I appear at the prearranged teleportation arrival point in Pua's house, and I'm immediately hit in the face with a handful of some sort of powder. I'm not sure what it is, but it smells like various things I've scented in Pua's workshop before.

While I'm coughing and sputtering, Pua's chanting in a dozen different languages switching almost every other word. The combination of changing that rapidly and so many new languages hitting my brain at once means I actually can't understand what she's saying.

Moments later, though, we both finish, me hacking up a lung and her with whatever spell she's casting. I glare at her and she shrugs, not even having the grace to look sorry, "When playing with primordial forces of the universe it's better to not take chances. Anything you brought back from wherever you were could have stayed linked to Her."

I cough one more time, then sigh. She's not wrong. Pua moves forward, picking up a roll of enchanted coconut fiber cloth leaned conveniently against the wall. She wraps Ruler in it, blocking it's aura just in case somebody is looking for it, and can see it through the village wards. Nobody thinks that likely, but Pua has never been one to take chances.

"That's why I had to steal the trait on the spot instead of bringing home the hamster. Speaking of which I have no idea what I absorbed exactly. I found the trait, but I don't know one of the symbols, so if you'd take a look?"

Pua nods, "Of course." And finally lets me into the rest of the house. I drop my stuff in my room before I go to meet everybody else.

"Is Vivain back yet?" I ask, eager to finally hand over the rest of my payment.

Pua shakes her head as she leads me down the stairs into the living area of the house, "No. She's still somewhere in faerie, and out of touch. No clue when she'll be back."

I get hugs from Thea, Asia, and Ku. Ku's picking me up off the ground and actually popping my back. Ku looks much like he always does, and Thea actually looks younger than the last time I saw her. Which means some time in the last few days Pua peeled a few years of age off her wife and stashed them somewhere. Probably to use to do bad things to somebody who annoys her later.

Asia, though, has gone through a much more dramatic transformation. I hadn't actually seen her during my brief visit before going looking for the Brigade. Seeing her now, though... She's embraced Hawaiian fashion completely. Gone are the covering robes that she wore as a part of the church. Instead she's wearing a bikini top under a... shirt I guess made entirely from thick lace. Around her hips is a sarong and presumably something beneath it. All together she looks like somebody embracing where she's living now, but with an active desire to not show herself off. It's a good look on her, and I tell her so.

The blush and shy smile I get in return makes everything worthwhile.

The other thing that's changed is the number of cats all over the village. They're everywhere. Not like thousands of cats have appeared from nowhere, but like a very large colony has moved into the village. Looking out Pua's kitchen window I can see five or six easily.

I pause in the kitchen looking out the window for a moment before turning to Pua, "Is there a reason you seem to have brought most of the cats on the island to the village?"

Pua glares at me, "I didn't bring them. They showed up on their own. It's nearly impossible to keep a mystically empowered cat out of somewhere. And if you need me to explain why they're here, then either you've suffered some brain damage recently, or I've drastically overestimated you, O' daughter of the Queen of Cats."

I roll my eyes at her, but pause after a moment's thought, an idea coming to me in a momentary fit of inspiration. After turning it over in my head a few times I decide to give it a shot.

I head out Pua's front door and, like I hoped, I'm immediately surrounded by cats. Big ones, small ones, young ones, and old ones. A few mothers even bring their kittens to be introduced to me. I can hear Pua, Ku, and the rest of the household opening the door behind me and watching what happens.

I spend some time just petting the cats and playing with the kittens. It's really not much of a hardship being mobbed by purring bundles of fuzz. I came outside with a purpose in mind though, beyond being a kitten gym.

Specifically...

"Do you think you could do me a favor?" I ask an unusually large black cat that I recognize from my escape from the Burner's castle.

The cat in question sits where he is and tilts his head to one side, "I need to get a message to Vivain." No sign of comprehension, "The Lady of the Lake?" Still nothing, "The one who lives there." I point in the direction of the forge, "Where all the hot metal is." That gets him perking up, "Great. Do you think you could find her in Faerie, and get her to come back here? I have a couple of things to give her."

The cat seems to think for a moment, then gives out a simple meow that sounds like agreement to me. He gets to his feet and wanders off, vanishing behind the trunk of a small tree like something out of a Loony Toons cartoon.

Really, magic must wreak havoc on any child who grows up with it, sense of object permanence.

