One piece of Lucy felt appalled, and the other felt justified. Even if she knew that striking Jay was not the mature action, it felt right. Even if she knew her action was wrong she couldn’t allow their words to stand, but it didn’t make the pain they brought any better. The ginger’s taunt played over and over again in her head, the lackadaisical nature she said making her sick. The idea that someone could bring themselves to say those things and feel no guilt didn’t sit right, but she had just heard it. A child’s trauma was no joking matter, and she knew it from her own experience.
She didn’t get far outside before collapsing onto her knees, all of her will going into keeping her fist from punching the cement sidewalk right outside the school. Tears found their way out of her eyes and onto the ground below her, the only thing keeping the wind from making her tear trails feel like ice being Vee’s spell. Lucy couldn’t believe she was crying, because she knew in her mind this should have been a moment of celebration. A moment of celebration undone by PTSD and some random girl.
In the span of less than thirty minutes she had become a Magral Knight, saved a kid, defeated a monster, and briefly reunited with Baarham. By all accounts the events seemed happy, and she knew that Melissa and herself should have been bringing Nicole home. The only thing keeping that happiness locked up was one girl’s insidious smile, and even tilting her head towards the night sky couldn’t remove it from her mind’s eye. There was only one other thing she could think of to take her mind off the pain, and she needed to do it anyway.
So, with shaking hands clenched together, she closed her eyes and decided to pray.
“Dear God, I come to you tonight not for my usual blessing but to ask forgiveness on a stained soul,” Lucy said, ignoring the sound of the elementary school’s door opening behind her. It didn’t close, the soul who had opened it staying silent as she continued. “Horrible as he was, Deam was a living being. He had desires and needs, things he loved and things he hated. He was like Melissa and Dragon and Drew and… and like me.”
“I also ask, God, that you forgive me for the sin I have committed today. Despite you and your son’s lessons, I have now twice committed the sin of murder. It does not matter that it was to save another soul, for in the end it is another life that will never again walk this earth. I know that, at some point in my endeavors as a Magral Knight, praying forgiveness for the souls I take will be useless but I still ask that you forgive me. Amen.”
Lucy opened her eyes, let her hands fall to her sides, and turned her head as much as she could to the left. Out of the corner of her eye, finally walking out of the school and letting the door close behind her, was Melissa. The trans girl walked up to her side and sat down, staying quiet and giving Lucy a smile. After two failed attempts to conjure one up, she finally got a smirk of her own to match. Both then looked to the sky, taking in the sounds of the city around them and the swooshing of the wind.
Everything about her felt calm now, but Lucy knew it wasn’t the prayer she had to thank for that. Where God never answered, her friends did, and beside her was the closest friend she could have ever asked for. A friend that she hoped would one day become more than that, but no matter what the future had in store she was happy to know Melissa. Where so many Americans would act like Jay, yelling and offending anything that wasn’t like them, Melissa stayed quiet and respectful. Not always – she was still an American after all – but when it mattered most she knew to stay her tongue and let silence speak instead of words.
When Lucy knew how to break that silence, only then did anyone speak. “I’m… sorry, you had to witness that.”
“Don’t be. What you did is completely justified,” Melissa said, looking down from the sky to the French girl next to her. “I doubt I can ever imagine how much those words hurt, but it’s the fact they hurt that matters. If anyone needs to apologize it’s Jay, which she does, but something about her seems off.”
Lucy blinked thrice, and then looked at Melissa stunned. “You aren’t going to ask me about why I hit her?”
“Don’t need to, and I doubt you wanna talk about why,” Melissa replied, placing a shoulder on her friend. “We all got our shit to deal with, and it is up to the one dealing with that shit to decide who and when to bring it up. I’ll just take the context clues I got and not peer deeper than you want.”
“Thanks, that means a lot,” Lucy said, turning her head away to hide the red in her face. The blush faded quickly, her eyes flicking first to the ground and then to the sky. Placing her hands behind her, Lucy leaned back. “Sometimes it is hard for me to think that there are people different from us. People whose most regretful memories are just adolescent shenanigans or the wrong word leaving their mouth at the wrong time. I don’t hate them, but when you deal with what I’ve had to do you can’t help but envy the people who can go day to day only having to worry about their job or bills, not to mention little kids like Nicole if they have them. They’re doing fine while I’m here hoping to not have a day where my trauma flairs up in some form or another.”
She leaned back further, placing her hands further behind her to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable.
“I wish that I was the only one suffering through what happened, but while I somehow managed to escape and gain a second family others are still suffering,” Lucy continued, her pupils glancing from star to star. “I’m… I’m lucky. People can say I’m not but the fact of the matter is that, no matter my trauma, the girl known as Lucy Francois escaped the cause of her trauma and somehow became the daughter of a successful and rather rich business man and woman. I’m as lucky as lucky could be,” She sighed, eyes falling to the cement ground as her smile fell away. “There are still so many people out there hurting, torn from families they may never see again and put in situations that no living being should ever be put through. The idea that I can live comfortably while so many others continue to be violated and traumatized is just… it feels so fucking wrong!”
