Trouble well past due

[littlekreen]

As Molly left to get her things Flynn didn't expect she'd be gone too long. Though the reacher patient enough and inclined to wait a few days. The first day she slept for the first time in days as a stained glass spectre roamed the countryside. Unable to find the dreaming it expected her traveler roamed. Subconscious projection that first dragged their kind to their dreaming. Awake with a start Flynn jolted up four times the first day. Distant the sprayed glass vanished as cars drove through the faint image. The children did similar running toward her a panic at her shout. She licked the whelps to calm them down and they went back asleep under a tree. Despite repeated roadkill the next day her focus was far better. The first rest that hadn't come out of a flask for over a week.

Today she'd have to hunt them food. Though the children ran off and found more ducks the next morning. She pocketed Thebus's Fourteen's tarot card twice thinking it had come from her pack. A careful eye noticed his card kept moving back to the whelp which quite marked him as a willed. Any number of things a willed could use those for but not without a full deck. They'd broken a few more out of excitement and ended up with more cards in Thebus's glamour pockets. The remaining ducks with giggles from both thrown into a small hole for their amusement. There were a few spears she had to take out but she didn't see any real harm in it. They needed somewhere to hide before she could leave them anywhere. They'd follow her to the ends of the earth otherwise.

Lists of tiny-printed rituals in her book had some for manipulating plants as shelter. These trees were not quite the same kind of woody mushrooms she was familiar. Still, she hiked up a tree so her small music box could tinkle a thin thread of black motes pulled from holes in its top. Cobalt blue flushed up the strand as the bloodwrit started. A ritualistic impression stitched or carved with claws. Blue marks mid-trunk of the tall oak. Four opposing points a splice imposition in tangled weave of lines. Keen senses among the forest if nothing else heard as she ignited the shaping with words in Sylvan. Spherical void blown into the center of the tree a shower of sap, blood, and resultant gore upon the forest floor. Leaves shook free but squirrels and burls subsumed as fuel drowning into bark. It left the tree split into four smaller diameter trunks then rejoined. As if it ever had grown that way. More than sturdy enough to hold up the rest given now-strengthened tree. Flynn set to tethering some pine branches to the join elbow of each quadrant. It kept out some rain suitable for the whelps to sleep toddlers clung safe to the inside. They climbed better as whelps so she did have to help them up. At the end Flynn grabs her starving stomach and looked to the whelps then set off. Willpower keeping her moving forward.

Hunting down some game was easier with a smaller impulse of her fireball writ and no whelps to worry over. She ate a few mice and felt a bit better before taking on bigger game. Black feathers rioting from the magic a deep blue hydrogen explosion blew apart a deer knee. Forward rush and toe-claw tore the neck to expose red-stained spine. Resourceful survivalists the reachers strips of meat smoked well on racks in a pit. A few branches and a strip of bark to help hold the heat in. Not ideal but it would last as long as it would take for her to eat it.

The next few days went with less frantic effort as Flynn recovered. Whelps instead exhausted their supply of ducks for their own small pit and wanted to follow her. She let them do so the third day being less sore and exhausted from starvation and digging. Further in the forest hunting rocks and clay for a kiln a ponderous hairy creature eyed her whelps a bit to close. The resulting bright blue fireball and crater sent the furry creature packing. Direct of course into the further part of the stream and beyond its hind end aflame.

By the fifth day she had the makings of a new cooking pit in adobe bricks and the woman had not returned. The sixth day much the same Flynn was cooking a rabbit her pack full of smoked deer for provisions. She'd drank the remains of her decanter to replaced it with river water. It was time to go looking for the woman but not at daylight. Flynn waited for nightfall and started the location ritual. Likeness of molly scratched into clay tablet, whelps and their glamor, and Molly's name as she heard it. Things for the ritual to attract native life.

The spell found a strange black bird a pair of teeth welded onto its front and strange naked feet. It had wings at least so Flynn called her whelps who'd learned how to climb in their new glamors by now. The little clingers jumped onto her back and hung onto her feathers though she groaned a bit. The bird waited with patient eyes the spell waiting for her to follow as her wings uncoiled. helical arrays of thick spines revealed as if a coral growth upon her arm. Jet black flight feathers explode in all directions around them then quiver interlaid. Once her wings unfurled pairs of eyes from her back looked at the bird. As did Flynn.

