After a few moments, her breath gradually slowing, the agony radiating from her pounding knee screaming at the back of her head, Ellie grew to realise she had no fucking clue where she was.

Nowhere near where she'd been, that was for certain. It had been night a moment ago, she was certain of that, but by the position of the sun above her, it had to be...well, shortly before or after noon — she couldn't say which, not having her bearings. Which meant, at the very least, she'd been teleported somewhere on the other side of the fucking planet. Judging by the sharp, slightly wet heat on the air, the look of the trees ringing her little clearing that'd made her landing site, she'd guess... There were temperate forests in east Asia, right? That sounded like a thing that existed. Too far south in Asia wasn't likely, since it got rather obviously tropical down there, the foliage was all wrong for that, and it couldn't be too far west in Asia, since she was pretty sure that was all plains and mountains and deserts. That was her best guess.

And that was at the very least, assuming she was still on Earth. She couldn't be sure of that. The way she'd been flung across the room, the odd...whatever that had been before she'd suddenly been thrown into the open air... She had a very distinct feeling Lestrange had accidentally tossed her through the Veil. Since this was clearly not the afterlife, the Veil must not have much of anything to do with the realm of the dead, or whatever, but it had obviously brought her somewhere. She just had no fucking clue where.

While she thought about this, she slowly came to realise her bag, with all her practice constructs, was gone. So was her wand.

Also? She was completely naked.

Fuck.

Well, lying here doing nothing wasn't going to do her any good. All she could hear was the rustling of leaves in the wind, the twittering of birds all around, an occasional chitter from a squirrel or something. Point was, nature sounds, nothing man-made. It even smelled far too untamed — a dark, musty smell she associated with Herbology class, but far more powerful, hints of tang and sweetness that were probably herbs and flowers of some kind. A little bit of rot too, but the point was, there weren't even the slightest touches of contamination from either the muggle or magical world. Which meant the nearest people had to be dozens of miles away, which meant nobody was likely to stumble across her out here in what was apparently the middle of nowhere.

Which meant she had to get up. Despite the fact that she was very sure her leg was broken.

Gritting her teeth, Ellie forced herself up to sitting, trying to move her injured leg as little as possible. A glance at her knee, and Ellie was cursing to herself under her breath — she sure as fuck wasn't walking on that. Her knee had gone red, a little larger than it should be. That she noticed a difference at all meant it would only get worse, since it had only been a few minutes since she'd taken the hit. She'd thought she'd been hit slightly above the knee, but by the way her knee was suddenly the wrong shape entirely, an odd jagged valley through the cap that definitely shouldn't be there, she'd been a tad mistaken. Unless...

Starting halfway up her thigh, Ellie gave her leg a light poke, moved down a couple centimetres, and poked again. As she went lower and lower, an unconscious tension built, her leg shaking just slightly. Only enough to send further shocks of white-hot agony through the ravaged joint, that was quite annoying. After some pokes, she was getting near the bottom of her femur, already tender flesh protesting at the pressure. Another poke, and it was slightly worse, but the bone itself seemed fine. Another poke, still hurt, but not broken. Another poke, fine. Anoth—

Ellie sucked in a hard breath through her teeth, clamped down on her throat to stop herself from screaming. Her hands moved to clutch at her leg, but she caught the unconscious impulse before it could do any damage, instead flopped backward, fingers tangling into her hair. She waited long moments, breathing slow and harsh, for the increased fire in her leg to die down, for the pain to return to a more manageable level of terrible.

Once it had dropped to the point she didn't think she was in danger of crying out anymore, Ellie forced out a sigh. Yeah, okay. Looks like it wasn't just the kneecap, she might have done some damage to the lower bit of her femur as well. Awesome. That made getting herself back to civilisation way easier.

