You'd be surprised how many situations can be improved just by having a nice calming glass of milk.. Events unfold including but not limited to: Sarah almost losing an arm (although that may just be her exaggerating) And Hannah talks to Trudy.

“FELIX!”

He looks bigger then I remember.
Maybe it’s just the situation but he looks almost heroic, floating in front of me with his clawed little hands spread dangerously at the handy man.

The moment he turned up with his recognisable fae-fire teleportation, he was followed by more fire.
So MUCH more.

“Hip-Nabin!”
His little squeaky voice seemed to echo across the clearing.
With pops from every direction the whole area was flooded with imps.

Small imps, big imps, old imps, young imps.
Every kind you can think of in so many different glorious shades of red!

The golems opened fire on them instantly but the imps were too fast for the slow golems to track properly.
The imps seemed more amused than anything, dodging between gunfire like children playing hopscotch, giggling their high pitched laughs and shouting random things to each other in their language.

“Frak-un-vasi Jeri-vas Bek Bii San-ya!”
Felix and a little crew of six other imps formed a surprisingly formidable looking line formation between me and the handy man.

Oh you amazing little angel Felix!
I could kiss that little bright red head of his till I’m blue in the face!

The asshole calling himself 'the handy man' stared around the clearing with eyes wide in shock.
I wasn’t doing much better honestly, it’s only my hard earned ability to roll with weirdness in life that’s saving me from staring just as blankly as he is.

“Felix, your timing is amazing! Can you keep the golems distracted and keep HIM away from me?”
Felix flapped slightly harder and turned his head to glance over his shoulder at me.
His pointy little teeth seemed to gleam in the afternoon sunlight.

“Fal-drekoo say-ur Bii San-ya!”

I have no idea what he said.
Something about imps and me but whatever it was the imps around us took it as some kind of command.

The ones flying playful rings around the golems started going faster, making some of the golems spin around so much that, if they were human, they would have gotten dizzy and collapsed by now.

The ones flying high above us started dive bombing the golems distracted heads with their sharp little claws like eagles trying to catch prey.. or at least maim it badly.

Felix and his line of minions tightened their positions in the air.
Keeping a watchful eye on the handy man, not that it looked like he would be going anywhere.
His eyes were shooting around the clearing frantically
I think he was just stuck on trying to take in the virtual ARMY of imps that had appeared from nowhere!

Wasting no time I ran to the nearest body, which happened to be the Generals, and with a grimace I smeared his blood on my hands.
I may be a near expert in blood magic and runes, but even I can think its gross when it’s not my blood on my hands.

My brain was more focused on the calculations I was running at lightning speed then my actions though.
While I fought down the slight disgust and did the math, my body ran over to a clear patch of dirt to start drawing a rune cluster with the blood on my hands.

This one’s the easy one.
A simple blood gathering rune.

It’s technically not called that, the cluster itself can be used to gather all sorts of liquids.

I just changed this one a little so it only draws in blood.
You’d be surprised how useful that can be in my line of work.. especially with my general skill set.

The blood on my clothes started drawing away first.
It trickled down my skin and formed little liquid trails toward the center point of the rune.

A glance up told me that it was working correctly.
From all fifty or so of the dead mercenaries dotted around the clearing little trails of blood were forming up and converging on the rune in front of me.

As the mass became too much for the runes 'area' to contain, the blood started sloshing itself upwards as if held in some kind of invisible container.
Exactly as it’s supposed to.

The gunfire from the golems became momentarily more frantic.
I think they tried to take some pot shots at me!

Before the bullets could reach me an imp came flying in-between me and them.
His little clawed hand was already alight with a bright ball of fire and he literally melted the bullets into nothing mid-flight.

The poor little guy drooped in exhaustion afterwards.

Imps aren’t usually front-line fighters.
They have magic, it’s just kind of limited by their capacity.
That one must be pretty old for him to have managed such an impressive fireball so quickly..

With a tired pointy grin at me he disappeared in a fae-fire teleportation that finished in a faint pop.

Shaking myself out of my surprise I quickly got to work.
The runes I’m trying to make are complicated.
I thought of using them a minute ago but discounted the design because it would take a miracle for me to have the time needed to create them.. and then THEY turned up..

I have no idea why or even how he did it but I called for help and Felix came!

I couldn’t resist glancing over at him.
He seemed quite happy standing back from the fun, keeping a keen eye on both me and the handy man.

The rest of his little guard troop didn’t seem quite so passive.
Judging by the deep gashes I could see on handy man’s face and arms along with the tears in his nice, now stained, white suit they’d been keeping themselves entertained by getting a few hits in on him.

Felix glanced over at me and caught my eye for a moment.
His little face split into a wide, sharp toothed grin.

If I was anyone else, in any other situation, I would have probably found the look disturbing.. but I’m not and I think he looked positively adorable when he stared at me with his bright, proud little smile!
I was out of options, no power, no backup, no other choice but surrender.. I owe the little guy SO much for this.

My grin was so wide it hurt my stupid new cheeks.
He appreciated it though, he practically seemed to glow with joy at my smile.

We stared at each other for a few seconds, his sharp little grin progressively got wide as we went on.

Finally I glanced away to get back to work.
Luckily my hands hadn’t been idle while I had my moment with Felix.

A simple glance downward told me my rune crafting skills hadn’t deteriorated in the slightest over the last few weeks.
Even with the handcuffs I was able to draw a lot of this on autopilot, once I knew what I wanted to do at least.

It’s all Latin runes anyway.
I can practically write Latin runes in my sleep.
There’s no need to get fancy here.
The effect should be impressive enough to cover for my lack of originality or fancy effort in crafting it.

Do you remember when I worked out why they put the helmets on the golems?
To keep them from hearing a voice other than their ‘controllers’ clearly enough to follow orders..

That’s because these golems are un-imprinted.
They’re open to suggestion from anyone, as long as it doesn’t contradict their basic inbuilt rules at least.
What do you suppose would happen if a talented, outrageously powerful mage came along and put a blood bound master-control rune into the very CENTER of each golem, all at once?

A mutiny.. THAT’s what!

With a few final swipes I finished the fourth control rune cluster.
I’d love to pause to admire my work but there’s no time.
The Gryphon is still coming and the imps won’t be able to last like this forever.
Their numbers are already thinning, from exhaustion instead of injury which is something at least.

