Chapter 9: A Beautiful Delusion

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Somewhere outside of Metropolis

Nightwing

For a second, he was floating in nothingness, and then he stumbled onto solid ground once more.

Morgan staggered onto her knees beside him, and their contact broke. Her eyes were still overtaken by gold, and he wondered why he didn't have the same reaction as her. His body was unaffected, no trace of magic. He watched as the gold siphoned out, and she blinked and rubbed at her eyes with a disoriented look about her.

Dick offered her a hand up which she ignored, as he looked around them.

They were still in the forest. The Other Dick was gone, as was Zatanna. The more Dick studied their surroundings, the more he noticed subtle details that were different. Looking to his right he spotted the large rock from which they'd watched the destruction of Metropolis, and he took large, leaping steps towards it, jumping onto it with ease.

Metropolis was unscathed. They were.. back?

Dick jumped back down the rock to rejoin Morgan. She was shaking her head slightly and blinking rapidly as she stood leaning against a tree trunk. Perhaps the gold hadn't dissipated fully after all.

"We're back.. I think."

Morgan's face looked caught between relief and sorrow, and he felt his hands twitch with the need to comfort her.

A low hum from above made his stomach sink.

Was the Reach here? Had they somehow traveled back in time, but failed to travel to their own dimension?

Looking above, he felt relief take over from worry, and he smiled as he watched the Supercycle touch ground before them, carrying Superboy, Beast Boy, Red Robin and Kid Flash. Behind it landed the bioship, steered by Miss Martian, from which several Justice League members stepped out; Batman, Superman, Black Canary, Zatanna and Martian Manhunter.

Had they expected trouble?

"There you are!" M'gann spoke as the first. She floated forward and made to envelope Morgan in a tight hug.

"Don't touch them!" Zatanna suddenly barked, holding out a hand in warning.

Everyone turned to her with confusion, and she elaborated.

"There's strong magic coming off the two of them." she glared at them suspiciously, "Maybe they're not Sparrow and Nightwing, but sorcerers taking their form."

"It's us, Z," Dick interjected, holding up his hands in a placating manner. "Miss Martian and Martian Manhunter can confirm. Look into our minds."

The rest of the group stood and watched as M'gann's eyes glowed green, and she started probing Morgan's mind. Martian Manhunter flew over and landed in front of Dick, and he felt the sensation of a foreign presence in his as the martian's eyes glowed green before him.

M'gann turned to Zatanna, who was still eyeing them with suspicion. "This is Sparrow, I know it."

"Nightwing speaks the truth," J'onn said as he broke the mind link. "Although the things I just saw in his mind.. troubling."

"Hey," Dick protested weakly, though he understood J'onn must've seen where they'd been and what they'd gone through in the past few days.

"I'm so glad you're back," M'gann gave Morgan the tight hug she must've wanted since they'd arrived.

Morgan returned the hug even as she frowned in confusion. "You act like I've been gone for months."

"Well, maybe not months." Red Robin said, coming forward to give Nightwing a once-over. Dick gave him a small nod to assure him he was okay, and Tim smiled in acknowledgement before elaborating. "You've been gone for a week. We searched everywhere."

Nightwing's eyes bulged out of his head. "A week?"

Bart playfully nudged Beast Boy beside him, speaking in a low enough tone that it was obvious he didn't actually mean for Dick to hear him.

"We figured you two had finally figured your shit out and ran away together," he said with a smirk, and Garfield swatted at his hand, shushing him.

"We've been stuck in another dimension." Morgan ground out through grit teeth, looking at Bart with a glare.

"A looove dimension?" Kid Flash asked with feigned innocence, tilting his head to the side, and resting his cheek against his clasped hands.

Morgan's glare was almost as fierce as her blush, but she leveled the very irritating teenager with an icy look.

"Your old dimension."

Bart sobered instantly and stood up straight, the pouting kissy-face he had previously been making melting off his face.

"That hellhole?"

"I think explanations are in order." Batman's stern voice cut across Kid Flash, and he stepped forward, demanding all attention on his dark form.