After allowing herself a few more moments to grumble at the terribleness of this fucking whatever was even going on, Ellie closed her eyes, forced past the pain to reach deep inside herself, drawing power through from without. She threw a summoning out into the air, more or less randomly — it didn't matter whether she tried to direct it or not, summoning charms were surprisingly flexible when it came down to it. It only took a second for—

Ellie frowned, turned her head to the left, looking for the source of that thumping and rustling. There was a branch over there, about the right length and thickness, but only on the very edge of the clearing, where it'd inexplicably stopped. Staring straight at the thing, Ellie cast another summoning charm. There was a slight delay before the branch, reluctantly, started moving. It made it to her, after a few moments, but far slower than it should have, jerking forward in fits and starts, never even picking entirely up off the ground.

Once she had the branch in her hands, Ellie stared at the rough and twisted surface with a thoughtful frown. That was one of the very first charms she'd learned to cast wandlessly, but it was barely working. Maybe the pain was messing her up a little? That could happen, but she didn't think it should be that bad. It wasn't like she couldn't think straight, and magic was basically just thinking...

Eh, not important right now. Her charms not cooperating wasn't that important, at least. If her runes were on the fritz too, she was going to have far more difficulty than she'd thought making a splint good enough to limp on, her leg as fucked up as it was.

When she got back to Britain, she was going to murder the fuck out of Lestrange. Forget how improbable it was she'd actually be able to pull that off, she'd figure something out, that bitch was so dead.

She'd flown for hours, further than she thought she'd ever flown at once before. She could cheat a bit gliding, so it wasn't like she'd been flapping like fucking crazy the entire time, but she was still exhausted, her arms shivering from exertion. And not that she was actually going toward anywhere in particular. She'd decided to follow the sun, despite not knowing if it were morning or evening, or what was to the east or west of her anyway.

As the sun had fallen, she'd realised she was travelling west, not that it bloody well mattered. She couldn't even see anything to fly to up there, it was all trees trees trees, a rising and falling carpet of greenery as far as she could see.

Eventually, evening had come, so she'd decided she may as well sleep. Up a tree, of course — she had no idea if there were any animals around here she should be being wary of, but it seemed a reasonable precaution anyway. She'd searched out a tree with a spot where the branches grouped close enough, brought herself in for a slow, gentle landing, switching skins with her usual perfect timing.

And bumped her leg against a branch. Her vision had gone white again, the world fading out for a moment, she'd nearly fallen straight out of the tree.

Now Ellie was sitting reclined against the branches, trying to ignore how the bark pinched at her bare skin. With a rock she'd managed to summon after far too many attempts, she carved at the bark in the wood of her makeshift splint, sketching runes she'd picked up from healing spells. She was less than great with healing magic, but she'd paid enough attention in Arithmancy and Runes class to know which ones tended to be used in numbing spells and the like. She doubted it would actually do any good — healing magics only worked when applied directly — but perhaps there would be some bleedover. It was the best she could come up with at the moment.

She did remember how to brew Skelegrow, but even if she could find all the ingredients she couldn't do it without a wand. Those things were kind of handy.

Or, if her wand was a bit much to ask, some clothes would be nice. Fortunately, she'd managed to stay in the northern hemisphere, so it was still summer, and a warm summer at that. The temperature hadn't fallen with the sun as much as she might expect, either. So she wasn't freezing, but it was still just...uncomfortable. When she was a hawk, she had feathers, so it didn't matter, but she didn't think she'd be able to sleep with a broken leg in bird form. Thankfully, the splint came with her when she shifted, but that wasn't nearly good enough. No, she had to shift back if she wanted to sleep. Which meant she got to hang around, out in the open up a tree, completely naked.

It wasn't like there was anyone around, of course. But it still made her...uncomfortable. Which wasn't a surprise, really, another thing to blame on the Dursleys. It only took so many times being dragged out of the shower and thrown into a cupboard or told to take off your dress while your uncle found a belt to start feeling vaguely uncomfortable taking your clothes off, no matter the context. She shared a dorm with Tracey, and she'd never gotten used to, you know, changing and bathing and stuff, with her around. Even without her around. Luckily, Tracey was just as skittish about it as she was, at least in the beginning, but it was still awkward. Just, seriously, even screwing around with Daphne could be...complicated. Daphne was decent enough to try to be understanding about her, uh, quirks, at least, but she didn't miss the odd looks she would give Ellie whenever she got up to track down some clothes before actually trying to get to sleep. Not to mention the actual sex part, that was always...well, she'd said complicated, that pretty much covered it.