“Felix!”
He was by my side so fast it felt like he’d teleported but the keen look on his face said he was just excited to be called.

“Can you get these off me Felix?”
His head twisted almost ninety degrees in confusion for a moment until he stared down at the handcuffs on my wrists and hissed a little.

Yeah, the cuff’s aren’t nice.
The Fae tend to have a form of vision that acts like a permanent version of magesight, even an imp can probably see the power drain effect in action.

From what I can guess.. and feel.. they’re designed to draw in the ambient magic I give out when I build up to cast any kind of spell.
The moment I touch my core to draw some power they draw it in and start heating up in response.

With the amount of power I end up putting into pretty much EVERYTHING at the moment, I damn near melted my hands off at the wrist the last time I tried to cast back in the house.

Felix stared at the cuffs for a moment
Eventually he reached one little claw down to try and scratch them.
His sharp claw didn’t even leave a mark sadly.
They must be enchanted for strength as well as the rest of it.

DAMN IT!

So close.
..What else can we do?..
I need a mage!

I need someone who can activate this rune cluster.
My first one was easy, just the magic in the air around us set it off without an active push from me.
This one is a lot more powerful and needs a bit of a shove to get started..

I need a mage.. no.. not a mage.
I need magic!
I need someone or something that can push human magic into the rune while I can’t!

“Felix..”
His little head shot up to look at me and he offered an apologetic look.
He seems really upset that he couldn’t get the cuffs off for me.
“Felix, how good are you at gathering ambient magic?”

His little chest puffed up as if I’d offended him.
From what I’ve heard, most fae are good at it.

Rumor is, that the true fae actually live off of ambient magic.
Ambient magic is any magic that’s been released into the world around us from one source or another.
That’s why the fae tend to specialise in things, like Pan being the fae king of the mountains, he takes in nature magic from them to survive.

“I’m going to force some magic out of my core.. it’s going to hurt Felix, I’ll only be able to do it for a moment. Can you gather up what I release and shove it all into this glyph here?”

For a moment he seemed sceptical but he nodded anyway and set himself into a wide stance while gently flapping in front of me.

I tensed

As quickly as possible, to save myself as much pain as I could, I dived into my core and yanked a single line of power out.
I barely managed to get it vented from my body before the cuffs started to burn my wrists again.

My body convulsed in visceral pain.
I couldn’t move my mouth enough to scream, the pain was drowning out all thought from my head!

======

After what seemed like an eternity the cuffs cooled.
I slowly let my head sink down to stare at my red, deeply burned and blistered wrists.
Cycling some blood magic in my body internally will help to take the edge off but I can’t flow enough around to actively heal the injury until the cuffs are off.

Whoever came up with these things is equal parts diabolical and ingenious!

My pain addled mind finally caught up with the sounds around us.. or rather the lack of them.
No gunfire..
No shouting imps..
No frantic wings flapping around en masse..

It worked..
Holy CRAP it worked!

My eyes drifted around us at the golems standing dead-still at the clearings edge like giant statues.
A few imps had settled on them.
They reminded me of bright red, chittering birds with the way they were hopping about excitedly.
Even from here I could see that a lot of them were giving me wide, toothy grins of victory.

Finally my head turned and settled on Felix.

He seemed surprisingly thoughtful for some reason.
His head was down staring at his little hands which were clenching and unclenching repeatedly, his face set in a look of mild awe.

“You okay Felix?”
His head shot up and he stared at me with bright, sparkling eyes.

That’s not just me being poetic.
His eyes really WERE practically sparkling for some reason.

With a happy squeak he dive bombed me and latched himself onto my chest.

I couldn’t resist the laugh that bubbled up from his happiness.
I didn’t resist when my sore, cuffed hands moved up to give him a gentle hug in return.

A few of the other imps were moving over to us cautiously.
It felt oddly comfortable to hold Felix to my chest like this while surrounded by a watching army of imps.
Hopefully that’s not some kind of innate ‘mothering’ instinct showing its unwelcome face..?

An imp would make one hell of an ugly baby, still cute in my opinion, but definitely ugly!

Out of the corner of my eye I caught the large swooping object but I was too slow to react.
The Gryphon dived down into the crowd of imps, who’d been busy either watching me or our prisoner, sending them all scattering to the floor with angry squeals.

With one giant claw the Gryphon grasped the battered ‘handy man’ by his waist and yanked him up into the sky.

A few imps tried to give chase but they had no chance against a Gryphon.
Those things are FAST.

The disappointed imps drifted back over to me and Felix.
I offered them all a warm smile for trying which seemed to perk them up quickly.
It’s always amusing how easily a smile can cheer up imps.

Felix flapped his wings gently as a sign that he wanted to end our hug.

When I let him go he flapped up to the other imps, the ones that had made up his little ‘defensive wall’ to protect me from handy man specifically.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying because they were so far up but he waved at the golems and started pointing in some other random directions.

A few imps shot off from the pack and a moment later I could hear the roar of fireballs being cast.

I couldn’t restrain my gasp when a shimmering blue barrier appeared in the sky before cracking and fading into nothing.

No wonder John couldn’t find me.. the bastards put a barrier seal up!
Probably one that stops all magic from entering or exiting the shell, like a rough ward line.
It’s the same type the MPA put up around sites of magical accidents.
That’s the kind I’d have used in this situation at least..

The imps around Felix broke away and seemed to find perches among their kin on the golems dotted around us.
With one chorusing cry they burst into flame, taking the golems with them.

Felix flapped his way down to me and gave me a big happy grin.

“Fal-tre Drep-si-bek foro Bii San-ya.”
I almost frowned at him for talking so much in one go.

He KNOWS I can’t understand him!

My annoyed rebuke stopped short when, in the same squeaky voice he’d just used to speak, words continued on coming, as if echoing his last sentence in my head.
‘You-are Safe-from-harm Now Lady-Death.’

My eyes went impossibly wide.

That’s.. this can’t be happening.. not in a ‘wow that’s surprising’ kind of way.
This CAN’T be happening.

The cadence was all perfect.
The words spoken in the same flowing, almost musical chirrup-y tones of his own language.. but I could hear them in English!

This.. this can’t be real!
How the hell can I-

He started talking again and waved his little arm around the clearing.
I could hear his words in his own language but focused intently on the echoing English words instead.

