#probably should have put gabbie and barb too

[theautisticbarbie]

A Bird of Praise

Act I

Chapter II: Familiar but Alien

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Word count: 2,882

This is a longer one but the plot thickens! Side note, thesee credit videos are a great way to know who appears in the chapter.

Warnings for this chapter: seizures, implied medical trauma (boy Tara does not want to go to the hospital), school bullies, eugenics (a bully loudly suggests Tara should be euthanised), parental emotional abuse (Tara’s mum SUCKS), insomnia, canon character deaths (Barb’s death plus Benny’s death which was a murder staged to look like a suicide so warning for that)

Sam and Gabby being the most wholesome couple ever is literally getting me through this.

Chapter summary: Will is missing and Tara’s life almost instantaneously starts to unravel in the most horrific way, forcing her to use psychic powers that she had long ago vowed to abandon.

Tara’s suspicions were confirmed in the worst possible way when she decided, instead of going home to go to Castle Byers to see if there was a chance he might be there and she was just being paranoid.

Tara felt mildly dizzy throughout her walk there and simply attributed it to being tired from the panic brought on by her nocturnal spook and the fact that between the school and the fortress, it was, admittedly, a bit of a trek.

By the time Tara got to the fort, she was absolutely winded. “Will?” she asked, peering inside.

No dice.

Tara was startled by the sudden hand on her shoulder.

“Jonathan,” she sighed in relief. “You frightened me.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, probably more interrogatively than he intended.

“This is gonna sound so crazy!” Tara blurted out, flustered. “But I had a dream last night that something bad happened to Will and I just wanted to see if he was okay.”

“You didn’t hear?” Jonathan asked.

“Hear what?”

“Will is missing! We’ve been all over trying to find him!”

“You were supposed to pick him up!” Joyce called, her tone accusatory as she bee lined towards the small brunette.

“I went to pick him up!” Tara blurted out defensively. “When I got to the house, Mrs. Wheeler said he already left!”

Joyce sighed and buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, honey. This isn’t your fault.”

Tara pushed her glasses up wiped the tears from her face. “He never told Mrs. Wheeler that I was supposed to pick him up.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Jonathan sighed.

“Do you think Mike, Lucas and Dustin knew? That he was planning to sneak his own way back home?” Tara asked.

“What happened in your dream?” Jonathan asked, in an offer to change the subject and perhaps grasp at straws as to where Will could be.

“You really wanna know?”

“It might help us find him.”

Tara took a deep breath. “It’s kinda complicated. It involves Swan Lake. Do you know about that?”

“Not really. I’ve heard of it, but I’m not too familiar with the actual story.”

“It’s about a princess who gets turned into a swan by an evil warlock. In my dream, I was the princess. When I was about to be turned into the swan, I saw Will. Rothbart, the warlock, dragged him away into some awful dark dimension.”

Tara looked around. “It was… familiar, but alien.”

“That narrows it down,” Jonathan quipped sarcastically.

Tara let out an exasperated sigh. “What I mean is what it looked exactly like this, but darker… and more eerie… and empty…”

Tara shook her head. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not making any sense.”

Suddenly her head started to pound. She grimaced and put hands to either side of her temple.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Are you okay?” Jonathan asked, placing hands on her shoulders.

Tara was so stunned by the sudden onset that she couldn’t communicate that she was having a really bad migraine.

Jonathan sat her down on a tree stump. “What’s wrong?”

“Migraine,” Tara was finally able to blurt out.

“Hang on, honey! I think I have some aspirin in my purse,” Joyce said rifling through it.

Things took a turn for active panic when Tara fell over and started convulsing.

Joyce and Jonathan panicked, having absolutely no idea what to do in this situation.

Thankfully, the seizure was brief. When she came to her senses, Joyce sat her up. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I… yeah…” Tara responded, dazed.

“Maybe we should take you to the hospital,” Joyce offered.

Tara violently shook her head. “I’ll be okay,” she slurred slightly. “Can I trouble you for a ride home?”

“Of course, honey!”