With some difficulty climbing a tree she leaped free from its furthest reaches. Flapping hard to get some altitude the added weight almost sent her careening down. There was a good thermal here and she was strong again so in the dead of night under a waning moon Flynn set off in chase. The bird leading the way an impression of some further location for a nature spirit to draw toward. Though it seemed to wander the raven proceed in a given direction so Flynn continued after it. Far above with hunters eye chasing a small red speck below. There were thermals galore here so Flynn could keep altitude quite well. As she neared a large building the black creature turned toward it. Flynn considered from on high where to set down.

[demikara]

Night meant she was off duty, and given her current circumstances, Molly was all too glad for it. She leaned on the railing of her apartment railing and looked out at the city, or what of the city she could see from her Oak Ridge apartment. It was at least a nice enough street. She hated this form. She hated this curse laid on her by the council, and she hated above all else being bound to a single plane.

Being bound was akin to death for her, and she was furious they had decided they could bind her and that they had bound her so tight. Human tight and her to pass as human with her brown skin and brown eyes. As if someone with pointed ears could manage it in this time, in this post unseen world. She sighed and looked up to the sky, unable to see the stars. If she wanted to see them now, she had to drive. She had needed brand new paperwork to make her of age in this form, stuck in this body. And yeah, every other decade or so, she had needed new papers to pass, but that was normal in the unseen. They had forms to fill out and procedures to follow.

She now had an id with this face on it, claiming she was 21. She had a new social security number and had updated her paperwork the MCU. And the entire time, she was stuck in this thrice cursed form. All because of a harmless prank. Because they thought she had deserved it, that she was out of control. She couldn’t even glamour herself. She had to start over! The apartment was at least in her name, even if she had to go the long way about in changing their records on her. At least she essentially never saw management.

MCU had forgotten, it seemed. Ward breakers did a hell of a lot more than just break wards. There was a reason so few actually stayed on the legal side of things. And now she was trapped. Trapped by these fools who she worked for. She wanted so badly to lash out against them, to show them how talented she was even with her magic bound to human levels, to fight back. But she was trying to behave, trying to listen and prove that she was responsible.

The urge was great and she had to remind herself that she was on the side of the good guys. She had been alone long enough that she was meant to be a responsible adult and she was meant to be on the side of good. Her parents would have been horrified if they even knew she had thought of proving that she still had the abilities to break and enter that she had for a long time.

She sighed and stepped inside, leaving her balcony door open. Coffee. She needed a strong cup of coffee and some kind of dinner. She wasn’t going to break the law. She was supposed to enforce it. Well, a limited section of the law pertaining solely to the unseen, but the law was still the law. The officer dug through her fridge, and pulled out some leftovers. Day old rice and some chicken a la king would do well enough. It was food after all, and she didn’t feel up to cooking. She hadn’t felt up to it in days. The rice was from some chinese take out from yesterday and the chicken a la king came from...her last day off?

It was probably still good. It had been in the fridge, and besides, it was her mom’s recipe. And maybe she wasn’t exactly housewife material, but her mom had understood. The family business had called strongly to her after all.

[littlekreen]

The sliver in the sky, a moon by name as she recalled, was getting low in the sky again so daylight would come soon. Flying for hours was tiring with her two whelps sitting on top as her back muscles were tired from their weight. As the city neared air was at times unclear and full of ichor that stung at her lungs at this altitude. Her lung sacs pumped hard to keep her oxygenated even if the smell passing through her nostrils was horrid. Their city stunk and so did its air she rapidly learned to avoid the plumes from smokestacks. They had the luxury of an infinite sky even a Reacher was worried to fly this high in. Some part of her elated to see the ground so far away but knew if it was light whole areas could see her flying above.

An hour ago one inquisitive construct with its white hot screaming tailed her. It must have seen her against the clouds but she lost it in them instead. Difficult to escape it moved under power. There was flashing from the cockpit which worried her and she wasn't sure what it was. Once losing the construct searching for her tracking animal took priority. Its attendant spirit at least didn't go far the bird circling below until she followed. Now far below in the middle of buildings. If she didn't dive to catch it and give up her cloud cover she'd lose it her hold on it in the chatter of the city.

Flynn barked at her whelps busy slapping at each other with a free hand on her back. They froze as toddler eyes dilated from getting yelled at. Then their iron grip resumed each leg wrapped around below her leg at the hips one arm around her side. The other two arms the toddlers locked with each other. Flynn felt the tension and thin but strong wide swept black wings bank right. Both wings twice her own length extended curl inward under their own tensing. Segmented quills moving to control the wing shape as she went into a dive.

