Helena grated.

“Yeah,” Claudia agreed, “doesn’t seem the kind of guy you’d spend a long time looking for. The missing person report was filed in June, sheriff sent out two deputies to look into it, they file a report a few days later saying they found nothing. House untouched, car found on someone else’s property, no signs of shenanigans-”

“That does sound like an artifact disappearance,” Myka said.

“Or murder and a shallow grave,” Claudia said with an almost audible shrug. “Maybe a parent finally snapped. Here’s the address where they found his car.” She rattled it off; Helena put it into the car’s GPS.

“On our way,” Myka confirmed. She cast a glance at Helena. “Right direction?” Helena nodded wordlessly; she was looking queasy now. Myka put her foot down on the accelerator, speeding up the car to as fast as was reasonable on a county road. “Claud, anything more you can give us?”

“Yep,” Claudia said, “that address? The place used to belong to a guy called Jack Johnson, and that guy’s kid Corey Johnson was who Gustavsson was looking for. Seems that Corey hadn’t been coming to school, according to the deputies’ notes. Huh.” Claudia paused, and Helena could hear more clacking of keys. “Okay, now here’s a curiosity for you,” Claudia went on. “Today the property is listed as belonging to Corey Fletcher Johnson by way of inheritance, with the date of transference of ownership, i.e. the death of Jack Johnson, six days before Gustavsson vanished.”

“So the artifact got his father too?” Helena asked. No wonder this pull on her insides felt as wrenching as it did. This was about a parent and a child and grief; she could feel it. She gritted her teeth; she still had a hard time facing loss, even vicarious loss. This would task her – but she owed it to father and son to get at the bottom of this.

“No, he died in a traffic accident,” she heard Claudia reply. “Sheriff himself told the kid on the day it happened; he wrote a note on the deputies’ report. Says Corey ‘took the news stoic, like a man.’” Claudia sighed. “Okay, so I got two theories,” she went on. “Either kid hated his dad’s guts and didn’t want to show relief, or he was so shocked by the news that he froze. Seeing as he was a no-show in school after that, my money is on option two; if he was relieved that his dad was dead, he probably would have kept his head down, done his best not to come to anyone’s attention. Doesn’t mesh with missing enough time in school to have someone sent after you.”

“I believe you’re right,” Helena said. “Call it a hunch, but I think the artifact we’re after is connected to grief.”

Myka bit the inside of her lip at that, but didn’t say anything just yet. Helena had been talking with a therapist for months now, two hours a week – but grief wasn’t so easily overcome. Myka knew a bit about that herself, after all. She reached out across the center console, and shot Helena a smile when her hand was grasped immediately.

“The sheriff’s notes also say,” Claudia was going on, “that his dad was his only living relative. Kid was twelve.” Her voice was quiet now, compassionate. “That’s gonna mess with you. And maybe, yeah, maybe it messes with you to the point where you create an artifact. Channel all that crap into something, you know?”

“Yeah,” Myka sighed. “I know.” She turned from the county road onto a dirt road. It was a pretty part of the country – dense forests lush with growth, nothing like the dry prairie of South Dakota.

“Hang on,” Claudia said suddenly, to the sound of more typing. “I think… it looks like the artifact got Corey too? He should have gone to middle school after that summer, and I’m not finding any evidence of him in any of the county’s middle schools. I’m gonna widen the search just to be sure, but my gut says whatever the artifact is got him too.”

Myka shook her head. “So two people go missing and no one really bothers to look, is that what you’re saying?”

“Sometimes people fall through the cracks,” Claudia said, with an almost audible shrug in her voice. “Especially if they’re loners. Gustavsson seems to have been one; maybe Corey was too. I mean his elementary school principal wouldn’t miss him, right, if he was supposed to go to a different school after summer anyway.” She scoffed. “When kids wanna vanish from the foster system, it’s easiest if school doesn’t expect you back, because no one cares to check whether or not you really did turn up at a different school. Same if foster parents wanna keep it to themselves that one of theirs has gone missing: kid scarpers in June, fosters keep collecting money till September,” she added darkly.

Helena sighed deeply. “That’s awful.”

