#like. i get it. i get that magic is dangerous however. not sure gatekeeping knowledge is the way to go!

[bronanlynch]

oh yeah also. finally got around to reading witch hat atelier and hi hello I cannot believe that no one told me that there was yuri in there?? rip agott witchhatatelier you would love the concept of butch lesbians

[lawleon]

An Analysis of Touhou - Cheating Detective Satori

What We Know So Far and Some Minor Speculation

If you haven't read the manga yet, I would encourage you to do so before reading this post as I will be writing about and speculating on all currently released chapters. Speculation is half the fun of a monthly mystery series like this and I feel like there’s enough meat available now to finally start talking about it so don’t spoil yourselves here and read it first. Chapter 7 came out today and the whole series can be found here.

So, a vengeful spirit huh? It feels like this type of ghost has been brought up quite regularly in Touhou ever since the geyser opened up a pathway to Former Hell during the events of Subterranean Animism. So far in windows canon their only confirmed appearance has been their use in Rin's spellcards, but they've been spoken or written about about in most print works by characters like Kasen and Akyuu who are some of our best in universe information sources. Vengeful spirits are ghosts that are capable of possessing others. While this trait isn't particularly harmful to humans, it can be fatal or quite disastrous to youkai if it causes them to take actions that go against how they are perceived by humans. However, observing the actions of the antagonist of Cheating Detective Satori leads me to believe that this vengeful spirit has no desire to do any lasting harm to those who she possesses. Thus far this vengeful spirit only seems interested in robbing the energy from some rather high profile targets, but her true motive or grudge remains to be discovered.

TIMELINE Let's take a look at the timeline in regards to the true culprit thus far:

(A known vengeful spirit escapes form Former Hell) (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 4) The vengeful spirit finds its way into Marisa and then subsequently Marisa brings it into the SDM* (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17) (The vengeful spirit moves into Sakuya) (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 5) The possessed Sakuya makes coffee for Patchouli, Patchouli drinks the coffee and is subsequently possessed and drained of energy by the vengeful spirit (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 5) The possessed Patchouli comes to and finds an opportunity to tamper with Meiling's tea set (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 2) Meiling made some tea for herself which allowed the vengeful spirit to swap from Patchouli to Meiling and drain her of energy (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 3) (Marisa is the second individual to find the unconscious Meiling, this allows the vengeful spirit to possess Marisa and escape) (Completely inferred) The possessed Marisa makes her way to Hakugyokurou bearing a gift (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 14) (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 16) The possessed Marisa uses this alcoholic present to swap from Marisa to Yuyuko and drain her of energy (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 16)

DIVERGENCE PATH A - 90% (The vengeful spirit repossesses Marisa and makes it's way out of the Netherworld) (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17) The possessed Marisa flees into the Forest of Magic when Satori arrives at the Hakurei Shrine (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 15) Satori senses the vengeful spirit hiding within the Forest of Magic (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 13) Arriving at Alice's house, the spirit finds a way to have Alice drink tea so that the vengeful spirit can drain Alice of her energy (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 16 & 17)

PATH B - 10% The vengeful spirit flees into the greater Netherworld and hides among the other spirits (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 9) Yukari uses her shikigami, Ran and Chen, to locate and surround the vengeful spirit (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 10)

*  Speculation by Satori () Inferred events

I am placing more weight onto PATH A due to most these events being said, or learned via Satori's ability. Events in PATH B are coming from Team Yukari, and thus could be the result of inaccurate instructions issued to her shikigami.

To note, I have tried to back up the events in the timeline with statements from Satori herself, or learned via Satori's power. Thus far Marisa(the main vessel for the vengeful spirit) and Satori have yet to be together in the same room, when this finally occurs I assume that a large amount of information will be revealed.

FINDINGS In regards to the vengeful spirit there are three critical things we've learned. A) When possessing a youkai the vengeful spirit must do so via liquid ingestion (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 7) B) The vengeful spirit can leave it's current target at anytime (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 12) C) The vengeful spirit can hide within humans without controlling them (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17)

ASSUMPTIONS One thing that we are being led to believe, but have yet to be shown directly, is that the vengeful spirit can possess humans without using a liquid medium. The assumed possession of Marisa initially, the assumed swap from Marisa to Sakuya, and the assumed swap from Meiling back into Marisa are not shown. (Once again, Marisa is involved in all three of these assumed events.) Due to the harmful nature of vengeful spirits towards youkai a condition needs to be met to circumvent a possible natural defense. A human isn't in danger of having their existence disturbed in the same way a youkai would be, so the defense might not be present in humans.

NOTES AND SPECULATIONS First, if you weren’t already aware, Satori’s title in both Subterranean Animism and Symposium of Post-mysticism is “The Girl Even the Vengeful Spirits Fear“ so it looks like she’s going to finally show us how she got that title.

I originally wanted to write some analysis of CDS framed around the idea of ZUN using the fanon interpretation of Meiling being lazy as a massive misdirection in the first arc. Meiling in canon isn't just a lazy gatekeeper who naps frequently. She exercises in the morning, guards the gate, makes rounds around SDM, and does most of the gardening. When she slacks off she reads tengu published manga, and chats with those who come by the SDM giving off a rather positive impression of "that house filled with devils." While there are canon references to her napping on the job, that is not all that she is. Reducing her character to such a one note existence is quite sad in my opinion. So I thought it quite strange that Meiling was told by Rin that the detective can read minds (CDS Chap. 1, Pg. 20) and yet shows a shocked reaction when Reimu talks about Satori's power (CDS Chap. 2, Pg. 5) like she wasn't already informed.

However, considering that Patchouli is the first to "find" Meiling passed out in the flowers (yet doesn't even try to help her) (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 3) it's most likely that Patchouli stops being possessed at this time, meaning any weirdness with Meiling is just due to Meiling being weird.

Even if that is the case there is one Meiling interaction I would like to point out. (CDS Chap. 2, Pg. 12-15) When Meiling brings down food for Sakuya and Flan, Sakuya remarks, "This soup is missing the shaved truffles.", "If you forget them, the mistress [Flan] will be mad." To which Meiling slams the door.

Flan goes on to state two pages later that she hates truffles. I wonder if this is an indicator of their speculated friendship that often appears in fanon works. Meiling knows that Flan doesn't like truffles so she has her soup made without them. Then again, the next time we see Flan she's gleefully choking the unconscious Meiling so who can say for sure. This is Touhou after all, and these are the two least developed SDM characters with actual names.

Now, for a bit of plot speculation. ZUN does like to hint at general trends and plots in his print works. Upcoming and past incidents are shown in minor manga plots quite regularly and we happen to have had quite a few incidents where the magical/spiritual/natural energy in Gensoukyou is manipulated, along with the most recent game involving animal spirits possessing our protagonists. This time we're dealing with a vengeful spirit, a soul with a longstanding grudge. Currently her motives and identity are a mystery, but she seems to want the magical energy present within powerful individuals residing in Gensoukyou for something. We haven't had many interactions with the vengeful spirit herself, and the exact point in time that she leaves Patchouli is up for debate, but it's not a good idea to trust Patchouli in general as a source of any factual information, the only times I'm willing to reference the things Patchouli says and remembers in the timeline is due to the presence of Satori. The only other time that a known possessed individual is spoken to is the conversation between Reimu and Marisa in chapter 6, however, immediately after Marisa bails it is revealed that the vengeful spirit has multiple modes of operation. (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17) "However we don't know if she's [Marisa] being controlled by it or not. Be careful not to get yourself possessed..." - Satori. The vengeful spirit might not have been in control for the conversation between Reimu and Marisa, but it will have knowledge of the conversation. It's my belief that the only time we've heard the vengeful spirit speak is after Patchouli wakes up at the end of chapter 2 through chapter 3. At some point after chapter 3 during chapter 3.5 the vengeful spirit switches to Meiling. During this time Patchouli steers the conversation she's apart of towards blaming Sakuya, in fact the first thing possessed Patchouli asks when she wakes up is "What happened", to which Remilia reveals to her everything allowing the vengeful spirit to mislead the cast.

There are still a few too many questions to rule anything conclusive, but one thing I want to know is if the vengeful spirit can hold off draining a magical existence of their energy upon first contact or if that's just a set rule. Satori has confirmed with Meiling that the spirit can just leave whether the victim is conscious or not. Satori has also confirmed that the spirit can hide within a human target without rendering them unconscious. Can those attributes be combined? To possess a magical entity and control them before draining them of energy?

