We’ve done it! We’ve made it! The story’s complete!

It was really exciting to get to come back to the Uncanny Valley setting again for the fourth time, and absolutely amazing to hit our eighth story over the 9 years we’ve been doing this little event. Star, as you know, was a minor tertiary character back from A Little Night Magic, but some characters stick with you and make you want to tell their stories. I’m glad I got to do that with you all. 

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed suggestions, whether on one part, five parts, or all the parts. It wouldn’t be the same piece without all of you, and I’m so grateful for everyone who turned out and got invested in Star’s little adventure as the stakes got higher and higher.

Of course, I hope you enjoyed this, whether you read it as it came out or read it later, whether your participated in suggestions or not! I had a lot of fun writing it, truly. If you did enjoy it, while it’s absolutely not required, I’d be delighted if you’d consider leaving me a tip over at my ko-fi, and I’d also love it if you checked out more of my work!

Anyway, the full story ended up being 58,274 words! Damn, that’s like an entire short novel out there! If you want to read it again from start to finish, the Index will stay up, and you can find the whole thing linked off my Interactive Fiction page.

Thank you again for reading, thank you so much for participating ♥

Now… ask me questions! You can ask me about the story, about the characters, about the writing process, about how something looked in my planning doc and how it changed to now, what would have happened if you’d done x instead of y, any background details about a character that you’re curious about, whatever! AMA! (And if you don’t have questions, feel free to share some part of it you enjoyed and I’m happy to talk about that part at random!)

Or just talk to me :> It’s been a lot of you suggesting things and me turning it into story but I’d love to just chat.

I ended up sleeping for a very long time. A full four days, they tell me. A lot can happen in four days; all of this stuff happened in way less than that. But most of the healing happened while I was asleep, and between my own ability, the nice care at the local hospital, and the help I received from the Twilight Council as local big damn hero, I’m mostly back to normal. I still tire out really quickly, and I’ve been told by the Council I likely will for a few weeks, but that I should go out and keep exercising until I recover. I’ve also got a big mark over my side. It’s not a scar, but I’m reluctant to say it’s just a discoloration until I know more. I hope it fades. I’m worried it might require a quest or some bullshit, or that it has a problem lurking that I won’t learn about until later.

But that’s a problem for future Star, if so.

The current problem is over. The banishment was successful, despite my genre fears; it took Ramullin away from us, and a demon who is officially banished from a place will need to stay away for at least a hundred years. That’s a drop in the bucket for both a fairy and a demon, but we’ll be ready next time. Maybe Ramullin will have given up on it by then. Maybe they won’t. But a hundred years is a lot of time to plan and prepare.

As for my sister… because she was in the circle too, it also caught Seerose. She will have gone wherever Ramullin went, whatever eponymous abyssal wastes they control. She won’t be required to stay away a hundred years, since a demonic binding wouldn’t function the same way on a fairy, though likely there’ll be some kind of trick for her to come back. Like, not through abyssal exits, that’s for sure. I expect, if she survived, I’ll see her sooner rather than later. I don’t know exactly what that’ll mean for us. I hope we can become friends. I hope, if we can’t, she stays with Ramullin and they’re so happy together they forget about everyone else.

You’re probably wondering about some of the others as well, right? No, no, don’t say anything, I can see it on your face. I can speak to the others who were having to heal up as well as myself. Garrett survived and has already gone home. I don’t know him well enough to know all his struggles after surviving drowning, but I imagine there are some. Still, where there’s life, there’s hope.

Halle’s an easy case to answer, thankfully. It turns out the Twilight Council had some extremely talented stone-shapers on the team. She’s fully recovered now. Thanks to some damage, they had to shorten her neck and her tail, and her voice is a bit higher as a result. She’s otherwise unchanged, but pretty shaken up.The track is getting things back together, and just for her, they’ve brought in some therapy horses to board, so she’s spending a lot of time with those, and I hope they help her in every way they can.

Vayne is needing a little more time to recover than either of those others. He’s home too—he doesn’t need persistent round-the-clock care or anything—and as I’d thought before, magical care was covered by his insurance so the worst is healed now. He’ll need more recovery time and rehab, of course, but maybe it’s a good thing that he has some quiet time to think about what happened and work on his relationships.

Georgio’s fine. He’s got some scars, but he’s delighted to show them off and brag about them. He and Vayne are a little rocky, but not as rocky as I thought they’d be. If Ramullin were threatening Vayne’s family, yeah, of course he’d turn on a guy he didn’t get along with—even if I was Georgio’s bud now, we could both understand that. And he’d sent Georgio away to protect him. But Georgio hadn’t wanted to be sent away, and there’s a lot coming out about the respect they need to rebuild between them. Georgio can be hard to respect because of his attitude, I think, and Vayne isn’t someone who respects others easily. They’re going to have to do a lot of work to find that equality between them.

Me and Georgio, though… yeah, I respect the hell out of that dude, now. When I’m fully recovered, we’re going to do a lot of hanging out, I think. Maybe some sparring, maybe some racing. He’s showing up to take me for walks pretty regularly already. It… turns out I had a great friend just waiting to be made, and I’d had no idea. I think we’re going to get to be true friends.

Speaking of people who need to work to fix their relationships… well, I guess I should cover Éabha and everyone else at the Lindwyrm’s. As we’d all planned, Miette did indeed safely take Éabha, Caoimhe, and Adrien back to the Lindwyrm’s. Thankfully, they hadn’t lied about what they were doing at the warehouse, something I didn’t even think to worry about at the time. No, they actually had gone because they were suspicious of Éabha and all that, and they got everyone back safely. Everyone spoke for Éabha, as promised, and the Lindwyrm’s fury was turned on the person who had put Éabha in the position where she’d have to act on others. He didn’t leave his house, of course, but it turned out he got to vent his anger anyway. A bunch of the thugs that had been in the truck got out after Ramullin opened the doors and tried to regain their favour by coming after the hostages who got away. The Lindwyrm didn’t leave much of them behind.

It was apparently very cool and it’s a shame I didn’t get to see it, but I also don’t have much stomach for that sort of thing. So it’s, you know, whatever.