“Yep,” Claudia said, snapping the p. “The whole entire system is bull crap. Couldn’t blame him for running away, try and make it on his own, rather than end up in there. I know I would’ve.” She fell quiet for a moment, followed by more typing. “No trace of him anywhere, though. No school records, no missing person reports, nada,” Claudia said after a while. “If it wasn’t for the missing officer, I’d probably go with the ‘runaway’ theory, but with Gustavsson on the board too, my money is on ‘artifact got them both.’ Honorable mention to the theory that twelve-year-old Corey killed Gustavsson somehow and ran away so’s to not get caught – I suppose for completeness’ sake you might wanna consider that an option.”

Helena shook her head wildly, causing Myka to look over – Helena was looking greener than ever. “Do you need me to pull to the curb?” Myka asked worriedly.

Helena shook her head. “That poor boy,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “That poor, poor boy.”

“God yeah,” Myka sighed. “You’re sure about that grief thing you’re sensing?”

“Yes. Don’t ask me how; I couldn’t say. It’s only a feeling – but a strong one, if that is any help. Perhaps of the same nature as Pete’s vibes?” Myka nodded her understanding; Helena nodded too. “And I think we’re getting closer,” she added.

“Yeah, that tracks,” Claudia said on the comms. “You’re almost at the property border. There’s a small dirt road coming up on your left; that’s where they found Gustavsson’s car, fifty yards in.”

“Thanks, Claud,” Myka said as she pulled into the very dirt road Claudia had mentioned.

“Sure thing. Hey, be careful, okay? This thing might have offed two people already.”

“Of course,” Helena said. She sounded a bit steadier now, even if she was still paler than usual. “Claudia, please stay on the comms and keep tracking our location; if we suddenly vanish, send in the cavalry.” She got out of the car and opened the back seat door to get out her Tesla.

“Sure, yeah, roger that,” Claudia grated out. “Just, could you not? Go missing, I mean?”

“Fingers crossed,” Myka said, trying to sound reassuring. She pulled her side arm out of its holster to check that it was in order; when she put it back, she didn’t snap the securing loop back into place. She found her flashlight and clipped it to her belt, too – it was barely three in the afternoon yet, but who knew. “Claud, can you give us a moment, though? Off comms, I mean?”

“You got it, boss.” The earpieces bleeped with the sound that signaled the line closing.

Myka turned to Helena, who was looking at her quizzically. “Before we go further in,” Myka said, “you sure you’re okay with all this? Just checking in, making sure that… you know. I don’t want this to be… bad for you.” And quite frankly, if this went sideways, she didn’t want to risk Helena freezing up on the job, or being re-traumatized.

Helena’s expression turned first surprised, then understanding. She gave Myka a reassuring smile. “Can’t rightfully say it’s my favorite kind of case, of course, what with a missing child,” she sighed, “but I’ll be able to handle it.”

“Good,” Myka said quickly. “Okay, yeah, good. That’s… uh, that’s good.” She clamped her mouth shut; Helena was looking a little amused by now, and if there was one thing Myka didn’t want Helena to think of her it was that she, Myka, was a bumbling, rambling idiot. “Taking your word for it,” she added as an afterthought – just to make sure that Helena wasn’t putting up a brave front. The stakes were too high for that.

Helena blinked, pondered the expression for a moment, and then bit her lips together. It was very characteristic for Myka to ask by not asking, she thought – she knew Myka needed to know if she could take Helena’s word for it. In their sessions, Doctor Cho had admonished Helena to be honest about her emotional situation, and moreover, as lead agent on a potentially life-threatening mission, Myka was right to check in on it. “Truth be told,” Helena said, “if… if we find the child-” she almost choked on the word, but forced it out, “-dead, I… I might not fare so well.” She gulped against the lump in her throat and tried to give Myka another smile – neither worked, though. “Hoping not,” she added, doing her best to sound fortitudinous. That one didn’t work either.

Myka pursed her lips, pondering Helena’s reply, and the odds and options. Then she nodded. “This artifact might not be a killer anyway,” she said. “We might be dealing with displacement, in place or time. Or memory loss, or both.”

“Disincorporation,” Helena nodded too. “There are many ways in which an artifact can make a person disappear.”

“Exactly. And if it is… y’know. Death,” Myka said, hesitant on that last word and apologetic when she saw Helena wince, “then just… Just do what you need to do to protect yourself, and I’ll handle it, okay? No judgment.”

Helena inhaled sharply through her nose. She didn’t want to think about the matter, but Myka had been right to bring it up – these questions and answers, these reassurances needed to be spoken aloud, here and now, before they went any further into the case. “Thank you,” Helena said quietly.

