A/N:

Hi, lovelies. I'm sorry. I know I'm taking forever. Please know that I honestly do have a crap ton more chapters already written, I'm just struggling on filling a few very necessary gaps. And, without sounding too brag-alicious, I swear the wait will be worth it. And, yes, we're gonna earn tf out of that M rating. Just gimme, like, two more chapters to get there.

For other updates/housekeeping:

Uh. . . I got a rock. Like, a shiny one that goes on my hand. So that's been pretty heckin' cool. I'm also now working with 3-4 horses on top of a full-time job (and also picking up embroidery? Idk, everybody needs a hobby where they can stab something a few hundred times, I guess). Life is crazy and fun.

Rosiekay: 3 I'm so glad you liked it! Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the song itself: it's called "Morrigan" and is performed by Omnia. Definitely go take a listen on youtube. I have a couple playlists for writing this story, maybe I'll add a little filler/chapter-scene-music-suggestion in one of these days so you guys can get into my head even more.

Guest: ;D Getting there, I promise. A little more building in this chapter, but hopefully I'll have time over the holidays to finish up these dang bridges that keep tripping me up. If I do that's. . . a minimum 15k words I'll be able to drop-publish in one go. But I'm gonna be obnoxious and have them in separate chapters so I get to see more of your lovely reviews (what can I say? I like seeing you pop up in my inbox).

On to the nonsense. Thank you for keeping up with me. I appreciate the heck out of you. Fave/review/smoke signal/paper airplane/etc., please. I really do love hearing from y'all.

It was one week until the ball. Ten days until they had to be back in Magnolia. And, for all their training, there was one thing Talia still needed help with.

"Don't be flippant about this, and don't jump to an answer," her voice unusually serious as she pointed a fork at Laxus across the dinner table. "A less powerful version of this attack—and one that I missed with—flattened Freed and scared him enough to give me a healthy warning about using it in the future." Laxus still looked unperturbed as he shoveled another forkful of fish into his mouth.

"I had wondered what you were doing with your mornings," mused Freed.

"I can hold the form and aim the magic," Talia continued, her dinner pushed around her plate yet not really eaten, "but I don't know its effect. I don't want to underestimate it and end up killing somebody."

Laxus swallowed. "So you need a crash test dummy." She nodded.

"I won't throw that magic against Freed again. But I need to know what it can do."

She worried over it all evening. She walked through the scenario countless times in her mind—her aim, the wind, the call of the seabirds—she accounted for every variable. But there was one she could never properly quantify: how does it feel to aim at a friend? To pull all that magic together and thread it into a blade against the person whose eyes you know every shade? Because you knew how they would fake strength when it was bad, and how they'd push through the worst just to keep a smile on their team's face. How hard it would be to aim the Triskellion at his chest. To focus that soul-ripping magic where it would hurt most and see the shadow of him cleaved from his body before the earthly ties snapped him back. But there were always pieces that would break; Morrigan told her that. Godly wounds never fully healed—not fully intentioned ones, anyway.

"Magic is of the wielder," Aunt Orla told her the next morning when she voiced her fear. "If you don't mean to harm him, then you won't. Not in the way that it would matter."

"But how do you know that?" Talia's eyes were bloodshot from a fitful night. Orla shrugged and wrapped her small hands around her steaming mug. It was a cool morning, a front moved through from offshore during the night and brought fresh, crisp air that had long since seen land.

"Old magic has always had a will. We gave it personalities when the gods were created, but the will was always there." She took a sip of her tea. Her sharp green eyes were the last youthful thing about her—face lined, her hands age-spotted and veined, but those eyes were quick and wise. Just because age was failing her body did not mean it failed her mind.

"And what if that will is malevolent?" Talia flexed her fingers on the table before her, opening and closing her hand. The small tendons bowed and straightened, and she found herself transfixed by the articulate movement, by the power that those hands could control. If she was lucky.

Orla's white brows furrowed and she gave a disappointed glare to the girl before her. She should know better by now.

