#anyway no offense to crystal loving healing people intended

[batwynn]

I love not being able to find basic info about different rocks and gems because google is 100% about selling stuff now, and every result is about magical crystal healing heat pads that heal your soul or what the fuck ever.

[argentdandelion]

I Don't Need You to Love Me: A Steven Universe Review

Note: the following review makes umbrella statements about target demographics. Readers should remember that a show can have aimed demographics and significant periphery demographics.

When Steven Universe (pre-movie) ended, I found myself disappointed. That was it? I thought. This was supposed to be ‘the good part’ I had been waiting to see. How could this happen? I felt more than just disappointment. At the end, watching this show had felt like a waste, and it seemed the show that ended wasn’t the same show I had chosen to watch back in Season 1. It was no longer the show of a boy creatively defeating a giant centipede monster, or the body horror, of turning into multiple cats, or of seeing one’s future selves dissolve into sand after a mystical artifact breaks, but a show where people cry and sing and resolve problems nonviolently.

But, looking back...it never wanted to be a show I would love.

Kids’ programming networks appeal to different audiences by shows’ tones and themes. For example, Disney Channel is aimed more at girls, Disney XD is aimed more at boys. While Cartoon Network historically aimed at children in general, by the time of Steven Universe’s first episode, its primary audience was boys. Indeed, shows like Tower Prep, Young Justice, and Green Lantern: The Animated Series had been canceled before because they appealed too much to girls for the executive’s liking, regardless of their overall popularity.

Early on the run of Steven Universe, Cartoon Network tried to appeal to young boys through lighthearted (even goofy) action-adventure shows or outright comedy shows. And the advertisements for Steven Universe fit: it emphasized the crystal gems’ status as the super-cool, strong protectors of humanity, and the oddity of its wacky half-human member, Steven. It emphasized goofiness and absurdity, like Steven’s own pants walking around. It was certainly more like contemporary Adventure Time than the more tough and “serious” Young Justice or Green Lantern: The Animated Series.

Steven Universe played well to network executives’ intended demographic (more or less) for the first two seasons. It had plenty of action, adventure, and violence, and (though not strictly a “young boys demographic thing”) consistent smatterings of “lore” across episodes. However, it also flipped the typical, male-dominant boys’ show composition through three-fourths of its main characters being female. Furthermore, its one boy was a “tomgirl”: a sensitive, compassionate boy prone to crying, who wore pink and had healing/defensive powers, rather than offensive ones.

Apparently, Steven Universe was designed to appeal to both girls and boys. According to an article on LA Weekly, Rebbeca Sugar, the creator of Steven Universe, said: “I want to make a universal show and that, by default, makes it a more quote-unquote boys' show because those are the more universal shows,[...]the boys' show side is the side where I think the gap could be bridged.”

As Steven Universe became super-popular, though, it had more room to “stray” from its action-adventure-boys’-cartoon bounds. Though it was clearly never aimed exclusively at young boys, as time went on trends collided in such a way it would appeal even more to audiences outside young boys.

Given the show’s approach to conflict resolution, its songs, its abundant character interaction (and style—see all the crying), “straying” was likely what it intended to do all along.

Firstly, the goofiness of Season 1 subsided, or, at least, advertisements stopped emphasizing that. The types and frequencies of plots in Season 1 and Season 2, whether a monster-of-the-week episode with “Townie” (human residents of Beach City) and “Gem” subplots or a “track and catch Peridot/deal with the Cluster” plot, helped provide dependable action sequences, or even violence. Later episodes��� kinds and proportions of the plots made it focus more on townies, even for whole episodes. It got more episodes which had little if anything supernatural happening, and became more character-focused or relationship-focused than plot or action-focused (though it still had those).