Myka gave her a solemn nod that, she hoped, made it clear she considered the matter closed. It was uncomfortable enough for her to talk about the matter; Helena probably felt twice as bad about it, but it couldn’t be helped. And now it was done. “Let’s go then,” she said, and got a nod back from Helena. She tapped on her earpiece again. “Claud? We’re heading in.”

“Roger that, boss.”

The forest was quite fascinating, Helena thought to herself as they walked further into it. Not quite as verdant as the English glades she’d known in her childhood, of course, and much wilder, more untamed, making Helena think of German poets and their odes to the woods. Thick underbrush made it hard to see past a few yards to the left and the right of the road, and the birds’ calls were different from what she was used to; this alone would have been unsettling enough, but the artifact still pulled at her, tugging her ever more urgently. “Somewhere to our right,” she told Myka. “We need to get off this road if it doesn’t turn soon.”

Myka nodded. Presently they arrived at a downed tree blocking the road; it was dry and half-rotted away. “Probably where and why Gustavsson stopped,” Myka said.

Helena hummed her agreement and then pointed to the tree’s root system, a sagging disk that still managed to keep the surrounding bushes at bay. “Through here,” she said.

“Careful,” Myka reminded her, and approved when Helena hefted her Tesla and crouched closer to the ground. So far, so professional, so good.

She let Helena take the lead as they made their way through the undergrowth, only pointing out poison ivy where necessary. While it was a bit odd that Helena seemed able to sense this artifact, it wasn’t more odd than Pete and his vibes, or Leena’s auras or Steve’s lie detector. Just unusual – Helena had never exhibited anything like this before. Who knew, though; maybe the very fact that a child was involved here was the connection. A child who had lost his parent – if being told about that was the origin of this artifact, then it would be fueled by grief, maybe rage, probably pain. And who knew more about that than Helena Wells?

“Claud, still tracking us?” Myka asked after they’d gone maybe two hundred yards. They weren’t going in a straight line, the terrain and the trees prevented that. But Helena was leading them confidently, always back to a generally south-eastern direction.

“Yep,” came the answer via the earpiece. “Reading you clear as day. If you keep going that way, you’ll miss the house by a bit, though.”

“Not sure we’re headed towards the house,” Helena replied to that. “Call it a gut feeling, but it doesn’t seem to me as though our destination is quite that domestic.”

“O-kay?” Claudia said slowly. “That doesn’t sound odd at all.”

“Apologies, darling,” Helena said with a smile – she liked the young agent, and wished she could have given her a more satisfactory answer. “Perhaps we have a little bit of an Alice in Won-”

“No we don’t,” Myka said, quickly and with a shudder. “Tell me this isn’t an Alice-related artifact. Either one of you, tell me that right now.”

“All the ones we know of are present and accounted for,” Claudia told her.

“Not exactly reassuring,” Myka complained, and then took a deep breath and shot Helena a grim smile. “Sorry. It’s fine. It’s fine even if this is an Alice artifact. We’ve gotten her before, and we’ll get her again.”

“That sounds as though there’s a story to that,” Helena remarked.

Myka shuddered again. “And one day I might tell it,” she said, “but today is not that day. Not when we’re wandering through creepy w- What the hell?” She looked down at herself, alarmed by the sudden clanging noise her legs had made on the last step.

She was clad in armor. Full, plate, shining armor. She looked at Helena in alarm, and saw that Helena’s clothes had changed too – but what stopped her even more than that was-

“What happened to your ears?”

Helena’s hand came up to touch her ear and twitched in surprise at what it encountered. Helena frowned as her fingers explored it. “Vulcan?” she offered finally.

Myka took in Helena’s attire: soft boots, woolen pants, a belted tunic of fine linen, a felt cloak. The tesla had turned into a dagger at her side. Add that to the plate armor she herself was in… “An elf, I think,” she gave her opinion, “not a Vulcan. I’d say this is a fantasy scenario, not science fiction.”

“I’ve frankly never seen the sense of dividing the two,” Helena said with raised eyebrows, “but I bow to your expertise on the matter.”

Myka laughed out loud. “Yeah, no, I don’t have that. Expertise, I mean. I’ve always been more interested in sci-fi and crime, not fantasy so much. I mean I’ve read The Lord of the Rings, sure, but-”

“Um, guys?” Claudia’s voice sounded in Myka’s ear. From the look on Helena’s face, Helena had heard it too.