‘The-imps Are Proud-to-fight With You-today. We Thank-you For-the-gift Of-fake-humans. I Thank-you For-the-gift Of-trust. As-Always We-will Come When-called Lady-Death.’

His sentences felt stilted and slightly hard for me to process in one go while heard in English but they matched the patterns of his actual words, which were pretty much gibberish to me still.

I opened my mouth to.. I’m not sure?..
..Thank him?
..Ask him what was going on with his speech coming out in English suddenly?
..Find out what he meant by ‘gift of fake humans’ and ‘gift of trust’?

Before I could get any of those answers he flapped hard into the sky and disappeared in a flash of fae-fire and sulphurous smoke.

I sat on the clearing’s dirty grass floor, still a little stunned.
Around me the drained, almost mummified, bodies of the mercenaries lay spread out in a morbid mass.

Too much..
Too much has happened all at once..
I don’t think I can handle anything else at this point..

The sound of crashing trees behind me got my attention.

I turned slowly to see what was going on and came face to face with a frantic, sweaty John.
His legs seemed to almost collapse underneath him the moment he saw me.

With stumbling steps he managed to reach my side and pulled me into a painfully tight hug.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, I thought you were dead! I thought they got you. I thought..”
His arms were trembling slightly.
His breath was coming out in ragged, exhausted gasps.

He squeezed me a bit tighter and nuzzled his nose in my hair.

I didn’t shove him off, as instinct demanded, mostly because I was so utterly exhausted myself..
Not physically like he seemed to be, but emotionally.

Let him have his moment.
If he tries something like this later I’ll slap him down with every curse I know.. but for now it’s okay..

He honestly seems relieved to see me.
I’m not quite up to throwing away a hug right now.. even if it IS from him.

======

“Well, don’t you two seem comfortable?”

John jolted away from me.
I almost fell over with how quickly he let me go.

Sarah smirked at us.
For a second I wondered how she’d found us but then I noticed the necklace she had grasped in her hand.

I knew I should have taken that thing off of her years ago.
No good can come from your sister having a way to track magic when you’re a mage!

“Hey Sarah, how you feeling?”
She didn’t give me time to react before lunging at me and hugging me tightly.

“How the hell do you THINK I’m feeling? I woke up to find two SWAT people with their heads turned to mush and John standing over me with his hand glowing yellow!”
She shuddered a little into the hug.

“We managed to find you easily but we couldn’t get to you. John said something about a barrier, he kept throwing himself against it with this blue stuff all over him until he ended up just collapsing onto the floor, from the way he was acting I thought you were DEAD or something!”

Her arms squeezed me so hard I let out a raspy breath.
A moment later she shifted position slightly and brushed my foot with hers.

The world whited out for a second and I screamed in pain, scaring the hell out of all three of us.

My vision came back to me eventually.
They were both giving me worried looks.

Surprisingly it was Sarah who spoke first.
“Han, your hurt! Why haven’t you done your heal-y fix-y golden magic thing yet?”

With a reluctant sigh I brought my hands up from between us and showed her the handcuffs.

“They’re enchanted to drain my active magic.”
Sarah reached out to touch my hands and winced when I hissed in a breath from her moving my blistered wrists.

John leaned in thoughtfully to inspect the cuffs for a moment.
Cautiously he reached out a single finger sweeping it around the first lock, along the chain between the cuffs and over to the lock on the other side.

With an anti-climactic ‘click’ the cuffs came lose and fell from my wrists to the floor.

“..Where were you half an hour ago?..”
He seemed to find my growled, semi-sarcastic question funny.
Sarah giggled a little too.

My magic ROLLED through me in joy at finally being free again.

I didn’t need any kind of trigger to set it off.
Before any of us could close our eyes I lit up in a near solid golden corona of magic that covered the entire clearing.

We yelped almost simultaneously and covered our eyes but it was too late.
For the second time is as many minutes I could see nothing but white.

On the plus side, I could feel my wounds fading away.

Judging by Sarah’s gasped breath she could feel her head wound healing properly too.
I have no doubts that whatever spell John did to heal her earlier was weak at best.
He’s never been a particularly good healer.

With a pleasure filled giggle I flopped onto the ground and huddled myself up into a nice warm ball.

The pains gone!
The pains gone, I’m safe and I feel soooo good.

“Han? Han, don’t-”
My hand came out of my little ball of pleasure and latched onto Sarah’s leg, cutting off whatever she was going to say.
Her legs really smooth and nice.
Everything’s SO good!

“Is this a normal thing for her?”

John.. John, John, Johnny, John, John..
He’s my friend again.
That’s so awesome!

Everything’s awesome!

“Lov’ ‘ou ‘ohn.”
I could have said it better but my face is partly stuck on the nice warm dirt and if he doesn’t understand me then that’s fine ‘coz he’s my friend so he’ll understand.

“When she goes off like that she tends to be a bit.. drunk..”
Sarah!

Sarah.. my Sarah.
She’s good.
Every.. everything’s good..

..I don’t feel so good..

I’m so tiredddd..

“How odd..”
Joh-

I didn’t manage another thought before I drifted off into a happy oblivion.
Magic’s so awesome!

======

“You’re not getting near her! Where the hell were you when we needed you?!”

Ugg.. what’s he shouting about now?

“Johnny, calm down. They just want to check her over.”
..Trudy..

“I don’t CARE! You’re not taking her anywhere, she’s fine, we’ll look after her.”
For the powers sake John, calm down.. your shouting’s giving me a headache..

With a lot of effort I managed to roll my body over into a sloppy sideways lean.
My arms aren’t quite up to supporting my weight for now but at least I’m not face down in the dirt anymore.

As usual, after I let off one of these new instinctive magic bursts, I’ve got a pleasantly warm feeling rolling all around my body that would normally have me in a REALLY good mood..
Having just survived a pretty major-league kidnapping attempt would help too..

If this damn headache would go away at least!
If that happened, everything would be pretty much sunshine and rainbows right about now!

“Han?”
Sarah was hovering at my shoulder.

She seemed nervous and kept shooting looks to my left.
I followed her eyes and grimaced a little.

The MPA are here.

At least Trudy seems to be running things, as much as she can with John standing in her way and all.
Most of the MPA agents seem to be cautiously bagging up the mercenaries’ bodies from what I can see while Trudy is focused on calming John down.

Dotted around the clearing I can see a few people in the distinctive lab coats of the Hub’s research division, generally talking in little groups or making notes on things as they seem to always be doing whenever I’ve seen them in the past.

