This was an idea for a TAU fic I had while away on vacation, and seeing as it hasn't seen it done before, get ready for one heck of a ride! (if I can keep this monster from walking all over me)
Feel free to ask questions! I'm hoping this'll be a bit of a mystery, so I'll probably avoid any that are too direct, but I have the main plot down and am fleshing out details now!
Note: you may want to check me out on tumblr (username there is mabel-but-slytherin) for hints to solving the code if you're stuck.
The small ferry bobbed its way through the blue-green waters, filled to the brim (and likely beyond safety capacity) with its hourly load of tourists. However, none of the passengers seemed concerned at the pointed lack of orange floatation devices hanging overhead as they laughed and chatted amongst themselves, and the few who noticed just laughed aloud and treated the barebones stiff foam as if they were among the funnier exhibits they would see.
Marine safety tended to be waved off that way within the Bermuda Triangle.
Although they technically weren't within the Bermuda Triangle, the twelve-year-old boy cramped into the fifteenth row in by the window of the bottom deck would all too willingly point out to anyone who stated the misinformation near him. Buoyancy Floats, despite thriving off of the attention and visitors it receives as the center of the supernatural energy of the Bermuda Triangle, actually only makes up a box due northeast of the island of Bermuda, crowning the mythical place but not actually touching for obvious safety reasons. No reason to add more fuel to an already nearly inhabitable fire of supernatural happenstance that's been brewing ever since before the Transcendence.
The tween had no need to fear scaring off folks by coming across as a smart-aleck, however, for no one was talking to the young boy with his nose in a book of myths about the famous landmark (it was an absolutely fascinating read, even though he found it more terrifying given that he was currently making way to the destination, discussing peaks in accident frequencies both pre and post Transcendence within the Triangle). In fact, he and the young girl next to him were probably the only two passengers on the ship not partaking in conversation, as she channeled all of her focus and magic into her imbuing.
A few nearby passengers had raised eyebrows at the hobby, after all, the magical craft of pouring energy to create or empower small trinkets had the potential to be dangerous, and anyone could be a deceptively talented child prodigy. But the crew hadn't even blinked an eye as she carried a beginner's rune sheet onboard, even as the teen checking tickets on the pier knocked the boy's cap into the ocean, laughing that he'll need to take the dork hat off for the snorkeling anyway. The kid's mumbled answer that he wasn't here for the snorkel tour was ignored. It wasn't like there was anything else to do in Buoyancy Floats, after all.
A soft glow emanated from her clasped hands before they separated to reveal a small, flat, pink gemstone. It was a simple crystal that was practically equivalent in price and quality to plastic, and the imperfections in the stone probably made even less valuable than a run-of-the-mill rhinestone to be honest, but the young girl gave a tired smile at her work nonetheless. Shoving it into her brother's face, her smile only brightened as he swatted it away, angrily muttering that her imbuing was "attracting unwanted attention."
"Oh, get over it bro! We're gonna be living in an amusement park for the summer, you better get used to people! Maybe even boys!" She flopped down sideways on the ferry bench, earning a holier-than-thou look from the old woman's leg she accidently kicked with her sneakers and an eyeroll from her brother.
"It's a supernatural marine sanctuary, not an amusement park. If only Mom and Dad had the sanity to send us to somewhere as safe as a bunch of flying metal deathtraps for the summer." Holding the newly made gem up to her finger like an engagement ring, the girl didn't even look away as her hand darted back to ruffle her brother's hair, whistling innocently as if she had just lost herself in romantic fantasy. The returning glare was hidden by the bright orange bangs the boy immediately flattened over his head, instinctually shooting glances around the ship to be sure that no one had seen what happened.
Dropping his voice to a whisper he leaned down to his sister's ear and hissed, "What do you think that was for, May-"
"Hey look we're almost here!" She darted up from her seat to look over the railing at the small cluster of islands and floating docks coming into view, leaving her brother to grumble in his seat. A second later the boat pitched, tripping her up slightly and sending the pink gem flying into the ocean.
