History has shown that not everything is as it first appears. Events unfold including but not limited to: A snarky public transport representative (it's a shame even magic can't improve that stereotype) And Hannah visits her favourite shop.

“Why can’t I just have a normal day..”
I shot another glance around the AMS office.

The ‘Hang in there Baby!’ poster stared back at me.
It’s probably just my imagination but it feels like his little face is judging me, while he’s hanging there from that washing line..

“They didn’t tell me to stay..”
His cute, fuzzy little judgemental face didn’t change in the slightest.
“HEY, I didn’t ask to be here!”
My hand came up to point at him to emphasize my point.

It took a few seconds of staring at the tip of my finger for me to realise just what I was doing.

“I’m talking to a bloody poster..”
My eyes cut around the room quickly, no-one was here to see me make a fool of myself at least.
“I’m going!”

For a moment I almost poked my tongue out at the kitty poster but managed to restrain the urge by willpower alone.
With a huff I turned away from it and marched towards the exit.

Ever since I stepped into this office I’ve felt a bit weird.

My anger and frustration from earlier seems almost silly now.
I feel pretty guilty for snapping at Sarah.. and for ruining the clothes mum seemed so happy about getting me, even if it DOES look like a stupid school uniform.
I even felt a little upset when Trudy and Rosemary left me behind in their little ‘chase out the room’ game a minute ago.
Overall I just feel a lot calmer in here and.. maybe a bit less sure of myself, emotionally speaking?

My eyes caught on the ‘Awakened mage support’ sign by the door.
Something about it is still bothering me..

I took a few more steps towards it and squinted hard.
It’s something.. I dunno.
My brain just keeps telling me I’m missing something with the-

“No way..”
I squinted a little harder.
“The cheeky cow..”

I pushed magic along the lines necessary to activate mage-sight.
My eyes hurt a little from doing it but that’s normal for me.

It’s only two lines to start mage-sight and of all the lines in the body they’re the ‘straightest’ ones.
Even with my magic as flooded as it was earlier I could have activated it without much effort.
I’m not naturally good at it because of how weak my lines to my eyes are, so I have to slowly let just a trickle of power along them instead and let it build up over time until they’re ready.
It’s still one of the only spells I can feel certain I won’t mess up at the moment, considering I messed up a basic hair spell this morning..

“That’s ingenious..”

The sign was glowing!
I could read the patterns easily now.
This must be how she did her enchanting before.

Water has the best response time of any enchanting medium but its biggest problem is that it’s hard to make it stay in the pattern you set for it.
It’s mostly used by Asian mages these days, they use rice-paper to soak up the water in the right design and then burn the paper while it’s sitting on the item to be enchanted to finish it off.
It’s a fiddly process and it costs a lot, takes too much time for my liking as well.

“What did she..”
I moved really close to the sign and sniffed it.
“..Lemon?.. she used lemon juice!”

How did I never think of that?!
John and I used to use lemon juice to write ‘secret’ messages to each other when we were kids, when they dried they were only visible if you heated the paper by putting it on an exposed light bulb for a minute or two..
I know, it’s stupid, but we were boys playing ‘Spy’ and it was really cool at the time, okay?!

Obviously Trudy played ‘spy’ too.. and never forgot the secret message trick..

She must have used lemon pulp to draw out the runes before the sign was put on the wall.
The process of enchanting would take a bit more power and time then my blood magic to set, but it has the added bonus of leaving no visible trace behind.

The only giveaway that it’s even enchanted is the smell.
That light lemon-y smell won’t go away until the enchantment is broken.

I didn’t even think about it when I came in.
I just dismissed the slight smell as a left over from whatever cleaning products they use around the office!

This whole setup is amazing.

Even the runes are.. weird.
I think she’s trying to make her own runic language?

She’s mixed a few different ones that I can recognise.
There’s a few ‘ormr’, ‘sér’, ‘segir’ and ‘standa’ rune sets from Old Norse.
Mixed in are some ‘Adverto’, ‘Adsuesco’, ‘Assuesco’, ‘Careo’, ‘Credo’ and ‘Dedecus’ rune sets from Latin rune’s too.
The rest seem to be South American, Asian and.. African maybe?

I don’t know many rune languages outside of my favourites sadly, but I should be able to piece together what this thing does from what I know and how it’s laid out.

There’s the ‘Credo’ tied to the ‘Assuesco’ rune.
So that’s Trust tied to familiarity, I can assume the ones in between them are some kind of delay or inversion matrix..

The ‘ormr’ rune means serpent but it’s usually used to show deception.
It’s connected to the ‘sér’ rune in a roundabout way along with the ‘segir’ rune..
So.. Deception of sight and hearing?..

The last ones are related to shame, want and the attraction of attention..
In this kind of layout, even counting in whatever the other random language runes do..

This whole thing is a giant spell used to make people calm, convince them that they can trust the people they see or hear in here and impress upon them a sense of shame if they do something which they think that person would be unimpressed about!

“Trudy you clever bitch..”

THAT’s why I’ve been acting like this!
I’ve been so calm here.
Everything in this office made me feel relaxed, it reminded me of my old school guidance counselor’s office..

They did it on purpose, the whole office is DESIGNED to breed familiarity with anyone who’s been to a school at some point in their lives!

What’s the trigger though?
The only rune I can see that seems completely out of place is the ‘standa’ one.
It’s surrounded by a lot of other language runes I don’t know but I can see that it’s inverted at least..

THE CHAIRS!
‘Standa’ is the Old Norse for ‘to stand’, inverted that’s ‘to sit’!

You sit on the chairs and it triggers!

THAT’s why I calmed down so much and started regretting yelling at Sarah when I sat down!
The sign must have some kind of passive calming effect from looking at it alone, that’s why it’s placed right in the your face when you walk in.. but the chair’s act as an amplifier.

I don’t care if things don’t work out with this AMS stuff or not but I NEED to get Trudy’s contact information.
To hell with her being able to keep up with me, SHE might be able to teach ME some stuff!

My eyes scanned down the wall a little to follow the line of ring runes she’d marked out towards the chairs and settled on my hand for a moment.

