It's been a long time (and I've had covid three times since the pandemic started, which didn't help my poor brain) but I'm back! With a whole week of updates! The show is on the road again!

Beta'd by the perennial InsaneScriptist.

Of paperwork and implementation

"Knight."

Rence glanced up from his breakfast at his Lady's husband, who was eyeing him thoughtfully. "Yes?"

"Been busy." Oh, so Xanxus had noticed that Rence hadn't been spending as much time as he might have been shadowing Rhea.

"I've been drawing up Box Weapon specifications," he said, not particularly bothered that the twins were also at the table to hear him; they didn't know what Box Weapons were, and if this turned out to not work then it wouldn't matter.

And, well, if it did work, they would need to be taught about them for safety's sake. The Box Weapons had been excellent tools with a multitude of very practical non-combat applications.

The Varia Boss's entire demeanour sharpened, moving from idle curiosity to actual interest. "Functional?"

"No idea," Rence admitted easily. "They always looked plausible, but I had to do quite a bit of work on the alloys and technical details, so they weren't entirely dependent on the wielder knowing what was supposed to happen."

Xanxus grunted; yes, Rence agreed, that issue did explain quite a lot about the limitations of those weapons wielded by Millefiore. "Real, then."

"Oh yes, the original designs are very real," Rence agreed, quickly glancing at Dorea to make sure she wasn't upset by this particular line of discussion, but his Lady looked more interested that not. Good; he felt this fell under looting and it was always morally correct to loot your enemies under Black War Rules.

Rence might be Peace Lightning, but the whole situation with Hebe and the simulation was absolutely warfare.

"However, the original designs are also explicitly speculative, due to the technical constraints, so I've been reworking the original concept as I draw the designs I remember." Admittedly he did spend a lot of time reworking them in the simulation, so mostly it was a matter of ensuring the simulation was properly true to life in technical terms and they really did work, rather than just working because Hebe had wanted them to work. There was always a gap between theory and practice. "I'm planning on building prototypes in the labs today," he added, glancing at Dorea, "just to find out if this is worth pursuing at all."

His Sky smiled at him, soft and encouraging as her Flames filled with gentle warmth and pleasure at his having a new project that he was so clearly finding joy in. "Have fun then."

"May I join?" his Lady's husband asked after a few conflicted seconds.

Rence remembered -falsely remembered- doing this with Xanxus a few times, and doubtless the Lord Potter remembered likewise. "Sure. Make sure to duck behind me if it blows up though." Dorea would be upset if her husband came to lunch with shrapnel wounds, had been upset the few times that had happened in the simulation, and the work was delicate and sensitive enough that the Principe di Sabina pulling on his Wrath for self-defence would screw up the entire process. This kind of Alchemy was best done Flameless, or as close to that as possible. You could do it with an underlying Sky component, but that built a universally Sky-favouring backdoor into all the Boxes created and that was not remotely safe.

Xanxus's lips twitched ever so slightly, doubtless remembering the same incidents Rence was. "Will do."

The twins were listening, clearly both well-aware that this was adult stuff they would not be allowed to join in with -given it would take place in the basement laboratories- so they were just quietly memorising the details and hoping to get to see the results later, as they had done of various previous occasions. Keeping them involved and informed has been very successful so far in preventing accidents and attempted incursions, so Rence intended to follow the system in place.

"And you, Rhea? What are you doing today?"

"Finishing up the ritual schematics for Donna Giglio Nero," Dorea told him; "remember it is I-Pin's birthday today, so there will be a party at noon and we are going to the pantomime afterwards."

Rence nodded. "We won't miss it," he promised.

The older Dorea had got, the more cautious she had become of the Black Family Magic. It wasn't really about vengeance exactly, but it was about Judgement, and the bible had quite a lot to say about the perils of judging others.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Dorea struggled with that particular aspect of her faith, in part because as a person who had been in a position of authority over others, she had been required to judge them under law. The result of many hours' prayer and contemplation and discussion had been that she should not exercise moral judgement. To judge others under law based on their actions may be required of her position, and necessary to protect those in her care; it was permitted and indeed encouraged, as to do otherwise meant inflicting further harm on those who had already been wronged.

