Kelly seemed to be making small improvements in her mental state with me alive and visiting her every day. Knowing that I was still alive and also having to deal with being Altered, after what was essentially three and a half years in a coma, seemed to help her willingness to adjust to her new self and let the rest of the world in. It helped that my changes were a little more extreme, what with my changed gender and minuscule size.

Since I had convinced her that I really was who I was claiming to be during that first hours-long session in her room and told her what was happening with me, she was starting to show that big sister energy with me again. She still had a lot to deal with, but at first, she was worried about how I was coping with my own new situation. It took a while, but I managed to convince her that, while being so tiny sucked in a lot of ways, I was happy being a girl and enjoying playing around with water magic.

Focusing on me seemed to be helping her cope better. With me being her now very little sister, instead of her younger brother, her protective tendencies kicked in again and seemed stronger than ever. That could have been partly due to what we had both been through and survived though. In any case, since she was making small improvements, talking to the psychologist now, and was no longer trying to self-harm, she had been moved yesterday from the secure padded room to one that was more comfortable.

The hospital even placed her on the same floor as the Fairy Ward so we could more easily visit one another for moral support. My sister had promised that she would have the nurses leave the door open a crack when they came and went, unless she wanted privacy, so I could get inside more easily and not have to rely on other people to let me in. Now that I was getting used to the teleporting thing and had mostly figured out my limitations though, that probably wouldn’t be necessary anymore after today.

Once Nurse Yvette had gotten me to my sister’s room, letting me ride on her shoulder since I was tired from testing my teleportation over and over, I parted ways with her to slip inside the partially opened door. I had barely flitted inside when I stopped to hover and stare at my sister. There was a look of concentration on her face as she sat cross-legged on the bed with her eyes closed and her white hair, tails, and fox ears were all gone, as if the Incursion had never happened.

She looked just like her old self, and for a moment, my breath caught in my throat at seeing her that way. It was as I was panicking about the thought of somehow turning back into a guy that I saw her hair start to lighten and her ears and tails reemerge. Heaving a sigh of relief, I muttered to myself, “Right… magic. The nurses told me that her species of Altered have shapeshifting and illusion abilities.”

Meanwhile, my sister was letting out a very different sort of sigh. I flew over to approach her and called out, “Sis? It’s me, Lily.”

Her large, fluffy ears turned in my direction and her eyes opened to give me at least an attempt at a smile. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be visiting today, you mentioned that you had some kind of testing for your special ability today.”

“I wouldn’t bail on you, Sis!” I protested. I was glad that her foxy ears were for more than just show though, in addition to being very cute they also provided her with excellent hearing, which meant that I didn’t have to scream to be heard by her. “It was exhausting, but I came here right after the testing. Have they gotten you to do that yet?”

I was fairly certain that it was probably a standard thing that they do with any Altered who get brought to the Amethyst Harbour Hospital for Altered Care, but with the mental state that my sister was in until recently, I couldn’t be sure if they had tested her formally yet. The appointments usually take at least several hours though and need to be booked early. Poppy was supposed to be tested tomorrow because while we both had discovered our special abilities on the same day, it seemed that potentially hazardous or rare and useful abilities had the highest priority. My teleportation fit both of those criteria while Poppy’s matter manipulation only seemed to fit the latter.

“No,” Kelly said simply as I flitted over to land on one of her knees. Then she seemed to realize how brusque that sounded and quickly added, “Sorry, Lily, I guess I’m just a bit tired. They had a Huli Jing from the Vanguard come in today to start teaching me how to change my shape and cast illusions for most of the afternoon. She mentioned something about testing, so I guess it’ll probably be sooner rather than later, but she said they would likely want a Healer on hand for that. There aren’t many of those and most of them work with the Vanguard.”

“What?! Why?!” I asked, suddenly very concerned for my sister. It was a very good thing that I knew an awesome Healer who could be freed up to help then.

“I’m invulnerable, as far as they can tell, and the Vanguard lady told me that powers like that are hard to test practically. All they can really do is keep trying to hurt me until something sticks, or I feel pain, and that won’t be fun for anyone if it goes too far,” she responded with a shrug.

I cringed at the thought of how that might go. “Point taken, Sis. I can go with you when they test you if you want. Speaking of Healers though, there’s someone I’d like to introduce to you… well, reintroduce since you kinda know her already…” I stammered as I tried to lead up to introducing her to Moonlight.

