#she died two months before my eighth birthday

[steviescrystals]

there is no feeling worse in the world than missing your grandma :/

[missjanjie]

i saw you were asking for prompts and tbh i dont care what you give me as long as its dayasco (if thats okay?)

ok so i was brainstorming this idea of demon!bosco and sold soul!daya so this is like, a lil test run so tell me if y’all want this as a full fic

-

Daya looked at the demon incredulously, trying to process what she’d said. “Wait, so when exactly did my parents sell my soul?” She was about to get her phone out, but under her manager’s glare, she decided it would have to wait until after her shift, if she wasn’t whisked off to hell before that.

“When your sister was in a car accident. Your mom was still pregnant with you, which is probably what made the deal so easy, no innocent baby to physically look at,” Bosco shrugged, then furrowed her brows. “Why are you so calm about this?”

Daya looked around. “I’ve been in hell since I was sixteen, it’s called retail. And it’s not like I can fault my parents, their four year old wasn’t going to survive, I get the panic.” She knew that Crystal had been in a car accident when their mom was only about three months pregnant, so she supposed she couldn’t hold that much animosity towards her family. “Is that why I have diabetes?”

“No,” she snorted, “that’s hereditary.” She then furrowed her brows and conjured up her calendar. “It says today is your twenty-fifth birthday. Why are you at work anyway?”

“Because it’s a Tuesday? I got chewed out for taking off when my grandpa died, my birthday is not a top priority.”

Bosco scowled and marched over to the manager that had been giving the two of them the stink eye since she’d arrived. “She quits. I’ll see you in hell on September eighth, 2047, at roughly 8:23pm.”

Daya could hardly process what happened next. It was like she blinked and suddenly was in the pits of hell. “So, what happens now? Am I serving meals in the Kitchen of the Damned or something?”

She cocked her head to the side, a wry grin taking over her face. “No, darling. You’re going to be my assistant.” And with a snap of her fingers, they were transported to another area, one that looked like an entrance to a store at the mall, but with ‘Karen Korner’ crudely scrawled at the top. “Go nuts, babe.”

“I can yell at them?” She perked up like a kid being told to pack a bag for Disney World.

“Yell, slap, there are some weapons in the back if you wanna get creative.”

Daya happily marched into the store, deciding that being sentenced to an eternity in hell was a lot more fun than finishing her shift.

[to-the-stars8]

Moments of Our Life

Parings; Batmom!Reader x Bruce Wayne Summary; All good, and bad, things happen in a moment, and sometimes they happened enough to fill a book. In other words, a story of your life married to Bruce Wayne with the kids you love the most.

AN; Just to let you guys know, and I'll put this as a note on my other stories too, but I am going to be messing with the ages a bit. Just like making the batkids younger by one or two years.

1- Wake Me Up When September Ends

You were jolted awake by a small hand on your shoulder, shaking you. Struggling to get the sleep from you, you jolted back with a gasp. It took a moment but your eyes eventually cleared enough to see the young boy standing on the side of the bed. With wavy black hair and Superman pajamas, you realized it was only your foster son, Dick. You huffed a breath of relief, then noticed that he was a mess of tears. 

You could hardly see it, but luckily with the hallway light being on you could see tears drop from his round cheeks to the floor and the way his bottom lip quivered as he held back more.  

“Hey,” You cooed, reaching out to caress his hair. “What’s wrong?”

Dick didn’t speak instead he only wailed, reaching both his arms out for you, and you did as he silently asked. Hoisting him up on the bed, you set him down on your lap, nearly cradling him as he cried. 

You didn’t need to ask why again, thinking about the plenty of times he had done this before. The death of his parents had dragged him from sleep more than once, and both you and Bruce had found in him in various states of grief. It was only as of late, after some convincing after the incident in the Batcave, that he started to show up in your room. 

Dick sobbed into your shoulder, gripping tight onto your shirt for some solace, and you did the only thing you could think of. Rubbing his back, you whispered to him that it was okay, that you were there for him. 

“I want my mom,” He sobbed, crying harder. “I want my mom.”

