Tag Archives: Sarah

Regret: 10.1

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New Jersey Pine Barrens:

James Toranaga had no idea. No idea at all, just how complicated his life truly was. He was the scion of what was probably the single most powerful sorcerous line to ever have existed on planet Earth. His mother was, by most common measurements, an alien. His grandfather’s involvement in world war two had been no small incentivization in the creation of the atom bomb.

James Toranaga had a complicated life. He was currently trying to get over the loss of his best friend. He was trying not to think too hard about whether or not he was in love with his other best friend. He was singularly failing in that regard more often than not. And to top it all, James Toranaga was having near enough the worst week of his life.

It may surprise, then, to note that James Toranaga was having a very good day.

He was, at this moment, suspended some forty feet above the forest floor, nestled in against the bark of a pine tree, determined not to make a sound.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” his mother called ominously from somewhere above and somewhat to the left of him. He suppressed a snicker. For having discovered she could fly all of eighteen hours ago, Sarah Toranaga had taken to her new abilities like a duck to water.

James liked to think it was because she had a very good teacher. He waited until he saw her form floating into view over the canopy, before slowly edging his way about the trunk, the better to shield himself from view.

Sarah did not notice the noise when her son’s rucksack caught on a stray branch. She did, however, notice the barrage of muffled cursing that followed.

She swiveled in the air, and after a few moments, found her prey, a predatory gleam alighting in her eye.

“Found you.”

James blinked.

“Oh crap.”

He took off. A moment later, so did she.

“Coming for ya!”

In the day to day, James really didn’t consider himself that much of a show off. He was pretty sure Casper might have something to say about that assessment, but for his part, he liked to think he kept the majority of what he could do pretty nicely under wraps, especially where the superpowers were concerned. In this moment, though, in a cordoned off training area in the literal middle of nowhere, he felt a bit less need to be discrete. It was time to show his mother just how fast he could really go.

“Snooze you lose, Mom!” And with that, like a bullet, he was off. She shouted something after him. He did not hear it. He was zooming, at first over the canopy, then up, up, towards the sky, and the sparse covering of clouds above.

He glanced back, and caught a brief glimpse of his mother trailing ever further in his wake, before he lost her against the backdrop of forest green.

He made the cloud line entirely unmolested, and with a winner’s grace, ducked casually into one of the smaller ones, trusting it to shield him from view.

In retrospect, his first mistake was getting cocky.

It was just as he was drifting upwards, aiming to conceal himself above the top of the cloud while finding somewhere new to hide when, with a sound like God clapping his hands, his particular chunk of cloud exploded. James was sent tumbling base over apex with a yelp. He righted himself, spun around to face whatever the heck that was, and was promptly prodded in the ribs by his quietly triumphant mother.

“Tag,” she said, just a little smug.

“What the heck was that?” he spluttered.

“That was tag,” his mom repeated. “You’re it.”

“… No fair,” he grumbled, his arms folding. “You cheated.”

Sarah shrugged.

“Well, I mean. My twelve year old was acting like hot shit. Had to bring you down to earth.”

James’ eye twitched.

“I. Am thirteen.”

“Oh yeah?” His mother grinned. “Prove it.”

“Oh you are on.”

What followed was, to James’ knowledge, the most exhilarating game of tag ever played by the race of man. If he and his mother actually counted as that, at least.

It ended, as all things must, when the radio buzzed at James’ hip, a voice from one of the officers at the perimeter of the training zone, warning of civilians getting close enough to risk catching sight of them. All the same, James didn’t want to drive home yet. He was bubbling; energy bursting in his veins like he’d been filled with soda pop. His mother, it seemed, was of a similar mind. She suggested going for a hike.

“You’re so lucky I had a shield up,” James grumbled playfully, some half an hour or so later. “Getting wind blasted by my own mom would be a crappy way to go.”

His mother snorted.

“It’s not luck. I saw you putting that thing up, remember? Just before we started.”

“Yeah,” he admitted with a shrug. “First thing Jiji and Baba ever taught me, honestly. Never, ever, do training without a shield up. Especially if you’re working with a newbie.”

“Oh so I’m a newbie, am I?”

“You’ve had superpowers since yesterday.”

“I’ve had superpowers for almost a year, thank you very much.”

“You have?” he asked, wrongfooted.

“Yeah,” she replied, gracing him with a sidelong look. “Ever since someone got himself stranded on an alien world with a psychic death monster.”

“… Right yeah that would be pretty stressful. Sorry, mom.”

“That’s alright.” His mother smirked. “Just don’t do it again.”

“No promises are made.”

“Sounds about right. C’mon-” she pointed to a fallen tree a few hundred feet further on. “Snack time.”

James shrugged his shoulders and ambled over with his mother to the log in question. Apple slices were had. Conversation about nothing. James was chill. Genuinely chill, for the first time in days. It was nice. Then his mother ruined it with just seven words:

“I wanted to talk about some things.”

James felt his heart sinking like a rock.

“No offence,” he muttered. “… Do we have to? I’m happy. Can I just have that?”

His mother winced.

“I think we do, yeah. Sorry.”

‘Crap.’

He sighed.

“Okay. Lay it on me. Is it a pep talk? Cuz the mood’s already ruined anyway, so.”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer that, then hesitated.

“No,” she said eventually. “This is… Something harder to talk about.”

James frowned.

“If you’re about to ask if I’m gay, I came out to Dad like a week and a half ago and I know maybe I should have started with you but-”

Sarah snickered.

“Dude I’ve known that since you were eight. It’s not that.”

James shrugged that one off as best he could. “Ok, well, what?”

Sarah looked him in the eye.

“It’s about Charlie.”

‘God dammit.’

“… Did something happen?”

“No news yet. I want to talk about how you’re dealing with it.”

“I’m handling it fine,” he replied, a touch defensive.

His mother didn’t challenge him on that. She was good at stuff like that. Letting him keep his pride.

“Better than a lot of people would,” she allowed. “Were you into him?”

“… Yeah. First big crush.”

“I figured.”

They were quiet for a while. Sarah pulled a granola bar from her bag, snapped it in half, and offered one of them to James.

