(Resumed) Solstice

[Em]

And the winner was... I have no clue. All I remembered is I was just crying there, with Selene holding me gently the entire time.

I felt a hand press on my shoulder, my attention returning to the outside world. I turned my face starboard to the sky and found Ansel smiling over me.

He took his hand off me. "Hey Em!"

I nodded. "Hi."

Up next was Selene's chirp of appraisal. "Hello again, Em."

My arms moved to stretch and a yawn stretched out with 'em. "Hi. How long was I out?"

Selene's eyes also lifted to the clouds. "Quite a few minutes, methinks. I've lost track, though: lost in thought."

"You just wanted to look like you were courting the poor sap." Ansel struck an odd impression of Selene by sticking his tongue out at her. "Speaking of." He pulled his tongue back in and fixed his eyes on me. "What in all of Magick were you crackling up in lightning about?! You're on post-op and could have badly hurt both of us if I hadn't intervened-"

"Dysphoria." Selene's voice rang even. Even, and hollow.

Ansel stopped speaking.

"I'm speaking up on Em's behalf because she is still coming to terms with it herself. I connected to her, Shroud to Shroud, and saw her in all her beauty. Saw her-" Selene sniffled. "... In all her pain. I'm sorry, Ansel. Em is transgender."

Ansel did not move.

Just one look and a glass ornament snapped behind my left breast. I didn't even have to use the Shroud spell I just learned to see: Ansel's heart was broken.

Bubbles slithered up my throat. The earth spun beneath. My bones splintered into icy shrapnel. My vision was a heat haze. Selene had warned me this moment would come, but to watch it happen hurt so much worse.

Could I take it back? Could I take it all back, just to see him smile again?! I would sacrifice it all. 

I reached in with my mind. Em... Emily... My thoughts forged a dagger of confetti. I will make her no longer exist.

I will give up this Magick, just to see one more smile.

Why?

"I-" Ansel's voice had started.

I take it back; I take it ALL back! I am Emmett! Please, PLEASE! Be okay!

"I see." His voice had finished. It lacked the warmth of the hearth. It was a cold stone. Ansel's resolve had grown steely. "I would have rather Em tell me him- er, her, self I guess."

"That's because you didn't see what I saw," said Selene.

I willed myself to move. Why am I not moving?!

Selene continued. "I'm scared..."

"Scared of what?!" Ansel retorted.

I squeezed down on my lungs. "I'm... it's okay..."

Ansel cleared his throat. "Em. No."

My voice hitched.

He shook his head. He had to have; I didn't need to see it. "You came to this place a slave in all but name who had no care, no wish! You think I was joking around with our outings?!"

My eyes refocused and Ansel's stare speared into my eyes.

"If I took you as my lover as you are with you denying yourself, what do you think would happen?!" Ansel shouted. I flinched, my body alit in my Magick. This time, however, I felt the love and care beneath. "We would progress to making love, I'd complement your sexy bod', take you to bed, and torture the one I'd have sworn to protect on complete accident! NO! I'M NOT DOING THAT TO YOU!!"

Ansel spun to face away from me. "I'm hurt. You felt it. That's why you were about to reject being a woman. But Selene's not a liar and she's too timid on her own. If she's taking a stand, it's important and we had both better listen to it. I will still be your friend. But." He lowered his head. "I have to heal from this heartbreak, and I heal best on my own. Don't you dare say you're at fault, and if we had started courting I'd have been even more devastated." 

Selene hummed a serene hum. "Straight from the mouth. You did not betray him."

"Selene?" asked Ansel, "Can I leave Em with you?"

Selene nodded.

"Thank you." Ansel stepped forth and away.

I lifted my arm to wave, but Selene grasped it and shook her head. "Let's let him handle himself. We should take your mind off of all this."

She pulled out a deck of playing cards and rifled through it, pulling out twenty-two cards with names like fool, moon, strength, and death. She then split the remaining fifty-six into even stacks and passed one to me.

