-Author's Note-

I felt like adding a oneshot to my repertoir, ladies and gentlemen. To wit, you receive this fine and elegantly crafted fanfiction.

I think this thing got crammed full of characters from just about every media format with which I'm intimately familiar, but I hope it doesn't overwhelm the story. It's not a true crossover, it just has a few... visitors.

As always, read, respond, and most of all enjoy!

Boy Hero

Fandoms: Harry Potter / Various

-A Oneshot-

Harry had dreamt up a lot of odd things in his short life. From the prophetic to the invasive, the telepathic and the fevered, they'd covered a great deal of disparate material. Never, though, had he dreamed up so many people in such strange costumes.

Capes were a theme, here. And swords, too, were in abundance. Obviously he wasn't dreaming of a particularly muggle place, as there was magic being practiced here and there, out in the open. Though the sheer variety of odd spells on display definitely told him that this wasn't a memory of anything in particular.

Another odd difference, he mused- he was rarely so lucid when he dreamt. The ground, covered in heavy grey sand, felt solid under his feet. He was dressed in his school robes, which wasn't in itself a big surprise. Most of his life had been spent wearing the things, after all.

Someone, whom he'd never met before, seemed to catch his curious once-over of the place, and cautiously strode forward.

"New here? Never seen you around myself, at least, kiddo." The words hung suggestively, inviting Harry to answer. The man himself seemed dressed up as a soldierly owl, of some sort. Big eyes peered out from a pair of goggles. He offered Harry a smile and a handshake. The young wizard smiled back and took it, feeling rather relieved that this all didn't seem to be heading toward nightmare territory.

"Never been here, before," he said, and gestured helplessly. "My dreams aren't often this... detailed." The owl-man's grin softened kindly.

"This is no dream- you're in the hero's landing. Obviously you've got some specific qualities. Boy hero?" He caught Harry's scowl, and put his hands up placatingly. "Easy! Not claiming you're cliché, here, but you're not alone in your trope, is all I'm saying." The costumed figure sighed. "I'm no good at this part. Follow me, I promise we can get this all explained fair and friendly, okay?"

Lacking any other options but solitude in this surreal scenario, Harry grudgingly followed. They came over a dune and Harry found himself facing two boys his own age. One was dressed like a kind of Christmas tree ninja, with cape, and the other wore a hat made of white bearhide and sat with a sword and a sharpening stone.

"For reals. You get more air from jumping off of a zombie than a plant monster. This is a true fact that I have tested. With science," stressed the boy in the bear hat. Christmas ninja scowled.

"Not a chance. Wait- what kind of plant monster are you talking about here?" The other boy frowned.

"Um, coni... conif... the pine tree ones," he finished. The other, masked hero rolled his eyes. Or appeared to, given his eyes were hidden behind a white screen on a black domino mask.

"I'm talking dedicious plant ladies, here." He broke off, then, and raised an eyebrow. "Wait, now, what kind of zombie are you bringing up here?" The bear-hatted boy shrugged, scratching at his chin.

"Big, sentient pastry zombie." He grinned, but only got a scowl in return.

"It is impossible to play this game with you. Find some normal villains!" That seemed to have been voiced as an order, but the tone made no impact on the grinning boy.

"I fought the spirit of death in his nasty, goat-horned physical bod. Who are you out thwarting?" challenged bear-hat. The other teen leaned in, and the whites of his mask narrowed.

"Clowns," he hissed. Bear-hat shuddered.

"Right, no, I'll stop hasslin' you about that. Keep your creep-o villains to yourself, man."

"Hey guys," interrupted Harry's guide. The young wizard was, for his part, desperately trying to make sense of things. Was this all supposed to be some sort of subconscious metaphor on his sleeping mind's part? Because if so, his brain was apparently buggered sideways. Perhaps some sort of protective gear for his head during Quidditch matches...

"Hey, Nite Owl," said the Christmas ninja.

"Yo," called out the other boy. "Come to let me gank those awesome specs? I want night vision in the worst way!" The man -or as Harry picked up, Nite Owl, which was a nice and thematic name- chuckled and shook his head.

"Not happening, Finn. You and Robin that bored? You know he's going to pull that Joker trump every time, now." Robin, now named, gave a sheepish shrug.

"Only ammo I've ever needed, really," he admitted. Finn scowled. Before he could cut in, though, Nite-Owl pushed Harry forward by one shoulder.

