Lucky Rabbit

<Kappa?> Pandy thought, tentative even in the semi-privacy of her own mind.

THOU HAST FAILED TO SPEAK TO ME FOR FIVE DAYS.

I AM WROTH WITH YOU.

Wroth? That meant angry, didn’t it? <I didn’t know you wanted to talk to me,> she said, rather indignantly. <You could have said something!>

HAST THOU NOT SEEN THY STATUS SHEET?!

Her what? Honestly, Pandy hadn’t bothered to pull up her stat sheet in… a while. She got notifications when her skills and spells leveled, and notifications that told her how much time was left on Shifting Faces every time she used it – not that she’d even come close to running out since Grange Day. So why did she need to check her stats? Well, other than keeping track of her Corruption Points, but she’d been able to use Mana for the last several days, so that really wasn’t an issue, either.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 24

LF: 4/4

Mana: 875/875

Stats▾

Skills▾

Spells▾

Boons▾

Corruption Points: 351

As always, Pandy’s gaze focused on the parts of her sheet that changed regularly. She’d been mentally tracking her increased levels, so it didn’t surprise her to see that Dual Wielding, Wings of Glory, Shifting Faces, and Radiant Presence had all gone up by one. She also had two more levels in Shield of Darkness, and a whopping three in Scorching Sonata, thanks to the battle on the boat. That, in turn, brought up her Intelligence and Agility. Her Corruption Points were down by more than one hundred and fifty, but school was back in session, so a few days hanging out near Suzanne should take care of that.

She was nodding along as she went over it again, still trying to figure out what Keros was upset about. Her eyes caught on her Life Force, which was now four, and then focused on her Dark Affinity, which had also gone up by one. But the largest, most glaring change – which she should have noticed immediately – was Ismara’s Blessing, which was now two. 

Two.

<When did all this happen?> she asked, her mental voice very meek.

When you entered the boy’s dream without even speaking to me first.

She grimaced, but at least he wasn’t yelling any more. <I’m sorry. I didn’t think->

No, you did not.

…

When you entered Thaniel’s dreamscape, you abandoned your current physical body entirely.

I believe you may have taken your true, elemental form.

I used the System to keep the rabbit-body viable, or else it would have begun to… decay.

Oh. Oh, gross. She hadn’t even known that was possible! <Thank you,> she offered, and once again felt that sense of some distant emotion, this time something like a deep sigh of acceptance.

You are welcome.

And I was, perhaps, unclear.

Your Dark Affinity rose in the moment you entered the dream, but your Life Force and the Blessing did not increase until you left it.

I have spent the last several days attempting to track down the parts of VitalLink that caused these changes, and figure out with what, or whom, the System is speaking, other than us.

What happened?

What did he mean, what happened? That was what she wanted to ask him! Had he gotten any leads, any ideas on where Ismara was, or what had happened to her? But she supposed she owed it to him to answer first, so she gave a quick explanation of what she’d experienced while within the dream-turned-nightmare.

Do you think the greater light was Ismara herself?

Or one of her more powerful elementals?

<I have to admit,> Pandy said with some reluctance, <I got the feeling it was actually Ismara. Everyone says she’s a pretty hands-on goddess, so I could see her popping in to see why a powerful Light elementalist was screaming for her.>

There was a long empty period, until Thaniel rolled over, murmuring in his sleep, and Pandy had to open her eyes and dodge a heavy arm that was heading her way.

That would make sense.

It would take a lot of power to send both boys home, but even more to revive Thaniel, however imperfectly.

A very strong elemental might manage it, but it would leave them drained for quite some time.

It would be inconsequential for a World God, however.

Though resurrection is generally inadvisable.

Pandy rolled over on the blankets, staring up at the dark ceiling as if Keros might appear there. <I didn’t know resurrection was even possible. Couldn’t you have just resurrected me, then? Just wind back the truck, or make it so I was only hurt, rather than killed?>

Would you truly have preferred that?

It was a fair question, and Pandy had to admit that no matter how big a bunny-wrench she’d thrown into this world’s story, she far preferred being here to being back in her original world. Even though she was constantly pretending to be someone or something she wasn’t, she was also more authentically Pandy than she had ever been at home. She felt like a puzzle piece that had been dropped, kicked around, then dug out from beneath the dining room table and slipped back into its box. The puzzle hadn’t been put together yet, but eventually it would be, and when it was, she would fit in a way she never had before.

<No,> she admitted. <But it would have been nice to know that was an option.>

Except that it wasn’t.

Only World Gods can decide if they allow resurrection on their worlds or not.

Usually it’s something only they are allowed to do.

<But Geraldine thinks her mother was resurrected,> Pandy said. <So it’s obviously allowed here.> She felt the sudden weight of Keros’s regard, as if he had been talking to her, but also focused on something else, and now she had his full attention.

Explain.

Pandy was so used to the god watching everything she did – including the awkward bits, and she really needed to get him out of her head so she could think about Augustus without exploding in embarrassment – that she’d just assumed he knew everything. Still, she told him what Geraldine had said, and while a child wasn’t exactly an expert witness, Pandy also remembered how pale and shaken Lord and Lady Reedsley had been, and thought it likely Lady Reedsley hadn’t just bumped her head. Perhaps Augustus would know the truth?

If the girl is correct, then someone raised Lady Reedsley, and I doubt it was Ismara.

I definitely would have sensed that.

I felt nothing until you triggered the VitalLink module again.

<But you said resurrection is ‘inadvisable’, not impossible,> Pandy said. <Why?>

People tend to see meaning in things, even when there is none.