The thing I'm most looking forward to is having Satori and Marisa in the same room. I feel like quite a bit will be revealed if Satori has the opportunity to read Marisa's mind.

DUMB FINAL THOUGHTS Alice hasn't had any speaking lines in over a decade, is ZUN going to continue that trend by having her be the mouthpiece of the vengeful spirit instead of being able to speak her own thoughts? If the magic circle in Alice's book is being used to generate heat for her stove-top why is the same magic circle on the floor of the SDM atrium? Is Youmu purposely avoiding learning anything about vengeful spirits because she's afraid of ghosts? DID SATORI DRINK THAT GLASS OF WATER FROM RIN AND GET POSSESSED AT THE END OF CHAPTER 7???

Thanks for reading.

[friendshipcampaign]

Uncommon Threads

Another downtime set during the few days the party has to pass in Wayspell, this time featuring Erwyn's promised lessons about sealing portals from Alembic and Palava

Erwyn took a deep breath. It felt like he’d probably taken more of those since arriving in Wayspell than he had for most of the rest of his life, which was quite the feat given how exactly it had played out over the years, but the anxiety he felt over this -- over everything to do with the Gatekeepers, really -- was a very different kind from the brand that usually hung over him. Usually he was just scared. But when it came to this, to finally having access to the knowledge he’d hoped to have or years and people around him who made it clear they actually wanted him to pursue it, he was a different kind of scared.

He was used to being scared he was a disappointment. He knew he was a disappointment. But having that feeling all mingled up with something that felt like hope and longing and maybe a little bit of promise? That was very new.

He, Alembic, and Palava were in another demiplane linked to the Infinite Library. The landscape around them looked like scrubland, with a large clearing in the middle. Palava, standing at the far side and fiddling with a complex wood-and-enamel device that looked like some kind of puzzle box, looked up at Erwyn and gave him a cheerful wave.

Alembic sat cross-legged on the ground besides Erwyn. He still looked haggard, and had needed to lean on Palava's arm to make it down the library stairs, but he also smiled reassuringly at Erwyn.

"All right," he said. "Tell us again about your portal-sensing abilities. How you feel like they work and how you learned them. There's different styles to this, and it will work best if we build on what you already know."

Palava gave him a thumbs-up.

“I… I’m not really sure,” Erwyn said, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a sort of terrified babble.

Not really a great place to start if he was hoping to prove his competency. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to ignore the weird racing feeling in his chest, and started again.

“It’s just a sort of feeling,” he said. “Magic, all that, the different kinds I’ve studied and acquired over the years -- they all have feelings. And the planes, obviously, are rather magical themselves, so when I try to reach out and see if there’s something there, sometimes something will feel like it doesn’t belong. Like it isn’t the Material. It’s like stretching my consciousness out into the Weave itself, and noticing that some of the strings are the wrong color.”

He’d been looking down a little as he spoke, trying to find the words, and finally lifted his head nervously, right hand still frozen in the gesture he’d made as he’d tried to explain himself, glancing nervously at Alembic for some kind of understanding. Or perhaps, even approval.

“If that makes sense,” he added hastily.

Alembic nodded. "That it does, lad. So what we're going to teach you is how to untangle those threads, to put the colors back where they belong. Fortunately for you and me--for all of us, really, the Planes don't like to be tangled up. Apart from the natural portals that form sometimes between the Material and Elemental planes, which don't usually concern us, it's hard to make a breach from one Plane to another. The Weave is on your side when you try to close them."

The dwarf looked up at Palava, who did something to the device he was holding. Suddenly, the terrain in front of them shifted, the ground looking fuzzy and strangely far away.

"This is a simulation, like the others you went through," Alembic said. "Better controlled, actually. It's not going to hurt us. But the simulations are still infused with enough planar essence that you should be able to feel them, and to close them, the same way you would a natural portal. We've made a partial breach here--the easiest to seal, and the sort you'll likely be dealing with the most starting out. Now tell me, where do you think it goes?"

Closing his eyes again to focus, Erwyn tried his best to let the world still around him. It was always hard, being someone whose mind always felt like it had many worries to carry at once, to let them fall away as best he could and identify a different feeling entirely. After setting foot in the assorted simulations during the trials, however, it felt somewhat easier to pick apart the magic around him and notice the one bit that seemed off. Though it was hard to claim he felt a color or an image, in an almost synesthetic explosion he could taste emerald green on his tongue, and the memory of a darkened glade and white deer wriggled its way down his spine and into his toes.

“The Beastlands,” he breathed, eyes flying open. “I can tell, it’s connected to the Beastlands.”

On the other side of the clearing, Palava bounced up and down and clapped his hands. Alembic's reaction was more reserved, but he smiled and nodded. "Aye, that it is. Well done, lad. Now come with me."

Slowly, he walked out into the clearing and sat down in the middle of the breach they'd created. "You have to be in range," he explained. "That's part of what makes this so dangerous. Can't mend a breach unless you're close to it. You don't always have to sit quite so on top of it, but it'll be easier to explain this first time if you do." He patted the ground next to him.

Cautiously, Erwyn lifted himself from the ground, fumbling a little with his legs as he did. Though correctly identifying the source of the breach had certainly kept his nerves from worsening the way they might have if he failed, he noted he still had the jelly-legs of a newborn fawn as he nervously made his way over to sit next to Alembic once more.

"All right. What we're going to do is patch the Weave. Pull out the threads that aren't supposed to be here and send them back where they belong. Again, the world doesn't want to be tangled like this either, so it will help us if we're careful. Now, I can explain what I'm doing from here to the Wizard's Sea, but it's going to be best if I let you feel it. You should know that the kind of power I have is different from yours, and different from most folks, but the process is similar and the results should be the same. If you're ready, I want you to close your eyes and take my hand. And then just relax and pay attention."

Taking another one of those nervous breaths, Erwyn nodded, closing his eyes, and placed his own hand in Alembic’s. He immediately felt a strange cold prickling sensation at the back of his head, almost like the feeling of a truth spell settling over him. He resisted the urge to fight it. Then, against the blackness of his closed eyes, an image appeared. It was much clearer than the vague sensations he had gathered; in Alembic's mind the Plane they were standing on was a steel-grey tapestry and the breach was a knot of vibrant green threads tangling into it from below.

"For small breaches like this, the threads of the Weave are still intact," came Alembic's voice. Erwyn wasn't sure whether the dwarf was speaking out loud or only in his head. "You don't need to mend them, though that's a useful skill to have. Just . . . reach out, but instead of sensing you need to take hold of the threads that don't belong."

Erwyn saw a ghostly force take hold of the green knot, pulling the bulk of it away from the fabric.

"Don't pull too hard. You have to be gentle. Gather the threads to you. And then you'll be able to feel where they came from, where they still want to go."

The image shifted, and Erwyn could see a ripple of green floating behind the grey. It faded away into nothingness at its edges, but at the forefront its threads had been pulled up into the weave of the demiplane.

"Don't panic and try to cut them or yank them away," Alembic continued calmly. "You can make the linking Plane unstable if you do. It's like dealing with any knot. Slow and gentle. Retrace the line of the threads. Especially when you're here, you can take as much time as you need."

Erwyn watched as Alembic picked the green threads apart from the grey, sending them back through the gaps in the fabric. The grey weave shifted to even itself out as soon as the green was removed. As more green threads were sent back to their own fabric, the tension on the remaining ones seemed to increase, pulling them taut as the two Planes separated.

"And don't let go too soon," said Alembic. "You want to leave as few loose threads as possible. Keep them in your mind until you've dealt with the last one, and then--"

Alembic fed the last loop of green through a gap in the grey fabric and then released whatever hold he'd been keeping on them. The two layers sprang apart, and then the vision dissolved.

"Now you get to try!" said Palava cheerfully from across the clearing. "I'll use the same Plane, just hold on a minute . . . aaaaand there we go!" He grinned triumphantly as the sense of subtle wrongness, of two things trying to take up the same space that shouldn't, returned.

"If you keep hold of my hand, I'll be able to sense what you're doing and guide you through it," said Alembic. "Are you ready?"

Erwyn froze a little. Of course, watching Alembic, who was experienced with these things, who he had seen close a real portal before, it seemed easy, separating strands that didn’t belong together and putting them back into their places. But watching anyone who was a master at anything could make you believe their work was something you could achieve yourself, until you actually tried it -- as a child, he’d never had the same deftness at weaving as his mother or sister, who he could watch pull things into shape perfectly. And as far as the more magical sort of Weave went, he’d only struggled more.