Confusion was written all over my sister’s face as she attempted to figure out what, or who, I was talking about. “Lily, what are you…”

“I kinda thought that she was imaginary at first, I mean, who wouldn’t? After bursting from my own chest in a shower of gore, it would have been understandable if I lost my mind a bit. She’s confirmed real now though, and I think you and me spending some time together with her might help you start to feel more like yourself,” I said, thoroughly beating around the bush as I worked up to the big reveal. “Okay, Moonlight, you can show yourself now.”

My sister continued to stare down at me in confusion and suspicion for a moment before her gaze moved upward to settle on something behind me, between her bed and the doorway. I knew that she was looking at what I hoped she was when she sputtered, “What… how…?”

“Sis, this is Moonlight. Yes, that Moonlight,” I told her with all seriousness.

“How? That’s not possible…”

“Sis, you’re a foxgirl with nine tails and I’m a five-inch-tall Fairy, I think we might need to change our definitions of what’s possible. Animals can become Altered just like us humans; Moonlight changed during the Breach too, and she’s been watching over me since. We’re kinda bonded, so we can talk, but she can only do it with me because I’m her Maiden and she’s my protector.”

The snow-white Huli Jing continued to stare for another long moment at the equally pristine white Unicorn. She looked from Moonlight to me and then did it all over again as if trying to process what I just told her. Then she did something entirely unexpected, she started to laugh. It was the first time since we had been reunited that I had seen her smile or laugh as a cascade of giggles slipped from her twitching lips. “Pffft… it figures,” she finally managed to get out between fits of giggling.

While seeing her smile and laugh was nice after so long, and the state she was in when I first saw her like this, her reaction had me completely flummoxed. “What?!”

It took a couple of minutes before her giggling finally subsided and she was able to answer me. “You probably don’t remember this since you were so young at the time, but when you were five and I was seven, you were completely obsessed with Unicorns for the longest time. You told anyone who would listen that you wanted one of your own. It was around the same time that you demanded to be a fairy princess for Halloween, I guess I should have seen you for who you really were back then.”

“You must be remembering wrong, I was a cowboy for Halloween when I was five,” I protested. Still, something about the hazy memory that summoned made my stomach churn and my pulse quicken.

“You really don’t remember then? I guess that’s not surprising after what Grandpa Miller…” She immediately shut her mouth and looked away with a guilty expression.

Grandpa Miller was Mom’s father, but I couldn't remember him all that well. He died when I was nine, but I hadn’t even seen him for years before that because Mom had banned him from visiting us for some reason back when I was little and wanted nothing to do with him until the day he died in an accident while driving impaired. It also caused a huge rift between Mom and Grandma Miller; one they didn’t mend until she was in the hospital and dying of lung cancer when I was thirteen.

The more that I let my mind focus on my mother’s parents and that Halloween, the more the uneasiness in me spread. Whatever elusive and forgotten memory was connected to these things, just trying to probe my mind for it summoned crippling emotions in me that all but took my breath away. This haze of fear and pain had me shaking and tears stinging my face, a harsh voice in my mind yelling, “No grandson of mine is going to grow up to be a faggot!”

Like a dam was shattered in my mind, the memories came rushing back. The strong scent of alcohol. My grandfather was screaming at me in the barn and beating me until a couple of the ranch hands came in and pulled him off me. My voice was harsh from crying and screaming from the pain and promising over and over that I would never do it again.

He had beaten me so badly that I had to spend several days in the hospital, and now that the memory had resurfaced, that explained the fading bruises and the cast on my arm in the Halloween photos from that year. It explained the haunted look on my face in those photos too. I was dressed as a cowboy and Kelly as a cat.

-Lily, please calm yourself. I am here. Your sister is here. These memories are in the past, they cannot hurt you now.- Even lost in that horrid memory that was circling over and over inside my mind, I knew that voice.

Just as I knew the voice of my sister as she shushed at me and whispered soft assurances that were only a little too loud. “Shhh… it’s okay, Lily. He can’t hurt you anymore. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up.” I could feel each breath she took rumble comfortingly through me as she used one hand to hold me to her modest chest, the closest thing to a hug that she could come up with at the moment.

I wasn’t even aware that she had picked me up, or of how long I and been sobbing into her chest while I was being steamrolled by that memory. I took a deep breath and tried to get my crying and stuttered breathing under control, and then I thought toward my Unicorn protector, “I’m okay now, I think.”