The problem with being of the line of Nemesis –all the more so now her connection had been deepened by the false memories– was that Nemesis judged all. Thought and word and deed, intent and effect, both the good and the bad. Then once everything had been weighed, the difference was determined and inflicted upon the person so judged.

Hebe did not deserve her death. She had deserved so much worse. A long, lingering and pathetic death after a long and miserable life full of profound suffering, and even then it would have fallen short. Dorea had needed to exert an iron grip on her own magic to limit the sentence to a swift, near-painless death. Justice would have stripped Hebe of her ability to access her Flames and condemned her to wander the Earth without them, violently and intimately diminished, without resources and at the mercy of the human masses she had for centuries dismissed, to be scorned, abused and slowly murdered as her body gradually and relentlessly destroyed itself under the strain.

Dorea could not do that. She hadn't wanted it on her conscience, because then she could have been judged for her part in that judgement. So she'd picked death instead and the mercy had cost her dearly.

She was better now, somewhat, but still struggled to shed the weight of phantom losses. The nightmares didn't help; she ached inside, for all that the memories were thankfully starting to fade.

Well, some of them were. Others she was deliberately keeping close to the surface so she could write them down and not lose all that time and work. The original purpose of that ridiculous bazooka had been to run calculations, not predict social change, and for mathematics and celestial movement it was utterly, perfectly reliable. She therefore had every faith in the rune diagrams she was plotting out and the associated rituals required to emplace and later activate the designs, so that they could dissipate the free-flowing Flames accumulated in the Arcobaleno System and render obsolete both the Curse and Pacifiers.

Said system, contrary to what Hebe had clearly believed, had not been necessary. At all. Dorea knew that; if it had been necessary then Hera would not have died, or at least would not have died without leaving a successor, likely also called Hera. From what Hebe had said about Maínomai being Harmonia, the names were probably heritable and more connected to a role than to a specific individual. Which did go a way to explain all the various different titles attached to local versions of the Ancient Greek pantheon; if all those had been different individuals, that made rather more sense.

It also went a way towards explaining some of the contradictory stories regarding births, upbringings and marriages, although she had no doubt a respectable number of those had been made up wholesale centuries later.

The last set of labyrinthine patterns completed and every rune neatly placed, Dorea double-checked that each diagram was numbered and the main blueprint fully annotated. None of the stones were interchangeable, each having to be placed and angled according to how its design interacted with the wider whole, the play of the stars above them over the course of the year and the geology of the site. It had been slow, painstaking work to lay everything out in full –and life-size, to further guard against transcription errors– but she has finally finished.

Carefully rolling up the diagrams, Dorea slotted them into clearly numbered tubes and added the sheet with the material specification for the stones the ritual needed to be etched upon. Then she neatly parcelled the tubes together and picked up her mirror.

"Bastiano."

He answered immediately. "Principessa?"

"I have the ritual scheme ready for you to take to Donna Giglio Nero."

"I will be there at once, Principessa."

Aria stared in consternation at the massive rolls of paper covering her desk, each one featuring a life-size and intricately maze-like pattern of lines and symbols.

"Four metres tall? Each?"

The young man who was almost Xanxus's double twitched an ear. "Two metres tall," he corrects; "the other half is underground."

That was still four metres of stone slab and would be very heavy; especially when each one was also a metre wide and half a metre thick. This was going to be a very expensive endeavour, from the mining to the carving and the transportation.

But her daughter would be free, and that was worth any price. "Can you tell me more about how matters were arranged in the simulation? I'm sure Lady Black was most effective and efficient."

Bastiano Zabini tilted his head a fraction, setting swan feathers swinging. "Her methods are closed to you, Donna Giglio Nero, but teleportation by Mist Flames would be no less efficient and Storm Flames work well enough for carving, given sufficient precision."

Catrín had an excellent eye for detail, but it would be safest to do the carving in situ; then again, after the stress of the past week a long foreign holiday would be just the thing. Even to a country far colder and snowier than Italy was at this time of year.