At cloud level the dense black-feathered form left a small hole ahead of moonlit clouds. A predator far too large with her feathered tail and toe-claws she sped down toward buildings. Two small toddlers with a death-grip on her hips and back legs gazing at stone rushing upward. Nearing dim avenues lights could not reach her behind her slower-feathered guide. The wings changed their angle of attack rose to slow down. Slight left to arc away as the bird circled a particular building seeing it ready to set down. It thunks into a window as cables and antenna warm against her hunter's sight threatened. Flynn wobbled along her path as the ritual ended the bird stumbling along a porch in a daze. Her hunter's eye stared in windows as she curled around the building looking for Molly.

A soft ruffle of feathered blackness bare meters out of range of the city lights. Two conspicuous toddlers seem to soar circles around the building in the dark.

[demikara]

Molly paused, seeing something out the windows and headed to the balcony, leaving her plate on the counter, before she even managed to put food on it. She looked around again and swore. "Flynn! I know I saw you." She had seen the other hadn't she? Giant bird like creature with two lime haired toddlers on top. It had to be Flynn. She had to get the other out of the sky and in cover quickly, for everyone's sake. She looked around, trying to see her. Molly still hadn't found a willing husk, but if needed, she could break into the neighbor's apartment and get an unwilling one. The materials the other requested were at work. Without her walking, the reserve was too far away for quick trips.

"Land here, quickly. If someone else sees you, we're in trouble!" It meant the nuisance squad would be called out for a possible sighting and Molly really didn't want to deal with them. Explaining why she had a prehistoric sentient being in her apartment with two seemingly human toddlers would have been entirely too difficult and just gotten her in more trouble than she was already in. The sergeant looked around, trying to see the other again.

[littlekreen]

As Flynn made a second arc around the building she spied someone on the balcony. Her eye shine lit up in the dark reflecting light from molly's room identifying the person head pointed direct at them. Keen hearing also directed more forward had no issue hearing a familiar voice even among the wind. Fine serrated structures left her flight quiet though it left a soft ruffle of feathers. Banking hard a tight spiral upward and around aligns her with the balcony. The lime haired toddlers quiet as ever looked from around Flynn's hips as she swung her wings parallel to brake wheeling a bit to land on the railing corner seeing it up closer. With a shuff of skidding feet and a loud clack of her toe claw coming down to anchor she wobbled in place a bit with the wind. Spines of her thin wings shook on their own then angled down her thin arms shown more clearly. As if a coral in slow motion the feathery barbs pulled into barbules then retreated into segmented shafts. Flynn's arms were stuck in the air for a moment so bonked her two Whelps on the head with her elbows

A deep melodic tongue mixed with guttural growling told them to get down, "♪♭♪♯♫♯♪ אה♩♪♭אּ ♬♫אּ♬ אּ♬אּ."

The two toddlers crawled around her hips and dropped to the floor. They both toddled over to Molly and stared up at her as their clutch mother coughed behind them. While their clutch mother hadn't acknowledged Molly in that way they adopted brood mothers after a fashion. Flynn hacked and spat a bit of brown over the balcony the smokestacks and smog. Her tongues ran out some days ago and was too hoarse to recast it properly. While sparser her wings were still unfurled so hopped down from the balcony and with limited movement of the long spines mimed a drinking motion with her free hand.

[demikara]

Molly picked the whelps up and led everyone inside, shutting the balcony door behind Flynn. She put the whelps down on the couch and poured some water from the tap into a sturdy glass for Flynn, giving it to the other. "I am so sorry. My...my ability to travel was taken from me. I'm...I'm rather stuck taking the long way and the reserve is far away." She sighed and smiled at Flynn, more amused than not. "As you know now." This was awkward. Her place wasn't really set up for guests, especially not saurian ones.

"I...I can't even glamour. No husks for me." Just this natural form with was smaller and weaker and so very different than anything she had ever expected it to be. She hated every second of this, every last one. She ran a hand over the boy's head and messed up their hair. "Have you been okay? The kids?" Was everything okay there? She didn't know. The reserve was...well it was mostly wilderness and mostly for unseen creatures more than anything else. People did live there, yeah, but not in all of it.

[littlekreen]

Flynn had to enter backward through the door dragging the long spines behind her slowly coiling around her arms as they retracted. The two toddlers stretched up their hands eagerly when Molly picked them up and each proved as weighty as the fluffy clouds they appear outside glamour. Wheeling with a shoof of lime hair they look back at their clutch mother. Each Making sure she was coming with them going with wide and curious eyes around. Their noses active and huffing at the air pulsing nostrils at the scent of meat from somewhere nearby. Not to mention many other smells in a foreign home. They stared intently at Molly's dinner plate from over the couch back.