“It tore you up when he left.”

James wasn’t sure what to say to that. He broke off a chunk of honey nut crunch with his teeth, refusing to look at her.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“And now he’s back, and nothing’s changed.”

James chewed, swallowed. Didn’t answer.

His mother glanced sidelong at him.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Why? I’m not the one who got mind-wiped.”

“And Charlie’s not my son,” she replied, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “He’s got his own mom to worry for him. You’re my job.”

James groaned, his shoulders slumping slightly, trying to hide inside himself.

“I’m doing fine, Mom.”

Again, she didn’t challenge him. Just sat there, waiting.

His shoulders slumped a little further.

“… It hurts.”

“I know.”

“I wanna help him.”

“Of course you do.” She sighed. “I’m not your dad. I don’t know magic like you do. I can’t give expert advice. So, let me ask you this. With all your powers. All your spells. Is there anything you can do to help?”

James groaned. He’d been wracking his brain trying to answer that for days.

“I dunno,” he muttered. “Maybe.”

“Something your dad or your grandparents couldn’t do?”

“… I could talk to him?”

“Think that’d help?”

James didn’t reply to that. He didn’t want to admit what the answer was.

His mother put her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m gonna tell you something that’s gonna make me sound like the worst person ever, yeah?”

James cocked his head a little to look at her. She gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“I think you need to let him go.”

James shuddered at that. He shrugged her hand off his arm.

“He’s fourteen. It’s not his fault.”

“I know. But he’s not your job.”

James tried to find a counter for that. It felt wrong. Sarah waited for an answer. None came. She continued:

“You know why Casper still hangs out with Father?”

James huffed.

“Cuz he’s a dumbass.”

His mother laughed.

“It’s because he’s kind.” She leaned forward in her seat, shifting her face into his field of view. He looked away. “He’s found someone he cares for. Even though it’s a really shitty, stupid idea, and everything is wrong, he still cares. And he can’t bring himself to let go. Because he can’t admit there’s nothing he can do to help.”

Well, they could agree on that, at least.

“Try telling him that,” he muttered.

“I did.” His mother sounded very tired all of a sudden. “But his problem is the same as yours. You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.”

“… Why’s that mean I have to give up?”

His mother bumped his shoulder with her fist.

“Because as long as you have hope. He can hurt you,” she said quietly. “If we save him. All of us. Then great. Job done. You can fall for his straight butt all over again. But if we fail? If we keep failing? It’ll hurt again. Every single time. Why put yourself through that, when there’s nothing you can do?”

For the first time in his entire life, James glared at his mother.

“Because he’s important.”

Sarah sighed.

“Of course he is.”

James held the glare as long as he could manage, then returned his gaze to his granola bar. He wasn’t hungry.

“I can’t… I can’t walk away. Not if I haven’t done everything I can.”

He could tell his mom was gazing at him. He could practically feel her concern drilling a hole in the back of his head.

“That’s fine,” she said eventually. “But can you promise me. When you have tried. When you do run out of options. That you’ll move on?”

James considered that as best he could. Move on. He could do that. Give up on trying to make it right. Just let it all be broken. He could do that. Maybe.

It’d stop his mom from worrying.

“… Ok.”

Previous Chapter:

Interlude: Peter

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Washington DC: In conference with the National Security Council.

In Peter Toranaga’s considered opinion, the worst thing about having to change the world was the weight of the decision. It had a shroud to it. A gravity. Almost an anxiety, if one could condescend to call it something quite so small. A keen, unbiased awareness of the impact of one’s actions.

He found, in such moments, that it was best to stay on task.

He waited while his escort keyed in the elevator code, pretending to read through the notes he had already fully memorized.

“You’re the linguist, right?”

Peter grunted an affirmative. The agent seemed unimpressed.

“How many do you speak?”

He frowned at that. Not irritated. Just perplexed.

“All of them.”

The agent might have said something further, but the door chimed open before he could. The room on the other side was bustling. Full of faces he recognized from his brief, but had never seen in person. Generals. Admirals. Politicians. It was odd, realizing he wasn’t out of place here. All heads turned to the new arrivals.

Peter reminded himself to smile.

“Good afternoon,” he murmured, pulling his ID card from his pocket by reflex and vaguely flashing it. “Peter Toranaga, Department of Metaphysical Affairs. Thank you all for coming.”

This was met with silence. Not entirely surprising. While everyone present had been briefed on DoMA’s existence to some extent, he suspected at least half of them believed him to be the remnant of some failed cold war CIA offshoot. The level of need to know varied by department. He would need to account for that. He could tell from the faces of some that they thought he was, at best, a spoon bender, and at worst a sanctioned con-man. He did his best to differentiate them out. Separate the looks of quiet contempt from those that would know better.

He continued.

“I’m here to brief you all on the state of metaphysical secrecy on a national and international level, in the hope of setting out a plan of action.” He stepped forward in the direction of one of the display screens at the far side of the room, took out a USB, and plugged it in.

“Can anyone tell me how much you already know about the state of secrecy in the modern day?”

More silence. The shuffling of a few papers. Then one of the generals spoke up. Good. The military would be some of the ones who took him seriously, he hoped. They’d had to deal with this before.

“Metaphysical secrecy is broadly unsustainable,” the man said reluctantly. “We’ve known that much since the Benson report in the nineties. The slow growth of deviation abilities in the population will gradually push the strain of maintaining secrecy towards a state of critical overflow. Left to the current system, the masquerade will collapse internationally within the next ten to fifteen years.”

Peter nodded.

“Succinct summation, General. Unfortunately, it is no longer correct.” He plucked a remote from the conference table, clicked a button, and the display screen lit up with a data spread.

“We began a follow up study a few years ago. According to the results, which I am bound to say I agree with, the tipping point will be reached within the next twelve to eighteen months, if not sooner.”

There was some consternation about the room at that. Peter let his gaze drift from face to face.

“Mobile phones,” he murmured. “The Benson report did not account for phones. Digital cameras. Near universal wi-fi access. Secrecy is a dying art.” There was a flurry of murmurs and hushed conversation as the group began to process the new information. Some looked worried, others skeptical.