You couldn’t help the tears that pricked your eyes at his plea, squeezing them shut and wishing—hoping—that she would magically pop up there for him, just so you could see his little smile. 

“I know,” You whispered, hugging him closer. “I know, sweetheart.”

Glancing at the clock you saw that it read three AM, knowing Bruce would be home soon if he already wasn’t. Your eyes flickered down to the date and your heart clenched. It had been exactly two months since his parents died, and you weren’t sure if that felt like it had been forever ago or yesterday. 

So much had happened in that time; Dick’s parents had missed his eighth birthday, the first time he ever did that one flip—you couldn’t remember what he had called it—he had been trying to master for the past year, finally learning how to tie his shoes. All of it. What broke your heart the most was that it all seemed so small to you, but to Dick, it had to feel like things he wished his parents were there to see. 

It broke your heart to see him in a state where he could hardly speak or breathe because he was sobbing so hard. You shushed him, rocking every so slightly to try to get him to calm, but that seemed fruitless. 

“Dick, honey, drink some water,” You leaned over with him to grab the glass sitting on the nightstand. “You’re going to run out of tears if you don’t.”

He drew back, looking at you through puffy eyes before reaching for the glass, gulping it down through sniffles. As he did that, you took the opportunity to use your thumb to wipe away the tears on the sides of his cheeks. When Dick was done, he seemed calmer now, sitting with sniffles and hiccups as he handed you the glass back. 

Dick leaned his head on your chest, already worn out from crying so hard, and you leaned back against the backboard. You scratched his back in slow, languid circles until his breaths were even and his eyes finally closed. 

Once he was asleep, you moved him to the middle of the bed where he curled into himself before you got comfortable next to him. It didn’t take you long to fall asleep yourself as you watched Dick, making sure no more troubles came for him as he slept. 

--

When you woke again it was when you felt the bed dip down. You didn’t even have to lift your head to know it was Bruce because he leaned over you to whisper, “I love you.” 

You opened your eyes, pretending to just wake up, turning onto your back to look at him and he gave you a tired hello. You noted that he smelled clean like he had just showered and shaved, and touching his smooth cheek only confirmed it. You pulled Bruce to you for a kiss before looking down at Dick. He had turned over in the night, now in your arms but facing away from you. 

“What time did you two go to bed?” He asked, reaching over to smooth Dick’s hair. 

“A little after three. Dick, he…It’s been two months,” You whispered. 

A grim look passed over Bruce’s face when he realized what you meant. “Two months means nothing when you’re grieving.”

You held onto Dick a bit tighter. “I don’t know what to do, Bruce, to make him feel better.”

“Be patient with him and be there for him,” He answered. “That’s what Alfred told me when I asked.”

You smiled down at Dick’s sleeping form. You ran your hand through his hair, watching the little boy stretch in your arms before settling. It was hard to believe that, despite the short amount of time, you already loved him. “You wanna know something, Babe?”

“I’m Batman, I always want to know something,” Bruce said. You chuckled, appreciating that he remembered the joke you told him that one time. 

“Alfred told me you were absolutely stoic the first few months--He said now understood that you were just practicing for being the Batman.”

Bruce snorted, settling down behind your back, wrapping an arm around you. “I’m not that stoic, am I?”

“Partially,” You joked. 

You could feel him smile against your shoulder before pressing a kiss to it then snuggling closer to you. Dick opened his eyes slightly for a moment, looking up at you before smiling as he slipped back into sleep. It was sweet, so you placed a kiss on the top of his head. You were more than willing to be patient and do more for Dick just so he was comfortable enough in your small family.

[divinesorciere]

timeline of (canon) events for davina because jpec and the crew hate consistency, math and anything else to do with making my life easier.

— davina is born on may eighteenth, 1994. her father left her mother before she was known to them, but she grew up thinking he ran out on them knowing she was on the way.

