Author's Note: Hello, darlings! It has been a very, very long time. How have you been? Since I last uploaded anything here I moved to Melbourne, completed an undergrad degree, started a masters (both in creative writing) and am now living in a cute apartment with my boyfriend of four years. That's a lot of things! The day before yesterday I read 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell and was overcome with the need to write fan fiction again, so here we are! I'm sorry for abandoning you all. Here is a nice story that is maybe a bit of a mess, but it's nice to get back in the game.

Chapter One: Bump In Her Night

There was a crack and a flash and Sarah was quite suddenly awake. A sulphuric smell burned her nostrils and it took several minutes for her eyes to adjust to the predawn gloom. Gradually she was able to make out the dark shadow of Sam, her roommate, sitting stiff and upright in her bed across the narrow room.

"What was that? A flash bomb? Is one of the frats attacking?" Sarah asked groggily.

"I have a feeling flash bombs are pretty illegal", Sam replied. "Also, you're covered in feathers."

"A feather bomb?" Sarah asked in confusion, looking down at the bed.

Black and white feathers were scattered across her lap, mixed with a fine, sparkling powder. She rubbed the powder between her fingers and immediately regretted it; her fingers were now gritty and sticky with blood.

"This is broken glass... did a bird come through the window?" She glanced up, but the window appeared intact. The chaos seemed confined to her bedspread.

"I can handle the boys camping out in the hall and you talking in your sleep, but this is a whole other level, Sarah." Sam mumbled.

"I didn't know I did that..." she replied vaguely. Sarah had just spotted the scroll – paper so white it almost glowed, wound with black ribbon and sealed with wax – which perched in the middle of the carnage.

"I have to go wash my hand, can you call the RA?" She said, picking up the scroll and holding it like it could combust at any moment. It felt heavier than it should.

She pulled herself carefully out from under the covers and walked out the door before Sam could reply. Grey light was beginning to creep through the glass wall of the stairwell and somewhere down the hall music was pumping softly from under a doorway. Nothing out here in the hallway felt eldritch or strange. If it weren't for the throbbing in her fingertips she could dump the scroll in the hall bin and pretend it was all some inexplicable prank.

Sarah grinned at the empty hallway.

She ducked into the bathroom, tucking the scroll awkwardly under her chin as she washed the blood and glass from her fingers. Then in three long strides she crossed from the sinks to the stalls and locked herself in. It had been a terribly long time since things went bump in her night.

The seal on the scroll was colourless wax. There was a crest pressed into it, a bolt of lightning flanked by elegant runes. It made Sarah uneasy, so she was extra forceful when breaking it. A black candle, no bigger than the sort put on birthday cakes, slipped out of the roll of paper. She caught it just before it fell into the toilet. It smelled not like wax, but sea salt and cloves. The note was written in English, but with strange accents and curlicues on all the letters, like its author understood the beauty of writing but not the principle.

YOU HAVE BEEN NAMED AS CHAMPION. ONCE YOU LIGHT THE CANDLE YOU WILL HAVE THIRTEEN HOURS TO COMPLETE YOUR CHALLENGES. HIS FATE IS YOURS.

It was signed with more strange runes. Sarah stared at the words and shivered. Reading the message was like hearing someone shrieking her name from somewhere dark and far away.

His fate is yours. Whose fate?

Toby.

She unlocked the stall and ran back down the hallway to her dorm room.

"RA's on the way", Sam said as she entered. "I think I interrupted her while she was getting biblical, so she could be a while."

"I need to borrow your phone. It's an emergency."

"This is an emergency now? What happened to yours?" Sam eyed her suspiciously.

"There was a terrible beer pong accident. Which reminds me, I owe you a bag of rice." Sarah stuck out her hand impatiently.

"I'm so lucky I don't have one of those weird roommates." She handed over the phone and Sarah began to dial immediately. After two rings a little boy's voice answered.

"Hello?"

She breathed a huge sigh of relief. "What are you doing up?"

"Sarah?" Toby sounded sheepish. "I wanted to watch cartoons."

"What cartoons could you possibly be watching at this hour?" Sarah asked in her scolding-but-not-really-mad voice.

"South Park."

"Toby! Go to bed now, young man."

"No fair. You shouldn't even be calling this early."

"It was an accident. I butt dialled you." Toby giggled when she said 'butt', as she knew he would. "You're only six, you should be sleeping."

"Ok", he yawned. "Love you, big sister."

"Love you too, goblin." She hung up, breathing another sigh of relief.

"All good?" Sam asked.

"Maybe. Hopefully." Sarah ran through a mental list of names. Hoggle? Ludo? Sir Didymus?

She stared at the feathers strewn across her bed. Black feathers that ate up the light, brittle-looking and sharp. White feathers, soft and crumpled, with bloodied roots like they'd been plucked with violence. White feathers from the wings of an owl. Somehow, she knew: the black ones were a warning, the white ones were a threat.

Another name began to write itself in her mind, beginning with an elaborately curled 'J'. She mentally reached out and snapped the calligrapher's quill, but the letter still burned itself into the backs of her eyes.

"Sam, you are my best friend." She said slowly.

"Oooook, I am immediately nervous."

"Things in this room are about to take a turn for the bizarre – the even more bizarre – and it's probably going to be easiest for you if you pretend you just had an especially big night last night." Sarah stripped down out of her pyjamas and pulled on some jeans, boots and a sweater. "If I make it back I will try to find time to explain, but please remember that we are very close to finals week and it may be best for us both to just forget any of this ever happened."

"I have no idea what you're talking about but I'm going to lend you my baseball bat." Sam nodded as though this was a very sensible decision.

Sarah grinned and took the proffered bat. "You're the best."

"Again, I'm very clueless here, but if you die I get your stuff."

"Deal." Sarah rooted around on her desk until she found a lighter. She shoved the scroll into her pocket and tucked a white feather into the strap of her bra, then lit the small black candle.