In short, it got more mundane, or more like a slice-of-life/slice-of-life-comedy show. Interestingly, the factors which made it less of an action-adventure cartoon coincided with fans’ decisions on which episodes are “filler”: almost all the “townie” episodes are deemed “filler”. Even early in Season 1, there were mundane moments; half an episode could be pretty mundane. There was an emphasis on characters’ relationships with others, and complex emotions, and soft moments. While not an outright pacifist from the start (see: electrocuting Centipeetle in episode 1) he was always a compassionate peacemaker. And, even early on, there was crying and singing (see: “Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart”, second episode of season 1). Steven’s perspective is well-summarized with his claim “Giant robots shouldn’t fight” (Season 2, episode 23) which is hilariously ironic, given that’s the point of giant robot shows.

Later on, the ratio of mundane-to-magical moments got skewed towards the mundane, to the point whole episodes could be mundane. (e.g., Drop Beat Dad of Season 3, with no “Gem stuff” at all, without significant Gem involvement) Instead of character dynamics being a sub-plot or sub-theme of most episodes, it’s now a primary theme of many episodes. It’s hard to imagine almost an entire episode (episode 23 of a two-parter, Season 5) about Ruby and Sapphire getting married, with a long song about it, airing in Seasons 1-2.

Though I am female, I prefer plot-focused, violent, action-adventure cartoons—“boys’ cartoons”, generally. I thus ended up disappointed at Steven Universe’s different approach and likely shift in intended audience. Episode upon episode left me hoping for better ones next time.To be fair, this wasn’t entirely the fault of tonal or audience shifts, but also pacing issues (relative to my tastes, anyway) and all the hype of “Steven Bombs” (Steven Universe episode premieres, five nights in a row), broken up by long hiatuses.

Not everything will be to my taste, and variety is important in kids’ shows. The show’s approach to conflict resolution is both original and valuable in real life: after all, not everything can be solved by violence, dominance and punishment.

In the end of the series (before its epilogue miniseries), Steven sang:

I don't need you to respect me, I respect me I don't need you to love me, I love me

And I can say....as disappointed as I was, this show doesn’t need me to love it.

[ncfan-1]

I just want to say I adore all of the meta you've done on Eclipsa! And I loved your headcanon and fanfic on Skywynne being Eclipsa's first daughter too! Do you have any other headcanons about them or other past Mewni Queens?

Thankyou! I’m glad you liked the fic and the meta!

As forhead canons, well, I’m keeping some of my Eclipsa head canons under wraps untilwe find out more about her on the show, but there are some I can talk about.She had Skywynne (or whoever her older daughter turns out to be, if theyaddress this on the show and it turns out to be someone else) at a relativelyyoung age, nineteen. She married her Mewman husband when she was seventeen. Hewas only a year older than her; this wasn’t some ‘old man marrying a child’deal. They were friendly with one another (they liked to talk shit aboutmembers of the court they didn’t like together, and both trusted to the other’sdiscretion), and her feelings for him were… complex. So complex that Eclipsaherself can’t really define them.

Whydid she marry him? The Butterfly family sort of goes through cycles of having alot of branches or relatively few; in present-day, it’s pretty extensive, butin Eclipsa’s time, it was relatively small. Eclipsa didn’t have a lot of alliesat court, and her future husband was from a powerful family. When thingsdeteriorated, the fact that he was from a powerful family wound up workingagainst her. Badly.

Skywynne?Once her mother was crystallized, Skywynne did much the same as Elizabeth Iregarding Anne Boleyn and never spoke of her again. She wore some of hermother’s old jewelry from time to time, but otherwise, avoided any connectionto her. Skywynne had to work hard to rehabilitate the reputation of the crownin the eyes of the Mewman people after everything that went down with Eclipsa.She had to work equally hard to avoid falling under suspicion of sharing hermother’s “unconventional” beliefs, both regarding dark magic and the place ofmonsters in Mewni society. (Her natural position towards both was already inline with Mewman society as a whole. She was predisposed to fear and distrustdark magic, and was inculcated with the institutionalized racism of her people,which unlike her mother, she never shook off, nor even questioned. This didn’tmatter to the royal court.)

