Dancing on the Sky
Part One - "Grid of Misery"
Chapter Five - "I Have Found You
Author: Mizzy
E-mail: PG-13
This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.
Warning: Don't eat my mum's vegetable pie. She puts marmite and peanut butter in it. Urgh.
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They landed on the moon about a minute before the appointed time, raising up a whirl of moon dust around the perimeter of their air bubble that swirled around and just floated around in the air. Nita felt herself almost distracted by the small specks of dust. They would have probably lain dormant for a longer time if she and Kit hadn't transited in and disturbed them. Now they were inadvertently moved from the existence they'd known so far, and were eddying around in a churning display; a simple dance on the sky that no one could understand until they were one of the dancers, and none of the dancers fully understood. It was just something they had to do because they were put in the situation, and now they had to make the best of it.
Kit, by her side, was already looking around; his eyes narrowed and entire poise screaming 'I don't like the feel of this situation at all . . .'
"No one's here," Nita whispered, not feeling it was appropriate to use a tone louder than that. As it was her voice seemed unnaturally guttural and loud in their small space.
"And the Guardian's weekly top observer prize goes to Nita Callahan of Long Island," Kit muttered sardonically. Nita shot him a look that was half-way between annoyance and amusement.
"What time is it?"
Kit rolled his eyes to the firmament, which sparkled with the heady spread of stars sprinkled across light years into infinity, and lifted up his arm to check. "12:01."
Nita sighed irritably. "What's the point of punctuality if no one else sticks to it."
"Politeness," Kit responded, shrugging quizzically.
"That was a rhetorical question," Nita said, shuffling in the dust beneath her feet.
"We sshall ssssave the quessstionss for later. We don't have much time," a menacing voice hissed in the speech.
Instinctively turning, Kit grabbed the strings of the speech necessary for an instant fireball which he had used three hours earlier to toast bagels since Annie was hogging the cooker, and Nita steadied herself to send them back to Earth if a trap was sprung. Two shimmering black eyes faced them, and they both looked at the Calur'tee suspiciously.
"Forgive my late entransssse," the Calur'tee said.
Nita stared accusingly. "You can speak English?"
"I learned to talk your language sssso we could communicate better." The Calur'tee shrugged, unconcerned. "My name is Ssssasshantariossss."
"I'm Kit, this is Nita," Kit said, jerking his head at Nita. "What have you done with the wizard we call Carl Romeo?"
Sashantarios held up his hand in defense. "We have done nothing. I think you came up here with some falsssssse ideassss about ussss. We are mercccenariessss, yessss, but thisssss time, a travesssssty hassss been done to both of our raccccccessss."
"We're listening," Nita said stiffly, recognizing that this Calur'tee, as a wizard, wouldn't lie to them. She'd found that out while studying some of the alien life a few months ago. In a lot of cultures wizards were renowned and favored about all others; their gift was precious and revered. Similarly, wizards in a lot of other cultures did not lie, taking the concept of the Speech and names very seriously - any lie, however small, in whatever language you were communicating in, would be enough to strip you of your wizardry and your life.
"The one I sssent down to get you wassss not a wizzzzard. I am afraid I usssssed small decccception to get you up here. The Calur'tee are being framed for the kidnap of your Sssssssenior Carlromeo." Sashantarios strung the two names together, and folded his scaly arms across his chest, or where on a human the chest would be, but Kit wasn't so sure the lightly jerking expanse of scales under his arms could be describes as such. "He isssssss being held by Morganna."
"Morganna? Another kind of alien?"
"No." Sashantarios waved his tail in disgust at Kit's wrong guess. "Sssssshe isssssss the ruling forcccccce of the Ssssssssigma Quadrant… Ssssssshe removessssss wizzzzzardssss for her own ussssssssse, they ssssssay ssssssshe wassss of your planet. Sssssshe…"
Whatever else Morganna was, Nita and Kit didn't have the chance to find out. Sashantarios jerked, as if being pulled up by his spine upwards, and he bent over doubled, wheezing. Nita ran forwards instinctively to help, but Sashantarios hissed at her, his eyes flashing red. "Don't. I have to go. I am sssssorry I could not ssssssay more, but . . ." He jerked his head upwards, nervously, as if something was watching him. "Find your ssssenior . . . Both of our raccccccessss are at ssssstake . . . I bid you well, young wizzzzzardssss . . ."
"Wait!" Kit yelled, the sound magnified to an impossibly loud sound, but it was of no use. Sashantarios blinked apologetically at them, before flinging one scaly hand into the air and disappearing in a shimmer of blue light.
