January 1 April 22
Crushing a ship down into a ball is surprisingly difficult. Not only because it's possible, but because the more I crushed it, the more it seemed to reject my magic.
I'm glad I started packing jerky to feed Victoria when we hunt, as I'm only half done and it's getting even harder.
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Day 2
I've started to use my ignition power to help me, and it makes it easier, to crush, but it's just plain difficult to ignite it, so my progress hasn't actually sped up, just not slowed down as fast as it might have done.
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Day 3
Fuck, there's no way I'm going to be able to form the cave as I go. I just can't focus on the cave and crushing at the same time. At least the local wildlife is staying well clear. I swear I just saw something with a human face, the body of a lion, wings, and a scorpion's tail watching me. Then it dissolved, teleported, or just I don't know. It's not like my ability to sense anything is any use with this massive lump of iron and steel sitting next to me.
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Day 10
Well, I now have the worlds biggest wrecking ball, I'm guessing that it's almost three football fields in diameter. There's oil and old fuel everywhere, and I am out of Jerky. Time to turn it into a bowling ball.
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Day 15
I tried to sleep in the cave last night, and I kept flashing back to the locker. Fuck, I thought I was over that. I really really don't want to touch that tree. Living through it was hard enough. At least it's a bit deeper and wider now.
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Day 16
Why aren't I hungry?
It's not the locker, I'm not trapped, there is a way out. I can do this.
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Day 20
I can't do this. I'm only a th*rd of the way through the sphere, and I have anothe* 1/6 of the way to go. But it feels *ike I'm beating*on the inside of the locker, and th* exit is so far away. I c*n't feel anything*while I'm in there.
Selene, help me, I'm not strong enou*h for this.
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Day 22
I haven't been into the cave for the last two days. I wonder how Sarah and Victoria are doing. I colored in shadow stalker using rainbow colors too. I hope Victoria doesn't mind. I can't let Selene down, so I'm going to try and deal with the tree.
I ttouched the locker tre. II was wors than i remember.
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Day 23?
I touched the tree again last night, and I passed out. I have no idea how my hand isn't shaking right now. Emma really fucked me over with that, and I found some red crystals next to the tree when I woke up. I can't live with that in there. I guess I'm going to find out if it's possible to remove a memory.
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Day 24?
Fuck that hurt, but whatever I wanted to get rid of is gone or at least it's only a tree stump now anyway. Either way, I'm not touching it. I'm not sure why I mentioned Emma yesterday, as we haven't seen each other since before High School, maybe she's part of one of the other tree stumps I found. I can't find any red crystals either.
Maybe once I've finished this, Selene can teach me something I can use to take the fight to the Empire and ABB rather than letting them keep killing the Bay slowly.
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Day 25?
I've reached the center, I just need to hollow it out. I'm getting a niggling feeling that whatever I removed has a strong association with this. But I can deal for the moment.
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Day 26?
I've finished hollowing out the cave. I'll call Selene tomorrow.
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I wake up the next morning raring to go. This should be simple, call Selene, wait for her to call me back. Get this hunk of metal to the shore, and hide. Once Selene arrives, retreat. Then I can start to bring victory back to the bay.
I blink a couple of times, at that thought, as I'm sure I wouldn't have thought like that a few days ago. Not sure why.
Anyway, "Selene, goddess of the moon. It's ready."
"I'm on my way back. Berenike, are you alright?"
I shrug, "Yeah, I'm fine. I had a bit of trouble making the cave, but I dealt with it."
I open up my magic and levitate the sphere a fraction of an inch off the ground. Just enough that I know I've got it in my magic. And I wait.
A few hours in, I'm starting to feel mentally tired, and I have a niggling feeling that I'd have approached this differently a few days ago.
More hours later, and I'm almost ready to drop the sphere when Selene's resonance echoes in my chest. I immediately push myself through the barrier to the shore and drop the sphere with an earth shaking thump.
Tiredly I start to lower my magic as fast as I can, but it's not responding as fast as it should. Like trying to stuff a sleeping bag back into it's bag after you've used it.
I'm half way done when Selene appears beside me and looks up at the sphere in surprise. In the few seconds she takes to start acting, I manage to get my magic down to winter, but it hurts to push it any further, and I don't remember it being this bad before.
I feel Selene's magic reaching out to the sphere, as I take a deep breath and grit my teeth, I'm about to push it further when the tree thing appears a short distance away from us.
Belatedly I remember that Selene told me to run as soon as she appeared, a fraction of a second later, Selene shouts, "Run!"