— here's where things get tricky. hayley says she's been locked up in the cemetery since april 30th, when the deveraux family figured out she was pregnant. this means it's after the harvest. davina later says she spent eight months in the attic. this timeline heavily involves fixing the math for hayley and hope as well. hayley and klaus made hope on march 24th, 2011. so. we're starting from there.

april 30th, the deveraux sisters lure hayley in and kidnap her because she's one month pregnant with hope at this point. klaus and elijah don't find out about hayley until may 2nd. she leaves with them after that, and there's a time skip between episode one and episode two (from may, to september. we know this because rebekah came to new orleans at the end of that summer, looking for elijah, in episode two). that's five months davina spent in the attic. from this, we can estimate the date she got there was in january. davina left the attic around the middle of september, i'll say. so, the harvest happened in january.

when davina went into the attic, she was sixteen. when she came out, she was seventeen.

— davina completes the harvest during hayley's sixth month of pregnancy, and comes back during the middle of the eighth month.

hope (with the correct math) was born sometime in november (considering she was stated to be born earlier than expected due to outside factors). which brings us to the next point.

— davina brought mikael back in november, on the day of hope's birth. there's a four month time jump between this event and where season two picks up, which makes it march of 2012. davina has had mikael holed up for four months.

— she meets kol at the beginning of march. we know season two spans over at least a month (season two canonically takes place starting in september, and there's a halloween themed event in one of them, which means a month lapsed at least). revising it to make sense with this timeline? in april, mikael kidnaps cami, and davina teams up with klaus, marcel, kol and hayley to get her back. she and kol then leave.

— they spend four days holed up in a motel, bringing it to april 10th. they spend a day working on the dagger, april 11th. kol is kidnapped by marcel. davina shows up to take down klaus the day after, which makes it april 12th. she stops esther from jumping into cami's body.

— they spend two weeks and change working on the dagger, which puts them in may. kol dies on may 6th, 2012. her eighteenth birthday passes with her in mourning. davina becomes regent and resurrects esther in june.

— there's a six month time skip (i believe?) between season two ending and season three beginning. this puts them at january (of 2013) again. davina has been regent for months. it's in the beginning of february that she orders hayley to kill kara. the massacre follows. i'm not even gonna pretend i know how long season three was supposed to last over real time, but i give it about three months. davina resurrects kol by march, and dies less than a month later. the siblings go under not too long after, in 2013.

— davina is resurrected by the hollow when she's (supposed to be) twenty three, meaning it's (for my timeline, at least) prior to may of 2018.

[dialux]

congratulations on your wedding!!! pls: number 7, your hc about the hot priest (fleabag) <3

Thank you!! I think most of my hc's about the priest have been described in this Fleabag YT fic, but here's some more:

He'd never liked football or rugby as a child- but there was something to the slow summer patience of cricket that sparked in his veins: the muddiness of pristine kits, the move and countermove, done hundreds of overs in advance; the clotted cream his father always bought him when they went to the official training grounds to sneak looks over the fence.

His dad dies two weeks after his eighth birthday of a sudden stroke, and they move away from Somerset a month later, to his mother's native London.

It's a long and arduous shift for the young boy; he rather hates his new, scrawnier classmates- the air in London's not quite as hearty, his mother tells him dryly, when he complains to her- and how he's automatically shoved onto the rugby team, and the spider plant he's been wasting his pocket money on, trying to get it to survive only for it to die and require another week's allowance to buy another. It takes him more than two dozen plants before one finally survives, through some lucky mixture of sunlight, water, and weather.

In hindsight, the stubbornness that pushed him to keep plugging away at the damn plant was what pushed him to take up astrophysics as a major in uni.

Also in hindsight, the fact that all he needed was the plant to survive- the result that he wanted- to stop working on the project is evidence for why he eventually washed out of the PhD program.

(More than results, it's the methods that matter, in those circles. He's never quite got the hang of that.)

His sister is happily rooted in the land of the living, but he's always been a dreamer. It's what his mother calls him, even in her will; they open it up to see that she's told his sister to watch over him, and to be in charge of dividing their familial assets equally. His sister does do it, painfully precise, for all that he doesn't care- they sell the London house once they both make it clear they don't want to stay in the city, and place the vacation home in Cornwall and the ancestral home in Somerset into a trust, held jointly by both of them. The share of the profits off the London house is enough to support him through the first, stumbling years of priesthood.