The level of magic in my system isn’t too bad at the moment.
My aura looks a lot less full, stressed and glowing at least.

It’s still building back up again though.
I’ve got half an hour tops before I’m back to feeling like I’m bursting with magic at this rate..
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
I need to find a solution for it soon but that requires that I get out of here first!

I gave a final glance around the room with my mage sight.
There’s a few enchanted items on the desk but the only thing that really stands out is that stupid ‘Hang in there Baby!’ poster.

I KNEW that thing was dodgy!

A few steps over to it and a sniff told me all I needed to know.
It’s enchanted as well, with lemon juice again.

This time the runes are a lot more standardised, Norse and Latin only.
I can tell what it does at a glance.
If you look at this poster it makes you feel small, less assertive.
You get a feeling of family from whoever is sitting in the chair below it and you feel the need to get their approval.

This office.. this office is a MASTERPIECE!

I didn’t even think.
It’s all so subtle, I didn’t consider that my mood swings could be from outside sources.
I’ve had so many mood swings lately from my awakening that it didn’t even register as a problem honestly..

I feel like I should be annoyed at them for doing this stuff to me but it’s all mostly harmless and they ARE currently on a two-woman mission to find out what the hell the storyteller guy is up to for me.

I can see why they would want to keep newly awakened mages calm and compliant while they’re here as well, just look at how erratic I’ve been for the last few days..

The runes can’t extend into Trudy’s little ‘training room’ though.
I was only in there a short time and my magic started spiking again, the emotions that this office suppressed came pushing back in with ease.

I’ll have to warn Trudy about that when I see her next.
She shouldn’t take anyone into that training room if she’s not SURE how well they react will to her in general without the offices effect or it could be dangerous.

“Okay, enough staring. I need to go.”

I’ll go to Fena’s shop for some research materials and advice, then use her phone to call Sarah and apologise.
The shame may have been magically forced but I can see that I was too harsh with her now at least.

The door to the AMS office shut behind me and I glanced around the empty hallway outside.
I could be nice and try to find my way back out to the reception but I’m a mage, people expect us to skip this little annoyance when we can.

With a squint I focused on the waypoint in the motel across the street from the Hub.
It’s got a special beacon in it that broadcasts throughout the Hub.
I can lock onto it and follow the route it plots back out of here without even leaving warp.
It’s like putting your car in cruise control and following the satnav.. but with magic.

A slightly forceful push of magic down the lines to my feet later I set into a basic warp.
Anything more advanced than that is probably a bad idea with the amount of magic I’ve got at the moment.

There was a bright blue light that blocked out my vision and the world hiccupped.

======

I fell out of warp and literally fell over in the process.

I HATE normal warping, it makes me nauseous.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with tearing yourself apart and throwing your atoms through the air at high speed, suspended in a bubble of magic.

Give me shadow warping any day!
Sure, you have a chance of being intercepted by a lower demon while you’re dropping into a random shadow realm to shortcut from one space to the other, but at least it doesn’t blind you AND you stay mostly in one piece for the whole trip!

“Move along kid, your holding up a party of four mages coming in.”

With a groan I pushed myself back to my feet and gave the waypoint guard an annoyed glance.
He didn’t seem at all bothered with my look and just returned the same blank face you see on all public transport staff who are bored but ready to just do their jobs.

“Exit’s to your left, take three more lefts after that and you will be at the main entrance.”
I didn’t need directions but that’s probably just something he has to say.

My feet carried me over to the door with only a slight wobble.
I’d almost left the room when he spoke again.

“Better hurry kid, your already late for school..”

STUPID UNIFORM!
He must have noticed how messed up my ‘uniform’ is now.
I hardly look ‘ready for school’ at this point, I look more like some kind of apocalypse survivor then a school girl with THIS much damage to my clothes!

My teeth grit hard and I had to resist the sudden urge to turn him into a giant guard-sicle.

In the end I settled for flipping him the bird over my shoulder and marching off with my tattered dignity draped around me like a poorly made cloak.
His laughter followed me for two out of the three left turns I had to take to get out of the motel.

“I hate public waypoints at this time of day..”
The receptionist at the front desk of the motel looked up at me as I walked past and seemed to be trying to give me a sympathetic look.

I didn’t bother acknowledging it, I just want to get out of here as quick as possible now.
..stupid waypoint guard.. stupid uniform..

======

Taking a left from the front of the motel I walked past the entrance to the Hub and carried on along Main Street.
A few blocks up I swung a right by the courthouse and took a short cut across one of the parking lots so I could avoid the Christian ministry on the corner.

After the fifth time they tried to wave me down with leaflets I kind of snapped and told the woman that I was a practicing Wiccan, naturally they didn’t take well to that.
I’ve tried to avoid getting their attention since then.. the last time I walked past the priest was outside and he shot me a nasty look.

Admittedly that was a whole different body ago and I probably have a blank slate with them now, considering I look like an entirely different person.. but that doesn’t mean I’m going to rush over and encourage them to hound me all over again!

A few more blocks up I had to resist the temptation to swing around the supports on ‘Bank of America’ sign on the corner.
I used to do that all the time as a kid when we were walking back to the car from the High street.

One more block, I brushed my hand on the rough wall of the ‘shipping and wireless’ store until I finally eased around the corner onto Fena’s street.

Her shop hasn’t changed, on the outside at least, since the first time I went there.
Which is always reassuring to see, familiarity is comfortable after all.
Fena keeps saying she’s going to change the front displays but she can never decide what to change them to.
Honestly, it really does kind of need updating..

Even I would struggle to believe that a shop, in this day and age, could be charging a hundred dollars for a laptop that looks like it was chiselled from sandstone by cavemen!

======

The bell over the door rang when I opened it.
I was slightly surprised to see that the two male Sib’s weren’t sitting on their ever-present perches behind the front counter.

The whole shop felt deserted.

Normally Lurch comes to the door when the bell rings.
He’s gotten used to me enough now that he doesn’t do his usual ‘big looming scary man’ thing every time I show up, but he still comes to the door anyway.
I think it’s one of his core programmed actions honestly.