With his leaving, though, I'm left at the mercy of the rest of the cats. Not that I mind particularly. The rest of my Hawaiian friends settle in around me, absorbing some of the feline attention that I can't. We spend the afternoon into evening talking about... nothing of much importance really. It's incredibly relaxing.

Something I'm definitely going to miss.

###

It takes a couple of days before anything comes of the faerie cat I sent out as a messenger. While waiting, I actually put together the Scripts I'd figured out after seeing Ophis speak. I'm getting ready to activate them for the first time to check them when Pua knocks on my door.

I glance over my shoulder from my desk where I've been working, to see the Kahuna standing in the open door with a big smile on her face, "Vivain's back."

I grin back at her, and collect the two bundles of coconut cloth from where they've been sitting in my closet and hurry out the door. I've been in debt to a fae for over a year, which is over two years too long really. If I'd had a better way to get the kind and quality of gear that I'd needed I'd have taken that instead.

On the other hand the athame, armor, and Sclamhaire had proven themselves over and over again. And since I'm now paying off that debt in full, plus bonus, I can't really complain.

I jog my way over to the forge with a bounce in my step and a grin on my face, humming happily as I go. Vivain straightens up as I approach, and upon seeing the two bundles in my arms her grin matches my own.

"You've found two more pieces!" Vivain says happily, and quickly moves to clean off a table. Oh, if only she knew. I'm looking forward to the look on her face. "Put them here, hurry."

I place the two bundles on the table, then before she can ruin the surprise I unwrap Ruler. Vivain looks the sword over with a sneer on her face as she examines it closely. After only a few minutes she fetches a hammer and like she had with Blessing, smashes the sword to pieces.

Moments later she's retrieved the piece of blade that had come from the True Excalibur, and placed it in the case with the first piece I'd found for her. Without hesitating I unwrap the Fused Excalibur, and then step back to see her reaction to my having returned the rest of her sword.

The look on her face is not what I expected. A look of disgust and offense has twisted her features into something that makes me take an involuntary step back.

"What..." She swallows once before continuing, her voice raw at first, then slowly gaining power as she continues until her words echo, "What, is this... thing. This perversion? Who did this to my sword?"

I blink and take another step back, "Um... I believe a man by the name of Valper Galilei. He worked for the church as a researcher on holy swords." I tell her slowly. I hadn't expected her to have this much of a reaction to the Fused Excalibur. I mean, she was offended by the other two Excaliburs she's seen, but nothing like this. Sure, the Fused Excalibur is a slapped together mess with extra bits all over it and absolutely horrible balance... I imagine if pieces of Sclamhaire had been used to make this mockery. Just thinking of her broken in a way she couldn't recover from hurts... No, I think I understand where she's coming from. The question now is, do I make it worse?

I... had made a promise to Kiba that Valper would be dealt with in a worse way than he could possibly imagine. A promise I wouldn't be able to keep since I have to leave as soon as possible. This way though... yeah, I'm going to make it worse.

"I'm given to understand that he did most of his research by experimenting on children." Vivain goes utterly still, and I take another step back, this time entirely voluntarily, "When he was done with them he gas..." Vivain's hammer comes down and shatters the Fused Excalibur, and the table it's sitting on, and leaves a decently sized crater in the ground under that.

I scoot back a little more.

Breathing heavily, Vivain collects the last five pieces of the True Excalibur and fits them into the case with the other two, her hands shaking slightly. By the time she's finished though she seems to have calmed down. Or at least recovered her composure.

She takes another deep breath then turns to me, "You have fulfilled your part of the bargain, and more. I find myself owing you another trinket, at least as great as your athame. What will you have?"

I'd spent a lot of time thinking about this, and as much as there are many things that I might want, there's one thing that I need, "An expanded bag of some sort. Something that I can use to bring some... important things with me through the Gap, and have them survive the trip."

Vivain looks me up and down for a moment, her gaze piercing. For a moment I feel like she's looking through me, maybe examining my soul. Actually, given what she'll be likely crafting this new artifact from, she probably is.

After a few minutes of examining me she nods once and steps forward, "Brace yourself. You've been through this once already, which will make this worse." Then she plunges her arms into me, and once again grips a piece of my soul and rips it free.

She's right, it is worse the second time. I remember once when I was little, my dentist explained to me that pain comes from two places. The physical, actual nerves firing to report damage, and the expectation of pain.

I know exactly how much having a piece of my soul torn free hurts, how much the missing piece leaves one diminished. And that expectation makes it so much worse.