Myka’s hand flew up to her ear now – the earpiece was no longer there, but she was wearing an elaborate earring; maybe that’s what the earpieces had been transformed into. Helena was wearing a similar one.

“Yes, Claud, we’re still here – are we still on your GPS?”

“Yeah – but… elves? Vulcans? What’s going on?”

Myka quickly outlined the situation, realizing as she did so that her own sidearm had turned into a veritable sword at her side. Oddly enough she barely felt its weight, nor that of her armor, not in the way she should.

“Dude,” Claudia exclaimed, long and envious. “That’s DnD. You’re in a DnD campaign. Oh this is so awesome.”

“It would fit, too,” Myka mused. “If the kid was a loner, he might have found some comfort in that. Roleplaying games,” she explained, when Helena tilted her head in question.

“Ah,” Helena nodded. “But don’t you need other people for that?”

“These days, only a computer,” Claudia said, “but yeah, back in the eighties? You’d have had to have a group of people, yeah.”

“A boy can dream, even so,” Myka said. God knew she had daydreamed herself out of lonely evenings.

“Imaginary friends, huh,” Claudia said. “Could be, could be. No real friends, only made up ones, and if the kids at his school knew? Prime bullying material right there.”

Myka took a deep breath. “A bullied loner who gets told that his primary caretaker, and perhaps only friendly face in his life, has died.”

“Leading to the creation of an artifact,” Helena completed the thought. “Perhaps one in which he…” she gestured around.

Myka picked up on her idea. “Withdrew from the real world into a fantasy world of his own, so as not to have to deal with the real world and the pain in it.”

Helena nodded somberly. “Quite so.”

“You’re so cute when you’re finishing each other’s sentences,” Claudia said dryly, “but what about the Gustavsson guy? D’you think he was pulled in too?”

“Possible,” Myka said. “It seems to be activated by getting close-”

“Passing into its domain,” Helena agreed.

“-so yeah, maybe Gustavsson did the exact same thing we did,” Myka went on, “got out of his car where the tree blocked the road, made his way towards the house on foot, got caught in whatever this is.”

“So is this a send out the cavalry moment?” Claudia asked.

“Not yet, I don’t think,” Myka said after exchanging a quick glance with Helena, who shook her head in agreement. “We can still talk with each other, you can still see us on the GPS; if one of those two blank out then yes, get Pete and Steve on the road, but until then I think we can handle it.”

“You got it, sire.”

“Sire?”

“You’re a paladin, dude,” Claudia said, as if that was self-evident. “Just keeping with the vibe.”

“Paladin?”

“A knight’s knight, basically,” Claudia said. She sounded like she was grinning. “Okay, let me give you the rundown. Paladins are-,”

“Can you tell us while we walk?” Helena interrupted. She was still feeling the pull of the artifact; there was an added urgency to its call now that they were in its world. Myka gave her a quick look, nodded at whatever she saw on Helena’s face, and motioned for her to take the lead.

“Sure thing, Galadriel,” Claudia said. “Top three things to know about paladins is they have this one ideal that they follow and uphold above all else, they’re fighters but they can do some magic, and they are always lawful good, meaning they always follow the rules and only do morally good acts-”

Helena shot a wry glance over her shoulder at Myka; Myka valiantly resisted the urge to glare back in reply – Claudia would get to Helena’s elf characteristics soon enough.

“So if you do something that’s evil or unlawful,” Claudia added, “that’s gonna impact you. Badly. So, don’t do that?”

“Roger that,” Myka said, trying not to get irritated at being called out by a game. She rounded a tree and ducked under a low-hanging branch. “What if I come across a rule that would be immoral to follow?”

“Well I guess then you’re fucked,” Claudia said dryly. “Or, y’know, let Helena deal with it? Speaking of, top three things about being an elf coming up.”

“I am all ears,” Helena replied, and both Claudia and Myka started to laugh. “What?” Helena asked, feeling slightly aggravated.

“Ears?” Myka said gently, pointing to Helena’s head.

“Oh for crying out loud,” Helena grumbled. “Claudia, top three things?” She pushed aside a branch, perhaps slightly more forcefully than necessary.

“You can see in the dark,” Claudia recited immediately, “you’re harder to kill than a human, and you’re impervious to certain kinds of magic.” After a short pause, she went on, “I have the rule books open on my computer, so if you need to know any details-”

“How do I do magic?” Myka asked. “And can Helena do it too?”