After a few moments, the general raised a hand for silence.

“Your containment plan, Mr. Toranaga?”

Peter took a breath.

“Sir… We can’t contain this. It’s too late. We would have to demolish individual freedoms of information beyond the level even the big brother nations are capable of. Our only option is to get out in front of it.” He paused, letting his words sink in. The room was quiet, the only sound the hum of the projector and the shuffling of papers.

“To my mind, our best course of action is a controlled release of information. We need to choose the time, the place, and the manner in which the public learns about the metaphysical. If we do that, we can minimize the fallout, and prevent panic.”

He clicked the remote again, and the display screen flicked over to a low resolution image of a smiling elderly couple. Peter gestured at the woman on the screen.

“A dream walker in Smolensk had a stroke last week. The brain damage short circuited her abilities, and she severely traumatized seventeen people in her apartment complex before she died. Two of them are comatose, including her husband, who was sleeping next to her.”

He clicked again. A smiling eight year old with a gap in his front teeth.

“A boy in New York manifested his latent biokinetic abilities during the incident last year. His panic attack induced stage four liver cancer in the agent who retrieved him. She is still recovering.”

He clicked again. A grainy frame of security footage showing a colossal tiger, formed of bark sheathed wood, its jaws clamped around a young boy’s leg.

 “Last month, one of my own agents encountered a berserk forest spirit in a nature reserve in Oregon. It attempted to eat two children at a local movie theater.”

A sharp intake of breath around the room.

“Did they survive?”

Peter smiled. He couldn’t help the note of pride that snuck into his voice.

“One of them was my son. They were fine.” He cleared his throat. “The point is that these events are happening more and more frequently, and every single one of them has the potential to be an absolute clusterfuck. Do we want this-” he gestured at the screen, the wooden tiger still halfway through biting down on his child’s foot.  “-to be how the world finds out?” This was it, Peter knew. The big moment. They all agreed, right? They couldn’t not agree. The problem would be getting them to act. Who wanted to be the person to bring magical secrecy crashing down? It would be career ending. The silence stretched further. They were quiet, all searching, he knew, for a way out, just as he had.

An older woman broke the silence first. “What would a controlled release look like, Mr. Toranaga? How do we ensure the public is ready for something like this?”

Peter hesitated.

“Unfortunately, Ma’am, I don’t think they are ready. I do not think they ever will be. But we can make it seem normal. Moreso than the random catastrophes that would break the news otherwise. If we handle this right, we can make it a novelty that sometimes gets out of hand. A few decently powerful metaphysicals get spots on talk shows. Maybe a couple teenagers suddenly get popular on twitter. If we handle it wrong…” he shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

“Don’t you think you’re being condescending?” asked one of the agent-types. “The public can handle a spoon bender or two.” Peter simply looked at him.

Right. They had no sense of scale. So much for tact, he supposed.

“I left something in my office,” he said flatly. “I’ll be right back.”

The man began to reply. Peter vanished with a quiet pop.

For a moment, the assembled figures all just sat there, glancing blankly at one another.

“Isn’t his office in Manhatt-”

When Peter reappeared, he was aiming a handgun at the agent’s face. The man flinched. He wasn’t the only one.

Peter’s escort swore, unholstering his own sidearm and firing a pair of shots directly into the back of his head.

Peter didn’t even react.

“The president of the United States is currently in the Oval office, a few floors above us,” he murmured. “I could kill him. Right now. Extremely easily.”

He lowered the gun, pulled out the magazine, and removed the chambered round.

“Honestly I wouldn’t even need this.”

He held the handgun flat in his palm. It began to melt.

“We’re not talking about spoon benders, here. We’re talking about people like me.”

New York: Toranaga Residence.

Peter Toranaga had never been quite so tired as he was when he trudged into his kitchen at one in the morning, looking for something to eat. He tugged open the fridge door and stared inside with unseeing eyes.

“Check the microwave,” came a voice from the dining room. “Casper made honey-chicken skewers.”

Peter stopped. Turned his head ninety degrees to peer through the gloom. Spotted his wife at the dinner table, picked out by the faint glow of her laptop screen.

“Didn’t see you there.”

Sarah smiled.

“Christ. You must be wiped.”

He closed the fridge back up on autopilot, started up the microwave, and leaned himself against the kitchen counter.

He did not close his eyes. He doubted he would have been able to open them again.

“You’re up late.”

Sarah shrugged.

“Solidarity.” She hummed. “That, and I had papers to grade.” She leaned back a little in her seat, gazing at him. “How’d it go?”

He tried to bully himself into remembering anything about his day, then groaned.

“About as well as you’d expect.”

“So, nothing.”

He shook his head.

“They’re too chickenshit.”

His wife swore quietly, then set her computer to the side.

“What did they say?”

“They’re taking it to a higher authority,” he muttered. “Saying it’s an international issue. Gotta bring it to the President. The U.N. Make sure Russia and China are on board. All that spice.”

The microwave beeped. He extracted his chicken sticks, and mooched across to the dining room to join her.

Sarah was considering, her lips pursed.

“I mean, they’re not wrong,” she pointed out. “Magical secrecy can’t break in just one country. It’s all or nothing. This is absolutely an international thing.”

Peter groaned, halfway through burning his mouth on a bite of chicken.

“I know,” he muttered. “Question is how long it’s gonna take. We have a year and a half, at best. How much of that time are we about to lose co-ordinating this internationally?”

Sarah sighed.

“You’ve done your part, love,” she murmured. “The rest isn’t up to you.”

He ate one of his skewers in silence, trying to internalize that fact. She wasn’t wrong.

“… It’s going to be a fucking disaster.”

Sarah sighed, and lay a hand on her husband’s arm. She knew her man. No reassurances would help here. He didn’t need that. Better to distract him with a problem they could solve.

“I flew this morning.”

Peter chewed slowly, recalibrating.

“Flew as in-”

“Like James, yes. I think so, at least. Tripped over that pot plant in my office. Didn’t quite manage to hit the ground the way I should have. Just kinda hung there.”

“Right,” Peter murmured. “… Well. I guess that answers one thing. You’re definitely where James gets it from.”