Caoimhe and Éabha are in a … complicated state after all that. Caoimhe had been betrayed, after all, and she now knows whatever Éabha feels for her, there is a limit to that trust and affection and respect that ends at Éabha’s skin. Betrayal doesn’t sit well on any fairy, and an elverpigen is possessive and lonely. But Caoimhe also can be captive and bound by nature, so she knows what that’s like, and a selkie’s skin is her freedom. Obeying whoever holds their skin is their nature. You can’t blame someone for their nature, right? They’ll really have to work on things if they want to repair them. I can’t say for sure if either of them will. They’re cold and they’re bitter, respectively. But… I think they’ll try.

As for Éabha’s skin, that’s its own story. We know that Ramullin had brought it to this world; they’d apparently showed it to her once, with the promise that if she served well enough and got them their revenge, they might return it. But it wasn’t hidden at the track. Folks looked everywhere after things settled, and it didn’t turn up anywhere. But we have a lead. See, when the thugs raided the Lindwyrm, Yuree held back and didn’t get massacred with the rest. She called out that she wanted to help Éabha, and might have a line on where her skin was stored. Adrien spoke up for her, despite the fact she’d been the one to betray him, and she agreed to help them look for it in exchange for her life. Yuree claimed that she’d heard of an ally that Ramullin had stored some important leverage with, and Yuree thinks this must be the skin. Maybe that’ll be a further adventure sometime, though I doubt it’d be one I’d lead. I’ve done enough leading for a decade. But if Caoimhe gets involved and asks me to help, I’ll help. 

Right now, it sounds like Caoimhe, Yuree, and Éabha are going to work on this and follow up on it. Adrien’s hoping to help, both because he felt partly responsible about his part in getting tricked, and because he wants to keep an eye on Yuree throughout this in case she turns on them too. And Miette might get involved too, since they hit it off so well with Adrien.

Speaking of Miette, I’m planning on bringing them into my regular D&D day. They seemed to think it was fun, and they were a real pal with this. I think they’d be a real asset as an ally and a really fun person as a friend, so why not? Group’s getting a bit big, so maybe someone else will have to take a turn as a DM at some point. They sounded like they might be willing.

Ugh, speaking of D&D, I can’t decide if I should give Viv a special gift or benefit in-game for saving all our asses in real life. On the one hand, it wouldn’t really be fair to all the other players, but I owe her so much. She got out of it all unharmed, thankfully—if she didn’t, Thys would have killed me and I wouldn’t be telling you this today—and she even seemed really revitalized by getting to help us on that level. But nevertheless, if she hadn’t brought in the Twilight Council, I can’t even imagine what would have happened back there. I don’t know that I’d have survived it. So I gotta do something for her, right—?

“Okay, Star,” Dr. Winslow finally interrupted. “It sounds absolutely terrifying, and of course I’m so glad you made it. But even now you’re thinking about the things you can do for others. You just did all this for others, and now you’re trying to think of what to do for her in thanks for something she seemed very willing to do. Why do you think that is?”

“W-well,” Star stammered, thrown off his groove. “I mean, debt and obligation are really important to fairies—”

“I know they are,” Dr. Winslow said softly. “Like you said, you can’t blame anyone for their nature. But you tend to go into monologues like this, talking about all these other people and how monumental things were for them, when you’re trying to build up a momentum to cover for the fact that you haven’t done anything for yourself. I can understand why you wouldn’t have, after everything that’s happened. You don’t need to make excuses. But making time to do something for yourself is still important.”

“I know it is,” Star said. “And I actually have found time for it. Right after this, in fact.”

***

“How are the glazed carrots coming?” Star demanded. He was sitting down instead of working, because Dandelion insisted. The other two had physically recovered sooner than him, so he was in the nerve-wracking position of controlling the kitchen. “It has to be glazed carrots. It’s very important.”

“We know you’re a horse, Star-eyes,” Adrien said, passing by and ruffling his hair. “Though you’re not usually a veggie-eater.”

“It’s important to do a fully balanced meal for a human,” Caoimhe pointed out quietly as she pulled the scalloped potatoes out of the oven bare-handed. “They need balance to survive. Otherwise they wither away.”

“It does take time before that happens, though,” Dandelion said. “A single meal won’t do it. The carrots look lovely, Star.”

Scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, beans, and roast hen. Not a bad celebratory meal, Star thought. He was jiggling a leg anxiously. Dandelion came over and put a hand on that knee, leaning in and kissing him.

Star allowed his anxiety to get assuaged by that kiss, leaning up, sliding fingers into the puff of hair that surrounded Dandelion’s head, kissing him and tasting starlight on his tongue. “Okay,” Star mumbled. “That’s fine. I’m just nervous.”

“What, about serving your human a fairy meal?” Caoimhe said.

“We’re not doing anything about it.”

Adrien laughed, low. “It’s a show of trust, though, isn’t it?”

“We’re beyond shows of trust,” Star declared, hoping that neither of the other two would have any bitter feelings at the statement, given what had happened to both of them. “After what we all just did, he and I are just, we’re balanced for each other, there’s nothing that he needs to fear. How’s the hen? The hen isn’t under cooked, is it?”

“Darling,” Dandelion said, sliding to sit in Star’s lap and thoroughly distract him, “Let them cook.”

The knock at the door came a half hour later, and sure enough, everything was cooked perfectly. Dom was a perfect guest, and it was a relief, somehow, to have him over. To have Dom in Star’s own house after all without having to worry about more than the usual things, to have Dom eating their food and laughing and meeting everyone properly without any fear of mind control or kidnapping or anything else.

After, Star stood, and offered Dom a hand. “Hey, let me show you my room,” he said, and the others drew back to give them privacy and, hopefully, to do the dishes. 

“I’d like that,” Dom said, serious and a little shy. When Star led him out back instead, he seemed a bit surprised. “Your room isn’t inside?”

“I’m not much of an indoor sleeper,” Star said. Then, hurriedly, “Though if a friend—or a lover—asks it of me, I’ll sleep in a bed.”