"As she said," Nightwing looked to his old mentor, "We've been in another dimension. The one where the Reach won and you're imprisoned in space."

"How did you end up there?" M'gann had a hand on Morgan's shoulder, but let it drop as Morgan shrugged. Whether as an answer to her question, or as a way to get her hand away, he couldn't tell.

"Magic spell," Sparrow said, looking at Zatanna. "You helped us figure it out."

"I?"

"The, uh, other you," Nightwing explained. Zatanna opened her mouth in surprise. "She said it was a spell made to punch through the fabric keeping our timelines separate."

"She had a book." Morgan ran a hand through her hair, looking frustrated that she wasn't explaining things well enough. Dick could understand – he was also feeling a bit scatterbrained, whether from their magical interdimensional travel, or from the lack of sleep and being on their feet constantly for days. "Uh, a purple book. She showed us a page."

Zatanna looked clueless. "I don't know what book that is."

"She said you could help us figure out more about this spell so we can control it," Dick protested. She had to know what book it was! "Before this happens again!"

"What makes you think it will happen again?" Black Canary asked, speaking up for the first time since they'd arrived.

Dick hadn't missed the way she was studying them like a hawk, however. He'd heard that Morgan had started therapy sessions with the older hero, and ever since then, he'd shied away from her sharp gaze. Every time he saw Dinah, he wondered what she knew, what Morgan talked to her about, what she thought of Dick now. He had the strange but unmistakable urge to defend himself, despite not knowing if the two women talked about him at all, or if they did, that Morgan was saying anything negative. It was stupid, because he knew Dinah, and she knew him. He'd gone to her several times in his teenage years to ask for guidance, when he needed help with things he couldn't talk to Bruce about – a list that seemed to grow larger and larger with each passing year.

To answer her question, Morgan reached out and grabbed hold of Dick's wrist. The observing heroes reacted with a mix of confusion, wonder and surprise as the fog grew to life below them, seeping out of the ground like mist forming on a cooling lake at dusk.

However, after a moment, it started writhing, like an animal in pain, and the fog collapsed in on itself before disappearing entirely. Morgan took a startled step back, as did he. As the fog had collapsed, Dick felt something akin to electricity zap through his body, pulsating particularly hard in the two spots where he and Morgan touched to activate the spell. His hand was tingling, and he looked at it with confusion.

The fog was gone for good, this time.

Silence.

Nightwing realized he didn't want to keep having this conversation out in the open, and he didn't want it to involve this many people. He didn't need Bart or Garfield, or even Connor and M'gann, to know that he and Morgan had been linked by a magic spell that they had no idea how to get rid of.

"Let's talk when we get to the Watchtower." He looked at Batman, pleadingly. "Somewhere more private."

Batman nodded subtly and inclined his head towards the Bioship. Connor and M'gann shared a look, and the two older heroes started rounding up the younger Team members.

"Time to go. We can catch up later."

Dick sent Connor a look of gratitude as he followed Batman, and the other hero gave him a small smile in reassurance.

Ten minutes later, and in one of the Watchtower conference rooms, Dick and Morgan stood facing their expecting audience. In the end, only Zatanna, Batman and Black Canary had stayed with them. Dick suspected Tim would demand that he be filled in at a later time, and he was still trying to figure out how much he wanted to tell his younger brother.

"Start from the beginning," Black Canary encouraged, and Morgan shifted slightly in her seat and cleared her throat.

"After the destruction of the wedding, I couldn't sleep. I just had this feeling that we had missed something. So, I decided to go back there and check out the site."

"I never left, "Dick admitted. "I was annoyed because I couldn't find anything."

Morgan nodded and went on, "once we were both there, I noticed the fog that you guys saw earlier. We went to investigate. That's when we happened upon the spell."

"It was a golden, glowing piece of thread. Morgan carelessly picked it up," Dick explained, unable to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

"I. was. Investigating," Morgan said through grit teeth, her eyes flashing.

Dick ignored her protest and kept explaining. The two of them told the whole story, where they'd ended up, their trek through the forest and the Gotham sewers, and eventually their finding of the Batcave.

