Amaranthine

“Are you fucking kidding me with this shit!?” Willow growled up at the oil-spill sky as she left the bar. Her slavic accent was as thick as Cait had ever heard it. To be honest, it suited her, she wished she brought it out more. “Blyat, can never be easy,” she mumbled, grabbing one of Breastman’s tentacles to help guide him through the sensory overstimulation.

Cait liked that about Willow. She acted all aloof and mysterious, never afraid to laugh at you for a joke only she knew. But, in every encounter they’d had thus far, she’d also been the first to act in support, never diving in head first like the rest of the team, instead staying back and figuring out how she was best going to be able to help. That apparently went just as much for helping out an overwhelmed tentacle monster as it did with making sure Kennedy could have 2 dragon girlfriends at the same time.

With Kennedy, Qi, and Lira stumbling along behind, having decided karaoke didn’t need to stop once you’d left the bar and belting out a song about Redwood trees and, Cait was pretty sure, dong; Cait also had plenty of time to appreciate other things about Willow. The witchy woman had never once changed out of that dress. That didn’t mean the dress didn’t change though. Cait had noticed that in The Council chambers, or in the greater public eye, it looked almost like formal wear, something Elvira might pop on to go to the Emmys. In a fight, it molded tight to her body, except when she needed it to flow to confuse an opponent, when it would billow like smoke, obscuring her form. Tonight, it hugged her tight, just sheer enough that every now and again, you wondered if it was a trick of the light, or if it really was that perfect ivory skin showing through.

Cait jogged up beside the pair, casually taking Willow’s hand like she held Breastman’s tentacle. Willow’s silver white eyes glared up at her, unamused, but Cait just shrugged and gave her the kind of grin that made people stop being mad at her. It worked, but only because the way Willow’s thumb stroked against Cait’s tanned skin told her she hadn’t really been upset in the first place.

“So, Waves,” Cait began, letting her eyes float upwards, enjoying the way the lights of a city this size played against the cosmic energies currently flooding the planet. “This do anything to your magic?”

“What do you mean?” Willow asked, following Cait’s gaze. Cait could see her trying to have the same appreciation for their beauty Cait was displaying, but really, she just looked annoyed.

“Plenty of regular folks are scared of the Waves. Guardians might get put on edge. Not sure I’ve ever seen someone look quite so baseline annoyed with one though,” Cait said, to the kind of bobbing head nod from Willow that meant she was on the right track. “As far as what I mean…. Well, I know about as much about magic as I know about how the fuck B-Money’s body works.”

Willow quirked a curious eyebrow at her, and Cait sighed.

“Nothing, Willow, I know nothing,” Cait explained with a chuckle she hoped was charming. “You can get used to that, I’m educated, but not in any way that has mattered recently.”

“Mmm,” Willow hummed, stepping over to bump playfully against Cait. Her dress was soft, impossibly so. It felt like it should fall away at the slightest touch, but Cait had never even seen it rip. “Education? Maybe not, Cait, but your experience has been useful at least once.”

Cait met Willow’s sly grin with her own. Despite the flirting happening here, Cait had no idea if they’d ever share another rendezvous, but their first had certainly been memorable, even for the ethereal soul-witch who Cait suspected had a lot more ‘experience’ than any of them.

“Anyway,” Willow continued, sliding her hand up from Cait’s palm to wrap around the crook of her arm, pressing her body into Cait’s side, “To put it simply, yes, this ‘does something’ to my magic. To all magic. Every energy humanity believes it can control becomes much more powerful during a Wave, and an equivalent amount more inscrutable. Waves are the setting for a mage’s greatest works, and their most disastrous downfalls.”

“Huh,” Cait said.

“What?”

“Well, it occurs to me we’re supposed to be hunting a magical organization right now,” she continued, and felt Willow tense against her arm.