"Dammit!" Dropping to her knees in frustration, Nita sunk her face into her hands. "He got away . . . but there was so much we needed to know . . ."
Kit knelt down beside her, offering her help to stand up. "Don't worry. We've got enough to make a good start, and thirty-one hours is more than enough time to get Carl back and kick some alien ass."
Nita offered Kit a watery smile. "Yeah, I guess. We should get back. It's a pity we didn't record what he'd said, though; I don't know if my memory's good enough to remember everything."
"Ahem," Kit said loudly, holding up a string of symbols in the speech in his hand. "One of us has their head screwed on enough to think of things like that."
Nita stared at the symbols in disbelief. "You… you… you… genius!"
Kit had actually been about to admit it had been Annie's discussion on car radios and how she wished you could record tapes while in the car to save time that had inspired him to prepare the recording spell, but couldn't say anything as he was in shock. Nita had wrapped her arms around him, and was now hugging him firmly, from her own volition. Repeating to himself in a steady mantra that she was only doing this because he'd done something as her friend that could save Carl, Kit disentangled himself from her gingerly and smiled.
"Come on, let's get back," he said. Feeling blood rush to his face, he turned around on the excuse of getting to his feet, and he felt rather than heard Nita get up behind him.
"OK," Nita replied, a little more upbeat than she'd been earlier. Although she was despondent about the whole lack of exact details, they had a lead on to his whereabouts and reasons of his disappearance, and that was enough to lift their spirits higher than the pessimistic cloud that had obscured them since they learned of Carl's disappearance. She bent down with Kit to sketch out the circle so they get back to Dairine and to Tom to conference on what they'd found out, and realized just exactly what she'd done. She didn't know when she'd ever hugged Kit like that before. Sure, she'd hugged her partner in relief before—relief it was all over, relief that they'd accomplished something, relief they weren't dead. Never before just because she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Never before just because she'd just wanted to . . . needed to . . . hug him.
Feeling a little more nervous and unsure of herself, Nita tried to stop the butterflies in her stomach and the lightheadedness that was making her dizzy, and she wobbled a bit from the overwhelming wave of restlessness that washed over her. Kit jerked upwards from his furious concentration on tying in all of the variables for the way down to Earth, and took hold of her arm; not firmly, but enough to let her know he was there and would catch her if she fell. Almost as in slow motion, Nita looked up to see him staring down at her with dark eyes intent on her, and with the open emotion on his face that he would never harm her, could never harm her. Physically unable to move, Nita felt her mouth hang open uselessly and she snapped it shut abruptly.
"Thanks," she muttered, when she was able to move, and she watched slowly as Kit averted his gaze and moved his arm away.
"It's fine," Kit mumbled, suddenly embarrassed, and he bent back down to tie in the long string of bindings and shielding he'd created previously and which lay in his own special part of timespace, his individual claudication; busying himself with scrawling his name neatly into the dust in the right space. They went through the motions of checking each other's names, but Nita must have taken longer to linger over Kit's name as he was suddenly behind her, leaning over her shoulder and she shivered from his breath on her neck. She swallowed, hard, and tried to keep her concentration on his name below her. When she reached the end, she frowned a little.
"Kit, the . . . that last symbol isn't there," she whispered, feeling her chest tighten and struggling for oxygen and not knowing whether it was that their supply of oxygen was running out or if it was her own body restricting the flow of air.
"It was only in the temporary slot anyway," Kit explained slowly, staring out at Earth and avoiding her gaze staunchly. He finally turned to her, and Nita could see the mixed feelings on his face; the same expression that Nita guessed was on her own. "I don't think I need it now. Do you?"
Nita swallowed again, and took a deep breath, feeling like she was falling into nothing, but this time feeling that it was OK to take a chance and fall, just to see for once what was at the bottom. "No," she said faintly, the assertiveness that she meant her words still there in the undertones of her words, "I don't think you do."
She shivered at his gaze slightly, and Kit nodded gently. "Then it's fine," he said neutrally, the intent gaze of his eyes on her own making Nita realize she had just answered a question far greater than the one spoken out loud. "He was in all that pain . . . because of me . . ." The thought swam in her head dizzyingly, and she raised her glance defiantly.