"This one needs the introduction. I promised to meet Merlin- he's letting me take some sketches of his bird. Beautiful creature, and a good conversationalist, to boot." He stalked off. Harry looked after him, wide-eyed.

"He's... off to meet Merlin? The wizard of legend and Chocolate Frog vards? Not some random guy with very optimistic parents?" Finn shrugged.

"Yeah- guy can't beat-box, though. I don't think he likes me, cuz of the beard and all."

"What?" This question, oddly enough, came from Robin rather than Harry. Finn flushed.

"Sorta, kinda, might've burned it. A little. Anyway!" He stood dramatically, and managed some sort of pose. His gaze settled solidly on Harry, who stepped back a bit from the... enthusiastic teenager. "How long have you been on the hero gig? Saved a princess yet?"

"I'm not a hero," Harry said defensively, and tried to ignore Robin's disdain at Finn's outburst. "I really don't know what's going on, is all." Finn didn't waver for a minute, and kept grinning.

"You're a hero because you're here. Not everyone who is shows up, but everyone who shows up is, dig it?" The young wizard marveled that someone could have what sounded like a Canadian accent, if said accent had been filtered through an MTV special and given stimulants. It was easier following Hagrid's cockney at its thickest, to be honest.

"It's a condition built into the place," clarified Robin. "You're not really here, but when you sleep..." he faltered, but brightened up. "You're a wizard, right?" he asked, taking in the robe and wand. "Think of it as some mass clairvoyance spell. It tunes you in when you're unconscious, and tunes everyone else in to you, only without the creepy invasion of privacy. That's why we're standing here and talking to you, rather than floating above your unconscious body!" Harry nodded, not believing, but at any rate seeing the logic.

"How... thoughtful you're not just watching me while I sleep. That's the most reassuring thing I've ever heard." Finn laughed, but brought himself under control when Robin started tapping his foot.

"Right. Um, any questions?" Harry, deciding to just roll with things for the time being, nodded.

"One. If we're... you're all heroes, how come I've never heard of any of you, no offense?" Robin nodded like a proud teacher.

"Good one. The answer being, this is the only place we can meet. Where do you come from? City, country, planet?"

Planet?

"Um, England? I go to school in Scotland though, most of the year." Robin looked at Finn, who shook his head.

"Never heard of it. Nice place?" Harry about to answer, when Robin cut right back in again.

"I have. England's in a lot of places. So is Gotham city. Ever heard of it? Or Metropolis? Star City?"

"No?" prompted Harry. Robin shrugged.

"They're huge population centers. Larger than London, except for Star City. The kind of thing you'd pick up on in geography class at least, if they existed on your world. Earth, probably. Year... two-thousand or so?"

"It's the nineties," offered Harry, suddenly feeling less sure of the answer than before. The caped figure didn't seem bothered by the revelation. Instead, he hooked a thumb toward Finn.

"He's from about the year three-thousand, as near as we can guess. Reality," he announced in a way that betrayed a sense of a great, unfolding truth, "is-"

"Is five kinds of whack," finished Finn, earning him another glare to which he remained happily (and purposely, suspected Harry) oblivious."There's an infinity of everything, see, only it sort of blends together. Like ice cream. It's all one big glob, but only the sprinkles stand out. You, my man, are a sprinkle!" Though he seemed extremely proud of this metaphor, he deflated slightly when he didn't see anyone else getting into it.

"Pshh, whatevs." Robin then decided to step in and clarify, apparently.

"There are people everywhere, all living insanely weird lives that seem perfectly normal to them, no matter how strange they are in relation to the rest of the multiverse." He paused for breath, and went on when Harry indicated a kind of understanding. It was just like the teen was explaining the different lives of Muggles and Wizarding folk, but hinting at a scale that surely had to be impossible, really.

"Some places can be closer to others, but they're all separate. There are common themes, tropes or lines of destiny or whatever. This place sort of draws in one of these tropes. Or at least, people who embody it."

"What he means to say," a voice chimed in, "is that a number of silly traits that some old, odd sorcerer thought made for your average hero guides this massed sending-spell. It has an extraordinarily long reach. Hello, there, Tiffany Aching. Witch and cheese-maker." Then suddenly there was a girl, his age, bowing her head slightly in greeting. At her elbow stood a tall man in a red jacket. He seemed content to smile quietly at the assembled teenagers.