Skywynne’spersonal feelings for her mother were complicated, to put it mildly. Sheregarded her mother’s fleeing Mewni as a personal betrayal, and even beforethen, their relationship wasn’t untroubled. I talked about it in thispost, but basically, Eclipsa, though she loved Skywynne and she did try, wasn’t an ideal mother. AsQueen, she already didn’t have much time for her kid, but she was also, uh,consumed with other things (Research into dark magic. Trying to make strides inintroducing reforms into how monsters are treated. Stuff like that). Also,performing the constant emotional labor that comes with being an involvedparent didn’t come naturally to her. They didlove each other; they just didn’t have a perfectly untroubled relationship.Eclipsa was a bit absent, and Skywynne more than a little needy. They bondedover a shared love of spellcasting and research.

On topof regarding her mother’s fleeing Mewni as a personal betrayal, she wasrepelled by Eclipsa’s experimenting with dark magic (though like the rest ofthe MHC, she didn’t know exactly what Eclipsa did, and never cared to find out)and repelled by the notion that monsters should be regarded as equal toMewmans. Her feelings towards Meteora were resentment that this was the childher mother had “replaced” her with mixed with quiet revulsion of theabomination she and society both regarded a Mewman-monster hybrid as being.

Butlike Eclipsa, Skywynne had a fascination with incredibly dangerous magic, though unlike her mother she had thegood fortune to be drawn to magic that wasn’t regarded as “dark.” Unfortunatelyfor her, time magic happens to be even more inherently dangerous than most ofthe dark magic her mother came up with. She died a rather gruesome death whenone of her experiments went wrong.

Otherhead canons?

-Skywynne had a twin girl and boy at the age of thirty-five, and no otherchildren.

-Celena the Shy, like Star, read Eclipsa’s chapter, and like Star, made use ofthe All-Seeing Eye, though she did so much more than Star did. A bit too much,in fact. Her insatiable curiosity led her towards “things men were not meant toknow”-type knowledge, and as tends to happen when someone stumbles on “thingsmen were not meant to know”-type knowledge, Celena did not come away from thatmentally unscathed. Many of her contemporaries thought she held her fan up toher mouth as some sort of nervous tic. It was in fact because of a curse thatwas laid upon her; I’ll leave that one to your imagination. The fact that shewears gloves over her hands may be significant.

-Celena favored plant creation magic. She wasn’t much of a fighter.

- Eclipsamet her monster lover/possible second husband shortly after she became Queen.She had a number of monster friends that she made when she snuck out of thecastle while she was still just the princess.

-Someone, I think it was @nomidot, head canons (or head canoned; I don’t know ifthey still do) Eclipsa’s mother as being blind. I like that head canon, so ifthey don’t mind, I think I’m going to use it, too. My version of Eclipsa’smother was named Persephone. She went blind as a young child due to illness.She could be rather distant with the court, fierce with her own child, but shestill loved Eclipsa very much, and Eclipsa spent much of her childhoodpractically attached to her mother’s hip. Eclipsa didn’t like to worryPersephone, though she spent plenty of time worrying about Persephone. Persephone had an ebony cane with a silver handlethat she used to walk with.

-Eclipsa’s father died when she was a little girl; she has no clear memories ofhim. Her mother died when she was fifteen.

-Eclipsa’s first foray into dark magic involved trying to bring her mother backto life. It ended badly. Really badly. The results were… Well, imagine theresults of human transmutation in FMA: Brotherhood if the result was actuallythe person the alchemist was trying to bring back to life, and you get thepicture. What was brought back didn’t survive very long.

-Already reeling from the loss of her mother, Eclipsa sank into a deep, numbdepression after her attempt to bring her mother back to life failed so spectacularly.Her first husband supported her through it (though he didn’t know about theresurrection attempt; no one in the royal court did), hence Eclipsa’s verycomplex feelings for him. No one else had been willing to do that; just him.She sort of fell in love with him during this period. It wasn’t an enduringlove; what it was was lingering.

