Lucky Rabbit

Pandy snapped back into real time, looking down to find that a perfect oval of black and white crystal now lay in the palm of her hand. She had no idea how it had gotten there, and while the matching hole in Thaniel’s chest was torn and nauseatingly wet, somehow it wasn’t bleeding.

Her eyes shot up to Thaniel’s face, to find his beautiful blue eyes staring sightlessly into the distance. His scarred chest failed to rise or fall, and Pandy realized that she was failing. Failing him, failing herself, failing Ismara, failing everyone. Exactly as she’d always done.

Except that she had promised. Thaniel trusted her, and so did Augustus and everyone else. If she really did fail, maybe their contingency plans would be enough, but she wasn’t going to find out. For once in her existence, failure wasn’t an option.

Holding out her hands, Pandy shouted, “Heal!” as if sheer volume would succeed where her internal commands had failed. Then, in spite of the fact that it served no purpose at all, and she’d already cast everything that should reasonably make a difference, she added, “Radiant Presence!”

Her hands started to glow. Not the soft inner luminescence that the spell usually produced, but a brilliant flare that she’d once used to fend off attacking Apparitions. It filled the room, bleaching everything of color… everything except the two stones resting in Pandy’s hand and the hole in Thaniel’s chest.

HEAL SUCCESSFUL.

CustodianChannel.deliver("ΣΤΑΘΕΡΟΣ: custodial relay active")

caster.echo_resonance = (anchor - drift) or 1

CustodianChannel.deliver("ΔΕΜΣΕQ: echo resonance synchronized")

VitalLink(

affinity=getattr(caster, "vitaltag", 1)

).grantlife_force(caster, amount=1)

CustodianChannel.deliver("Well done, Pandora.")

Thaniel’s flesh began to knit together, but not so quickly that she couldn’t see something quiver in the bottom of the hole, past things she very much preferred not to think about. Even the old, still-angry scars faded into a fine silver cicatrix, almost invisible against pale skin untouched by the sun. But Thaniel still didn’t breathe. His eyes failed to open. Both Sinnett and the High Priest started to step forward, but Pandy wasn’t quite done yet.

Tossing the stones to the side like worthless river rocks, Pandy pulled Thaniel’s limp body up into her arms. She was still glowing, but the light was already fading, and she had a feeling that when it went out, she would also be out of options. Before that happened, Thaniel needed to live.

Bowing her head over his body, she felt hot tears gush from her eyes. There was a deep, terrible ache in her chest, more powerful than any emotion she had ever felt before. A depth of pain that made her long to curl up around it and keen.

“Wake up,” she whispered into Thaniel’s ear. Her arms convulsed around his small, still form, and she climbed up onto the table beside him, utterly ignoring Sinnett’s bleat of protest as she contaminated his surgical space. He wasn’t going to need it.

Groping inside herself, Pandy found the source of that grief. It sat in her chest, heavy and hard and nauseating, ready to swallow her up. Her one heartbeat was over, and Thaniel wasn’t breathing. So Pandy breathed for him. Not the way she would have in her old world, even if rescue breaths were still part of CPR, but by pushing her life, her love, straight into his body. If only one of them could breathe, let it be him.

Thaniel gasped. It was a tiny thing, not the full-body spasm television had trained her to expect, but rather a choked inhale so small she couldn’t even hear it over Sinnett’s attempts to convince her to let Thaniel go so he could look at the boy. Even the High Priest was getting in on it now, his deep voice swallowing up everyone else’s words. She felt a strange, uncomfortable heat on her back, the antithesis of the chill that came off Dark elementals and mages, and knew her time was almost up. Again.

Her vision darkened to a narrow tunnel, until all she could see was Thaniel’s pale, silent face. System notifications flickered by almost too quickly to see, letting her know her Corruption Points were draining away. It was working, but too slowly. She would run out of points before Thaniel regained his breath, his heartbeat.

A hand gripped her shoulder. Fingers dug into her flesh, and lips touched her ear, murmuring, “Let me help.”

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+18 Corruption Points from an Offering

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+23 Corruption Points from an Offering

+51 Corruption Points from an Offering

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+106 Corruption Points from an Offering

The fingers loosened again, and even the High Priest fell silent as Empress Glory dropped. Someone must have caught her, because in the abrupt and absolute silence, Pandy didn’t hear the sound of her body striking the floor. Instead, she heard Thaniel take another breath. A bigger one. A choke.

He sneezed.

Pandy pulled back just in time to see Thaniel rub his nose. “Somethin’ tickles,” he said weakly, then sneezed again. His eyes watered, and he rubbed them, too, before struggling into a sitting position so he could frown around at everyone as Pandy edged backwards. She very nearly fell from the table, but strong arms caught her. They were familiar, as was the scent of the person who supported her, but she didn’t look away from Thaniel.

“Are you… all right?” she asked, and her voice sounded weak and strange, even to her. The edges of her vision were a little blurry, though in a different way from how it looked before she was swept away to speak to Ismara. She didn’t dare look at her Status.

Thaniel nodded, then seemed to process the fact that he was sitting half-clothed on a table, and something Very Important was supposed to be happening. He slapped his hand to his chest, finding no stone. His eyes widened, and without a word, he rolled off the table and sprinted toward the back of the library.

Pandy knew her legs wouldn’t hold her, and she also knew she should really check on Glory and find those stupid rocks, but instead she thought, <Cancel Shifting Faces,> and poofed into a bunny, right there in front of everyone. She was pretty sure there was no way to put the rabbit back into the hat, as it were, and she was certain that she wanted to know what Thaniel was doing.