Tara crawled into bed the second she got through the door only bothering to kick off her boots when Daniel hassled her about tracking mud in the house.

For once, her dreams didn’t involve Swan Lake at any capacity. But they DID involve this strange place that was in the very last dream she had. The dream was absolutely flooded with Will’s screams and cries for help. It was overwhelming. She would do anything to make it stop.

As though it were a gift and a curse, Tara was jolted awake with a start when the phone rang.

“Newman residence,” Tara answered groggily.

“Tara, what the hell did you do?”

“Mom, I can explain!”

“You’d better start! I just got off the phone with Joyce and you know what she told me? Will is missing and the entire town is panicked over it! It’s all over the goddamn news all the way here in Florida!”

“Mom, I—“

“You had one job! All you had to do was pick him up and drop him off back home! It is so simple! Anyone with half a brain could manage it!”

“I went to pick him up! He was gone when I got there! He lied and—“

“I don’t want to hear your excuses! A child is missing! I know they’re planning a search party, so if I were you, I would get off my lazy butt and go join it!”

Click.

Tara sighed and ran her hands through her hair. Times like this made it feel like her mother didn’t care about her side of the story and just wanted to yell at her no matter what she said.

When she trotted downstairs, she was met with her older cousin, Gabriella “Gabby” Maldonado and her boyfriend, Samuel “Sam” Ortega.

“Gabby! Sam! What brings you here at this time of night all the way from Illinois?”

“We’re here to help look for Will,” Gabby said, pulling her little cousin into a hug.

“How did this happen? I swear I went to go pick him up and—“

“Hey, hey,” Sam said with a practically soul crushing bear hug. “Look at me. Nobody is mad at you. The important thing is that we’re gonna find Will, and we’re gonna find him in one piece, yeah?”

Tara wiped the tears from her face and slipped on her boots.

“Hey, nice threads!” Sam commented, gesturing at Daniel’s raglan that had “Hellfire Club” on it.

“Thanks. Club tee. From school.”

“Right on! I’ll drive!”

“You always wanna drive!” Gabby playfully retorted.

“I enjoy it and I’m good at it! I’m driving! Case closed.”

The search party was pretty big. Practically everyone and their mother was there.

“See look at how many people came. We’re bound to find him!” Sam said, brimming with optimism.

“I hope so,” Tara said, a trail of dread in her voice.

“Aren’t you like always the biggest optimist in the room?” Daniel asked. “We’ll find him. Don’t be a pussy.”

“Uncle Eugene?” Gabby called out.

“Dad!” Tara ran up and hugged him.

“I figured I would make the drive down from Indianapolis and pitch in.”

“Pitch in?” Daniel asked, flabbergasted. “Fuck you! It’s not a picnic or a barbecue! Will is missing! He could be hurt, lost, scared or hungry!”

“Daniel!” Gabby quipped with clenched teeth, gesturing to Tara who was already very upset.

Her mind went blank, her breathing quickened and vision went blurry.

“Tara, it’s okay,” Gabby said gently rubbing her back. “We’ll find him.”

It was too much, Tara bolted off in an effort to relieve some of the panic she was

experiencing.

Her surroundings changed in an instant. Fluorescent lights overhead. The humming of machinery. Electric crackling.

“Tara? It’s 2 am! What are you doing out of bed?”

Down the hall, Tara looked over to see Dr. McFarlane addressing her.

Once again, Tara bolted off.

“Tara!”

Tara continued to run until a hand on her shoulder stopped her, bringing her back to the present.

She looked over and saw Gabby as the one who pursued her followed by Sam, Daniel and Eugene.

Once Tara came to her senses, she realised that not only was it raining, but she was absolutely soaked.

“It’s getting dangerous,” Eugene finally said. “We should go home and continue the search tomorrow.”

“Will is still out there!” Tara protested. “I’m not stopping until I find him!”

“Tara, it is pissing cats and dogs right now! Have some sense! Nobody is gonna find Will like this!” Daniel barked.

“He could freeze to death!”