This was the moment he’d been waiting for practically since seeing the first of the flames in Lyrium. Now that it was here, he felt as though a basilisk was looking him in the eye.

“I-I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready,” he stammered. “But I suppose I can try.”

He reached out, trying to grasp the threads in the same way Alembic had. But the vision his own mind supplied was much more nebulous. He felt like he was grasping not quite blindly, but the same way he used to grasp at the shape of words before he'd gotten his reading glasses. He aimed for the sharp burst of green, tried to gather it together--

"Gentle," came Alembic's voice in his head. "Only take hold of what you need."

Erwyn swallowed and nodded, even though he wasn't sure if Alembic could see him do so. He tried to feel the difference between the threads, where the green ones stopped and the gray ended. He was sure that some of the green ones were slipping away, and he still wasn't sure how much of the grey fabric he'd accidentally caught up, but he could feel the tension of the threads pulling gently against his mind.

Carefully, he started to follow the threads to the spots where they snarled against each other. As he scrunched his eyes closed even tighter, trying to focus on the sensation of wrongness instead of any grander tapestry, he began to mentally pick them apart, using the same gentle touch he would to remove a difficult burr from his hair. As the threads started to separate, the vibrations of the green and grey pulled apart from each other in his mind too, a last taste of emerald on his tongue fading into nothingness as the last of the threads connected to the Beastlands pulled away from the grey where it didn’t belong.

"Now you just need to let them go," said Alembic. He sounded almost surprised. Erwyn hoped that was a good thing.

Letting go of the sensations of the two colors, almost as if one had been resting gently in either hand, Erwyn released the last of his hold on the bits of the two planes, then opened his eyes, nervously looking towards Alembic for approval.

“Did… did I do it?” he asked.

"Aye, lad!" Alembic replied. "You're a quick study I must say!"

Palava bounded over from the edge of the clearing, beaming, and clapped Erwyn on the shoulder. "Oh, well done!" he said.

Erwyn’s cheeks flushed somewhat. “It just… felt right,” he said. “I don’t know if it was really anything all that impressive.”

What went unspoken, though he wasn’t sure if it was truly harder to say or if it just felt that way because it was so foreign to him, was that he found himself almost as overwhelmed by having two teachers who saw so much value in his abilities -- and for that matter, having abilities at all -- as he did working so directly towards what for decades now had seemed like an untouchable life’s goal.

"Are you kidding?" Palava cried, clapping him on the back again. "You should have seen the first time Alembic tried it--practically turned this whole place inside-out!"

Alembic rolled his eyes fondly at his husband. "Melda, please. I got everything sorted out in due time."

"Yeah, sure," replied Palava, "Right after we stopped to apologize to that poor critter you pulled in from Arcadia!"

Erwyn blinked, more than a little surprised.

“I actually did do a good job, then?” he asked. “Managing like that on the first try isn’t how it normally goes?”

"You did great!" Palava said.

Alembic nodded. "I was expecting we'd need at least three or four tries before you closed one that neatly. You did very well indeed."

A little stunned, Erwyn leaned back on his hands.

“I suppose you said it is a bit different for everyone,” he said.

"Aye. There's not many that learn how to do this--not many that need to. We all have our own approaches."

The comment triggering a thought he’d had earlier, or at least a statement that had made him curious, Erwyn turned to look at Alembic.

“That’s right, I suppose you did mention you thought you tap into something rather different than I might,” he said. “That’s how it is for everyone, then? It’s all different?”

Magic being something he’d been taught so rotely, that was a strange idea to Erwyn. Obviously he’d picked up a few tricks over the years that weren’t exactly wizarding spells, especially since his resurrection by Voski and Bramble, but it still felt strange to approach something like, he supposed, the fundamental building blocks of the entire planar system with different tools and still be able to get rather similar results.

Alembic and Palava shared a look.

"Weeeelllll," Palava began. "Y'see . . ."

"I'm something of an unusual case," Alembic said, cutting him off. "My people, the Duergar, have a . . . complicated relationship with magic. Long ago we were captives of the mind flayers, and it left us changed. Even now, arcane magic is not something that comes easily to us. We have other abilities, but not of the sort that are well-studied."

"Especially since the mind flayers aren't the most open with their scholarship," Palava added. "Eventually Hubris'll wear 'em down, I'm sure."

Alembic smiled softly and shook his head. "Indeed. But so, my approach to magic has, of necessity, been less . . . prescriptive than many. I have had to find my own approach. Not everyone takes kindly to it, and certainly there have been students who require more rigid instruction. So it is not different for everyone. Just for some people. And since we had met already, it made sense for me to be the one to teach you."

Erwyn felt like he was doing a lot of awkward blinking, but he wasn’t sure how else you were supposed to respond to something like that. Even so, while it was a bit of a horrific thing to come up in casual conversation, the reassurance that magic was a complicated endeavor -- and perhaps not one Erwyn needed to feel entirely shut out of -- was something he nonetheless appreciated.

“I’m… I’m sorry if I pried a bit too much,” he said. “I just haven’t had the gentlest time myself. Working with magic, that is. Or at least, certainly with arcane magic. I mean, for much tamer reasons but…”

"Don't worry about prying," said Palava. "There may be some things we can't answer, but we sure don't mind you asking! Especially since Alembic does tend to sound a little ominous."

"Do I?"

"You do; I've told you. You're always going, 'Oh, my power is Different and Mysterious'--"

"It is!" Alembic protested.

"I know, darlin', but that doesn't mean it doesn't sound ominous when you say it that way! Anyway." Palava turned back to Erwyn. "There's as many approaches to magic as there are threads in the Weave. Some of 'em nobody's figured out yet and some of 'em people have been messing with since the Long Years. You've just gotta find the one that works for you."

He ruffled the younger elf's hair. "And from what I just saw it sure looks like you're on the right track."

[imagine-loki]

winter’s hearts

TITLE: Winter’s Hearts CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 43/? AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine being Loki’s old friend/Lover in Asgard, but you left for Earth a long time ago. For all he knows, you might be dead, but you’re still alive and you’ve been working with SHIELD and/or the Avengers. RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS:  Also on AO3: Click here

“Did you hear what we were discussing, Kyrie?” Thor asked once Loki had composed himself and sat up again. You kept your hand in Loki’s as you turned to give your attention to Thor.  You saw Loki’s smile and his hand squeezed yours gently.  He appreciated the gesture. He appreciated the small kindness.  

You couldn’t touch the mortals without harming them.

You could touch Loki and Thor.  And Loki craved physical affection.  You knew that.  And you knew how hard it was on him not to initiate contact with you when he was obviously so used to doing so.  

He was trying so hard not to push himself on you.  He knew you didn’t remember him, didn’t remember that he was your husband.  He wasn’t forcing you to resume that relationship.

Though it was obviously killing him.

“Eavesdropping is rude,” you informed Thor instead of answering his question.  It was easier to lie when you didn’t actually answer the question.

Thor boomed his laughter.  “You two have always been too similar for your own good,” he laughed.  

“Why is that funny?” you asked him confused.  You’d just been avoiding admitting to something that was actually rude.  

Loki chuckled. “I am the God of Mischief and Lies, darling.  That was an answer I would give if I wished to not divulge some piece of mischief,” he explained.  You couldn’t help giggling at that.

“Fine, I may have heard what you were discussing,” you admitted sheepishly.  “But I wasn’t trying to,” you added defensively.

Thor laughed. “I’m aware, sister dear,” he teased you and you couldn’t help smiling at him.  The boys had told you that you’d grown up alongside them, as Loki’s best friend and Thor’s adopted little sister.  You accepted without hesitation that your brother-in-law was allowed to treat you like a little sister. It was different accepting him treating you like a little sister than Loki wanting to treat you like his wife.  Sister was a lot easier when you didn’t remember.  There were a lot fewer expectations.  

“You think we should return to Asgard,” you said to draw the conversation back on topic.  

“Would you three please speak English?” Stark growled from across the room. You all turned to stare at him.  Apparently none of you had realized you’d slipped into the language of your home. Allspeak was useful, but it wasn’t native, and when it was just the three of you, you all tended to slip into Asgardian.  You thought the boys liked the small taste of home.  They had to miss Asgard, living so far away.  “It’s really hard to eavesdrop when I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Stark grumbled.