Her head hung forward as tears found their way down her face once again, lips quivering as she tried desperately to hold back the urge to cry. It proved fruitless as she closed her eyes and balled her eyes out, fingernails clawing at the ground. She tried to talk, but her breath picked up and made it hard. It was only when Melissa tugged her shoulder and pulled her into a tight hug did she find the ability to speak.
“I… I want to save them all. I want so badly to save everyone just like me,” She cried out, wrapping her arms around Melissa in comfort. “I don’t want to be the lucky one. I don’t want to just go through my life as if nothing ever happened to me. I want to stop everyone who hurt people like me, and save all those they’ve stolen away. I don’t care how unrealistic it is, I want it damnit! I want everyone like me to be happy!”
Melissa said nothing, holding Lucy a little closer. She slowly rubbed their back and patted their head, holding in her own wish to cry. Seeing Lucy like that hurt, a pit forming in her stomach. Even if she never directly said, Melissa was starting to see the full picture painted before her. The meaning behind Lucy calling herself an “actor” the previous night gained a new, twisted meaning. It hurt, knowing that they were so similar even if the cause behind their trauma was different.
So, as Lucy cried into Melissa’s chest, the trans girl made a promise. While she could never take away the pain or fix it, she would continue to be there for Lucy. That meant that, once they had calmed down, she had something she needed to tell them. Something that she felt incapable of holding back for much longer.
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“Are you sure Melissa is being truthful?” Drew asked Dragon as the two walked down the street towards Edmunds Elementary. “You know how she is. If something is wrong she ain’t gonna tell us.”
“We have to trust her right now,” Dragon replied as she tapped on another football highlight video. Vee was watching over her shoulder in intrigue. “Besides, she said in the group chat that Deam was taken care of. We have nothing to worry about.”
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“Yeah, she wouldn’t lie about that,” Drew said, nodding his head. “What could have happened to Lucy that Melli needs our help carrying her?”
In his words, Dragon’s eyes slowly went from her phone to the doll on her shoulder. Vee felt its entire plush body shiver, remembering what Dragon had done to it earlier that day. Its dreamer had read its mind, knowing Vee had expected the possible worst to happen to her friend. For its own sake, Vee hoped that Lucy had lived, fearing for its life.
“H-hopefully nothing too bad,” Vee replied, doing everything it could to keep the fear in its voice hidden. For a couple of seconds things went quiet, Dragon plugging in earbuds as she returned to watching videos. Then, Vee sniffed at the air. “I can smell nightmares in the distance. The school must be close, but there is something odd about the smell.”
“Odd?” Drew asked the doll, raising an eyebrow. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“I wouldn’t say wrong, but if they just defeat Deam it should be far stronger,” Vee explained, tilting its head to the side in confusion. “I can’t tell if that is worrying or relieving. Perhaps Deam went down rather easily.”
“Let's hope so,” Drew said, crossing his fingers.
Drew picked his pace up slightly, Dragon not noticing until she was already a fair bit behind. She quickly jogged back up next to her friend, eyes straying to the school not too far in the distance. There her face remained calmed, her heartbeat picked up a bit, worrying at what she might see. Melissa only said she needed help getting Lucy back to the dorm, but she had left out why. The fear of her friend being horribly injured was the very first thing to come to her mind, and it stayed the most persistent all the way up until Melissa and Lucy came into view.
Just as they reached the main school building, Dragon and Drew halted all movement. The latter let a sigh escape her, the smallest signs of a grin showcasing themselves. Drew simply looked on at shock, any snarky comment he could make fading away at the sight. Their worst fears had been avoided, but none had quite expected the sight that took place before them.
Sitting on a curb outside the school sat Melissa. A sleeping, tear-stained Lucy rests on her thighs, a look of worry on their face. The trans girl looked down at them, doing their best to keep smiling as they stroked Lucy’s form in comfort. Despite her body wanting so desperately to fall asleep, she refused the sandman’s call. It took her ten seconds to notice Dragon and Drew watching her.
“I… kind of need your help getting her back to the dorm,” Melissa stated, chuckling. “I would have carried her myself but I’m a twig.”
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“Of all the people to cry themselves to sleep, I certainly didn’t expect it to be her,” Drew stated, holding Lucy in his arms as they made their way back to Champlain College. “I actually don’t know if I’ve ever seen her cry, now that I think about it. Like we’ve all seen her upset or sad, but never to the point of tears.”
“Honestly I’m more shocked at the news of another Magral Knight here in Burlington,” Vee replied, having hopped from its dreamer’s shoulder to Drews to get a better look at Lucy. It looked at the pin on the French girl’s shirt, feeling more than a little upset. “Gonna have to talk to this Jay girl about giving someone other than my dreamer a–“
The doll froze up, not needing to look to see the glare that its dreamer was giving it. A very tired Melissa watched the interaction from the other side of Dragon, finding it odd but too sleepy to care. She saw Vee scooch a bit farther away from the otherkin, mouth-head turned so that it could “see” its dreamer. A small chuckle escaped the doll, the man it was perched on sighing in annoyance.
