Like all the others she'd been nervous about using the glyph. Mostly because she was ninety percent sure she'd wind up either in or just outside the cage she'd been trapped in.
I can't go back there! Not to that cage! Not to a time when Belos or Wrath had power over me. That's what she kept telling herself as she flew across the isles and toward the castle. Just seeing it again made her start to tear the paper, choosing to end this now rather than go back to her painful past.
"They'd understand, right? Yeah, yeah of course they would. They know what I'd been through and wouldn't judge me, not my family, not Luz and Mami."
And she would have done just that had the bubble diverged from its path and deep into the forest as the stars and moon illuminated the small clearing where she saw a series of serpentine figures quickly slithering away from a small fire. That is all but one, a smaller one that was sleeping. A figure that even from a distance she recognized as herself.
When she landed, she ducked into a bush just as a couple of basilisks stopped to talk. She recognized them as VII and IV, this night had been the last time she'd seen them, that is until meeting them again a couple years ago. Seeing them again was nice, though from how VII was looking she knew she wasn't going to enjoy hearing this.
"IV we shouldn't just leave V, you know she didn't get any magic before we escaped. She maybe has enough for one transformation and with the guards hunting us she'll need-"
"Enough VII! You know we have to split up right now! We barely managed to escape that prison and if we stay together, we'll be caught, and I doubt they'll simply punish us. Yeah, it sucks but right now it's every basilisk for themselves."
"But..."
"Listen you want to shell out your magic to her be my guest, but you and I both know she'll need a lot and if she wakes up, she'll beg us to stay. Now I'm heading to the heel to start fresh, you joining me or not?"
Vee watched as her friend VII bit their lip looking back at her before simply saying, "Forgive me Vee." before they transformed and ran away.
For a moment all Vee could do was stare at them before she started crying. "So that's why they weren't there. They weren't caught and sacrificed themselves to keep me safe, they just saw me as a liability and ditched me. I get it, really, I do, I mean we'd just escaped and were afraid and it's true I was running really low on magic and would have begged them to stay or let me join them but..."
She still had nightmares of it, of waking up to find herself alone for the first time. Her friends, her only real family gone and having no idea what was happening or what to do. Even now her two most vivid nightmares were Belos's prisons and being abandoned again.
For the second time she wanted to just tare the glyph up and go home. That is until she heard herself starting to wake up. "IV? VII? II? Anybody?" Hearing her own voice filled with fear as she slithered around the campsite looking for her family was horrible. Watching as with each passing second she grew more and more frantic. "What if they got captured?! Are they back in the cages!? I...I... I'll get help, y-yeah I'll...I'll... no no no no no..." Vee's heart broke watching her younger self curl up and cry. "Please somebody...anybody..."
Before she could properly process it she was rushing forward and exposing herself. "Hello Vee I'-" she was caught off as her younger self all but lunged at her wrapping her entire body around her and cheerfully crying out. "Thank the titan! I thought you'd gotten caught or killed but you're here! I'm not alone!"
"Yeah... Vee listen to me carefully-"
"Oh right I should let you go. Sorry about that I was just..." she did a double take seeing Vee. "You're not VII or IV...wait where their others!? Did you escape as well? Are there more nearby or is just you?"
"Vee wait I'm-"
"Can you take me to them? I promise I'll keep up and-"
"Vee listen to me!" she didn't want to yell but she couldn't do this anymore. As expected, her younger self cowered and slid off her. Seeing this she quickly apologized. "Look I'm sorry I yelled but I need you to listen to me."
Now face to face with her she saw just how thin she was. She remembered being like this. The desperation to not be alone, the fear from not knowing what to do and not trusting anyone. The hunger she'd felt for days, only surviving on magical scraps from the trash being to afraid to try feeding on anybody or anything.
Okay first things first let's get me fed. Thankfully she remembered Luz's old glyphs and bent down and etched a few plant glyphs into the ground before watching as they magically popped up. Her younger self was practically drooling but stopped herself from lunging. "Go ahead I'm already full."
The flowers vanished a moment later and a now properly fed Vee quickly hugged her. "Thank you...uhhmmm."
"Okay now listen closely. I'm you but from the future." confused, she looked at the older basilisk before Vee made an icy mirror to compare them. "Wow! You are me! And we can do magic! I didn't know we could do that. I thought we could only absorb it."