We shuffled our decks of cards after Selene taught me a simple method, and we each drew four cards. We had entered into a simple fantasy dueling game where the players would draw a card (skipping the first player on the first turn) and then either play a card, discard a card, or set a card face-down to a maximum of three cards. Each card had an effect according to their suit and strength according to their rank, with 2 through 10 worth printed value, Pages 11, Knights 13, Queens 15, and Kings 16. Sword cards dealt direct damage to the opponent, forcing them to discard cards off the top of their deck. Cup cards did the opposite, healing you by shuffling cards randomly from your discard pile into your deck. Pentacle cards were shields that must be struck down by one singular attack worth at least its value, and Wands summoned soldiers that would fight for you, attacking the opponent autonomously every turn. Wand cards still needed to be destroyed before attacking the opponent, but multiple attacks were allowed to do so. You normally only got to play one card on your turn, but if you had cards set face-down, you can turn them face-up at any time, an act called releasing a sleight. Multiple consecutive Sword cards in a sleight counted as one attack. Finally, Queens and Kings needed tribute to use: you had to discard either two cards of any suit, or one of their own, to play them. Aces normally had a value of 1, but if you discarded 2 cards of their suit, one of which must be a Page or higher, it had a value of 20. Whoever was forced to pull a card from an empty deck lost.

It was a simple game, all in all. I'm not sure how popular it was, and I'd certainly never heard of it before, but maybe I just had fun sitting in the grass with someone who didn't hate me. It certainly helped with the emotional crisis, after all.

Selene held her hand out for me to give her the cards of hers I was holding. "Feels nice doesn't it?"

I placed my stack of playing cards into her gentle palm with a nod. "Yeah. It does."

Another trill from Selene's timbre rang in pleasant reward.

"Hey, Emily."

My consciousness lost a half-second of time, but a cardial warmth nestled in its place.

"The Spirit heals by way of affirmation." Selene gamboled up to her feet. "What that means is different for everyone, but it usually means doing what feels nice to you. Whether it be connecting to others, reflecting positively on your journey, finishing a personal project of passion, or even savouring a tasty meal. It doesn't much matter what you do, just so long as it feels good and plenty."

I inclined my face to the ground and then to the winds above.

Selene spun two quarter-turns away from me, her voice riming. "The inverse is also true: your Magick is your will. Violate yourself and evanesce."

She had strode out of my sight by the time I could conjure a reply. Damn if she didn't know how to make an exit.

I lifted my palm to my eyes and drew a slow breath. I had thought to try that Shroud spell again, but Ser Larsen did say no Magick for a week.

Wait.

My teeth gnashed. Why would Selene go against the medic's orders like that?! She knew I wasn't supposed to cast!!

Wind hissed out my windpipe. What's done was done. I just counted my lucky stars for the only ill to befall me being an extra nap.

That and losing any chance I had of getting with Ansel.

My nails dug into my palms. 

No. If I mused over that all day I would accomplish nothing. I had to go home and rest. I already had enough on my plate as it was with having to justify myself on Enday's meeting and all.

Thank the Heavens and Havens I was on a recovery term to remove the temptation of trying out the new spell some more.

I meandered through the ground of my new homeland back to one of the dining halls for a meal before turning in for the night.

The next morning was uneventful. I woke up, donned a fresh outfit, and set forth to start my day.

Compared to yesterday, however, today felt like a callous deity had transposed time orthogonal to reality, which is to say I felt more like a simulacrum than a human. 

[Emmett]

The greens lost their sweet taste in favour of a bland material. My limbs moved to a mechanical rhythm no one was playing. The words on the worksheets flowed into me and answers drained out my pen. The dials on the clock moved as they always did. At least that was the same.

Time to go.

A drumbeat on a table sounded an alarum. My eyes opened to the meeting room, with three people I should recognize but didn't.

"Pay attention!" shouted the accompaniment voice, played by Samael Michaels.

By which I mean I recognized them nominally, but the emotional connection was gone, severed. At this point, I had no investment in any of their lives or deaths.

"The Emissaries are here, now, and you're been sleeping your sorry arse off!"

I opened my lips to let out a groan or something, but Grace was quicker on the draw. "Will you quit?"

Samael's eyes narrowed into a blade's cross-section. "Don't lose sight of what we have to do just because some man took the hit for you and now you're in love."