As one, they both halted and shared a look. Morgan's expression spoke clearly. How much do we tell them?

"We met, uh, me." Dick cleared his throat a bit awkwardly, still feeling that uncomfortable churning in his stomach at meeting himself. "I – or he – was Batman. He contacted Zatanna and she helped us figure out the spell. We each carry one half of the spell, and it only activates when we touch."

"Well, problem solved, right?" Zatanna shrugged. "Just don't touch."

"Yes, that would be a great solution." Morgan readily agreed. "Except my eyes are routinely getting clouded over by gold. It happens every time I sleep. Whatever the spell is, it's not just lying dormant. It has to go."

"And what about you?" Black Canary looked at Dick. "Any side effects?"

Dick shook his head. "No. Not yet, as far as I can tell."

"Why is that?" Dinah pressed.

"Honestly? No clue," Dick sighed, though he wasn't afraid to posit a theory. He leaned back in his seat and thought about it for a moment, before relaying the information they'd been given. "The other Zatanna said that Morgan's side effects might be because she was the initial contact with the spell, she was the only one to physically touch it. I watched when it happened, and it was almost like the piece of thread was.. absorbed into her eyes. Zatanna said when we touched, because Morgan isn't a magic user, some of the magic was dispelled into me. I'm just a carrier of a small snippet of it, but enough for it to not be activated without me."

"Nightwing's lack of reaction or not.." Morgan interjected, and as he looked at her, Dick realized how exhausted she appeared. "I would like to not walk around with golden eyes on the regular."

"I can try to find this book you mentioned," Zatanna suggested, "if I have it in the other dimension, I should be able to find it here too. Maybe Doctor Fate knows something." Her face turned dark, and she turned away, so her eyes were shadowed by her hair. "I hate working with that guy."

"There's something else," Nightwing admitted, realizing they'd forgotten to mention the women they'd seen every time a new fog appeared. "We've encountered three of the mists so far, and every time, either of us saw an unknown woman or girl at the site. They have to be the ones causing this. I've had Diana look into it for me since the second appearance."

"Has she found anything?" Batman asked.

Dick shook his head. "I don't know for sure. She's in Themyscira right now, to look for answers."

"So, what do we do, while you search for the book, and while we wait for Wonder Woman to come back?" Morgan asked, looking resigned.

"I'm not sure there's much you can do." Zatanna said, shooting Morgan an apologetic look. "Just keep going like normal."

Morgan sighed and leaned back in her chair, slumping a bit.

"Okay."

"And avoid touching each other I guess?" Zatanna suggested with a bit of uncertainty, and Dick thought the advice was entirely unhelpful.

"Oh, trust me, that won't be an issue," Morgan assured her sourly. Dick rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, resisting the urge to huff. Was touching him really such a horrible fate?

"Let's just put this behind us," he sighed, feeling weary and wanting to go back to his apartment for a long nap in his own bed. The small group of five stood and began to disperse. Dick knew Bruce would want to rehear his story with more detail later, but for now, he wanted to be alone.

"Z, let me know if there's anything I can do," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze when she passed by him.

The room emptied, leaving the two of them behind. Morgan shuffled where she stood and drew in a deep breath. Then, she looked at him and their eyes met in a mutual understanding.

Let's just put this behind us, he'd said.

The tip of her long wing, still neatly bandaged, was the last thing he saw of her as Morgan left the room, and he knew.

He knew that neither of them would ever be able to.

Fire. All around her, there was fire. She was trapped, forced to run through a building, with every room she passed through steadily growing hotter, the flames pressing ever closer. She was blinded by the smoke, coughing up blood. She still carried the bundle in her arms, the weight of it slowing her down, though she knew she could not discard it. Behind, the shadow stalked ever closer. Long limbs stretched for her, like sharp knives ready to cut her in half, should it reach her. the shadow mingled with the smoke; the darkness oppressive. Somehow, even the flames around her could not illuminate it.

Someone was wailing – maybe it was her.

There was a dead end. She was on top of the building, but one of her wings was broken and she could not fly away. She wanted to shout for help, but her voice was raw from the smoke and nothing but a pathetic cough escaped. Then, the dark shadow pressed upon her and its spindly limbs ran her through, gutting her like a fish. She let out a wet gurgle and fell to the ground.