“I mean, what a fortunate turn of events. Lucy’s alive, a Magral Knight, and is now capable of keeping Bael from touching down on Earth,” Vee said, backtracking its earlier words for the sake of its life. “Still, I really wish that it was my dreamer that got given the pin. Nightmare bias, you know?”
“Is… the doll okay?” Melissa asked, one eyebrow raised. A yawn had escaped her mouth mid sentence, much to her displeasure.
“Yes, Vee is perfectly fine,” Dragon stated, her tone of voice making things feel like they were very clearly not fine. She smiled at her nightmare, her lips just high enough where it made said smile feel off. “In fact it had been nothing but hopeful while we were at UVM.”
“Y- y-yes, very helpful!” Vee replied in fear.
“Those two have been acting this way since we parted ways with you and Lucy on campus,” Drew explained. “Neither gave me a real answer when I asked, so it is probably best to just let them deal with it and hope the rest of us are fine.”
Melissa gave a nod and then looked at the girl he was carrying in his arms. Even if they had been wiped away, the trails that her tears had created were still fresh in her mind. The sound of them crying into her arms still pained her, and she knew that she should have been the one carrying them back. She had been the one who heard Lucy’s wants and worries, and if it was for the muscle she had lossed she probably could have done it. Perhaps Drew was right about her needing to work out more.
If it had been for anyone else Melissa knew she would have scoffed at letting the thought cross her mind.
“So this other Magral Knight, what were they like?” Dragon asked, tilting her head. “Considering you were all we had to go off of yesterday, I can’t imagine what a real one looks like.”
“So I’ve helped in shattering two nightmares and I’m not considered a real knight yet?” Melissa asked. Dragon, Drew, and Vee all nodded in response to her question, causing her expression to shift into disappointment. “Y’all are a tough crowd, you know that?”
“I mean, you did gain your powers by complete accident,” Vee reminded her.
“Not to mention haven’t had said powers for more than a day,” Drew continued on, Melissa giving him a deadpan look.
“However, keep up the good work and we might reassess our judgment,” Dragon explained with a smirk. “In all seriousness though, I am extremely curious. How does a senior Magral Knight act?”
Melissa’s disappointment morphs into a scowl as she recalls their meeting with Jay. “As far as first impressions go, I would say far more competent than myself but exceptionally immature.”
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For the first time that night Jay’s smile was authentic. She watched as Nicole’s parents hugged her, the young child having been awakened by her earlier so she could be brought home. Nicole’s mother was bordering on tears as she squeezed her daughter, and Nicole attempted to squeeze her back. Given how young she was, it didn’t exactly work out that well. Was worth a laugh from both the knight and the girl’s father, however.
She had switched out of her Magral Knight attire for the moment, wanting to appear more normal. That meant black jeans, a pink jacket with a hoodie filled with artificial fur, and a red neck warmer to keep her face from freezing off. She was confident the look made her seem more like any regular teenager and not like a character out of a fairy tale. Not that she minded looking like that, but it certainly didn’t fit the style of current day Earth.
“Thanks, Miss Wilde. We have no idea how she managed to get out and were extremely worried,” Nicole’s father told her.
Jay snorted at that, because of course he wouldn’t know; nightmares and dreams we’re smarter than to lead their target out the front door. He likely led her out her bedroom window, controlling natural dream energy to guide her down safely if she slept on the second floor. Jay had seen it done so, so many times before that the methods were rather predictable. Though there had been more than a few cases where she had seen one choose a less standard way of kidnapping their meal. Those were the ones she needed to be most careful of.
“Just making sure your family stays together,” Jay replied in a cheery, airheaded manner. She frowned for a moment. “I’m not the only one to be thanked for this, however. Had some help getting her kidnappers off her.”
“Then please give your friends our thanks,” Nicole’s mother said, her words causing Jay’s eyes to widen. “Have a good night, and stay warm on your way home.”
“Th-thanks you. Y-you stay warm too,” Jay replied, the door closing quickly in front of her. She stood in silence for a few seconds, eyes trailing up to the top of the house Nicole’s family lived in. “I guess, if I could make friends with anyone, it could be them. They likely won’t have to deal with grandpa at all.” She turned around and started walking down the steps as she contemplated what had been put before her. “They seemed college age. UVM if I was to take a guess. Higher attendance rating then Champlaim, that is for sure. The armored girl seemed pretty new, so I wonder where she got her pin from.”
She unzipped her jacket halfway and looked at the shirt underneath for a moment. She could see her knight’s pin sitting atop where her heart would be, and clutched it. Her expression fell into sorrow, looking away a gust of icy cold wind ripping through her. She shielded her face with one hand and zipped her jacket back up. Afterwards, she put her hood on and clutched it with both hands so the wind didn’t blow it off. Working on these cold January nights was always hell, and it would likely be best to find somewhere to stay inside for a couple minutes.
“Treasure your family kid,” She whispered, eyes flicking to Nicole’s place last time. “You’ll never know when the world sees it fit to take them away from you.”