-Solena died by committing suicide.

- I’mwavering on whether the “a castle stormed” in Solaria’s tapestry poem refers toher castle being stormed, or her storming someone else’s castle, namely acastle belonging to the monsters. Right now, I kinda want to believe that whatwe know as the Butterfly family’s castle was originally a castle belonging tothe monsters that Solaria sacked and conquered. After she conquered the castleand established it as the home of her court, any references to it having oncebeen the monsters’ castle were thoroughly effaced. Whether or not I stick withthis head canon, I’m head canoning her as one of the earlier Queens of Mewni,rather than being one of Eclipsa’s descendants.

-Bubipsa the Barbarian Baby-Eater… oh boy. Right now, I’m head canoning the‘barbarian’ part of her epithet as coming from her having a Johansen father. Asfor the ‘Baby-Eater’ part… She got away with it because the babies in question weremonsters. Yes, really. Even the ultra-racist Mewman royal court regarded thisas being beyond the pale of acceptable behavior, because, you know, babies. Since they were monster babies, though, the MHC didn’tregard this as a crystallizing offense (Though Rhombulus was still appalled.Hence why he cites his mistaken recollection of Eclipsa as being a baby-eateras justification for crystallizing her). Bubipsa was eventually killed when herdaughters staged a coup against her; eating babies wasn’t the only unsavorything she was doing, as it turns out. Oh, and no matter how evil you thinkEclipsa might turn out to be, Bubipsa was worse. Much worse.

- Thetreaty Comet intended to sign with the Monster King… Well, monsters would havebeen better off if the treaty had been signed, but that’s more because therearen’t too many ways they could be worse offthan because it was a fair, equitable document that was going to signal thebeginning of a new age of peace and friendship between Mewmans and monsters.Comet’s particular brand of racism was the (not really) “benevolent” kind. Thekind of benevolent racism that believes in noble savages and ExceptionalMonsters and “separate, but equal.” Which is to say, still hella racist.  (I don’t have a hard head canon for why Toffeekilled her, not yet. I’m still hoping the show will address that directly.)

- Star (is not a past Queen of Mewni, but she’s on here anyways)was originally left-handed, but when she was about seven years old, she brokeher arm while playing (Let’s be real, given the stuff we know she got up topre-S1, she probably wound up with broken bones at least a couple of times).Her mother let the break heal naturally rather than heal it with magic to tryto teach Star a lesson about being reckless (And because healing magic can bekind of dicey and Moon isn’t an expert, but she told Star it was to teach her alesson about recklessness). One of the consequences was that Star had to learnto write with her right hand while she had the cast on, and couldn’t reallywrite with her left hand anymore even after the cast came off. She still usesher left hand for plenty of stuff, and is still left-side dominant, but shewrites with her right hand nowadays.

(Theissue muddling this is that pretty much anyone who’s left-handed has to learnhow to do certain things with their weak hand. I’m left-handed, and I can tellyou that the average left-hander uses their right hand for more things than theaverage right-hander uses their left hand for.)

[melorsomething]

Crystal Clear | Chapter 6 | Energy

<- Previous Chapter | Next Chapter ->

After a brief and mostly unsuccessful trip to Laura’s tower—once again, the necromancer was nowhere to be found, so Moira simply left a note to thank her—Moira returned to Angela’s room, only to nearly run into the back of Headmaster Ambrose. She reeled back, catching herself on the door frame. The headmaster did not notice, or rather he did not react, to Moira’s presence.

“As you can understand, the circumstances put us in quite a predicament, Miss Seahaven—”

Seahaven?!

“—and I have decided the best course of action is to send you to those who may have an idea of what we’re dealing with. Arrangements have been made for travel this evening.”

Before Angela could reply, Moira burst out, “This evening? This evening? Are you insane?”

“Moira—” Angela tried to interrupt.