Golems have a set of specific reactions they will ALWAYS follow, it’s like the three laws of robotics but without the.. logic?

Some of the worst horror stories that stop non-awakened mages from playing with Golems tend to involve mage’s who design their Golems for ‘self-defence’ and then forget to put the ‘don’t hurt me idiot!’ command into their core or put it a bit too late into the priority list.
The first time they accidentally stub their toes on a table the Golem goes into attack mode to destroy the evil fiend who harmed their master!..
The fact that the ‘fiend’ happened to BE their master doesn’t fit into the Golems logic chain until AFTER they’re done turning said master into a fine paste.
At which point they tend to destroy themselves for harming their master too..

What can I say, magic is complicated, and Golemancy is just one of many fields of study that’s not designed for careless or just plain stupid people..

“Hello?”
I paused for a moment but no-one answered.
That’s really weird, usually there’s at least SOMEONE within hearing range.

I wonder what’s going on?..

It’s probably not good either way..
It’s just been one of THOSE kind of weeks, ya know?

“I’m gonna check through stock for some research materials Fena..”
No-one answered again but I shrugged and made my way over to the back shelves.

It took me a while to learn Fena’s strange filing system for the books back here, I swear she sorts them by smell or something equally weird.
After the third time she had to come rescue me because I got lost in all the randomly placed titles and surprisingly interesting mix of esoteric magics, I ended up just spending a day going over the room while under a memory enhancement charm.

Unless she’s moved something I should pretty much know where all the stock should be right now, it’s only been a few months since I last dropped in and she doesn’t tend to cycle them very often.

“Let’s see..”

‘Powers and counter-powers’
A good guide to innate magic and magical traits.
It should help me work out a bit more information about my new ice magic and that whole ‘being able to run on ice’ thing I did earlier.

‘Elementary Elements’
This is where I got all my references from when I was trying to get a handle on my fire powers.
Edith recommended it.. well.. she threw it at my head when I was about to leave the shop after almost setting fire to her pink fluffy slippers by accident..

That’s about as close as she ever gets to being ‘helpful’ usually, she’s a great source of information when she wants to be and a surprisingly good teacher too but that doesn’t mean she’s not a spiteful old bat about it at the same time..

‘Mind, your own business’
A bit more advanced than the book I used as a reference when Edith was teaching me mind magics.
Written by the same author, judging by his description and dedication on the first page he became a lot more cynical and bitter by the time he made this book.
It should be interesting even if it turns out to be a bust for helping me deal with the past-incarnations that are still filling Ellie’s part of my mind to bursting.

“One more and I’m sorted..”
Where is it?.. I swear it was here last time.

I reached out and grabbed the book that was in the spot I’d expected to find a copy of ‘The Locus Point Compendium’
It’s about as close to a book about ‘Locus points’ as you’re going to get, even if it IS just a load of personal journals from people who have been around them.
Hopefully it’s got something in there about someone blocking off a Locus points ability to vent magic, especially anything about wild magic somehow slipping into the Locus point’s lines like it has in mine.

“..‘Love spells for the lovelorn loser’?”
I feel a bit dirty just from having TOUCHED the cover of that useless drivel..

“There are better books if you want love magic honey. We don’t do love potions or anything though, that’s just too tacky.”
I jolted in surprise at Fena’s voice.

With a single movement I turned to look at her.
For a moment we all just stared at each other.

Then all hell broke loose..

Fena hissed at me angrily and brought her hands up, ready to cast a spell.
“Kinslayer, what are you-”
Rosemary cut across her by pushing her aside slightly and came over to put a gentle arm around my shoulders.

“Hannah sweetie, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay in the office?”

She seemed slightly guilty.
If I had to guess, I think she genuinely forgot about me in her rush off for revenge on my behalf.
Even without the AMS office’s poster’s giving me a semi-forced sense of calm and wellbeing from earlier, her hug felt comforting still..

“Hannah?”
Fena looked suddenly lost.
Her arms fell down, out of her previous ready stance, much to my relief.

“Oh yes, that’s her name now. She’s the new awakened I came to you for help with.”

Fena squinted at me hard.
“What’s her true mage name?”

I held a tense breath.
This is the moment of truth, even though I don’t agree with it or even like the name, ‘Arista’ is my true magical name.

Your true mage name is the name used by your very first incarnation, things tend to get complicated if you start using a load of different names over the course of a few centuries.
Plus most awakened mages actually LIKE and feel a close affinity for their ‘true name’.

As always, I’m the exception.

“She started her journey as ‘Arista’ I believe, although-”
Fena didn’t wait for her to finish.
Her hands flew up again, I could feel the beginnings of a pretty major spell building up around her.

“I warned you Kinslayer, the next time you crossed my path I would gut you where you stand!”
My hands came up on instinct to protect my face.

Without conscious effort my magic surged forth.
It took all my precarious control to shift its intent away from the giant spike of ice about to appear and kill Fena, into something more geared towards pure defence.

Rosemary gasped and held on to my shoulders tighter as a dome of thick, crystal clear ice formed up around us cutting off all external sound.

I could see Fena mouth some kind of swear and slam her flaming fist into the ice dome.
A trail of fire followed in her fist’s wake but burned out almost instantly upon contact with the dome.
She drew away quickly and grasped her hand in pain while glaring at me darkly.

If I wasn’t so busy trying to get used to the idea that my last remaining friend just tried to kill me I might have tried to warn her about Edith..

The little old lady was slowly shuffling up behind her, stick at the ready.
It’s amazing how sneaky she can be at times.
From this side of it, I’m pretty amazed she ever manages to sneak up on ANYONE, especially someone with Fena’s annoyingly good sense of hearing…

Fena’s fist came up again, I could see the power building along her fist with my naked eye.
She must be REALLY angry, the magic is trailing along the veins in her forearm as it comes to a stop at the center of her balled fist.

She pulled back with a roar, ready for a second attempt at smashing her way in.

Just before she could let loose with the punch Edith got into position.
With an obviously yelled sentence which I could easily guess to be ‘bad Juju’ she swung down with her Juju stick and clipped Fena with it, right on the top of her head.