The greatest danger of becoming a World God is the risk of boredom.

In order to stave off that boredom, gods have brought back people for all kinds of reasons – sometimes they found them amusing, or they were great catalysts of change, for good or ill.

But those people are inevitably seen as saviors, the voice of the god, and they are either persecuted or raised above all others.

Sometimes both.

Unless the god plans to continue being directly involved in the lives and deaths of their population, it’s best not to set expectations too high.

That did make sense. <But what if no one else knew the person had been resurrected?>

That is the only safe way to go about it.

Better yet if the people themselves have no idea.

They fall off a cliff and wake unharmed, are washed away by a river, but emerge unscathed.

Unfortunately, death is rarely so private or convenient, especially for those the gods find interesting.

<If Thaniel’s nightmare was a memory,> Pandy said slowly, <then someone – probably Ismara – did resurrect him, and for no apparent reason other than that his mother asked. And,> her eyes widened as she put the timeline together, <no one has heard from Ismara since. The Father and Mother were talking about some kind of sickness, and we know Lady Conroy died right around the same time as the king. What if it wasn’t King Fergus’s death that was the beginning of all of this, but Grace’s?>

Or, if not Grace’s death, then Thaniel’s resurrection.

Which brings us back to the importance of the heartstone in the original story.

The alleged importance. Keros made a compelling argument that the heartstone was probably given to Killian, who might then have used it to corrupt his own Light magic. Still, Gacha Love never confirmed… Pandy’s brain froze up, and she rolled over to stare at Thaniel, whose cherubic face was turned toward her, dark lashes contrasting with his pale hair and white pillowcase.

<Is it possible,> she asked carefully, <that Ismara is trapped inside the heartstone?> This question produced another, even longer pause.

If it was that easy to trap a god, the universe would be in trouble.

But I think you may have stumbled onto something there.

Stumbled? Rude! She had that thought fair and square, after poking at it in the back of her head for, well, however long it took.

The stone has always been inexplicable.

I should feel some power coming from it, but I do not.

Whatever magic makes it work is kept very tightly bound, only leaking when unbalanced by external forces.

…

Unbalanced…

<What?> Pandy demanded. <You just thought of something. What was it?>

I don’t want to speak before I’m certain, but yes, I may have just solved at least some of the mystery of the heartstone.

You said Grace Conroy had her own Light elemental, did you not?

And Lian once said that elemental had not been seen since his mother’s death.

That was true. Before Thaniel ever arrived at school, when Lian was talking to him about elementals, he mentioned Flit had disappeared. It was obvious that he believed Flit simply left after being released from its contract, but what if he was wrong? What if Flit had always been here, protecting Grace’s precious child?

<You think Flit is in Thaniel’s heartstone, not Ismara. A fourth-tier Light elemental to keep alive a child who should have died years ago.>

Again that distant sigh.

Yes.

But that can’t be all of it.

Light magic heals, or it doesn’t.

Only Dark magic-

<Maintains a connection,> Pandy said at the same time the words crawled across her vision. <But Flit was very definitely a Light elemental.>

Which brings me to the question: Where is Bryan Conroy’s elemental?

Pandy swallowed hard. Was Keros suggesting what she thought he was? That was impossible, wasn’t it? But they already had an example of opposing elements working in tandem – the Heartsplit Charms were Light and Dark, their magics combining to bring the pieces together, even when separated by miles. <Are we certain he had one?>

Think of what your chancellor has said.

Lord Conroy was a trusted and high-ranking Dark elementalist, once upon a time.

He likely had at least one Dark elemental above second tier.

Pandy’s ears grew a little warmer when she read the words ‘your chancellor’, but she didn’t have the mental bandwidth to go into a fit of denial right now. <It could have done exactly what Lian suggested, and fled once its contract ended.>

But you spent at least two months with Lord Conroy, and never once sensed or saw another Dark elemental.

Well, that wasn’t conclusive. Pandy hadn’t had any idea she was anything other than a gamified undead rabbit herself, so she certainly wasn’t looking for elemental shivers back then. Though Keros was right – even looking back, she couldn’t identify a single moment when she felt the pleasant chill she got around Dark elementals and Dark mages. Lord Conroy was definitely a Dark elementalist, however, so obviously she could miss it if she wasn’t paying attention.

<I also only went into the tower the day I arrived, and the day we left. It could have been in there every day in between, and I’d never know,> she said, playing Devil’s Advocate even though she had a feeling Keros was onto something.

Which is why I said I didn’t want to speak before I was certain.

Whoops, he was definitely getting testy again. He was still using formal language, too, which meant she hadn’t been entirely forgiven yet. Still, no caps was a good sign.

<All right,> she said, giving in because there was nothing else she could do. <But let me know as soon as you figure it out.>

We may need to perform some tests.

Pandy grimaced. The heartstone definitely didn’t seem to like it when someone messed with it, intentionally or otherwise. She didn’t want to do anything that would hurt Thaniel. He’d been through enough. <Do we have to?>

I suppose not.

But without them, we may never be certain.

<Would knowing allow us to remove the stone and repair Thaniel’s heart?> she asked hopefully.

Unlikely.

It would simply give us a better idea how Thaniel’s life is being maintained.

And possibly help us figure out how he can use magic, even in a limited way.

Thaniel would definitely like that, but was it worth potentially causing him pain to figure it out? And did Pandy have the right to make that decision for him? <Let me know,> she said again.

You as well.

Next time you feel the need to dive into someone’s unconscious mind, CALL ME.

There were the caps again, which meant this was probably a good time to say good night. <I will. Good night, Ker- Kappa.>

Good night, Pandora.

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