Flynn's wings now looked like knit sleeves in their helical retraction around her arms in the last stages throbbing together and locking in place the tips in a row down her forearm. As it locked around her wrist the outermost layer squirted fine feathers from around every exposed pore returning her arm's fine coating. She flexed her hands and shoulders then took the glass of water pumping the cup upward toward Molly. She poured the water in her mouth muzzle upward with a relieved gasp and cough at something to wet her dry throat.

Hand in front of her mouth with a short wavering tune with a lateralized harmonic of two voices her tongue turned a bright silver. The spell a short but complex one she'd long practiced with this native version.

Flynn's voice faded away from its birdsong as the silver tongue helped her speak English with a raised brow, "You look different and very tall. The whelps know you by smell. They took your magic? What did you do? Bloodwrit rituals won't work for you or I would teach."

Crest raised Flynn said with a toothy smile, "Reachers get in trouble a lot too. I built a smoker and a split hut near your clearing and hunted something with horns. It tastes a little of the needle tree ash but not bad. We live in the field I can make a dirt hut with enough time. I did not see any others there and I don't know what the thing you wanted me to look for was."

Arm pumping she flexed the spines along her arm, "I worried you were lost somewhere. It was a long flight and your air stinks. What are the metal constructs blinking at me up there? I have never flown so high without permission from a child of teeth."

[demikara]

"Not all of my magic. Just most." She said simply and shrugged it off. "I can't travel like I used to because of it though. And I was wearing a glamour. I prefer my glamour to my natural form. I'm so much smaller in this shape and everyone treats me differently." It was maddening. "I...I played a prank. They told me it was the last straw and now I'm stuck." She managed a weak smile. "You three must be hungry. I don't have a lot of food here though, and it's mostly vegetables." She could get more food in the morning, she supposed. "The metal constructs are airplanes, probably. We use them to fly through the sky. Humans don't have wings, but planes let them go places faster, like they do." She looked to the kids and shook her head, then split her meal in two and put both plates on the table. She then set a toddler in front of each plate.

"They'll need a bath after this, I'm sure of it. But I can spare leftovers, no problem. Quinn will have to be careful. There's vegetables in the dish." Thebus should be fine, if he was a vegetarian. If not well. She could always take the kids to the MCU doctor. Surely the new doc would be able to do something about all this. Hopefully she wouldn't fuck it up either. Molly didn't fully trust the other though, and would almost rather go to a mundane doctor. The whelps weren't human enough for that now though. Hell, Molly wasn't currently human enough to see a human doctor. She'd have to see an unseen one.

She smiled to Flynn. "I don't have any volunteers for your husk yet. If it's not too important, I can sneak into my neighbors apartment and get hair from her hairbrush. She's on vacation this week." So it was very doable. Maybe. If not, maybe some random passerby at the library? That was always doable.

[littlekreen]

Flynn removed her pack by unbuckling the chest strap and set it on the floor with a heavy thud. That particular noise was one of the reasons she was so tired flying that far. The top flap unbuckled quick enough Flynn removed a two pound hunk of low moisture smoked venison.

She offered it to Molly while she separated the dish along with the empty cup, "Planes? The far and deep's personal twitch would want to take one apart. Here, this smoked meat is heavy to carry have some at least for the whelps. Once their hair falls out they will be less dirty. You may have to add some water to use the meat for meals. I would just like some more fresh water. My throat is still dry."

Flynn chuckled sitting on her haunches, "You however broke one cup too many if they spend that kind of effort to bind their reacher. Will it cause you to suffer? I would get blood poisoning if there is too much ectoplasm in me. It is the only reason my engorgement spell works so well."

Her tail swished around in front of her as Flynn laid back on the floor resting, "My foundation of life is stretchy. I need more than hair for a husk or I'll just be blonde and featherless. I could record the fires without them knowing but they will feel me wear the husk. I don't need to look like a hairy version of your male's dangling parts with claws."

She ponders at the ceiling considering options for suspicious humans, "If they are strong enough and missing an limb I could make a second husk of themselves to wear. Then make the false bits real as payment. We will need someone to care for us afterward. I will be overstretched."

