1.12 In Some Stories

In some stories, the only prerequisite to casting magic is believing oneself capable of doing so.

Finley has discovered she is not in one of those stories.

Finley pressures her mother's "apprentice" to teach her about sorcery, and so Accalia catches no end of headache from her old schoolmate. Accalia's starting point with magic was from a species-specific perspective, so she's got no idea how to instruct Finley in "the basics", and she claims it would be a disaster to just go trying higher forms of magic before one's got "the basics" down. And in fact, Accalia is still very much a learner herself.

She spent much of her youth frustrated about needing to hide her nature as a dryad hybrid, so it's an extra level of awkward to have Finley so brazenly demand to know about it. Perhaps if they had known about each others' supernatural heritage sooner, they might've been closer friends.

But they didn't, so Accalia is massively relieved when Mab is ready to go ghost-catching for the night, and they can leave Finley sulking on the couch.

Junpei doesn't think Finley should be ticked off at their mother for trying to protect them.

By the end of the week, no one at school cared anymore about the drama between Finley and Tommy, or even about Junpei punching Tommy in the face. All that matters is Finley is single now, it seems; Kelley Vanderburg walks right up and flirts with her when she shows up at Mick's alone.

Finley could do worse than Kelley Vanderburg. He is polite, cheerful, and heir apparent to the impressive Vanderburg estate since his two elder siblings have disappointed their mother and disgraced the family name. Kelley intends to go into local politics, not to appease his mother and tradition, but because it is what he wants and he thinks he can make a positive difference.

He would probably have more girls throwing themselves at him if wasn't born with old man silver hair and a funny nose... but then again, he's very awkward and clueless when it comes to flirting. 

He's also technically Tommy's uncle, and that makes Finley uninterested in pursuing anything with him, even though Tommy has not been raised as a Vanderburg since Gabriella Ornales and Catarina Vanderburg are sworn enemies.

Night descends on Hidden Springs, and Finley goes to leave. Kelley stops her to tell her he's a Taurus. Finley feels her pale face flushing; she doesn't know if she's feeling flattered or awkward, and hopes being saturated in this purple lighting will keep Kelley from noticing.

"I don't even know what my sign is," she tells him, before wishing him a good night and skipping off downstairs.

After long hours hunting down little spirits and using sorcery to siphon away the energy that makes them too strong, too inclined to haunt, Accalia crashes on her siblings' couch.

"I'm surprised you aren't sleeping out in the bushes," Achilles taunts.

Accalia stares at him for a long moment, then returns her gaze to her folded arms. "I want to see Vance."

"Vance?" Achilles perks up hopefully. "I could call him..."

"I'm torn in two, brother," she mumbles.

"What?"

"The longer I spend in this town, the more I miss it. I fear Nesswen could be right. I may not be ready to leave the human part of me behind."

Achilles facepalms. "You shouldn't have to leave any part of you behind. The dryads in the forest are evil. They hate people like me, and I hate them. Their rules are stupid... and they're creepy."

"No one hates you, Achilles."

"Right. You just hate the way I live. How I dare to date non-green girls and drive a car."

Finley and Junpei's stakeouts at the graveyard turn up two regular ghosts: Daniel and Daisy.

The area grew cold when Daniel first appeared. When Finley shakes his hand, her world spins. Ash and peeling skin and uncountable Fahrenheit numbers. Junpei's teeth begin to grind. He feels it too. They must remind themselves it's just a memory they're picking up on.

Daniel doesn't seem to register that he's being read by an amateur psychic. He smiles politely at the kids and reminds them not to stay up too late on a school night. When questioned about Aric, he says he has never met a sorcerer's ghost.

Daisy is more concerned with her own children, who survived the fire that killed her and her husband. She wonders if little Dany and Davy would be Finley and Junpei's age by now. Every time she sees the Archer twins, she asks them the same questions, about if they know Dany or Davy.

Here's some pictures of the house.

It's compact, and the decor isn't going to win any awards, but it's in a nice location, it keeps everybody warm at night, and Mab Archer is proud of the life she's made for herself here.