“I mean usually you say which of your spells you wanna do and you roll the dice,” Claudia said. “Can’t really see this work in actual LARPing though. Maybe you just, I don’t know, think of what you wanna do, or state it out loud, and if it works, it works? The one thing Gygax always said-”

“The inventor of the game,” Myka explained under her breath, to which Helena smiled in gratitude.

“-was that even if something wasn’t in the rules: if it made sense for your character and scenario, and if the DM agreed, you could go with it.”

“When the rules do not agree with one,” Helena said with a nod and a smile, “it is sometimes necessary to change them.” She sounded to Myka as though she was reminiscing about something, or quoting someone. “I am good at imagining myself doing things,” she then went on. With a wry smile, she added, “Granted, typically when I did this in the bronze, the result was that I was not able to do that thing, but fates willing things will be different here.” She stilled for a moment, looking around the forest with a small frown. “I think we’re very close now.”

“Myka,” Claudia said, “paladins are able to sense evil – are you getting anything?”

Myka shook her head. “No, not really, but then I don’t think the artifact is evil, per se.”

Helena nodded her agreement to that. “Just a boy fleeing from his grief and anger, if our hypothesis is right.”

“Halt!” a gruff voice came from up ahead. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

“Sounds like an adult,” Myka whispered. “Gustavsson?”

“Or the kid is grown up,” Claudia suggested. “Technically he should be in his thirties now.”

“Or a figment of the child’s imagination,” Helena added. “Isn’t that the way of it?”

“Possible, yeah,” Claudia said.

“Only one way to find out.” Myka loosened the sword in its scabbard, and stepped forward.

In front of her was a clearing, in which stood a knight in black armor, tall, broad, imposing, sword drawn and ready. Behind the knight was a break in the forest – the path onwards, Myka was sure of it even without looking at Helena for confirmation. She did look over her shoulder though – and Helena wasn’t there.

“I’ll try and go around,” she heard Helena say through the earpiece. “Keep him busy; I’ll try to get at him from behind.” A few leaves rustled, and then she was gone.

“That’s a rogue’s approach if I ever heard one,” Claudia commented. “I got Gustavsson’s stats from the missing person report, by the way; says five foot seven, slight build.”

“That rules him out, then,” Myka replied. “This guy is at least six foot and built like a barn. Unless turning into your fantasy character when coming here includes bulking up.” It hadn’t done that to her, but who knew – this was Corey’s imagination; he might look like anything.

“Yeah, no idea.”

“What’s your name?” Myka called over to the knight. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to protect the boy,” the knight bellowed back, brandishing his sword. “None shall pass!”

“Claud, did you hear that? Did the earpieces pick that up?”

“Yep,” Claudia replied. “Maybe Corey made him up, to prevent people from grabbing him out of his fantasy world.”

“We mean no harm to the boy,” Myka called towards the knight. “Corey, right? We’re not here to harm him.”

“Don’t they all say that,” the knight jeered back. “Are you here to take the boy back or not?”

“We just want to talk to him,” Myka told him, then gasped as a wave of dizziness and nausea hit her. “Claud, what the hell?”

“Lawful good,” Claudia’s voice came through the earpiece. “That includes lying. Even white lies. Even to bad people.”

“Shit,” Myka hissed.

Over on the other end of the clearing, the knight laughed derisively – and charged.

“Shit!” Myka unsheathed her sword and barely brought it up in time to parry the knight’s first blow. The force behind it was incredible – he really was strong. But so was she: the armor she was wearing didn’t seem to slow her down, and to judge by his lumbering movements, she was nimbler than him even in armor. She ducked under his next blow and moved out of reach.

“Stand and fight!” he roared.

“I have no fight with you,” Myka told him. “We’re here for Corey!”

“You’re here to take him back – but what if he doesn’t want to come?”

Myka bit her lips together; she didn’t want to answer that one and risk another spell of nausea.

“Hah!” the knight exclaimed, and charged her again.

“Myka,” Helena’s urgent voice came from the earpiece, startling Myka even as she parried. “There’s a dragon back here.”

“A dragon?!”

“Ah, the foul beast!” the black knight exclaimed, aiming another blow at Myka.

Myka parried that one too, then danced out of reach again. “What do you know about the dragon?” she asked the knight.

