Lucky Rabbit

Lian was stretched out lengthwise on the bench across from them, his shoeless feet propped up on the wall, reading. From the glances he’d thrown his mother when he put his feet up there, he’d expected to be told to take them down – perhaps even hoped for it – but Lady Conroy had bigger problems than a teenage Lian’s probably-clean socks on the wall.

Thaniel was fast asleep, resting with his head in The Mother’s lap, while she stroked his curls back from his round little face. She was pale, and even in the warmth of the carriage, she didn’t remove her cloak, shivering periodically as if she was still cold. Pandy was becoming more and more concerned, especially as Lady Conroy tried so valiantly to keep everything as normal as possible for her sons. Once or twice she bit her lip so hard Pandy thought it might bleed, but she never cried out.

Pandy herself sat on the bench beside Thaniel, since there wasn’t enough room in The Mother’s lap for both of them. Again and again she attempted to cast Minor Heal, hoping it might work, even though she wasn’t getting any feedback from the System. Grace didn’t look any better, though, just curling forward more and more until her own golden curls mingled with Thaniel’s.

They had to have been traveling for at least half an hour when they hit a particularly bumpy patch of road. The muffled voice of the driver let them know they’d be through it soon, and then there was a loud, vicious crack that echoed through the carriage. The small family was thrown from one side of the passenger compartment to the other. Lian landed on the floor with his books around him, and a second, wetter crack accompanied his fall. He screamed, and The Mother started to go to him, but she was holding Thaniel so he didn’t fall as well, and she didn’t get to her older son in time.

The whole carriage fell over. It was slow, like the breaking of the Titanic, teetering on the one set of good wheels, then almost casually tipping, until it landed on its side. Except it didn’t stop there. They must have been on a hill, because it just kept rolling, with more horrific onomatopoeic sounds coming from outside.

Pandy had been thrown over Thaniel and Grace when the carriage tipped the first time, and now she lunged upwards in order to catch the edge of Lady Conroy’s cloak. The lady was clinging to a bar just inside the door that was meant to give passengers something to grab onto as they climbed in and out, and she was the only semi-stable object in the chaos. Lian tumbled past, and there was blood everywhere.

Both boys were awake and screaming, but their mother still hung on grimly, clutching Thaniel until he was ripped from her as the roof buckled. Something that was probably a broken branch protruded through the hole, pinning the whole carriage like a butterfly on a board. Everything fell to the side, and Lian dropped out as the bottom door fell open, along with a cascade of books and suitcases. His leg was very definitely broken, but he grabbed for the swaying door as he fell, his eyes huge and panicked.

The branch snapped. Pandy jerked, terrified that the carriage would fall onto Lian, who must be directly beneath them, but they didn’t drop straight down. Instead the carriage caught on what was probably another branch and slid to the side, rolling over so they were upright for one brief, glorious second. Then another crunch sounded, and they were moving again, sliding again, and when they came to a halt they all lay on one side of the carriage, with the broken door beneath them and the other, somehow still intact, open overhead.

A sobbing breath drew her attention to Grace, who crouched on hands and knees beside Thaniel. Thaniel, who was completely limp, his chest a mass of blood and things that weren’t meant to be visible from outside of the body. Broken pieces of wood were buried in his flesh, but the worst one was a jagged stick, about half an inch wide, thrust between his ribs. The blood that should have been pouring from him was already slowing to a trickle.

His mother shook her head, and more blood flowed from a wide cut that traveled from just above one eye and along her scalp by the ear, turning golden curls to wet crimson strings. Pandy crawled toward them, finding as she did that she was somehow, miraculously, intact. <Minor Heal, Minor Heal, Minor Heal,> ran through her mind in a litany of uselessness, and she nuzzled Thaniel’s cheek, then The Mother’s hand.

“Thaniel?” Grace said, voice trembling almost as badly as her hand. “Thaniel, love, you have to wake up. Mama says. Thaniel!”

Thaniel didn’t move, and Grace lifted her head and began screaming. Not just inarticulate sounds of mourning, but a word. A name. “Flit! Flit, I need you! Flit!”

Between one second and the next, they were no longer alone. A tiny being hung in the air in front of Lady Conroy. It was silvery, vaguely humanoid, with wings that were at least three feet across, much too large for such a tiny body. It whirled, dipped, landed on Grace’s shoulder, miniature hands dipping into the blood that soaked her hair.

“Not me,” Grace croaked, raising Thaniel’s body. “Thaniel. Heal him. Please, Flit.”

The elemental hesitated, then dropped onto Thaniel’s body. Again, the little hands dipped into blood, before it shook its head. It made a sound, like a song pitched so high even Pandy almost couldn’t hear it, but Grace seemed to have no difficulty understanding. She wailed, and this time there was sorrow in it, a broken sound that made Pandy want to weep as well.

The sound stopped halfway through, though, swallowed up in a different kind of cry. It was guttural, visceral, an expulsion of air forced out by a body that could no longer contain what was happening inside it. A look of fresh horror spread across her face, and she grabbed her heavy cloak, which had probably cushioned her from much of the worst of the tumbling fall, and revealed her belly.

Lady Grace Conroy was pregnant. Not just pregnant, but quite possibly the single most pregnant human being Pandy had ever seen in person. Her belly pushed out against her loose dress in an unmistakable curve, and even through her clothing, it looked so taut that Pandy thought she might be about to witness a live reenactment of a certain horror film. Moreover, her dress was dark with moisture, and growing wetter every moment.