Her Guardians would be very grateful to put some distance between herself and the ongoing Vongola uncertainty as well, even though that might well mean missing the Solstice Ball. Then again, it might well be wise to do so this year, all things considered. How the other Neutrals interpreted her absence and how the Alliance responded to it would be something to consider while on vacation as well, but it was not her primary concern. Not when freedom was so close.

"Please pass on my gratitude to her Highness for her generosity, and my thanks to your fiancée for her willingness to accommodate the construction." Aria was not entirely sure what to think of the swan-maids –or that Bastiano would one day be engaged to marry one– but she was no less grateful for their permission to build the Flame-balancing stone circle in their territory. Erecting a monument on the central Asian steppe in the depths of winter was going to be a slow, painful and thankless task, but Aria could not wait. Not when the end of the curse binding her was so near, not when she could almost taste her daughter's freedom.

She couldn't see it, but she was making her own way to achieving it. She would gladly fumble blindly along the road to success if that was what was required.

Bastiano bowed, the largest movement she'd seen from him yet, and left the room. Aria let him go and turned back to the plans; she had no illusions about being able to understand all that was involved in this project, but she would like to at least comprehend the general shape, so she would be able to recognise a warning when she saw one in the event of things going wrong. Seeing the future was useless if you didn't understand the forces shaping it.

Xanxus was a smith and a weaponsmith more specifically, but he'd poked at gems more than once while he was trying to work out Wrath and his first set of guns. However he absolutely was not a ringsmith. He'd been vaguely thinking about maybe paying Talbot to teach him the specifics he needed to recreate the Box Weapons the Varia had had in the simulation -they'd been excellent and versatile tools- but breakfast conversation had reminded him that actually he didn't have to: Knight was a journeyman ringsmith, already sworn to his wife, so he could just join in there. Take advantage of Rence's knowledge and experience.

Like he'd done in the simulation once or twice, in fact, because Rence had been very interested in tweaking the original designs to require less Flames to power them. They'd never really worked on Box Weapons together there, but Xanxus had been present for quite a lot of prototype testing, and had made requests for prototype testing that had been done here, on the basis that it was impossible to truly purge Varia HQ of Flame traces so working in his wife's basement laboratories was a practical way to reduce variables when they weren't entirely sure what the problem was or what might go wrong.

And yes, things had exploded, and there had been a few shrapnel injuries that Dorea had not been very impressed by, no matter how superficial they'd been. Knight made an excellent human shield though -the Lightning's armour was very well-made and Xanxus wanted some of his own; that he'd never tried to get any in the simulation was a damming oversight- despite being enough shorter that Xanxus had needed to duck quite significantly to protect his face. He had still lost feathers the one time and yes, he was aware it could have been much worse than feathers. He didn't want exploding metal bits embedded in his eyes either; hence the safety glasses. Lab safety was important.

This probably wasn't going to explode though: they weren't doing anything truly experimental, they were just assembling a basic Box frame to see if it would actually work. If it did work, then they would get into the fine-tuning and more experimental designs. Given however that the Bovino had initially created the Bazooka to investigate scientific advancement and streamline technological and weaponry development, it probably would work. Probably. Theory and practice, after all.

Which was why, rather than just one Box frame, he and Knight had made twelve. Replicability was important and it was important to check the process really did work for all the various Flame variations the Constellation had on record. You could test functionality before adding the Box Animal -which was the final stage- so they could get everything right up to that point at least, document thoroughly and -if it was all working as hoped- pick one Box frame to add an animal to.

The first test 'animal' would probably be a snake, given his wife still had a couple of part-grown king cobras from the clutch that he'd brought back from India for her that she wasn't particularly attached to. Most of them had been turned into potion ingredients or experimental subjects but two had been kept back for comparisons, tended to by the House Elves so that exposure to Dorea's magic didn't imbue them with greater intelligence and strength by proximity. Those experiments were over now and the surviving subjects were now only examined every few months, monitoring longer-term changes and after-effects, but the control specimens could feasibly be put to other uses now.

