THREE — SWING

If I jump off the swing, Alex thought, I can fly like Captain Planet. It made complete, total, absolute, perfect logical sense– until she was sprawled across the back lawn weeping.

"Grandfather!" she cried, neck yearning forward, trying to drag herself up. Her leg hurt, on fire, hurt worse than a beesting, worse than a lost tooth, worse than a paper cut. It felt like something was disjointed, unright, pushed out of shape.

When he heard her pained yelp, he dropped his pruning shears and raced around the corner of the house to the back yard where she was swinging on the old twisted oak. "Alex—"

She lay in a little twisted pile, dirt streaking her face and sticking to her tears. Her leg bent behind her at an angle that his few, brief years of medical school told him was impossible. All of this he took in a glance, his mind roaring with panic, utter, witless, panic—

What to do? She's hurt

—your little Alex, crying and hurt, bleeding

(and what if she's broken something what if she dies what if she dies how could you you you failed)

(you can't let the line die out)

He didn't think so much as react, laying his hand on her, "Narokath, Santak, Chattur'gha!" The three runes flickered into view (God, how he hated them, how he wanted never to see them again— and yet, perversely, nothing right now could have filled him with more joy) followed by unholy red light and that voice, that grinding voice.

"Grandfather, w-what's– what did you do?"

"Hush, Alex," he said, and stroked her hair, panic still coursing through his veins. It's all right, he told himself. She's safe now. As if she could have died from a broken leg. You're getting more foolish every day, old man. She's safe. He knew that was a lie, though. She would never be safe again, not after she had been touched by them. As if she could avoid it; she's your get, your whelp, your progeny— how could she have escaped their taint?

"Alex," he said, lifting her to her feet. "You must never speak of that. Don't ever— never speak of that. Forget it happened."

She looked up at him, puzzled. "Was it mag—"

"No," he said, more sharply than he intended. "Magic isn't real, Alex."

Author's Note:

Alex watched Captain Planet FO SHO. Third prompt out of fifty, list made for me by TheMagicPocketTurtle. Go read her fifty-theme list.