"Um, Harry Potter. Wizard." He took note of her incredulous expression. "Is there something wrong with that?" She frowned, but seemed to have turned inward, just a bit.

"I really must be distracted tonight. Words mean different things to different people, in different places. Wizards are a bit... well, I'm sure they're different where you're from. Unless you live on a flat world carried on four elephants which stand upon a great big turtle?" she prompted.

"I'm going to have to say no to that," he replied, somewhat mollified. Her kind of wizards could keep their turtle, or whatever, "But seriously, what's this hero business? I'm just a student." At their combined incredulous looks, he added, "Well, stuff happens to me, but I don't go looking for it!" Usually. The man at Tiffany's side nodded, but didn't quit making his infuriatin,g goofy grin.

"Look," said Tiffany. "Stupid title or no, it's not some thing about ego or prestige." She paused. "Except maybe for Finn, here," she added. The other boy seemed to take no offense to this, and just sort of happily hugged his sword. "It's about-"

But she didn't get to finish. A wind blew, managing to invade the desert without disturbing a single grain of sand. All eyes snapped toward its destination, where a crowd was gathering. Finn grabbed Harry by the elbow and started dragging him along when the others started over on their own.

"Come on, bro. You're about to see what she means. Even if she's being a butt about it."

Whatever they were going to see, a large crowd was there. A series of dunes managed to encircle an oasis of sorts, and every sandy outcropping had been occupied by one of these self-styled 'heroes'. The oasis itself, and the massive, still pond at its center was empty of anyone at all. A hush came over the crowd.

And at once, before Harry could manage a single question, the water changed. It's surface no longer showed a silty, dark bottom. It showed a blue and cloudy sky. The view tilted until it came to rest upon a large, grassy plain. The sight was vertigo-inducing, but Harry watched unwaveringly. This was something important, and might just explain what this dream was all about, finally.

The plain was crowded. Odd people, nobles, peasants and soldiers of all shapes and... species? They were gathered around a charred stretch of loam. At its center was a body. There was no mistaking that kind of stillness, and Harry felt an awful awareness that he was viewing something private and terrible. Still, though, he couldn't avert his gaze. For one thing, nobody else was doing so. Strained or calm, every face in the desert group bore witness.

The body was small, and elfin. A sword and shield, both broken, lay at its side. Its face, pale and shrouded by a mop of blond hair, looked tense and worried even in death.

"Oh dear, he didn't make it," whispered Tiffany. Robin slumped, but straightened up with a practiced stiffening of his legs.

"No, but he did it." Harry followed as well he could where the teen was indicating, and managed it even without the aid of a line of sight from visible eyes.

An ugly, twisted figure of massive proportions lay a short distance away from the green-clad boy. The gathered people on the other side of the watery mirror were approaching slowly, carefully bypassing the monster to gather around the elfin corpse. A beautiful girl, garbed in silk, had reached it first. She knelt and sort of... swayed. Her face showed quite clearly through the medium, and her tears managed to fill the world, even long after the viewing angle had stopped zooming in.

"His name is Link," offered a soft voice. It was the man who had followed Tiffany. "I'm Vash," he offered gently. "And that down there is a kid I don't envy in the least."

Well, obviously, thought Harry, but thought better of saying so aloud.

"This is the... fourteenth time, I think, that he's died," said Vash. "I've been around long enough to have seen it happen a few times, myself. He's never here long."

"He's... died? Fourteen times?" Robin nodded.

"Maybe it's the same Link, or maybe they're just very similar people. It's a different situation, but I'm the third Robin. If you drop the torch, either you return to take it back up, or someone else grabs it in your place." At Harry's unasked question, Tiffany continued.

"There's a witch to every steading. She takes care of it. Witches of the Discworld know the hour of their death, and make sure the next girl is ready... to carry the torch," she added with a sad, wry humor.

"I'm the last human in the world," chimed in Finn. "But there were always heroes. I want to be just like them. I want everyone left to remember us as a bunch of guys who tried as hard as they could to make Ooo a better place, even if we did a lot of dumb stuff, back in the day."

