The men, for that was what they had to be, she knew, though it would be easier to think them demons or monsters, yes, monsters, monstrous men she dubbed them, hysterically, moved towards her. With their long black cloaks fading into the dark of the night they seemed to glide through the forest, closer and closer. The figure in the lead extended his arm, long sleeves trailing on the forest floor, a knotted stick (wand, her mind corrected), held deftly in hand and with a swish and flick she was floating above them as they moved purposefully through the forest.

There was no discernible path, but at length the group paused while their leader traced glowing symbols in the air with his wand, revealing a lush estate in what had previously been nothing but dense forest seconds before. The air around the grounds shimmered like nothing but the entrance to Tír na nÓg and she wondered if perhaps she had been mistaken, if these were fey creatures, evil and immortal and cold, if their metal masks weren't masks at all, but faces, and if they could keep her here, at their mercy for eternity, break her after the sun turned red and the earth crumpled to ash.

This thought was so horrifying, so bone numbing, that by all rights she should have become insensate with terror; she had already done so, before they had healed her mind, and after, she had no pride left to lose, no dignity, no hope, and yet...and yet. Something odd happened deep inside of her, something changed, clicked into place and held. This was not something she would accept. No matter she was powerless, helpless, hopeless, no matter she was broken. A terrible magnificent will rose up inside her and she began to wait. Wait for the inevitable, which she now knew was not necessarily death, but change. It did not matter what they did, how long it took, they would not keep her. Dead or alive she would not let them toy with her forever. She would find a way out...or make one.

It was with this mindset that she was led over their perfectly manicured ground, littered with shrubberies(1) and wildlife so exotic that she couldn't even begin to categorize it, past the foyer of their temperature controlled castle, down winding shifting moving staircases, to the depths beneath the castle. There, in a sparsely furnished but spacious stone lined room, lay a marble(2) table, or altar, rather, she supposed.

They lowered her almost gently over the altar, her feet coming to rest over the cold stone. Now clad in soft white slippers, she found that she herself wearing flowing robes, also white, she noted wryly; what is this, some perversion of the classic virgin sacrifice? Here's to hoping nobody pulls a dragon out of a hat, she thought.

Quite suddenly she could move again, and at this she narrowed her eyes suspiciously, surreptitiously edging toward the empty air to the left of the altar, only to be met with some sort of invisible force-field. Typical. Typical of what, exactly? She thought, and laughed, visibly startling several of the "robes" and some began to shuffle nervously, unsettled. This rather pleased her, and she shot them an audacious grin along with a rather ferocious mad wink, in for a penny and all. For this was quite obviously the tipping point and since the only worse that could happen would be for her to survive to endure their company, she had best press any advantage, no matter how small.

"Bloody stupid crazy muggle," someone muttered.

"Contain yourselves", snapped the leader in a smooth British accent, "it is time. We will now cast the spell, raise your wands, focus. She has been brought here to us, the perfect sacrifice, and we can not fail." he bit out, fairly crowing in his composure.

There was one visible exit from the stone room, lit by glowing balls of light captured in steel wall sconces. Unfortunately to get out that way, she would need to bypass an invisible barrier and get past seven men armed with...wands and magic.

Well then, that apparently left killing herself, if her death wasn't already their intention, or grabbing hold of one of their wands, assuming she could use it, if they got too close.

As she was deep in thought the men began to chant, Latin, from the sound of it. She heard the words carpe and vie, which, contextually, was rather ominous, based on her rudimentary knowledge of the language.

Then, once again, she was airborne; not exactly floating, but rather levitating, several inches off the stone tablet, she got the sense that she was not so much being held up by a specific spell as by the massive quantity of magical discharge in the room. The air fairly crackled with it. Seven wands pointed at her, tips glowing (there's a joke in there somewhere, she thought, but this is really not at all funny), all that magic, that energy, directed at her. It flooded her, drawn immediately to its like inside of her, merged with it, absorbed it, railing against whatever thin barrier of flesh or spirit keeping it anchored inside her, and she knew that this had been their aim. To drain her of her spark, her life force, her otherworldly magic, and keep it for themselves.