It was getting easier for Tracey, she'd noticed, but Ellie had had a serious relapse in the last year. Being kidnapped, tortured, and quite nearly raped could do that to a girl.

The point was, if being naked by herself in the goddamn shower made her uncomfortable, you could bet your ass being naked in the middle of nowhere up a bloody tree made her seriously fucking uncomfortable. She was trying not to think about the fact that she wasn't wearing anything, but it really was quite hard to ignore. The bark didn't help. She was trying not to move, because the shit kept scratching and pinching at her, it bloody hurt, if she didn't get back to civilization soon she expected she'd be covered in scratches and scabs. And the bugs. Jesus bloody Christ, the bugs. Just, just, ew. That's all she had to say about that. Ew.

She was going to be absolutely covered in mosquito bites when she finally got out of this damn forest. She just knew it.

And she'd gotten the rune crooked. Just great. It really wasn't easy scratching a rune into smooth bark with a rock. It didn't help that it was bloody dark. Ellie squinted down at her splint for a moment, filling in the blanks in her head, trying to see if the rune was recoverable. She flopped back against the trunk with a sigh — and got scratches all across her shoulder blades for it, ow. She couldn't stop the sudden flash of frustration, threw the rock off through the trees with a harsh snarl. Stupid useless piece of shit.

She was still grumbling to herself when the clouds parted, silvery moonlight setting her surroundings into a wan glow. Of course, of course the moon shows itself now. Where the hell were you, she thought to herself, turning a glare upward, when she'd—

Her ridiculous rant trailed off as soon as she set eye on the moon. It was broken. Not completely, mind, most of it still seemed to be in one piece, but there were a few shards off to one side noticeably separated from the main body. Large pieces, they would have to be hundreds of miles long, the space between them, a flume stretching out into the darkness, filled with specks of scintillating dust, sparkling like glitter thrown into the air. That, okay, if someone had broken the moon, she was pretty sure she would have noticed...

Except... Except, that wasn't the moon. After years at Hogwarts, she knew the surface of Cynthia, as magical astronomers tended to call it formally, as well as she knew the lines in the palm of her own hand. She could draw all the prominent maria and canals and craters with some detail, from memory. She would know. But not only was that moon fragmented, not only did it not have the correct features, it hardly seemed to have features at all. It was smooth and silver, glowing with a soft, even light, uniform in its color and brightness from rim to rim.

The realization came on slowly, like a few hesitant raindrops sliding down her face. She'd known she couldn't be in Britain anymore, but it was far worse than that. She wasn't even on Earth anymore. Unless there was another Veil of Death somewhere around here she could pitch herself through...

It was very possible Ellie would never go home.

As the reality of her situation seeped through, her first reaction was a pained wince. She just knew Sirius was going to make a massive nuisance of himself.

Ellie stood on one foot, both hands braced against the tree, trying to convince herself to see reason.

But there was no talking herself out of it. Somehow, she'd gone completely insane overnight.

Getting to sleep had been difficult, for a whole host of reasons. And even when she had finally managed to ignore her discomfort forcefully enough to drift off, she hadn't managed to sleep all the way through the night. Though, she didn't remember what happened very well. She remembered fire and ice, her vision streaked with light and shadow, ears filled with the desperate gasping of her own lungs, the thundering of her heart, mouth and nose overwhelmed with the taste of copper and ozone. She remembered pain, as her magic raged and her body shivered, building and building, she remembered screaming, and eventually it'd become too much, and she'd passed out. It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes.

She had absolutely no idea what had happened, but since she'd woken up she felt...different. She couldn't say exactly how. It felt rather like casting a spell, how the magic would work through bone and blood on the way to her wand — or just out, if she was casting wandlessly — but everywhere, not just through her chest and along one arm. And, well, that tended to hurt, and this didn't. There was the odd sense of fullness, as though something foreign had slipped itself into her very flesh, that familiar tingling, that irresistible giddy energy, energy that could never be fully consumed, no matter how much she might try to work it off. But it didn't hurt. It was just...there.