Like a puppet with its strings cut Fena fell hard to the floor.

Edith didn’t seem concerned with that though, she huffed to herself and mumbled something then fixed me with a displeased look.
Her wrinkled old hand came up with three fingers raised.
Slowly she ticked them off one by one.

I only JUST managed to understand what she was going to do.
My arms came up and pulled Rosemary down to huddle with me protectively on the floor.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Edith raise her Juju stick again and smack it hard against my ice dome.

A thin crack formed at the impact point.
Slowly the crack expanded and then quickly spread along the length of the dome, essentially cutting it in half.

With a thundering crash both halves of the dome came crashing down to the floor on either side of us.
On the way down one half crushed a table full of trinkets with its sheer weight and the other destroyed a bookcase on the far wall.

“I be telling that girl, we no’ be fightin’ near the merchandise but is she listenin’?”
Edith seemed completely unshaken by the mess around us or the fact that she just destroyed an ice dome which withstood one of Fina’s most powerful fire techniques, in one hit, seemingly without effort.

“Be sayin’ ya be a wrong’n with fire girl but ya not be listenin’ neither. Ice be bett’a but not too right for ya still..”
She carelessly waved her Juju stick in my general direction making Rosemary squeak in fear and hide behind me slightly.
I can’t blame her, that Juju stick should carry a public health warning!.. and it’s pretty scary how much power Edith can pour through it at times too..

“Edith, what the hell? Is Fina okay?”

She looked over at me and snorted in some kind of amusement.
Her fluffy slippered foot came out from underneath her long flowery dress and, not so gently, kicked Fena in the ribs.
The previously motionless body scrunched up around her stomach and groaned piteously.

“She be fine.”
My glare didn’t seem to get much of a useful response, Edith just glared back at me with her squinted little eyes.

“What ya be doin’ to ya’self girl?”
She shuffled over to my side.

My worried look at Fena’s groaning body was seemingly ignored in exchange for Edith staring at me instead.

She squinted at me hard, and her little eyes flashed for a moment with the unmistakable activation of mage sight.
After a long moment she hissed in a breath between her teeth and looked back up at my face.

“Ya nev’a be borin’ girl, useless t’be sure but never borin’ a’least”
I could feel Rosemary swell up in indignation on my behalf but I’m far too used to Edith and her little quirks to be offended at this point.

Before Rosemary could say anything to her, Edith’s eyes tracked over to her in annoyance.
“Why ya not be sayin’ the girl be the one ya ‘elpin?”

Rosemary seemed to deflate a little under her direct gaze.

I pushed myself forward a step to draw Edith’s attention back to me, for Rosemary’s sake if nothing else.
“Any idea’s how to fix this?”
My hand waved at the fallen halves of the ice dome.
My magic, already refilled to bursting point, flowed eagerly through my fingers in a way that she can probably see with her mage sight on.

Edith gave me a withering look and huffed loudly.

“What ya be tryin’ so far girl?”
Her voice was surprisingly tender for a moment.
It stunned me a little.

“Speak up, I not be a’vin till the powers roam.. useless girl.”
Ah.. that’s better.

“I was just gathering research materials, I tried to divert the ice magic into water-”
Edith cut me off with a withered cackle of amusement.
My teeth grit down a little in annoyance.
“Yes.. I realised my mistake a while ago.”
She doesn’t need to know that it was less than an hour ago..

“Ya be divertin’, ya be needin’ a bett’a medium.”

I sighed and rolled my shoulders a little.
“I figured as much, I can’t come up with a good replacement one though. I only looked into fire magic last time..”

She huffed and waved her Juju stick dangerously close to my nose.

“Ya thinkin’ too right-ways, ya need ta think up!”
It took me a moment to get what she meant.
She’s basically saying I should think ‘outside the box’.

Even I wouldn’t have got that one if she hadn’t said something similar before and Fena explained it to me, to some degree.
I don’t think Fena really understands what those sayings mean either honestly, she just knows what Edith is TRYING to say when using them.

“What else can be connected with ice? It’s frozen water..”
Edith waved her stick one more time and walked past me to slowly pick up a book from the floor.
With a deft flick of her wrist she sent it sailing at my head.
Luckily I’d been expecting as much and had my hands up ready to catch it.

“Page two-hun’red an’ four”
With a mild look of annoyance I started flicking through the book.

It looks like page two-hundred and four has some diagrams about the changing of the seasons and their effects on the life cycle of a rare breed of tree frog used in most sheep husbandry rituals..

Edith didn’t seem impressed by my sarcastically raised eyebrow.

“..ya be useless..”
Her head sunk a little and she released a sigh that sounded honestly disappointed.

“What? I can’t exactly turn Ice into tree frogs, or sheep for that matter.”
She shook her head and her stick waved a little as if she was tempted to smack me with it for some reason.

“Not tha’ frogs girl, the seasons. Do I be havin’ to spell it out for ya?”

The seasons?..
Okay, what about them.
Ice to start with, so Winter..

.. nope.. I’m drawing a blank here..

“Ice be tha’ death of things, ta make way for spring’s new life, ya ig’nant girl!”
Wow.. I think Edith is really losing her temper for once..

“So.. I should make links between Ice and spring?”

Edith’s withered hand came up to squeeze the bridge of her nose as if she had a headache.
A moment later my head whipped to the side, pain blossomed on my cheek and exploded in my head!

Without any form of warning she’d whipped her Juju stick up to smack me with it.

“WHAT THE HELL EDITH?!”
My magic flared, I had a brief moment to panic before it peaked and exploded out from me in a golden wave of power.

..I felt so deliciously empty again..

All my built up magic just SURGED out in that wave, taking the built up pressure inside me with it.
My body shuddered a little at the feeling of it.
As the wash of golden power drifted out to a point that it faded away, the pain in my cheek eased and my new headache followed quickly afterwards.

Behind me I heard Rosemary gasp and before my eyes I could see Edith stand up a little straighter than usual.
To top off all the weirdness, Fena let out a raspy breath and started pulling herself upright with a surprised look on her face.