Dom still seemed confused for a moment, but when Star led him over to the fish pond, he laughed in startled realization. “Oh. You just sleep underwater, huh?”

“Usually,” Star said. And, still daring, “like I said, I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“That’s fantastic, since I’m still not a great swimmer,” Dom said, smiling at him. It was soft and warm, and Star felt something inside himself just melt. Dom sat at the edge of the pond, taking his shoes off, then his socks, and rolling his pants to his knees. He slid his feet into the pond and stretched them, kicking the water lightly.

Star laughed in return, pleased, warm, safe. He flung himself down next to Dom, splashing his own legs in, and leaned against his side. His foot bumped Dom’s, and Dom turned a little toward him.

For a moment, they didn’t say anything, just gazing at each other. Dom lifted his hand, touching Star’s cheek. “May I?” he asked, slow.

“You may,” Star said, mouth dry enough that for a moment he wondered if something was wrong.

But it was just nerves and anticipation, and as Dom leaned in and kissed him, Star felt a rush of relief and gratitude that Dom had seen everything that happened and had decided he still wanted this—and relief and gratitude to himself as well for letting himself have it.

And then he finally stopped overthinking, winding his arms around Dom and simply kissing back with all he had.

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Fuck all this planning, Star thought frantically. He had one specific need, and that was getting this demon the hell away from his boys.

Anything else might not work. This one definitely would buy time. And if he regretted it, he’d only regret it for himself.

Still surrounded by glamour, moving as stealthily as he could, Star gathered his courage and stepped in through the door frame. He managed to make it to three feet away before Ramullin saw through his glamour, even distracted; all those eyes inside their skin snapped toward Star, looking at him. But they hadn’t turned yet. Good. Star needed them to be facing the other way to have any chance at this.

“Guess what, motherfucker,” Star said, transforming and lunging forward, planting his shoulder hard into that cracked and burning back. “It’s time to go.”

The moment he felt the impact, he willed Ramullin to stick to him. It burned—it wasn’t poisonous, like touching iron was, but he imagined this was what it was like for a human to put a hand down on the stove top. But humans could survive without a hand if needed. He gritted his teeth and whirled around, beginning to tear down the hallway, dragging Ramullin with him. 

Star kept up a babble as he ran; it was always easier to run his fastest if he talked to himself as he went, and it drowned out the imperious, furious demands that Ramullin was making. He didn’t want to hear this guy. He didn’t want to give them a last speech or anything.  “It’s time to go now! You have to go, we’re leaving now, say goodbye, we are on our way!” 

He tore through the clubhouse, kicking open the door and slamming his way through. To reach humans moving at a slow walk for eight minutes, it would instead take him, what, forty-five seconds at a full gallop? That sounded right, and if he pushed himself enough to do himself injury—which he might as well do, he thought, he wasn’t getting out of this without injury—he might do it even faster.

Witches could move pretty fast if they had encouragement, too. They’d need something they could make a big ring around, something that could fit all of them, which wouldn’t happen on the street. It would at the clubhouse. But…

He made it to them in just over forty seconds, panting and sweating. It felt now less that he’d stuck Ramullin to his side and more that Ramullin had burned to it, melted to it, fused to it. He wondered how much muscle and bone was showing and sort of hoped he didn’t find out.

The group of witches recoiled as he reared up in front of them, a flailing demon lord stuck to his side. Since he’d got Ramullin from behind, the demon wasn’t able to get a good grip to do too much to him; even if their wings and eyes were battering Star from the inside and even if Ramullin was pulling every ounce of water from his body, they couldn’t target him with the worst of their skills, which they’d need to be properly facing him to do. Then again, they didn’t need to. Star was going to run out of water in his body soon, and then he’d die no matter what. He’d have to release Ramullin before that happened, and then Ramullin would be able to turn and do worse things than simply dehydrate him to death. 

Star gulped. “This way,” he screamed at the startled group of witches. 

And then he spun back around and took off back toward the clubhouse—and the flooded track. “C’mon, Rammy! C’mon, bud, we’re going back to your girlfriend, don’t you want to see your girlfriend, it’s girlfriend time!!”

He estimated that he had less than a minute to get himself into water before he, a water spirit, would simply be unable to keep functioning. He ran, heedless of sprains or injury to his feet, forcing himself to just pound the pavement at top speed. Behind him, he smelled two dozen flares of magic going off all at once, the witches realizing the urgency and casting whatever they needed to pick up the pace. A few times, healing energy washed into him, and he spared the moment to be grateful to whoever had done that, through it wasn’t going to matter much in a few seconds.

Up ahead, Georgio and Seerose were still fighting. Both of them looked pretty badly injured, though he thought Georgio yelled something cheerily when he saw him. Star couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t hear very well. But he saw Seerose finally break away from Georgio, starting to run towards him and Ramullin, the horrible fused creature they’d become.

Star couldn’t run towards Georgio. That would be too far. Star hit the water seconds before he hit his limit.

Immediately, relief. Oh, it hurt—it hurt more than when he’d been outside, somehow, the gritty water hitting injuries he hadn’t known he had and the coldness hitting his burn wounds with a terrible intensity. But the water rushed into him, filling him even as Ramullin kept sucking it out.

Star dove, swimming down toward the center of the track. He swung around as he went, aiming the creature attached to him at the tree, and impacted it hard. He drove Ramullin down along one of the branches, releasing them from his side even as he did so, ripping them free. It wouldn’t be enough to stop a demon—would barely harm one—but it might take them a moment to free themself, and that’s all Star needed.

Seerose was swimming toward them, and he took a gamble, turning his back on her and swimming back out of the track, staggering to shore. She didn’t grab him or chase him; as he’d suspected, she must have gone to Ramullin instead to help them.

Somehow, Star made it out of the water. He wasn’t sure which form he was in at that point, and realized it must be his humanoid one only when just two legs gave out, not four. He hit the dirt, gasping, and saw several people step over him and past him, forming a circle. They were chanting in unison, a huge drone. Banishment, probably? It was a good thing they’d stepped over him, he knew distantly, because then he wouldn’t get banished too, but it was hard not to feel abandoned despite it.