Which was, quite simply, impossible. There was a reason overchanneling could hurt, there was a reason going too far overboard could injure or even kill someone. Metals and crystals were far more resilient, but organic materials could only handle so much power before they just burst into flames. Even in wands, professional wandmakers had to treat the wood somehow. The burns Hermione had gotten in her amateur attempts had taken weeks to heal. Holding magic inside her body like this, lightly diffused through every inch of her like this just wasn't possible.

But, well, she wasn't on Earth anymore. It was possible her understanding of what was possible no longer applied.

One major thing she'd noticed, almost right away: her leg didn't hurt. Well, no, that was giving whatever had happened more credit than it deserved. It still hurt, of course, a low, hot pounding ache, but it didn't hurt as badly as it had before. Poking at it made it worse, but...with her makeshift splint to support her...

With the thought in mind, Ellie had shifted, intending to go down to the forest floor and test it. But then shifting just had to go and feel really fucking weird. Normally, the process was a...a smooth one, she guessed was the word, a gradual transition from one skin to another, accompanied by a gentle... Much like sinking into a warm bath, it'd always felt to her.

But this time it was different. Like being struck with a harsh, cold wind, hitting not just her skin but slicing all the way through, the transformation taking with a sudden snap. It came as a bit of a shock, enough she'd teetered out of the tree, she'd barely caught herself before hitting the ground. She'd flown around a bit to find the nearest body of water, curious, but her reflection looked unchanged. Odd. Magic apparently was different here — she didn't know why she'd been able to work by her old rules for her first few hours in this other world, but she was hardly an expert in interdimensional mechanics.

She wasn't even certain there was such a thing as an expert in interdimensional mechanics.

Anyway, she'd flown off to the base of the tree, snapped back into her human form. It was just as quick, sharp, and strange going the other way, though it didn't yank at her leg at all, thankfully. Putting herself here, completely naked in an alien world, leaning against a tree and cursing at herself.

Fuck it. What was the worst that could happen?

Slowly, Ellie tipped weight over to her broken leg, the ball of her foot touching, then her heel, slowly leaning further with every second. It was slightly awkward, her knee immobilized by her crudely-enchanted, wood-and-reed splint, and it did hurt, sparks of spine-shivering pain shooting up with every extra gram. But the white agony didn't sweep away the world around her, her good knee might be shaking but she didn't collapse.

She brought one hand off the tree, lightly touched the skin over the break. (Or breaks, she suspected, it did look pretty nasty, all mangled and misshapen.) Through her fingers, clear of the pain of the injury itself, she could feel her magic acting. Slow, yes, thin, but it was doing something. Her magic, having inexplicably spread itself through every vein and every nerve, was healing her. Slowly, so slowly, but what else could that weak little spell be?

She hadn't even meant to cast it. She hadn't even known it was there until she'd touched it, felt it on her fingers.

Ellie smiled.

She stepped away from the tree, right steps confident, if somewhat shaky from weakness, the left awkward and stuttering. But she could stand on her left leg now, her improvised splint taking enough of the weight. As long as she didn't move her knee, anyway, she had no doubt that would fucking hurt.

It was a bit awkward though. Know what would be good? Another, longer stick to use as a cane. She wouldn't be able to take it with her when she shifted, of course, but she should see if that would be an improvement, at least. She reached for her magic, meaning to throw an undirected summoning charm into the air—

But nothing happened. Her magic didn't even move at her call, stubbornly remaining where it'd set up camp under her skin.

She frowned, glaring at the scattered greens and browns of the forest floor. She tried again. And again. She closed her eyes, hard enough she felt her nose scrunching up, focusing harder than she'd had to for months, reaching deep inside of herself, pulling, pulling, pulling...

But it wouldn't come. She couldn't do it. Her wandless magic was gone. That...

That was very bad. She was stuck, in an alien world she knew nothing about, with absolutely nothing, not even a single thing to wear, not her wand, nothing. And now her magic wasn't working.