My eyes lazily scanned back to Trudy and John.

John’s puffed up like an angry cat for some reason.
He keeps shifting his body to block Trudy’s view of me too.

“Johnny, honestly. You know me, you trust me.. right little buddy?”

I nearly choked on my tongue in surprise.
Does Trudy have a death wish or something?!

Not only does she call him ‘Johnny’ to his face but.. ‘little buddy’?
Seriously?!
He’s killed people for less without batting an eye!

Well.. Maxarimus has a least.

With the way he’s been acting since I found him lazing about in the Martials pool, I’m not as sure as I’d like to be that Max’s past deeds are entirely relevant to how John will react now.

I don’t like that feeling honestly.
I’m used to dealing with him as Max, and to some degree Max is predictable.

I have NO idea what’s going on in his head at the moment.. and that’s a little frightening..

The look on his face when he found me..
I don’t remember Max showing that kind of face in ANY of the past-incarnations I can access.
Even when he was acting, obliviously, as my pre-teen best-friend ‘John’ he never had a reason to seem so worried, relieved and frustrated all in one go..

To my surprise, John’s head sunk a little and he let out a tense breath instead of just vaporising Trudy on the spot with magic.

His fists stayed tightly at his side to show how tense he really was but he didn’t actively start yelling again.
“You can go past Trudy. The rest of them will stay the hell away from her..”

Trudy’s face lit up in a bright smile and her hand came down to gently pat John’s shoulder.
With a nod to the mix of lab coat wearing men and MPA commissioned officers behind her she eased passed him to make her way over to us.

When she got near she knelt down on one knee so she was closer in eye level with me and offered a strained smile.
My brain chose to find it vaguely amusing that, if she stays like that, she’s going to get grass stains on her skirt..

“Hi Hannah. It looks like you’ve had a busy morning.”

I couldn’t contain the little laugh that came out of me.
To be honest, headache aside, it wouldn’t take much to make me laugh at the moment.

I don’t feel too happy, but my body is so jazzed up on a high from venting all that magic, it’s left me feeling light and giggly despite myself.
“That’s one way of putting it..”

She gave me a pained smile and her hand came up to ruffle my hair a little.

From the feel of it my braid came un-done at some point.
It’s probably Sarah’s doing.
When she’s nervous she tends to fiddle with things to distract herself.

“Let’s get you all home, yeah?”

I let out a relieved breath at Trudy’s warm smile.
Sarah seemed relieved too.
I can’t blame her, the bodies all around us are more than a little off putting, even for me.

John moved closer to us and seemed to be trying to act as a one man protective detail.
Every time any Hub staff tried to approach us as we made our way to the treeline he puffed up and his hands practically glowed with a warning lick of flame.

Needless to say, we had a pretty clear route to the treeline.

I spent the trip clinging to Sarah so we didn’t trip on the unstable ground.
My legs aren’t quite recovered from the magic venting pleasure rolling through me yet.

======

Surprisingly it took us less than five minutes to get back to the house.
For some reason I thought the golem had led me a lot further away than that.

We’d all been too tense to discuss anything in the open at the moment.
John’s twitchy body guard act had me on edge, I don’t think Sarah or Trudy appreciated it either.

From the outside I could easily make out where the golems had gotten into the house.

They broke through one of the bay windows on the far side of the building.
I don’t know how they kept it so quite..

I guess I wasn’t exactly paying attention at the time?

“I hope your people are gonna fix that Trudy? If mum comes home to see a hole in the side of the house she’ll go mental..”
Sarah winced along with me just thinking about it.

Mum’s always had a bit of a temper.
If nothing else it would ruin the good mood we’ve managed to develop with her lately.

“They can, but they won’t be able to get everything together until this evening.”
I sighed and sunk my shoulders a little.

Most mages would use this as an excuse to memory wipe the person they’re trying to hide the damage from.. but its MUM..
Considering how many problems that have come from her getting a relatively simple memory modification lately, I shudder to think what could go wrong from adding MORE pressure onto her brain!
The human mind isn’t exactly built to be attacked that often and, let’s face it, that IS what a memory wipe is.
..An attack..

“Do you think you could do another magic ‘fixing’ blast-thing Han?”
I opened my mouth to agree with Sarah but stopped short.

While my magic has already recovered to a ‘normal’ level, it’s going to be a while before I’ve got enough excess magic in my lines to do a full power burst, half an hour at least.
Judging by the amount of damage to the windows I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to fix it!

I still don’t actually know how this healing/fixing trick works honestly.
Hopefully Fena can find out from Edith for me at some point, but for now I’ve pretty much just got to go with what’s worked so far and my instincts.

“If you can gather up the broken parts into a pile I can try.. I’m not sure if this thing can do actual repairs like that, most of the stuff we’ve seen it do so far is pretty basic repair wise or reinforcement.. I think, I dunno honestly?..”
Sarah nodded and moved into the house, most likely heading towards the storage cupboard to get the dustpan and broom.

For a moment John seemed a bit uneasy.
Finally he huffed to himself and shot me an apologetic look.
“I’ll go collect the parts from the front wall too.”

..what?..
My eyebrow must have almost flown off my face, judging by how flustered he got with just a glance at me.

“It’s not like I had any other option, your blood wards are damn near impossible to break through.. so when the SWAT guys dropped dead suddenly I had to get inside somehow.”
I could feel my lips pull back in a tense snarl.

“What..did you do..?”

He huffed and ran his hand through his hair nervously.
“I kind of.. blew a hole in the wall and walked through it..”

Instinctively my magic bubbled in anger and my fist came up to hit him.
He doesn’t save me!
He doesn’t do anything to stop them himself!
Then, just to finish it all off with a nice pretty ribbon, he blew a HOLE in our HOUSE!

“I had to check on Sarah!”
He cringed away from my raised fist a little.
My rage cooled almost instantly.

He did it for Sarah..
..crap..

I’m still not used to reacting to him as a person..

Over the last few years every time I’ve seen him I’ve had to go on the attack as fast as possible just to survive!
It’s weird to think that he can do something bad for a good reason now.. really weird.

I’m gonna have to get used to that idea.
I’ve not seen anything from him that’s given me any hint that he’s lying.
I need to stop reacting to him like I would with ‘Max’ and start trying to think of him more as ‘John’ again instead.