For a time after he meets her, he has a dramatic, passionate romance with a man- the other man is just returned from a stint abroad to Australia, and it's all very capital-h histrionic: they don't exchange phone numbers in favor of dead drops, they send letters in code and invisible ink, they have long, lingering fights and even longer, languorous sex to make up for it. They don't know what the other does for a living, and neither of them makes an effort to find out.

He gets enough material from that four month-long relationship to write two self-help books.

For a time, he goes abroad to do some public outreach efforts for the church in Sri Lanka, but ends up spending more time learning how to peel a pineapple barehanded than he does preaching; it works out for a while, until some do-gooder reports him and he returns to England in relative disgrace. The church shuttles him away from London quickly, though he manages to pull enough strings to ensure that away from London also means towards Somerset.

But it turns out that he doesn't actually want to stay in Somerset: it's all a bit too close to home, to be quite honest, and comes with the added responsibility of his sister constantly needling him to look into their shared house, to do some property management and trim the hedges and water the roses and sweep out the chimney- all things that he'd like to avoid for as much as possible.

A year later, they shuffle him over to Wiltshire, and he settles into the small town and friendly locale with stubborn vengeance. Close to home but not too close; the perfect distance.

The stargazing nights that he starts are something he used to do with his mother, but that, too, had been something they did in Somerset; when their family moved to London, his mother had become too busy to do such things regularly- too concerned with being their only breadwinner- and the London sky wasn't friendly to stargazing much either. There are times when he'll be peering up at Jupiter's rings or pointing out the soaring curve of Capella to Aldebaran to some small kid, and he'll feel a weight on his own shoulder, his mother hunching over him like he's a child once again: cold thumb sweeping over the bared skin of his neck unconsciously, eyes narrowed in thought and memory.

It's funny, he thinks sometimes, remembering her as she'd been, in the quiet sleepy hamlet she'd inhabited orbiting London: It's funny where our ghosts live.

(He tells her this, when they meet again, decades later, old and grey and laughing in the quiet town that he's refused to be kicked out of.)

(She laughs back, but where her younger self might have kept quiet, or diverted the topic, or gotten lost in herself- this one, older, sharper, easier, says, It's funny where we see them, I think, and he swallows the whiskey in his mouth and lets the warmth flood through his chest: and it still feels like falling in love all over again.)

[kaytrawrites]

Nightmare King; Section two

Noc, The meeting

Table of Contents

‘My many times great grandfather started the whole thing. He would walk among the towns sometimes. He would watch the children, and single out the ones that were mistreated, then leave. The next night he would begin to cast. He would send the children wonderful dreams, and he would appear in them, and ask them if they wanted to play. If he had judged correctly, the children would at first be surprised that he was talking to them, let alone asking if they wanted to play. Then, they would be happy that someone was talking to them and accept.

He would let their spirits run around our family castle, letting them do whatever they wished. They would eat, grow, and play. He would talk with them, always showing them the love they really, truly needed to live.

His son and heir learned to do the same thing his father did and continued the tradition on. Each heir after them learned how to do the same, and they would take the scorned to the castle and give them a life. But recently, as modern technology became better, the bodies of the children were killed, because they could no longer contribute to the society as a whole. Abruptly, usually a week after my own grandfather would bring another child home, they would suddenly cry out, clutch their arm and simply vanish.

When my grandfather found out what was going on, he grew angry. He began to visit the children of the men and women who had killed those children and ask them if they wanted to play. Most of them agreed. But, in the end, usually only a month after they were brought to the castle, they vanished as well.

After that, my grandfather killed himself. The children he loved, just suddenly dying like they did, it tore him apart… My father tried to do as our forefathers did, and only take the children that were being hurt or ignored, mostly in hopes that the parents would have a change of heart and refuse to let their children be killed. But, the most realistic reason was that he was hoping that they would at least have a bit of a normal life before they were killed.