The darkness blacked out the flames around her and she blinked in and out of consciousness. A sinister laugh echoed in her foggy mind.

May 25th

Gotham City

Morgan

Morgan leapt up in her bed. The images fading from her mind were so horrid, she gasped with a guttural sound. She was overcome with tremors for a long while as she sat, hugging her knees to her chest. Her vision, as she was starting to get used to by now, spun with molten gold, her eyes prickling as she rubbed at them in a vain attempt to make the golden film dissipate faster.

Eventually, her mind cleared of nightly terrors, and she came to. Taking many deep breaths, she felt frustration squeeze at her heart. This was unfair. Why was she having this same dream over and over? She was worn from dreaming of her own death several nights for over a week now. It had gotten to the point where she feared falling asleep every night, worried if the dream was going to terrorize her again.

It was three am, her watch informed her. She hated this. No way was she going to fall asleep again but spending half the night just waiting for it to be morning was tedious. She had read through all the books she was currently reading, watched so many movies, and she was running out of ways to spend her nights.

She threw her covers off and went to her closet. If she wasn't going to go back to sleep, and she also had nothing really to do at home..

Well, she might as well go on patrol. Although it felt like a lifetime ago that she'd sat at that café and had coffee with Karen, the talk they'd had back then still inspired her to get back into it. If Batman had a problem with it, he could hunt her down and tell her himself, and she'd be sure to inform him she was just as much a citizen of Gotham as he was. Morgan repeated that mantra to herself over and over as she set to putting on her suit and braiding back her thick curls.

She slipped on her suit and was out her window in no time.

For several hours, she flew around the city, stopping minor crimes – burglars, fights, pickpockets. It was small stuff compared to what she did with the League, but it still felt important – at least here she didn't feel like she was competing with all the better heroes for a spot on the roster. Despite her earlier pep talk, she still found herself looking at every shadow apprehensively, worried the Batman would arrive and tell her off any minute.

Morgan liked being part of the League, she promised she did. But she felt small and unimportant. She'd been in the League for seven months now and she still felt like she was struggling to truly carve out her own spot.

She'd left the Team for a reason. And yet, seven months later, she felt like she was still on trial.

Shaking her head, she flew upwards, heading for the tallest building in the city – Wayne Tower. She sat on the edge of the rooftop and contemplated her situation. Below, the city was bustling with activity, still, even at this time of night. Gotham was as dingy as ever, the lights from street lamps, apartments and billboards almost not managing to reach her, far up as she was. The very soul of the city seemed to suppress the lights.

She wished something would come along soon – a chance for her to prove herself. To stake her claim, as Karen had put it. It wasn't that she was actively wishing for some kind of emergency to happen – she didn't want people to get hurt, obviously. But if it did happen, she hoped she'd be able to help and do a good enough job to earn respect. She had worked hard as a hero for the last couple of years. She'd been trained by one of the most well-respected heroes of her age. She felt like she'd paid her dues by now. So then, why did she feel so invisible? Like she wasn't being valued? She was tired of feeling off balance, like she wasn't in any kind of flow with her life. Sure, she was constantly on the move, every day full of activity, but none of it felt truly effortless.

Maybe it wasn't what she was doing, but her that was off-balance. She supposed that might've been closer to the truth.

Especially after her short stint in the other dimension. She'd been so eager to believe maybe she had been sent there, that she could fix things – that she could be the hero that was needed.

What a beautiful delusion.

She scoffed at herself, pulling her legs up close under her chin.

"Who am I kidding," she sighed. If every hero of that world had failed, what made her think she was good enough to succeed? Hadn't her dying once in that fight been enough?

Below, she watched an ambulance tear across the streets, sirens wailing urgently. She wondered if she ought to follow it from above, to make sure it reached its destination without trouble. Deciding against it, she was sure it would be fine without her. She hugged her knees even closer to her chest, feeling fatigue seep into her bones. Casting a look at the gigantic clocktower a few streets over, she saw she'd been out for three hours by now. She looked to the horizon over the bay and saw the first rays of light kiss the waterline. For a few minutes, she watched as the sky erupted in brilliant colors as the sun slowly gained dominion over the night. Then, she began to nod off.