..That’s not gonna be easy..

“Sorry John.. force of habit.”
He smirked at me a little shakily.
I think my flash of anger surprised him a bit.

I’ll not claim to be emotionally stable in any way at the moment.
The pleasure from venting my magic isn’t helping.

It feels nice but it’s not a TRUE feeling.
It’s making me tense, does that make sense?

It’s really frustrating to know that you should be upset, sad, scared or just plain angry but you have this pressing wave of joy and warmth rolling through you at the same time.
The moment the feeling fades I’m probably going to crash big time!

I might have to go back to the clearing and have a bit of a screaming fit or something where no-one can see me to be honest.
Just.. I can feel it.. I need to do SOMETHING, ya know?

Trudy put a gentle hand on my shoulder and led me in through our back door to sit on one of the chairs at the little kitchen counter we never use.
She busied herself in the cupboards and the fridge for a moment before turning back around with two tall glasses of milk.

“It always helps when I need to calm down.”
She seemed a bit embarrassed in admitting that fact but she did it anyway and that’s what counts.
I smiled at her, taking my glass gently.
It’s nice that she’s trying to comfort me at least.

The first sip of the milk felt refreshing.
I hadn’t realised how dry my mouth had gotten.

It turns out being kidnapped by a group of mercenaries and then using the blood from their golem-killed bodies to take control of those golems is thirsty work.. who knew?..

“What happened Hannah?”
My eyes shot up to look at Trudy.
She seemed worried.
Some of my mixed emotions must have shown on my face.
“You’re not in trouble but I need to know so I know who to hurt for you.”

My smile hurt my cheeks a little at that.

It’s nice to have people who are willing to protect you, normally I’d feel a bit offended at the idea of someone trying to ‘protect me’ when I can handle myself pretty good.. but.. I didn’t exactly handle everything very well today did I?

I let my guard down at the wrong time.
If I’d reacted faster, followed my instincts, they wouldn’t have got those cuffs on me and this could have been all over so much easier.

“I got sloppy..”
Trudy pulled a face and shuffled in her chair a little to put her arm around my shoulders.

“You can’t blame yourself for this honey. You’re all alive, aren’t you? That’s a pretty good sign that you did the right thing somehow.”
My lips pulled into a slightly pained smile but I shook my head in denial.

She doesn’t get it.
Sarah could have DIED today, and it would have been my fault for not.. for not THINKING.

If I’d been this sloppy during a mission I’d have lasted less than five minutes!
It’s like Karl all over again damn it!
I thought we were safe, I let my guard down and then THIS happens!

This ALWAYS happens!

I hate it!
I hate it so much, but hating it won’t change anything.. the only thing I can do to stop it from happening again is to stop being so damn weak!

What’s the point of being a mage if I can’t protect anything that’s important to me?

“You don’t look convinced.. why don’t you tell me about it all, from the beginning?”
I flinched a little at being reminded that Trudy was sitting there watching me.

I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t want to go through it all over again.. but.. that’s the POINT, isn’t it?

Whenever things went wrong on a mission I’d get to a secure location and spend hours going over what happened.
Working out what I did, what I should have done and where I messed up..
THAT’s the sort of mind-set I need to get back into.

..That’s the sort of mind-set that stops people getting killed because of my failures..

“Sure.. I can tell you what happened Trudy..”
Her arm on my shoulder squeezed reassuringly but it didn’t help much.

With a sigh I started explaining today’s events, starting with John.
Even when he’s back to being my supposed ‘friend’, everything seems to start with John..

======

“Sorry.. give me a second here Hannah..”

I tried to not feel too hurt that she was struggling to process it all.
I’m still a bit overwhelmed too so it would be kind of hypocritical of me otherwise.

Sarah and John had come in at different times throughout my explanation.
Sarah couldn’t take it after a minute or two and went into the TV room for a distraction.
John stayed though, he perched himself against the wall near the stairs and seemed to be deep in thought for some reason.

The thing Trudy was having the most trouble with seemed to be the idea of the imps coming to save me..
I explained Felix, as best I could, but I don’t think she really understood what a sweetie he is.
Most people have this kind of problem with imps.

They have this set idea that they’re ‘evil’, just from their looks or that they’re naughty because they like to pull pranks sometimes.

They’re not malicious though, not like goblins or gnomes!

Goblins are sneaky.
They play nice but secretly they are ALWAYS screwing you over in some way, they just really don’t like humans for some reason and use it as an excuse to mess with us.

Gnomes.. everyone sees gnomes as these little ‘micro-humans’ with bright flushed cheeks and happy little voices.
What you don’t hear about is that they’re dirty little thieves!
The minute your backs turned they’ll dig through your floor and take all your jewellery or, failing that, just anything shiny they can get their hands on..

They’re vicious too!
One woman lost her ring finger because a gnome decided it wanted her nice shiny wedding ring and bit it off in the process!

THAT is a ‘nice’ fae in most people’s opinion.

I’ve said it before.. people are stupid..

Those are the REAL vicious little bastards but everyone thinks they’re nice while picking on the imps!
It’s completely unfair!

Imps are a bit manic and childish but they’re pretty much innocent.
The worst an imp is going to do to someone, without being in self-defence, is to plug up their toilet with newspaper in revenge for someone shouting at them.

They’re pranksters and they find humans amusing, but they’re not EVIL!

It’s probably not all Trudy’s fault, a lot of people have never even met an imp in person.
I shouldn’t get this mad at her over it at least.
She doesn’t mean to insult them.

It’s just.. Felix.. Felix and his friends.. they SAVED me today.
We met ONCE and that was enough for him to come to my aid out of nowhere when no-one else could!

I owe him..

“So this Imp..”
I sighed and rubbed my hand on my forehead.
My headaches easing but the conversation isn’t helping.

Trudy seems to be stuck on the imps for some reason.

They appeared!
That’s it, end of story.
I cried out for help and Felix came, with friends to save the day.

They saved me damn it!

“Can we focus on.. ya know.. the BAD guy, maybe?”
I think my tone was a bit sharp judging by the hurt look on Trudy’s face.
“Sorry.. it’s been yet ANOTHER long day.”
She squeezed me a bit tighter and her face settled back into her usual warm, reassuring smile
“We had a really nice night and morning.. I should have known it would all go wrong.”

Her hand came up and turned my head with a gentle push until I was looking at her properly.