When he died, I took over for him. I still remember my first. It was a girl. The first born. Her parents called her a mistake. It was her sixth birthday. My eighth was only a few days earlier. She looked me right in the face and begged me to not take her. She said her little brother and sister needed her.

We played for a little while in her mind, before I let her go. But, I managed to extract the promise that I would come for her someday.’

His Royal Highness, Nocturne Mephisto Gabriel the first, Nightmare King, fondly known as Noc by his once living family and once living friends, sat on his bed, watching the sun drop below the horizon. He had a job to do, much as he would have loved to skip it, he had made a promise to his father to at least look every night.

The tall young man stood and slowly stretched. He slowly shuffled over to the lump on the table opposite his bed. He pulled the cloth away from the smoky globe and rested a hand on the glass. He closed his eyes and called out to the dreams of children. He flicked through the many dreams that assaulted his mind and dismissed the ones that weren’t nightmares. When he was finished, he looked at the nightmares a little closer. The ones that didn’t feature the torture of the dreamer, Noc also dismissed. The remaining ones he looked at much closer. Depending on how realistic the nightmares were, he either dismissed the unrealistic ones, made a mental note of the dreamer, to keep an eye on them, or took a much closer look.

Only one stood out. The dreamer was a four-year-old boy. He either had a very vivid imagination, was actually beaten up by the boys in his dream or was close by or close to the actual person that it had happened to. The first was unlikely, seeing as he was only four. The second was much more likely, but still not completely possible. The third was the most likely, but Noc had been wrong about this before.

He dove right in. As he fell into the webs of the sleeper’s mind, he started to weave a better dream for the boy. Noc was soon done, and slowly brushed the bad dream away and let the better dream take its place.

With a sudden start, Noc came to a memory that the boy shouldn’t have. It was of him, taking a little boy in his arms, and cooing to him.

“Hello?” The boy asked.

Noc started and looked at the boy. He was looking up. Very far up.

The boy smiled. “Will you play with me?” He asked.

Noc nodded and smiled. “Sure.” He let the little boy take his hand and pull him toward the sandbox.

The two of them played for what should have been hours, but it was only a few minutes. The little boy snuggled down in Noc’s lap.

Because dream logic demanded that all be truthful in dreams, Noc decided to ask the boy a question. “Why did you have that memory?” He asked the boy quietly.

“I took it from my sister so she wouldn’t have to remember it.” The boy replied, just as quietly.

“How long have you been doing that?” Noc asked, a familiar feeling tickling the back of his mind.

The boy screwed up his face and thought about that for a moment. “Since I was born.” He declared.

Noc was taken aback. This boy, this four-year-old boy, was a dream-walker. Like him. “I…I think you should wake up now…” He suggested, gently.

The boy shook his head. “No. I like you. You do good things. Take me with you.” He said, stubbornly.

It was so strange. This little boy reminded Noc so much of that one girl. The first one.

“Take my sister too!” The boy demanded.

“What?” Noc asked, surprised. “Why would I take her?”

The boy looked…ashamed. “I took her memories. I want her to make new ones. Good ones. Ones where she is loved like she loves me!”

“How old is she?” Noc asked.

Another thinking face. “Seventeen!” He finally declared.

That…that is just about the age of the girl he had let go…

“That’s her!” The boy declared. “I saw that dream! She wants to go back!”

“What?” Noc looked at the tiny boy in disbelief. “She…wants to…wants me to take her?”

The boy nodded. “Yes! And take me too! I love her! She was always kind to me! I want to always be with her!”

But…what about her other siblings? Noc wondered, to himself.

“My older siblings hate her!” The boy answered Noc’s unasked question. “They hate her name so much that they are hurting her. She tries to hide it, but I can see.”

“Oh…” Noc breathed. That changed things. Well, almost. He had to wait for her to call him. He couldn’t enter the dreams of older children. Just young ones, like the little boy in his lap, and the much older men and women who hadn’t forgotten how to dream. But, if this boy’s sister called, then he would be able to dream-walk in her mind…

The boy looked up at Noc for a long minute. “Take me first!” He declared. “If I’m taken, then she’ll have a reason to call.”