She spent a few minutes, leaning half-collapsed against a tree, trying not to hyperventilate.

Okay. Okay. Don't panic. There had to be people in this world somewhere. Well, there didn't have to be, but she was going to go ahead and assume there were. Why would the Department of Mysteries have a gate going to some other world if there weren't people in it? Uh, assuming they knew that's where it went, that is, and she had every reason to suspect they didn't. (The whole "Veil of Death" thing was evidence of that.) Don't think about that, that way lay only panic.

And, some of her magic didn't work, but that didn't mean all of it. This splint wouldn't hold together at all if her enchanting hadn't taken, certainly not well enough to bear her weight. And the materials were from this world, so that couldn't be because her magic hadn't...caught up, or whatever had happened last night. And she was still an animaga. It felt very weird, yes, but it still worked.

Did anything else work? She clearly couldn't cast magic outside of herself anymore but what about spells she didn't have to? Ellie picked a spot, in front of a tree a short distance away. With a long breath, in then out, she stepped into shadows.

This felt weird too. Her body turned suddenly weightless as the world froze around her, the chattering of the wind turning into a single, harsh note, the dancing of the leaves so slow they almost seemed painted in place. Then her vision streaked, trees and bushes and dirt slipping toward her, like the paint was still wet and someone had smeared their hand across it. Then, with another snap—

The world came back far harder than she'd expected, and Ellie pitched forward, nearly fell before she snatched at the tree, hugged it to herself. She grit her teeth, waited for the sudden flare of pain from her knee to die down.

Okay. That was weird.

She tried it a few more times, trying to adapt — if she got herself into some fix later down the road, it might be handy to have this shit figured out. And she did get the hang of it, after a dozen hops back and forth. The trick was to lean into it a little, then tip back as the world blurred around her, digging in her heel as she...landed, for lack of a better term. It was very awkward to pull off when she couldn't bend one of her knees, but it was doable. She wouldn't want to have to do it in a fight anytime soon, though. She'd probably hurt herself.

At least she knew. That wouldn't have been fun to discover in the middle of a life-threatening situation.

She found the railway on the third day.

It was a huge structure of metal and brick, elevated a couple meters above the forest floor. Not only did it involve a lot of materials to make something this big, but Ellie felt magic thick on the air as she approached. Flying around the thing, checking under the rails and along the supports, she found a few dozen shapes glowing a faint blue-green, the power on them so thick she could taste it. Runes, obviously, though she didn't recognize the language. The rails themselves showed signs of wear, but not a hint of rust. They were still in use.

The scale of the construction and the enchantments were interesting, but they were far from the most important revelation. This had been built. It was still being maintained. There were people here, somewhere.

Of course there were. She hadn't doubted it for a second. Pfah.

After a brief moment of indecision, Ellie decided to follow the tracks toward the south-east. The winds always seemed to come from that general direction, and they were heavy with water, clouds coming in thick bands. She suspected there was an ocean that way, or at least a large lake. If there was going to be a city anywhere, it would be where the rail met the sea.

The next day, the forest beneath her changed. Not in a sharp line, but gradually, the two distinct ecosystems blurring together at the edges. All the leaves here came in brilliant reds and moody purples, she noticed, the land harsher and hillier, an occasional face of pale granite exposed to the air. The railway weaved between the low peaks, so she kept following it south, on and on and on, the constant carpet of green replaced with a fiery brilliance that nearly dazed her when the sun finally set.

That night was eerily quiet. She hadn't quite noticed just how loud all the bugs and frogs and birds and squirrels or whatever the fuck were until they were suddenly gone. It was a bit unnerving, but she managed to get to sleep all the same.

The next day, around noon, she came over a high wall of crumbling stone. The thing was old, she decided as she checked closer to the surface, rock slowly eroded away, eaten into by rain and root and moss. Far older than the railway, but where the tracks were clearly still in use, this wall just as clearly wasn't. Flying onward, she noticed a few shapes peeking over the treetops, blocky stone and angled steel, the skeleton of an ancient city long dead, abandoned and overgrown.