You laughed in reply.  “That’s kinda the point, Shellhead,” you teased in Allspeak, and therefore in English.  The group looked amazed.  Apparently this kind of banter was common before you’d lost your memories.  

“Whatever you say, Smurfette,” he teased right back and when back to what he was working on on one of the blue Jarvis screens. 

You turned your attention back to Thor, the shellhead having been dealt with.  “We believe that Mother might be able to help with your memories.  She is the strongest healer in the realm and has done mind healing before.  I’m also sure your mother would like to see you.  She may have suggestions as well,” he explained while Loki held your hand, seeming nervous.  You’d heard his reservations.  He was afraid your mind would be unable to be healed.

“Are you sure you need to go back to Asgard right now?  We could really use your strength here with Red Skull on the loose again.  Hydra could strike at any moment,” Cap sounded worried at the prospect of you going back to Asgard.  Of losing three warriors when there was a threat.  

A threat you’d been forced to unleash.

“I understand your concern, Captain,” Loki replied. Thor let him take the lead on diplomatic answers.  Loki’s silvertongue came in handy for such things.  The brothers worked well playing off of each other’s skills. They had centuries of experience at it.  “However, Kyrie is our best fighter.  Even you cannot argue that the warrior bred for battle and trained from birth, who had to go through those awful trials, is our best warrior.  If this threat is as dangerous as you say, then we need to be as strong as possible and we cannot do that with my wife unable to remember anything. We need her back at 100% and if my mother can help, then it is worth the trip home,” Loki told Cap firmly. 

Cap sighed heavily.  “You’re right, of course.  I just wish you weren’t out of contact if we need help here,”

Thor nodded.  “We will tell Heimdall to listen for you.  If you have need of us, call to him and he will get word.  It is not the best solution, but we really do need to see if we can get Kyrie’s memories back to her,” he suggested.  Heimdall was the gatekeeper. He saw and heard everything.  If Thor told him to listen for the mortal’s call, he would.  You didn’t know how you knew any of that, but you knew it to be true.  

Cap nodded.  “Alright then. You’re right that we need everyone at 100%.  Be careful, all of you.” You tried not to roll your eyes. Cap was overprotective of the entire team.  The entire team was overprotective of you, but Cap tried to protect everyone.  Even thousand year old gods. 

Thor looked over at you and Loki.  “Shall we head out now?”

Loki nodded.  “There’s no reason to delay,” he agreed and stood. Your hand was still in his and he turned his hand to offer to help you to your feet.  You didn’t need the help, but you kept your hand in his as you stood.  Loki’s clothes shimmered to Asgardian, not his battle armor, but a green tunic and soft black pants.  Nothing fancy enough for full-court, but still looked fantastic.  You summoned a similar outfit, following Loki’s lead.  You’d apparently retained your magic skills and knowledge along with your fighting skills.  Loki gave you a warm smile and you relaxed, glad you’d chosen right.  He loosened his hand in yours, giving you the option to break the contact if you wished.  You squeezed his hand and couldn’t help but be pleased at how much his smile grew.

You made your way outside with the boys to a bifrost circle next to the tower.  Thor raised Mjolnir to first change into his armor, as that seemed to be what he wore most of the time back home.  That done, he called to Heimdall.  Loki’s arm went around your shoulders, holding you safely to his side, though you knew instinctively how to brace yourself for the feeling of weightlessness, of floating up into the sky without the power of your wings, of flying through the rainbow lights. You didn’t blame Loki for being protective.  It was in his nature after all.  And he was your husband, even if you didn’t remember.

You stepped out into a huge golden circular chamber in front of a giant of a man with a huge sword.  The man nodded his greeting to you all.  “Welcome home, your highnesses,” he bid you kindly. “Your horses are waiting.”  

Loki looked relieved that you wouldn’t have to walk, or he wouldn’t have to teleport you.  He offered you his arm and you placed your hand on it, automatically.  “Come along, darling, let’s get you to Mother,” he told you gently.  You nodded and walked with him, but let him take the lead so you weren’t walking exactly side by side.  It seemed important somehow.  Loki sighed and seemed sad by that. “Tradition be damned.  You’re my wife, my equal,” Loki told you and shifted enough so you were walking next to him.  

You didn’t know what to make of that statement so you remained quiet, taking in Loki’s statement, his anger at your actions.  Or more, at the tradition behind them.  Whatever it was.  Thor led the way and the three of you left the bifrost chamber.  Thor stepped aside to let you get a good look at the rainbow bridge and the city beyond.  

The sight of the golden city sparked something inside of you.

Home.

You were home.

[qqueenofhades]

the trash saga of flynn and lucy: xii

one of these days i should come up with an actual summary for this, but you know it anyway: smut, pain, more smut, the abrupt appearance of a plot, more pain, and general bad choices. the trash saga of flynn and lucy or ao3, for your convenience.

“I think it’s been too long,” Wyatt says tersely, shifting his weight and looking up the road. “If she was just scoping things out, she should be back by now. Something’s wrong.”

It’s clear that Flynn isn’t going to need much convincing on this front, as his gaze has been fixed on the mansion like a heat-seeking missile for at least the past ten minutes. It’s only the presence of Lucy in their midst that has prevented him from plunging in and fucking up all the available percentage of Rittenhouse’s shit and then some, but it’s also clear that this isn’t going to constrain him for much longer. “I told her. Her mother’s one of them.”

“How would you even know that?” Wyatt says, but clearly more as an old reflex, his general impulse to fight with Flynn, rather than actual disagreement. His brow is creased. Neither of them are doing well with the idea of leaving Lucy by herself much longer, even if they’ll be in much more danger there than she will. “It could still be an accident. Somehow.”

Flynn makes a scathing noise in his throat. When it comes to those bastards, he does not believe in accidents.

Both of them manage to wait about thirty more seconds before Wyatt loses all ability or pretense of chill whatsoever. “Right. I’m going in. You with me or what?”

He figures he doesn’t actually have to ask that question, as while Flynn still may not exactly be his sworn brother-in-arms, they are what the other has, and Lucy is something that at least they can both prioritize. Flynn beckons Wyatt with a jerk of his head, and they proceed surreptitiously up the muddy road, doing their best to look like they’re simply late for the meeting. They merge in among the continued stream of arrivals, which by now has mostly slowed to a trickle, and head up the steps, until the doorman stops them. “Names?”

“Dr. Jekyll,” Wyatt says, not missing a beat. He jerks a thumb at Flynn. “He’s Mr. Hyde.”

Flynn bores daggers into him with his stare, but this answer evidently impresses (or at least confuses) the gatekeeper sufficiently to allow them to sidle on past. They step into the foyer, glancing from side to side, wound to the point of total explosion if anyone comes out or confronts them, but all they can hear is murmurs from behind closed doors. Rittenhouse does not appear to notice that two of its mortal enemies have just strolled in, which is either a very good thing or a very bad one. Wyatt has that cold shiver on the back of his neck that every soldier remotely worth their salt has to pay attention to. That sense that something is not right, is in fact very wrong, and if you don’t figure it out fast, it might just be the last thing you’ll ever do.

He exchanges a look with Flynn, and both of them draw their guns, advancing down the hall in recon stance, toward the half-open door at the back. It looks as if it leads into a parlor or a sitting room, and there is a flicker of movement from the other side. Wyatt takes the lead, thinking of clearing supposedly derelict buildings in Afghanistan, when there were IEDs or tripwires or other traps hidden in there, after something was dangled to lure the guys in. Some of those, they recognized in time and bailed accordingly. Some of those, they didn’t.

He shakes his head, fighting away the momentary flashback, and checks that Flynn still has his back. He does, so Wyatt doesn’t see anything for it. There’s not really any point in doing this the diplomatic way, so he takes a few quick steps and kicks the door open.

Inside, three women whirl to face them. The first is definitely Lucy, which Wyatt has half a second to feel relieved about before he registers that the expression on her face is one of aghast and frozen horror, as if she would have given anything for them not to have just walked in right now, and now that they have, the actual trap is about to blow. He doesn’t know why. The second woman is a faintly familiar-looking older blonde, and the third –

She’s likewise familiar, though Wyatt has absolutely no notion why. His first impression is that she’s tall – remarkably so, at least six feet – with sleek dark hair and high cheekbones. Young, probably early twenties. Unless she’s Black Widow, she doesn’t look like the most dangerous Rittenhouse operative in existence, especially in long skirts. But she’s standing with her arms folded and an exquisite eyebrow raised, a faint, mirthless smile playing at her lips. Flynn and Wyatt skid to a halt, realizing that this isn’t exactly an open-firefight situation, but not lowering their guns just in case. Lucy’s still looking at them as if this is her worst nightmare. And then, the dark-haired woman turns around and smiles.

