“Target confirmed en route, transmitted target status is contained”, crackles into Scarlet’s ear, “What does contained mean?” “Considering our intel, they are most likely drugged and physically restrained, they are probably unaware of what is happening”, Esther states. Her Godmother reaches over and gently unclenches Scarlet’s hands, her claws drawing four pinpricks of blood. She dabs them up in a bit of paper napkin and stashes the napkin in a small biohazard bag, unnoticed by Scarlet, whose eyes hadn’t left the status screen since they sat down in the room.
Ember struck a heroic pose, her smile clear despite a featureless face, “Don’t worry Fluffball, you always know your shit and you always think things are gonna go tits up”, she squatted down again and gently touched their foreheads together, “It’s gonna work, I’m going to escape and we’re going to meet and I’m going to smother you in kisses and hugs and we’ll live happily ever after!” “OK, now you’re just trying to jinx it!”, she whispered, unsuccessfully holding back her smile.
Scarlet tries a whimpering breath, her chest tightening, “But what about the collar? Did they mention it? We still don’t know what it is, what if it’s killing her right now?” Esther gently holds her charge’s shoulder, “I know you’re sca-”, the radio crackles back on, “Target entering loading bay, we will arrive in 5 minutes, Guardians prep shields, Medics perform last checks on cocoon, backup team keep energy levels minimum, but remove physical safeties.”
She found Ember laying down on a small brown piece of dying grass, she had been searching the dreamscape for days when she finally found the tiny dreamrealm barely existing, almost completely torn apart by the nightmares it usually kept at bay. She tried every piece of dream magic she knew, used every artifact in her pouch and called upon every power she knew off, but nothing helped. The girl, always as bright as the sun, now flickering like a dying candle, slowly tilted her head towards Scarlet. “I’m sorry Fluffball, I fucked it up, they have a protocol for self metamorphosis, the moment it started it pumped me full of meds and all kinds of bullshit started activating. They marked me as terminal and…”, Ember looked down, “I don’t think it’s a bluff this time.” Scarlet had tried to scream, to move, but the panic had shredded all her defenses, nightmare logic stealing her mouth and freedom. “It’s OK Fluffball, I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet in the waking world, but I’m so happy to have met you here, this was always going to be the end of my story, but I’m so happy you got to be part of it.” Her voice was strained against held back tears, “I guess it was a bit of short run, but you made it bearable, you even made parts of it good, which is more I could have ever wished for. Please don’t grief for me for too long, you deserve a long beautiful live with an awesome loving partner and endless fun adventures, so please don’t let me be a wound.” She tilted her head back up, looking Scarlet deep in her eyes, “I love you, Fluffball.”
The screen shows the convoy arriving, little blue dots tumbling out of the squares, “Perimeter secure, preparing for target transfer”. The little dots take a formation facing the little red dots representing the humans. “Stasis pod sighted” a green ring springs to live on the screen, moving from the back of the red dots to the front. For a heart stopping moment it freezes between the lines, before it starts moving again, “Target received, moving to second formation, medics please confirm target”. While the red dots begin exfiltrating, the blue dots form a semicircle around the green ring and began moving it back, 4 green crosses move out of one of the transports and make their way to the ring, “Opening stasis pod”, a whoosh of air carries across the mics, the noise startling Scarlet upright, sending her chair tumbling behind her. “Checking biometrics”, Scarlet bends over the screen, her face only an inch away, “Human system response valid”, her fingertips go white as she holds the hem of her skirt in a deathgrip, “Mana and blood sample both valid, target confirmed”, she stands there, her heartbeat threatening to drown out the radio, “Target health confirmed stable, beginning transfer to cocoon.”
She could feel the dream starting to unravel.
Her heart thumped
Ember was fading away and she was frozen, unable to move or speak
Her heart thumped
Days of searching the dreamscape had drained her of all her reserves, she had nothing left to give
Her heart thumped
Ember was dying and she couldn’t save her, she wasn’t strong enough to save her
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
HER HEART THUMPED and a scream, beginning deep in her soul rampaged it way out, ripping apart nightmare and dreamflesh, rending open a mouth like a wound, “NO!”
She slammed her palms down next to Ember and pinned the fading girl with her gaze, “YOUR NAME TELL ME YOUR NAME, I WILL FIND YOU!” Ember moved back a bit at the loudness of her yell, but she pushed forward, “Please, I promise I won’t abuse it, I would never hurt you”. Ember froze a moment and whispered, “I can’t.” “Why not? Please, I will tell you my name in return, just please let me save you.” The sunlight girl averts her gaze, “That’s not it, I trust you with my live, it’s just-”, she trails off, “it’s because I want you to remind me of who I am here, Ember the sunlight girl, not what I am when I wake up, I don’t want you to see me like that”. Ember seemed more afraid of that than dying, but adrenaline and desperation drowned any curiosity. “Ember, you will tell me your name and I am going to find you and whatever I will find I will love more than anything in this universe and I swear to Titania if you try to stop me I will find and burn every Darkstar comic in existence!”, she shouted tears running down her cheeks. Ember giggled a wet choked off laugh and as the dream began to unravel she whispered a name
Medical information begins to populate the status screen, “Transfer complete, target stable.”
Updates continue to stream in across the radio, but Scarlet stops registering the outside world, her entire world nothing but three words on a screen.
Her legs start to buckle, but Esther was already behind her with waiting arms, “How about a little nap, it’ll be a while before they’re here and you’ll want to be awake to meet your… partner”, Scarlet fogging brain misses the pause and she lets herself be carried to the couch without complaint, fading into a deep sleep before her head hits the pillow.
Scarlet had burst into Esther’s office shouting, “I call upon my [Godmother] to aid my [Cause], protect my [Body] and nurture my [Soul], by the oaths and accords of the [Fae Pact], I proclaim a [Hunt]!” When the timid little foxgirl came in declaring a [Hunt] of all things, Esther had known right away it was because of her dream paramour, little else could spark such passion from her. The romance had been lovely, but Fae romances tend to end quickly and violently. She had already started unwrapping her axe when Scarlet began her story, but she paled as the details became clear. A new fae caught while forming their mana body was an old trick of the empire, she had spoken to some of the survivors of the “fairy dust” farms and that could not be allowed to happen again. She had begun dragging Scarlet with her to the inner court while she was still halfway in telling the story, summoning Titania as they went, by the time they reached the throne room, Titania had already been waiting on them with her usual air of tired detachment, which quickly changed as Scarlet repeated the story through snot, tears and dry heaving. [The Queen of Fae] had been incandescent with wrath, the entire room shrinking back as she began to command her guards. The few days after passed in an adrenaline fueled haze as the majority of the local Fae fleet blockaded the human moon and threatened orbital bombardment if they didn’t return the unborn Fae. A few diplomats had tried to argue that the pacts didn’t become active until after the metamorphosis, but Titania countered that while the pact wouldn’t activate, about two dozen megatonnes of high yield railguns would. Negotiations ended shortly after that in their favor.
Esther wraps the collapsed girl in her favorite fleece blanket, she looks so frail and young and she can’t help but feel the weight of her role, shoulders slumped she heaves out a big sigh and returns to the monitors and heaves another great big sigh as she looks at the [Status] on the screens.
She should probably clear out her agenda for the next month or so.