"When one of the safeguards lifted. . ." Talia shuddered at the memory, "All I wanted was to hear bones crack. To snap them between my fingers and feel them break. To watch someone's blood bead against a new wound and watch it run. To see the paths it would take. And I knew. . . I knew that a stream of blood would run taller than water or tears. I knew the thickness, the weight of it, the stain it leaves on all colors of skin." She looked back to her Aunt, and the old woman's gaze softened at the fear there. "I don't want to hurt them. But I did. I wanted to hurt them. Anyone."

Orla reached across the table and squeeze her niece's hand. "Each safeguard Morrigan created is a rite of passage just as important as the rite of original binding. It is a step toward a power and a world that few know and even fewer understand." She released the girl's hand. "Do not let the rite scare you. Sometimes it takes time for the magic to settle."

"I know that," snipped Talia, "But I still know so little about Morrigan. It's entirely possible that as soon as she goes through enough safeguards, she'll just pilot me around until I combust. And I don't want to know what a fully-unleashed God of War can do to the world."

Orla laughed at that, a warm, creaking sound like the door to Talia's childhood bedroom.

"If she had wanted to do that, she'd have done it ages ago." Orla's voice bounced along her laugh. "She has favored this family for generations, I doubt she would be so quick to break you." Her laughter simmered to a light smile. "I would not have performed the rite on you if I thought she would do you harm, Little Lamb."

Orla was not just Talia's aunt. Orla was one of the last High Druidics in the kingdom, which meant she knew almost as much as there was to know about Morrigan and the Gods of her realm. She had performed the traditional rites over almost everyone living in Blackthorne, though now it was simply considered a cultural pit stop instead of a true rite. Few had found bindings to minor deities—sprites, gale-kin, and wandering lower fae—but bindings of Talia's magnitude were exceedingly rare. It was for that reason that the true entity had been kept secret. Though, as in any small town, most of the older folk knew anyway—they just didn't talk about it to outsiders.

"So. . ." Talia said slowly, "You think it'll be safe?"

"Safe? Goodness no." Orla winked a bright eye, "But I have full faith in you to keep that handsome lightning mage alive."

Talia's cheeks heated slightly. "It's nothing like that, Aunt Orla."

A cheeky grin graced the thin lips of the older woman. "No? Well, maybe his taste runs more. . . mature." Talia couldn't help but laugh. Orla joined her. By the time their breathing evened and the hiccups ceased, Orla knew it was time for Talia to head back.

"Remember your grounding, Little Lamb," she said warmly, "Always find a tether when things get too much," her voice turned knowing and Talia knew that this wasn't just about magic anymore: "Just reach out."

The cliff shuddered from the force of her magic. And from how many times they felt it rumble on the way up, she must get a kick out of masochism. No matter how many safeguards Morrigan had released, seven shots of her Triskellion—even just practice shots—must be wearing her thin on focus and magic.

"This experiment isn't going to work if you're running on empty," Laxus barked as the Thunder Legion topped the ridge of the cliff. Talia was sweating in the cool afternoon, even the mist off the waves couldn't fend off the beads her brow.

"I'd rather be running on fumes when I first throw this at you, thanks." The wings at her back shook, and she was starting to have a hard time keeping this form from phasing back down to her standard self.

Good, she thought through ragged breaths, if it falters back a form, then so be it. Better too little than too much.

The onyx outcropping she had been using as a target stood toward the water, away from any chance of the magic straying the long way back toward the town. Even here, she was careful and not fully trusting of her power. The rock was cracked and fissured in the center, a bowl having chipped out of the middle where her attacks repeatedly landed. It would be a sad show of power for anyone else, but Laxus knew that this attack was not fully based in the physical world: that damage was from accuracy practice, not a measure of brute force.

Laxus moved to stand in front of the stone and crossed his arms over his massive chest. The sea breeze tousled his hair like a curious cat; the fuzzy, mist-heavy tendrils batting at the blonde strands—Talia shook her head to try to clear her thoughts. Hyper-personification was just another warning that she was getting close to dropping back into the fae form of the Old One. Sticks and stones and bloodied bones and the like. She took a deep breath. She saw him widen his stance slightly, and there were little crackles of lightning in the air around him. Good. You're not quite as dumb as you seemed last night.

Freed, Bickslow, and Evergreen stood a good distance away, no doubt warned about this magic from Freed's own personal experience.