“You think he doesn’t know how to find shelter? Come on, Tara! You said it yourself. Those kids are smarter than most kids their age. We have to go. We’ll find him tomorrow. I promise.”

“Come on,” Eugene offered. “I’ll give you both a ride back.”

“We’re good, thanks,” Daniel said, protectively grabbing his sister and ushering her to Sam’s 1980 Ford Bronco.

Once they got back to the house, it was decided that Gabby and Sam would sleep in Daniel’s room and that he would sleep on the couch, seeing as how during the duration of Tara’s extended stay in the hospital, her shared room with Daniel had basically become his room and upon her return, it was decided that the guest room would be her new room.

Once Tara got to sleep, she was met with the exact same nightmares from her afternoon nap. Will screaming and crying for help, this dark new dimension and her not having even the faintest clue where the screaming is coming from. After about 4 instances of that, she decided to call it quits and just stay up until it was time to head to school. She looked at the clock. 3:57 am.

She let out a sigh and headed to the kitchen for a midnight snack. She noticed her brother had vacated his spot on the couch, peered outside and saw him outside on the back patio having a smoke. A habit Tara infers that he must have picked up while she was at the hospital. At least he didn’t do it terribly often.

Back to the fridge, Tara decided to fashion herself a pizza bagel before heading back upstairs to pop in her beta tape of Lesley Ann Warren’s Cinderella to calm her nerves.

After watching the film from start to finish, she looked at the clock. 6:03 am. She decided to get dressed and read until the school bus got there.

School, by the way, was absolutely dreadful. Tara definitely paid the price for choosing to stay up. She was sluggish all day, spacing out and didn’t even notice when she was being called on.

Once it got to be lunch time, Tara picked a completely unoccupied table and sat down. As she opened her lunch pail, she noticed snide giggling and turned her attention to see Kenzie Michaels of the cheer squad with her cheer and basketball cohorts, the only other two she could vaguely recognise were Chrissy Cunningham (and only because of her brother’s bizarre obsession with her) and Jason Carver (because he was Chrissy’s boyfriend).

“Honestly, people like that should be euthanised! Who expects to live off of other people’s charity forever?” Kenzie remarked.

Jason busted out laughing.

It hurt. Tara knew that it was her that they were waxing on so disparagingly about but she never had the courage to say anything. She looked at her lunch pail. Her vision blurred.

The fluorescent lights buzzed.

“You have to act normal.”

Tara looked up. There she was. Back at the hospital cafeteria.

Across from her was a blonde boy who looked just a bit older than her.

“No matter what you do, you can’t give them any indication that you’re onto them. You trust me, right?”

Tara was snapped out of her flashback when a lunchbox landed on the table.

“Don’t listen to them.”

“Barb?”

“They’re just jealous because you have the balls to play by your own rules and they don’t,” Barb quipped.

“Barb, can I ask you a personal question?”

“What’s up?”

“Does… does Nancy hate me?”

Barb DEFINITELY hesitated. Nobody would possibly miss that. “No! No! Of course not!”

“I feel like she doesn’t really wanna be my friend anymore.”

“Nah! She’s just got a lot on her plate. Don’t worry about it.”

Tara looked down at her pail.

“Come on! You haven’t even touched your lunch yet!”

Tara hesitantly picked up a strawberry and began munching on it.

“I heard you’re doing The Snow Queen instead of The Nutcracker this year.”

“Yeah!” Tara said, happy to change the subject.

“Did you audition for principal?”

“I… I can’t…”

“Tara! You, out of everyone on the team are the most qualified to dance principal!”

“Ms. McIntyre would never trust me with a lead role.”

“How do you know if you don’t audition for one?”

“Well, I guess I can give it a shot in the spring show.”

“There you go! So we all know the story of The Nutcracker, but what’s The Snow Queen about? What’s her deal, huh?”