“It is the most dangerous creature you’ll encounter,” he replied. “Even if you should vanquish me, you still have to go through it to reach your goal. You stand no chance! Give up and leave, and save your life!”

“Sorry, can’t do that,” Myka said, feinting towards her left and then approaching him on the right, trying to get past him.

“Then know you’ll perish,” the knight said. “It is an evil, a blight upon the land. It feeds on people!”

“Myka, I have a hunch,” Helena said. “Keep the knight busy – I’ll try and talk to the dragon.”

“What!” Myka exclaimed.

“Trust me. Just buy me as much time as you can, please.”

“Fine. Try not to get eaten,” Myka grumbled, and then withdrew towards where they’d come from, trying to get the knight to follow her.

Helena smiled at the put-upon tone in Myka’s voice, then approached the dragon that was lying curled up in front of her. It was massive – a veritable hill of slate-gray scales, spiky ridges, and big, leathery wings.

“Corey?” Helena called gently. “Corey, is that you?”

The dragon’s talons twitched. “Go away,” he growled.

“Sorry, can’t do that,” Helena echoed Myka’s words, knowing Myka would hear them through the earpieces. “It is you, isn’t it?”

“Go away!” With a bellow and a roar, the dragon reared, spewing a plume of fire in the air above Helena. “I’ll eat you!”

“I know you could,” Helena said quietly. “You ate the man who got here before us, didn’t you.”

This time, the dragon’s roar was wordless, and the billow of fire close enough to singe.

“You didn’t want to go back, and he wanted to make you,” Helena forged on, sure of her hypothesis now. “And you wanted him to just go away, vanish, get away from you. Am I right?”

“I will eat you!”

Helena shook her head. “I don’t think you will,” she said. “I don’t think you want to. You could have already, but you haven’t. I don’t think you wanted to eat that man either. I think the knight has it wrong. You’re not evil. You’re afraid, and you’re hurt, and so you lash out.”

“Go away!”

“Corey,” Helena said, stepping forward. “I know how this feels. I’ve felt it too. And if I could have turned into a dragon, if I could have spewed fire and brought devastation, I would have too, that’s how much pain and rage I felt.” The dragon was rooted in place, listening, and Helena took another step closer. “It was my daughter,” she said, and did not hide a single smidgeon of how much it still hurt to think of Christina. “She was taken from me in a senseless, brutal crime, and I couldn’t save her. It hurt so badly it almost drove me mad.”

The dragon hung his head and huffed – a tortured sound. Then-

“Helena!”

Helena heard Myka’s shout of alarm just in time to turn, realize the knight was upon her, and duck and roll away from his sword blow.

“I couldn’t stop him!” Myka panted, running up to position herself between Helena and the knight, who in turn had taken up position in front of the dragon.

“This beast is cruel and evil!” the knight declared. “It cannot be released unto the world – think of the damage it would do!”

“Oh I know full well what damage someone who’s hurting like this can do,” Helena shot back, speaking more to the dragon than the knight. “I’m responsible for the deaths of three young men; I almost killed all of humanity!” She spread her arms wide. “And yet I am still here, still walking free.”

“How?”

Helena had no idea whether knight or dragon had asked the question – then again, did it matter? “Forgiveness,” she said. “Love. Apologies, and hard work to make things right again.”

“You can’t make killing right again,” the knight sneered. “No one can bring the dead back to life.”

“That is true,” Helena said gravely. “I could not even apologize to their families. I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. But I can live with it, even though it’s difficult.”

“How?” This time, Helena was sure that the dragon had spoken.

“Because I know what made me do it,” she said. “I know what I did came from a heart filled with too much grief, too much guilt, too much anger. When we feel that way, we do things we would normally never even consider, things that we would find absolutely abhorrent in any other circumstances. Corey, let me ask you this – do you regret what happened? Are you sorry?”

“Yes.” If a dragon could whisper, this was it – a low, rasping sound. The dragon’s outline seemed to waver, like hot air in summer.

“No matter!” the knight shrieked. “You’ve killed, and that can never be excused!” His sword point wove between Helena and Myka, but he didn’t move to attack them, as though he was stuck in place.

“Corey,” Helena said, “this knight – he’s your bad conscience, isn’t he. He’s the voice that whispers in your ear that even if you wanted to, you can never go back now because of what you did. That you’d never be allowed to go back, even if you apologized, even if you explained. Because what you did was so horrific.”