I stagger backwards as she removes her arms from me, cupping a bit of my essence in her hands. She looks it over, examining it closely then nods once sharply, "You've done a great deal to yourself since I last touched your soul." She glances up at me, "You make interesting choices. Now go, it will take about a week to make what you want."

I nod, and all I can do is stagger away back towards Pua's house.

This had better be god damned worth it.

###

It takes me a day of doing nothing but sleeping to get used to having a piece of my soul missing again. The full body ache isn't nearly as bad, I think. Honestly my memories of the time I spent without large hunks of my soul last time are pretty fuzzy. After some testing with Ku though, I don't seem to really be impaired at all. I'm not sure what Vivain took this time, I'm also not really sure I want to know. She'll probably tell me when I get it back anyway so I don't really see a need to rush.

Right now though I'm sort of at loose ends.

I could get started on making the Script that will send me on my way, but I kind of want to not be impaired when I do that. Even if I can't figure out how I'm impaired at the moment.

Well, I was working on something when Vivain showed up.

It takes me another day to test, and fine tune my return plan, and then I'm at loose ends again.

Finally, after waffling for an hour or so I come to a decision and head downstairs to find Pua. She's in her work room and has the door open, so I knock on the frame and wait for her to acknowledge me. She's told me more than once that I'm free to enter as long as the door is open, but her work room unnerves me for some reason.

I think it's the combination of so little power for so much effect.

I glance at the giant gourd that I know has a hurricane trapped inside it. And really that's probably somewhere in the middle on the scale of worrisome things that my Kahuna has stuffed in a gourd.

Pua looks up from what she's doing and beams at me in a worrying fashion, "Ericka! Just the person I wanted to see." Very worrying, "Can I borrow your notes on soul manipulation?" Never mind, I'm terrified.

"Uh... Sure... I'll go get those for you. Then I'm going to head to the mainland. I figure I should visit my mom before... You know."

Pua sobers and nods, "Yeah. I know."

###

E-mails with my mom had never stopped, and we'd kept each other mostly abreast of what's been going on in each other's lives. I had never owned up to the fact that Cait had essentially adopted me, or the details of what I'd been doing to myself, or how often I'd almost died. But I gave her the generalities that she'd be interested in.

Thanks to this, though, I know what to expect when I arrive at my mother's new living arrangement. It's a nice house in the suburbs, very much like the one I grew up in. I take a deep breath to brace myself, and head for the door.

I'm not really nervous about seeing mom again. It's the other people living in the house that I'm uncertain about. I'd never expected my mom to stay single for the rest of her life after divorcing my dad. I hadn't really expected her to find somebody new, either. I really hadn't thought about it at all. Mostly for the standard reasons why kids don't want to think about their parents' romantic lives. I really hadn't expected her to find somebody with two kids of his own, though.

I knock on the door and hear all sorts of scrambling going on inside. Two smaller bodies running around being chased by somebody that sounds like mom. A fourth body heading for the door with a much longer and heavier stride. Moments later the door opens and I'm face to face with a tall, only a couple of inches shorter than I am, lean man. Brown hair, laughing brown eyes, and a generally happy demeanor.

I'm beginning to think my mom has a type.

Pushing those thoughts aside.

I spot the moment he actually processes what he's seeing. His eyes go wide and his mouth drops open just a little. There's an entire beat of stunned silence before he manages to pull himself together.

"Um... Hello? Can I help you?" He asks a little uncertainly. At six one he's not the tallest person around, but I bet he doesn't have to look up at anyone very often. Especially not women, and especially not women who outweigh him.

I give him my best smile, "Yeah, I'm Ericka...?" I trail off in question wondering if he'll recognize my name.

He blinks once and visibly reboots, then gives me his own bright smile, "You're Elizabeth's daughter! Come in, come in!" He waves me in and I step through, relaxing slightly at the welcome, "She mentioned you were coming... I thought she also said you were coming from Hawaii. That was a... remarkably quick trip." No kidding. I'd only called from Pua's house an hour and a half ago.

"I called when I was already most of the way here. I was going to surprise her, but thought better of it." He accepts the explanation with a nod, and ushers me into the living room where mom is corralling two, five or six year old boys.

One is sitting on the couch meekly, maternal authority having apparently been exerted on him sufficiently to make him behave. Mom's got the other boy by the chin and is wiping something off his face while he squirms ineffectively.