“There, ungrateful girl! I be doin’ it for ya.”
With an aggravated growl at me Edith shuffled off towards the shops private back area.

I wanted to go after her but the look in her eyes a second ago held me back.
She seemed REALLY annoyed for some reason, as if my failure to understand her was some kind of personal insult.

“Fena! Ya be cleanin’ up ya mess or else’n, an’ NO fightin’ the girl.”
With those last words she slammed the door behind the counter shut and left us all standing there in awkward silence.

Slowly Rosemary raised a hand and cringed a little.
“I’m officially lost, anyone have an idea what just happened?”
I shrugged and shook my head.
Fena shot an annoyed glance at me but shook hers too.

“What I want to know is what I missed after she hit me?”
Fena didn’t need to ask who hit her obviously.. after all, she knows Edith.

I opened my mouth to answer but Rosemary beat me to it.

“You tried to hurt Hannah, so Edith knocked you out, shattered the REALLY impressive ice dome Hannah put up and then started talking to her in that weird way she does.”
It made me wince to acknowledge that Edith talks weird in general, it feels a bit too close to talking behind her back at the moment..
“Then she started quizzing her about how to change her ice powers or something and hit her over the head. Hannah yelled then just EXPLODED with this glorious golden light.. it was beautiful.. before I could react the light hit me and I felt my dodgy elbow stop aching suddenly..”

Fena gave me a curious look for a moment.

“She keeps calling you Hannah.. but you’re not correcting her Kinslayer?”
I huffed and blew a strand of my annoyingly long hair out of my face in the process.

“Can we talk privately for a second Fena?”
She gave me a weird look but after a curious glance to Rosemary she shrugged and waved me over to the front desk.
When we got there she turned sharply and folder her arms across her chest, giving me an impatient eye-roll to complete the look.

“okay.. uh.. Fena.. Something happened and through a chain of events I got turned into a girl by old magic, then forced into a second, more complete awakening that bonded me closer to my past-incarnations.”
Her eyebrow went up in disbelief.
“It changed my element from fire to ice somehow and shifted my magical signature enough that I now come out as ‘Arista’ to any magical means of testing me, which caused problems for me at the Hub and-”

She waved her hand for me to stop talking.
For a long moment she stared at me.
It felt like an eternity before she slowly cocked her hip to the side and gave me an annoyed look.

“..Supposing I believe you, and you’re not the Kinslayer.. who are you instead..?”

My jaw worked for a moment.
I shot a look over at Rosemary who was keeping herself busy reading one of the books that had fallen to the floor from all the mess that had formed in the wake of my broken ice dome.

It’s not TECHNICALLY a secret.
I’m sure someone at the Hub will work it out soon enough, that I was ‘Al’ before my change..
Somehow.. hopefully..

I’ve had some pretty mixed reactions to my change so far though and I REALLY don’t feel up to testing to see if Rosemary is as ‘kind and open minded’ as she seems to be when she finds out that I used to be male, in body at least.
I’ve already got one old lady mad at me at the moment, that’s enough for now!

I leaned a bit closer to Fena and dropped my voice a little before continuing.
“It’s me, Al.”

Slowly Fena’s eyes went wide and her head leaned away from me in shock.
As quick as a flash her expression changed from one of surprise to absolute relief.
Her arms whipped up and pulled me into a tight, desperate hug.

“I thought you were dead!”
Her yell made Rosemary glance over at us but she looked back down at her book quickly to show she wasn’t trying to be nosy.

Fena seemed to notice the unwanted attention anyway, judging by the guilty look on her face and leaned away from me while she continued in a reverent whisper.
“Holy crap Al, what the hell happened? Edith’s tracking crystal went dark. I thought.. we thought you were dead.. well.. Edith wouldn’t admit it but I could tell she believed it too.. and I’m babbling.. and.. I’ll stop now..”
She trailed off with an awkward look.

As if she couldn’t resist anymore she surged forward and pulled me into another tight hug.

“We can’t talk with her here. I’ll tell you about it all later, for now I can say that things were pretty bad but are looking survivable at this point.”
She didn’t look too happy with the idea of waiting for a better explanation but nodded in agreement anyway.

She gave me one more reassuring squeeze and turned us back to go join Rosemary.

“So, what’s going on with the whole ‘littlest school girl’ look?”
I groaned and brought my hand up to my face in frustration.

I should have known she wouldn’t wait long before bringing THAT up..

======

“So.. who do I gut first?..”
I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat.
Fena’s voice has gotten this strange deepness to it the more I’ve explained about the last week or so to her.

While the voice change is worrying, the talking has been kind of a relief for me honestly.

I was never fully open with Fena about my life before.
We were friends, but she never asked me about my life and I never pushed her on hers, it was kind of an equal trade’s deal we had an unspoken agreement about.

She almost slapped me when she found out I’d been going on world-traveling missions for the Hub over the last few years.
Apparently that’s not normal.
Most awakened mages rarely leave their ‘home territory’ according to her, which seems weird to me considering I’ve spent more time in mainland Europe in the last few years then I have in Klamath Falls.

While we’re on the topic of awakened mages, she was pretty pissed that I never told her that I’m the latest incarnation of Arista.
There’s some bad blood between them that seems to really effect Fena just by bringing it up.

She wouldn’t explain what she meant when she called me ‘Kinslayer’ earlier.
Before I could push too much on it she worked out that Edith had known I was the ‘new Arista’ all this time, which sent her off on a rant about her being a sneaky old witch.
I tried to stay out of the firing line on that one by keeping quiet, but privately I could see what she meant..

She demanded to inspect both of my brands.
When she found out that John gave me the first one she swore and glared over at the bookshelves.
He came in to the shop a few days ago apparently and bought a copy of the rare book she had about brands and old magic.

I think he’s trying to find a way out of the one on his cheek that’s stopping him from actively harming me personally.
Fena was more interested in the idea that she should find him somehow and ‘get revenge’ on him for changing me into a girl, more specifically, for leaving me with the young face of her hated enemy.

I tried to calm her down a bit about him with some success.
He’s MY problem, I’m not letting someone else handle him now.
That’s like giving up and admitting that I can’t beat him in his little games without help!