Finley's room.

Where Finley chats with her friends, and writes secret fanfics.

Mab's room.

Junpei's room.

...The other half of Junpei's room.

Bathroom.

...Uh. Thanks, Masterson. I guess.

Laundry / storage room.

ROCKS.

THEY MAY LOOK BORING...

...BUT THESE ONES COME FROM SPAAAAACE.

Painting in underwear.

A time-honored tradition.

It's a Friday evening. Finley's over at Reisa's house, chowing down on some delicious pizza.

Between bites, the kids make fun of the show Reisa's father is watching.

"This plot is so bad," Reisa's little brother Lewis complains.

An angry fairy picks this moment to shove Reisa's mother, Sarala, down the stairs.

 "You'll come with me willingly, or you'll fight," the fairy says, her voice low and threatening.

 The children may not know a fairy when they see it, but they do recognize danger.

Sarala landed, too hard, on her left arm. It's twisted awkwardly, broken, but her face shows no pain. She twists it back into place as she stands to face her attacker. It's as if she sustained no injury at all.

"Back off, Foxglove!" Charles steps between his wife and her assailant.

 "Who are you?!" The fairy demands. "Do I know you!?"

"It's Charlie," Sarala informs Foxglove. "I..." She seems embarrassed for a moment, unsure how her news will be taken, "We're married."

"Charlie?" Foxglove looks Charles up and down, skeptical. "He is much taller than before."

"Human children grow quickly."

 

"Sarala has made herself human," Charles says, trying to match the fairy woman's assertive and angry tone. "You have no business with her now."

"Haha... ha. Ha! Is that what she's told you?" Foxglove's face twists into cruel expressions Finley does not understand.

"Her... arm..." the words tumble out of Reisa's mouth, but receive no answer.

"Tell me, human child that has grown so quickly... did you free the beautiful djinn, or did you wish her to play house with you?"

Reisa's father is taken aback by the question. "The first one."

"Show yourself, djinn!" Foxglove challenges Sarala. "For I will have no problem telling Charlie's father I've found him and killed him for his mistake!"

"You wouldn't..." Sarala growls.

"Of course I would! Our work is too important to allow you to keep a human family as a distraction!"

Charles claws at his throat, finding it impossible to speak.

When Sarala raises a hand against Foxglove, her anger, her fire, is easily deflected onto another target.

The room takes on a sickening burning smell.

"Poor Charlie." Foxglove tosses the injured man aside. She doesn't take her eyes off of Sarala—and why would she?... the children are useless, there's only one real threat in the room.

 The women circle each other, teeth bared.

The djinn shows herself.

 Junpei is out collecting seeds for the garden when the feeling of panic washes over him.

Since there's no one around he feels free to freak out and flail around, fending off nonexistent attackers, but strangely this does nothing to calm him down. So he stops.

And he listens.

"Finleeeey?!" he cries out, but she doesn't answer him. So he runs towards her.

Reisa holds her little brother close as a vicious magic-fight unfolds before their eyes. Finley already tried the door; Foxglove made some threats and hexed it to remain shut. They're trapped. And this winged creature means to kill them, if doing so will convince Sarala to abandon them and her notions of raising a family, and return to her 'job', whatever that means.

Lewis and Reisa know nothing of this secret past of their mother's. This is all too strange to be real, but too real to be a dream...

Finley's eyes widen as her own brother bursts through the door. "Junpei! How did you-?"

But the answer is obvious; Foxglove didn't bother making sure no one could get in, she only made sure no one could get out.

"MORE of them?" Foxglove doesn't hide her annoyance. "You and Charlie have been BUSY."

Junpei lacks the reflexes to dodge the white hot ball of energy Foxglove sends rippling through the air at him, but luckily one of Sarala's magical glyphs pops up in front of his face to stop it.

"Get away from them!" Sarala commands.