Had she been a more talented mage, perhaps the girl could've made out the ionization trail that the stone left in its trajectory.
That same moment, her brother froze as a chill clawed across his back from head to toe. Rubbing his forehead to soothe the oncoming migraine while avoiding parting the scruffy orange bangs, he looked out the ferry's windows to try to identify a source for the sudden wave of magic. No one else seemed concerned, and there had to be some adult proficient enough in magic to sense a wave that disconcerting, and there was no reason the ferry should be venturing into the Triangle, so why…?
This time the lurch of the ship was physical as it hit the dock of the main island, and the wave of tourists stood and started pushing and shoving their way towards the boat's exit. Pushing the anomaly to the back of his mind, the boy waited for the way to clear before rising to disembark. He just wanted a normal summer as far from the magic and monsters his sister seemed excited over as possible, he reminded himself, and chasing after pulses of magic only he could sense was the exact opposite of normal.
But as the day went by he was helpless to stop his curiosity from bubbling and boiling over in ways it never had before, until he all but felt the static chill whenever he shut his eyes.
Steven Birch sighed as he covered his left eye with the triangular eyepatch, fastening on the fake peg leg as he made his way towards the gift shop door. Both flesh and wood echoed across the smooth glass beneath him, the sound muffling as the floor was quickly covered by dark rock of the same volcanic origin as the rest of the island. He shook his short hair out as he made his way into the salty air, both frustrated and grateful for the passionate insistence tourists had that guides on the islands be dressed in pirate garb. It was dirty and uncomfortable, but it made excuses to forgo snorkeling with the tourists laughably easy and covered up all-nighters without time to shower in a pinch.
He leaned against the doorframe with a hand on his hips, looking for all the world like the crusty pirate captain they expected him to be as his watched his faithful crew unload the passengers. The man sighed as he watched Wanda hand out group identification stickers to the various bunches of people, before kicking himself into gear and smacking the kid who ripped his off and threw it into the water with his peg leg. He may have to let these dirty tourists into the sanctuary to make ends meet, but demons be damned if he let them trash the place more than necessary, especially after all the effort they've put in to conserving it.
Steve shook off the nagging thought that he was quickly becoming an old man. The limp was just because he's out of practice with the peg leg. There's no reason a man who's only 54 should be falling out of his prime.
Another reminder of his age hit Steve across the faces as he watched the last two passengers disembark, hanging back from the rest of the crowd partially because they were dragging bulky suitcases off the thin gangway. His niece and nephew were the spitting image of their father and mother (at least he thought the wide eyes and unmistakable hair came from their mother; it had been over a decade since he'd last seen her). They seemed so much bigger than they were as infants, yet the world (even on this flat coast) seemed to tower over them as they looked up from mops of orange hair like baby carrots unearthed and gazing at the heavens for the first time. Or, Steve thought wryly, more like a Jack-o-lantern on the boy's part, given that his orange mop was long and unruly enough to cover his entire forehead and tightly frame his features.
The boy's eyebrow raised slightly as he made eye contact with the stranger watching them, not knowing he was looking at his uncle, and Steven's heart leapt as he was reminded of the kid's father sending him that exact look after an especially strange joke from his brother went right over his head. It's been so, so long since he could afford to leave Buoyancy Floats unattended, and all too many years since he could bring back his family to join him.
Steve, no, Uncle Steve now, didn't even pause in his way towards the kids as the horror washed over him that he couldn't remember his own nibbling's' names. Super and… Willow was it?
Eh, he thought as he wrapped them both (suitcases and all) into a big hug (getting a large number of photos snapped that he would charge them later for because you don't take advantage of a background like that without giving something to make sure it stays that way). The Birches were always notoriously terrible at naming their children anyway.
Alcor, the Lost Star, the Twin Soul, the Dreambender, however many of his infinite names one wished to call him, was sulking. As usual.