Talia found the place of stillness behind closed eyes, her hands coming to her waist in the inverted triangle that Morrigan showed her. She could feel the souls around her, pulling at the magic like beacons. But that one, ahead, blues and greys and glimmering gold, that was the one she needed. Her focus turned solely to him, her magic pulsing a war-beat. As she locked her focus, there was a tug at the back of her gut and a painful stretching. . . this was wrong. . . something was wrong. . .

Red eyes opened. "Triskellion."

The magic shot into him like the back of an axe, unfocused and blunt. But gods damn it still hurt. She hadn't aimed for his heart like she said she would, she hit his side instead. And no matter how many times Freed had tried to describe the pain of it, the reality was just. . . stranger. There was no sharp rip and tear of a wound, no cut to bind or blood to staunch. But that pull. Like something speared him through his side and tried to drag his entrails along on the way out. He cried out; his legs wobbled and he fell to his hands and knees—focusing was hard, breathing was harder. But the pain wasn't what had his attention.

It was the magic pressure all around him. It beat erratically through the air and jumbled the blood in his veins. But he did hear this:

"Talia, breathe!"

Freed's voice carried, despite the erratic magic, and Laxus looked up.

Everything was shaking—the air, her wings, her hands. But he couldn't tell where she stopped and the magic began. She pinched her eyes shut and desperately pressed her hands to her ears.

"Stop!" she cried, "Make it stop!"

The erratic pounding of the magic just kept growing, though. Rocks rattled and the target-stone cracked, the very hillside quaking under the vibrations.

"Why is there so much?!" she wailed. She tried to open her eyes, tears flooding out, but pinched them shut again. She cried out and doubled over in pain. Her wings flickered in and out of this plane of reality.

Laxus forced himself up to stand, thought it felt like all of his insides had been scooped out and he was just a shaking shell. She cried out again and he took a step toward her with his own grunt of pain. His vision swam in the muddled, misty air. Everything was shaded, the life misplaced or tucked away for a never-coming sunny day. And there were shadows—figures—they stood vigil as loose ring around the Thunder Legion, Talia at their center. They were silent, simply watched. There was a beat through the air—the two figures on the farthest edges struck staffs to the stone below—juxtaposed to a normal human, they would have been massive. But something primal in Laxus told him those were not made of any oak or ash he knew. And the way their points resonated against the cliff. . . it shuddered the air in that horrible rhythm. It rippled their reality. He should not be here.

Across the clifftop stood a figure more massive than the rest—the shadows both shuddered at and fawned over him. Massive horns—countless and wicked sharp-stood out against the grey sky. The bleached bone of a cleaned buck skull obscured his face, but there was nothing beneath it. A shudder ran through Laxus's soul, though it was farther to the left than he thought it would be: the displacement jumbled everything, pulling into a plane he had no right to be in.

The horned creature's black depths found him, then. The languid curiosity of a predator in no need of a hunt. Nothing changed. The shadows kept falling. Behind the darkness, he felt it smile.

"What do you need? How can we help?" called Bickslow, though his voice sounded fractured amidst the magic.

Talia let out a painful, groaning breath, hands still pinned to her ears.

"I. . . I can't. . . it's too much."

"What's too much?" yelled Freed. The three of them were trying to make their way closer to her, but the magic made it difficult for anyone to stand, much less walk.

"Everything."

Everything. She could hear everything, feel everything. She had pushed too far, stretched her magic and control too thin. She knew it without asking—she had just inadvertently slammed through a safeguard. She was so preoccupied with the need to keep him safe that she had pushed too far—stretched too thin. But she couldn't think about it—she couldn't think about anything. There was just the pressure: slamming, hammering into her head. The whistle of the wind, the crash of the waves, calls of seabirds, rustles of foxes—the very heartbeat of the earth. It pressed into her with a thousand hands each clawing and ripping at her for attention. She had to find a way to muffle them, to cut through them, something. Her eyes spun through tear-warped vision looking for any way out.

She launched from the cliff, wings faltering and flight spasmed. She barreled away from her friends, the desperation for clarity a sole drive in her body. Stillness, muffle, smother. She dove from the edge of the cliff and crashed into the metronomic waves below.