"Honestly!" Mom tells the boy she's cleaning. On her left hand I catch the glint of a ring that she hadn't mentioned in the emails. Maybe I'm not the only person keeping quiet about some things, "Lunch goes in your mouth, not on your face. How did you manage to get so much of it all over you? Did you eat any of it at all?"

"I ate it!" The boy exclaims indignantly, "I cleaned my whole plate! Just like you told me!"

"Did you clean it with your face?" Mom shoots back arching an eyebrow.

"No." The boy mutters.

Mom finishes cleaning him and straightens up hands on her hips, "You're passable I suppose." She tells the boy, then raising her voice, "Love, who was at the do..." She trails off as she finally looks up and sees me standing next to her boyfriend, and isn't that a weird idea to attach to my mom, and her eyes go wide, "Ericka!" She squeals and darts across the room to hug me.

Ignoring the boys' chorus of, "No running in the house!"

I hug her back a little awkwardly. I got my native height from mom, and she's not a tall woman. So when she hugs me she goes almost face first into my chest. It's only a little awkwardness, though, as hugging mom is infinitely more important at the moment.

After sufficient hugging time mom pivots to face the room again while keeping an arm around my waist, "Boys, I want you to meet my daughter, Ericka." Then she addresses me, "Ericka, these are the boys, that one," She points at the little boy still seated on the couch, "is James, and the other is Erick."

I blink at that and turn to look at her and raise an eyebrow, really?

Mom giggles at me and a moment later I feel something tug at the leg of my shorts. Looking down, little Erick is standing there, looking up at me with a frown, "You have my name." He tells me seriously.

I glance at mom before disengaging from her, and kneeling down so we're closer to the same height, "I don't know. I had it first, I think you have my name."

He shakes his head, "Nuh uh. Mine!"

I narrow my eyes at him, "Uh huh, all mine."

"Nuh uh!"

"Uh huh."

"Nuh uh!"

"Wrestle you for it." I tell him.

He glares up at me for a moment, then jumps at me yelling out, "James! Help!" Erick hits me around the middle accomplishing exactly nothing.

I glance up at mom who's shaking her head at us and smiling, "My daughter, the grown up."

"Well, yeah. The best part of being the grown up is getting to decide when not to be. I..." I'm interrupted when another small body hits me at high speed and I let them bowl me over with an audible, "Oof."

I wrestle with the two of them for a few minutes before letting them 'pin' me. I lay on my back with one of them laying across my chest, his arms wrapped around my arm. The other has my other arm in a halfway decent arm bar. Or it would be if he wasn't the same size as my arm.

"All right." I gasp out dramatically, "I give, you win, the name is yours."

The boys cheer and the adults laugh, and their father claps his hands immediately acquiring the boys' attention, "All right boys. Let the poor woman up. Let's go play outside and give them a moment." The boys cheer again and bolt for the back door with their father following behind them.

"No mud!" Mom shouts after them and then sighs, "I'm going to have to clean all three of them again." She mutters as I regain my feet, then hugs me again, "It's so good to see you! E-mails and phone calls are good, but it's just not the same."

Ow. Right in the guilt.

"Come, come, sit down." She leads me into the kitchen of the house where a table is set up that allows us to look out windows into the back yard, where all three boys are chasing each other around. Mom takes a seat in front of me so that we're both with the windows to our side, and I take the moment to really examine her. There's a few little streaks of grey in her hair, laugh lines around her eyes. Little things that hadn't been there the last time I'd seen her in person. I don't think anyway.

After a moment of silence I speak up, "Trying the white picket fence again, mom?" I wince a little not sure if that came off as accusing or not. I hadn't meant it to be, I don't think.

Mom just smiles though, "Yes. Your father and I never really got along, and you were never really a normal little girl." She looks at me shrewdly, "I guess past lives will do that to a child." I laugh for a moment awkwardly, but mom just smiles, "I'd never trade you for anyone, I'd be lying though if I didn't admit that I enjoy a little more normality in my life. I've tried to keep up and support you with all that... magic and supernatural stuff, when you talk to me about it but..." She trails off.

"It's not really your world." I finish for her, "That's fine mom. You've done great with all of it, infinitely better than some."

Mom rolls her eyes, "Your father isn't a high bar on that score." She hesitates for a moment, "Has he attempted to talk to you at all?" She asks carefully.

I shake my head, "No. Though part of that is that I haven't exactly been free with information as to how to reach me. But honestly, I'm not too interested in seeing him again. He made his position abundantly clear."