Everything was blurry. He felt several arms come around him, which hurt, a familiar voice sobbing something in his ear. Another familiar hand, strong, one he knew as guiding, took his own hand, holding it. He couldn’t see or hear them; he was trying to see what was happening as his vision grew narrower and narrower. Everything hurt. The last thing he saw was the familiar track reappearing as the demon boiled it dry. He thought his sister was screaming as she hauled the demon off the branch, but Ramullin likely was pulling the water out of her along with the track. He hoped, distantly, that she survived it.

And then they were gone. The water was gone. The track was dry. Star tried to find his tongue, looked up hazily to the silver shape holding him. “Did I fucking do it?” he managed to say, or hoped he managed.

He had one more moment to have a bit of genre-aware horror—whenever anyone asked that in the movies, it meant the bad guy wasn’t really gone—and then everything went black.

[Tomorrow, the EPILOGUE will go up, along with an Author Q&A!

Rather than the usual general suggestions, please tell me the characters you
definitely want to make sure get covered in the epilogue. Not “what” —
whatever’s happened to them will be based on all your choices to date
— but if you want to see what’s happened to Georgio, Viv, or a favorite minor
NPC like Matthias or Antoine, list their names here to make SURE I get ’em!]

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[ Please read the instructions before commenting! ] 

Star quickly discarded most of the plans. 1 or 3 were the only ones that made sense to him. “I should be the one to go to the flooded track,” he declared. “Yeah, Dandelion can, but it’s not his territory or anything, and it is mine. I’ve already run it while it was flooded once already, and I think I’ll be the fastest in and out. So I figure, anything else is up to you two. Dandelion will have to work on the circle in here. Dom, do you want to be out there standing watch, or do you want to stick together? I can see pros and cons in both.”

Dom made a face at that, slowly nodding. “…Listen, I get that it might be useful to have a warning sign if something were coming, sure. But… frankly, I don’t want to stand watch alone. I’m just a human dude and the thing we’re dealing with is a demon, right? I might get off a warning to Dandelion, but… like, what’d happen to me after? This is how the Black guy dies first in horror movies.”

“That is… that is a good point,” Star said. “Yeah. Please stay with Dandelion.”

Dandelion gave Dom a quick smile at that. “I’d be glad for the company. This situation is frankly making my skin crawl.”

Shoulders relaxing a little, Dom nodded. “Okay. Then… Dandelion and I will stay here and work on the circle here. Dandelion plays communicator. And… you go out to the track, Star. But… promise you’ll try to be safe? We don’t know if the nixie stayed behind or went with the demon to go check on things. Like, it’d be fantastic if she did. But…”

That wasn’t Star’s favourite thing to think about, but it was valid. “Good point. Dandelion, can you spare me some glamour? Nixies can’t use it well against each other.”

“I’m sorry,” Dandelion said, brows furrowed. “I want to and wish I could, but I’m going to need everything I have while working on this, especially if I’m going to try to communicate with you in the meantime. Which I’ll have to do.”

“Which you’ll have to do,” Star echoed, resigned. “Well, I’ll apply my own glamour and move quietly.” He couldn’t even use his bardic abilities, not until a fight broke out, because stealth and song did not go well together. “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Dandelion said, and stepped closer, kissing him slow and long and deep. “Come back to me safely,” he said, when it broke. “I couldn’t endure losing you.”

Then he stepped back and, of all things, looked toward Dom like he was expecting him to take a turn on Star. Dom immediately flustered, grabbed Star’s hand instead, and squeezed it. “See you soon.”

Star licked his lips, unable to quite help it, and then pretended not to notice Dom’s eyes flicking to that. “See you,” he agreed, and peeled himself away before he wouldn’t be able to convince himself to go.

It was just around the corner and down a short hallway to hit the side door they’d crept into originally, and from there, not so far to the north end of the flooded track, the far turn. He was fairly sure he was moving stealthy, pale and quiet, barefoot across the dirt.

Yet, the moment his foot hit the edge of the water, a hand shot out of it and wrapped around his ankle, trying to drag him in.

Had he been unaware of the possibility, he’d likely have been swept off his feet. As it was, he nevertheless yelped like a dog whose tail had been stepped on, swinging a panicked kick at the hand. It connected, and he hauled back as the grip slackened.

He didn’t free himself, but he did haul the other nixie out, naked and furious. She bared her teeth at him—teeth that were more familiar to him than the rest of her face after the bite, a tragedy he decided was best left for his therapist to dissect—and growled, “You.”

“Me,” Star said. He drew a shaky breath. He didn’t have time for this. “You’re my younger sister.”

“Hah,” she laughed, a sharp tone. “You don’t get to claim me as any kind of kin, whatever your birth-herd and whoever your dam. Not when you altered the herd forever with your fracturing of it.”

She was posed with hands up and fingers curled into claws, ready to fight and grab, though the real risk would be her feet, especially if she transformed and came at him with hooves. Her flank when transformed would also be bad; if she stuck him to her, Star wasn’t sure he’d be able to fight her enough to change the circle underwater. He raised both hands as if trying to assuage her, though he was calculating his chances of getting around her and underwater fast enough to get anything done. “I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t fracture anything. They fractured me, by torturing people in front of me, by forcing me to eat those I wanted to release. I’d have stayed forever if they’d just let me choose who not to eat.”

“Humans are prey,” she spat. “And you didn’t just walk away and leave us unchanged, did you know? Every single colt and filly raised after you were under extra scrutiny. Constant judgment. There was no interaction with anyone outside the herd, only each other and prey. Should we get away long enough for a solo hunt and not come back with a feast, we’d be grilled and questioned and made to go to sleep hungry, no food shared to us. Any interactions we had were always suspect.”

Star could see how that would happen, admittedly. He licked his lips. “Okay, but,” he said, “that’s not my fault. You see how that’s not my fault, right? I left. I didn’t turn a hand or a hoof or my teeth on any member of my own herd. I simply left. What they decided to do after it was on them.”

Another laugh at that, bitter. “Blaming them, really? You made yourself into a cautionary tale. You were a loss. A grief. A horror. A fear. You stood for all the dangers of letting humans tame you, letting other fairies own you. If we feared bridles before, now we feared wilful submission. You did that. I thought I’d never escape it.”