Water flooded her ears, packing them tight. There was still sound down here, under the tumbling waves, but they were lower, slower, and though they pushed against her, they were nothing more than a curious pressing. The shock of the difference brought all of her exhaustion roaring back to her bones, the adrenaline dissipating amidst the bubbles that raced toward the surface. The silken, twisted fingers of the current swept her in and out, forward and back, slowly coaxing her leadened body down, down into the depths of bass and bubble and billowing sand. She knew she should swim. She knew she should find that point of glimmering light above. But she was so tired. And these sounds so coaxing, the mellow voice of the sea, it wouldn't be so bad to stay here awhile.

A splash above her barely registered, but strong arms hooked around her torso and dragged her against the tide. They kicked and pulled against that siren's song, and for a moment Talia was angry at them for it. Why would they take her away? She'd only just arrived. And these deep tones, the warbling, wandering, listless flow of the tide. Couldn't she stay a bit longer?

They broke the surface, crashing against the relentless waves. Talia coughed at the sudden brightness and chill of the breeze, water hacking its way out as her lungs evicted the brine.

"Next time give us a bit of warning, why don't you?" Evergreen snapped between breaths behind her, still kicking furiously to keep both of their heads above the rolling breakers. There was a sandbar somewhere near here, there had to be with these little whitecaps in the middle of the open water. Her feet found the ledge, and they dug into the sand, pushing onto the shallower ridge. She pulled Talia along, a bobbing dead weight. When she could finally stand with her feet flat on the sand, shoulders out of the water, she heaved Talia fully to the surface, waves pressing at her back and face skyward.

"Just float a minute," ordered Ever, still out of breath, "I'll keep you here." She put one hand on Talia's arm, the other rested gently on her forehead. The waves were gentler here, a subtle rise and fall, the lungs of the world that needed no air. She tipped Talia's head back gently. "Close your eyes, just breathe slowly." She tipped the crown of the sound mage's head back into the water until it covered her eyelids, but was careful to keep her airways clear.

Her sister was a swimmer. And after any race, she'd rest just like this; the delicate tension of the surface pulling over her eyelids. She said it helped bring her down from the high of competition. Ears still under, lungs still clear. Evergreen just hoped it would help here as well.

They stayed on the sandbar until the burn of the safeguard ebbed; until Talia could take her ears out of the water without wind and wing-beats overwhelming her senses. And then, slowly, they made their way home.

It was a crisp night—the grasses shimmering and mimicking the waves that the breeze knew so well. Stars glittered above, countless and endless in the inky blackness. They winked at Talia constantly, hiding secrets she'd never uncover. But she liked those kinds of secrets—if she had no hope of uncovering them, then there wasn't all that much of a draw in the first place. They could just be winking, glittering stars and she could wink right back because that was a secret between friends.

And there were so many stars, all packed so close together, yet never touching. Just teasing each other with the promise of those secrets. She wondered what kinds of creatures wandered there; swimming in the blackness, flickering in the starlight. Would they swim? Would they fly? Was there any real difference between the two? It didn't seem to matter—you'd be weightless one way or another. Would they have teeth? What kind of teeth. There didn't seem to be much in the way of meat from what Talia could see of the sky-but then again, should couldn't see much under the waves, either. Once in a while, the winding, scaled back of a serpentous creature would break the sea glass to feel the chill of the air. And she didn't rightly know what it was either. She shivered at the memory; at the unknowing; at what a wonder it was exist beside.

Something soft pushed against her side—Laxus's coat. He had made a habit of bringing it to the roof. Whomever needed it was granted temporary custody, and it had been on all of their shoulders—but somehow Talia still felt it ended up on hers the most. She pulled it over her like a blanket. It was still warm and it held his shape slightly, as if confused by the sudden small figure it encompassed. But, like any coat, it nuzzled up against her and held her tight against the night breeze.

She was drifting. There was some haze in her eyes, a childish smile peeking out from her lips. It had been happening more the past month—she would just kind of slip out of conversations and into some other world between theirs and hers. And she was clearly still exhausted from all of the everything of the day. If this was where she wandered, Laxus didn't see too much harm in it. But those hazy eyes were closing now. She wasn't putting up much of a fight against it.

