Cassandra Pendragon
"This can't be good." But Cassy, you paragon of virtue and self control, you might ask, aren't you jinxing whatever it is you're trying to accomplish? Yes, little Timmy from Arkansas, you're right, but when the girl your sister is trying to heal suddenly turns into a bonfire of magic, blood red flames and immaculate ice an exclamation of surprise and dare I say anxiety is in order, wouldn't you agree?
To add a little context: everything had worked splendidly for the first few minutes, which in and of itself should have been a glaring warning sign, but the naive idiot I was had simply chucked it up to a well deserved stretch of good fortune. A stretch that had come crashing down around my pointy and fluffy ears about sixty seconds later when Reia had mumbled:
"I… I smell smoke. Cassy… is she… ouch, damn it, she's smouldering! Is that supposed to happen?"
"What do you think," I had shot back while I had made my way into the glowing waters, my wings already reaching for the dripping wet couple. Unfortunately… oh well, magic, flames, ice? Do they ring a bell?
When I had already felt my sister's soft skin under my wings, a surge of power had torn through Lamia and from one second to the next the both of them had become engulfed by swaths of silvery magic, glaring red flames tinged with black and pristine, bluish white snowflakes. The smell of ozone, frozen blood and heat had assaulted me and through gritted teeth I had pressed out:
"This can't be good."
"You don't say," the dryad commented. "One pinnacle of cosmic powers and forbidden knowledge you are. This can't be good, indeed." Despite her scathing muttering, she was already hip deep in the waters, her eyes radiating a soft, greenish glow while she was trying to pick apart the layers of magic and get to the bottom of our flammable problems. I, on the other hand, didn't bother with figuring out which way was up. It didn't really matter anyways, in my experience. No, more often than not magic was like a clockwork. If a grain of sand got in there it was a damn fiasco, but supercharging the whole apparatus so it could simply grind the offending obstacle to dust usually worked. Unfortunately, if it didn't and you tried anyways, the whole thing would regularly be blown to smithereens right alongside your own overeager patootie. I fervently hoped that this wasn't one of those instances.
"Cassy… what… …have…" Reia's voice became more distant with every word, her speech and Greta's splashing progress slowing down to a crawl before they ceased entirely and my world turned silver grey. That way I at least had a few moments before anything else could go wrong. Plus, being able to actually see what was happening, curtesy of my enhanced vision, had to be an advantage. Or so I hoped. As it turned out, though…
At first I couldn't make heads or tails of the interconnected, complex weave of multicoloured strands that slowly unraveled before my eyes, but with a gentle nudge another trickle of power slipped from my core and my gaze immediately darted to a strange hue I hadn't perceived before. Somehow someone else's magic was at play here and it was the reason why Reia hadn't gotten far. As soon as she had reached for the phoenix, an alien presence had placed itself between her and Lamia and had diverted her, admittedly feeble, attempts. Long story short her power hadn't even been able to reach her target and once, pushed by yours truly in her ignorance, it had accumulated in the phoenix's body and had ignited. The result of which was now blazing away right in front of us.
My first impulse was to call for Sarai, but aside from the temporal obstacles I had created the angel was still entangled with my fiancée and probably not able, never mind in the mood, to lend a hand. Which meant pushing energy into the spell until the goddamned hindrance went up in flames it was.
With a sigh I reached deeper, my power bubbling just below the surface. I allowed my wings to gently latch onto Lamia and prepared to open the metaphorical floodgates, but then I hesitated. A disjoint memory, half buried under aeons of much more… deadly scenes, surfaced and I just about managed to hold back my energies. Otherwise I might have killed off her mother for good.
Phoenixes were a complicated race, as most divine beasts were. Their magic was convoluted, powerful and seldomly straightforward and the blighted curse was no exception. Somehow the bloody thing was as much a part of Lamia as it was of her mother and if I burned it out of the girl, I'd incinerate the mom at the same time. Which no one but me would have ever known about. I still didn't consider it. Not even for a moment. There had to be a better way.