"Every Link has lived in a very dangerous world," said Vash. "He was the destined hero. He carried the tri-force with him, and stopped every tyrant and monster who threatened the people he loved." Below, the crying noblewoman had taken up the charred and broken boy and was holding him as tightly as possible. She was murmuring into his chest, but sound didn't carry past the watery edge of that little, distant world. Her words, at least, would remain absolutely private.

"He carried out his destiny every time, and never failed. You could tell he knew, in a way. Not by memory, but all the same, he knew."

"He walked into it every time," murmured Harry. Robin shrugged.

"What else can we do? You can't believe you'll come back, not every time. Not every night. Someone's going to get lucky, or you'll get unlucky. There will be a stray bullet, or a swung crowbar you don't have enough time to duck under." He flexed his glove-clad fists.

"But if you don't, you know that the sick bastard with a gun and a grudge won't stop just because you're not there to see it. The next morning's newspaper will have an obituary that's just a bit longer than it should have been. Could have been, if you'd been there to do something."

"Have you ever walked away?" asked Vash. His eyes didn't hold a hint of accusation. Harry felt a kind of mixed anger and embarrassment when he answered, "Never."

"Then you're supposed to be here," replied Vash. The man scratched at his chest, and Harry heard the rasping of metal. There was metal on him. No, in him. Flesh caught and dulled the sound just that tiny bit.

"Link, of Hyrule," called a voice. A man and a... dragon? They were atop the next dune. The dragon, which glittered a deep blue, growled in acknowledgement.

"Because he cared." Another voice.

"Because he could do nothing less." And another.

"There were monsters at the gate, and they wanted in."

"Even though she begged him not to."

"For love and peace."

"For another day where nobody woke to a fearful dawn."

"Because it was needful," called Tiffany.

"For those he called friends."

"For the Princess Zelda." Finn, this time.

For... and there were other voices that Harry could almost just hear. No breath carried them, and they were audible less as noise than as stray thoughts. He brushed the sensation aside, but did not forget it.

Just as the noise, a hum of challenges and praise and battle cries all seemed to be leading toward a massed, riotous shout, the place fell silent. The image had disappeared. Link was gone, and gone again.

Quietly, alone or gathered in groups, the crowd dispersed. Harry thought that the oasis might very well disappear once left behind, but didn't doubt that it was always there and always at the right time to fulfill its purpose. A scrying bowl of requirement, perhaps, in place for the last moments of those who'd walked on this strange desert. He wondered (and he was certainly not alone in this) exactly what would be shown there when he fell. This place had dragged him in, and walking away was only an option in the most technical sense of the word.

He'd heard voices.

The group he'd shown up with hadn't showed any signs of breaking apart, in those moments following the moment's end. Quickly and before he could lose his nerve, he put a hand to Finn's shoulder, the most affable person in the group, it seemed.

"Tell me. Are there any... ghosts, here? Can you hear the voices of the dead?" Finn considered this carefully.

"Um, if they were heroes, I guess I don't see why not. Cool idea, I hope I get to haunt someone interesting." The others gave him a suspecting look, but he didn't meet their eyes.

He'd heard it. He knew those voices, heard them in his worst moments and prayed that the worst times in his life would linger so that, despite laying on the edge of despair, he could still hear them.

For our little Harry, he'd heard, and knew that, at some time in the past, James and Lily Potter had lain beneath a watery mirror and been mourned, in this place. He didn't care if he was dreaming anymore. It felt real enough.

"I think it's almost time to go," chimed Finn. "My bro's coming back from his poker game of magical talking dogs any minute." He was looking at the great void up above which served as a sky. It was growing lighter. Harry almost asked what that he had meant, exactly, by that but found he didn't have to.

"Yo, Finn!" It was a bulldog. A bipedal, yellow, smiling bulldog that talked. Harry decided to give up then and there.

"Jake! Ready to wake up? I think I can already hear somebody knocking on the treehouse." The bulldog perked up in interest, and then slumped.

"You don't think it's Hot Dog Princess, do you? She's been... eyeing me."

"Naw, sounds like the carrion crow giants are migrating again. Early, this year-" And he was gone. Without the pop of Disapparition or fading out, he was just gone.

"Aww, I hate carrion crow giants!" moaned Jake before he, too, was gone.

"Shoot," hissed Vash. "I promised to teach him how to dodge bullets, today. I guess we all just got caught up. Nice meeting you, Harry," he said to the wizard, gave a wave, and disappeared.