“She almost died!” Moira continued.

“Another wizard did die, Miss..?” The headmaster raised his eyebrows in silent inquisition.

Moira swallowed her words and spit out a bitter, “Moonpyre, sir.”

“The people are afraid. They are outraged. This is as much for Miss Seahaven’s safety as it is for theirs.”

“You can’t just—”

“Moira,” the scratchy voice of Angela came once again, sounding as tired as before. Moira blinked twice, fully registering Angela’s awake presence for the first time. “It’s okay. I’ll go where he wants.”

“You can’t do this!” Moira cried, striding to her friend’s side. “You have to give her… a trial! Or something… you can’t just…”

“Moira, don’t,” Angela said, reaching out and resting a hand on her arm. Moira looked down at her in shock. “It’s okay,” Angela reassured her. “I’ll be okay.”

“But...” Moira began. No, you won’t be. Not without me. She turned to the headmaster again. “Is she just going to be alone?”

“Not at all. She will be with the monks deep in the Cave of Solitude. They take in troubled wizards and help to restore their minds. They have done it before with wizards of her background.”

“What do you mean by ‘her background’? I—whatever. Her mind is fine. It doesn’t need restoring. She didn’t do this on purpose. She isn’t dangerous.”

“It is precisely the fact that she did not intend for the death to happen that makes her so dangerous. The accidental use of so much power coupled with her Celestian background is a recipe for disaster if not handled properly. She could kill again without meaning to. The monks will help her master her emotions and mind.”

“She can master it here.”

“Moira—”

“She will not pose a danger to anyone in the Cave of Solitude. The monks are well-equipped. It is the better decision.”

“Do I get a—”

“No, keeping her here is the better decision because she’ll be with people she knows and trusts.”

“Miss Moonpyre, this is hardly a matter of your—”

“Hey!” a broken yell interjected. Everyone in the room turned to Angela, who had shifted to her knees and was waving her arms. “Since this is about me, could I maybe get a word in?”

No one spoke.

Angela turned to Moira. “Moi, I know it’s hard, but it’s fine. I’ll go. I’m not needed here, and maybe he’s right. What if I do that again? What if I do that to you?” Turning to the headmaster, she added. “This evening? Do I get to bring anything?”

“A Wizard City guard will escort you first to your castle and then to the World Tree.”

“Thank you.”

After the headmaster had left and Moira had shut the door behind him, she spun to face Angela and exclaimed, “What in the name of the Spiral are you thinking? You don’t deserve this! Why aren’t you fighting this? The Ange I know would.”

Angela had sunk back into the bed, her back hunched with the effort of keeping herself up after her outburst. She looked up and replied calmly, “Sometimes in life, you have to accept responsibility for your actions.”

“And you choose now to start doing that?” Moira’s tone was annoyed but her heart was hurting, torn between wanting to reach out for her friend and wanting to stay angry.

“Hey, watch it. I am leaving tonight, after all.”

“You don’t have to. I could hide you at my castle,” Moira suggested halfheartedly.

Angela let out a weak laugh. “I don’t think I could handle living in your castle forever, which is approximately how long it’d take to train myself without the monks’ help.”

“Ange, you don’t have to learn to control yourself; there’s nothing wrong with you! It was a freak accident, and freak accidents don’t happen more than once.”

“Moira, when did you become the one to defy authority? I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. We will all be fine. I’m going: end of story.”

Defeated by the girl’s weak appearance and soft tone, Moira didn’t protest. Granted, she didn’t agree, either. Instead, she silently sat down next to Angela and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in for a half-hug. “I could come with you.”

“Moi, as much as I love you, please shut up.”

Moira laughed, shaking her head as she squeezed the girl tighter. “You know I’ll never do that.”

Contrary to Moira’s words, the pair sat in silence for a while, their breathing falling in sync. After a long time, Angela spoke.

“Moi?”

“Hmm?”