The whelps wriggled as they were picked up elated to be carried over to food. Thebus more so than the quite patient Quinn who just made wide open-mouthed grins with pointed black teeth. Their hands didn't spare any time cramming everything that smelled like meat into their eager mouths. The stubby toddler fingers less coated in hair made less mess but that was a rather subjective thing. Quinn less selective put everything in his mouth as more arrived from the neighboring plate as his brother donated vegetables he did not like. As the meat disappeared from both plates the accumulation of rice drained into the vegetables that started to sprout. Quinn occasionally ripped carrot and rice sprouts off as roots started to spread. The food pile slowly shrank overall as Quinn's intense wild nature haphazardly transmuted it.

[demikara]

"It's a constant low level pain." Molly admitted. "It makes me grumpy. I've had a lot less patience since they pulled this." She sighed. "It's like I'm compressed in too tight of a container." It was the pressure more than anything else. She hated every second of it and it didn't exactly make her a great co-worker. No wonder Catherine could be such a bitch, if this is what she felt like all the time. Molly took the smoked meat and found a knife and a cutting board, cutting off a few chunks and putting them in front of the toddlers. They'd need a bath too, but she had a tub. It'd be fine, probably. She didn't exactly have a lot of experience with kids this young.

"Stay here for awhile. I make enough to feed you and the whelps. We can probably find an amputee who'd be willing, for the promise of their limb back." She imagined most would be fine with that. "And you can crash here while you recover from making it." She understood overdoing it on magic all too well. It felt like that was all she was doing lately. All her bigger workings were barred to her, and she was left with barely anything. It was as if she was starting over from scratch. The problem was ward breaking took either power or time. She had found some magic storage crystals at least, to help her with the larger things she may need to do, but that was it.

"I'm glad I was able to glamour your kids before this happened. I can't glamour a damn thing right now." There was a meow from the other room and she glanced over. The cat-like creature wearing a collar with a bell and a bow came over and purred, rubbing against Molly's legs. "...please don't tell anyone about my cat. He's...supposed to be on the reserve." It wasn't like she could return him now. He was just stuck in her apartment.

[littlekreen]

Flynn sat up shaking her head the bright blue crest splayed, "The pain I expect if your traveler is chained. There is little to do for it if they bound it inside. Our traveler ever at home on the path before us."

She stood up with a clack and a light thump of her tail as it stabilized her. Wobbles in her legs and arms showed the soreness just long enough for a veteran in the body of the young stood up with undaunted eyes. Head pivoted to each of the whelps and the silver tongue licked Thebus clean under a great deal of squeaky protest. The lime haired toddler flailed at Flynn's silvery tongue grabbing at the conical offender. Flynn squirmed it out of his grasp as she cleaned the last of his face. Thebus promptly returned to mashing his face at the plate and shoveling food into his eating hole. Neither quite had the hang of their forms though Quinn was considerably cleaner having picked with his fingers. He held out his hands as Flynn turned to him.

His hands she licked clean then turned to Molly, "I am thankful for your hospitality and your works. The field is no place for the whelps they need safety. I need them safe so I can work for my place along your path. I make right by the resources I have used even if it is your obligation."

She presents her palms, "I am used to my stipend and the workshop but I think you have all the things I will need for that part at least. Mirrors in the bathrooms a husk should fit through and you have a knife."

Flynn huffs her eyes wide for a moment it didn't occur to her Molly might own more than one, "I prefer a cleaver but the smooth metal knife will do."

Her head shook as there were few pains this particular ritual not one anyone cared to repeat often. Even a reacher's pain tolerance had its limits.

Flynn moved closer to the small animal but not too close, "Not food then. The cat is very fuzzy our pets are peace-bred gliders. Eight legs and wings. Much smaller than their hazardous kin."

[demikara]

"They'll be safe here. I can probably toddler proof the place after all." Probably. She could still cast wards at least. She thought it over."I have a knife set? And a machete somewhere around here, along with a blessed dagger." She had a life before MCU after all, and she was going to have that life again. They could deal with that fact. And the after was probably going to come sooner than expected, given she was now bound tight.

Fine. Humans were demon hunters all the time. She could fall back on that profession well enough. MCU had been more of a challenge, after awhile, but she could change. She didn't know fi staying with them was a condition of the binding though. She'd have to find out. Molly dug out her knife set from the kitchen, and found her machete under a couch cushion. After a moment's thought, she opened a TV cabinet up to show not a TV but a host of weapons, guns, and a good amount of holy water and blessed bullets. She pulled a machete out of there.

"Alright. Pick one, I guess." There were options after all.