Sarah half-smiled.

“Your dad flies too, you know.”

“Not when he’s human, he doesn’t.”

Peter sat back in his chair, his half-eaten chicken sticks forgotten on his plate, and directed his gaze at the dining room wall.

“We can get you booked in sometime next week, I think. One or two sessions. Just like last time with your shockwaves, figuring out how it works and how to hide it when you’re in-”

“I don’t think I want that this time,” she replied, her voice quiet.

Peter would have blinked, had he the energy.

“Oh?”

“I think I’ll ask James to teach me.”

Peter actually did blink at that. And here he’d been thinking Sarah would refuse her magic until the day the sun went out.

“Why the sudden turn around?” he asked.

Sarah shrugged.

“You’ve seen how James is taking Charlie. Kid’s been practically dissociating since Friday. This could be nice. A distraction, you know? Something just me and him.”

Peter considered that a long moment, then chuckled.

“So that’s all it took, huh? Find a way to make your magic the positive parental move?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Why not? Did your parents ever try that?”

Peter winced.

“Why is it that you hold more of a grudge on that than I do?”

“It’s called love, dear. You might have heard of it.”

They both glanced toward the stairs at the sound of a door opening and closing, the conversation dying in its tracks on the offchance that any of their cohabitants overhear it. A few moments later, James appeared, headphones clamped on over his hoodie, Rise Against blaring loudly in his ears, looking like death warmed up.

He didn’t notice them, simply mooching through the dark in the direction of the kitchen, fumbling in the cupboard for a few seconds, and slouching his way back towards the stairs, pausing only to grab a spoon from the pull out drawer on his way by.

“… Did that bitch just steal the peanut butter?” Sarah asked quietly.

Peter chuckled. “We have raised a criminal.”

They didn’t resume their earlier conversation. Either conversation. Peter trusted his wife, and regardless, he was too burned out to think. He took a final bite of chicken skewer, and followed her to bed.

In retrospect, Peter had to reconsider his earlier perspective. The worst thing about needing to change the world wasn’t the weight of it. No. The worst thing was when you failed.

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Hunt: 8.1

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Casper:

Casper Sullivan set the guitar on his lap and strummed a chord.

He winced. It was badly out of tune. No surprise, really. He hadn’t played it in, what? Eight months? Nine? He twisted a few of the keys, strummed again, twisted some more.

Better.

He started playing, plucking the bass-line to an old favorite from memory, trying not to think.

It felt weird being back in his old house; off-axis, sitting on a bed he hadn’t touched in almost a year, trying to ignore the thin coating of dust that lay over everything he owned. Used to own.

Why did none of it feel like his?

He kept playing. He’d been good at the guitar. Still was, apparently.

It didn’t take up much of his attention.

He cast a glance back toward the cardboard box beside the door, then once more looked about the room.

What was he supposed to want from here? The bookshelf full of stories he had half-memorized?  The trading cards he’d long-since replaced? The action figures once played with by a younger, happier kid?

None of it meant anything to him anymore.

He wasn’t even mad. It just felt weird.

He stopped the song midway, and let himself fall back against the bed, gazing at the ceiling.

‘Oh yeah. I remember putting up those stickers. Mom got so mad.’

He felt his lips crawling toward a smile, and put a stop to it. She wasn’t worth a smile.

The divorce had been finalized that morning. Splitting everything down the middle. It turned out that meant selling off the house.

It was kinda fitting that this would never be his room again.

Leave it to the kid who used to hide his bruises.

He snickered at himself.

‘I should learn to play some emo rock.’

The door creaked open an inch or so.

“Need something?” he asked.

“Just checking in,” Sarah murmured from outside. “I heard the guitar. You’re pretty good with that thing.”

He smiled.

“Thanks.”

A brief pause, then:

“Your dad’s here.”

Casper closed his eyes.

“I thought he was coming later on.”

“He was.” She hesitated for a moment. “He says he has something for you.”

He sighed.

“Great. Even more crap I don’t want.”

Sarah didn’t chide him for the jab. He was glad of that. She understood, on a level. She opened the door a little further, gazing at him through the crack.

“Want me to make him leave?”

“It’s fine.”

“Got everything you want to take?”

“Just this,” he gestured to the guitar. “Everything else feels weird-” he stopped himself as a thought occurred. “Hang on.”

He pushed himself off the bed, then crawled underneath it.

He could feel Sarah watching him from the doorway while he searched, but she said nothing. A minute or so later, he clambered back out, a moth eaten stuffy clutched in one hand.

It was an old thing, slightly tattered; one of its button eyes torn out whoever knew how long ago.

“Think Bex’d mind looking after Mr. Bearford?” he asked, his cheeks a little red. “I owe him a better home.”

A smile.

“She’s Bex. She won’t say no.”

Casper chuckled.

“Yeah. She’s cool like that.” He proffered the stuffy, and Sarah took it. Then, he hefted his guitar and slung it awkwardly against his back.

“Want me to stay up here?” Sarah asked as he stepped past her. “I’m here if you need it.”

“It’s fine,” he murmured. “It’s just dad.”

In spite of the words, he found himself hesitating at the top of the stairs.

It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger, either. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to feel anything at all for the old man lately. Just a dull, depressive kind of ache. Every time they spoke, he came away tired.

He took a deep breath, and stepped on down the staircase. Ray was standing by the door with a plastic wrapped box under one arm.

There was something strange about seeing his dad here now; his broad frame a size too large for the confines of the hallway. Once, he’d been imposing. Now, he just seemed big.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hi, Casper.”

“Finally split up with Mom, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Casper opened his mouth to say something snide, but the words didn’t come. He didn’t know what to say.

“Feels weird being back, you know?” he murmured instead, gesturing at the house around them. “I don’t think I like the kid who used to live here.”

His father smiled. “I liked him.”

“You had a funny way of showing it,” came the reply before Casper could think to stop it. He winced. So did Ray. He hadn’t meant it as a jab.

Ray started to apologize. Casper cut him off.

“Why are you here, dad?” he asked. “I didn’t want to see you yet.”