Mom nods and fiddles with the ring I saw, "Richard asked me to marry him." Is that his name? I know she's mentioned it before, but for some reason it never stuck in my head, "I said yes. I hoped you'd be a part of the wedding, it's going to be in the spring. But..." She looks up at me, eyes bright with unshed tears, "But you're not going to be... available are you?" I shake my head, unable to speak, but she just nods, "You know, I always used to be afraid that you'd just... disappear one day into all that magic of yours, and I'd never see you again."

"Mom..." I'm really not sure what to say.

"You can't stay? Even that long?"

I close my eyes and shake my head, "I... I've attracted too much attention of the wrong sort. It was always going to happen, and it has. It wouldn't be safe for me to stay, for me or for you."

I hear mom take a deep breath, then she reaches forward and clasps my hands between hers. I open my eyes and find her looking back at me, her expression determined, "All right then. How long can you stay?"

"Um..." I blink, "I guess I have a little less than a week, I wanted to see Sarah too, but..."

"I doubt Richard and I can get a week off work with so little notice, but we can do three or four days." Mom says with certainty, "You're going to spend those days with us. And you're going to get to know your stepfather and brothers, and they are going to get to know you. And you are going to tell us stories of your adventures. You tell the boys what's appropriate for them, and you tell Richard and me all of it. That way once you're gone," She takes a shuddering breath and wipes the tears away from her eyes, "even if you never come back," Even if she never sees me again, "you'll have left something behind, the truth of you." She smiles bright and wide, "So you'll be remembered."

I can't speak. If I try what comes out of my mouth won't be words, but will be embarrassing. So instead I just nod.

"Good." Mom says, standing, "I'll tell the boys you'll be staying for a few days." She leaves the kitchen in a hurry. I think we both need a few moments to recollect ourselves.

What she said is making me think though. What am I leaving behind once I go? The stories I'll tell mom and her 'boys'. Students and a broken heart in Kuoh. A life saved in Kyoto. Sarah, my best friend even after all this time, and my first...

I think about everybody I've affected, and who's affected me.

I think... I think I want to leave something more. Something more... solid.

So I pull out my cell phone, and place a call. It takes a few moments but Cait, as always, picks up quickly, "Kitten? What's up?"

"Cait, I need to ask you for a favor I'm not going to be able to pay back." I say slowly.

Cait just scoffs though, "We're way past favors, Kitten. What do you need? Hopefully not something too complicated. You are working on a deadline, last I heard."

"Actually, I need you to find me a book..."

###

I spend four days with mom, Richard, James, and Erick. And like mom wanted I tell them stories. I don't think Richard believes me, but James and Erick get a kick out of them. And mom calms a lot as I tell them. She takes copious notes on everything, and I think having a clearer idea of the world, and what I've been doing in it, helps calm her. Or at least helps her make sense of things. It takes some doing, and I almost manage to make myself actually lose my voice, something I'd have thought impossible for several reasons, but I get through all of it.

Somehow.

After those four days, though, I say my goodbyes and take my leave. To Richard and the boys it isn't really anything special. I hug my mom long and hard though, for the last time.

And then I go.

I managed to book, without too much trouble, a spot in the San Francisco Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden. The remarkable number of Yokai working there actually makes it pretty easy. Even all the way across the Pacific, the Yokai still think of themselves as a part of Yasaka's court. Or as a part of the other group of Yokai that I'd never heard of before. It's a little unnerving that I'd missed something that big, but at this point that hardly matters.

Sarah is even easier to get my hands on. She's in her senior year of college now, and fortunately it's not finals season. So I feel absolutely no guilt when I walk into the lecture hall during one of her classes, stuff all her books back into her bag despite her protests, and toss her over my shoulder. Then walk out with her.

The absolute silence that's gripped the lecture hall, except for Sarah's loud demands to be set free, is spectacular. I manage to get out of the classroom before I completely dissolve into giggles.

Sarah pouts.

An hour later Sarah and I are ensconced in the Tea Garden, with tea. And a few other things I retrieved from mom's storage before I left, and stuffed into a backpack. Sarah manages to keep glaring at me for an impressive five minutes while I calmly drink my tea, before she finally gives it up with a huff.

"All right. I give." She tells me after trying the tea herself, "What is this?"

I shrug, "You remember those tea parties you always wanted to have but I'd never agree to?" Sarah studies me for a moment and her expression falls.

She knows exactly what this is, a goodbye.

She recovers in seconds though and glares at me again, "We're not little girls any more, Ericka."