"Come on, let's go update everyone," Nita said softly, and at the same time they lifted their voices in the familiar words of the transit spell. Nita let herself go into the spell, letting her voice speak the words she knew so well over routine, and feeling that shiver again as Kit's voiced matched hers perfectly, rhythm-for-rhythm, pitch-for-pitch, and knowing deep inside that while she was in essence the same person she had been on the way up, she hadn't known who that person was. Nita let her gaze drift to Kit again, and she kept speaking fast so as not to let her other thoughts cloud and distract her. She knew who that person was now, perhaps she'd always known but refused to acknowledge it, and now ... Now she didn't have to be like the specks of moon dust that danced to the tune that other people played for it, moving only when shifted by a huge outside force. Nita could dance on the sky like them, only to her own tune and in her own time, and nothing would ever change that now.
Nothing.
Dairine let her legs swing as she sat on the largest bough of the roman tree in their back yard. She'd spent countless hours, concentrating on the tree and speaking to it gently in the speech, but it appeared that life in all its forms was Nita's specialty and not her own. It was a pity. Truth be told, Dairine often was jealous of her older sister, and yearned to do things with that way of showing your emotions on your face and being able to be so open. Liused was one of the things that pulled her and her sister apart, and was one of the things that was solely in Nita's universe and couldn't cross over into her own. Like what really happened in the Song of the Twelve on their vacation, and the inconsolable grief of losing Fred and Ed. Even Kit bordered on one of those solely-Nita items in her life. Dairine saw Kit often enough, knew his mannerisms, his favorite things, even his secret love of Shakespeare, but there was a side of him that only Nita would ever see; if she wasn't so blind as to ignore it.
Sometimes Nita was so dense about Kit that Dairine wanted to scream, hit her sister soundly and even bash Kit up a little until they understood their partnership wasn't as plutonic as they'd like to think. Unfortunately, Ronan complicated matters, as did hormones, and the Powers using her as a catalyst to bring out the thing in Ronan's head. Dairine snorted out loud in disgust.
"Nita and Kit are idiots," she said out loud, derisively, in the Speech, and almost fell off the branch when a quiet voice announced "I quite agree."
Looking about her swiftly, Dairine clung onto the trunk and then patted it lightly. It must have been Liused. Was that a sign things were changing? Dairine didn't like to believe in fate and destiny, as such. The force was a fairytale of Star Wars - wizardry was true - but sometimes, in the dead of the night, or at moments like this during the daytime when she was alone - she could almost taste it, tantalizing, on the wind. Wizardry had been like that to her, once, a cloud in the distance. No matter how fast you ran, how much you wanted it, you never caught up with it. You had to stand still, wish on the wind, and hope your wish could be granted by the Powers.
Deciding to damn her own sense of limitations, Dairine swung down off the tree and was about to head off inside to wait when she felt the tight whisper in the air that indicated wizardry and stepped backwards against the building. Feeling the perpetual cocky grin that she was famous for spread on her face, Dairine skipped forwards when she saw the triumphant expression on her sister's face, but paused when she realized Carl wasn't there.
"What happened?" Dairine blurted out, looking from Nita, to Kit, and the giddy sense in the air of something being acknowledged that hadn't been recognized before.
Kit was the one to explain, rubbing dust and dried leaves off his knees absently. "We met a Calur'tee, Sashantarios. He didn't have Carl, it was a ruse to get us up to go speak to him . . . He does, however, know who has him."
"Who?" Dairine asked breathlessly, looking from one to the other and feeling a sense of dizziness that she hadn't felt before.
"Morganna, of the Sigma Quadrant," Nita said, with a brief shrug.
Dairine blinked at her, confused. "Never heard of her."
"Neither have we," Kit said. "But I think we should get to Tom's and see what if he, Annie or Ronan know anything."
"Good idea," Dairine said quickly, bundling Spot under her arm and stepping forwards to join them. "Let's go."
Whether it was because Annie had not yet gotten used to driving on the "wrong" side of the road, or for the fact that the meeting with Sashantarios was slow, or for the fact that transits worked much faster than cars did, no one knew; but the fact remained that all five reached Tom's house at around about the same time.
Kit landed on the patio stones, looking thankful and shooting a wary glance at Nita which Dairine instantly questioned. Kit explained how Nita had shifted their last transit so he splashed into the stucco koi pool. Dairine found it very amusing, and, giggling, ran to the back door of the Romeo/Swale household and tapped on the door.
Tom appeared, looking unshaven and all the worse for wear, and let them in without a word of greeting or otherwise. Dairine immediately grabbed her favorite armchair, the one by the front window, shifting a copy of "La Morte D'Arthur" onto the floor so she could sit down while Nita and Kit sat down gingerly on one of the sofas.
Looking around, Nita frowned. "How long does it take to drive from our house to here?"