He continued his conversation with Freed and Bickslow, but their voices hushed a bit. If she needed to doze on the roof, they'd let her. Evergreen interjected at some points, but seemed more focused on the new press-on nails she had acquired; gluing and filing and checking the grip until they were to her satisfaction. It was all a welcome sense of normalcy after the chaos of the day, and none of the group was want to shirk it.

But nothing ever stayed too normal these days.

Her voice creaked slightly of warm and worn old timber, but soft as threadbare wool: "The wind still looks for the trees, methinks. It remembers its old friends when it comes in from the salt spray." As if it heard her, a tiny wisp of wind twirled through the grasses, up and twisting before dissipating into the air; the stalks twined up from the ephemeral pirouette. The remnants danced away along the tops of the wheat, rattling the grains.

The Thunder Legion paused their conversation and looked to Talia in quiet interest. But there was a knowing smile on Freed's face.

"Good of you to join us, Old One. I've long wanted to make your acquaintance."

A silver smile caught the starlight.

"My mage of runes. How I do wish you'd twist them more so. Such clever little traps you could make, spun up between those brushstrokes. Bound by word indeed." That smile now turned to him, and it almost seemed for a moment that the starlight danced along her teeth, or maybe it was just the silver in her eyes tricking the light like the riddles she was so fond of.

Freed smiled and inclined his head in respect. This was exactly the sort of exchange he expected when he imagined meeting the Old One. Talia had said numerous times over the years how much fun he could have with riddled runes, and he wasn't surprised to find the source of the suggestion.

She told them stories that night. Stories of memories, of chaos and kin and twisting tongue. But her favorites were of the creativity of humans. By all accounts, she was enamored by them. Maybe that's why her fae would steal away mortals in the tales—to sate their fascination.

"There's a woman of water in the southern continent with dominion of the tides," she mused to her stars and companions, "She loved tide pools-little creatures filled her pockets and peeked out from beneath her skirt's sandy folds. But since the people of that region only ever saw her at the tide's edge—only stepping farther onto the shore as the waves crept their way up the sand—they wove that her feet could never leave the water. That she pined for a human man and stretched her waves as far as she dared to even catch a glimpse of him over the dunes."

Evergreen sighed at the romance of it.

The Old One gave a sleepy, breathy laugh.

"That's all, obviously, purely human creativity." Evergreen gave a heartbroken huff from a few feet away. "Of course she could leave the water's edge—she would wander inland to visit her lover: a willow tree-nymph whose roots and branches would lick and tickle her water in the passing breeze. But men always want to find themselves at the center of their own stories, despite the fact that the rest of the world rarely finds them all that interesting."

Bickslow laughed at that, and Freed gave a chuckle. Laxus's smile broadened in the cool air, his head rested on his hands as he reclined on his back. He still ached from the afternoon, and even a few hours of sleep hadn't worn off the stretching and soreness that he couldn't quite place. Nothing actively hurt, and nothing really felt like it was healing, just. . . stretched a bit too far.

"You'll manage just fine, dragonling," creaked the Old One, her eyes closed and a cheeky smile on her lips as she faced the dark sky, "No real damage done. She was too tired and worried about hurting you to do more than pop you out of place for a moment."

Shit, he thought, if that was considered a pop, no wonder Tal was worried about actually hurting someone with this.

"She wasn't the only one worried," goaded Bickslow, his tattooed tongue coming out to run over his teasing smile.

Laxus threw his empty beer bottle at his friend. Bickslow dodged easily with a laugh.

"Don't forget to pick that up later," chastised Freed.

"Yeah, yeah whatever."

The Old One grinned through Talia's lips. "The wind mentioned something of the sort. Too bad our Little One hasn't quite figured out how to listen to it yet."

Laxus ran a hand through his hair in irritation. "What was I supposed to do? Just sit there? I'm tired of seeing her fall and not being able to reach her in time."

"Ever is the quickest of us, anyway," added Freed, ever the diplomat.

"Yeah, well, you didn't have to fucking tackle me, Bix."

Bickslow just laughed because nobody believed him.