But magic, you see, is a thing of will and intent as much as spells and rituals, and the "robes" had made a mistake. They had gone too far. They had shattered her, broken her, degraded her, made death an enticing dream, but they had left her there, afraid, without answers, without hope even for death. This perhaps would have worked, should have worked, might have if she had no imagination, no notion of how things could get worse. They had meant her to think there was nothing worse than the pain they had brought her, living with the knowledge of it, to accept her fate, to embrace death as a friend, but in leaving her without hope, without an end in sight, hope for release, hope for death, in taunting her with the possibility of an eternity of suffering, they in their hubris thinking one without magic not able to comprehend all the terrible possibilities, well, quite simply, they had erred.

This woman, in possession of a rather well versed and well used imaginative mind, stripped of hope, was left only with her will, and the determination not to be at their mercy any longer. So, they kept pouring their magic into her, not realizing that they had already failed, and it hurt, but she had been hurt by them before, and she took it into her, the pain and their magic, and held onto it with the strength of someone who has everything to lose, because the only thing worse than what had been done to her already, would be to give them that wonderful glowing essence at the center of herself, her magic, her life, her soul. To have that exist in the evil twisted selves, making them stronger; they would not stop at just her, either, no she was their fucking trial run. So she held on, and slowly they started to falter. They had opened the lines, and they would close only when the magic was gone from one side or the other, she felt that was true with everything she had, so she kept holding on. She felt the first become drained of his magic, his mask dissolving, revealing a lined human face, round cheeks and pudgy jowls, small beady eyes, a mouth open in horror. The men were no longer chanting now, but shouting, some panicking and trying to run, some crying out, "Finite!", but to no avail. One by one they lost this battle of wills, that should never have been a battle at all; seven wizards lost to a non magical girl from a mundane universe. She was the perfect sacrifice, all right, and she wondered distantly if they had had the presence of mind to specify what denoted the term perfection, or if magic had said, "You ask for the perfect sacrifice, and so I send one; a sacrifice perfect for destroying this perversion of a ritual. I go where I am meant, who are you that think to disturb that balance?"

One by one they lost their magic to her, their masks fading away, faces bared, horrified, flawed, human, on their knees before her.

There was so much magic inside her. The ritual was finished, the magic would never be their again, but it was too much for her to contain, leaking through her pores, her eyes, her fingertips, and then it broke loose, crashing through her, over her, she was drowning in it.

~ "What do you want", came a whisper in her mind

~ "Help me!" she cried mentally, hunching over, lines of light splitting her skin.

~ "What do you want?" The voice pushed at her, pulling out the answer, claiming it.

The images flowed through her mind, of her owned devising, drawn forth by the magic, looking for a purpose, choppy and incomplete, the truth of what she wanted in her soul: she was Vengeance, she was a Shield, She was Home and Hearth and Happiness, she was a Candle lighting the way; a visage rose up smiling, a creature of heart and soul and magic, embodied, and she knew it was herself, as she was, past the layer of flesh and skin.

~ "Ah, child, it is well, it is done." a whispered sigh, a release of breath. And then...

She was dying, her skin sloughing off her bones. She was dying, changing, battered down on all sides like metal tempered in a forge, and the magic poured out, free. She was free. Remade. And the magic continued on, destroying this place that had been her prison, her deathbed, stone floors cracking, vines and grass tearing through the mortared stoned and blooming with audible puffs, the floor soft and mossy now beneath her feet, littered with flowers: bluebells, daisies, rosemary and rue, and a few tongue-in-cheek poppies. Walls melting away, the ground rose beneath her; until she found herself in a grand spacious hall with large floor length windows, insulated by only the magic that had come from her, and through them she saw the sky, prompting her to dash over to them immediately, the wave of magic preceding her, transforming everything in its wake. The grounds were now overgrown with wild forest plants, unconstrained and wild and lovely, and the magic swirled upward joyously shattering the shining bubble they had passed through earlier, momentarily revealing sickening runes glowing blood red, and then swept again, a golden shield left in its place, settling in place with the chiming of bells. The sweet soft sound echoed clearly in the crips air, resonating through her bones, and skipping through the forest, as a siren call, it seemed, as the forest's denizens began to come, milling around the boundary's edge, as she watched, wide-eyed from her window.

A/N: TBC..please rate and review, about 20 people are reading this, but not a single review *hint hint

1) non-existent cookies and an implied pat on the back to anyone who caught the vague Monty Python reference

2) apparently the magical uses of marble are as follows:anything dealing with change: personal transformation (mental, spiritual, physical) changing jobs or circumstances, survival of "trials by fire."