She tried not to let it get to her. The railway was still in use, she'd even been woken up by a passing train one morning. (She'd tried to catch up to it, but the thing was too bloody fast.) There had to be people somewhere.

And there were. Only a few hours later, she got her first explicit sign of living people.

Of course, her luck being what it was, it came in the form of piercing screams, faint with distance but unmistakable. Sighing to herself, she banked downward, following the commotion to the source.

A village, it turned out, built around one of the monolithic pillars supporting the elevated railway. Encircled with a high wall of stone topped with barbed wire, glowing runes etched across the entire surface, the village looked new enough. Modern, even. The little single-storey buildings were mostly made of stone, but she also saw metal and glass, electronic lighting, that right there at the base of one of the pillars even looked like a bloody huge television screen. There were a couple vehicles, big open-walled things complete with roll cages. A few people in gleaming muggle-style combat armor were even carrying rifles.

Which they were using to shoot at bloody monsters. Seriously, monsters. Big things made of shadow, spurs of chalk-white bone sticking out of roiling flesh, stitched with lines glowing red, the same color as their eyes. Really, they were monsters, and they were bloody glowing. What the fuck was this place? Ridiculous.

Awkwardly perching herself atop a streetlamp, Ellie watched the things pour through a breech in the wall, the soldiers and, by the look of it, a pack of civilians laying into them with a withering rain of firepower. Now that she was looking more carefully, those weren't ordinary guns: they weren't firing bullets. They almost seemed to be firing spellglows, splashing against the monster's exposed skeletons with flashes of diffused light, scoring through their black flesh like fire and lightning. Not too much of a surprise, she guessed, they did clearly have enchanting here. Maybe it was all they could do — the magic of this world seemingly didn't allow the casting she was familiar with, maybe they were limited to artifacts and catalysts.

And here she'd spent all that time learning to enchant properly, too. Finally she got a lucky break.

Anyway, they seemed to be managing the assault well enough. Dozens of the things were dead, their riddled corpses evaporating into smokey clouds even as Ellie watched. (Which, okay...) The flood through the walls had reduced to a trickle, the defenders spreading out to hunt down the last few intruders.

She heard another scream from directly under her, far from the wall. Four of the things had managed to slip past. They looked...well, they rather looked like werewolves. Not real werewolves, she meant the muggle monster movie version, hairy half-human things with clawed hands and an odd stubby snout. Though, these were made the same night black and gleaming white as the rest, glowing red here and there, their limbs long and skeletal, with more proper wolf-like heads filled with far too many fangs, their hands each with five claws as long as Ellie's forearm.

Oh, also, they were fucking big. Not huge, exactly, but big for a person, certainly. They'd be half again the height of a tall man standing. No werewolf was that big.

Surrounded by the four glowy-eyed monsters were people. A woman and two little kids. The kids were crying, cowering against their mother (probably), the woman holding them tight against her, cringing away from the monsters, yelling for help. Ellie glanced toward the soldiers toward the wall. They'd heard, a few had peeled off, were running this way. She looked down again, taking in the not-wolves stalking closer, looked up, measured the distance with their eyes. One of them, so close, snarled, and the little girl screamed.

Aw, fuck me.

Switching to her human skin, Ellie stepped through shadows, landing on the ground right next to the little family. She cried out as her still-broken leg took too much of the impact, the world swaying around her, but she shook it off. She reached for them, both arms spread wide, making sure she was touching all three of them at least a little. And she stepped back into shadows.

That delay at the beginning, when the world stretched around her, it lasted longer than usual, long enough to watch the monsters descend on them in slow motion, saliva dripping and claws lashing. But then, the ground stuttering under them unsteadily, they were gone, slipping out of the way as they moved—

The world came crashing back, far earlier than it should have. The four of them tumbled toward the ground, and a scream was pulled from Ellie's throat before she'd noticed anything was even wrong, vision blurring pale and blood on her tongue. Holy fucking shit that hurt. Eyes watering, leg pounding, she pushed herself up to sitting anyway, looked back the way she was pretty sure they'd come.