“This isn’t your fault Hannah.”
I tried to move my head away from her.
Her eyes were boring into mine too intensely.
“There’s nothing you could have done differently to-”

Before she could finish that thought John shot upright with a worried look on his face and made a noise.
We both turned to look at him curiously.

“You’re mums home, she just turned onto the street at the crossing.”

How the hell does he know tha.. crap, nevermind.
Priorities!

“Trudy, you go over to the Martials house and wait for us.”
She nodded and quickly left the house through the backdoor without comment.
I’m surprised, I expected to have to argue the point with her to some degree.

“John, I’m gonna try to fix everything with a magic blast but I’ll be useless afterwards.”
He seemed a bit unsure about that but nodded anyway.
“Get Sarah, you should be able to move me over to the Martials place before I pass out completely if you work together. We’ll figure out what to tell mum when I wake up.”

There’s no guarantee that I’ll fall asleep again after venting the magic but it’s happened every time so far so it’s best that we plan for it, just in case.

“She’ll be able to see the house any secon-”
Before he could finish that sentence I dived into my core, rushed through pulling my spare magic together and flipped the mental switch.

I think I moaned in ecstasy as the near solid wall of golden light flooded out of my body and spread out around me, drifting through walls as if they didn’t exist.

John gasped but didn’t hesitate in rushing over to catch me as I fell.
My legs wouldn’t work properly.
My neck felt like spaghetti and my arms felt like lead.

All that aside though I felt SOOOO good..

“You look f.. funny when you look like tha’ look..”
I tried to reach up to touch John’s face but my hand wasn’t working right.

With a lazy giggle my head rolled back and I sighed happily.

I LOVE magic!
I love the ceiling!
I love John!
I love my legs!
..Everything’s so awesome..

“I lov’ everrrrythin’”

John grunted and shifted my weight until he was practically carrying me.
His arms felt so good under me.
I shuffled myself closer to his warm, warm body.
This feels soo good…

“A little warning would have been nice, damn near lost my arm when the window just faded back into existence!”
Sarah came stomping into the kitchen with a frown on her face but it went away quickly.

Good, it’s not good when Sarah’s mad.
Everything’s good..

“We have to leave, your mum’s just parking up outside. Trudy’s waiting for us at my Aunt and Uncles place.”
Sarah shot him an angry look but didn’t argue.
With a slight stomp to her walk she led us out the backdoor and shut it tightly behind her.

My neck flopped down a little more in Johns arms and I couldn’t resist a giggle as my eyes tracked Sarah’s huffy walk.

Stomp, stomp, stomp.
It looks funny.
Funny’s good.

Everythings.. good..

“Stay with us Han.”
Sarah’s voice felt far off for some reason.
That’s good.. I.. it’s all good..

“Damn it, she’s gonna pass out. Whatever you do, don’t drop her.”
John shifted me in his arms a little more and I sighed happily, nuzzling my cheek into his warm, warm chest.

..so good..

======

“ughh…”

Sarah sniggered at my groan.
I didn’t want to, or know why it started, but a giggle bubbled up in my chest and spewed out of my mouth in return.

“..My head hurts.”
For some reason the idea of a headache made me laugh again.
Headaches such a funny words.. coz’ your head.. aches.. HA!

“Is she like this a lot?”
John’s voice sounded close, really close.
It doesn’t matter though because this bed’s so comfortable.

“Only since she started doing the golden light-show thing. It’s like she’s drunk..”
My jaw dropped open in a wide yawn and about half way through it a cackling laugh came out for no reason making me cough hard.

“She’s not drunk, she’s high.. trust me, I have experience with her being high..”
Through my squinted eyes I could see the angry, demanding look on Sarah’s face but I can’t quite work out why it’s there.. everything’s really weird at the moment..

“Not like that! I don’t think Al’s even tried drugs in his life.. what I meant was that I’ve seen how this body she’s got reacts to drugs before..”
His breath huffed in his chest loudly and my bed moved with it.
That’s really weird..

“We lived through the Victorian era.. do you KNOW how many Class A, or worse, drugs were used as medicine back then?”

Sarah’s face lost a lot of its anger.
By the time she reached down and brushed my hair back from my face she seemed to be smiling.
Her hand on my forehead, as she pushed the hair back, felt really good.

My skin is hyper sensitive for some reason.
It’s silly but it made me laugh anyway.

I tried to tell her not to stop when she pulled her hand back but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

“I’m going to put her under for a bit, hopefully she can sleep the effects off pretty quickly.”
John’s hand came into view and it looked HUGE!

I stared at it in wonder as it came closer and closer to my face.
Then everything went dark.
I could feel his warm hand on my face, covering my eyes as he mumbled something to himself.

Then everything went REALLY dark.

======

“ugghh..”

There’s that headache again.
For a magical healing spell, these power blasts leave me feeling like crap lately..

“Where..”

I’m alone.
In a bed.. my mind sluggishly managed to pull itself together while I just lay there wincing at every time my head pulsed in pain.

White ceiling, blue walls.
Judging by the posters of women posing in bikinis on the walls and dirty clothes piled on the floor I’m going to assume it’s a boy’s room.

I know, technically, it could be the room of a particularly messy lesbian or something but I don’t get that kind of vibe from the way it’s laid out.

There’s a smell too.
It could just be my imagination but it smells like a boy’s room.
Even the bedding has this.. musk to it.

It’s not a bad smell, not particularly pleasant either but not bad as such.
It feels vaguely familiar, as if I’ve smelt it before, but my brain’s not offering a reason why it would be.

With a groan worthy of the undead I shifted myself upright on the bed and lazily glanced around the room.

A few things seemed out of place.
I’m pretty sure whoever owns the room must be a mage of some sort.

They’re probably still ‘in the closet’ with their family about magic, judging from the pretty substantial perception ward that’s on the bookcase in the corner.

I know it’s a perception ward, and therefore I shouldn’t be able to tell it’s there, but after a while around that sort of thing you tend to get a feel for when you’re being effected by them.

My eyes don’t quite want to focus on the bookcase in general and for some reason my head keeps telling me that every book in there is OBVIOUSLY going to be far too boring to be of interest to me in any way.

Perception wards don’t need to be subtle.
If someone is strong enough to notice the effects on their mind, nothing you could do with the ward is going to stop them at that point.