The djinn cannot be harmed by physical damage, but is susceptible to magic, and Foxglove has plenty of enchanted artifacts at her disposal to stop Sarala from using her most potent reality-warping abilities.

Sarala manages to break some of these items, to rip the staff Foxglove summoned right out of her purple hands, but it's unclear who has the upper hand. 

Sarala knows from experience, fairies do not do well in captivity, and being born into a cage has forged this one into a deadly, angry, deeply twisted creature.

"We should be fighting on the same side!" Foxglove shrieks. "We have always fought on the same side! Don't make me hurt your children!"

"I've made you do nothing thus far! But I will make you wish your father were here to hold your leash!" Where is Larkspur? Sarala wonders. Why is Foxglove alone?

"Rrrg!" Foxglove weaves a spell in the air, turning one of Sarala's own attacks into a vortex that forms underneath the genie's feet; Sarala very nearly falls into it. "My father would have me leave you be! My father can't see the greater good!"

Finley manages to sneak over to where her brother is crouched in terror.

"What did you do?!" he whispers. As if she'd been successful at learning magic, and this was the result.

"I don't know what the heck is going on either!" Finley hisses.

Junpei glances at the figure slumped against the giant TV. "Reisa's dad..."

"He's alive, but..."

"It's bad," they say in unison.

Desperate to get himself and his sister out of this situation, Junpei picks up the chair between them and smashes it against the window. It bounces off, cartoonishly. Junpei frowns, harder than he was already frowning. Inspired, Finley takes the chair from him and hurls it at Foxglove.

The force of a simple unexpected chair swats the fairy aside as if she'd been hit by a truck. 

She weighs essentially nothing, and was unprepared to stop a chair.

Like so many fairytales, Foxglove is nearly done in by her arrogance. She paid no attention to the cowering children, and one surprised her; the moment's distraction is all it took for Sarala to strike.

Foxglove is lifted from the ground by her throat. Her expression is only surprise. A twitch of the fingers, and Foxglove's throat will be crushed. But Sarala makes another common mistake: she hesitates. Foxglove is volatile, misguided, unpredictable and fanatical... totally on board with the black ops mission to use supernaturals to police other supernaturals... uncaring or oblivious to how the powers that be treat their SWAT team as slaves, or worse, as experiments... her own mother, destroyed to keep her father in line... ...still, it would kill Larkspur, to lose his daughter.

The vortex was left open. A small light zips out of it.

And the situation is reversed.

The male fairy doesn't say anything, at first. Either he doesn't have to, or he can't; Finley and Junpei couldn't tell you if his stillness, the accusing glare, was part of the spell now keeping Sarala locked in place.

Foxglove is given the time she needs to revert into a speck of dust herself – POP! – only to return to human-size a few feet away, out of the djinn's grasp.

"Lark," Sarala manages to rasp. "She threatened... my children..."

While Larkspur and Sarala have their staring competition, Foxglove forgets her target. It's been neutralized for the moment, after all. It's boring now. Her feet don't touch the ground as she approaches the one who dared to throw a chair at her. "You..." she points at Finley. "You dare.."

Junpei gets about five seconds to be a hero.

Accalia thought she and Mab handled the paranormal happening at the theater quite well. So she just stands there, confused, when it's over and suddenly Mab begins trembling in fear.

Mab has felt this before. But it was far away, and she was asleep when it happened. The shockwave failed to wake her, and the sensation only manifested in a dream. The one where time became stuck. Something stopped. Something ended. Someone she was connected to died.

"What don't I see?" Accalia tries to ask.

"Father? Father, why did you close the portal?" Foxglove demands. "We could have sent Sarala back through the portal."

Larkspur's posture slumps. Even if this is a victory, it's a defeat. "Is this... Charlie?"

"Allegedly. Why did you close the portal?"

"What did I tell you about attacking bystanders?"

"This is different! Charles helped her escape! And he's been distracting her, keeping her from us! He should be punished."

"I told you not to leave your collateral damage to die," Larkspur reminds his daughter.