It was Harry, Tiffany and Robin, now. The wizard turned toward the witch and vigilante.

"At first I thought it would be too weird to ask about, the, uh, bullets and everything, but how much of this will I remember?" Assuming this really wasn't a mundane dream. Assuming it mattered at all in the long run.

"Very little," supplied Tiffany. "Until you're back here, you won't actually recall anything. But certain things... habits and the remembered movements of your muscles, for instance, will stay with you. Good reflexes follow. Understanding follows, even if only in the most basic way." She made, again, a short bow. "If you'll excuse me, I suspect I'll be waking to the sound of a number of tiny men demanding I settle a dispute of considerable unimportance." Tiffany, too, was then no longer there.

Just Robin and Harry, then. Robin gave him a short, comforting nod.

"It's automatic. Just like waking up, you could say."

"Still sleepy?" guessed Harry. Robin shrugged and... shuffled his feet.

"Just waiting to catch up with one of my teammates. She should be- oof!" An orange and purple blur crashed into him, knocking him into, and then through, a small dune. Harry was fumbling for his wand when-

"Boyfriend Robin! Was your visit to the landing on this eve as nifty as mine?" The young wizard abandoned battle preparations, given that the sudden danger seemed to be cuddling his new friend, which probably wasn't fatal in the immediate sense. Probably.

"Easy, Starfire! You're going to scare the newbie." A head, with red hair and glowing green eyes, popped up from where it was trying to burrow into the human boy's chest cavity. "Hello there! Have you come to join our heroic discourse?"

A number of lines came to Harry's mind, most of which would earn him a book to the head via Hermione, before he caught Robin's cautious non-eyes and settled for, "Ah, yeah, just tonight, actually. Robin was helping me around."

"Is he not the most precious boyfriend?" she asked rhetorically, and Harry had it in him to grin broadly at the costumed human.

"I'll just bet!" Robin groaned at that, and Starfire ruffled his hair.

"Don't be that way, Robin. Everyone should know how precious you are!" That was about all it took to send Harry laughing, if only in embarrassment, but then Starfire caught his eye.

"Did someone precious follow you here as well, friend newbie?"

"Um, I don't think I saw anyone I recognized. And I don't, that is to say I haven't-" he shrugged. The floating girl was giving him what had to be the least-bearable compassionate look ever, even considering that Mrs. Weasley thought he was a helpless orphan waif. He was not a waif of any sort.

"You may yet be so lucky!" She assured him, and then turned back to her boyfriend. "As of yet, our own luck has been, as you might say, 'mixed'. Our waking selves are rather..."

"Stupid," supplied Robin. Starfire narrowed her eyes.

"Your self, perhaps. I've sent you signals unmistakable by three different species." To Harry: "We've been trying to send ourselves 'hints'. I fear that if I send many more, my waking self may simply strip and claim him out in the streets, roughly and vigorously showing the entire world how I-"

"Okay-time-to-go!" blurted Robin in a panic, and both faded from view.

"Huh," said Harry. "I suppose this is where I say, and then he woke up, and it was all just a-"

The Room Of Requirement was packed to bursting, even with its ability to resize and reshape itself. It should have been loud. But with the regular, dull booming of spells impacting the wards placed upon the castle grounds, people were speaking in hushed tones. As if a single raised voice could shatter the protections that were already stretched to the breaking point.

Harry looked at his army. On the face of it, 'army' was a rather ridiculous label for this lot. But they were determined, and as ready as they could be. All of the so-called heavy hitters were already outside, or protecting other key locations. The teachers were manning the walls, keeping up the ancient defensive spells for as long as possible. These were students, and the occasional family member seeking shelter. It was worth noting that the students were the ones comforting their elders.

Harry glanced once more over the assembled mass, and then again at his closest circle of friends. The ones who weren't too occupied smiled back at him. It was time.

The young Gryffindor took the stage. It had been empty, according to the undying hope of crowds everywhere that somebody with more know-how would step up and start making sense of things. Harry had hoped for that too, for a time, but had long since figured out that there wouldn't be anyone else.

"Hello, everyone," he said, amplifying his voice with the flick of a wand. Immediate quiet.

"You're all," he began, "about to witness the first ever War of Hogwarts. For the last few hours we have been an entirely separate group from the rest of the country. Until we win, it's going to stay that way. Everyone who could come is here, and everyone who couldn't... isn't."