“Well,” she says. “Hello, Daddy.”

For a long, impossible moment, these words simply hang in the air without registering, without making any sense to anyone. Then they start to percolate, and Wyatt blanches. Starts to get what he thinks she said – but it can’t be true, it can’t be possible. According to Lucy, they lost her, fifteen years ago in 1814. This can’t be – but yes – but it –

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Wyatt’s reaction, however, is nothing compared to Flynn’s. For a brief, magical moment, the only emotion that lights his face is pure, impossible, radiant joy. He stares at her – at his daughter, grown up and strong and beautiful, given the life she never got the chance to have, to realize her full and formidable potential. All he can see is her, all he knows is that she’s alive and safe and standing in front of him, warm and real and breathing on her own. It’s probably the last thing that will pass through his mind when he dies. Inadvertently, he reaches for her. “Ir – Iris?”

She makes no move to take his hand. Continues to smile, but instead of soft and shy, it’s harder, colder, curdled. “Oh yes,” she says. “It’s me.”

Wyatt has a bad feeling about this. Has a very bad feeling about this. As well-attested, he is not Garcia Flynn’s biggest fan, but this is about to turn too cruel too fast, and Wyatt’s not a sadist, doesn’t enjoy or feel vindicated or thrilled by watching a man be crushed to dust in front of his eyes. “Hey,” he starts. “Why don’t we just – ”

Nobody pays him any attention whatsoever. Iris and Flynn’s eyes are locked on each other. Her lips are still drawn over her teeth, but there’s nothing remotely smile-like about her expression any more. “Surprised to see me?” she goes on. “After you left me?”

Flynn’s mouth opens and shuts. Nothing comes out.

“After you failed me?” Iris starts to circle him, sizing him up, as if to see once and for all that the giant in her mind is nothing more than a crumpled, shattered mortal man. “Left me behind? Betrayed my mother with her?” She throws a scathing look at Lucy. “I must not have actually mattered that much to you, did I? Just as long as you could go on your mad rampage and burn down everything in your way? You failed me, Daddy. You failed me. You let the monsters come, and you stood back and let them eat me. And you know who saved me? You know who didn’t fail me? Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse saved me. I owe everything to them, and you wouldn’t even leave me that, would you? No, you still want to tear them down.”

Flynn’s face is dead white, his eyes two pitted chasms. The silence is absolutely murderous as Iris considers him, angling for her next point of attack. She’s almost leisurely about it, with that same sort of intense and calculated rage as her father, the violent and single-minded and deep-burning desire for revenge, and the knowledge of how to exact it for maximum  pain. Yeah, Wyatt thinks dazedly, she’s Flynn’s daughter, all right. She’s just like him. Except she’s on the diametrically opposite side of the conflict, standing here and pledging allegiance to the organization that destroyed their family in the first place, that Flynn has dedicated his life and then some to taking down. Wyatt’s honestly not sure how the man is still standing upright. If this was him, if he was facing Jessica stabbing him like this, twisting the knives, telling him with this cool, brutal, and uncompromising hatred how he failed her, his spine would be snapped. He’d be on his knees. He’d be on the floor. He’d be through it.

“So,” Iris says at last, when nobody else in the room moves to interrupt. There’s no way they could. “Now you get to see how this ends, Daddy. You know, of course, that we can’t permit you to continue on your destructive little odyssey. And they’re not particularly interested in keeping you in a jail cell for the rest of your life. But we will do this properly – and for that matter, fittingly.” She glances sidelong at the older blonde woman. “Yes?”

“Take his gun.” The woman – Jesus, Jesus fuck, is that – Jesus, it is. Carol Preston, Lucy’s mother. The one she was so grateful to have back, alive, healthy, even as it warred with her shock and disbelief over losing her sister. Wyatt looks at Lucy, and sees the same expression on her face as on Flynn’s, the same stunned, numb, disbelieving heartsickness. “Make sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble. Emma will be by soon to pick him up.”

Iris moves forward briskly, plucks the gun out of Flynn’s unresisting hand, and pulls a pair of modern handcuffs out of her silk pocket. She puts him into them, to which Flynn likewise offers no struggle. Wyatt raises his own gun convulsively – even knowing he can’t shoot her, and also can’t shoot Lucy’s mother – and Lucy screams, “DON’T!”

Wyatt jerks it down, even as Lucy’s paralysis breaks. She lurches forward, grabbing her mother’s hand. “Don’t. Mom, don’t. If you – if you loved me at all, if anything you ever told me was real, if this – ” She stops, gulping vainly for air. “Mom, please, please, don’t do this.”

Carol Preston looks at her daughter pityingly. “Lucy, honey. I’m doing this exactly because I love you. You know who this man is, what he’s done, what he’s trying to do even now. What he did to you. He erased you.”

“He did not do that to me!” Lucy’s voice is almost a scream, fists clenching. “Rittenhouse did it to me! And you – you’ve been lying to me my entire life!”

“I wanted you to know, when you were old enough. The same way I meant to tell you about your father. When you’d understand, when you’d be ready to join us. I am so proud of you. I always have been. But when you take your rightful place at John’s side and become the greatest and strongest of all of us, Lucy, see – ”

“No.” Lucy’s voice is a whisper, silent tears starting to track down her cheeks. “No, you can’t do this. Iris – Iris, please. Listen to me. Before, what happened, when I – ”

“If you didn’t want me to join Rittenhouse, perhaps you shouldn’t have abandoned me to them.” Iris cinches the cuffs tight and forces Flynn to his knees. It doesn’t take much forcing. “And you don’t get to tell me to do anything, you know. Not after you wanted me out of the way so you could carry on your little affair with my father, without having me as a distraction and a burden. At least he meant me well, once. You never did. Homewrecker.”

Lucy opens her mouth as if to gasp, but can’t even get that far, as her mother’s elegant brow furrows. “Oh dear. Lucy, is that true? Have you – well, you know. With him? That is unfortunate. Not irreparable, but still unfortunate.”

Wyatt can actually feel himself about to defend Lucy’s right to sleep with Flynn if she damn well pleases, in a mark of how terribly and blackly perverse this whole situation is. Neither of them, for that matter, appear to have anything to say themselves. The ensuing silence is the most hideous, choking, clinging thing that anyone has ever heard or felt or tasted. Then the door swings open, and Emma Whitmore strides through.

Everyone snaps to attention, Wyatt snapping his gun up in something close to relief of having a target that he can actually shoot, even as he knows that if he does, all of them are dead too. Flynn jerks, as after all, Emma shot him a few days ago, and she’s clearly prepared to do a lot worse. She regards Iris coolly, up and down, and raises an eyebrow. “Well,” she says. “You look different, for sure.”

“You fucking bitch.” Flynn speaks at last, in something close to an actual snarl. “You – ”

Emma grins icily. “What? Outsmarted you? Is that what’s bothering you the most? You would have killed me as soon as we were done anyway, I’m just serving you a dose of your own medicine. How many times did I manage to hit you, by the way? I thought it was at least twice. You should be looking worse. Then again, it’s going to be much more fun to kill you like this.”

“Where are you taking him?” Lucy bursts out, in wild panic. “When?”

“That’s not really your business, is it?” At a look from Flynn that suggests he’s thinking about getting to his feet and charging her, Emma glances at Iris, who gracefully interposes herself between them. “We have the Mothership now, after all, and we’ve put a lot of thought into selecting the most appropriate venue for his trial. We’ll be transporting the org there to watch. It’s only high-ranking Rittenhouse that get to go, and after all, you’re not, are you?”

With that, she and Iris haul Flynn to his feet, one at each elbow, as Lucy lets out a sound as if she’s been stabbed. “Stop,” she says desperately. “Stop, I’ll – I’ll – ”

“You’ll what? Join Rittenhouse? Kind of ironic, if you’re trying to save him.” Emma looks amused. “You know, Lucy, you should have lied. Told me that you were knocked up. It would have disqualified you from any chance of being John’s wife, and you would never have had to know about any of this. But, well.” She shrugs. “You’re an honest person.  It’ll get you killed one day, no doubt. Don’t make it be trying to rescue him from the fate you know he deserves. I’ll leave you to handle her, Lady Preston, should I? Iris, come on.”