"It's called glyph magic and anyone can do it. It's actually how I got here; you see our sister loves making new types of magic and this one just so happened to allow us to travel back to this moment."
"That's so cool! So, we can make magic whenever we need it now?! I won't have to try hunt- wait did you say sister?"
"Yeah, we get adopted by the most kindhearted human named Camila Noceda when we go to the human world. At first it was just to escape but then we disguised ourselves as her daughter and took her place at summer camp. Things kind of develop from there but trust me when I say very soon, we gain a mom and a sister that loves us. I even have a human form all my own."
Vee gasped seeing her human form and her exposed ears. "You mean we get a family and can go out in public without fear? No way. I must be dreaming right now, yeah, I'm dreaming and only imagining I get all those things."
"Believe it, in fact I can prove it with pictures." She pulled out her smartphone and showed her younger self all she could while explaining everything. As expected upon seeing Camila and Luz hugging her while she happily held up the adoption papers made her cry. "I really get a family?"
"One of the best." The more she showed the more excited she got. Her school life, her human friends, the many slightly suggestive pictures of Masha, it all wowed her. Especially the picture of her bottle feeding a young kitten at Camila's work. "Yeah, mom's a vet, which is a healer that specializes in animals. We help out there all the time and love it."
She was quiet for a nervous moment before looking toward the woods and asking a question that broke her heart. "The others left me, didn't they? II mentioned splitting up earlier but..." it hurt but she thought back to that moment when the others had gathered around the fire.
"Look everyone I know we want to stay together but we're to conspicuous right now. We barely avoided those last two patrols so it would be best if we split up, preferably by ourselves or as pairs." Nobody had outright spoken out against their leader III, not when they'd taken out the guard that had tried to stop them. Even now she could still remember their muttering as she started falling asleep.
Lie to her! Tell her something that won't break her heart! Truly she wanted to. It wouldn't have been hard either as her younger self looked as though she'd happily believe any lie she told even if it was a bad one. No... I can't do it...even if it hurts her. "Yes, I saw them when I landed, VII and IV were the last to leave, it was a terrible thing to do especially after all we've been through, but fear can make us do terrible things."
When she started shaking Vee happily coiled around her and held her as she started crying. Even going so far as to hum a song Camila did for her when she suffered nightmares.
"Ho- how long do I have to wait to meet my family? She asked desperately needed to know this.
"Now let me think... if tonight was the night when they aban- left, then tomorrow or the day after at the latest. Yeah, yeah that's right it is tomorrow! Tomorrow we're fueled by hunger and a bit of paranoia and go into the city where we see the Owl lady running her stall with a human girl. So on a whim we sneak into her tent and through her magical door portal telling ourselves that with Luz in this world we could maybe disguise ourselves as her and start fresh." she couldn't help but smile remembering how she met her mom. "That's when we meet Camila who tells us she want's to personally drive us to a place where they help kids learn to fit in and be normal. A pretty lucky coincidence actually."
Looking more at the phone and of her life to be she saw herself in her true form being hugged by her human friends. "They accept me?"
"Yeah, everyone in cabin 7 is an oddball in one way or another but we're the best of friends." she then saw the next picture which was her visiting VIIII in prison. "?!"
"Yeeeeaaahhh she kids of snaps and tries to kill a bunch of kids at a couple schools. Thankfully we got her a lighter sentence due to well our origins. Six months in jail followed by a seven-month home imprisonment on a distant island. She's fine now even married I or as he now prefers Sole. She still hates witches but no longer wants to kill them. As for the others they eventually come out of hiding after Belos is killed and all his crimes exposed, and rules lifted. We even have a monthly voyage to the human world. You wouldn't believe how much IV loves movies." Just as she was telling her more she heard the glyph and to her horror saw it was nearly gone.
"Uh oh, looks like my time is nearly up."
"What?! No! Please stay! Or take me with you."
"I'm sorry Vee but that's part of the magic, but I can at least stay until my time is up."
"Can you tell me my name again?"
"It's Vee, Vee Noceda. Now let me tell you about how my first date with my partner Masha."
She didn't quite remember the trip back, but she did know that as soon as she got back she found her mom and sister much like all the others happy but slightly teary-eyed. She quickly joined them in a family hug as Amity came in looking much the same.