“I know I said I’d be fine, but… what if I’m not? What if Ambrose was right about my Celestian background being an added risk? What if I’m turning out like them?”

Moira didn’t speak, her mind flitting back to all the things she’d learned about Celestia ever since her family had taken Angela in. She certainly hadn’t been the first person to fall from the sky, and Moira had a feeling she wasn’t the most recent, either. The thing that had made Angela so special was that she was, for the most part, normal.

Moira had forced her parents to take her to the library day after day to retrieve the latest news on anything Celestia related. It was how she had first gotten to know Mr. Argleston. Each time they shuffled in, Moira clinging shyly to her father’s cape, he would smile at her and crack a joke, even though she never replied. In retrospect, he probably hadn’t ever figured that the newspapers were for her and not her parents.

She remembered reading about the wizards who had crashed down, mysteriously falling from skies all over the Spiral. She remembered asking Angela about it, the already silent girl seeming to fall even more silent when she brought up the lost world. And she remembered reading about the fallen wizards and their broken minds. All of them, no matter where they ended up, could not shed any light on the situation. Some were simply silent, refusing to utter even the slightest clue as to their identity or story. Others were driven mad, with no one able to make heads or tails of their ramblings. Others still were catatonic, completely unresponsive to the world, even after their physical wounds were long since healed.

Moira remembered being afraid that Angela would fall into the first category. After all, for weeks they had only been able to refer to her as ‘kid’, ‘kiddo’, ‘honey’, or whatever other comforting pet name they could think of. Finally, long after Moira had stopped asking her about Celestia, the small girl had uttered her name late at night in the room they shared.

“Angela.” The girl said, her green eyes shining in the light of the desk lantern.

Moira turned from her bed to stare at her, startled by the voice from the other side of the nearly dark room. “What?” she breathed.

“My name is Angela. You don’t have to call me ‘pal’ anymore.”

Eyes still wide and mind reeling, Moira couldn’t think of anything to do but amend her earlier statement. “Good night, Angela,” she said.

“Good night, Moira.”

Of all of Moira’s memories of Angela, that was the strongest. The joy and relief her heart felt as she realized this girl wasn’t broken like the others was unrivaled at any point in her life. Or, it had been, in the past. If asked to choose now, Moira wasn’t sure which moment she’d name as the winner: that night, or when she met Angela’s eyes after waking up from Laura’s spell. She pondered on it for a moment, but ultimately decided it was a choice she’d never have to make, anyways.

Pulling herself back to the present, she realized Angela was still looking at her, expecting an answer. “I think things will work out,” she said, acutely aware that she only half-believed it, herself.

Angela smiled slightly. “I wish you could go tell your earlier self that. You yelled at Ambrose. How does that feel now?”

Moira groaned. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look him in the eye again. Don’t get me wrong: I stand by everything I said, but I can’t believe I yelled at the headmaster. Easily top ten mortifying moments.”

Quiet laughter from both girls filled the room.

“Hey Moi?” Angela asked again.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to miss you.”

“You know I’m coming with you, right?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Moira, no.”

“Angela, yes. You can’t stop me. Even if I get stopped from going with you tonight, I’ll just make my way to Mooshu some other time. I’ll come find you, whether you like it or not.”

It was Angela’s turn to groan. “Moira,” she whined, drawing out the second syllable. “I don’t need you around all the time.”

“Yeah,” Moira replied, giving Angela’s shoulder another squeeze, “but I need you.”

Angela let out another weak chuckle, but it wasn’t long before the room fell silent once more. After a few moments, Moira said quietly, “I really do need you, Ange.”

But the theurgist was already asleep, snoring quietly. Moira smiled down at her, maneuvered the girl so she was laying down, and joined her in slumber.

That evening, after several teary breakdowns (mostly by Moira) and one yelling session (by Moira’s parents, given that she had forgotten to inform them of the situation until it was too late for them to make their way back to say goodbye to Angela), the two girls headed into the World Tree, Angela flanked by guards and Moira trailing as close as they would let her.