Maybe it’s what little I have left of my ‘macho pride’ showing through but I can’t just let John win like that!

To get her onto a more useful target I told her about the incident with the stone decontamination box and the storyteller.
If I thought she was angry before, it was DWARFED in comparison to her reaction after we looked up some of the old Japanese marriage brands to compare them with my new one.

She pushed me for information on everything, his office, his clothes and just him in general.
She even got to the point of pulling out a copy of ‘Mages through the ages’ and getting me to cast a search spell on it while focused on his looks to find out who he was.
It turns out that things can’t be THAT easy after all, the storyteller must have been wearing an illusion of some kind because his face didn’t show up in any form through the entire book!

That means he’s either not a mage, which is pretty much impossible at this point, or he was lying.. again.

Fena promised to get to work quickly on breaking the brand, or as she called it ‘that sick indignity’ for me.
She also promised that Max would no longer be welcome in her shop on pain of death.

With a little work I even got her to start calling him John, I think she found the idea of passively annoying him like that fun after a bit of thought.
Especially because it was a form of petty revenge I wouldn’t complain about her abusing afterwards.
She even started talking about bypassing the ‘anti-copy’ charms on all her editions of ‘Mages through the ages’ so she could change his name to ‘John-boy’ in them before sale.

We had a laugh at the idea which was a welcome release from the serious and tense atmosphere the conversation had progressively taken on.

I suggested she bring Trudy in on her plans as well, considering Rosemary is involved already but it turns out I’m a bit late on that idea, the only reason Trudy wasn’t in the shop with Rosemary when I got here was that she has her own routes of investigation to use in the hunt to bring the storyteller to justice for me.

“Do you know what’s wrong with Edith?..”
Fena grunted at me curiously.
“..or what she did to my ice magic that made it suddenly become some kind of big healing spell?”
She shrugged and shot me a look that said I should be able to work it out already.

“She’s been worried about you. She doesn’t act like it but she does care you know?”
I shifted in my seat uncomfortably again.

For a chair that’s THIS plush and soft, I seem to be doing that a lot at the moment.

“With the ice magic, I think she linked the idea of ‘death from winter’ with ‘renewal from spring’.”
She frowned and stared thoughtfully at the celling for a second.
“That’s my best guess at least, when she calms down a little I’ll ask her for you but it must be a pretty strong connection she made to cause that much healing..”
Her frown became a bit more pronounced.
“You healed multiple people at once, I didn’t even know that was possible with just one spell.”
She stared at her hands thoughtfully for a moment.
“I don’t think I have enough raw power to pull it off, even if I knew how..”

Her head cocked to the side and she squinted at me hard.

I don’t think I twitched guiltily or anything but she must have seen something because she groaned and put her hand over her face.
“There’s more isn’t there?”
My shoulders shrugged and I pulled my knees up to my chest a little, tugging my tattered tartan skirt back over them.

“I.. I’m a Locus point too..”
She sucked in a breath and fixed me with an annoyed look.

“..You would be wouldn’t you.. why can’t you just be normal for once Al?”

I almost laughed at that, I’ve asked myself that same question a fair few times over the years.
“Even with that, your core must have been nearly completely drained with that explosion of healing magic..”
My shoulder shrugged again awkwardly.

She watched me, waiting calmly for me to crack and tell her everything she wanted to know.

“Fine.. I felt pretty empty for a moment, then the magic started pouring back in. After about twenty seconds I was back to my normal full level. From there I just keep gaining more power in my lines..”
She squinted at me hard and her eyes flashed with mage sight.

She seemed almost hesitant to touch me now that she could see just how full my lines are.
I can’t blame her, I was pretty scared of them myself at first, especially the wild magic in there.

Hell, I’m STILL scared of the wild magic in there..

“We need to get that second brand off you as a priority, it can’t be healthy to have THAT much magic in your body just floating around.”
She seemed to consider something for a moment and nodded to herself.
“Can you get angry for me? Angry enough to set off your magic?”
Her eyes didn’t leave my body, the glint of mage sight still obvious.

“I’m not exactly good at controlling my emotions at the moment.. I..”
Fena cut across me and gave me a worryingly feral smile.
Her wrist came up and did a weird little flick maneuver.

“Just do it Arista, you incompetent Kinslaying bitch.”
My stomach dropped out at her words.

I felt the pain and loneliness hit home all over again.
She really hasn’t forgiven me.. I didn’t even do anything and she hates me!

I hate this, I hate Arista!
She’s ruining everything!

Fena tried to hold my shoulders, she was mouthing something but I couldn’t hear the words.
My magic bubbled up eagerly to be used.
I wrenched my arms free from her grasp and in one motion my magic exploded out from me again.

A golden halo of light formed up around us, my skirt seemed to mend itself from all the damage it received earlier before my eyes.
Fena gasped and threw a hand up to her chest in surprise.

I could hear things again.
For just a moment I rode the pleasurable waves given off by my empty core but quickly, far too quickly, I could feel the magic pouring back in again.

Finally I got a handle on myself and found Fena holding me in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry..”
She had her head buried in my hair so her voice was slightly muffled.

I moved a little and she quickly pulled back to stare at me with teary eyes.
“I’m sorry Al, I didn’t mean for that to happen. I cast a weak auditory illusion on you to get a reaction and it went haywire for some reason, you started freaking out, before I could do anything your magic just..”

My eyes scanned around us.

The old wooden flooring of the shop around us seemed to have gained a perfectly formed circle of wood which looked almost brand-new, expanding out from where I was sitting..
Come to think of it, the chair I’m sitting on feels stiffer too, as if the padding in it has lost some of the comfortable wear that makes it normally so squishy..
“Holy crap..”

Fena grunted and gave me another squeeze.
“You can say that again..”
She seemed slightly distracted, struggling to understand something.

“I don’t think healing is what your magic is doing.. I have no idea what Edith did but that was far too powerful to be just healing.”
She waved her hand around us uncertainly, then brought it up to cup together with her other one at her chest.
“Just LOOK at this place, even your clothes are good as new..”