"I'm going to reopen the portal," Foxglove says. "But I've wasted a lot of energy. Now I have to waste more on a stupid portal! You're so thoughtless, Father. Really."

Finley holds Junpei in her lap. Or at least, it's what once was Junpei. He's not breathing, and she senses nothing from him. Nothing. Her arms register the weight against them, but the familiar presence she'd sense, even if he were asleep, is not there.

Foxglove only dealt with one of the Archer kids—the one who angered her most at that given second—but it was as good as dealing with both. Finley isn't moving from this spot. If grim comes for Junpei, he'll have to get through Finley first.

"Why did you come here?!" Larkspur rages.

"You said you found nothing when you were sent to find the djinn but you are a bad liar! You were sent to find her and bring her back and you found her but you did nothing! So I... I had to! I HAD to!"

"Did you tell anyone of this?"

"No! I did not want you to be in trouble! You're my father. I love you. I needed to fix your mistake, to keep you safe."

In Foxglove's mind, she's done well. She's the hero. But instead of being proud of her, her father turns away in disappointment.

"You were nearly killed!" he points out, not looking at her. "You are not so quick or clever as you think."

Foxglove watches him weave a spell. The dust settles on Charles, and the burn victim disappears. Foxglove finds her father's magic unlearnably ancient, uselessly unpredictable. It takes you where you need to go, he told her once. But who can say where that may be?

Mab falls to her knees and presses her hands to the sides of her head, trying to sort something out in her brain. "My kids," she moans.

If something happened to them, whatever it was made an echo huge enough for Mab to pick up on. So maybe, Accalia reasons, she can pick up on it as well. Thinking quickly, the dryad mage touches the nearest tree, sending her awareness through its roots, through a vast network of interconnected life, as she's been taught to do. "Hold on..."

There's... something. Some kind of energy, arcing across town. Accalia can't identify its source, but as it gets closer to them, at alarming speed, she can tell where it's going.

Accalia and Mab rush to the hospital, a few blocks down the road.

They were already at the corner of Juniper Lane and Subalpine Boulevard, so it would have wasted too much time to call a taxi. Mab's breath comes in ragged sobs; it's difficult for her to keep up with the spritely younger woman.

All is quiet, aside from the noise of their breathing and their shoes hitting the pavement. Accalia wonders if her senses were lying to her. Once she and Mab burst through the double doors into the lobby, however, she sees she was spot on. A receptionist is freaking out on her phone, telling a sleepy friend on the other end of the connection about how someone 'teleported' in, and a mass of paramedics are pulling a burn victim onto a stretcher. He's so crispy, Accalia doesn't recognize him.

Charles Facq has been given something to bring him back to reality, which seems a bit cruel considering the blackened state he is in right now. "Mab!" he gasps, when he sees the confused women. "Your daughter... she's..." As far as he knows, possibly still in the house with an angry Foxglove. He doesn't get to finish his sentence, as he is wheeled down a hallway.

An extraneous nurse wanders over to Accalia. Accalia's mother, Emmaline Rhoen, was a top-notch researcher here, and her children are well-known and loved by the staff. "Oh it's only some burns," the nurse says, sizing up Accalia's tense expression and deciding she's worried for Charles. "As long as they come in here alive, we can fix them."

"What happened?" Accalia asks.

"I really don't know," the nurse replies, baffled. "Nobody saw him come in but Astrid, and she says he showed up in a puff of sparkles? The remnant of whatever burned him, maybe?"

Mab sinks down in a lobby chair, feeling lost. Of course, the phone. How could she be so foolish? She takes out her cell phone and calls Finley. Her trembling fingers misdial on the first two attempts.

Finley turns Junpei over, shaking him, calling his name, pleading for a response. When her phone begins to ring, she doesn't immediately move to answer, so Lewis tugs it out of her skirt pocket.

"Hello..."

It only takes Mab a second to use logic and place the voice. "Lewis? Lewis, where's Finley?"

"Here! Please help!" he whispers. "They're hurting my mom!"

"Where are you, Lewis?"