Worried she was going to simply fall asleep and slip off the building, she spread her wings and headed home.

She had seen neither cape nor cowl of Batman all night, contrary to her worries. That didn't necessarily mean he hadn't been out, though. She hadn't seen him, but she couldn't be so sure he hadn't seen her.

Reaching home, she quickly went back in through her window. She threw off her suit, yawning so powerfully her whole body shook with the effort. Then, she slipped back under her covers and prayed for a few hours of uneventful sleep.

May 30th

Star City

Sparrow

Morgan knew she'd been wishing for a chance to prove herself - that she'd get assigned to more important missions or bigger emergencies. She really shouldn't be complaining.

Still.

Why did it have to be a fire?

She landed on the street next to the burning building, Zatanna and Rocket flanking her sides. The fire marshal ran towards the three women, and Rocket quickly asked for a status report.

"We still have civilians stuck on the third and fourth floor!" He sounded stressed and Morgan understood this was a matter of life of death.

"On it!" she said, swallowing down a shaky breath as she launched herself in the air, Rocket right behind her.

"Retaw yarps!" the magical voice of Zatanna echoed behind them as a shower of water started raining upon the building. She aimed the stream at the two women as well, offering them a slight bit of protection against the angry flames licking up the sides of the building.

Morgan felt like every warning bell was ringing in her skull, but she forced herself to jump through a broken window on the third floor.

"Hello?" she called, hoping whoever was still there was conscious and able to hear her. "Anybody here?"

"We're here!" someone called from further inside.

Oh god they're gonna make me walk further into the flaming building, aren't they?

Her wings, usually a tool of liberation, were a significant liability here. Their mass was much greater than that of the rest of her body, both taller and broader than her slight build, and it made the burning building press upon her even more, as the feathered limbs came too close to the flames for comfort.

"Fuck it," she grunted, shielding her face with her arm. People's lives were at stake. She was going to have to do this.

She ran. Ran and called, doing what she could to locate any trapped people. The first apartment she came across was empty. The second, a middle-aged man was stuck behind a door. She used her telekinesis to swiftly kick it down.

"Follow me!" she coughed over the smoke. It stung her eyes and clouded her vision. This was horrible.

The two of them fought their way through the corridor. Morgan kept kicking down doors and checking inside the apartments. The man was a great help, actively checking apartments with her. they started to slowly accumulate a small gaggle of people. The long they were there, the harder the heat was to withstand, and she prayed they would reach the last apartment soon. Her heart was pounding and though she knew inhaling too much smoke was bad for her, her breath was panicked, threatening hyperventilation. Before her waking eyes, images from her dreams sprung forth. She saw herself burning, the flames eating her flesh. She saw the smoke materialize into a dark shadow that ran her through. She saw herself choking.

Eventually, they reached the last apartment and she kicked down the door. The apartment was relatively free of fire, and the drop in temperature was a huge relief.

"Anyone here? We're here to help!" she called, as she'd done in every apartment. Over the roar of the fire, she heard the pathetic whimpering of a scared child. She ran for the room she heard it from and opened the door swiftly.

Inside was a small, black-haired boy with wide, terrified eyes. He was clutching a teddy bear to him, but at the sight of her, he ran to her and wrapped his arms around her legs, burying his face in her hip.

Morgan quickly hoisted him up in her arms, instinctively stroking a hand over his hair.

"Are you alone or is someone else here?"

The boy pointed to another room.

"My mommy is in there," he hiccupped through tears. Morgan handed him over to a teenage girl she'd rescued in the apartment before this. Walking swiftly to the other room, she opened the door and coughed at the smoke that came out. On the floor lay the child's mother, passed out.

Oh no, please be alive!

She dragged the mother out of the room and into the living room where everyone else was waiting. Asking two of the rescued men to hold onto the woman, she went towards the one wall of the room that was an outer wall. With a calming breath – which felt nearly impossible under the current conditions – she aimed a telekinetically powered kick at the wall, and a large section blew away, creating their escape route.