“..at least it doesn’t hurt anyone like the ice could have.”
She seemed reluctant to agree with me but nodded anyway.

My eyes looked away from her awkwardly while she seemed to go deeper into thought, eventually they settled on the old clock in the corner.

Ah, hell!
Is that really the time?

“I know this has been a lot to handle and stuff, and I REALLY appreciate your help Fena but I need to get moving. With this change and storyteller’s interference I’m stuck living with my mum again for now, if I’m not back soon she’s going to seriously lose it.”
Fena looked up at me with a slightly lost look but nodded in understanding anyway.

“Can I borrow your phone? I need to get a lift with Sarah.”
..and apologise to her for this morning..

After a moment Fena seemed to realise I was talking again, whatever part of my last burst of magic she’s thinking about must be pretty major to leave her so dazed.
“Sure, it’s behind the counter as always..”
I smiled at her and she weakly smiled back, her hands cupping slightly harder at her chest.

“Thanks”

I made my way over to the counter.
Before I could reach the phone, the little door behind it leading to the private back rooms of the shop opened and Edith grumpily pushed her way out of it while staring at me intensely.
I froze like a rabbit in a car’s headlights.

“Ya be needin’ this. Come back when ya done, I be ‘elpin’ ya.. useless girl.”
She tossed a canvas, over the shoulder style, shopping bag to me and then turned back around to shuffle through the door again, closing it tightly behind her.

I stared at the bag in my arms worriedly for a while.
She didn’t seem as angry as earlier but who knows with Edith..

Carefully I eased the bag open and let out a surprised gasp at its contents.

The bag’s full of stuff!
It feels light as a feather though, it must be one of the expanded bags they sell in the Eugene ‘uptown mages market’.
I didn’t know they even sold these in the shop?..

Inside I could see a few different books, some unmarked boxes, what looks like an incense burner and a lot of cloth for some reason.

A glance at Fena didn’t help, she just shrugged at me with that same, slightly lost, look on her face.

Oh well, I’ll check it out later in my room.
I need to hurry before mum blows a fuse because I’m late.

The phone was in the same place as usual.
I dialled Sarah’s phone from memory.

It gave four rings before she picked up.

“Hello?”
Her voice sounded a bit strained for some reason.

My mouth wouldn’t move for a moment.
I wanted to just shout ‘I’m Sorry’ at her and then hang up.
It would be so much easier then what I’m going to face on the ride home instead..

“Hey Sarah.. can you come pick me up from Fena’s shop?.. I need a lift to mum’s place.”
My voice didn’t shake too much but I sounded far from sure of myself, even to my ears.

Sarah sniffed loudly into the phone and made a sound of agreement.
“I’ll be there soon, meet me outside.”
Without another word she hung up.

I felt like a total heel.
It’s pretty obvious she’s been crying just from her voice.
I can’t think of anything else that may have caused her to cry at the moment, which leaves me as the source..

I didn’t mean to upset her so much.
I was so geared up this morning, it feels like a lifetime ago.

I know she’s hurting because of my change too.
We just handle it in different ways.
I lash out when I’m angry, it’s something I picked up while working for the Hu.. well, working for whoever it was that made me THINK I was working for the Hub at least..

Sarah internalises her anger a lot.
She makes jokes and treats the problem as something unimportant so she doesn’t have to face it, in case she loses control.
For such a free spirit, Sarah’s such a control freak.
She even puts me to shame at times, at least I know when to let something go.. most of the time anyway..

I don’t know what I’m going to say to her.
It’s obvious we need to talk about this.
If we don’t then we’re going to end up hating each other for no real, valid reason.

I don’t WANT to be arguing with Sarah.
She’s the one person I trust above all others.
How could I not?
She’s my other half, my twin.

For a moment Theodora’s words came echoing back in my head.
‘Your other half will hurt you, she will cause you more pain than you have ever experienced.. it’s Sarah’s right to do so, a heart of a heart’
I shook my head hard and silenced the memory quickly but I couldn’t shake off the unease I felt from it.

I don’t WANT to hurt Sarah, I don’t want her to hurt me either, especially if she has a valid reason to do it in revenge somehow..

..What am I doing?..

It was THEODORA!
She’s not right, she can’t be right!
She’s insane, she was just spouting off random things she knew would get a reaction from me.

She’s always been like that, doing things just to get a reaction.
I can’t let her offhand little ‘prophecy’ act rule my life!
I don’t even believe in that mystic crap!

I’m going to get in the car, tell Sarah I’m sorry, then she’ll understand and we can move on like we used to.

Just because that two-bit, perverted soothsayer in my head decided to start spelling out my doom and gloom doesn’t mean I have to listen to it!
She’s probably not even right anyway, and I’ll prove it!
I’ll apologise to Sarah and everything will be fine again..

..Why does it feel so unlikely when I say it like that?..

I shook my head a few times to clear away all the mixed up worried thoughts.
It seems like I’ve gotten better at shaking myself out of it when I drop into thought like that now.
It’s probably got something to do with me accepting the ‘victims’ into my head, the girls Ellie let out.

“Fena, I’m gonna grab those books I was looking for earlier. Can you ring them up for me before I go?”

She seemed to jump at my voice.
Her hand quickly flicked down to her waist, away from her chest, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing.
She nodded her head furiously and quickly walked over to the counter.

I ambled over to the wreckage at the back of the shop.

It’s going to take her a while to fix this stuff up again.
I’m a little surprised she doesn’t have it all enchanted with strength runes or something, it would have saved a lot of hassle if she had.

The books I dropped are easy to find at least..
The ice dome pieces fell on either side of me and Rosemary so the back wall is mostly untouched.
My little pile of thick books was still sat waiting for me by the rear shelves I’d been searching through for the Locus Point book earlier.

I scooped them up and awkwardly carried them over to the counter.

You’d think I’d be used to carrying big piles of books by now but with my new body came a new center of balance.
While most of the problems I SHOULD be having with it are countered nicely by the thousands of years of experience I have available on how this body works, none of my easily accessed past-selves was THAT into books, so carrying so many of them is a new motion I don’t automatically have some kind of muscle memory built up for.
It’s similar to my problems with the feeling of water falling on me from the shower, it’s a new experience that I can’t just rely on their past-knowledge to help me get used to quickly.