Well, it might be a winged horse or a hippogriff, but Xanxus honestly had no idea how an inherently magical animal would affect a Box frame and also didn't know if Knight had done any independent experimentation there, but also those animals weren't ones they could just grab without notifying his wife beforehand. Or at least her grounds staff, who cared for said animals. Well, there were also the wyverns, but those were protected. Or at least the way he'd heard his wife's people talking about them implied they were protected. Either way, he was sure they'd test for magical Box animals eventually, and experiment with the larger and more inherently magical creatures in time.

Knight made a pleased sound as the Box frame he was assembling lit up very promisingly once the focusing gem was in place, slotting in the last few pieces and quickly placing the frame behind a shield; the first minute or so was the trickiest, and the point where an empty Box frame was most likely to blow up due to slight misalignments and errors in the circuitry.

Five more seconds to make sure the frame wasn't going to immediately explode, then Knight moved it to the fumes cabinet -in case there was a slower-acting problem like melting- and slotted a focus gem into the next frame, completing the assembly as the delicate circuitry started to glow and setting that one behind the shield.

"Promising," Xanxus said when this one also failed to explode. Once was just once after all, but twice was the beginning of a trend. The Lightning had done all of the circuitry etching and gem faceting; Xanxus had done the cutting and machining of the various parts out of the sheets of prepared alloy, and made sure all the fittings were perfectly shaped to slot together with an absolute minimum of welding. Box frames were just that: empty boxes, until something had been put into them.

"Very promising," Rence agreed; "The circuitry on all of these is slightly specialised to Flame type, rather than the generic pattern, and modified for smaller focussing gems. Partly because I wanted to limit the size of the eventual explosions if anything went wrong," he grinned wryly over his shoulder at Xanxus as he moves this second Box frame into the fumes cabinet- "but also so they'd work with less Flames."

Yeah, all of his wife's bonded favoured precision over brute force, which Xanxus as a Varia assassin agreed with completely: if you had to brute-force something with Flames, then you were slacking off. Quite a lot of the more technical and powerful Flame techniques couldn't be brute-forced, and fell apart or warped damagingly if more than the exact required level of Flame input was used. Not to mention that more of the most powerful techniques he knew were meant for combat, so wasting energy and hurting yourself in that setting was intensely Stupid.

"Animal ideas?" he asked, because he was curious, and also because fun as the Varia's simulated Box Weapons had been, part of him really, really wanted a magical Box Weapon. Nobody with the false memories would expect him to have a genuine magical animal in a Box.

He was still going to acquire Bester though. Even if the liger didn't go in a Box Weapon; the big cat had a degenerative condition that magic might actually be able to fix if it was caught early enough, and Xanxus certainly had enough space and the right kind of security to justify keeping a white liger as a pet, both at home and at the Varia.

Or he could entrust Bester to Sabina's royal menagerie, which took very good care of its residents, so the liger could live out a long life in well-fed comfort. That might be for the best, actually; his wife's house and grounds already contained a lot of rather hazardous magical animals, never mind the visiting swans, so Bester would probably do better elsewhere. He'd miss out on having Bester handy to dote on, but it wouldn't be hard to arrange visits.

Rence hummed idly as he swiftly assembled two more Box frames, sliding them behind the shield together, then stepped back to check the tray of faceted gems laid out on the work bench. "Songbirds for most of these; possibly a plant for the Forest Box, as Tribune would enjoy that."

Small, ignorable and highly mobile; a very good choice for a discreet weapon and leaning hard into the surveillance and subtlety aspect. Xanxus was impressed, if also a little disappointed. Then again, most people were scared of snakes and a cobra outside a cage without a handler in sight would likely get killed or captured in short order. "Nothing fancy?"

Knight paused, then looked up and grinned at him. "These are proof of concept; I need to extensively test the amplification arrays before building anything heavy-duty. But," he winked, "as my Lady's Knight, I do rather need a suitably mobile steed, don't you think?"

A winged horse Box Weapon, in other words. "Will have to brush up your lance skills," Xanxus teased blandly. A thestral was unlikely but his wife owned a racing stable; finding a fast-flying horse down on its luck wouldn't be so hard.