Around that same time, my sister seemed to notice that my tiny body wasn’t heaving quite as much against her chest and asked, “Are you okay now, Lily? I’m so sorry for bringing that up. I didn’t think you’d remember anything. He hit you on the head a few times and you had memory problems for a little while after that. That almost got us taken away from Mom and Dad, there were social workers involved and everything, and damn it was scary. Mom was furious and broke off contact with her parents after that.”

“It’s okay, Sis. It’s funny how the mind works,” I said with a sigh as I tried my best to hug her back, which was weird since I could only hug her breast at my size and position. “I think that maybe I blocked out that memory after it happened. Mom and Dad said that I broke that arm and stuff by falling out of a tree we were climbing, so I guess I rolled with it since it was less traumatic.”

“Yeah, you didn’t seem to remember what happened, and I guess they thought that it was kinder to tell you that then… what really happened,” she explained with a hitch in her voice that told me she’d probably been crying too. That explained the heaving in her chest when I came out of my daze.

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked, eager to get off the topic and bury those memories again so they would never again see the light of day.

“Yeah, sorry,” my sister apologized again as she slightly pulled away the hand hugging me to her chest, allowing me to fall into it and sit down. She did jump on the change of topic though, by bringing us back to where this had begun. “So, is this really Sundancer’s little filly? And she can talk to you and understand us?”

“Yep,” I replied with all the false cheer I could summon, determined to take my mind away from those recently resurfaced memories. “She’s probably as intelligent as we are, and she’s been watching over me since the Vanguard found me in what was left in the stables. She prefers to keep herself all ghostly and hidden, but I convinced her to make herself known, for your sake. So, you’ll probably be seeing more of her now. She’s a Healer too, so we can probably be there for your Testing.”

“She’s beautiful,” Kelly said with a faint smile before turning to the Unicorn in question. “Thanks for watching over my little sister all this time, Moonlight. Your mother and I were very close, so I hope that we can become good friends too.” Then she seemed to catch on to something I said and asked, “What do you mean by that? Making herself known for my sake?”

I was a little embarrassed about giving my plan away, but I wasn’t about to lie to her. “I… umm… thought that if she was in her physical form more, she’d need someone to help me care for her since I’m too small to do much of that. You know, getting her food and stuff, brushing her coat and mane, getting her properly shod, and taking her for a ride once in a while for some exercise. Stuff like that. I… ahh… thought that getting back into familiar tasks might be good for both of us.”

-I can feed myself perfectly well, but since you seem to feel that this would benefit you both, I will allow you to ‘take care of me’ even though it is my responsibility to care for you,- Moonlight commented in my mind.

“You also said that the only responsibilities that I have to you are those I place on myself, and I think fair is fair and I should be able to take care of you too. We’re partners, Moonlight, or at least I’d like us to be. I think that’s how this bond should work,” I immediately retorted. Then I turned to my very quiet and thoughtful-looking sister to ask, “So, what do you think?”

“I…” my sister started hesitantly before looking down at me in her hand fondly. It was almost like seeing the Kelly I remembered from before the Incursion, always having a smile for me and trying to encourage me. “I think I’ve got the best little sister there is. Thank you, Lily, you might be right about familiar things, and I hope that Moonlight and I can become good friends. Who am I to refuse to help you care for and ride your freaking Unicorn, I mean, how awesome is that? It’s, like, every little girl’s dream come true.”

I stayed with my sister for another hour as we discussed what we would need for Moonlight. Things like feed, brushes, a warm blanket, and a place for her to sleep when in her material form were at the top of the list. Once Moonlight was willing to let Kelly ride her, something that neither of us wanted to force on my protector, we’d also need a proper saddle and a place to get her some exercise. She wouldn’t need a bridle since she was so smart and could take directions verbally, but something for Kelly to hold onto in place of reins would probably be a good idea as well.

It was nice seeing my sister look happy while we talked about things that were a big part of who we were while growing up and it took my mind off the repressed memory that had come up earlier as well. This would work, it could help bring Kelly out of the depression that she had fallen into since returning from beyond the Breach. Before long though, we were both starting to get tired from our eventful day and Moonlight became all ghostly so we could return to the Fairy Ward, I could snuggle with Poppy for a while, and then go to my little Sprite-sized house for a well-deserved rest.