The dragon’s neck writhed; he raised his muzzle and bellowed, and another plume of flame and smoke rose from it.

“Shut up!” the knight screamed at the same time. “You have it all wrong! You need to leave and never come back!” He raised his sword and charged at Helena with a yell of rage.

“No!” Myka’s shout pierced the air, and before Helena could even move a muscle, Myka was there, jumping between her and the knight, blocking his sword with hers and forcing him back.

“Don’t listen to him, Corey,” Helena called out over the clash of renewed fighting. The black knight was pressing down on Myka now with an all-out attack; good though Myka was, she was barely holding her own against his onslaught. “You know I’m right,” Helena went on, “despite what he says. I have been forgiven; I have found people who know what I did and love me regardless.” She pointed at Myka; she could hear Myka’s panting both in her earpiece and out loud. She had to get through to Corey; Myka couldn’t withstand this much longer. “And you can have that too, Corey, I promise,” she told him. “You too can be forgiven. You too can find people who love you. I did, and you can too. All you have to do is try.”

The dragon roared – and the knight vanished. Myka stumbled, then bent over, one hand on her knee, the other holding her sword with its tip resting on the ground.

And still the dragon roared.

Helena knew the feeling well.

She approached the dragon, and the dragon let her. She stood in front of him, and put her hand on his chest, as high up as she could reach, as close to his heart as she could get. “You are not a monster,” she said, quietly, for his ears alone, hoping that her words would reach him through his pain. “You are not a monster. You were hurt, and scared, and you wanted the man to just be gone. And you lashed out. That is not what a monster does, Corey, that is very human. And I know you’re sorry now, and you wish it had never happened, and that is very human too. You are not a monster, Corey.” She willed her conviction of this to ring true in her words, to flow into the boy through her hand.

And then she found her hand resting on the chest of a twelve-year old boy, found it vibrating with his sobs, and she pulled him in and hugged him to her, murmuring words of solace and reassurance.

-_-_-

“So what’s gonna happen now?” Corey said, when they’d found the artifact – a well-read copy of the player’s handbook, dog-eared and soft with use – and were back at Myka’s car.

Helena opened her mouth to speak, but then hesitated – she had an idea, but she was very much not sure if Myka would be on board with it.

Myka, who’d seen Helena’s reaction, smiled at Corey. “You can come with us, if you want,” she said. Her smile widened at Helena’s blink of surprise, and she looked over just long enough to grin at Helena. Then she focused on Corey again. “For now, while we figure things out, and for longer if you want to. Helena here has some experience in what it’s like to live outside of time for a few decades; it can be really disorienting, but she can help you find your feet.” It really was the best solution – for now, or for longer if the kid wanted. He had no living relatives, and everyone who knew him knew that he’d vanished as a pre-teen all those years ago. They didn’t expect him to show up as a twelve-year-old now, and he had no way of answering their questions that anyone would believe. “If you want to,” Myka repeated, for emphasis. “Your decision.”

Corey looked at Helena with a question in his eyes. She nodded at him. “That would have been my suggestion too,” she said.

Corey bit his lips together, looked over at Myka, and nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly.

Helena took his hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be alright,” she said. “I got a very good feeling about this.”

He did a double take and then grinned. “Was that a Star Wars quote? Only they always say they have a-”

“-very bad feeling about this, yes, I know,” Helena smiled back. “And yes, it was.”

His hand gripped hers more firmly. “Then let’s blow this thing and go home.” Then he blushed. “I mean, there’s nothing to blow up, obviously I know that-”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Myka said lightly. She shook out a neutralizer bag with a flourish, looked Corey dead in the eye, and said, “Duck.”

Corey yelped and hid half behind Helena when his handbook went into the bag in a shower of sparks. Then he looked at Myka, eyes wide and bright. “That was awesome!”

Myka grinned at him, nodded her chin at him, and dead-panned, “I know.” If the kid was a Star Wars fan, it was the least she could do. She knew he was still hurting – the way he kept close to Helena was a sign of it. Helena, for her part, seemed to shoulder it well; Myka would talk to her, later, when the kid was asleep or being looked over by Doctor Calder or otherwise out of earshot. But for now? They were going home.

#b&w holiday gift exchange #bering and wells #warehouse 13 #fic #my fic #knights and monsters #hgandmyka #b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange

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