With that, the two women march Flynn away, the door slamming behind them, as Lucy lets out a gut-wrenching scream and throws herself after it. Wyatt catches her, holding her as tightly as he can, knowing it’s not enough, not sure that he has ever hated anyone more than he hates Carol Preston right now, throwing her a look of complete and utter, withering scorn.  “Wow,” he says. “Lady Preston, huh? Lady Rittenhouse? Mother of the fucking Year.”

Carol’s lips tighten briefly, but she remains unruffled. “I certainly don’t expect you to understand having to make hard choices for your children, Mr. Logan, no. I’d be an awful mother indeed if I didn’t want this wonderful future for Lucy. Once everything’s straightened out – ”

“Straightened out?” Wyatt’s voice cracks a little himself. “Is that really what you call this? Look at her! Look at your daughter! You are breaking her heart!”

“As I said. Hard choices.” Carol glances at Lucy, who is shaking silently in Wyatt’s arms, and seems, for a moment, genuinely distressed. “I’m surprised you’re taking Garcia Flynn’s side in this. I wasn’t under the impression you had any particular affection for the man.”

“Yeah?” Wyatt says savagely. “You know, I think I’m discovering a bit more right now. Flynn might be a – ” he tries to think of a good synonym for total lunatic – “little intense, but at least he’s not an actual monster. You people have no soul.”

“We have a larger goal, Mr. Logan. We always have.” Carol evaluates him with those cool, reserved eyes. “You know I can’t have Lucy attached to such an unsuitable man, the very one who’s been trying so hard to destroy everything we stand for. If you come around, if you join Rittenhouse, there’s a chance that we might consider you an appropriate – ”

“You must really think I’m stupid, don’t you? I heard all about the plans to sell Lucy off to John Rittenhouse. And yeah. Tough choice. Join the Evil Empire or the Death Eaters first?”

“You’re wrong.” Carol shakes her head. “You’re both wrong. I just wish you could see – that you could both see – the true good that Rittenhouse wants to do in the world. Of course your perspective is warped and blinded, and I take my share of responsibility for that. If I’d raised Lucy Rittenhouse from the start, we wouldn’t be having any of this problem.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt says again. “There’s a problem here, all right, and it’s definitely your fault. However, I can promise you it’s not the one you think it is.”

Carol makes a noncommittal noise, as if to say that they’ll have to agree to disagree. For a few more moments, there is no more sound except Lucy’s ragged breathing. Then she completes her brief and silent breakdown, somehow manages to find the strength to pull herself together one more time, and disentangles herself from Wyatt. Turns and regards her mother with that same chilling, depthless contempt, eyes flat and jaw set. “You don’t make any choices for me,” she says, not shouting. Not even raising her voice. Quiet and calm and utterly, unforgivingly lethal. This is the Lucy that dropped Jesse James with a single shot while the men were arguing about whether or not they could, the Lucy that, when pushed too far, might be the most dangerous of them all, simply because nobody would ever see it coming. “You don’t control my life, my future, or the people I choose to love. And you don’t get to dictate how I get back to any of that. I want my sister back. I don’t know whether you remembered she was gone, and honestly, I don’t want to. I’ll try to save you, to prevent things from going back to the timeline where you were dying, because you are my mother. Because I owe you that, if nothing else. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t want to. That I won’t wish with my entire heart that I could, because I don’t think I can ever trust you again. That I can ever even look at you again. So, Mom. I hope this was what you wanted. I hope it’s worth it, for you and your beloved Rittenhouse. Because if not, well. You’ll have paid the entire world, your entire soul, and been left with this in return.”

And with that, while Carol is blinking as if she’s just had something heavy swung into her face, Lucy whirls precisely, surgically, on her heel, and beckons to Wyatt. Holds her head high, shoulders square – God, this woman, she is a force of nature, she is elemental, she is primal – and doesn’t look back. Walks out of the parlor with her entire life burning down behind her, and does not shed a single tear.

------------------

“We have to,” Lucy says, still quietly, as speaking any louder feels as if it might rip open the gaping wound in her chest. “We have to save him.”

Wyatt gives her the look which says that he knows she means well, but he honestly has no idea how they’re going to pull that off. Or even if they should. There is the whole idea of not leaving a part of the team behind, but as recently as their last mission, Flynn was still their enemy, bombarding Fort McHenry and playing an indirect part, even if not the prime mover, in changing history to what they encountered the last time they were in the present. “Lucy,” he says at last, quietly. “I don’t agree with what happened, I don’t think even he deserves this, and I know we can’t just step aside and let Rittenhouse do what they want, but. . . how would we even start?”

“You heard what Emma said. They’re moving him out of 1829, they’re taking him somewhere, somewhen else for whatever big spectacle they’ve planned for his downfall. Which my mother has probably planned, in fact.” Lucy’s chest contracts again until she almost can’t breathe, fighting against an overwhelming tidal wave of despair. “She’s using the Mothership to shuttle the various Rittenhouse luminaries there to watch the show. What is it, ancient Rome? So they can throw him in the arena with some lions and have the full experience?”

“Probably.” Wyatt stares bleakly at the sky. They’ve been let go, as they’re not what Rittenhouse was after – that entire scene, that entire trap, was staged precisely to catch Flynn, and it’s worked to a nicety. Besides, Rittenhouse clearly thinks they’ll be back of their own free will soon enough, which might actually be the case. “But the Lifeboat’s dead. We can’t follow them.”

“Yeah,” Lucy says, carefully offhand. “We can’t.”

Wyatt’s gaze swivels to her sharply. “Lucy – I don’t know what you just thought, but if we split up one more time – ”

“Look.” Lucy closes her eyes briefly. “We both know that if I put my mind to it, I could argue my way into a spot on the Mothership. It probably wouldn’t even be that hard. My mother is running this, John Rittenhouse thinks we’re practically engaged. I can play that. Wherever, whenever they’ve taken him, I can get there too.”

“Yes, but then what?” Wyatt presses. “The two of you are going to outrun all of Rittenhouse, he’s going to agree to leave behind Iris even if she has been brainwashed to hate him, and you’ll make it to the Mothership in time to activate the remote-retrieval and signal Rufus to pull you out? You still, as far as we know, can’t go back to 2017. So are you – ”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, all right? I don’t have the full plan. I don’t have much of any plan. I just.” Lucy stops, staring down at her hands. “I can’t let him die, Wyatt. I can’t do it.”

Wyatt blows out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he says at last. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“It’s. . .” Lucy’s lip quivers, ever so slightly. “What Iris said, I think it – ”

“No. No, it was not your fault, okay? Listen to me.” Wyatt reaches out and grabs both her hands, making her looking at him. “It was not your fault. It wasn’t Iris’s either. She was a little girl, those bastards got hold of her, of course they managed to get her thinking and saying everything they wanted her to. What happened with you and Rittenhouse, with your mom, that isn’t your fault either. Okay, Lucy? Okay?”

Lucy takes a long, slow breath. She isn’t sure she believes it, but she appreciates him saying it. “Okay,” she echoes at last. “But I can’t leave either of them, Wyatt. I – don’t ask me to.”

Wyatt manages a faint, wry smile. “So,” he says at last. “You’re choosing, huh?”

“You and Rufus will always be the rest of me. Always.” Lucy tightens her grip on his hand. “And you need to stay here and get the Lifeboat fixed, find a way to communicate with Rufus. I’m pretty sure even Rittenhouse isn’t going to buy a convenient change of heart from you in three hours. Besides, someone has to figure out if there’s any chance of stopping whatever they did here, or if there’s any way to get history back on track. I can’t ask you to risk yourself for Flynn. I have to do this by myself.”

“Maybe,” Wyatt says. “You could ask me to risk myself for you, though.”

“I know. I do.” Lucy keeps looking at him steadily. “But I can talk myself onto the Mothership. I can’t talk you. And Flynn, whatever it is with us, I don’t know myself. But I just. . . I can’t help but think that we were always supposed to meet, somehow. God, fate, whatever. Something brought us together, led us to each other. Whatever that is, I have to see it through.”