And yet… “But here you are?” Star pointed out. He tried taking a step to the side, but she moved to block that too.

Any luck? It was Dandelion’s voice, not in his head but crawling through his brain and blood. Even being alright having Dandelion in those places didn’t make it easy to take. He could see why communication magic might be a bit odd, and tried not to visibly react to it. He sort of thought back the exact scenario he found himself in, unsure how else to communicate, and Dandelion responded with, Okay. Understood. But Ramullin just crossed my spore circle and the jig is, as they say, about to be up, if it’s not already. Hurry, if you can. If not, I’ll try sending Dom out with a halter.

Don’t, he thought back quickly. Not after what she’d just said. I’ll deal with it. “You’re here,” he said again; only moments had passed since his last words aloud. “You’re in Branwin’s Valley and have been for a while. So you must have got out.”

“I met Ramullin on a solo hunt,” she admitted. “They… cared for me. As much as they’re able, at least. They saw my resentment and met it. We talked about the things others can do to you by getting away, and our anger and fury found a home in each other. It did. So I went with them, and—”

“Wait,” Star said. “Hang on. You’re just like me, then. That’s what happened with me and Dandelion. I met him, and he offered me empathy to what I was going through, and I just went with him.”

“I’m nothing like you,” she shouted, and launched herself at him.

Star began singing to himself as he dodged, trying to increase his own speed rather than his strength, dodging and weaving. But even so, she was forcing him back, away from the water, and he found himself looking around wildly as he blocked and ducked and punched in return, as he kicked out, as he took a foot to the knee, and then she was changing, her weight increasing into her equine form as she slammed into him, and he thought, Fuck, she’s going to stick me—

But before she could, she was torn away from him.

He looked around wildly at the blur of black fur forcing her away from him, and realized that it was Georgio, forehead set into her neck rather than her side. She’d barely avoided getting gored by his horns, which were on either side of that neck, but he was forcing her to sidestep unsteadily up the slope to avoid being taken down under his bulk.

Star could have cried. “Georgio!”

“I GOT YOU, BUDDY,” Georgio panted. He was slick with sweat—how long had he been running? “Whaddya need?”

“Keep her occupied!” Star yelled, running for the water. “I’ll explain later!”

The water was miserably dirty, though not as cloudy as it had been earlier, but he felt nothing but relief as he broke through its ice-cold surface. He swam for where he remembered the center of the track to be. There’d been a tree there, he recalled, so it may have marked the spot.

Sure enough, at the base of the tree was a structure carved into the flooded turf. It had been cut out, but Star grabbed the tree, planting his feet on the trunk and throwing his weight back to haul a pointed branch off it.

Star— he felt/heard.

I’m here, he yelled back to Dandelion in his head. Hurry! What parts?

The next part, as Dandelion had implied, was relatively easy. Dandelion described a line, and Star used the branch to scribble it out, break its structure. Then another, and Star did it again. A third, and—

Star felt the growing energy just release, draining out like a plug had been pulled. He thought a tone of wordless celebration at Dandelion. While they still had the rest of this to deal with, at least the demon couldn’t activate a city-wide attack at a moment’s notice.

Dandelion did not return the celebration. Instead, crawling through Star’s blood, was: I need you back here, now. Then, as if he’d just changed his mind. No, maybe you’d better run away. It’s not safe. Ramullin must have set up a teleportation circle elsewhere in the building. They’re here now. Get away while you can. I’m sorry.

Star, obviously, was not going to get away. That wasn’t even a choice to him. Both Dom and Dandelion were in that room. He would never just run away.

He pushed off the tree with both feet, speeding through the water until he hit ground, and ran up the bank again. As he did, he saw that his sister and Georgio were still fighting; Georgio was stuck to her side now, but pound-for-pound was stronger than her, the same way he was stronger than Star. They were currently having a horrible tug of war over their own skin, while trying to kick and pummel and headbutt each other.

Star wished he could help, but the less time he gave the demon to work, the better. “Keep it up,” he called to Georgio. “I’m sorry! Keep her busy! There’s a demon in there, I have to deal with this somehow!”

Georgio let out a bellow instead of an answer, and Star sang him a brief bar from All Star as he passed, trying to increase Georgio’s stamina. 

As he passed, he saw up the road in the distance and noticed a large group of people, lit up by starlight and moonlight. The Twilight Council was on the move, and was on their way here. But they were a good ten minutes away, still, at the gentle walking pace in which they were moving. Star wasn’t sure that they’d make it in time.

Star slammed the side door open again, then switched to a jog, and a crawl, as he approached the office. He wasn’t sure what he could do—get the jump on the demon, maybe?—but he was sure he’d have less of a chance to do it if the demon saw him coming.

As he rounded the corner, he saw that the office door was open. He pulled all the glamour he had available to himself to hide himself in shadows, creeping up and peeking in.

Dandelion stood in front of the office desk, the magic circle currently deactivated, his arms spread. Star couldn’t see Dom from here, but could hear him, feel him; Dandelion must have shoved him under the desk for cover. If Star could tell he was here, though, the demon could too, if they bothered to have eyes for anything but Dandelion.

Whatever hopes Star had of getting the jump on this demon shredded in his chest as he looked at Ramullin for the first time. Black hair cascaded down a long back; they were a good seven feet tall, with an additional foot in horns that nearly touched the office ceiling. Their arms were bare, and they weren’t arms. It was like some sort of clay mannequin that cracks had appeared all over the surface of. Inside was a mass of eyes and wings, glowing brightly, dripping in and out of the gaps like lava bubbling. Star had met plenty of demons before down here, and even had met Ferthur when they cut through Abyssal territory a year ago. But Ferthur was untitled, and Ramullin was titled. Ramullin of the Wastes, who had legions under their command. Ferthur was just some sort of border guard, from what Star had seen of him.

This was nothing like Ferthur. There was an ancientness to this one that felt like perhaps the humans were right and that demons were fallen angels. Star had never seen an angel or heard of a way to a celestial realm, and didn’t know if they were real or not. If they were, this was whatever happened when one of them went wrong.