The other weird thing in the room is on the dressing table.
There’s some photo’s?
The weird part is that I recognise the photos.

It’s me.

Well, a younger more male shaped me at least.
Me and John goofing about in school.
Me and John in our floppy hats with our fishing gear ready.
Me and John..

Almost every photo on the dresser has two things in common.
They involve me and John.. and we’re both smiling.

I’d forgotten some of the events in these pictures even happened!

I awkwardly staggered to my feet and started shuffling the frames carefully to see the back ones better.
Finally I reached the last picture, buried at the back of all this.. childhood memorabilia.

The last one wasn’t me and John.
The people in it weren’t openly grinning either.

It didn’t even look like a photograph, while there was a frame around it, the picture itself was bulky at the back and pretty heavy.
It seems to have been carved directly into wood by someone with a surprising amount of skill.
The details are pretty easy to make out somehow.
The faces in particular are REALLY easy to make out.

It’s a group of people, about twenty or so, with a wide mix of ages and heights.

They were all wearing an odd mixture of clothing styles too.
Nothing modern at all, but while most of them seem to be wearing some kind of suit or long dress (the kind that remind me most of costumes you see in Victorian or Regency period movies) there are definitely a few of them wearing different styles.
Styles who’s popularity seemed to span across a wide breadth of history..

Most of them seem to be in their early to mid-twenties age wise although a few younger children were sitting at the feet of the others and there’s one older man standing near the back with a thick beard on his aged face.

I don’t actively recognise most of the faces.. but a few of them feel familiar?

Two face’s really stand out to me easily.
I could feel my hands shake a little while staring at the couple in the middle of the crowd.

The man had a goatee beard on his chin which, in my opinion, REALLY doesn’t suit him.
He had his hand wrapped around the woman’s shoulders warmly with a small happy smile on his face.

The woman.. Arista..

There’s no question in my mind that she’s Arista.
Her face didn’t show the same relatively open joy as.. as the goatee wearing Maxarimus did..
She was happy, you could see from the slight upturn of her lips that she found something amusing but it wasn’t the wide open smile I’m slowly getting used to seeing on my own face in the mirror.

Her.. her hands were down, cupping gently around..

My hand shook so much I almost dropped the strange, wooden carved picture.
She.. she was.. oh god..

I feel sick.
Her body, my body..

I know it’s THEORETICALLY possible now.
I know that I’ll probably hit some kind of biological imperative moment when my body clock goes off and I have to fight the idea of wanting it.. but..

She was pregnant!

Openly, visibly, ready to burst pregnant.
The whole picture took on a different feel with that knowledge.
The gathered people in it seemed somehow closer.. warmer.

Her little smile was more than amused.
It felt like I could see her eyes suddenly alight with contentment.

John.. no.. Max..

Max was happy.
He was overjoyed.
Sitting with Arista at his side, a pregnant Arista..

I..

Shooting a nervous look at the door I quickly moved the carved picture back in place at the back of the other photos and shifted the rest around to cover it.
It feels like I’ve invaded someone’s privacy a bit too much.

The worrying part is I’m not sure whose privacy I’ve invaded..

Two smiling boys stared at me for a moment from multiple angles, across the span of a few years.
My eyes skimmed from one to the other as my heart rate slowly returned to normal.

Al looked happy in the photos.
It’s weird to say it like that but he does.

I don’t remember looking that happy as a kid.

John as well.
In a few of the pictures he seemed honestly enthralled by Al..
I’ve never seen it before in any of the photo’s I have of us but it’s so obvious now.
The look in his eye, even when we were so young..

John was happy being my friend.

Staring at the pictures, I’m not sure how I could ever have doubted that fact.
He has the same smile on his face, in more than one picture, that Max had in the carving.
Proud, joyful.. he looked like a man, boy, who was content with how his life was and who he was sharing it with..

My hands shook a little again but I cupped them together hard to stop the movement.

Slowly I sunk back onto the bed and stared at the plethora of pictures laid out before me.
Each one seemed to show even more blatantly than the last just how much John, my John, younger seemingly innocent John had cared for me.. for his friend Al.

He really wasn’t lying..
I know his magic told me as much and I accept that for what it is but.. it didn’t feel REAL before?

If anyone could work out how to make their magic lie it would be Maxarimus.
I didn’t WANT to face the idea that John.. that he wasn’t just the stalker I’d written off so many years ago as a lost cause..

A knock at the door made me jump in surprise and stare at it.
Please don’t be John!
I don’t think I handle if its-

“Han? You awake?”
Sarah pushed the door open gently and gave me a warm, reassuring smile when she realised I was up and about.
My lips twitched a little as I tried to give her a smile back and faltered a little.
“You okay Han? You seem a bit tense.”

..Crap, is it that obvious?..

I huffed in a sharp breath and gave her a second attempt at a real smile.
“Sorry, I’ve got a headache.”

It’s not technically a lie, at least my brand didn’t think so.
Sarah seemed to buy it pretty easily judging by the understanding look that appeared in her eyes.

She made her way over to me and took a seat on the bed to offer me a one armed hug.
I accepted it without a thought.

It’s nice to have someone to comfort you every once in a while.
I’m still feeling the forced warmth and giggly-ness from my magic to a small degree so the hug helps there too.

“Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

Sarah seemed a bit lost for what to do otherwise.
If I know her as well as I think I do, I think she wants to get Trudy’s help here.
Sarah’s always tended to defer to an older female if she’s not sure of herself.
It probably comes from mum’s influence to be honest, but I’m not going to argue.

..Anything to get me out of this room and away from those photos..

======

“What’s gonna happen from here Trudy?”
She sighed to herself and looked about as tired as I felt for a second.
Her tall frame sunk into her seat as if she wanted to just get lost in it.

“The commissioned teams are working on tracking down your ‘handy man’. I’ve got a few contacts of mine in the department trying to ferret out this ‘storyteller’ character too.. basically we’re playing the waiting game.”
She huffed and shook her head a little.
“We really didn’t need this right now. I-”

She paused and looked thoughtful for a moment.
“No harm in telling you I guess, you could do with the head’s up honestly.”

I perked up in interest, I could feel Sarah shift a little forward too.

“You know how I told you that the AMS office gets pretty boring, having only two.. well three now, awakened mages in the area?”
I nodded.