Wyatt is quiet for a moment, as they still sit holding hands. “Okay,” he says again, at last, barely more than a whisper. “If that’s what you want, Lucy. If you really think you can, but – you know there’s a chance you can’t make it back at all. That they’ll just kill him, and you’ll be stuck as one of Rittenhouse’s creepy cult fanatics forever, wherever, whenever. If you go, I just. . . I just want you to be sure that that’s something you’re willing to do. To sacrifice.”

“I know.” She does, far too well. “And I’d do the same for you, or Rufus.”

“Not quite, though,” Wyatt says, very softly. “It’s something different. With him.”

Lucy pauses. Then at last, just as softly, she nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess it is.”

The plan is almost simple, when it comes down to it. Wyatt stays in 1829. If he can keep trying, and get the Lifeboat somehow operational, he can install the remote-retrieval patch and be extracted to 2017 by Rufus. Lucy will go back to Rittenhouse and pretend she’s seen the light, that she’s thought it over and agreed her mother is right, that this is what she wants. Then she’ll get a seat on the Mothership to whenever they’ve taken Flynn, try to find him and Iris, and save him from whatever terrible fate Rittenhouse has in mind for him. After that is when this all turns decidedly hypothetical. If they can make it to the Mothership in time, and if they can trigger the override, Rufus can get them home. If that matters. If Lucy’s back. If Flynn himself can even stand to look at her again, or agree to leave Iris, even knowing what’s become of her. It feels like every possible outcome ends with Lucy losing him somehow, and yet. No matter how utterly, cosmically impossible this appears to be, she’s simply not prepared to do that.

She and Wyatt bid a brief, understated goodbye, trying to pretend this is nothing more than an ordinary parting, checking out between missions, when both of them know that the Time Team is now officially and possibly permanently broken up, in three different years in three different centuries. There is no certainty at all of ever seeing each other again. She doesn’t know when exactly Rittenhouse has taken Flynn, but her hunch is earlier. Maybe a little earlier. Maybe a lot. They don’t really want a fair trial for him, after all. They want him to burn.

When Wyatt’s headed out for the Lifeboat, when he’s out of sight and she can’t see him at all anymore, Lucy turns back and starts toward the mansion. She’s going to need to play her role well, and there can’t be any mistakes. They’ll be plenty suspicious as it is, but if her status as apparent Rittenhouse princess is worth anything, she has to milk it for all it’s worth. All she can think of, the one thing to keep her focused, is that they’re going to pay. They’re going to pay for this, for her, for Amy, for all the lies, for Flynn, for Iris, for altering the entire fabric of history, for Wyatt, for Rufus, for everything. They’re going to pay. They’re going to pay.

She manages to make it inside again, smiling and apologizing for her earlier breakdown, asking to talk to John. She can’t face her mother, even and especially to lie that she’s come to join her, and her mother knows her too well; she has a better chance of working on John, who’s so desperate to believe her anyway. It takes a bit of persuading, but she gets an audience with him, and manages to choke down her umbrage. Smiles. Flirts a little. Brushes her fingers along his arm. Gives him the general impression that if she gets to go with him to Flynn’s trial, they can be Rittenhouse-married and Rittenhouse-boinking to get started on their Rittenhouse-babymaking, just as soon as that awful traitor is taken care of. She, of course, will choke him with a curtain tie sooner than letting any of this actually happen, but it does the job. He says she can come. He’d be honored.

Lucy may throw up in her mouth a little at that, but manages to hide it. She waits until the door opens and Emma appears, clearly intending to pick up the Big Boss for the main ride – then stops dead at the sight of Lucy. “Well, well. What are you doing here, exactly?”

Lucy forces a twisted little smile. “I’m going with John, of course.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Emma regards her with cool suspicion. “That’s what you’re doing, is it?”

“What else would I be doing?” Lucy takes John’s arm and smiles again, with teeth. “I’m Mr. Rittenhouse’s special guest. Aren’t I?”

“Yes,” John says. “Yes, Miss Whitmore, she is. I’m happy for her to accompany me.”

Emma divides an utterly unconvinced glance between them, but she also can’t contradict her benevolent overlord to his face, even if she clearly knows what is actually going on here. With another I’m watching you look at Lucy, warning her not to try anything, she sweeps a bow and leads them out to the Mothership, which she has evidently just landed on the lawn. It is supremely out of place among the staid nineteenth-century brick mansions, with its glowing blue lights and smooth white plasteel shell. Lucy wonders how much they have to pay the cops to look away in this part of town.

It appears they’re the last ones to go; everyone else has already had their ride, including her mom. It’s just the three of them leaving 1829 now, the same as they arrived here, but of course, utterly different. Lucy fumbles the seatbelt buckles as best she can, then leans back. With her best version of a winning smile, she says, “When are we going?”

“Not really something for you to worry about, is it?” Emma triggers the door latch, and it cycles shut as they prepare for the jump. “Since you’re coming as one of us?”

Lucy doesn’t want to kill anyone else. Really, she doesn’t. Once was more than enough, and it’s not something she wants to repeat. But just then, she seriously considers it.

“No,” she says instead. “Of course not.”

When the Mothership lands, the door opens, and Lucy has to allow John to help her out, a blast of sea wind hits her face, there are no lights that she can see, and a few Rittenhouse goons waiting with horses and a lantern. Her hunch about earlier appears to be dead on the money, and she spends the ride trying to work out where and when on earth they are. It’s warm and sticky; it feels like summer. It’s coastline, it looks like New England, and when they reach the town, it appears to be seventeenth-century. Late, if Lucy had to guess. This is a little before her area of specialty, since she works on American history, and this is clearly still colonial, well before the Revolution. While John and Emma are climbing down and discussing something with the men, Lucy takes the opportunity to glance at a broadsheet posted on the wall of what appears to be the village inn. It’s dark, and she has to lean in close. Nonetheless, the words jump out at her.

Their Majesties Court of Oyer and Terminer, UNDER William Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, & Crown Attorneye Thomas Newton, does Here Convene and Provide for the Just & Regular Detection and Punishment of those Suspected of the Abominable Crime of

W I T C H C R A F T

& Other Satanick Sorceries and Devilish Evils

in Salem Town, Province of Massachusetts Bay

1 6 9 2

Anno Domini

In the Third Year of the Reign of Their Protestant Majesties

KING AND QUEENE

WILLIAM & MARY

of Great Britain, Ireland, & Etc.

Earlier. Yeah, earlier. Lucy would say so.

She thought they wanted Flynn to burn. That they didn’t want a trial, they wanted a baying mob. That there wasn’t going to be justice. Only murder.

Apparently, she was exactly right.

She jerks around as John and Emma finish their conversation, and pretends not to have noticed the bill-paper. Allows herself to be shown inside the narrow, creaking inn with them, thinking that at least the one good thing about having landed in the middle of a frothing witch hunt is that there will be no question of her and John having to share a room(though if Lucy recalls, a substantial proportion of Puritan brides were already pregnant on their wedding day, as – surprise, surprise – if you try to force everyone to live by a strictly repressed and zealous religious code, it’s going to backfire on you). She gets her own, as John insists, while Emma continues to look openly skeptical. “Sir,” she starts. “Sir, Lucy has been – with him, I don’t think we can trust her by herself, I should share with her, I should keep an eye – ”

“Nonsense,” John says earnestly. “She’s not a prisoner. She chose to come with us.”

“Because she wants to rescue him!” Emma has apparently decided to throw caution to the wind. “I know you can’t see that, you actually think she likes you, but she doesn’t, she just wants to get close to Garcia Flynn and – they’re sleeping together, John, she’s just using you to – ”

At that, John looks actually stunned, so that for a moment Lucy winces and thinks everything is about to blow up. But the look of anger on his face is turned on Emma, not her. “How dare you. Lucy – Lady Preston – is just as trustworthy as I am, and she will be treated that way.”

Emma flicks a glance at Lucy, as if to ask her just what mad skills she has to get two men as dissimilar as Garcia Flynn and John Rittenhouse so desperately attached to her and all but eating from her hand. Lucy flashes back another demure, inscrutable smile. She’s enjoying seeing Emma be frustrated, though of course it’s also useful for her if they loosen her leash. Wherever they have stashed Flynn, she doubts it’s here, and she’s going to need to find him fast.

Further attempts from Emma to talk John around fail, and once Lucy is finally alone, she waits long enough for them to hopefully think she’s asleep, and the inn has gone more or less quiet. There are some seventeenth-century clothes laid out on the bed, which she thinks it wise to change into. In the middle of a witch hunt, the last thing an already-strange woman needs is to draw more attention to herself, so Lucy strips off the nineteenth-century dress, corset, and boots and gets herself kitted out as a good Puritan housewife. As if this place wasn’t Scarlet Letter-enough already. But Lucy is going to have to work with what she’s got.