Fena flipped each book over casually and dropped them into the bag that Edith gave me when she was done.
For some reason at the last one she shot me an amused look for a moment but didn’t say anything else before dropping it in with the others.

“That will be two-hundred and four dollars Al. Are you paying by cash or card?”
I opened my mouth to answer and then froze.

She seemed to read my face pretty well, judging by her amused huff.

“No money I take it?”
I cringed and shot her an apologetic look.

“No money, no card, no wallet in general. I think I left it at mums place this morning.”
Fena sniggered a little at my frustration.
“It’s this stupid skirts fault. Why can’t they just put pockets in them? This is why I prefer jeans..”

She leaned against the wall behind the counter and gave me a slightly sympathetic knowing look in return for my rant.

“I’ll put the books on your tab for now Al, I know you’re good for it. Can I suggest getting yourself a purse of some kind soon?”
Her lips twitched in amusement.
“Especially if you’re going to insist on running around looking like you’re skipping out of some private school all the time..”
I growled at her in warning and gave my miraculously repaired, tartan skirt an irritated tug.

“I didn’t CHOSE to wear this Fena, I h-”
She leaned forward and rested her chin on her palms.
“I was joking Al, keep calm.. or don’t actually, maybe this time when your magic goes off you’ll fix the loose floorboards behind the counter for me.”
Her tight lipped smile was slightly infectious and I couldn’t help but return it with one of my own.

Hopefully she doesn’t actually think too hard on that idea, I don’t need her intentionally pissing me off every time I visit from now on just so she can get free repairs done or a general healing spell out of it.

“Fena.. can.. since my change, I’ve been going by Hannah instead of Al.. It fits better, could you..”
I didn’t want to finish that sentence.

It was hard enough admitting, aloud, that I preferred being called Hannah over my old name.
At least I didn’t have to tell her that it’s always felt better, ever since Sarah gave the name to me.

That’s a secret I don’t think I’m willing to share with anyone anytime soon..
I think Sarah might know but she’s never openly made a big thing about it so I’m not sure on that one.

It might not completely be my fault.
Even with all the female voices in my head being sealed away at first, they still had an effect on my psyche as I grew up, I doubt people would react well to knowing how weird I really am though..
Being turned into an Arista clone is bad enough.
Now I don’t have the plausible deniability of blaming Sarah for ‘making’ me dress up for her sake.

With mum pushing me to ‘be a Lady’, whatever the hell that means, and John pushing me to be.. HER as well..
I’m getting so stressed out because it’s not JUST them and THEIR want’s I’m fighting against to stay sane.. I’m fighting myself too..

The feeling has only gotten worse over the years, I had a handle on it before because of my male body but now.. it’s slipping out of my control.
I woke up this morning in the monstro-nighty to go have my blind, sensationless shower and I actually enjoyed the feel of the fluffy pink thing slipping over my legs as I made my way to the bathroom.

I caught myself playing with my hair in the mirror too.
Just a little bit, just pushing it behind my ears so it looked right.. but that’s just it.
I shouldn’t CARE about that sort of thing, that’s not a thought I should have!

I’m not stupid enough to think being female innately makes me want to be this feminine little piece of fluff that cares too much about her appearance or something.. but it’s making the thoughts I always used to have when pretending to be Sarah come back too much, too easily.

My body was my break from those thoughts before, it was the cold shower I could use to shut them up quickly.
Now.. now my body is BUILT for that kind of thing.
People will EXPECT me to look nice, to care about my hair, to wear the frilly, fluffy monstro-nighty!

I’m fighting to not lose myself with all that’s been happening, but I can already tell I’ve lost some things.

I’m far more emotionally fragile then I was, I spent four years hunting down the worst magic-abusers and demonic monsters the world could throw at me.
I’ve faced more dark, insidious magic then most people do in their entire lives and I BEAT them!
.. but I can’t stop myself from having mood swings now..

I can’t stop myself from drifting off in thought constantly, my mind keeps moving from one topic to the next as if it’s SEARCHING for things that will tug at my emotions.

It’s happening right now!

I was asking Fena to just use my new name, that’s all.
That’s not even that strange considering the circumstances but it’s set me off like this!

I might seriously need some help here.. I’m not sure I can handle all of this alone for once.
There’s no-one who I can turn to though, no-one who can really UNDERSTAND just what the hell I’m going through!

I’m weird again.
In a world of magic, monsters and fae folk.. I’m the weird one.
..Again..

======

Someone shook my shoulder, jolting me back to the real world.
Fena was giving me a worried look.

“A.. Hannah, are you okay?”
I sniffed a little and pulled my face into a reassuring smile for her, at least as close as I could get to one at the moment.
I’m being weird again.
I need to stop that..

“I’m-”
My brand burned a little in warning.

I’d forgotten about that.
No saying I’m fine when I’m obviously not..

“I think I just need to get some rest. Today’s been a busy day, ya know?”
She didn’t seemed convinced by that.
I pushed my reassuring smile up to maximum and grabbed the bag off the counter in a rush.

“Thanks for putting this on my tab Fena. I’ll drop in with the cash at some point in the next few days. I’ve got to go, Sarah’s probably waiting outside.”
With quick steps I crossed the shop floor and pulled open the door before she could voice some kind of disagreement.

“Al..”
I winced as I heard her slightly hurt tone but carried on walking, pretending that I didn’t hear her speak.

My weirdness is causing too many people I care about to call after me in that tone of voice lately.
I can’t.. I need to get some kind of hold on it before I mess up everything beyond repair.

The shop door shut behind me with a ring of the bell.

Across the street I could see Sarah’s old car parked up.
The paint on her wheel arches is showing signs of rust again..

She wasn’t looking at me, she seemed to have her head resting on the steering wheel.
Her position was making her hair fall across her face so I couldn’t make anything out without getting closer.

With a deep breath for strength I pushed one Mary Jane covered foot in front of the other and started moving towards her car.

..I really don’t want to have this conversation right now..