She bounded after Thaniel, following him to the little single-occupant bathroom, where she found him staring into the mirror over the sink, his hand trembling as he touched the small divot in the center of his chest. The rest of his scars were much improved as well, leaving them less angry-looking, more like the fading remnants of old wounds, the way they should have looked all along.

Pandy hopped over to him and placed her forepaws on his leg, staring up at him. Thaniel immediately scooped her up, pressing his face into her fur. “You did it, Bun- Pandy. I….” His voice broke, and she could feel moist heat soaking into her fur. Ignoring it, she snuggled against his neck, closing her eyes and breathing in the scent of slightly-less-than-clean-small-boy. She’d done it. They’d done it.

Whether out of respect or because the space was too small for anyone else –unless they were willing to stand on the toilet – no one else entered until Pandy and Thaniel were finally ready to emerge on their own. As soon as they did, Augustus took Pandy while Sinnett and High Priest Hobart checked Thaniel over. The High Priest’s part of this mainly seemed to consist of prayers and waving various objects around Thaniel’s body, which clearly irritated Sinnett, though the healer didn’t quite tell the priest – who probably outranked him – to shove off.

“Can you change back?” Augustus murmured softly to Pandy, while she anxiously watched the two men hovering around the boy. All of the other children – except for Clara, who was calmly reading a book at a distant table – were also watching, wide-eyed, so Pandy was certain if anything untoward happened, she would hear about it Very Quickly.

At her affirmative wiggle, the chancellor placed Pandy on the floor, and she cast Shifting Faces. For the first time ever, the change wasn’t instantaneous. Instead, there was a brief moment of hesitation, almost like when the Gacha Love servers were lagging. Then the usual notification appeared in front of her eyes, but rather than being dark and crisp, the letters were a little foggy around the edges, and she could just make out shelves and a table through them.

Shifting Faces has already been used today.

You have 02:47:19 remaining.

Augustus started to say something, but Pandy shook her head, calling up her Status. Her eyes skimmed over it, noting that it, too, was now faintly translucent. She had six Mana and twenty-two Corruption Points remaining, which meant that Empress Glory’s donation had made all the difference. She also now had twenty-three Life Force. Given the way her System was reacting, she had a feeling she was getting close to whatever magical number the VitalLink Module was counting up to.

If the number was a ‘normal’ one, It seemed likely it was twenty-five, and that meant that she had only two more opportunities to use what she was now almost certain was Ismara’s power, somehow working through her. She was also becoming a little more alive with every point, and she felt the bottom fall out of her stomach as she wondered what would happen if that final number ticked over before she had done everything she needed to do. Would she truly become Ascyra the Demon Queen, servant of Zheraphon? Or would she become Pandora S. Boxx, utterly average human, returned to life just in time to die all over again as she failed her friends and her new world?

Forcing a smile, Pandy focused on Augustus’s worried face. He was wearing his glasses, and a curl of his dark brown hair had fallen over one lens. He started to push it out of the way, but Pandy, greatly daring, caught his hand and did it for him, startled at the depth of the tenderness she felt as she tucked it back. She’d done the same for Thaniel dozens of times, but the feeling she got as she brushed Augsutus’s brow was entirely different.

She saw the startled look in his eyes, the sudden vulnerability when he caught her hand in turn, grasping it tightly, opening his mouth to say something they didn’t have time for, and she had no idea how to answer. Pandy pulled away, uncertain if she was more relieved or disappointed when he let her go, his gray gaze shuttering again.

“We need to go to Avington House,” she said, then looked around, feeling a sudden surge of concern. “If we can find the-”

Something bumped into her foot, and she looked down just in time to see Miss Cupcakes bat a plain white rock at her. It bounced off her shoe, then spun in place for a moment before skittering toward a bookshelf. A hand glittering with delicate scales reached down and picked it up, much to the cat’s annoyance, if the slitted yellow eyes and twitching tail were any indication. Which they were.

Professor Beeswick ignored the feline, as well as a similarly irritated-looking yellow Dragonling who was watching his other hand with the gaze of a fascinated raptor. Holding up two stones – each somehow now resting in its own small wooden box – he said, “Did you need these? Your feline friend gathered them for you.” At this, the cat in question gave a sniff, the tip of her tail flicking in annoyance at being caught being helpful, then stalked stiff-legged toward Geraldine.

Augustus and Pandy both reached for the stones, but the Dragon shook his head, stepping back as he snapped the box lids closed. “Remember that it is… inadvisable to touch the stones.” He gave Hazel and Miss Cupcakes a Look that made the little Dragon sniff indignantly. The kitten began to lick her paws, as if she’d never dream of playing with the Super Special Rocks, and anyone who claimed otherwise was a Liar Liar Pants on Fire. Literally.

Pandy started to withdraw her hands, then held them out again, palm up. “There’s someone who needs to see them.” Grimacing, she added, “Besides, I already touched them.”

Raising a faintly periwinkle brow, the Dragon said, “I noticed. But perhaps it’s best not to press the matter. Especially outside of this space.” Nonetheless, he dropped the boxes into Pandy’s hands, and she immediately attempted to put them into her Inventory. They refused to go.

Living creatures cannot be placed into Inventory.

Living? They were rocks. Vaguely egg-shaped, probably crystalline rocks, but definitely rocks. Though… neither Flit nor Tyne had appeared when the stones were removed, and Pandy was pretty sure she’d have noticed if Ismara had made an appearance. That meant that while the stones themselves might not be alive, they must in some way still contain two elementals and a goddess. Which also meant that Miss Cupcakes had just been smacking the Potential Planetary Potentate around like a catnip mouse. Oops.