"I won't ask you to be brave tonight. I already know you are. I've seen it. Those of you who I haven't seen be brave," he gestured to the recently arrived families, "you came and found you had someone to be brave for. Cherish that fact, please."

"There is a tyrant coming," he added, and wished he knew why these words felt so clean, so practiced, "who doesn't care who lives and who dies, just so long as he can rule over whatever's left. He's not immortal, and he's not unbeatable, but he thinks he is. That is the only weakness of his that we will ever have to exploit." Harry stepped to the front of the stage, and glared outward. Not at anyone in particular, but to try and convey a small sliver of his feelings about their situation.

"He thinks that we're small, and weak, and that we'd sooner give in than stand up and say that we refuse to live in his crematorium of a utopia! He wants a nice, warm pile of ashes to sit on and rule from, and I swear that I won't let even my own corpse support a single footfall."

"We're here because we need to be. This is where we can be strong. We're here because we're needed by those we love, and not an ideology in the world can change that. No dark lord, no false and mad king can ever claim to us that he should be put ahead of the parents, siblings, children and friends of everyone here today."

Are these words mine? he wondered. Could I have come up with this? He wondered, then, because he saw the group responding. Slowly, then building in fury, they heard and listened and fingered wands and blades in perfect readiness.

We're just children, and he'll never have planned for the possibility that he could ever lose to us. Voldemort won't walk away from here alive.

"We're here, because that twice-damned halfwit had the gall to look upon us and declare that we were next! I'm here..." and now he faded, briefly, before he felt that burning courage fill him back up from limb to limb, swelling up in his chest and to his throat.

"I'm here for James and Lily Potter!" Hermione, smart girl that she was, knew a cue when she heard on.

"For Daniel and Emma Granger."

"F-for Frank and Alice L-longbottom."

"For too many Weasleys to name!" There was a rippling of redheads.

"For Dennis Creevey."

"And for Colin Creevey." Two brothers looked at each other and grinned. Everyone, then, was speaking.

"Jenny- our boy Seamus- Calliope- Miranda Callister- for Cedric- Zane-" Voices rose, and at their crescendo-

BANG.

Something like a cold breeze rippled through the room. Doubtless it would be worse outside, in full view of the broken wards. Something about the sensation sent terrible chills through Harry, but he pushed the feeling aside.

"That's our cue, everybody. You know what to do. I'll see you all soon. Be safe."

It was warm, as it always was. It wasn't the heat of a desert, as a child of cooler climates might imagine it, nor was it the icy flourish known to anyone who had ever actually walked a desert at night. It was just warm.

Harry blinked, and as he always did, found himself remembering exactly where he was as soon as he woke on the hero's landing. Only this time, the nightly denizens of said place seemed to be waiting for him.

So many, once strangers but now comrades as close as any, were there, standing atop dunes and ankle-deep in sandy streams. It was somewhat disorienting, but the sensation lessened when he realized that not all of them were looking at Harry, himself. He turned.

They were new faces. New to the landing, at least, but they were familiar to him and in that respect shocking. Then shock broke, and he grinned as widely as possible.

"Hey, everyone. You made it. Want me to show you around?" That, then, is when the mass of figures surrounding the veterans of the first War of Hogwarts began clapping.

Some of the grouped students looked dumbfounded, and others tense and fearful, but they saw Harry and saw, too, that he was unafraid. He was proud of them, and he prayed they could tell, all of them, exactly how he felt.

"Harry?" It was Hermione. "I feel at a bit of a disadvantage here," the girl admitted, bewildered by the swelling applause. "What exactly are we supposed to be doing?"

A cue, Harry recognized. He was getting good at noticing those. His head tilted back, and with luck, saw his two friends from among the Titans looking own at him. He winked, leapt forward, and grabbed the world's most clever girl around the waist. She looked shocked- right up until the moment he caught her lips, until her expression blurred from the closeness. She was smart, and she'd catch on quick, he was sure of it.

He knew she'd be here. She couldn't have not shown up. Maybe they could, by working together, send themselves a couple of hints...

-Author's Note-

Ending it on a classy note.

I tried as hard as I could to summon up the eldritch powers of Neil Gaiman for this one (whose characters, incidentally, I'm saving for a later story), but I think I fell a bit short. I hope it stood well enough on its own merits, anyway.