"I'm not sure I ever was one really." I tell her, "I certainly wasn't an adult, but I'm not sure I was ever actually a child."

"I don't know." Sarah says, narrowing her eyes, "I seem to remember you climbing a tree at one point and coming face to face with a spider, which made you shriek like a little girl."

I shudder at the memory, "That thing was the size of my head! I can't be blamed for that perfectly natural reaction." I say with as much dignity as I can muster

"Riiiight." Sarah takes another sip of tea and slumps, "You're leaving soon aren't you?"

I sigh, "Yeah. In less than a week probably."

Sarah nods slowly, "Well, I can't say I didn't know it was coming." She takes a shuddering breath, "Take me with you." I just about choke on my tea at those words. I start seriously considering what I'd have to do to bring her with me, then she keeps going, "When you go back to Hawaii, take me with you. I've got a test in a couple of days, but I'll miss it. This is more important." She meets my eyes and speaks with an intensity that I haven't heard since I destroyed my eyes and she was demanding to know what was going on so she could help, "I've been with you in this since just about the beginning. Since we were just two little girls learning how to tumble for the first time. I might not have known what was going on at first, but I've stuck with you since. I haven't been as close or as involved over the last three years, but I still want to be there when you go."

I smile at her and nod, there's not a lot else I can do, "Of course." I hesitate then for just a moment, "I haven't been a bad friend to you, have I?" It's a doubt that I haven't really let myself consider before, "I'm not using..."

I'm cut off as she bounces a wadded up napkin off my head, "Don't be ridiculous. You've helped and supported me in everything I've done, just like I have you. Just because my stuff is things like moving into my dorm instead of chaperoning you on a trip to the Vatican to get your eyes grown back, doesn't matter." She looks at me for a moment, then sits back, "I read a quote by this guy who survived the concentration camps during World War Two, 'Suffering is a gas, it fills us completely'. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but what I think he meant is that comparing suffering between people doesn't necessarily work. The worst pain somebody has suffered in their life, is the worst pain they've suffered, and that's the important part. For us, you've supported me through everything in my life, just like I have you. What those things are doesn't matter, what matters is you were always there, whatever it was."

I nod at her. I'm not sure I agree with that completely, but I do understand what she means.

"So!" Sarah says brightly, "Since this isn't goodbye, I can focus on this tea party... and I'm not sure this counts."

I raise an eyebrow, "Oh? What's it missing?"

"Obviously we have insufficient guests." Sara says pompously. I smirk at her, and reach for the backpack I brought with us.

Sarah just about dies laughing as I pull out four of my old stuffed animals and set them up around our table, before fetching extra cups for each of them.

"Eh?" I ask with a grin.

Still giggling, Sarah nods, "Yeah, that's about right."

###

We stay long enough to be forced out of the garden by the staff at closing. We get some odd looks for the very serious conversations we're having with the stuffed animals, but none of them say anything. And really by that point Sara and I are beyond caring.

We pack up and leave still giggling together like the school girls we were ten years ago. I'm having fun with my best friend and that's all that matters, the rest of the world can go fuck itself.

I drop Sarah off back at her college so she can collect anything she'll need for a several day trip to Hawaii, and let her professors know she'll be gone. I take the extra day to return to the town I was born in for a walk down memory lane.

I visit the school where the stray devil attacked us. Then the school that I went to with Sarah afterwards. Our gymnastics studio, the various martial arts schools we went to. I even stop briefly at the HEMA school I started learning the sword at, back when I had no idea how important those skills would eventually be. Rolland, my old sparring partner, is still there, though he doesn't seem nearly as big now. Both from my own new height, and just from the bigger stronger things I've faced.

I don't make myself known, I just watch for a little while. They wouldn't recognize me, and the people were never as important to me as some others. The place, though, is one of the ones that started me on my journey.

I visit a bank, which has nothing to do with sentimentality, but everything to do with putting my affairs in order.

I visit Cait's bookshop. Which is surprisingly open, but the register is maned by an actual teenager now. Not a supernatural creature pretending to be one, like Cait did.

I visit the alley where I killed someone for the first time.

I even visit my childhood home. The house I grew up in, and was kicked out of. Not for being gay, but for remembering more than I should. There are lights on inside, and I can smell my father is still living there. Nobody else seems to be though, which is more than I really want to know about his life. He smells healthy though, which is... good.

I hear somebody inside moving towards the front door, and leave before they can reach it.

I'm done here.

There are no more goodbyes to say.