The oddly quiet Patrick returned to form. "KNOCK IT OFF!!" 

"And what do you know, Peterson!"

The Student of Fire alit as a runaway torch. "A lot more than you, Samael!"

"Squad Lea-"

"I'm not calling you shite when you don't deserve it!" Patrick picked up the chair he had once occupied and swung it wide, releasing it to crash into a wall. "Unlike any of you, I was raised fighting the pricks first-hand, and you wanna know something?!"

Patrick jumped onto the meeting table. "They don't fight fair! They turn you against your own, let you kill yourselves, and mop up the pieces. That's been their game for the five years they've been active! I would know: Emmy over there fucked up and his lie got Bryce killed, but Aegis himself twisted the knife! We used to be best friends before that day!"

I couldn't even bring myself to protest the name, nor wonder why Patrick wasn't wishing me dead. I knew why he wasn't trying to kill me: it was Enday.

"He didn't have to do that: he's strong enough to wipe us all out straight-up. But he did, and you know what happened? We took our anger out on Emmett because he was there, and not the actual jackoffs responsible in the first place!"

"Don't you dare lecture me, you-"

Patrick yielded Samael no quarter. "AND THEY DID THE SAME SHITE TO US! They were there, in the cave! You don't know because I have no clue why, but I used a spell I only EVER use on etsies and it's cause doing it burns my arm from the inside! AND NOW LOOK AT US! DO WE LOOK LIKE A SQUAD RIGHT NOW?!"

"No, because not a single one of you understands the importance of hierar-"

"No! Shut the fuck up! It's because we're screaming at each other instead of having a hellsdamned meeting!" Patrick raised his heel and crashed it into the table below. "By the time the Etsies reach us, there won't be an 'us' to defeat, because we will have done their fucking work for them!"

Samael shook his head. "Get your dirty feet off the table."

"Start doing something useful and I will." Patrick hopped back to the floor. "What's the hand of Missions we've been dealt?"

Mission. Something we could do to prepare for the war effort. Prepare to take the fight to Aegis. Prepare to set right what once was wrong.

My hand reached into a pocket.

"Ser Lienne asked me to give you this when you came asking about that topic."

Samael scoffed and pulled out some envelopes. "Right, well, here are the Missions I found earlier today. We'll go over them for any insights, but I'm picking which one we do.

I pulled out the scarlet envelope.

"Sinclair, is this some kind of joke?"

"She said to tell you to break the seal during a Squad meeting when you're ready to risk your life."

My hands broke the seal, and a gilded leaf fluttered on display, bearing its omen.

Mission Name: Grimoire of Crimson
Mission Category: Other - Special
Mission Requestor: Lienne
Mission Squad Assigned: (Receiver)

Mission Description: A being unknown to you has taken a tome that belongs to me. The tome is crimson in color, with gold-leaf pages bound within. This being is capable of wielding Magick and has since traveled to the ghost town formerly known as Annul Rhombus. I would like this book back, but my duties as Provost of Combat require I remain in the Can Vahs Arcane Colleges. Therefore, a Squad is required to retrieve the tome. This mission is dangerous - go prepared, and do not underestimate the challenge.

Mission Parameters: Squad MUST arrive at Annul Rhombus before noon on the Saturday after Mission begins. Squad MUST locate the adversary before Sunday. Squad MUST combat the adversary before the Enday after Mission begins. Squad MUST defeat the adversary. All members of Squad MUST have delivered at least one impactful use of Magick against the adversary. Squad MUST recover the Grimoire. Grimoire MUST NOT be destroyed. All Squad Members MUST survive. Squad MUST return to CVAC before the Monday after Mission begins.

Mission Additional: This Mission is classified as Other to bypass classification restrictions. As this is a Mission requested by Staff, Remuneration is paid entirely to Squad. Remuneration will not be monetary. Remuneration will be determined during the Retrospective Meeting. Requestor and Sponsor will be present for the Retrospective Meeting. This Mission affects Squad Classification. This Mission is a valid substitute for the Remedial Acceptance Examination.

Mission Approved by Silver Linn on Third of Ninth and scheduled to begin the Friday after this missive's seal is broken.