Marie, sitting with her knees held to her chest, rocks backward and forward at the top of the hill overlooking the brook and the cottage. The pain from her accelerated growth receded yesterday, however, since her last feeding of Morgana's blood a burning sensation has been flowing through her body. It started in her abdomen, and has been spreading since then. The potion didn't even work last night, and this morning she was only able to choke down a couple of mouthfuls of food before the increase in the feeling of burning forced her to stop.
As she rocks back once more, she flinches as her back brushes something. Looking around, it's a very pretty rose with violet and red petals, that absolutely wasn't there a few seconds ago. Glancing around her, the bare rock she'd been sitting on to escape these is now covered in a lush carpet of wild flowers growing out of rich loam.
With a scream, she jumps off the hill only to bounce off the ground. Nearby stands Dora with her wand out and pointing at her, "Marie, are you alright?"
"No! I'm not alright! These flowers just won't stop growing around me. I event sat up there where it was bare rock, and they still followed me. I feel like I'm burning up, and I've not slept in over a day."
Dora walks over and just pulls her into a hug as Marie starts to cry.
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Morgana sighs with relief as she gets back to Harry's domain and allows her glamours to drop. She'd forgotten how constraining they were after living in the mundane world almost constantly for the last 10 years. As she starts to stride to the cottage, she's mildly surprised when Marianne talks to her.
"Mum, do you have any idea what this is?"
Morgana spins around to see Marianne holding a fist sized arterial blood red crystal, reaching out she takes it for a closer look, "Hmm, I don't know, but it feels a bit like a gods domain, but different."
Marianne nods, "It feels wrong, but not wrong like the weapons in your domain. More like… More like, a person?"
Morgana crouches down to Marianne's level, "Marianne, this is important, is this something you think or is it like Harry's Brigid moments?"
Marianne shakes her head, "I don't know. How do you tell?"
Morgana thinks for a moment, "I'm not sure, Harry never seems to know until afterwards." Her finger taps on the gem, "You've started pushing your magic out into the mist as a way to conceal it?"
Marianne nods, "I have, I've also got really good at skimming too. It's how I found the stone, well the mirror where my reflection put the stone in my bag anyway. I didn't actually realise it was there until class today when I needed something at the bottom of my bag. I can't wait until I'm allowed to start learning illusions and glamours, or gates, gates are good too."
Morgana nods at her enthusiasm, "I'm not going to let you learn those until I'm sure your magic is firmly anchored in your body. I don't understand how the cloak is anchoring your magic, so the last thing I want to happen is I put too much faith in it and you lose your magic because it couldn't keep up. Also consider that we normally teach 4-5 year olds the things you've mastered, and it's not until they're 10 that we start teaching them more. That's when their magic stabilises and can no longer be dislodged if they use too much magic in a short span of time. However, we've had this conversation many many times already, and I don't think having it again now will solve anything." Marianne looks a little mulish as Morgana continues, "Instead, what I want you to do is to try pulling your cloak around you and pushing your magic out into it the same way you would the mist to hide yourself. Once you've done that, pick up the crystal again and tell me if the feeling is stronger."
Marianne's eyes sparkle with the prospect of doing something different, and she's quick to try to do it.
"This is hard." She grumbles as her first attempt fails to work. It's almost an hour later, with a cup of hot chocolate in her hands, that she gets it. Jumping up, she almost spills all of the hot chocolate all over herself, "I did it!"
Marie, Morgana, and Dora all look up from where they've been trying to look after Marie.
Morgana is the one that asks, "Well done, what is it that you've done?"
"I've got my magic going into the cloak rather than the mist. Can I hold the crystal please?"
Dora sighs and waves her wand to clean up the spilt chocolate while Morgana grabs the crystal, "Sorry Marianne, I forgot you were working on that. Marie's state is fairly fragile and there's only a few days to go till the full moon on the 19th. Catch."
Marianne catches it, and her eyes turn black as anger fills her features, "This is a prison. Someone has taken an immortal and forced them into this container where they can either choose to die or have their power syphoned for as long as it lasts."
Marianne drops the stone and mug as she scrambles back from it, fear written on her face, Morgana hurries over, "Marianne, are you ok?"
Marianne shakes her head, "Make it stop, make it stop."
Morgana grabs Marianne by her arms, "Marianne, you need to release the cloak. Do you understand me, you need to unmask your magic from the cloak. You've done it dozens of times, this time you're pulling back from the cloak rather than the mist. Nod if you understand." Shakily Marianne nods, and her eyes slowly return to their normal colour, "Good, now I want you to tell me what it felt like when you were doing that. I know you were scared by it, but you need to tell me why."
"I just knew, like the way you sound when you're talking about your past. It was like that, except I didn't know. I'd think of something, and I'd know the answer. I know why I haven't seen any ghosts at Hogwarts, I know how to hide my presence from them, I know what the stone is. Every time I thought about something, the answer was there as though I'd been studying it for ever. But I didn't understand the stuff it was based on."
"Well done, why did that scare you?"
"It was too much, I couldn't control it."
Morgana nods, "I've always told you that there are no shortcuts to power. If, as we suspect, this cloak belonged to Donn, then you've just found the price attached to this source of power. Donn's knowledge. I'm glad we found out here rather than when you had a bad reaction to something out there. However, I'm sorry that you're going to have to go through this."
In a small voice, Marianne asks, "Go through what?"
Morgana smiles sadly as she puts her hand against Marianne's cheek, "Why, learning how to use the power without being overwhelmed. Somewhere in there will be basic information that once you understand will make it easier to understand more complicated information."