“It’s about two childhood friends named Kai and Gerda. You see, there’s these trolls that have a mirror to a dimension that’s just like ours except dark and twisted. One day, Kai finds the mirror and falls into the Mirror Realm and Gerda has to go in after him to save him. When she finally finds him in the Snow Queen’s lair, his heart has been frozen and he’s near death, but she cries over him, breaking the Snow Queen’s evil spell and bringing him back to the land of the living!”

“Wow! That’s certainly a wild ride! And who do you play in all of this?”

“A background troll,” Tara responded sheepishly.

“Well, I am looking forward to seeing it regardless!”

Once school let out, Tara was surprised to see Sam and Gabby in the parking lot.

“Hey, kiddo!” Sam greeted. “I was thinking we could wait for your brother grab some food before resuming our search!”

The drive to Benny’s Burgers was full of Sam being his usual goofball self and Gabby supporting him for trying his best to lighten the mood.

Once they pulled up and got out of Sam’s car, Sam reached into his glove compartment.

“You three go on! I’ll be there in just a sec!”

Sam pulled out a small black box containing an engagement ring.

“Perfect.”

Unfortunately his moment of triumph was cut off by a blood curdling scream, immediately jolting him into its direction.

“Call the police!” Gabby cried, rushing out of the diner.

“What happened?”

Sam looked inside to see Benny dead on the table from a gunshot to the head while holding a pistol.

Sam was the first one to break the silence when they got home. “I vote we should take a break from looking for Will today and let the police handle it.”

“What? No!” Tara protested.

“It’s for the best,” Gabby said trying to calm her down.

“No, it’s not! We can’t take days off! Something awful could have happened to him! Some sicko could be holding him for ransom!”

“All the better reason to let the police have this one,” Sam added in.

Furious, Tara went up to her room, slamming the door behind her.

Tara’s nightmares were once again filled with Will’s screams and cries for help. But this time, another lair of sinister horror was tacked on when she heard what she distinctively recognised as Barb’s voice.

“Nancy! Nancy!” It called out.

“Barb!” Tara called back. “Barb can you hear me?”

“Nancy!”

Tara rushed as quickly as she could to the cries. The last thing she heard was Barb’s screams which were suddenly silenced with a loud crunch. By the time Tara got there, all she could see was a puddle of blood where Barb used to be. In the distance, though, she could still hear Will cry and plead for help. It was all too overwhelming and she ended up screaming herself awake.

Sam, Gabby and Daniel rushed into her room with a start. There she was on the bed, all of the stress on her face.

“What happened?” Gabby asked.

“It was Will… I heard him screaming for help just like last night… But then tonight… I also heard Barb… she was screaming just like Will… but then it just went silent… and I saw was blood…”

Tara put her face in her hands and cried. Sam gently rubbed her back. “It’s okay, Tara. It was just a dream. Tomorrow morning, you’ll see Barb on the bus and you’ll have a good laughs about this.”

Once everyone went back to sleep, Tara zoned out again.

There she was. Back on her hospital bed, eavesdropping on a conversation.

“The medications aren’t working, Dr. Owens! She’s no closer to controlling it than when we first started.”

“We’ll give the physical therapy another shot! Hell, let’s give Neurofeedback a try! We can’t just give up on her, Dr. McFarlane! She’s 14!”

“She’s dangerous, is what she is!”

“She’s trying her best! Does that count for nothing?”

“Oh, well I guess when she does something absolutely catastrophic, we can at least take solace in the fact that she did so unknowingly!”

Tara sighed, bringing herself back to the present. She stood up, went to the bathroom, grabbed her noise-cancelling earmuffs and closed the door. With the lights out and her earmuffs on, she laid on the linoleum floor in total darkness and silence. This time, she was going to take matters into her own hands.

[mystisnykoto]

The Outsiders - Epilogue

A Tout le Monde

*click*

If... if you are hearing this, then hopefully my plan worked. B-but... gods this never gets easier... it also means that I'm... gone... It hurt and pained me to see moth-... Ruri, locked into The Net. I felt like I was the one to have truly failed her. It became my mission, and passion, that I would find a way to get the both of you back home safely.