Tom settled down wearily in the couch opposite from Nita and Kit, observing detachedly the deliberate position of the two teens, and shrugged in a vapid fashion. "I've never done it myself," Tom said, his voice dry and toneless. He cocked his head to one side after a while, and said the first Tom-ish thing he'd said in a while. "Why are you two sitting like there's a brick wall between you?"
Dairine chuckled again, apparently very good-humored at the moment. Nita frowned faintly, figuring something must have happened to Nita in the very brief time they were away, and decided to ask her sister about it later.
"Brick wall?" Kit stared blankly at Tom. Tom's brow furrowed.
"Ok, maybe like a country is between you," Tom amended irritably, running one hand rakishly through his already disheveled hair. "And next time I'd rather go to sleep naturally, thanks," he added.
Kit flushed faintly this time. "Sorry," he apologized, making no attempt to move. Tom arched one eyebrow and wisely said nothing. The doorbell going suddenly startled him, and Tom was on his feet before anyone could say anything. He flung the door open, gaze searching and sinking in disappointment when he saw Annie and Ronan on the steps, holding the pizza box. It was still steaming, no doubt the result of some wizardry in the car journey over, but Tom didn't even notice that. He looked behind Annie and Ronan, as if Carl was lurking in the bushes behind them or something. Annie looked up at him then, eyes soft and blindingly knowing as she stepped up and engulfed the wretched man in a comforting hug. Ronan slid past them and padded into the living room, eyes darkening when he saw Nita and Kit there but no Carl. Ronan slid into the couch opposite Kit and Nita; while in the hallway, Tom had semi-collapsed against Annie, and Nita and Dairine's aunt helped him into the living room. Annie was whispering something to Tom which none of them could hear, and they remained in silence as the two adults came back into the living room.
Tom sank onto the coach again, opposite Nita and Kit and next to Ronan, and Annie, casting about the room, moved to sit next to Nita. Nita shuffled over to let her aunt sit down, and Annie squeezed onto the two-seater couch gingerly. Nita felt Kit pressed up against her side, and felt herself blushing ridiculously again.
To everyone's amazement, Tom started to laugh, pointing vaguely at Nita and Kit's uncomfortable expressions. "So that's what that was all about," Tom murmured through his gruff laughter, and he subsided for a while until Kit got up and sat cross-legged on the floor; hiding his face with his hand. That set Tom off laughing again, and Dairine giggled a little in the corner.
"Is this some American joke, because I don't get it," Ronan announced, his 'cool' nature more ruffled and disturbed than ever. He looked from one person to the other, as even Annie started to understand what was going on and she giggled. Nita shuffled into the sofa as far down as could go, and Kit remained silent; completely mortified.
Tom's choked laughter eventually calmed down, and Annie handed out the pizza on plates she'd found in the kitchen; making sure she pushed two onto Tom's plate.
"While we eat, we've got something you need to listen to," Nita ventured, feeling a little off guard and wary, and still feeling more than a little giddy. "Kit?"
Kit looked up at her, dark eyes widened, and he swallowed the bite of piping hot pizza he'd just taken abruptly. Coughing, Kit rubbed his eyes as they watered, and he felt a little angry as Ronan smirked. Hastily pulling out the string of variables and instigation constants that would play back what they'd heard out of his little pocket of timespace, Kit steadied it and let it go.
There was silence in the room as they listened to the hissing voice of Sashantarios.
". . . Don't. I have to go. I am sssssorry I could not ssssssay more, but . . . Find your ssssenior . . . Both of our raccccccessss are at ssssstake . . . I bid you well, young wizzzzzardssss . . ."
Kit clicked his fingers and the playback stopped. "That was it."
"Powers…" Tom looked genuinely shocked. "When did this happen?"
Forgetting Tom wasn't quite up to speed on everything, Nita quickly updated him on the visit of the Calur'tee the night before. Tom looked a little more hopeful but all the more confused. "I've never heard of this Morganna before," he said, sounding winded.
"I've heard of the Sigma Quadrant though," Kit said, sounding troubled. "There's a space station in neutral territory nearby, but there's nowhere for wizards to gate to it. We could gate from Grand Central to another of the bigger neutral stations, and gate from there to the Sigma Space Station…" He pulled a face. "I thought I was out of doing long space jumps for a while."
Nita leant over the edge of the shoulder, and patted his shoulder gently. "It's a pity Dairine isn't on active for this one. She's an experienced long jumper when it comes to space."
Dairine just shrugged. "You two jumped after me," she said with a motion of her hand. "You're great at it. Plus with both of you competing for the who knows more about aliens prize . . ." She shook her head in amused disgust. "If it wasn't such a good thing, I'd be banging your heads together."
Nita stuck her tongue out at Dairine, and Ron just scowled.