Noc looked down at the tiny little boy in surprise. “How old are you?” He asked, surprised.

The boy screwed up his face then declared, “Four!” With a joyful look on his face.

It hit Noc like a sack of bricks. “You have been learning from your parents’ and siblings’ memories, haven’t you?” He asked quietly.

The boy nodded furiously. “I don’t un-der-stand some things, but I can learn!”

Noc inhaled deeply. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The boy said, somberly. It was like he was ten years older, after that statement.

That was it. Noc was given permission. He closed his eyes and retreated to his own body. He kept his eyes closed and reached out to call to the little boy’s soul. It responded eagerly. Noc laid out a path for the boy’s soul to follow, and he felt him run down the path eagerly.

“Whoa…” The stunned voice of the little boy said in Noc’s ear. The young man turned slightly and saw the tiny boy looking around Noc’s room in awe and wonder. “Is this where you live?” The boy asked, looking at Noc with wide eyes.

Noc smiled at the boy’s innocence. “Well, this is just my bedroom. Do you want to see the rest of my castle?” He asked, giving the little boy a mischievous look.

“Yes!” The boy cried out.

Noc took his hand off the globe and picked up the little boy in his arms. The boy was a little colder than his actual body, but he felt solid, and very excited. The older boy lifted the smaller boy onto his shoulder and took off running.

The boy cried out in joy as they ran all around the castle.

Occasionally, Noc would call out for some of the other children to get out of the way. The older ones would scramble out of the way and laugh along with their King and the new friend that he had brought. The younger children would either be jumped over if they dropped down to the floor in time or were avoided.

Noc kept a mental timer for each of them. Currently, he had about ten other children, all spanning from two to almost twelve years old.

Eventually, even Noc’s massive stamina had to come to an end. He slowed and eventually stopped outside the kitchens. He looked up at the little boy, who sniffed the air, smelling the wonderful scent of cooking bread.

Noc shoved open the door to the kitchen and the two boys peeked into the chaos.

“Frederick! I…I can’t carry anymore!” A smaller girl cried out. She was one of the ones Noc had rescued.

Frederick, fondly known as Freddy when he wasn’t ruling his kitchens, glared down at the young girl. “Mary Jane, I know you can do better. Much, much better. You don’t have much time left. Don’t you want to get it all done so you can have more time with His Majesty?”

Mary Jane looked away; her cheeks bright. “Yes. Yes, I do.” She mumbled. The girl scooped up a third and fourth basket of fresh bread and stacked them on top of the other two that she was going to carry.

She hefted the four baskets and took off at a brisk pace toward the door outside.

Noc smiled after her fondly. The twelve-year-old girl was the eldest of the ones he had rescued. Mary Jane had been beaten by her four older brothers, usually because they were drunk. Her parents were gone, but she still dreamed of seeing them again.

“Ho! Freddy!” Noc called out to the robust head cook. He stepped into the busy room and Freddy looked up at the young king.

“Ah! Your Majesty!” He replied, surprised at seeing his king.

Noc lifted the shoulder that the little boy was sitting on, causing the little boy to bob up and down. “I got a new one. Hopefully, I should be rescuing his older sister too.”

Freddy nodded. “Good. Every one saved is less hurt in the world.” He said kindly.

The boy looked around the kitchen, his eyes wide. “It’s so…busy!” He said, in awe.

Freddy laughed. “I know, it’s all I can do to control the daily chaos!”

Noc lifted the boy off his shoulder and set him down on a free space of counter. “Would it be wrong for us two growing boys to ask for something to eat?” He asked the cook.

“Of course not!” Freddy said, cheerfully. “The both of you are welcome in my kitchens anytime!”

In only a few minutes, Noc and the little boy were presented with hefty sandwiches and mugs; Warm milk for the boy, and strong tea for Noc.

Noc finished his sandwich in a flash, and sat slowly sipping his tea, while the little boy took as big of a bite of sandwich he could take.