                                                                                                                    Ruri sat outside of the workshop, watching over a group of children playing in the yard. She smiled as the children chased each other in a game of tag, giggling softly as one of them stumbled into a small pond. A small girl stopped and trotted back to check on her friend.

“A-are you okay?” the girl asked, reaching out a hand to help her friend out of the water. Her friend took her hand, standing up and tapping her on the head.

“You're it!” the boy giggled, leaping out from the pond and splashing water onto the girl. “No tag-backs!”

“H-hey!” the girl protested, letting out a huff as she chased after another of her friends.

“Be careful kids, don't want you to hurt yourselves,” Ruri spoke, as the blonde girl tagged a friend and bounded off towards the chocobo stable in the corner. The workshop door opened as Trix stepped outside, jumping back slightly as a small crowd rushed by.

“Wah! Careful kids!” Trix called at the children. Trix stepped back outside and closed the door. She flexed her hand, fluttering and rolling the fingers on her new mechanical hand.

“Yes Miss Trix!” the children called out in unison. Trix rolled her eyes as she stepped over and sat next to Ruri.

“How does it feel?” asked Ruri, looking over her friend's hand.

“It... feels strange...” Trix replied, quickly doing a few dexterity exercises, tapping the the tip of each finger to her thumb. “It's good that Iris had this just laying around, even if she didn't ever need it.”

“She had all sorts of random things from old allagan ruins,” Ruri spoke, looking over Trix's new hand. “Good thing the both of you were close to the same size, seems the arm fits you pretty well.”

“Definitely! Good thing she brought home a set of arms, rather than just the one she needed.” Trix wiggled her fingers a bit, laughing as it was able to transfer some amount of feeling back to her. “How is little Gabby getting along with the others?”

“She's doing well! It helps that several of the others were her friends when they were first put into The Net, but she is getting along with several of Iris' students, so that is good.”

“What about the others? You know, the ones that are not children again,” Trix asked, relaxing back onto the bench.

"Some of them chose to leave 'The Net' with us, and are trying to find their own place in their new world. Most decided to stay inside, which I can't blame them too much for wanting to stay.”

“Mommy!” Gabrielle called out as she ran up to Ruri. “Where is my other mommy?”

“She's...” started Ruri, as a look of sadness washed over her face. “She... she'll b-be back soon, I-I promise...” Ruri finished, as Gabrielle nodded and rejoined the other children.

“Do you ever plan on telling her?” asked Trix, looking over to Ruri.

“I... maybe... I'm not quite sure how to... or even what to tell her...” Ruri spoke.

                                                                                                                  I'm... still not quite sure what to say in this log, so... this will probably end up becoming an extended goodbye. You both treated me like a part of your family, despite being what I am. It gave me a sense of belonging and I was eternally grateful for it. I... I don't know what will happen when the terminal is used, but it requires a sort of sacrifice in order to clean and scrub someone's data. So... I'm going to give up myself so that... s-so that Ruri can go home. I don't know what will remain of me once this all happens, I don't know if I'll even have a body of my own, but regardless of it all, I do this willingly...

“Great, now get back over to the camp, the stew is ready,” spoke a woman clad in black leather, beckoning Leo back toward her and the rest of the Brigade. Leo followed after the woman, glancing back to the direction that Iris had taken off toward as meeting with a group inside of a small cavern, gathered around a campfire. A gray-skinned roegadyn spooned some stew into a bowl and held it out towards Leo, a soft smile crossing his face.

“So what is your determination?” the roe asked. “You know her better than most anyone; did your initial thoughts ring true and the android is the real girl?” Leo took the bowl from the roe, finding a seat atop a log.

“Thanks Rad, and yes they held true,” spoke Leo, eating a spoonful of stew. “But she's not soo much the real Iris, since they are both the real Iris.”

“What do you mean?” asked Vai, leaning against the wall of the cavern as she ate her stew.

“She's somehow split off from her original self, and created a second version of her,” replied Leo. “The true version of her is held within the android, whereas the original is corrupted by this other spirit or whatever is inside her, somewhat similar to those with some types of void corruption.”