Reisa pries her gaze away from the wall for a moment to look at the staircase. Her own phone is in her room somewhere, up there, unreachable. "Lew... give me that..."

All Mab got after Lewis's words was ominous static. It turned out not to matter. Charles scrambled out of the emergency room a second later, eager to get right back home. The injuries to his body and even his clothes were fixable by a shower in a can.

"Can't we call the police?!" Accalia cries out, following them to the parking lot.

Mab makes her versatile handiness skill useful, jump-starting a random parked car with only the tools she has on hand.

Charles climbs into the driver's seat. "No. We can't." He explains he was attacked by an agent called Foxglove, who is involved in something called 'Supernatural Control'. "I know her because my father was involved with MorcuCorp and its government contracts..."

Accalia jumps into the back seat. "MorcuCorp?"

Mab takes shotgun. "The refrigerator company?"

Full speed down the road. In a stolen vehicle.

"No! They're a division of Landgraab Industries." 

"The laptop company?"

"Well they've got their hand in every pie, sure. They're on the bleeding edge of every tech, because they've secretly invested in harnessing magic... and magical creatures. They've had so much success, Sim Nation government has a contract with them to keep any stray supernaturals in line. Frankly, the Landgraabs have more money and resources than the government."

His wife, Sarala, he explains, was a djinn bound in a vase. Charles's father, an agent of MorcuCorp, acquired the vase in the Temple of the Burning Sands, in Al Simhara. The djinn was subsequently sent, along with other magical creatures, on missions requiring more than human agents could provide.

Charles discovered the vase when he was a teenager. Sarala took on the appearance of a human teen as well, and convinced him to free her and help her escape. She was, naturally, very convincing...

...but she made the mistake of actually falling in love with the boy she'd conned into helping her. So when she made her escape, she brought him with her. They have lived in hiding ever since, living mundane lives. Sarala claimed she'd magic'd herself human, that their children were fully human... Charles cannot understand why Foxglove would bother them, if it is true. But then, he'd always known, deep down, it wasn't true. Sarala isn't human, and never could be.

"I am potentially staying in the car when we get there," Accalia warns, after a long silence. "Just so you know."

Mab is gripping the arm rests so tightly, she wonders if they'll burst. "Charles..."

"What?"

"Why would they hurt my children?"

The cell phone makes an unreal screech as its insides are warped and twisted. "We are taking Sarala home, now," Foxglove informs Larkspur. "Before anything else can go wrong."

"Be quiet," he commands.

Larkspur crouches down next to Sarala. The spell holding her in place will not falter. But to move her, he'll have to remove it. And he isn't sure if their once-friendship will spare him any of her wrath. "You know there's no getting out of this now," he says gently.

"I know," she says, her voice cold.

"Did my daughter mention why they sent me searching for you?"

"There's a reason?"

"A marid has taken part of Sim City. Countless people have been twisted in a new realm he created out of it. We have wards to prevent such things as what he's done, but we had no idea what he was up to, and now his spells are complete we cannot enter his realm of shadow and illusion. You can."

"Why didn't Foxglove just tell me?"

"Would you have returned with her, if she had?"

"I might not have resisted quite... so much."

Finley combs her fingers through her twin's hair repeatedly, brushing it back so she can see his face. "Junpei... Junpei where are you... I won't forgive you if you die..."

Curled up in the corner, Reisa starts crying.

Suddenly, seeing her brother's face so clearly for the first time since they were much smaller, Finley realizes who the ghost in her room that night was. Her brain files it away as unimportant, for now.

"I'm going to let you up, now," Larkspur says.

Sarala doesn't bother smiting the fairies. It's too late for that. So instead, Sarala first moves to comfort her daughter. 

Her family is human, and they will be left alone, she will make sure of that. But she won't be allowed to return to them.

"Wake up the boy," Larkspur reminds Foxglove.

"He'll wake up on his own. I only used the dispersal spell on him." Djinn can survive some truly amazing things, even if the attack is with magic. The dispersal hex Foxglove had been learning would rip apart a soul. A djinn's would simply reform, weakened, but otherwise unharmed.