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It's dark when Airmed slips into Kates room at the hospital. As faint glow emits from her hand, her heart goes out to the woman lying on the bed. Unnoticed behind her, Morgana slips back into the mist to Harry's domain.
Gently Airmed caresses Kates cheek, tracing the tear tracks that are a visible sign of the fact she cried herself to sleep. That touch also reveals her pregnancy, along with the scars of torture, both external and internal. Moving her hand down to her shoulder, Airmed gently shakes Kate awake.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to visit you. When Morgana found me I couldn't speak English."
Kate burst into a fresh bout of tears and struggles with her arms, making it clear that all the clothing she is wearing is actually only a straight jacket. With anger in her eyes, a wave of Airmed's hand deposits the article of clothing on the floor, leaving Kate naked apart from Morgana's symbol around her neck. Throwing permission aside, she places a hand gently on Kates arm and purges Kates body of all foreign elements and heals the internal scars from her prior torture. As she does, the intelligence comes back into the poor woman's eyes.
"Kate, I know that you're hurting and I'm here to help you. But first, I need to know, do you want my help?"
Kate hugs herself and nods, "I do, I do, please help me."
"I have already healed your internal injuries, but you're pregnant I need to…"
"Get it out of me, I don't want anything of that man inside me."
"Done, you'll miscarry in a day or so. What happened?"
Kates face turns ugly, "The lawyer said that I would only be treated by women, and cared for by women. For a couple of months it was true, then the doctors decided that I was too coherent and well behaved to be that damaged. So they took me off the exclusive list. There's an orderly, works the night shift. Sometimes you hear other women screaming until the drugs kick in. I can't help myself, he tells me to take them and I can't not. He hands that fucking thing to me and tells me to get dressed, and I do it. I can't avoid it. I tried telling my doctor, but the drugs he give us make it hard."
Airmed hugs Kate hard, "Morrígu get your arse back here right now!"
It only takes a moment for Morgana to appear sans glamour, "Who gave you the right to use my name?"
Airmed spits, "You did when I healed 3 of your chosen of mortal wounds. Why haven't you been checking in on Kate?"
Morgana steps back, "I have while Marianne's been at school, she's always looked fine though I couldn't talk to her as she's always under observation during the day."
"Well, it's not day now and Kate is not fine. There's an orderly out there who made her wear that thing. She was also pregnant when I arrived. Tell me, does that seem fine to you?"
"But I…"
"But nothing, Kate was your responsibility until I could speak English well enough for her to understand me. You failed her because it was inconvenient to find time to talk. Now do something useful and make sure that the other women here are also fine."
Each sentence is a hammer blow to Morgana and she hunches in on herself, "But I had to look after Marie and Marianne."
"Then you could have sent Dora, wasn't she training as a guard or something? That's the whole reason we have Chosen, so that they can be where we are not. I can so believe that my father is your child."
"Foster."
"What?"
"He was our Foster child. He's half Formorian so he was 6 when he was given to us to raise as best we could. Kate, I am so sorry I didn't take the time to talk to you. I can't fix that, in return I pledge to fulfil one favour of equal worth to the harm I have done you by my negligence." Belatedly blanketing the room in mist so that any cameras will be unable to Morgana continues, "Kate, I also grant you permission to use my name in private. My name is Morrígu, The Mórrígan of the Tuath Dé, and Airmed is my witness. I will be back later."
Later, a story will appear in the local news about a young woman that was found, hysterical, in the hospital. She keep insisting that she was born a woman not a woman, and that her name was Rosanne not Rosanne. The article will also note that the duty orderly is missing, presumed on the run, and that the hospital is under investigation for medical negligence by allowing a lone male to be around vulnerable women. An Urban Legend will also start that night, of a giant of a woman, covered in tribal tattoos and wielding bronze swords stalking the halls of the hospital looking for those who would abuse their power over the women that are being treated there.
Back in the room with Kate and Airmed. Airmed just holds Kate for a while before asking, "What do you want?"
Kate looks confused, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, once you're healed, what do you want to do with your life? Where are you going to go from here?"
Kates sniffles, "Until you arrived, I honestly thought I was going to die here. Now I can think, I'm not in pain, and you're asking me what I want. I want to forget this ever happened, I almost think it would have been better to go to prison. But it would be the same thing, just without the drugs or restraints."
Airmed nods, "I can do that, I can take all of your memories of your time here."
"Sure you can. I wish I had magic, at least then the torture wouldn't have just been for sadistic purposes. Maybe I could even escape this place."
"That can be done too. Marianne got magic, and so can you. If it's what you want, there's the slow way that requires a lot of patience and hard work. There's the ultra-fast way, where you eat an apple that my brethren developed, but you have to continue eating them otherwise you will die painfully. Finally, there is the Dangerous way, where a god allows you to drink their blood, and if you survive a full cycle of the moon you'll have more than just magic. There are probably other ways developed by other pantheons of gods, but those are ours. What about men?"
Kate laughs, "I'd have been a lesbian a long time ago if I could be. But, I can't help finding them attractive."
"Oh how many times I've heard that lament, though the term lesbian didn't exist then. Alas, I can do nothing for that particular part of you without changing who you are."
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Amelia Bones sighs as she looks at the desolate rock she's been deposited on. At least she had some warning to arrange a week off. She was also able to dig out a travel trunk from the Bones collection. Hopefully this will be a better option than going to the goblins for training. Unshrinking the trunk, she flattens the top of the rock with transfiguration and sticks the trunk to the now flattened rock. Climbing inside, she grabs an old chair she brought for this and transfigures it into a deckchair. Someone will be checking in on her in a couple of weeks, and even if nothing else happens she can at least relax.