Sophie ran blindly through the immaculate streets of Danu Talis.
Dee had captured her brother, brainwashed him. She didn't trust The Magician any more than she did the day that he had stepped out of the dark car outside the bookshop-an ominous warning that she had wished that she had heeded all those long days ago. But now Dee had turned the closest person to her against all that she was attempting to protect. She loathed Dee for this. The survival of her species was in balance. Her parents-her real parents back in the Earth Shadowrealm-could die.
However Sophie was now confused about what the word real really meant.
The blonde girl now stood in the shadow of a large building. Running through the streets in what she assumed to be the middle of the day had begun to attract attention. The eyes of many of the beings worshipped as gods in Earth's history had followed her progress as she fled a seemingly nonexistent adversary. She watched the Elders as they lived their everyday life. Danu Talis was surprisingly peaceful. Little did the Elders know that soon their blissful existence would end in one tragic, blazing battle. She knew the name of every Elder that passed, her eyes involuntarily flickering silver as each memory of the Witch's past raced through her mind. She needed to find someone she knew, someone she trusted, but the only people from her time period in this city were aiming to destroy the world which she had vowed to protect.
Sophie slipped around the corner of the building, keeping to the dimness cast by the unnaturally bright sun. Maybe if she could find the Witch herself; maybe she could get the help that she needed.
The air was perfumed with exotic spices from the market straight ahead. There was mirth, splendor, cheerfulness.
Earth could be like this.
Sophie shook the thought out of her head. Dee had perfected the art of manipulation because his deceptions were in fact based on truth. Yes, Earth could look like the utopia that was Danu Talis, but at the consequence of billions of lives and her people-the humans-becoming slaves.
But was she human?
Sophie had no response to the inquiry. When she had first laid eyes upon Isis and Osiris, her first instinct had been to identify them as her parents. Josh's impulses were obviously attuned to the same reaction. What did that make her? She was human, she thought. How could she have been anything else without knowledge of it for 15 years? Sophie felt tears prick her eyes and furiously rubbed them away. She wished more than anything else that this all had been a dream-nonetheless a nightmare; a terrible, terrible nightmare.
In no way could it be merely a figment of her imagination; she had felt too much pain, grief, and terror than what she could handle in her slumber. Still, she wanted this to end; she wanted to be ordinary once more.
Had she ever been ordinary?
Sophie wanted to scream aloud in frustration. She had too many questions and not enough answers. She needed to focus, that's what Josh always told her to do when she was agitated.
Josh had betrayed her.
He was her twin; she had thought that nothing could come between them. She had been wrong; they were farther apart now than they had ever been in their imperfect lives.
Sophie leaned against the wall as a sudden wave of emotions came cascading around her. She didn't know what to do-there was seemingly nothing that she could do.
Something soared over her head.
She looked up at the sky. The vehicle that was hovering-a vimana, as the Witch recalled-soared through the air with such grace that no human vehicle could replicate. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, but she could still hear the almost inaudible hum of its power source as it traversed the heavens.
Sophie heard footsteps.
Her Awakened hearing allowed her to hear sounds as hushed as a mouse running through the framing of a house. That being said, she could barely discern the pattern of steps that were making their way ever closer to her position. Someone didn't want to be heard and was succeeding.
Sophie pressed herself against the wall as if it would allow her to vanish within its smooth stone. Now that the steps were closer, she could tell that there were two people coming toward her hiding place in the shadows. She tried to inch herself back the way she had come without making too much noise to no avail. The stone lining the streets was hard, and the alley she was in echoed her every movement.
A figure stepped around the corner.
The person was bathed in the dark of the gloom and Sophie could not tell anything about the person.
"Sophie?" Sophie jumped when the figure spoke. The voice was female, and Sophie was startled to realize that she recognized the voice from her own memory. She didn't dare believe that she would get so lucky as to meet that person here, though.
However, when the figure stepped into the light of the sun, Sophie saw that her suspicions had been truthful. The bright red hair and the grass green eyes gave the woman away.
"Scatty?" Of course the person in front of her could have been Aoife, but Sophie knew that couldn't be the case. She felt a twinge of sadness thinking about the fate of Aoife of the Shadows.
Scathach half smiled at the weary blonde girl standing in front of her. And nodded. "What are you doing here?"
Sophie didn't reply and instead stepped up to The Warrior and hugged her tightly. "I thought you were dead."
Scathach stood awkwardly, patting Sophie on the back with one hand and holding one of her twin swords in the other. She glanced at Joan as the French hero came up beside her.
"I'm not easy to kill."
Sophie, her arms still wrapped tightly around the girl she had started to consider as a sister, saw Joan standing with her long sword planted between her feet, smiling as she watched her friends greet each other, and knew that she was safe. She was amongst close friends who she had thought had died many days ago.
Sophie was finally safe.
A/N : Hope you enjoyed! R&R