Another apology. Casper didn’t acknowledge it. A moment’s quiet, then his father proffered the box from under his arm.

“Wanted to give you this,” Ray said. “And to say sorry. I feel like I’m doing that a lot today.”

“What for this time?” Casper asked, one eyebrow raised, not approaching to take the box.

The man shrugged.

“You said there’d be no point to coming home if there wasn’t a home to come back to. Then I went and broke it.”

In spite of himself, Casper snickered.

“Splitting up with Mom doesn’t make it broken. Hell, it might be part of how we fix it.”

His father frowned at that, the arm with the box lowering back down. A slight shake of the head.

“Why do you hate her so much?”

Casper leaned against the wall, arms folded, careful not to bump his guitar.

“You still care?” he asked.

“Of course I care,” Ray replied, almost offended. “She’s my wife.” A touch of regret, then he corrected. “Was my wife.”

More uncomfortable quiet.

“She wasn’t the one who hurt you, Casper. I was. Why won’t you let her see you?”

Casper gazed at the ground, his fingers tapping against his arms. It made him angry.

“I’m not that petty, Dad,” he answered eventually. “I get why you hurt me. I get why she wanted you to do it. There’s a big world out there, and if I didn’t have my powers, it’d probably already have stamped me flat. I get why you did it. I might even be able to forgive you for it one day.” He looked up to meet his father’s gaze. “But she lied.”

“But I lied-” Ray began. Casper cut him off.

“It’s not the same,” he said flatly. “You lied by acting like a psycho. Made me think you just went crazy on your family. I thought you were bipolar or something, I dunno. But Mom let me think she was on my side. I hate that.”

Ray didn’t answer that. He spent a dozen or so seconds just gazing at his son, then huffed a breath, and set the box down carefully on the hall table.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he said tiredly. “Thanks for hearing me out.”

Casper rolled his eyes. “If there’s something you wanna say, say it.”

“Nope,” Ray replied, a small smile on his lips. “I know that look in your eye. Anything I said right now would just sound like I’m defending her. That’s not a trap I’m stepping in today.”

Casper snorted. 

“Would you be defending her, though?” he asked.

“Course I would,” Ray answered. “I owe her that much.” He gave his son another smile, then turned towards the door, tapping the box on the way out. “Enjoy your present. I’m sorry I couldn’t bribe you with it like I promised.”

Casper had just enough time to raise an eyebrow at that, before his father was gone. He approached the box and lifted a corner of the plastic.

Huh.

It was a playstation.

He wrapped it back up again.

Now he felt bad. Great.

“You doing okay?” asked Sarah from the stairs.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah. I’m fine.” He shook his head, and heaved a sigh. “Think James is doing okay?”

James:

James was reading romance stories with his headphones on when the car finally crossed the storm front. With the music playing and his eyes on the phone screen, he struggled to spot the difference. Then, his travel companion prodded him in the shoulder, and his soothing lo-fi was disrupted by one of his headphones being pulled to the side.

“Look alive, Kid. We’ve hit the hot spot.”

James scowled. He still hadn’t forgiven agent Finch for the basketball thing. But, he peeled his eyes from the screen all the same. He looked out the window. Sure enough, it was raining outside. According to the data he’d been given, it had been doing nothing else here for almost a month; a thirty-mile bubble of stormclouds that refused to move or let up with the constant downpour; all centred on some outpost town in Oregon.

It was the perfect test-run for him. A mid-scale magical event, big enough to cause some harm if no-one intervened, but small and isolated enough that it probably wouldn’t make the news if he screwed it up. What was one more crazy cabin guy who said he saw a teenager do magic? Not that it mattered. James didn’t plan on being sloppy.

He gazed out at the deluge, watching how the drops spattered in the vast puddles they’d formed among the treeline. He’d never realized a forest could have a flood.

“You said they had a witness after we set off,” he said. “Any chance I’ll get to talk to him?”

Finch shrugged.

“Not directly,” he replied. “You’ll be in the observation room while I talk to him. You can ask your questions through me, if I think they’re appropriate. There’s no way we can spin a kid working for the feds.”

James nodded at that. It seemed fair enough. He went back to staring out the window.

For ten minutes, neither spoke. He reached up to tug his headphones back into place.

“Wait up,” Finch murmured. “Before you go back to your yaoi fanfic or whatever, I want to know what you plan to do when we get there.”

“… It’s not yaoi,” James muttered, his face reddening.

“Don’t lie to me.” Finch chuckled. “I’ve been looking at the chapter titles.”

‘I hate you so much.’

Cheeks burning, James leaned towards the glove compartment, and fumbled for the fold-out map.

“Okay, fine,” he huffed. “So, my first thing is I want to deal with the lake.” He pointed at the blue blob circling around the town’s north-eastern perimeter. “If it takes on much more water, half the town’s gonna flood. So I figure if I go to the far side, back where it joins up with the nature reserve, I can dig a trench and start diverting the water into this river over here.” He trailed his finger along the map in demonstration. 

Finch grunted, quietly impressed.

“Smart move. What made you think of it?”

“Minecraft.” James shrugged. “After that, I wanna talk to this witness guy before I put a plan down.”

Finch inclined his head. 

“Okay. We can go with that.”

James nodded. Then, after a brief wait in case Finch planned to interrupt again, he went back to his story. He’d been up to chapter three.

Chapter Three: The Hawk and the Silvermane.

Ceros Firewind had known of the Silvermanes for most of his life. They were difficult to avoid, growing up in the outskirts of Mymaeria. They were the protectors of the wall, and among the gallant few who dared ride through the unfound lands. For Ceros, however, it was different. Their young lord, Astra of the platinum hand, had once been his closest friend.

Ceros had not seen him since they were boys, and in that one moment, it was clear just how time had changed him. 

The piercing blue of Astra’s eyes never used to hold such pain-

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Book One Epilogue: Elementals.

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Hideyoshi:

The house was nearly empty when Hideyoshi saw his grandson home. There were no words spoken. James hadn’t talked since their return to this dimension. Hideyoshi found a pain in his stomach every time he looked at the boy. Three hours since watching Charlie flee, and still, he shook like a leaf.