I abandon my attempts to hide and instead attempt to move between worlds, except the tree thing's magic spreads out around me and it's all I can do to keep running, moving between worlds just seems to be impossible. Instead, I aim for the far side of the metal sphere.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the thing turn it's eyes toward me, and it's arm lashes out, elongating massively as it dashes to one side. I dive forward into cover as Selene steps into block the arm. I'm still airborne when I feel a sharp pain across my back and I land heavily on the ground.
I reach forward with my main hand and drag myself forward only to reach forward with my other arm and stare dumbly at the stump that used to be my forearm.
As I'm staring at it, I'm vaguely aware of the sphere disappearing from above me. I some how manage to look over to see Selene break apart into a massive sphere of light as she hits the tree thing with the cave opening and disappears; leaving me alone, like mum did.
As my vision's going gray, I force myself to climb the canyon at least one world.
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Abruptly I come back to awareness and see Selene leaning over me concern written all over her face.
As I lift up my hand she says, "Thank the gods I got back in time. I wasn't sure if your body survived."
I looks at Selene in confusion, before the last few seconds comes back to me and I lift up my off hand and stare at my hand in disbelief, "How?"
"I had to create you a partial magical body. I wasn't sure if I got here soon enough to save what was left of your original body. I'm glad to say I was in time."
I lever myself into a sitting position, "What does it mean for me at the moment?"
Selene looks at me strangely, before saying, "It means that you can't return to the mortal world until your magic has replaced the magical body with a new body. That will take a few moons of time as long as we have a plentiful supply of food, specifically meat."
I look down, I won't be able to go home for months, what about dad, "Will you let dad know, as I'm sure he'd be worried, I know he's still trying to get past mum's death, but…"
Selene looks at me oddly again. "Sure, I can do that. Are you sure you're ok?"
I nod, "Never better, well, apart from the magical prosthetic keeping me alive, but, it is what it is."
"Taylor, why didn't you run when I arrived?"
"I, erm," Why didn't I run? "don't know."
Selene smiles at me, "Get some sleep and I'll take us both home."
I nod as she picks me up in her arms, and I lean my head against her shoulder and close my eyes.
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I look up from my coloring as momma, Berenike, shouts at a fallen tree again. Before she left, momma was never like that. Then momma left for several days, and now she reminds me too much of my other mother.
Carefully I put my coloring in the bag the nice lady that brought momma, Berenike, home gave me. Selene, that's it. Selene.
I look around the Valley, and spot Selene talking to Big Sarah by the fire. Teleporting over to the fire, I set my face and march up to Selene, "What did you do to momma?"
As Selene and Big Sarah stop talking, I scuff my sandals on the floor, "Um, I mean, Miss Selene, what did you do to Berenike?"
Selene looks at me curiously, "Why do you think I did something to your mother?"
I shake my head as I can't help thinking about all of the buds I've been avoiding, "Not mother, momma's nicer than that. Well, she was. She doesn't like me calling her momma though. Um, what was the question?"
Selene smiles at me, "Well then, why do you think I did something to Berenike?"
I look back at momma, who's still shouting at the tree, "Um, she went away for days, and then she came back and she started shouting. She also gave me presents the same way mother did, what I remember of her anyway. I don't like those memories, as they're not fun in a happy way. She also hasn't spent any time with me when she's not teaching me."
Selene smiles at Victoria, "Not all memories can be happy memories."
I nod, "I know, but momma doesn't get angry like that. You can tell when she's upset with you, because she sits you down and makes you explain why you did the wrong thing. Then she explains why that was wrong, and how to do better next time. Mother used to just shout at us, Amy more than me. Then she'd lecture us about proper behavior. Momma also used to just stare at something when she was getting frustrated, before going away and doing something else. Not shouting."
Selene gently takes my hand, "How do you know she wasn't like that before, and something happened to scare her?"
I shake my head, as I think back to the memory of momma sitting with me in hospital when we were just strangers. "Momma's not like that. This momma wouldn't sit in hospital with a stranger. I remember that."
"How have you remembered that, but not more of your original childhood?"
I smile widely, "Momma Berenike's memories have pretty flowers growing around them. Mother's memories have thorns, so I just look for the thorns and avoid them."
Selene pulls me into a hug, and says, "You're right that something happened to Berenike, but I didn't do anything to cause it. That doesn't mean that something I said wasn't the catalyst, but it was not my intent that she harm herself. I shall speak to her as my apprentice, and find out what she did, and how we can help her fix it."
I smile up at Selene before I lean into the hug. "Thank you, I want momma back."
Selene kisses me on the forehead like momma used to do, "If it's possible, I will try to get her back too. Remember, you need to face your old memories, but you don't need to do it alone, you can call either of us to help you deal with them. Now, do you think you can help Big Sarah with dinner. We have some fresh potato's and she wants to try something called burgers and fries."
I nod, "I can help."