I didn’t feel Sarah nod along with me, it’s probably new information for her.
Not many people know that the AMS actually EXISTS in the Hub as far as I can tell.
It’s not THAT surprising that she wouldn’t know details about them, I guess.

“Well.. my workload has gone insane in the last day or two.. mostly because of you..”
She cringed and waved her hand as if to dismiss any bad ideas that might come to mind from that sentence almost the second she finished saying it.

“Why me?”

Why is it because of me?.. also just ‘why me’ in general.
Nothing can ever be simple when I’m involved!

“Word’s got around that ‘Arista’ is awake.. the worldwide ‘awakened mage’ population isn’t particularly large but news travels surprisingly fast through the Hub’s.”
I groaned and brought a hand up to my face.

Why do I get the feeling this conversation isn’t going to help my headache any time soon?

“We’ve officially got about thirty awakened mages from around the world on-route to Klamath Falls..”
I cringed, Sarah tensed and John actually turned away from making himself a coffee to stare at Trudy with something close to disbelief on his face.

“Who?”
John’s only word sounded somehow heavy with worry just from the tone of his voice.
Trudy looked over at him and nodded solemnly.
To my surprise John took a few steps closer to us and settled himself in a chair heavily.

“Well.. crap..”
I shot a curious look at him but he shook his head a little.
“You don’t want to know.. basically.. the family is coming to visit, and it’s going to be one hell of a headache if they get here..”

He cut his eyes over to Trudy with determination.
“How can we stop them? Failing that, how can we delay them?”

Trudy looked more worried than anything else.

“We’re working on it, for a start most of them have had their passports suddenly revoked and their bank accounts frozen.”
I felt a frown form on my face.

That seems kind of mean.
They can’t be THAT bad can they?.. whoever ‘they’ are?..

“I’ll set up a diversion. Several convoys with obvious security heading out east from Klamath Falls, covered in a full set of magic suppression wards each.. it’ll look like we’re trying to move her into the Rocky Mountains, most of them will hopefully assume we’re trying to move ‘Arista’ to New Avalon and head there to cut us off.”
John grunted and glared at Trudy, he didn’t seem happy with the idea.

I cocked my head to the side a little in thought but no-one was paying attention to me at this point.

New Avalon sounds vaguely familiar for some reason.
I know ‘Avalon’ was a magical enclave in Britain through the early eleven-hundreds.
I think one of my incarnations even went there once, although the memories are weak so it’s probably one of the incarnations that Ellie is holding back for me.

Considering the name.. and the way the colonials tended to reuse British place names so much by declaring them as ‘New’, I’d assume it’s some kind of enclave here in the states?
It’s weird I’ve never heard of it though.. I thought all the Hub’s dotted around the country reported indirectly to the US Magical Congress building instead of working through enclaves these days?

The USA doesn’t tend to have enclaves.
Our magical community is in more danger from itself then the rest of humanity, generally.

Ever since the mages set up their Congressional building in seventeen-eighty-six, on a hidden pocket of land within the trees of what’s now known as ‘the Pine Ridge conservational area’ of Long Island, everything relevant to a Hub ends up there eventually.
The idea was that they could put the central information depot for the fledgling ‘Magical Government of America’ very near to the nation’s capital.

Not to go too deeply into it, but construction of the congressional building took a year or so to be completed.
They had a few years before the ‘normal’ US congress pulled up sticks, moving their home from the Federal Hall of New York to the Congress Hall of Philadelphia, leaving some rather frustrated mage’s behind in the process.

With all the time and effort that was put into establishing the building, mixed with several failed attempts to start new offices nearer to the new home of the ‘normal’ congress only to have them move AGAIN a few years later, the mages decided to go with what they had and to HELL with the ‘normals’.

It’s a mind-set that’s stuck with a lot of American mages for a fair few years since, kind of a shame really.

The middle ages were a bright time to be a mage where ‘normals’ and mages worked together, side by side, in the open.
A lot of that cooperation and trust fell apart with the loss of Arthur and his round table obviously, but the formation of the US magical congress building was the point that tipped the American mages, the un-awakened especially, into having such a distain for normal humans.

It’s not malicious or anything.
They just don’t bother trying to integrate with them in the slightest.

Even in the Hub, mages tend to isolate themselves from the normal people who work there.
I’d love to say that things will get better someday but.. well..

Mages are people too.. with all the stupidity, fear and irrational acts that come with that fact.. sadly.

======

“That won’t hold them forever, the moment one of them gets past the magic suppression they’ll see that she’s not there and tell everyone else.”
John really seemed to be getting worked up about this.

Who ARE ‘they’ exactly?

It seems suspicious that John and Trudy keep calling them ‘they’ instead of using names.. as if they don’t want me to know who they’re talking about?
What is it they think I don’t need to know?

It’s so frustrating when people tiptoe around a subject!

“Who are ‘they’?”
They both paused mid-conversation to share a worried look over my head.

“Ah.. well.. you see.. um..”
John trailed off for a moment and a look of almost relief flitted across his face.
“You’re mums at the door.”
Sarah jumped as much as I did when the doorbell went off a second later.

I glared at him and pointed a threatening finger at his face.
“This isn’t over..”

John’s face twitched into something close to his usual smirk but he didn’t seem able to pull it off properly for once.
“She’s mumbling something about ‘boy crazy teenagers’ and ‘older daughters who should at least leave a note’..”

Despite the unanswered questions and frustration, it was practically a race between me and Sarah to see who could reach the door first.
The last thing we need is Mum coming up with even MORE weird opinions about us!

I don’t think we’re quite out of the danger zone with her memory modification yet either.
Definitely not far enough out of it to safely let her stew on what we may or may not be doing alone at the Martials house with John!

Considering how her overactive imagination has been working out so far she’ll be convinced me and John are ‘practically married’ next, just like she did with Sarah and Tor!

I’m gonna kill whoever invented romance novels.. that’s the only thing I can think of which would have left my mum with such an over-inflated sense of drama!
The same one that she’s shown repeatedly while her brain comes up with new information to fill in the gaps in her memory over the last few days.

Sarah dropped back as we reached the final hallway to the front door, leaving me as the default one who would have to open the door.

I could make out mums rough outline through the frosted glass of the Martials front door but she wasn’t looking in at me luckily.

With a deep breath for courage I grabbed the handle and turned it.
I hope shes willing to listen to my excuse for being here..

Now that I think of it, I probably should have come up with one at this point I guess?.. Damn it!..