Upon being allowed inside, James made a b-line for his room, and shut the door quietly behind him, not even stopping to give his mother a hug on passing the TV room.

Hideyoshi did his best to pretend he couldn’t hear the sobs.

For his part, the evening held another heavy task. He returned to the TV room, grasped one of the loose-backed chairs that accompanied the couch, and hobbled across the floor with it until it sat opposite his daughter in law. Then, he set his walking cane down.

He sat. Neither of them spoke.

Sarah looked about as drained as Hideyoshi felt. He sighed.

“… It was the most terrifying moment of my life,” he murmured, putting his hands together and resting his chin on his knuckles. “The first time my son got himself in over his head. I think it honestly made my heart stop beating.”

It took a moment for Sarah to respond to that, still just gazing into the distance, barely aware.

“I’m still waiting for it to start again,” she said eventually, her tone surprisingly calm. “…How’d you handle it?”

Hideyoshi chuckled.

“Poorly,” he admitted. “Roped Peter into five hours combat training a day. Planted a tracking spell on his wallet. Usual parenting.” He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved his cigarettes. “I’d ask if I’m allowed to smoke in here, but I’d have to ignore you if you said no.” He flicked the pack open, and pulled one out.

“I could use one of those, if you have a spare,” Sarah murmured.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

She shrugged.

“Stopped when I met Peter. Didn’t want my breath smelling like pot-ash.”

Hideyoshi grunted, then tossed her the cigarette, and pulled another for himself. A flick of his finger, and the tips of both lit up.

He brought it to his lips, held the smoke in his lungs for a moment, then let it out in a slow exhalation.

“So,” he murmured. “I came here as a newborn.” Sarah glanced across at him, mid-drag, one eyebrow raised in tired curiosity. He shrugged. “The story I was told was that the lord of my household met a stranded forge-spirit in the woods, and in exchange for the aid needed to return it home, was given the spirit’s newborn child as a prize.”

He took another drag, the statement hanging in the air between them for a moment. Sarah’s gaze returned to the wall.

He sniffed.

“I can never know for sure if that’s true, of course. They could have told me any story to keep me happy while I grew, but it’s the truth I choose to believe.”

Sarah grunted. Hideyoshi huffed. Neither spoke again until the cigarettes were done. He supplied them each a fresh one. Lit. Inhaled. Exhaled.

“… So what’s your story then?” he asked. “How’d you get here?”

For what it was worth, Sarah didn’t bother feigning ignorance. Perhaps she was just too tired. She took another pull, her fingers slightly shaky, then let out a sigh.

“I was born here,” she muttered. He raised an eyebrow, but she continued. “My parents weren’t. Of course they weren’t. I think they were hunters or itinerants or some other damned important thing. They always left the room to talk about it. All I really know is we moved around a lot. Spent most of my time alone, eating mac-n-cheese in crappy old motels for weeks at a time. Then, they’d come back all bloodied and we’d be off to find the next motel.” She shrugged. “That was life for a while.”

Hideyoshi nodded.

“There weren’t any others like you?”

Sarah shook her head. “Of course there were. My parents didn’t live here. My parents didn’t come from here. I went home with them once or twice. It never lasted long.”

“Why not?”

Another shrug.

“Because I couldn’t survive there,” she replied. “Born on Earth, after all. My powers were blocked off by all that Elvish spellcraft shit.” She let out a dry laugh. “I was the only child who couldn’t fly in a village built without the concept of restrictive gravity. The door to my house was a good two hundred feet above the ground.”

“So they took you with them?” Hideyoshi asked. “Left you half abandoned while they went to fight with monsters? Why?”

Sarah snorted.

“I don’t think they had any other idea of what to do with me.” She finished off her smoke and gestured to her companion for another. “But, the trips got longer and longer, and I got bigger, and louder, and one day, there was a knock on the door from someone at social services.” She caught the new cigarette, waited for it to light, and took a puff. “I was about six, as far as the examiners could tell. It wasn’t like I spoke coherent English.”

“What did you speak?”

She shrugged.

“As far as I can tell, a mix of my people’s language and whatever I’d managed to pick up off TV.” she chuckled. “I used to watch a lot of Jerry Springer.”

Another long quiet.

“So. What are you?”

She laughed.

“I figured you’d be able to answer that one day. So much for that, I guess.” She took another puff, then raised an arm to her face, rubbing at her cheek with the base of her palm. “How’d you find out? I haven’t told anyone about it in decades.”

Hideyoshi gazed at the wall to Sarah’s left for a time, thinking on the strangeness of his life, then gave his answer.

“It’s James,” he admitted. “He’s powerful. Too powerful. Stronger than his dad. Stronger than his grandmother. That shouldn’t be possible with a baseline human for a mother.”

Sarah nodded.

“Is he stronger than you?”

He shrugged.

“I couldn’t tell you. I hope so.” For a moment, the two of them shared a smile. Then, Hideyoshi sighed. “That boy is a loss to the gene pool.”

“What?”

Another shrug.

“He’s gay,” he muttered. “Line ends with him, unless his sister has something to say about it.”

Of all the responses, Sarah simply chuckled there.

“Called it.”

Hideyoshi snickered.

Sarah stared at the glowing bud of her smoke for a bit, then sniffed.

“Foster care was good to me,” she said. “It feels so rare that you get to hear those words, but it was. You’ve met my family. You know how kind they are.”

“Good people,” Hideyoshi agreed.

Sarah smiled, still gazing at her hands, the cigarette threaded between her fingers.

“They were so patient with me. Taught me English. Taught me maths. Homeschooled, right up till I was ten, just so I could get into classes without having to miss a beat. And every time I told them about what it was like before, they’d just smile and nod, and tell me I should write a story.” She shook her head. “Talked to a therapist about it once or twice. Gave me some bullshit about invented memory. I almost believed it.”

“Does Peter know?”

Sarah shrugged.

“Most of it. He knows my parents had powers, knows I got put in foster care. Never told him where I was from. Didn’t seem important anymore.”

“How so?”