“That is a very good fucking point,” she said, and Cait felt her grip tighten as the slight silver-white glow of her eyes intensified a bit. She seemed to scan the skyline, even the parts that by rights should be out of her line of sight, blocked by buildings or people. Her brow did its odd not-furrow, and her eyes returned to looking only slightly unnatural.

“This city, it is too busy, too many people, too much energy, maybe too many mages. However, if The Coven of the Fall have been planning as The Council say, a Wave would be a prime time to make a move. We should return, see if the one with the large breasts has found anything.”

A slight smack turned Willow’s head from Cait to a scowling Breastman, hat reading GWYN.

“Yes, sorry, I know,” Willow apologized, “Language and manners are the first things to go when I get excited.

FORGIVEN

BUT PUT SOME RESPECT ON HER NAME

“Hah! Of course. Now, the Coulumn?” she asked, and Cait nodded.

The big girl turned, cupping her hands over her mouth to shout over whatever the girls were singing now, which seemed to actually have been the kind of drinking song you’d hear in a medieval tavern.

“Ay! AY!” she yelled, smiling into the girls’ scowls,

“Witchy Woman thinks magic baddies might be moving during the wave, let’s turn on the jets back to the tower. It’s a queen bed in there, so last one in gets the couch!”

At the sound of a challenge, the slightly clouded eyes of the women cleared up remarkably quickly. Even as she began to run, Kennedy’s skin burst to scales, and her hair shifted to the dark cascade of feathers Rose’s link brought, almost merging with the wings that unfurled like pieces of the night itself from her back. She was in the air before Cait had finished speaking.

Qi’s drunken footsteps left prints that would likely baffle future archaeologists, both in size, shape, and the fact that once she got going, her great bounds took her a hundred feet at a leap.

Honestly, Cait felt a little iffy about that one. The Dragon tended to be unintentionally destructive when sober and careful, so when she was drunken and competitive… well, maybe it was good the city was already in kind of rough shape.

“No fucking faaaaiiiirrr,” Lira complained, full throated despite having dropped into a dead sprint the second Cait had said ‘last’. She was fast, really fast, but also, physically at least, very human.

-GOT YOU BOO-, Breastman announced, scooping her up in one tentacle and whipping off after Qi. Cait heard the redhead laughing wildly, and saw her flip off Qi when Breastman passed her, before he whipped around a building and out of sight.

Damn, my ass is gonna have the couch, Cait realized, as she tensed her thighs, angled herself into the air, and pushed off with a BOOM!

She spared an instant to look below her, checking on Willow, but only got a glimpse of that amused smile and a mocking wave as the witch stepped into a shaft of starlight, and was gone.

Definitely gonna have the couch, Cait cursed internally as her limbs began to pump, pulling and pushing her forward midair. She realized she could actually make out Kennedy ahead, a spot of pure black against the aurora of the Wave, and it helped to have a goal. She surged, hands grasping with each punch as if she could grip the air itself, her mind tugging at her link with Kennedy, like she could use it as a rope to get just that much extra speed.

She closed the distance, each punch, each kick, each surge of her golden wings-

Waitwhatthefuck?

Cait could feel them on her back, see their tips at the edges of her vision, beautiful and shining like polished brass. They pushed her forward with titanic force, propelling her through the air like an urban angel. As she flashed past Kennedy, she found herself laughing, the giddy sound of a child who’d woken up to a dream come true, the look of absolute awe on her girlfriend’s face only making the feeling sweeter.

She spun in the air, an instinctual pirouette that must have been leant by Rose, a slipstream carrying her up the side of the Council Column.

Cait looked back, reaching a hand out for Kennedy, overjoyed to finally join her, really join her, in the sky. Kennedy beamed as her own wings carried her up to meet Cait, taking her hand and letting herself be pulled in close for a kiss reserved for Supermen.

It lasted for an eternal moment, beautiful in its fleeting, before Kennedy let out a sigh that wasn’t quite from relief, and went limp in Cait’s arms.

Uh-oh.