“Moira, I already said goodbye,” Angela called back, her voice still quiet and weak. “No offense, but what are you doing here?”

“I told you: I’m coming with you. I don’t care if I have to become a monk or whatever. I am coming with you.”

Angela protested once again, but Moira had already made up her mind, and she slipped a hand into her pocket, feeling for a small slip of paper. Grace had destroyed the written spell, but not the pronunciation guide Laura had written out. If Angela was going to continue getting weaker, Moira would do the spell for as long as she had to.

Once inside the tree, Moira chattered to Angela about nothing in particular, but trailed off as she realized the theurgist was no longer listening to her. In fact, she was no longer listening to anyone. As a guard lectured Angela on her journey, Angela stood silent, gazing intently at a spot in the bark wall.

“You will be greeted in the Jade Palace by a monk from their order, who will then lead you to—Hey!” The guard interrupted himself as Angela ducked around him, scampering over to the wall.

“Get back here!” another guard yelled, adding in a whisper to the others, “Seize her.”

“No!” Angela said, holding out her hand while she stayed pressed against the wall. “No, it’s okay. I’m not running. There’s something… something here… I can’t quite… Moira? Moira, can you feel it?”

Casting a cautious glance at the guards, Moira moved closer. “Ange,” she said with a nervous chuckle, “what are you on about? What kind of plan is this?”

“It’s not a plan,” she snapped back. “Don’t you feel it? The disturbance?” The look in her eyes was frantic and frazzled, and Moira took a step back.

“No, I don’t. Just calm down; it’s okay to be scared.”

“I am not joking. I am not crazy. There is something here—it’s a—it’s some force or something—that wasn’t here before.”

“The guards can report it to the headmaster; it’ll be fine. Don’t anger the people who are holding your only supplies.” Moira was suddenly aware of all the other wizards in the chamber staring at them, and wanted nothing more than to tell them all to mind their own business.

Suddenly, Angela reached out and snatched Moira’s hand into her own, pressing it against the bark. She closed her eyes and asked again, in a gentler voice, “Can’t you feel it?”

As the last syllable left Angela’s tongue, Moira gasped as she felt a strange energy run through her. She tugged at her arm, but her hand was locked firmly in Angela’s grip, which certainly did not match in strength to the gaunt girl it belonged to.

“What,” she breathed, “is that?”

“You want to know, too, don’t you? Are you really content just reporting this to Ambrose?”

Opening her mouth to speak, Moira found herself breathless, and simply gaped like a fish. Gasping for air, she tried again. “Please, let me go.”

Angela dropped Moira’s hand instantly, a look of surprise written across her face. “Are you okay? What’s wrong, Moi?”

“That energy,” she said, pausing for breath. “It feels like death. How are you not reacting to it?”

“No, no, no, that doesn’t feel like death; it feels like life. Death doesn’t have energy; you can’t feel it. But this wall is brimming with the energy of life. Too much life. But why?”

She pulled back from the wall, grabbing Moira’s wand. Moira tried to reach for it, but Angela was already touching the tip to the wall, her eyes glowing with magic.

And all at once, the room filled with a high ringing, causing everyone to cover their ears. When they looked back at the wall, a crack had formed in the bark. Before anyone else could react, Angela was already reaching out. As soon as her fingertips brushed against the edge of the crack, she disappeared. For a moment, everything was silent. The humming stopped, the air seemed to still, and everyone in the room stood frozen. Then, just as suddenly as before, the room exploded with white light, and, when it cleared, there was no longer a crack in the wall.

Instead, a gaping hole with blackened edges took its place, seeming to have eaten away at the tree’s bark. Faintly, Moira could hear the screams of the other wizards in the spiral chamber, and while she was aware of how dangerous the hole likely was, she found herself moving closer to it. For a few seconds, she stood perched at the edge, peering out into the blackness. Then, she whispered to herself, “I need her,” and stepped forward.