And there the bloody things were. She hadn't gone nearly as far as she'd meant to, they were still right there, already turned and running toward them. They had seconds. A glance over her shoulder, and the beefy men with the big guns were still too far away.

Well, Hermione had called that one, hadn't she? Looked like her "saving people thing" really was going to get her killed. Daphne would be so disappointed.

She forced herself to her feet, ignoring the agony in her leg. If she was going to die, then goddammit she was going to do it on her feet. She glared at the bloody things, only a few seconds away now. With nothing better to do, Ellie turned, cocked a fist back, which was awkward to do, without being able to bend one of her knees. And she threw out a punch, pushing with everything she had, not just with muscle but with magic, calling for it on instinct, force of habit. The thing's claws came down toward her shoulder, her neck, and—

Skated off with an oddly metallic clang, the monster starting to stumble.

Ellie's fist landed an instant later. She hit it right between the eyes, just over the snout, right in the center of the bony plate over its face. All the great beast's momentum vanished in an instant. The hard shell of its skull cracked and, with a sharp hiss of lightning, shattered.

And the monster fell to the brick road at her feet, its head misshapen, bowing in at the front. It was dead. In an instant, just like that.

Ellie blinked. She stared at her knuckles, then at the not-werewolf at her feet.

Huh.

The screaming snapped her back to the moment. She whirled around, saw two of the things had slipped past her when she hadn't been watching. Moving before thinking, she stepped into shadows, reappeared right in front of one even as its claws started descending toward the woman's back. She didn't bother digging in her heel, just rammed into the thing shoulder-first before it could slash the woman to shreds, pushing it out of range. She hit the thing, her fist meeting the solid black muscle of its chest, but it didn't do as much damage as before, she hadn't been thinking about it as hard. It was still enough to send it stumbling back though. She spun again, the other one was too close, she wouldn't get there in time, she flung a hand out without thinking, she pushed—

In the instant before it could strike, the not-werewolf was hammered with a sudden flash of white-purple lightning, taking it off its feet and flinging it back, flying through the air until it met the nearest wall. The stone cracked around it, and it fell down to the ground, frame bent and broken and crackling with electricity.

Magic danced in her veins, thick and hot and brilliant, Ellie felt she could sing. Instead she just laughed.

She was busy enough laughing she didn't see the last monster coming until it had already bowled her over. She crashed to the hard, stone street, the thing falling atop her, protruding spurs smashing into her, its weight suffocating. Her leg was suddenly afire, she'd felt the splint snap, but she didn't have time to worry about that. Its jaw had closed over her shoulder, its breath cold and rancid, razor pins jabbed hard into her naked flesh. But they didn't pierce through.

She'd figured it out. In the second after she'd watched the first one's skull shatter, she'd figured it out. The people here, they couldn't cast their magic out into the world. Instead they held it within themselves. There were no charms, but they could use their magic to heal themselves, to make themselves faster, stronger. It was the only explanation for how the thing's claws hadn't hurt her, how she'd punched it so hard its head had caved in. That's how magic worked here. She understood now.

While the magical knowledge she had might not do any good in this alien world, that didn't mean she didn't still have the power she'd been born with. And she'd been born with a lot of power.

She reached for its head, fingers sliding over smooth armor and flesh so cold it made her hands ache, found its neck. Even as she squeezed, constricting the monster's throat with everything she had, it fought back, jaw working at her shoulder, claws slashing at her face, at her sides. But its teeth didn't puncture her skin, its claws danced over her without leaving a scratch. With each pass came an odd sense of shivering weakness, but Ellie cast it out of mind, squeezing, squeezing. Even when it jolted at her leg, the pain a fire that burned up to her hip and set her reeling, dizzy even while flat on her back, she ignored it, kept working at its neck, finding leverage, looking for the right—

With a hard jerk of both hands, the thing's head turned at an impossible angle, the breaking of bones so loud she clearly heard the series of pops. Ellie shoved the thing off her.

And hissed as her leg was wrenched again. Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea.