Noc smiled as condiments oozed down the four-year-old boy’s chin. The sound of pattering feet and the door being thrown open caused Noc to look toward the door that Mary Jane had left though.

Mary Jane beamed as soon as she saw Noc. “Noc!” She cried out, cheerfully. “I finished my work! Can we play now?”

Noc grinned at the girl. “Of course!” He got down on one knee so he could look into the girl’s eyes. “What would you like to play?” He asked, somberly.

Mary Jane considered it for a moment. “Tag! Through the rose garden!” She declared.

“Sure!” Noc replied, smiling just as wide as Mary Jane.

Just as Noc stood, Mary Jane suddenly cried out and clutched the inside of her arm. Suddenly in panic mode, Noc grabbed the small girl. “No. No, no, no, no…It’s too soon…” He muttered.

“Noc?” The soft voice of Mary Jane asked.

“Yes?” Noc asked, tears already beginning to creep down his cheek.

“I…I can see my mommy and daddy…They want to play with me…” Mary Jane murmured.

Noc smiled. “Then go. Go play with them…” He murmured.

Mary Jane smiled and slowly dissolved into motes of light, which disappeared.

Noc lowered his head, as did everyone else in the kitchen. “Rest, in peace, Mary Jane…” He murmured. The young king stood and closed his eyes. He could almost hear the laughter of the young girl. She was with the ones that loved her now.

Noc felt small arms wrap around his leg. “Will…will that happen to me?” The soft voice of the young boy asked.

“Not if I can help it…” Noc murmured. “If things go right, you and your sister will be together, here in safety. If not, then what happened to Mary Jane will likely happen to you…”

“Can you put me back?” The boy asked, his voice still quiet. “So, I can tell E about this…?”

Putting them back…That was the one thing that Noc was unable to do right now. He had to actually be touching the boy’s body to put his soul back. “I’m…I’m afraid that I can’t…” He murmured. “But, I can possibly convince your sister to bring…you, here so I can.”

“Do it.” The boy said, firmly.

Noc looked surprised. This boy acted much, much older than he actually was. It was kinda scary. “Come along then…” He said, holding out a hand for the boy to take.

The boy took Noc’s hand and followed the young king up, back to his bedroom.

Once the two of them reached the room, Noc rested his hand on the smoky globe. “What is your sister’s name?” He asked the boy.

“Enola.” The boy answered. “I’m Calum.”

“Enola…” Noc muttered. He reached out, calling the girl’s name quietly. The response was almost instantaneous. He was suddenly in a place that was filled with mist, and he heard a girl crying.

Frowning, Noc changed his form to that of a child’s and built a comforting dream. He formed a rose garden, and gently slipped the dream into the girl’s mind.

Almost at once, he saw the girl. She had obviously been crying. Her skin was blotchy, her eyes and nose were red, and she was panting ever so slightly.

“Will you play with me?” Noc asked, letting his normally deep voice become high and childish.

The girl, Enola, looked around, obviously surprised. When she saw him, her eyes widened.

“Will you play with me?” Noc repeated. “I’m terribly lonely. All the friends I make go away too soon…”

Noc felt a tug as the girl took a hold of the dream, and a blindfold appeared over her eyes. In his own mind, Noc cursed. She obviously thought that he used his eyes to enchant the children. “Are you him?” She asked.

Noc cursed again. He let his form change back to his normal one. “How did you guess?” He asked.

“Will you give my brother back?” She asked. She was avoiding Noc’s question, but he already knew the answer.

If she wanted to play that way, so be it. “What if he doesn’t want to go back?” That was a lie. Sort of…

“Surely you heard my screams. Take me instead.” Enola demanded.

That was where the problem was. Noc turned the problem over and over in his head, trying to come up with a way to tell the girl…When he finally came up with a good answer, also just as the girl was getting impatient, he just stated it. “I can’t do that…”

The girl stared at him, as well as she could from behind a blindfold. “What? But, why?” She asked.

“That,” Noc sighed, “Is a problem in and of itself.”