In fact, by this point, the only thing usual for Alcor to do was to sulk, for one doesn't do the exact same thing non-stop for a couple of decades without it becoming synonymous with usual. He hadn't yet broken his personal record for sulking (he'd spent a decent portion of some millennia doing so) but he wasn't doing this to break a record.
Actually, Alcor the Dreambender wasn't sure really why he was sulking in the first place. By now he was merely doing it because there was simply no reason to stop.
It's rather easy, when one is a timeless demon of power so unquantifiable that surely it outshines mere summonings and deals, to lose track of the universe itself as it seeps away through the cracks of whatever else seizes the mind. Which, occasionally in Alcor's case is absolutely nothing, seeing that his soul is seemingly ever-frozen in a somewhat teenage state, a complete anomaly which Alcor has reason to believe he might have once understood before it was buried in omnipotence. The vacuum of existence that lay between the stars, the unbridgeable divide between he and his twin Mizar was as fulfilling empty as it was insatiably fascinating, and it was all too tempting to escape from whatever minor upsetting he had on Earth into the void that mirrored death, all while letting the flock manage the declining summons and rising dreams of the world as he slept in a dreamless stupor that his colleagues called 'angsting'.
But one day, countless moments after regaining a bleary awareness of time, Alcor was hit by a wave that spread through the Dreamscape and pinged in his very soul. The force of nature (the lack of any hint or signature of what creature or mortal could have summoned it leading the Watcher or Worlds to believe that the powers were somehow aligning themselves) swept over him like an avalanche, and for the first time since he was a novice demon trapped in the world's most powerful binding circles, Alcor felt the itching of the idea that something else could force him to obey if it truly wished.
It pulled like a tide, reaching its cool sensation across his being until it dragged his magic back out to sea, pulling the teleportation spell right out of his own power to hurl him to his destination. Alcor couldn't move as it happened, but not due to any power weighing his muscles- he was as free to move as a runner along a beach - it just wouldn't help as he was tugged away by the riptide.
No, Alcor was frozen in wonder. For so long he had been the moon, the Distant Star that gravitated tides on a whim. But now he was the sea, the majority of the Earth and the foreign magic felt so fulfilling to finally be a part of the world again.
And then it ended, and Alcor found himself on a beach. It was midmorning, the bright sun still rising over the crowd of humans clustered on the tiny rock, but the light was already shining at full blast and hollow without the half-rainbow of the dawn.
The empty feeling could've just been because of the magic, the tide that had filled everything for just that one second was now gone. Although the air here was latent with magic, so thick that Alcor could hardly make out the individual flavors (that his omnipotence was quick to name and catalogue away for future consideration), it was disorganized and strewn about in a chaos that Alcor had to remind himself was normal in dimensions outside of the Dreamscape, nothing like the unified pull of the world itself that brought him here.
Drinking in all the sensations, trying to sate the hole in his stomach that was quickly filling with a nagging tingle that something was off here, Alcor took in the people standing before him, re-familiarizing himself with human features that didn't exactly line up with how he remembered them.
It-it couldn't have been that long since he'd been here, could it? Feeling the weight of time around him, Alcor could swear he had been in this dimension fairly recently, definitely after some of the people here were born. But it had been so long since he'd truly noticed the world around him, the people and aspects that made of life rather than the intentions and magic behind whatever deal he was bout to make. Somehow that burst of energy had changed his awareness and reminded him that his remembered familiarity wasn't everything.
And Alcor couldn't for all his omnipotence decide whether that force was a good or a bad thing.
But, how could he forget what it was like to be a human, what it even looked like on its most basic level? He had been a human once, hadn't he? At least, that's how the legend he preferred to tell himself always went. When memories had occurred quite literally an eternity ago, when that time in a human form was literally lifetimes away even on a demonic timescale, who could blame even The All-Knowing Alcor for forgetting the details?
Details like why just looking at those two kids hugging their uncle- Sipper and Maple Birch, his omnipotence helpfully supplied- fueled that wrong feeling building in his stomach until he was nearly seething with an unfounded jealousy and rage.
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