“The city is safe, Exile, but you are not,” Ramullin was saying, in a desiccated voice that sounded like wind that was too hot to breathe. “I can do quite a bit of harm here regardless of having that circle up. For example, Exile, if I were to dehydrate that human you’re hiding. I can take every bit of moisture from his body slow and steady so he feels every moment of it before it kills him.”

“Grotesque,” Dandelion said. He was keeping his tone conversational, trying not to goad Ramullin, most likely, but Star could detect the trembling horror and outrage behind that. “You could always not do that.,”

“I could always not do that,” Ramullin agreed. “My associate Seerose is likely killing your nixie right now, as we speak. That he got into the water there doesn’t mean he’ll ever get out, not by himself. But I can have her spare him. I can spare the human. I can not set fire to this building and all those around us. You could just come with me and accept the torture I’m owed for the things you’ve done. I believe it’d come with interest, at this late point.”

Dandelion said, “You understand that I’m reluctant to do that.”

“I understand your reluctance will have its costs,” Ramullin said evenly. The room heated up by a few degrees, near instantly; Star, who’d been soaking wet from his swim at the track, found himself dry.

Dandelion was trying to delay, but—it was obvious the moment he gave up on that, his shoulders sagging. And why would he delay further? He’d told Star to run, not to come here—and for good reason. What could Star do against this demon? And Dandelion didn’t know if or when the Twilight Council was coming. There was no indoor window here to show that they were a mere, what, eight minutes away now from surrounding the building and starting a banishment, was there? He had no reason to keep fighting.

“All right,” Dandelion conceded. “I see the point you’re making. But I won’t consent without setting terms.”

“That’s fair and valid,” Ramullin said. “Though you understand that I won’t let you put protections on yourself.”

“I understand that. But there are threats you made I will need to negotiate,” Dandelion said. “If I go with you, will you still harm this human? Any other nearby human? Will you reset the circles and damage the city? Will you call Seerose off or keep her attacking my nixie? These are the things of concern to me, and which my health will need to be traded for.”

Dandelion might be able to buy a little time with this, and having the demon agree to these things would be useful, but Star didn’t think he’d be able to buy a full eight or nine minutes of it. Star swayed back against the wall outside the office, trying to think.

Compared to a demon lord, Star was largely powerless. He had his own ability: His weak glamours, his bardic buffs and debuffs, his ability to transform into a horse and stick something to his side. He could kick and bite. That was not enough to deal with this power, not by itself.

So what should he do? He wasn’t strong enough to take this demon on in a mano-a-mano fight. He could think of several possible plans, yet again:

One: Should he let Dandelion barter himself away in the hopes that he was doing it because he secretly had a plan, and then try to rescue Dandelion before Dandelion could actually get taken away?

Two: Should he jump in right now and interrupt somehow, try to get that last few minutes of time back through his own actions as a decoy and if so, what should he do, what should he say? It’s likely they’d all get a bit hurt, but it might give time for the Twilight Council to get here.

Three: Should he get the demon out and away from his boys? That was possible, actually. He could stick Ramullin to him, and then drag him somewhere. But if he did, where? And Ramullin surely would be doing their best to get away and harm him back, and he’d just have to endure it.

Four: He could try to offer himself up instead of Dandelion. He wasn’t sure if this would work—Ramullin seemed pretty fixated—but it’d hurt Dandelion to have Star get taken more than it would hurt him to go himself, and pointing that out might win Ramullin over. It wasn’t a safe plan, but it might do something.

There was also the ambiguous fifth option which is that he’d somehow magically think of something he hadn’t already considered in the few seconds before he’d have to act. 

[Which plan sounds good, and how should he execute it?
Or do you have another idea in mind?
Leave a suggestion in the comments!]

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Another thought occurred to Star, as if some of his previous planning had fallen behind and got stuck behind a wall or some such. “….Ugh, could we have rigged the building to blow and delay the demon more? I don’t suppose you already did that before we came back, Dandelion?”

Dandelion laughed. “No, a spell like that, on a delay and over a wide area, is hard enough to do under good circumstances. There was enough iron in that building to bend almost any working I tried, since I use fairy magic, not witchcraft.” He paused, then added. “Also, we agreed we didn’t want to execute the folks in the truck, at least not while they were trapped and helpless, and that would fundamentally just be doing that, if it had enough force to harm a demon of that one’s power.” Another pause. “…Also, I’m rich, but I’m not rich enough to pay for the building and all its contents, and if I used a spell that large they would find my magical signature when they investigated.”

Star waved a hand at him. “Point taken, I guess,” he said, in a drawled voice of disaffected annoyance he put on in the hopes that it would get a laugh out of Dandelion. “We can’t go back in time and do spells we didn’t do, I get it, I get it.”

“Well, I did do a spell, though,” Dandelion said, and if he hadn’t laughed he did sound pleased. “I put a quiet marker down in front of the truck door so that it’d send me an alarm when someone stepped into it—that’d include the demon. If they don’t go to the truck rear doors to open them, we won’t get a notice of when the game’s definitely up, but if they do, I’ll know.”

Dom gave Dandelion a startled look. “Didn’t you just say it’d twist all your magics? How do you know it’s fine?”

“Because I didn’t interact with the building,” Dandelion said. “I spored a mushroom circle in the ground beneath it, instead. It won’t survive long, not buried, but it’ll last long enough for our purposes. And I couldn’t do anything else with it, sadly, no binding or damage or anything else, it’s too weak to act on anything. But it can at least tell.”

“That is,” Star said fervently, “such a help actually, I’m glad to know it. Anything else, like—with your magic, is there a way to communicate with Georgio? There’s no iron here.”

Dandelion made an apologetic moue of his mouth. “Well, it’s not quite so simple, no,” he said apologetically. “Communications are extra difficult magic, though not impossible. It has to send a sense, whether a voice or sight, from one person to another despite the hundreds of individual signatures out there. And then it of course depends on the style of magic someone can use. A fairy magic like mine relies on sympathetic magic, so we’d have to have some part of the person on us to call to them with. Hair or nails, oaths, things like that. Witches can use that too, but also can use identifiers, like names or appearance. We can’t use that, but it’s why witches are good at binding demons or fairies they know the name and shape of.”