"Do you ever think anything through?!" Larkspur complains. Not an uncommon exchange, between this pair. "None of these children could survive that."

Foxglove folds her arms. "Why not? They're Sarala's children."

"They aren't djinn!"

"What? They must be! She's trying to hide what they are, that's all. Don't fall for such lame tricks, father!"

"Those two aren't even Sarala's!"

Reisa feels helpless, watching her mother hug Lewis goodbye.

Junpei is gone. Junpei is not anywhere. Finley does not stop talking to him.

"YOU! WHAT THE HELL!" Mab screams.

"Take care whom you raise your voice to," Foxglove warns the stranger.

Sarala takes her husband in her arms, willing him to ignore the distressing scene behind him. "I wanted badly to live and die as one of you," she says sadly. "The best I could do was give that to our children. I'm sorry I lied to you. I... I'll be back," she lies again. She won't have Charles, or Reisa, or Lewis kidnapped and used to control her. And that's exactly what would happen, if she tries to escape.

"We can find somewhere they won't find," he pleads with her.

She kisses him, passionately, lest he forget how much she loved him. "We tried that already."

It was an accident.

Except it wasn't.

Larkspur must keep his composure, and this form, to tell Mab what's happened to her son. It's awfully uncomfortable for him, what with Finley on the floor crying.

"Your... 'Grim Reaper' will not come for him," Larkspur explains. "There's no energy left to collect."

"But I felt... his shock," Mab says hoarsely. She wouldn't have described it as pain or suffering; it was too fast. "I felt the spirit realm open to absorb him."

"Without the reaper's help? That is interesting. Even if true, souls that have moved on ceased to exist individually. They become a single cosmic energy, as it was explained to me. Re-isolating a person from that would go against the Order of Things."

Mab puzzles over that wording. "Is it possible to go against the order of things?"

"You are of elvenkind," Larkspur says hesitantly, specifically too quiet for Foxglove to overhear. "With your connection to the spirit realm, you could attempt to open it and call him back. But his soul would be shattered in many pieces. You wouldn't be able to put him back in his body. And trying to bind him back together would require intricate magics incompatible with your nature. One mis-step, and you'd create some kind of.... corrupted thing. Not your son at all. Very dangerous."

Foxglove hugs Sarala. "I am so happy you're back on my side! We will have a great adventure, stopping this marid from his evil plans!"

Sarala would prefer not to be party to any creepy reanimation schemes. But before she leaves (and they really should hurry, before someone else from supernatural control decides to show), she helps Larkspur place a stasis curse on Junpei.

"Why are you doing that?" Foxglove sulks. "Do you think I messed up? Do you think I am incompetent and did some different spell? Because I didn't. So you can't bring him back. This makes no sense."

Mab's eyes, if they could burn, would burn with hate. She steps closer to her son's killer, bringing their faces dangerously close together; some part of Mab now wonders if she herself is capable of murder. "I think you messed up."

"The stasis will wear off in one week," Foxglove says, unafraid. "You only have that long to fix the unfixable."

Unrepentant, Foxglove proceeds to create the aforementioned portal, and shove Larkspur and Sarala through it.

It's like a sick joke, Finley thinks, about how they bring her brother's body back to his bedroom, place him on his bed and gingerly position his head on the pillow, as if he could care.

"I... I really don't know what to say," Charles stammers. "Usually I'm very good, with knowing what to say..." Free nachos comes to mind.

"Don't say anything," Mab manages to croak out.

"I'm going to get that car back to its owner," Accalia sighs. "Before we all get arrested."

"He died because he was defending me," Finley sniffs.

Mab kneels down on the floor with her daughter. Strokes her tear-soaked cheeks. Kisses her bangs. "Don't do this, little one."



______________________________________
 Etc.: A marid is a type of djinn/genie. Sarala may be a different type, it's not made clear. Djinn is a general term, disregarding type or power or how friendly the specimen in question is.