“Hard to say,” Sarah admitted, taking another drag as she thought it over. “I used to think it was everything. Spent my whole childhood thinking about where I was from. Wanted to find it. Wanted to walk up to my parents and rip them both a new one. I had a whole speech prepared. Spent ages learning about redwood reserves and old forests. Looking for a place with trees tall enough,” she shrugged. “Couldn’t find it, obviously. Not like it was anywhere on Earth.”

She paused for a moment, waiting for Hideyoshi to pass comment. He did not, so she continued.

“I stopped trying after a while. It was making my newer, better parents worry about me. So I put it on hold. Waited until highschool was done. Saved some money, took a gap year.”

“That’s when you met Peter.” Hideyoshi nodded.

“That’s when I found Peter,” she corrected. “I told my folks I wanted to explore. But really, I was looking. I’d given up on finding where I came from. Now, I wanted to know about magic. I wanted to know why they could fly, if I couldn’t.” She snickered. “Magic’s a badly kept secret. We both know that. I started just doing internet searches. Forums. Message boards. Whole bunch of stuff. Looking for people who said they’d seen things, or survived encounters or whatever. Went out to meet them, if I could.”

She caught the look he was giving her at that, and shrugged. “I had pepper spray. Most of it was nothing. People telling each other stories or old guys looking for Bigfoot. But a couple names kept turning up. People saying they got rescued, talking about conspiracies and area 51: Toranaga.”

She chuckled.

“When I finally tracked Peter down, I thought he was part of M-K-Ultra.”

Hideyoshi remembered that. His son had been staying at a youth hostel on a solo hunt.

“What did you say?”

Sarah shrugged.

“We were young. I got him drunk. I wanted to learn about my magic. He wanted to bone. We compromised.”

Hideyoshi snorted in spite of himself.

“Christ,” he murmured, raising a hand to his forehead. “I taught the kid so much better than that.”

“No you didn’t,” Sarah smiled. “I was a pretty girl, and he was happy to show off. I knew everything I wanted in the first week or two. Told me he was a hunter. Told me what he could do.”

She took a drag of her dying cigarette, then continued.

“And he told me about his parents. That’s when I figured out I had to let it go.”

“Oh?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“It was the same story,” she said. “His parents were mages. They loved the work. They ran their kid through hell and back because hunting had to come first.” She looked him in the eye, then, her expression cold. “Magic damages people, Hideyoshi. Always has. I decided I’d have no part of it. I’d rather be a good person than figure out how to fly.”

Hideyoshi sighed. She thought he was a bad person. He wished he could be offended.

“Peter’s good,” he said eventually. “Tsuru and myself, I’ll grant you. But my son’s a good man.”

Sarah inclined her head.

“Call him an edge case. You didn’t screw him up as badly as you could have done. But we’ve both seen Casper. We know the kind of shit that parents like you can pull.” Hideyoshi winced, but she wasn’t done. “And now you have your sights on my son.”

“… The boy’s important, Sarah. You know he is.”

“We can agree on that.” Sarah nodded. “And if you ever manage to hurt him the way you’ve hurt the rest of your family, I’ll-” she cut herself off with a huff. “Ugh. I don’t know how to end that sentence.”

Hideyoshi hesitated.

“I never knew you hated us,” he murmured.

“I don’t,” she answered. “But you are broken. You always have been.” The two of them sat in silence for a moment while she finished off her cigarette. She dropped the stub in an empty coffee cup and sighed. “Get out of my house.”

Hideyoshi stood, took his stick, and calmly walked away. He climbed the stairs to the door of James’ room before he left.

Again, he tried to ignore the sobs.

“If you don’t want to lose people like that again,” he murmured. “You’ll need to be stronger. Training starts tomorrow.”

James:

James cried. Huddled under the covers of his bed. He cried.

Tomorrow, he would train. He would grow. He wouldn’t let this happen again.

For now, though, he cried.

Sometimes, that is all we have.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE:

And finally, we reach the end of book one. Woot! *Toots a small horn.*

This has been a big project and I’m kinda super proud of how far I’ve managed to get. Thank you to everyone who has helped me get this far. Book two will begin soon, although there may be a short hiatus (a week or two, maybe.) to allow me to go over some of the prior chapters and make some edits.

All that said. It’s the end of an arc, so BONUS CHAPTER VOTES!

Ok. Later!

Interlude: Waves.

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Sarah:

Sarah Toranaga sat quietly on the couch beside her husband, letting the words and actions flow all around her. A part of her couldn’t think. Another part refused to stop. She was pleading; a low, desperate chant playing over and over inside a mother’s brain.

Not again, she begged. Please, God. Please don’t hurt my son again.

“How did it happen?” Peter asked quietly beside her, his tone less one of rage and more a cold, tired kind of dread. “How did you lose him? He’s my son, Dad. How do you lose a twelve year old boy?”

Hideyoshi’s head was in his hands, the words coming out a little muffled.

“It was a dynamic situation, Peter,” said the older man, his voice a dull monotone. “We told him to stay out of it, but he threw himself in anyway. We didn’t have time to pull him back.” He shook his head. “Binyamin was the only one who had eyes on him when it happened.”

“And he lost him?” Peter asked, incredulous. “Who the hell would even let him out of sigh-”

“James tried to go after the teleporter I was fighting before he could make off with Charlie,” Hideyoshi droned. “The man had an enchanted gun. Binyamin was too busy bending the bullet away from the kid to stop him going through the portal.” He sighed.

“By the time we got there, the thing was already closed. Jacqueline traced it back to an island in Bermuda. Apparently there’s a bridge-scar there leading off-world. She’s already gathering the energy to open it back up. Then we’ll follow them through.”

“Bermuda,” Peter whispered. “They’re with the Whale?”

Sarah’s heart went dead inside her chest. Peter gave her hand a squeeze.

Hideyoshi nodded.

“Looks like it,” he murmured. “…I’m sorry, Peter.”

There was a hollow sounding thud as Peter struck him.

“Don’t you dare,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare be sorry. Being sorry right now means you’ve given up on my son. You can be sorry when we’ve got him back. Until then, we’ve got a job to do.”

After less than a second’s hesitation. Hideyoshi nodded. The pair began to plan.