She opens the window cautiously. It’s narrow, made from ashy lime-glass, and there is a drop down onto the steep timbered roof below. Lucy is not the most coordinated person in the world, and secret sneaking out is not her forte, but she manages to swing a foot over the sill, and then another. Shoots a wary glance back, but the door to the room remains closed. Then, taking a deep breath, she squeezes through and pushes off.

She has half a terrifying moment to be suspended in midair before she hits the roof with a thump, claws wildly, kicks, wonders if someone is going to get suspicious and come out to look, and clings to a fistful of splintered board, feet dangling off the edge. She grunts, swears under her breath, makes more or less sure that she’s not going to break her neck, then lets go. Another tumble, a plunge into what absolutely smells like a compost heap below, and she rolls away in the mud, breathless, dirty, and winded, but free. Then she picks herself up, looks around warily – the town watch is not going to think highly of anyone out after nightfall, and if she isn’t careful, she’ll be hauled up in front of the Court of Oyer and Terminer herself – and runs.

Salem is dark and for the most part, quiet. You wouldn’t know that it’s about to play host to one of the most infamous episodes of public mass hysteria in history, and execute twenty innocent people, fourteen of them women, by hanging – despite the popular stereotype, they don’t actually burn them at the stake. At least, this time, and at least before Rittenhouse arrived from the future to co-opt said hysteria, and use it to stage the spectacular downfall of their most dedicated enemy. They, in fact, probably are going to burn him, just to finish things off with a bang. Tell the townsfolk that he is the Devil Incarnate, that he’s the reason for the outbreak of witchcraft, that they have to destroy him to save their souls. It’s not going to take much.

Lucy tries to keep her fear at bay as she searches – if they have Flynn down some dank dungeon or thief-hole, she probably won’t be able to find him in time. But at last, as she turns into the small square before the church, she sees the stocks and pillory set up in front of it, on a raised dais that still smells of sawdust. There’s someone sitting in the stocks, legs locked in place, head down, motionless. By the looks of things, people have already been busily attending to their public duty of throwing rotten food, stones, sticks, and other garbage at the offender.

“Flynn?” Lucy whispers. Starts to run, hurrying up the steps. “Flynn!”

He doesn’t react, doesn’t even look up. There is a gash on his cheek, and between that and the two bullet wounds, he is clearly in considerable discomfort.  But he doesn’t appear to notice that either. It’s only when she kneels next to him and tries to take his face in her hands that his eyes even attempt to focus. When they do, he mostly seems confused. “Lucy.”

“Yes. It’s me. Come on, I need to find some way to get you out of these.” Lucy looks around for any helpful implement that she can use to break the stocks, if anyone has left out a hatchet for wood-chopping, that kind of thing. “The Mothership isn’t too far. If you can re-activate that retrieval program you were talking about, Rufus can get us out – or at least somewhere – and we can see if I can come back to the present, or meet up with Wyatt, or – ”

She’s babbling, anxious and on edge and too relieved to see him again, feeling it twisting in her gut, still wrapped around her heart, but he still doesn’t react. He seems, if anything, angry. “What the hell,” he says, half to himself. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Breaking you out of jail, by the looks of things.” Lucy tries to pry at the stocks with her hands. This, of course, does not work. “Are you okay to run?”

He just keeps staring at her, dark gaze flat and empty. This is more unsettling than any rage she’s ever seen him in, anything he’s ever tried to do. This is Garcia Flynn with absolutely no fight left in him.

“Just go,” he says after a moment, apparently deciding not to bother with the question of how she got here. “Just leave me here.”

“So what?” Lucy flares back. “You’re going to give up? You’re just going to let Rittenhouse kill you? Burn you alive? You can’t let them win!”

Flynn just keeps looking at her without a word. It’s evident from his face that he’s pretty damn sure they already have.

“There’s no point,” he says at last. Again, half to himself, as if he’s not entirely sure she’s really there, and doesn’t want to be caught conversing with thin air. “There’s no point. It’s all been for nothing. Iris is right. I failed her. I failed Lorena. There’s no chance of anything. It’s all gone.”

Lucy understands this viewpoint, she does. She also slightly wants to smack him, despite his current decrepit state, because while this may all be true, it’s also true that she’s here, risking her ass to rescue him – Rittenhouse might not outright kill their precious princess/hoped-for future co-Supreme Leader, but she doesn’t think that it’s going to be grand declarations of love and insistence on preferential treatment forever, or even much longer. Emma’s clearly already more than willing to get her out of the way, since John doesn’t want to, and this is definitely going to blow things to hell, if they’re caught. She finds something that looks like a crowbar, wedges it into the stocks, and tries to get up enough leverage to budge them. Still nada.

“Stop,” Flynn says roughly. “Lucy, stop.”

“Shut up,” Lucy grunts, sitting on the crowbar in an effort to use her body weight, but five-foot-five-inch scholars are not exactly sumo wrestlers in this department. “Whatever you want to do is usually the exact wrong decision, so you can understand why I’m ignoring you.”

Flynn stares at her, so thrown that she thinks he might laugh, but his face remains too bleak for that. She shoots a look over her shoulder, fairly sure that she saw someone light a candle in a window, doing whatever the Puritan version of peering through the curtains at the neighbors is – that kind of thing probably happens a lot around here, given the, you know, witch trials. She has a feeling as well that if he put his mind to it, he would be able to bust out of these stocks, no problem. A trained and hardened secret agent like Flynn has probably been in far worse binds than rudimentary seventeenth-century wooden pieces of crap like this. But he’s also just as clearly past the point of caring. Figures he deserves whatever happens next.

As her own efforts are getting nowhere, Lucy stops. Doesn’t know what to say to make him want to fight again, when she likewise feels the same, questioning if there’s any point in continuing to resist something so strong and so evil and so determined to steamroll everything and everyone they believe in and care about. She leans forward instead, so their foreheads brush. “Come on,” she says at last, quietly. “Come on, Garcia. Let’s go home.”

She doesn’t know where that is, or how they’d get there, or if he’d want to, or any of that. But something deep and drowned in his eyes seems to surface, ever so slightly, at that. He looks at her again, as if actually registering her presence, and frowns, brow furrowing. “Lucy?”

“Yes,” she says tartly. “Who did you think?”

He doesn’t say what he was thinking (probably for the best), but at last, slowly, he gives the stocks an experimental shove. Takes the crowbar from her, pries hard, grunts in pain at the strain this is putting on his wounded shoulder and side, and then with a rattle and a crash, sends the top half of the bar flying. Pulls his ankles out, grimacing, rubbing them to restore circulation; his feet are bare. She helps him up, they jump down, and get set to run – and then, all at once, a torch flares in their faces, making both of them blink and cringe. Then another one, and another.

Someone pushes his way through the crowd: an unpleasant-looking fellow with a double chin and an elaborate white wig, a high clerical collar and black robes. Not that Lucy can be entirely sure, but she’s pretty sure it’s Cotton Mather – Puritan minister, intellectual architect of the witch trials, and general A-number-one dickhead – who is regarding them with hard, bitter glee. “Well, well,” he booms. “The Devil Incarnate and his concubine, the Mother of Demons, before you in the flesh, good people of Salem! Seize them. Seize them! You know what is writ in the Holy Scriptures. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“Seriously?” Lucy pants. “Seriously?”

Flynn shoves her behind him, groping for the gun he doesn’t have. More torches are flooding the square from every side. If Emma decided that badgering John about her suspicions was getting nowhere, guessed that Lucy was going to make an attempt to rescue Flynn, and decided to tip off the citizens’ militia instead, she –

She’s done her job pretty damn well, actually.

Lucy didn’t expect to die by being burned as a witch in 1692, obviously. No sane person would. But it also, barring a miracle, appears to be what is going to happen to her. Emma will have taken particular care with this. Made sure there’s no chance of John, or Carol, accidentally interfering. Distracted them with something, told them to stay inside, let the provincial natives roar off on their little witch hunt. Rittenhouse might not get their full spectacle, but at least they’ll ensure Flynn is dead. No way to prove that Lucy’s death was anything other than a tragic accident. Regrettable, of course. But perhaps – once they think about it – for the best.

In short:

They are completely fucked.