Star saw Dom shift, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, noticing that Dom was a little enraptured with this magical explanation, with Dandelion having shifted into a calm, knowledgeable figure like this. Star knew that Dandelion was hiding his own anxiety with it, and tried to quell a jealous swell in his chest.

“So that’s a no,” he said, instead of any of the irrational things that tried to be said.

“No, without finding a witch who either knows Georgio well enough to contact him, or is strong enough to do so without that,” Dandelion said. “Since he’s a public …mount? Figure? …that might be possible, but we just don’t have the time. Alas, we cannot coordinate with the Manotaur.”

Well, whatever. Star gave up on would-haves could-haves, and shook himself. He put the rest to the side and drew a rough outline of the track layout on the table with the dregs of his coffee. “So here’s what I think. I think we should come in the far side here, through the stables. We can try to find Halle—”

“Shit, Star, that’s a great idea,” Dom said, startled. He turned to Dandelion. “She’s a gargoyle, she’s always somewhere on site. Like Star said, usually the stables.”

Star nodded. “If she’s there and we can find her, she can at least stand guard, or maybe even help out. She’s part of the track, so it’s probably nigh-impossible to ward her out of anything on the track. Anything that affected the building would also affect her, right?”

“Makes sense,” Dandelion agreed. “So we try to find her. Just move on if we can’t, though.”

“Right,” Star said. “We circle around the flooded track to the north, and enter the side entrance into the building up on the north end there. That way, we enter closest to the offices. Fewer traps than we might have to deal with crossing through the building itself.”

“Good call,” Dom said. “And when do we go?”

“Now,” Dandelion said, and rose.

Nerves seemed to catch all three of them as they headed down the street to the track. They walked quietly in the dark, not chatting, like their voices alone might attract too much attention. Coming in from the north took them down the back road into the stables area, and while the door into them was locked, Dandelion confirmed that they weren’t magically locked. Since it was the barn side, it was a fairly simple padlock, and Star picked it quickly. 

“In we go,” Dandelion murmured, and led the way. They took 3 steps into the dark before realizing that Dom wasn’t following and, yeah, probably needed light to see.

That was fair. “Maybe fine if we keep it low and only inside here,” Star suggested. “There’s more windows in the actual clubhouse so it should be easier to see there.”

Dandelion focused and grew a plant from his hand; he blew, and seed-heads flew up in a flurry, beginning to glow and float around them, making shadows swim and flicker. Dom made a noise that didn’t seem exactly happy about it, but he stepped in to join them, and the three of them proceeded down the main stable hallway.

It was in this uncanny, shadow-flickering horror lighting that they found the body.

Halle had been smashed into several large pieces. Dom and Star sucked a breath in simultaneously as they recognized what this strange combination of shapes was, and Dandelion shifted closer, bringing the dancing seed lights in. “This was your friend?” he asked, soft.

Was. Was. Star’s gaze traced over the torso, shattered into a Y shape, the hunched legs over in a far corner, tail nearby, both arms broken in two different places and flung away. He saw, after a moment of searching, that Halle’s beaked, bald head had rolled into a stall.

“Is there anything we can do?” Dom asked, numb and hopeless.

That made the shock leave, at least. This wasn’t a fairy. Not a human, either. Her body being broken to pieces didn’t mean she was dead for certain. If it were any of the three of them, that’d be the end. A soul torn out of a body, or a soulless body torn so what energies animated it dissipated.  “Maybe,” Star said, shaky. “I think it’s possible to repair gargoyles.”

“It’s possible,” Dandelion agreed in a murmur. “Magically, we’d need a witch with a strong alignment with stone. You can repair them physically, too, with a talented enough stonemason, but with that number of fractures, a witch might be the best choice. It still might fail, though.”

Star swallowed. “Well, we can see what the Twilight Council says once we get through this.” Not if. If they died, well, a lot more than just Halle would be down and out, that was for sure, so no point thinking about that. Fury pounded through him harder than grief, now; this was his friend, for all that she was hard to talk to sometimes. This was his track they were using to harm his city in the name of cornering his lord, and this had all kicked off because they’d decided to use his jockey to do it…!

He took a few deep breaths, trying to at least focus enough to not fuck this up entirely. “No point sticking around here, then,” he said shortly. “Let’s go.”

They headed out of the stables and, as planned, sneaked low and quiet across the lawn to the north side of the flooded tracks. It was nerve-wracking and uncomfortable; Star kept finding himself glancing at the flooded pond as if looking for something there. It might just be paranoia after what had happened last time he was here, though, his old drowning trauma rising up and all that. He didn’t see anyone or anything out there whenever he checked, at least.

Still, it was with some relief that they left the track behind and huddled around the side door to the north of the building. This was also locked, but not warded, which made some kind of sense; the road was off that way, and passersby might notice if something were unusual. Any traps would be inside, instead. 

It was fairly easily picked, at least.

It let them into a hallway that went first past a set of bathrooms, then the offices and conference rooms. As soon as they stepped out to face the offices—while of course keeping careful eye out for anything that seemed odd—Star spared a moment to be grateful that they’d brought Dom.

Every single office had a horseshoe over the door: a ward that prevented entry from the fae. Star or Dandelion wouldn’t even be able to approach those doors.

Beside him, Dandelion hissed out a breath. “All the doors are magically locked, as well as physically, as well as the horseshoes,” he said. “Likely only one room would be used for this, but I don’t know as there’s a way to tell which. The stench of demonic magic fills the hallway due to all the locks.”

Star could pick up the aroma, but clearly not as well as Dandelion could. “Hell. I can pick any of the locks, but that takes time too.”

Dom looked between them and the doors. He clearly recognized the horseshoe thing—Star had told him before, given the number of horseshoes in a place that had horses. “What would the room need to be appropriate for the ritual? I’ve been in all of these at one point or another.”

“I doubt any of them have sinks,” Dandelion said, “But if they did, great. Otherwise, some sort of closeness to running water. Demons, like fairies, use a lot of sympathetic magic in their rituals.”