"Alright, you go first," she motioned for the teenager holding the little boy. They stepped up to the hole and she trained all her focus on their bodies. "Don't drop him."

The teenager gave her a courageous nod as Morgan started floating them out of the hole. She peeked out, sweating with the heat and the effort. Her outstretched arm guided the floating pair to the ground, where they landed without issue.

"You next," she motioned for one of the men holding the unconscious mother. "Hold onto her."

On it went for several more goes until one last civilian remained. Her whole body shook with tremors from the exertion the telekinesis had put it under, but she floated the man down carefully. Her arm trembled with the effort and her chest was bursting. Humans were still a much greater challenge to move around than dead matter, and she'd maxed out all her energy with her stubborn will to lower them all gently.

Eventually, he too landed safely, and Morgan instantly jumped out of the window, floating down herself.

She'd done it. She'd saved them - despite her panic, not a single person had been left behind.

Her task now done, she felt she could no longer keep the panic at bay. Her mind started reeling and her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears, it drowned out everything else.

Rocket and Zatanna were also standing amid a group of rescued civilians, as the two other women had finished their task before Morgan.

"Thank you," the fire marshal nodded solemnly at the three heroes. The rescued people behind him voiced their gratitude as well.

Morgan was sure, under other circumstances, she would feel her chest swell with pride. She'd saved lives today.

But she was too far gone into her own panic. Her mind was racing with images of fire, of her own corpse, of death, blood, shadow, and flame. She let the two other heroes deal with the fire marshal, standing behind them and working on keeping her breath under control.

Eventually, it got too difficult, and, in a panic, she left. Like a bullet she was off, flying as far away from the burning building as her exhausted body could carry her.

"Sparrow!" someone called after her, and vaguely she was aware of the two other heroes following her, but she wasn't in the right mind to answer them.

She landed on a rooftop, her momentum and uncoordinated landing sending her stumbling and eventually falling across the roof.

"Sparrow, what's going on?" Rocket was right behind her.

Morgan tried to answer, but her throat was closing up, and she felt like she was drowning. She stayed on her behind, focusing all her energy on taking steady breaths.

A hand held onto her shoulder and another figure bent down in front of her. She came back to the real world and took another shaky breath.

This was humiliating.

At least it was just Raquel and Zatanna there. It could've been much worse.

She cleared her throat and stood up.

"Girl, what is going on?" Raquel asked again, this time with more insistence. "I've never seen you freak out like that on a mission before."

"Sorry," Morgan wiped at her brow. Her hand came back dirty with ash and sweat. She sighed and braced herself for telling the two girls about the nightmares she'd been struggling with. "I've been having these.. dreams. A few times a week. Or, I guess they're nightmares. They're all about fire."

Zatanna raised her eyebrows.

Morgan plowed on; "In the dreams, I'm in a burning building. Every floor I run to; the fire just keeps getting closer. I'm running from this.. shadow. A black figure that's hidden from me. In some of the nightmares I get -" she swallowed dryly and cleared her throat again, uncomfortable with the subject. Her throat ached and stung from the smoke she'd inhaled. "I either get burned alive or the dark figure reaches me and stabs me to death. Either way, I die horribly. And there's always someone crying, wailing in the background."

The two girls looked at her in surprise and sympathy. It was a strange relief to tell someone about it.

"No wonder our mission got to you," Zatanna sounded concerned for her. "You say it's a few times a week, every week?"

Morgan nodded, tugging at the end of her braid. "Since the wedding. Or, you know, the thing after the wedding." She sent Zatanna a meaningful look. "So, two weeks now. I get them every other day or so."

"That doesn't sound normal," Raquel pointed out. "Zatanna, do you think it could be magical?"

"Uuuh," Morgan knew Raquel didn't know a whole lot about the stuff that had been going on, but Zatanna looked solemnly at Morgan. They both understood the truth, something Morgan had realized since the first nightmare, but had been too stubborn to tell anyone about.

Her dreams were because of the spell.