I exhaled wearily and allowed my power to return to its source. "Beaches," I muttered, "I hope she's hauled up somewhere with a few white beaches and some cocktails. Disperse." My command immediately took effect and Reia's magic began to slip through her fingers like water. She hadn't yet realised what I had done and fought desperately to keep the unraveling strands of power together, but she could as well have tried to stop the wind with her bare hands.
"Let it go," I sighed, "there's nothing to gain here, but sorrow and regret." Her eyes flashed open and their iridescent, fathomless blue drew me in like a moth was drawn to the flame.
"What…," she stammered, "we're nearly there! I can…"
"She won't thank you for it," I explained tiredly while I beckoned for her to leave the waters. "Neither you nor Lamia have truly listened to me. You know, back when I first explained what's going on with her. Let me be very clear: her mom is still alive. She's a damned phoenix, of course she's still around. But breaking that curse would break her and the assault of immortal magic is one of the few things even a phoenix won't come back from. Save her now and you'll kill her mother. Even if she doesn't find out, will you be able to live with that? Because I won't."
Watching her expression was mildly entertaining while it cycled quickly through a myriad of emotions, from incredulity to pity, until it settled on something I'd have described as a glaring question mark. "Her mom is alive," she finally stammered while she hauled her breathing burden on dry land. "Why haven't we already gone looking for her?"
"Pray tell, where would you have me search," I retorted. "She could be anywhere…" a crease of fear appeared on her brow and she immediately asked:
"But… we can't heal her without her mom, who's somewhere in the wind, and she doesn't have much time left… doesn't that mean…"
"It's too soon to panic, kiddo. I said I don't know where to look for her… not yet. But the bond between a parent and their child is strong. Chances are I can narrow it down. We simply have to pray that she's still on this planet." She placed Lamia on the soft ground and shrugged into her discarded clothes. As soon as her head reappeared form the velvety folds she asked hurriedly:
"Is that actually possible? I thought only immortals could travel between stars."
"Why ever would you believe that? It's a question of power, be it knowledge or simple strength. But space travel is by no means exclusive to us. Again… her mom is a phoenix. The gal could have been pushing a hundred thousand years and her family would never have known. Not that I think it likely. Chances are she's been forced to reincarnate from her ashes and has forgotten all about her previous life, or she's being kept away on purpose. Most likely because she's a prisoner somewhere. If that's the case we'll have her home before nightfall."
"And if she's… elsewhere?" I sighed.
"Let's cross that bridge once we get there. We have to pinpoint her location first anyways." A spark of her former enthusiasm ignited in her arctic blue gaze.
"What can I do," she wanted to know. I looked around the cavern, but of course there was no knife or something similar lying around.
"Draw a few drops of her blood," I instructed. "Use your fans, but be careful. They're transcendent weapons now. Focus, otherwise they might cut much deeper than you want them to." She nodded and focused back on the unconscious girl at her feet while I turned to Greta.
"Am I making a mistake," I asked quietly. The dryad tilted her head to the side curiously, but after a moment or two she caught my meaning:
"No. You've never put the greater good above your family and you shouldn't start now. The world will still be there once you return from… wherever you have to go."
"I hope so. I… can I ask you something and can you spare me your usual snark?" She shrugged.
"Depends, what's on your mind?"
"Am I making a fool of myself because I'm trying to be everywhere at once?" It was her turn to sigh.
"I… honestly, I don't know. On one hand we already know that the string of unfortunate accidents you call a life has been designed specifically for you. On the other… if it has been designed for you, chances are that nothing much will happen while your away. Nothing new, that is. At the moment the realms are merging and I can't imagine that they'll wait for you until you're done with your potty break."