“No sinks,” Dom agreed. “…One of them has a pipe that runs under it.”

Dandelion’s eyes lit up. “You’re sure?”

“Fairly sure. Whenever someone flushes those toilets back by the entrance we came in, there’s a big clunk and a rushing sound under the floor in that room,” Dom said. “None of the other offices get that.

“Ahh, bless older buildings,” Dandelion said happily. “All right, show us which one, and if you can remove the horseshoe…?”

“On it,” Dom said, seeming a bit pleased. He got a chair from a bit further down the hallway and put it in front so that he could take the horseshoe down easily, then just sort of tucked it into the seat and shoved that across the hall. “Good?”

Dandelion nodded. “Good. You’re incredibly helpful,” he said, and he went down on a knee to examine the lock. “Star, can you pick this? I can work on the magical side of the lock while you do.”

“Maybe get the magic first. Just in case,” Star said.

It didn’t seem worth arguing, Dandelion just shrugged and nodded. He focused for a while, and Star became uncomfortably aware of the time passing, but there was no helping it. It wasn’t fairy magic, so lacking the connection, he probably had to do something else to understand and counter the spell. Probably find its intention and then work around that in some way.

“Aha,” Dandelion said, after seven minutes had passed—a seven minutes they wouldn’t get back. “The spell’s looking at the lock to confirm that it’s in the right position, and if it isn’t, it forces it back to that one. Since it’s essentially looking, I can just—”

There was a glimmer of glamour, not of magic, and Dandelion rose. “The spell’s still on it,” he added. “It’s just blind right now, so it won’t see the lock change. Easy.”

“Easy,” Star echoed back, and picked the physical lock. It was a Kwock, which was actually horrible security for the offices themselves, but then, he supposed anyone here had already gotten in the building. He opened it in seconds. As he turned, he caught them both looking impressed and decided that unless they asked, they did not need to know how easy these locks actually were.

Star stepped back and let Dandelion take this one too, as the most powerful one and the one most likely to be able to identify the exact moment that something went wrong. Nothing happened when he stepped through, and it turned out that they also wouldn’t need to rely on Dandelion’s senses to find the spell.

The entire office was covered in a giant magic circle, painted all over the walls and down to the floor. “No harm entering,” Dandelion promised, and stepped in.

It was hard to feel so sure, but if Dandelion was going, so was he; Star followed, and Dom followed Star with equal reluctance.

Dandelion went back into the same semi-trance, focused attention on the new spell in the same way as he’d done outside. Although this spell was significantly better, Dandelion already knew the intention for it, so Star figured it’d take faster.

It did, but not by much. Around five minutes later, Dandelion said, “Ohhhh,” in a tone of sudden understanding.

“Oh? What’s oh?” Dom asked. He’d been standing really still the whole time, as if afraid that moving might trigger anything, seeming more and more agitated. The grief and fear had come back onto his face. Standing still had left him thinking unpleasant thoughts about what they’d already seen, Star thought, and let his hand brush Dom’s reassuringly.

“The reason it was hard to recognize is that half the symbols are in a second circle,” Dandelion said. “It’s not normally split like this, but he’s connecting the surface to the water and dirt in a way that—well, it’s unusual, but it’s harder to remove, which is why they probably did it this way.” 

Star did not like that. “Do we need a specialist?”

“No, we just need to access the second circle, and to undo them simultaneously. It’s simple. You don’t even have magic to undo this. Erase or scuff this line, then this one, then this one,” Dandelion said. “All the symbols in either circle will come undone. But it has to be done simultaneously and in the same order, or the power will overflow. That’s why it’s more of a challenge.”

“So should we start checking other offices?” Dom asked.

Dandelion shook his head. “I should have recognized it when we passed. Based on the angles of writing and the pull of the spell, and what I felt outside… the other circle should be underwater in the middle of the flooded track.”

Not done in paint, then, but built in some other way down there. Star made a face. “….so two circles that have to be dealt with at the same time in two different places. Can you communicate with whoever goes out there? We talked about communication magic earlier.”

“I could send a short message to you without any difficulty given how close you’ll be and that you’re my vassal and lover,” Dandelion told Star. “Dom would be a bit harder. Might be easier if we made out.”

“Here? Now?” Dom yelped.

“Sharing saliva is powerful,” Dandelion said. “Regardless, we have three people, so we’ll have to decide who goes where. Two people in one place and one in the other. Or, I suppose, one for each circle and a third to stand watch, if we felt that was important enough to risk our strength in numbers that way. I shouldn’t stand watch, though, if I’m supposed to communicate with the other to time the line-erasure. I’d at least have to watch what was happening. I need to be at one of the circles.”

“You and I can both handle water easily,” Star told Dandelion. “So either or both of us could go there. Dom?”

Dom didn’t look pleased. “I mean, if you could enchant me to breathe water, I’d try if you said I had to, but I don’t do a lot of swimming. I think I’d be best to be out on watch or in the office undoing the lines there.”

“Okay,” Star said. “I can go anywhere, though watch is boring. Let me think.” As far as he could determine, since Dandelion couldn’t be on watch and Dom couldn’t be in the water, there were then five possible options to pick from:

1: Dandelion and Dom stayed together in the office and worked on the removal of lines there. Star would go into the water at the track alone.

2: Star and Dandelion could go underwater together, and leave Dom in the office after setting things up so Dandelion could communicate with Dom. 

3: Star could go to the water, Dandelion could stay in the office, and Dom could head out into the main clubhouse to keep watch.

4: Dandelion could go to the water, Star could stay in the office, and Dom could stand watch. 

5: Star could stay on watch while Dandelion went in the water and Dom stayed in the office and the two talked secretly with magic while saving the city together, and Star himself just waited outside on the boring job and was left behind forever.

What seemed to make the most sense for them to do, though?

[So which option are we going with?
Who at which circle (water/office),
and do we have anyone risk standing watch?
Leave a suggestion in the comments on this for sure
but also anything else you think is relevant at this late stage!

Story is not ending tomorrow; the final part will most likely be on Nov 02.]

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