Harper was on his hands and knees in the garden, giving two little red-headed moppets a horsey-back ride. Nearby, the three boys were rough-housing, rowdy, but friendly. Suddenly, Seamus found himself face to skirt with someone.
"What the..," Harper caught himself just in the nick of time. He knew Meaghan would skin him if he swore in front of the children.
"I certainly would, Seamus," Meaghan said. She relieved him of his burden and hugged her little girls.
"Meaghan! I thought you were on the Andromeda." Harper looked completely perplexed. He sat on the ground where he was.
"I am. I mean, I was," she backed and filled. "Well I was a little while ago, and I will be again in a few minutes. I just wanted to see how you and the children were doing."
"But how did you get here?" Harper wasn't showing any signs of moving, so Meaghan sat down on the grass beside him.
Meaghan tried to think how to phrase things. True, Charlemagne occasionally referred to her as his goddess, but they had made a decision about not telling the children, and she was well aware that little ones often understood more than was readily apparent.
"Seamus, you know my real name, of course," she began the long trip around the subject.
"Sure, I was there." Harper didn't think things were getting any clearer yet.
"And you know what I was?" Meaghan went on in her roundabout way.
"Yeah, you were a..,"
"Sshh," Meaghan warned. "Not in front of the children."
"Oh." enlightenment settled in, in some small part. "Okay, I follow you so far."
"Well, it turns out that I still am." Meaghan seemed to be blushing, but whether her embarrassment stemmed from being a god, or not realizing she still was one, was unclear.
"Holy.., stuff!" Seamus was really having trouble keeping his wayward tongue in line. "But what about Charlemagne?"
"If you mean what I think you mean," she said. "I think he's the one that was.., changed. As far as where he is, I still don't know. But now we know who did it and how it happened. I'm sorry to be so cryptic, Seamus, but I'll explain it all later, I promise."
The little boys spied their mother, and Harper took the twins from her before the three young rowdies descended and bowled Meaghan over in their enthusiasm. She kissed and cuddled everyone, including, to his acute embarrassment, Harper, then once Seamus had the children distracted with another of his whoppers, disappeared again.
&&&&&&&
Dylan was pacing the bridge in an agitated manner when Meaghan appeared. "Where have you been?" he snapped. "Andromeda said you weren't anywhere on the ship, you didn't tell anyone where you were going..,"
Meaghan looked a little hurt. "But, Dylan, I told you I was going to check on Seamus and the children."
Dylan looked pained for a moment. "The next time you do that could you please have a little consideration for us ordinary mortals and be a little more specific. I thought you were just going to call home, not go there."
"Oh." Meaghan looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Dylan, I just wanted to see them so badly, I didn't think."
"Well." Hunt looked down at her and felt his temper evaporate. "No real harm done, I guess. But I wish you would quit doing that."
"Doing what?" He had lost her again.
"Every time I get mad at you or try to prevent you from doing something," he explained. "It just.., goes away. You are doing that, aren't you?"
"Dylan, I will swear by anything you like that I have never compelled any of you," Meaghan spoke softly, but with feeling. "You're my friends, I couldn't." She looked up at him, speaking with her eyes as well as her lips.
"Maybe it's just.., you being you," he admitted. He tapped her nose. "Freckle-face."
A smile lit up her features for a moment, the very briefest moment before she remembered why she was where she was in the first place.
"Meaghan," Dylan offered. "Why can't you just pop in or whatever it is you do, to wherever Charlemagne is?"
She shook her head. "It isn't that easy. You have to know where you're going. We're powerful, Dylan, but not all powerful. There are limitations. If I knew where Charlemagne was, I'd have him back here already." She wasn't really crying, but a couple of tears did escape anyway.
The captain of the Andromeda hugged the goddess of love and said, "We'll find him, Meaghan, I promise. One way or another, we'll find him."
&&&&&&&
Selene's hand was scant centimeters from its objective when Charlemagne caught her wrist in an iron grip and forced it away from him.
"So there's still some life in you is there, pretty?" She circled around behind him. "And still resisting us as well." She curled her hands over his shoulders and peeked around him at her sister. "What do you think, Eos."
The dawn goddess considered. "We could tie him down and do as we pleased with him," she suggested.
"I could get that much satisfaction with Endymion," Selene complained. "Maybe we should start hurting him, just a little bit, so he knows we're serious."
Eos looked up at Charlemagne. "I hope you know we don't really want to do this," she told him. "But you leave us no other option."
"You mean you think that if you torture me enough then I'll fall madly in love with you?" Charlemagne was at his most sarcastic. "Sorry, ladies, my ship doesn't slip-stream that way."
"And what good does your love do you now?" Selene demanded. "You are here, you are entirely in our power. Do you think your love will save you?"
"It will." Charlemagne spoke with complete conviction. "Even if Meg never finds me, if I'm stuck here with the pair of you till the end of time, Meg's love will always be with me as my shield and my strength."
"See if it will shield you from this," Eos hissed. She placed her hands on his chest.
Charlemagne stood there calmly, not so much as batting an eyelash.
"Selene," Eos whined. "I don't think it's working."
"You're probably just not doing it right," Selene snapped. "I'll try it." She was already in contact with the Nietzschean, and so just concentrated.
And still, there was no reaction from him.
"See," Eos said spitefully. "He can't be compelled, and we can't hurt him."
"Of course we can hurt him," Selene argued. "We'll just have to go about it the same way the mortals do."
An anachronism, a riding crop, Charlemagne thought it was called, appeared in Eos' hand.
"Where shall I start?"
&&&&&&&&
Meaghan suddenly screamed and doubled over as if in pain.
An alarmed Dylan knelt down beside her. "What is it, Meaghan?"
Tears of pain rolled down her cheeks. "They're hurting him, Dylan. I can feel..," her words were cut off by another cry of pain.
"Andromeda, get Trance up here, on the double," Hunt ordered. He felt incredibly helpless, standing there watching Meaghan flinch and hearing her agonized cries, but he couldn't think of anything to do. All he could do was watch.
Within moments, Trance arrived, and looked questioningly at the captain.
"She said they're hurting him," he explained. "But look at her, Trance. She's the one being hurt." A livid red welt appeared on Meaghan's cheek, accompanied by another scream.
Trance knelt on the other side of her and reached out a tentative hand to touch the swelling mark, but Meaghan shrank back from her.
"Don't touch me," she gasped. "You're too.., sensitive, Trance." She broke off as another of the fiery brands of pain marked her. "If you touched me, it might spill over on to you." As quickly as it had all begun, it ended. Meaghan slumped against Dylan, exhausted.
"It's over, they stopped." Then, the love goddess passed out.
&&&&&&&
Charlemagne had over a dozen flaming red welts on his upper body, and one across his cheek. He felt like he must have ground his teeth down to the gums trying to keep from crying out. The sweat he had broken out in ran onto the wounds and stung.
"Sleep well, pretty," Selene murmured. "And remember, we are going to play. Whether we play nicely or roughly is entirely up to you." And once more, the goddesses disappeared.
The Nietzschean slumped down into the lone chair, rested his head on his arms and silently wept at the pain.
&&&&&&&
Trance insisted on taking Meaghan to medical to check her over. After sending Dylan away, she undressed the semi-conscious red-head and found her upper body covered with welts that matched the one on her face.