"Well, it's a good thing they know such a lot, I haven't got a clue," Ronan admitted. "Which seems to be about what I've known about everything so far. I haven't even got a clue why I'm on this case."
"If you're on this case then it means you've got more of a chance of anyone of bringing Carl back," Tom said, shifting in his seat to look at Ronan. "You must have something this mission requires for completion, and if you pull out now . . ." He twisted away, wringing his hands nervously. "Please bring him back."
"Well," Annie said abruptly, "I dare say we're all needed her some way or other, and I think I know my place. I've been informed by Her that I shall need to get back into contact with some of the local wizards I visited with Kit a couple of hours ago. Dairine, you'll come with me, Tom, you too. Even if you aren't able to fully work in your position as senior, your appearance there can startle some of the younger wizards into acting."
"Who do you mean by Her? And what do you mean by needing local wizards?" Dairine asked, confused.
"The Whisperer," Annie explained. "Where I get my wizardry from like many other wizards. Not all of us have a handy manual," she said, nodding at Spot gently. "She informed me that we need to do a group wizardry, unspecified for the moment; I presume we'll learn more as we go along."
Dairine nodded uncertainly, and Tom nodded more for something to do rather than sit there uselessly.
"I guess that means we're doing the space jumping," Ronan said dryly.
"Yippee," Kit added sarcastically.
"Oh, come on," Nita said, smiling way too cheerfully for what they were planning to do, "how bad can it be?"
"I'll remind you of that when you're throwing up on Io," Kit said flatly.
Nita pulled a face. "So, how long have we got?"
Ronan checked his watch. "It's twelve thirty-nine here, meaning . . . It's five thirty-nine pm at home . . . We have thirty hours and twenty one minutes to get Carl and stop Morganna."
"Excuse me?" Tom looked suddenly horrified. "They've given us a time limit on this too? Oh great."
"Hey," Nita said firmly, getting up and crossing over to the sofa, firmly taking Tom by the shoulders and giving him a small shake. "We'll get him back, Tom, I promise."
Tom smiled up at her grateful, and if his smile was a little weak and teary eyed around the eyes Nita wasn't about to find fault with it.
"Come on, let's go kick Morganna's ass," Ronan said, mock-cheerfully.
Kit frowned at him for a moment, and Ronan looked at him accusingly.
"What?" Ronan said, after ten seconds of being glared at by Kit.
"You're assuming she has an ass," Kit said, pouting slightly. Nita hit him over the head lightly with her manual and glared at him furiously.
"Boys," she muttered, her tone disgusted as she stormed out to the back garden.
"Dai-stihó, boys," Dairine called, sounding amused, as with a small wave Kit disappeared off to follow Nita. Ronan shrugged.
"See you when I see you next," Ronan said, sounding faintly disturbed again. "If not, I'll see you in the heart of time," he added, wondering what had made him say those words. Dairine caught the worried expression in his eyes, and leapt off her seat, to the confusion of Tom and Annie. The diminutive redhead padded across over to Ronan, and abruptly hugged him. Ronan, surprised, hugged her back.
"You take care, Ronan," Dairine whispered roughly. "I'll see you in Timeheart."
Ronan pulled back wordlessly, nodding, catching her gaze and feeling a horrible feeling in his stomach. His vision swam slightly and he irritably brushed the tears away. Impulsively, he leaned down and hugged Dairine. "See you in Timeheart," he replied, his tone quieted, and tremulous.
Dairine pulled away, folding her arms around herself as Ronan walked confidently out to the back garden and to whatever lay ahead of them, and she turned rapidly, tears in her eyes. Immediately Annie was on her feet and supporting Dairine by her elbows.
"Dairine, what's wrong?" Annie shook Dairine a little, looking at her with concern as tears started to fall. Dairine clung onto her aunt for a brief moment as she furiously cried before pulling back and rubbing feverishly at her eyes.
"I don't know exactly," Dairine replied dubiously, "but I have the sinking feeling that . . . Three will go, and three will return . . . It's just which three that I'm unsure of right now. I just have the sudden horrible feeling that the last time I will see one of those three just happened . . ." She straightened suddenly, looking across to Tom but not directly at him. "I don't know, I'm probably imagining it. It's just… I can't shake off the feeling . . ."
"It's probably just your nerves, dear," Annie comforted, kneeling down and engulfing Dairine in another hug. "Just your nerves," she repeated worriedly, exchanging a tense and uneasy glance with Tom over shoulder. "Just your nerves." Even at that moment Annie had no idea whether she was repeating it to convince Dairine, or . . . to convince herself.