With a wince, Morgan remembered the dream she'd had the first night in the other dimension. That's where it had all started. The dream she still hadn't told anyone about, the one that she'd later, as she was running for her life, found out was a premonition.

Zatanna raised a challenging eyebrow at Morgan.

"I think it's a fair assumption," she said.

Morgan realized she needed to admit to the prophetic dream, if she had any hope of them getting to the bottom of this. But she didn't want to do this in front of anyone that wasn't already involved. She looked at Raquel, who was studying her with an air of worry, and she quelled her desire for privacy. She'd already admitted as much as the recurring nightmares, she may as well fill Raquel all the way in.

"It's more complicated than you think," Morgan sighed, sitting back down against the railing. Raquel sat across from her, crossing her legs and placing her elbow on her knee, so she could lean her chin against her hand. Zatanna leaned against the chimney and crossed her arms in front of her, studying Morgan from above.

"After the wedding, Nightwing and I were transported to another dimension – by accident," Morgan began, finding that, despite having told this story several times already, she still struggled with figuring out how to best explain it.

"That's why you disappeared?" Raquel asked, "We thought you'd just run off together – Kid Flash started a betting pool."

"I'm gonna wring his little neck," Morgan grumbled, her face hot. "We did not run away together – we stumbled upon a magic spell, accidentally triggered it, and now I'm somehow harboring the spell and it's giving me strange dreams. Zatanna already knows most of it, but.." she took a deep breath, "but there was one thing I haven't told anyone."

Zatanna looked shrewdly at her.

"What are you hiding?" she asked, her tone indicating she would know if Morgan lied.

"The first night we were there, I had my first nightmare. The one I described to you. But it didn't start out like that. At first, I was running in a forest, and I was being chased by Reach soldiers. In the dream, I saw a giant old willow, and I ran towards it to hide. Once I reached the tree, the dream shifted to my recurring nightmare. Nightwing says I was screaming in my sleep and when I woke up.. my eyes were glowing."

Morgan looked carefully at the two women before her. As she'd spoken, she'd found herself unable to meet their eyes, but now she saw in them worry and confusion. She looked towards the sky and recounted the rest of her story, the part that she was still struggling to understand herself.

"Later that same day, we were running from Reach soldiers, and the willow from my dream was suddenly there. I ran for it, and we hid, and that's how we escaped the soldiers. It was like someone was.. using my dream to warn me."

She finished and found herself studying her hands. Suddenly, she was worried Zatanna would laugh at her, call her crazy and deny her story. She was worried they wouldn't take her seriously, or that they would convince her it was just a coincidence.

Eventually, Zatanna cleared her throat, and Morgan looked at her. "None of this is normal," Zatanna said. "Whatever that spell was.. it's clearly active, even when you're not using it to jump between dimensions."

Morgan pressed her lips together and nodded, feeling anxious at the worry she saw on Zatanna's face, but also relieved that she was taking her seriously.

"I need to know more, if I'm going to be able to help you."

Morgan tilted her head. "How?"

"I'm going to have to see one of these dreams."

I do enjoy that Bart is like the nr 1 Dick and Morgan shipper. He's very annoying about it, which is fun too. Do we have a ship name for these two, by the way? Morick? Nightsparrow?

Anyway, the plot thickens! Morgan is really going through kind of a rough patch, it seems. But also, girl, you're TWENTY! Nobody feels "right" at twenty! But I guess that's just something she's gotta figure out for herself.

One thing I decided to do with this story is just.. get a little silly and indulgent with it. Like yes, keep the emotional core realistic and give the characters a meaningful arc, and make sure the writing is good, but I decided to indulge myself in some fun tropes aand not worry if its cliche or silly. So we get "bound by magic" in this story. And we get a character suffering from frequent nightmares, because nothing leads to better angst and drama than a main character slowly getting worn down by lack of sleep.

I feel like a lot happens in this chapter, as it's closing off one arc and setting up the next. More will be revealed in the next chapter, but I'm curious to know what your theories might be at this point in time?

As always, I hope you enjoyed, and please don't forget to review! Your reviews motivate me to keep uploading!