"I'm sure the Things will be happy to set up a jousting field," the Lightning said easily, moving the Box frames aside and assembling another two, not even looking at his hands anymore, "and the Stewards will help me select a suitable animal. Several suitable animals, in fact, so I can train them and see which one turns out best."

Xanxus grunted at the thought of training several animals beforehand, then picking the best for the Box Weapon rather than just finding a suitable animal, implanting it and then working from there. He'd never have thought of a test period to select for personality, but it was a concern. Also an indication of more money and time to work with than Xanxus was personally used to, but he could adapt there. The Varia was highly adaptable and it took effort to adjust to those constant changes, but that was part of being Quality. It did mean, he realized ruefully, that the Varia was much more reckless about the whole idea of a testing phase than the norm, as they genuinely were the 'proof of concept and initial testing phase,' for any Flame innovations for the rest of the Alliance.

He should adapt there; he was a ruling prince now and he'd promised his wife he'd find a way to stay young alongside her, however long it took for her to find Death's son and see him to the end of his natural lifespan. Taking a bit more time in long-term decision-making -ha- was something he would have to get used to.

"What would you like?" Rence asked, stepping back from the shield and turning to check on the frames in the fumes cabinet. "A griffin?"

Oh yes, griffins were on the Potter crest, weren't they? And on his wedding ring.

He'd like a griffin, honestly; eagle and lion and he could ride it to fly. Xanxus hums, not committing; he'd also kind of like a wyvern, honestly. He was pretty sure he could make Iemitsu shit himself with a wyvern. But then again, wyvern's weren't exactly discreet. Were they even trainable? Hebe's simulation made things work because she wanted things to work, which wouldn't necessarily carry through. Untrainable Box Weapons were unusable Box Weapons.

Decisions, decisions…

Xanxus shoved the speculation and indecision to the back of his mind; Box Weapons worked. This would be a game-changer and also obscenely fun; he couldn't wait.

Dorea leaned into her husband as he stifled his snickers at the very dirty jokes soaring gracefully over her children's heads as they sat in the box at the theatre, I-Pin utterly entranced by the actors on the stage performing Jack and the Beanstalk. It had been a long time since her last trip to the pantomime, and she was acutely aware that last time she was here -with her father- the jokes soared over her head as well. As they had clearly been meant to.

It was a bit jarring, to find herself in her Papa's shoes, her husband at her side laughing quietly in all the places Papa had and very aware of how desperately sexual a whole lot of these puns are. Well, fun for all the family, clearly.

Ironically it wasn't her husband who was nearly late for the lunchtime birthday party before they headed out to the theatre through Potter Manor; no, it was her. Because the mirror order for the Varia communication mirror set finally came through and she got a bit engrossed with plotting out the Protean Charms and associated spellwork, including all the various improvements Hermione helped her work out more recently as they were discussing how to make only some of this set connect to the previous sets.

Xanxus of course thought this was hilarious, and was probably going to tease her about it off and on through all of the upcoming week. Possibly longer, depending on what else came up. The mirrors wouldn't actually be ready for another few days -there was a ritual that has to be set up so they could all be Enchanted simultaneously- but once they were, the Varia would likely be using them exclusively for all internal communication. It wasn't like magical communication mirrors could be eavesdropped on or potentially though, like phones could be. Magic didn't work like that unless you created that function specifically.

Dorea put the matter of mirrors out of her mind as there was another diffuse laugh from the audience and her husband shook quietly next to her; she should focus on the pantomime, not be thinking about work. I-Pin seemed to be loving her birthday treat, and Dorea should also pay attention, given the little girl is bonded to her so might notice her distraction.

It was fun, to be at the pantomime again. And every production did switch up the jokes, so most of the material was new despite the characters and action being superficially familiar.

She might be tired, but she wasn't too tired to enjoy this.

I have a new (complete) KHR fic on Ao3 written with InsaneScriptist called Obscured by Clouds that will be accessible to guest readers for the next month (I am Umei_no_Mai there). Most of my fic there are locked to discourage AI scraping, so do get an account (waiting times for invites is pretty short) and join the fun!