Sarah wasn’t listening. There was nothing she could add to this. No power, no skills, no history of tactical acumen. She was a sideliner; a supporting role, the one who stayed at home and cared while someone else went out to do the fighting.

And now James was lost. And there was nothing she could do. She hated it.

Peter gave her hand another squeeze. She pulled it from his grip.

The men glanced across at her as she stood. She didn’t look at them.

As she walked towards the hall, she spoke the one thought that she could truly put to words:

“You will not be part of this family until I see my son again,” she said quietly. “However long that takes.”

A momentary quiet, then Hideyoshi inclined his head.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”

The words didn’t help. She left.

She needed to be somewhere quiet. A place where she could rage or yell or throw things. A place where she wasn’t useless.

A place like that didn’t exist right now.

She moved downstairs into the basement. A part of her, a big part, had wanted to go and find her daughter; hold Rebeccah in her arms and remind herself that something, anything she cared about was truly safe. But no. Bex was in her room. She didn’t know about this. She didn’t need to know about this. To see her mother in such pain would only serve to frighten her. Sarah wasn’t about to put that weight on her.

There was a mattress in the basement; a broad futon resting over the frame of a fold-out couch. She made her way to it without bothering to turn on the lights. She tripped on something in the dark. It gave her an excuse to punch the floor.

She found the futon and sat herself upon it.

It was dark here; open and empty; a void with only the distant thrumming of the boiler to remind her she had weight.

She could yell here, just like she wanted. Peter knew better than to bother her. She could shout, rage, tear things and scream until it somehow made James safe again.

Sarah put her head in her hands, and began to cry.

“Just let him be alive,” she begged of no one. “That’s all I need, okay? Just let him be alive so I can hold him again.”

The darkness didn’t answer.

There was an image that had hovered in the back of Sarah’s mind for months, waiting to torment her when everything was calm; the memory of James in his hospital bed, his eyes full of fear and hurt.

The image that came for her now was so much worse. The image of her boy with nothing in his eyes at all. Cold.

Please no.

She clutched her head.

Don’t show me that.

The image came through again, clearer now. The warmth of her child’s skin cooled to coagulated wax. She screwed her eyes shut.

“Stop it.”

The pinkish brown of his cheeks becoming a chalky not-quite-white.

She gagged.

The air felt heavy on her shoulders. A room full. A house full. The vastness of the atmosphere above.

It felt like it was crushing her.

She needed it to move.

She pushed.

Something in the frame beneath her snapped, sturdy pine giving way like a toothpick under stress.

Not enough. She pushed again.

Something rippled out of her through the shadows. She could hear a distant cabinet tearing itself apart.

“Not this,” she moaned. “Not now.”

Somewhere on the landing above, the door clicked closed. There was someone in here with her.

“Leave me alone,” she mumbled.

“Manifesting, huh?” Casper’s voice murmured back. “It’s pretty intense, right?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Just get out. Please?”

A moment’s quiet. Then the sound of something coming to rest against the staircase.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Casper murmured quietly. “You know that, right?”

Sarah took a long, shaky breath, and pulled her hands from her head, resting her chin against her fists.

“What makes you so sure about that?” she asked. “How do you know he’s even still alive?”

Casper chuckled.

“Cuz I hang out with one of the most dangerous dudes on the planet. A guy so dangerous and crazy that he can molest little kids in the middle of New York without anyone trying to stop him.” Casper hesitated there for just for a moment before continuing:

“But a couple days ago, James punched him through a concrete wall. Just for being a creep. That’s how powerful your son is. Trust me. When Peter or Hideyoshi or whoever else you send gets through there, all they’re gonna find is James and Charlie sitting on a beach somewhere, along with a bunch of beat up bad guys.”

Sarah snorted in spite of herself at that.

“Oh, Casper,” she murmured. “I wish that helped.”

Charlie:

The boy was broken. Shattered was the better word, really; his mind fractured into a thousand smaller segments, each of them firing stress neurons and pulses of randomly selected memory across the surface of his brain, none of it really managing to connect.

His eyes were open; currently beyond the reaches of his faculties, or even his own comprehension of muscle control. Some disconnected part of him vaguely registered a star-scape up above, but there wasn’t an emotion to attach it to, so it held as little meaning as the memories.

Whatever small, infantile fragment of the boy there was that was still trying vainly to collect himself, clawing half-heartedly at the forgotten remnants of a being he could only guess at, was aware that the thing which broke him had been vast. So much so that even the faint memory of it sent tingles of something not-quite-pain shooting down his side.

He was tired. So very tired. But he had forgotten how to sleep.

That was when the thing beneath the water found him.

Its presence was subtle, at first, like the tide; a gentle ebb and flow of water slowly building around the splintered fragments of his mind. A broken window in a puddle. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but for how it eased the screaming in his soul. It grew quiet. He could hear himself think again.

Who am I?

The presence had no answer for him. Rather, if it had an answer, it wasn’t something he could presently understand. The response it gave was low and deep, like a thrumming just beyond his hearing.

The boy who had once been Charlie did his best to shrug. The answer didn’t matter anyway. At least the world was quiet now.

Around the many pieces of himself, the water began to flow, like a trickling at the bottom of a bathtub; a single shard of glass drifting lightly in the current. He watched it move inside himself; idly curious. Was that shard the price he had to pay for the absence of the pain? He accepted that. It wasn’t as if the piece had any value.

The trickle bore his fragment on, winding through the wreckage of his psyche, before apparently reaching its destination. His shard slid up alongside another; this one bigger; its edges jagged and wrong. The fragment found a place where its edges aligned with the other, and without a sound, it slotted into place.

It was like a lightning strike had smacked into his brain.

His eyes were open. Right. Of course. How had he not noticed that before? There were stars above him; thousands of them.

He didn’t have much of an opinion on that yet. For all that this newfound shard had given him perception, he still had no idea where lay any of his thoughts. What was he supposed to think of stars?

The water moved again, the trickle shifting to another tiny portion of himself, and slowly pushing it into place within his mind. The boy wasn’t bothered. The water could do what it wanted so long as it stilled the pain.

There was a certain comfort to be found in being numb.

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