She hesitated a moment, and then shrugged. "I figure that's why it hurts." She held up her hands to display her newest jewelry, a symbol of the binding. Around her left wrist, a heavy bracelet was visible, tight against the skin. There was no way to remove it. On her right ring finger, a silver ring with a blue stone sat and Molly already knew she couldn't budge it. "The signs of my binding. Along with a tattoo on my stomach. I can't remove them. I can't even budge them."

[littlekreen]

Flynn looked at the knife collection then as she popped one out of the seat cushions and opened an armory Flynn's jaw dropped a little. She inspected the machete considered it and thumbed at the duller surface which also curved toward the blade all along it. Not quite what she needed as a nice clean cut.

Blue crest high she said a bit breathy, "Few Far and Deep have this much metal! RrRrrr Not solely their own at least. I worry I would sully your dagger however your willed have embedded it."

Stood on her tiptoes Flynn picked out a Ram-Dao that looked the right kind of blade she wanted for taking the husk's arm clean. The guns drew her eye taking in the weapons she'd only found a small scattered bunch of recently for her older whelps. Since the quadruplets became one of the fourteen they were rightly mature now but she was still their clutch mother. There were indeed smaller ones as the twitch theorized. Pulled back to the now she rolled over the large weapon and its curved end. The metal thick enough to take gansharping with the willed's help to prepare this side of it. As she was smaller than Molly the saurid had a bit of difficulty moving the sword two-handing it with effort.

"This will do to take the husk's arm clean. So I do not pass out. I will need to prepare the blade on this side then the other if you will help.", said the saurian lifting it to Molly blade resting gently on the floor.

She eyed the bracelet and ring the reacher's mind trundling at the sight of the jewelry and tattoo, "If they bind you whole do they prevent actions that would take the arm? Even by others? Perhaps it may be made useful if the binding will not suffer others or damage."

[demikara]

"Eh. Most humans have a knife set for the kitchen. I have an athame, but that's back at the clearing." She'd have to take a weekend and fly up there and get her stuff from the clearing. Then she'd have to find a place down here that she could do some of the stuff she didn't actually want MCU to know about. That would be fun. "The machete was-" She hesitated and then shrugged it off. "The machete from the couch belonged to someone who was like a sister to me. She's dead now. She'd probably think what you're doing is hilarious. The one from the cabinet is consecrated, but can be re-consecrated easily enough. There's a priest who likes to help demon hunters out."

Still the other has selected the Ram-Dao. "That was one of Karato's too. She liked to get up close and personal with demons when we hunted together." It meant Molly had a well stocked first aid cabinet, that was for sure. "As for the binding...I don't know. They said, word for word 'You are bound from harming yourself, bound from harming others, and bound from your magic Molly Bronson.' and, um..." It was a moment, but Molly remembered. "'We will be preventing use of your... creative glamour, locking you to this plane, and binding you to human levels of magic.' So I don't know if I can. I don't actually know if I can do my job if I can't hurt others. Taking down a perp isn't exactly pain free by the time it gets to my team."

Each time she had repeated what they had said, she used the exact intonation they had, her voice doing a fair approximation of Agathon and June by turns.

[littlekreen]

Flynn bobbed her head hefting the sword on top of a table, "The large one will be fine I must have space for the bifurcated ritual upon it. Our metal supplies are thin we can't dig for them like we see in your found texts. We have the sanguinary to make ganblood ingots from volunteers."

A quick duck to a sealed pocket of her backpack and Flynn put a bright cobalt-blue coin on the kitchen table. An interference pattern leaving a shadow in space showing a runic sigil floating just above the surface of the coin. Close inspection of the coin revealed a clockwork of endless gears that went on until it faded away. On the whole it reeked of blood magic thrumming along with her heart. Among her kind true names were not words but objects created already owned. In so picking it up proved difficult as when fingers found purchase a short ticking slipped it between blinks and fingers back to whence it came.

Flynn grinned her black teeth wide enthused with her work, "Your friend sounds like she would get along! We lose some as we travel our path but we must move on. A reacher not quite fallen got the idea to cut off a piece of his husk to make real onto the mirror self of its parent image. My reacher coin anchors the interface plate for Grandfather Teeth."

She eyed Molly as she heard the tone in her voice her fixed head speaking as the body moved underneath, "They've added nails in your brain! Strong. Well this will harm the husk but it is not a person. I will suffer from the incompleteness but it will not hurt at first. Do you think it will jiggle the nail in your brain?"