Grace fell backwards, away from Thaniel, body arching as she shrieked in pain. Her elemental flew down, touching her gently, but Lady Conroy pushed at it, forcing it away from her. “Thaniel,” she gasped. “Not me. Help him.” Her voice was a whimper that shifted to a scream by the end, as another contraction struck.

Pandy had never witnessed a birth, but she’d watched enough dramas to know that when the contractions came this quickly, the baby couldn’t be far behind. Flit seemed to know this, too, hovering uncertainly between Grace and Thaniel, who seemed to be beyond her help.

A shadow fell over the interior of the carriage, and they all looked up. Pandy felt her chest loosen. Had someone come? Lian hadn’t said anyone arrived in time to help, but surely someone noticed the protracted and extremely loud fall.

But no one was there. It was just… dark. A wash of cold came over Pandy, chilling her bones, and causing the blood that stained everything to develop a layer of sparkling frost. Lady Conroy gasped, and her breath plumed. The darkness – the Darkness – thickened, and someone stepped out of it.

She was beautiful. Her hair and eyes were black, her skin inhumanly white. She wore nothing, but there was nothing sensual about her nudity. It was just the way she was, perfect and smooth and impossibly glorious. The only color other than black and white lay in her long nails, which Pandy at first thought were painted, and then realized were simply blood-red claws, reaching out for Grace’s bulging abdomen.

“No!” Grace gasped, scrambling backward, leaving a trail of what Pandy now realized was blood behind her. Her hands went protectively over her belly, before Flit moved between her human and this newcomer, spreading its tiny arms wide. Its hands were red, as if it was a shrunken funhouse mirror image of the other elemental.

The intruder’s lips lifted, revealing a black pit, rather than teeth, gums, or tongue. She let out a growl, and something like black fire pushed from the palms she thrust toward Flit. Flit began to glow, gleaming from the inside out, a luminous shell of Light surrounding it. Its wings curved, becoming a protective shield, blocking the Darkness.

Grace screamed again, her body determined to get on with the business of birth, no matter what her brain might have to say about it. This time as the pain faded – just a little, from the expression on her face – she shouted, “Ismara! I beg you! I have been… faithful.” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she sagged backwards. Another gush of red soaked her skirts. Flit staggered beneath the flood of Darkness.

“Goddess,” Grace said – mumbling, whimpering, her body no longer straining to eject its passenger. She gasped, but another breath didn’t follow right away. “Goddess,” she said again, her head falling backwards. “Please…”

Light.

Not just light, but a Light that was the utter absence of Darkness. The elemental woman had been silent up to this point, but now she, too, screamed, the sound echoing inside the interior of the carriage in a way that should have been impossible.

Part of the Light separated from the rest of the light, though how that was possible without Darkness to define the edges, Pandy didn’t know. Fingers brushed Thaniel, then Grace, and Grace let out one more long, low release of air. It wasn’t an exhale, more like a deflation, a letting go of something that had been held for as long as possible.

Thaniel’s body disappeared. Pandy knew it – and Lian – would be back at Dunning Manor, waiting for whatever the Father did to save Thaniel. Now that she knew just how badly the boy had been injured, just how very, very dead he’d been, Pandy was even more terrified of what might happen if the heartstone was removed before they found a way to heal him. They might never be able to heal him. He might be crippled – a mage unable to use magic – for the rest of his life. But at least he would have a life.

Light shifted. Rippled. To Pandy’s surprise, it wasn’t the new Light that spoke to her, the one that might well be Ismara herself, but the smaller one: Grace’s elemental, Flit.

<This is the truth,> a tiny, high-pitched voice came into her mind. <But not the whole truth. We’ve shown you the beginning, but the end is yet to come. Be ready.>

Everything went black. Thaniel screamed. She knew instantly that it was him, and that he was waking, and without hesitation thought, <Cast Shifting Faces.>

Shifting Faces successful.

04:29:59 remaining today.

Pandy wrapped her arms around the shrieking boy and held him, rocking back and forth until his hands came up and he clutched at her sleeves, sobbing. She made wordless, soothing noises, and didn’t even know when more arms joined her own, Augustus and then Lian’s voices joining in the soft susurration of reassurance.

They sat together on Thaniel’s bed, arms encircling the boy until his cries became harsh, wracking coughs. His breath rattled, and he gagged. Everyone else instinctively jerked back at the sound, while Pandy stared around wildly, looking for a bucket. Seeing none, she held out her hands, so when he coughed up a sticky black slug, it landed in her palm, writhed, and wisped into black vapor.

+32 CP for absorbing a Dark spell

This, added to the almost thirty points she’d gotten while Thaniel cried all over her, brought Pandy back up to just over three hundred and fifty Corruption Points, but it also caused Lian to stare at her, suspicion darkening eyes that were almost as red as his brother’s.

Pandy held up her hands. No trace remained of the slug, and Thaniel was breathing easily now, though he still slumped forward, clearly exhausted. “I didn’t do anything,” she told Lian. “I swear! I was just-”

Small arms looped around Pandy’s waist, and Thaniel pressed his face into her chest. She wasn’t certain whether to hug him back or continue to defend herself, so she did a bit of both, wrapping one arm around his shoulders while the other warded off his brother.

“What in Ismara’s name are you?” Lian demanded, looking like he wanted to tear Pandy away from Thaniel, but was acutely aware that Thaniel himself would strongly resist the attempt.

Pandy grimaced, bringing the other hand in to hold onto Thaniel as he slowly melted into her. “If you figure that out, please let me know.”

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