“So... there are two of her?” asked a blue-haired lalafell.

“No, more like... more that there is Iris, which is the android, and then... well... Other Iris, which is the aether vacuum.”

“So... do they share memories? What makes them different?” asked Rad, eating a few more spoonfuls of stew.

“Well, it's... imagine if...” started Leo, looking over to a male midlander meditating away from the group. “Okay, imagine Stone over there, and now imagine that you magically have two of him.”

“Oh gods! Two of Stone!?” the lalafell laughed out. “One of him is bad enough!”

“N-no, we aren't actually making two, just... pretend. So, you take the second Stone, and make him an android, and put the other in some sort of hibernation. Then the android goes on living as if nothing changed-” started Leo pausing slightly, as Vai cut in.

“Except that he's now a robot, that's a bit of a change,” spoke Vai with a chuckle.

“Well, yes, but that's not the point I'm getting to. So, android Stone thinks he's the only one, but then the original Stone wakes up and comes back. But, now the original Stone lacks all these extra experiences that Android Stone has had. They are both real, but it becomes quite subjective whom you consider to be the true version of the pair, as they both see themselves as real.”

“So, what if you made a copy of the android version?” asked the roe. “Can this true-ness follow over to the new copy?”

“Well it could but it's not a thing that can transfer from one person to-” started Leo as the midlander shuffled a bit and stood up to his feet.

“The matter isn't as complex as you make it out to be,” spoke the midlander. “The Mother has asked us to destroy these two, and return these built-up aether stores back to Hydaelyn, and that is what we are to do.”

“I have confidence that Iris will take care of the issue on her own,” spoke Leo. “No need for us to intervene when we don't ultimately need to do so.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Vai.

“Iris has a knack for getting in and out of trouble,” Leo spoke with a laugh. “Out-classed or out-matched, she'll think of something to given her the advantage...”

                                                                                                                  A soft wind blew through the Shroud, a silence falling over the otherwise lively forest. A lone figure stood within the Hanging Barbs, standing before a small stone monument formed around a thin-bladed sword, marking the site of a grave.

'It's... strange...' spoke a robotic voice inside of the figure's head.

“Hmph,” Iris chuckled. She smiled, admiring the headstone as she placed a small bundle of purple flowers before it. “What makes you say that?” she asked aloud.

'Well mostly the part that we are looking over our own grave.'

“I don't think it is,” Iris spoke again, replying to her new system voice, having been replaced by her former self. “It's a grave, but not for Iris. This... this is for Aeslyn.” Iris let out a soft sigh, touching lightly over the top of the marker. “Aeslyn... who we used to be, has passed. But, Iris, whom we truly are, is still alive and well.”

'It's a wonder the elementals even allowed the burial here.'

“Probably because of the aether held inside our old body. All that aether filtering out will help the forest to flourish, and is the closest path for the aether to return to the planet.”

'And it's Ruri's favorite place.'

“Well, yeah. That was originally why I chose to bury us... h-her in this place.” Several minutes passed and Iris stood back to her feet.

'We should head back home.'

“Definitely, I miss Ruri and Gabby.”

'It makes me happy to see that Omi was able to find some peace, finally. Seeing all of her diary logs... she had been through so much more than I ever imagined...'

“We could all use some peace, for once...” Iris giggled, touching lightly over her cheek. “So much has been happening lately that... I just want some quiet time at home, to be able to live out the rest of my life with my family in peace.”

'Hopefully that is what will happen, although trouble does seem to revolve around us wherever we go.'

“Yeah... There are times why I wonder why that is so much the case. Whatever the true cause of it all, hopefully the fates allow us some respite from... well, everything.”

'Maybe, but the only way to find out if that is the case will be to keep moving forward...'

                                                                                                                  In the end, no matter what happens, I want you to know that I'll miss you both, and Trix as well. Please give her my regards if you would. If something of me remains, please take care of me. I kind of hope I get reset back to how I entered The Net, let me have a chance at a real childhood. To everyone, all my friends. I love you all, I have to go...

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