Snarling. One more, that one she'd knocked over, she hadn't killed it. Ellie rolled onto her stomach, her knee screaming as it turned against the brick, her head swimming. It was close, looming over the woman and the kids, right there, she could make it. She shoved herself up with shaking hands, took one step, then a sec—

Ellie screamed, fell to her knees, then screamed louder. Broken leg. Right. Eyes filled with nothing but indistinct red and white shapes, ears with her own gasping and moaning, she dragged herself across the teetering stone. Just a little farther, come on, she could make it. She pulled herself forward, flailed her hands out, pulled again, again, one more—

Her hands wrapped around writhing icy flesh, and she yanked back on it with everything she had, her magic obeying even as her body faltered. The monster struggled, it snarled, it howled, but Ellie held on, pulled herself up thick, furry legs, dragging herself up toward its torso. Its claws scraped over her again and again, each pass coming with a dizzying wave of weakness, but she ignored it, kept climbing.

Once she thought she might be high enough, she started hitting. Again and again and again, at anything she could reach, her hands going numb from the cold, and still she kept hitting. After a few seconds, they fell to the ground, her left side from toes to hip going limp and useless from molten agony, but she ignored it, just kept hitting the bloody thing. It fought back, viciously, claws and teeth, and she started to feel frightfully weak, her arms shaking, her head turning thick and slow, as though her skull had been stuffed with cotton, and she still kept hitting. Again, again, again—

One last slash from the not-werewolf, starting low on her side and slicing up her back, lines of fire that paled in comparison to her leg, she hardly even noticed.

At the same time, one last punch from Ellie, and she felt bone shatter under the impact, organs squish and blood splash. Abruptly, like flipping a switch, it stopped moving.

She fell to the side, numb from pain and exhaustion, she didn't really feel it. The last of her strength was leaving her, her vision fading to black and her hearing turning dim and echoing, she couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. Not that she really felt like it at the moment. She'd done it in time, they were fine, she knew they were. She could just go ahead and pass out now.

The last thing she heard — faintly, as though from a room or two away — were the falling of heavy footsteps, voices barking indistinctly with crisp, military firmness.

Ellie snorted. Sure, now they show up.

"It's her."

His fingers tightened against the plastic, his jaw clenched. "You're sure?"

"I am. The fight was caught on camera."

"And she nearly died, the way you tell it."

"She did, but I'm certain. Trust me. She's the last one. It's time to put things in motion. We can be ready by next year."

His mouth worked in silence for a moment, thoughts flicking behind his eyes too quickly to put words to them. "You still want to go through with it."

"I haven't lost faith." This said with a sense of pride, mixing with the eagerness he'd spoken with through this whole surreal conversation into something quite unlike him. Pompous, almost childish. "We're standing on the precipice of a new era, my friend. I'd love for you to be there, to see it all. You don't have to return right away, but in time for the Festival, at least."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that."

"Everything will turn out just beautifully. Trust me. Don't I always follow through on my word?"

"Depending how you look at it. Look, this is great and all, but I have to go. You caught me in the middle of classes."

"Yes, of course. I wouldn't want to deprive your students any further. I'll see you then, old friend."

"Right." He ended the call, let his hand fall halfway to his waist. He stared at the screen, the image of the man there. The man he owed everything he was, everything he had. A man he'd once respected, a man he'd once loved.

He looked at him, and his stomach twitched with the beginnings of fear, raw and wild.

"Damn," Qrow muttered.

canals — Here, Ellie is referring to a feature irl scientists call radial ejecta, debris thrown from an impact forming a starburst of long, straight lines. On the surface of the moon, they're particularly clear surrounding the Tycho crater, and to lesser extents Copernicus and Byrgius. The contrast is such magical-made telescopes should definitely pick them up.

Yes, I still exist.

I recently lost my job for medical reasons, so I've had more time to write lately. I've been too scatterbrained to focus on any particular one, but I thought I'd share what I do have for my poor, neglected readers. A few other fics were posted at the same time as this one. All of them will be updated randomly, as I finish chapters.

For this fic specifically, I'm currently roughly 3k words into the next chapter, which is...a little under half of it, I think. I've been distracted by Echoes and the untitled original fic the last few days, but I'll get back to it when I get back to it.

~Wings