"Didn't I ask you to spare me the snark? Still, if you're right… a few days. It'll be over in a few days. Should I postpone…"
"Don't you dare!" Unbeknownst to us Reia had already finished her task and had apparently listened in. She held one of her fans in her hand and a sheen of blood was sparkling on the edge while she waved it under my nose. "You're not going to suddenly act like a queen when it is one of my friends who's going to pay for it! I'm not going to let you…"
"Let me? Honey, I don't have the nerve to sugarcoat my words, so let me be very clear: an angel you might be now, but you're not my equal. Curb your allusions of grandeur or they might come to bite you in the ass sooner rather than later." She bit her lip and stared at the ground for a moment, but I knew her well enough to realise it wouldn't last long. True enough, barely a second later she raised her head defiantly and met my eyes:
"Bite me. I've never been your equal when it comes to strength and I know I'm not now and most likely never will be, but I'm still your bloody sister! Which means I don't give a damn!" A curious sensation flowed through me as she touched the promise I had made. "You promised, Cassy. You promised me! Don't…" I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Fine! Stubborn, pigheaded…"
"You're one to talk! You…"
"Can we skip the theatrics already," the dryad interrupted her before she could even get started properly. "Reia, don't push her, just don't." Fascinating, even though her vocal cords had been rejuvenated, right now she sounded like the ancient, toothless kitsune who had taught me to the very T. "Cassandra… we both know how this will turn out. For once in your life could you not make it more complicated than it needs to be on the way there? Also… she's not far away." I had already finished preparing an eloquent, nuanced replied, which you'll unfortunately never hear, but her last sentence had made the words wither in my throat.
"She's not…," I stammered while I finally did what I probably should have done much sooner. Use my senses and magic to actually search for the offending, winged firecracker in question. "By all the saints at the backside door of purgatory," I uttered a few seconds later. "How the flipping fuck…" Short version: the connection between Lamia's curse and her mom was strong enough for me to follow, but the trail hadn't led me into a subrealm. Not even a cage or a prison on Gaya. No… it was split. A good chunk of it gleamed between the stars and the other, much more ethereal, much more fleeting part was connected directly to my own goddamned cube. More precisely to one side of it. As far as I was concerned there was exactly one explanation for this: "the burning bird is on Earth. How could she even get there?"
The question was entire rhetorical, but always the teacher Greta still answered: "Either she's stumbled into the Void and has managed to survive against all odds or there's a connection to Earth somewhere on this planet. Or in one of the subrealms. Which are merging… good god…"
"If you're right, a good chunk of the realms will materialise on Earth," I finished her sentence gloomily and then buried my face in my hands. The soothing darkness calmed me down and I just about managed to suppress a groan. "Guess I'll be returning far sooner than I thought."
"Would someone please tell me what's going on," Reia erupted as I felt her wings materialised. I could just about picture her standing in front of me, hands on her hips and pouting, but I didn't raise my head. A few seconds of self pity wouldn't hurt anyone and Greta was more than capable of answering her questions:
"Don't be daft, what's there to explain? Her mother is still alive and has somehow found her way onto a different planet. Unless we kill her we need her here. Which means someone has to go fetch her. Was it hard to follow? Should I repeat myself a bit more slowly?"
"I wouldn't want you to overexert your gerontic body," the angel hissed. "By the Great Fox, where is she?"
"Earth. A planet your sister knows well. A planet she has direct access to. A coincidence? Unlikely. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. What do you think will be waiting for her, once she goes there? How will she get back?"
"Through you," my muffled voice interrupted them. "I'll take a seedling with me and strengthen it beforehand."
"That would link Gaya and Earth permanently. Do you really want to…"
"What else is there? Tick tock goes the clock… it's all connected. We have a few days, at best."
"To travel through several galaxies, find a phoenix on a planet, find the gate she used to cross over, close it and return in time to prevent our world from falling apart under the pressure of several realms?"
"No… first I'll have to get to Earth. Depending on how badly that goes the rest is… doubtful, to say the least. The entire realm collapse… that'll be up to you two, Ahri and Sarai." I had expected contradiction, but definitely nothing of the sort I heard next:
"No way in all hells," Reia stated as if she was reading from a formal declaration. "I'm coming with you. So is she." I didn't have to look to know whom she was pointing at. Still I raised my head and narrowed my eyes at her.
"If you expect me to stop you, you'll be sorely disappointed. You're sturdy enough by now that I don't have to worry about you all the time. You are. She's not. Luckily that's not my problem."