Pan sat on the church steps. She felt the weight of her failures. She put her head in her hands. How many had it been?

This time, she had a full idea of what Brynn could do. Aside from the usual powers – healing, telekinesis, fire starting, and ice shaping – Brynn could use enhanced senses, track Pan, transform things into animals of light, and teleport. The only thing that served as a glimmer of hope was future Pan’s assurance that Brynn didn’t want to kill her. Pan needed to keep Brynn in that state of mind and to do that, Pan needed to stay calm. No matter how much she hated the woman.

Pan stood up and watched as Brynn teleported a short distance to the bottom of the church steps.

“I see you were expecting me.”

Pan didn’t answer.

Aria caught her breath and watched the pair of arcanes. Brynn, she couldn’t see. At least, not Brynn’s face or figure. Brynn lay beneath a flame of blue and red.

Pan did not. Pan surprised Aria. From around Pan, white faded, leaving a clear view to the young woman beneath. Pan had used a power, and it had created holes in her aura. Bits of that aura sparkled in threads of red and gold.

“Sotir?” Aria asked. “What’s going on?”

Sotir’s voice came dreamily. Out of the corner of her eye, Aria saw him in white.

He said, “I think Pan might win.”

“That’s good,” Gavain said.

Aria kept her eyes ahead, waited, and watched.

“You look grim, dear. Let me assure you that I have no intention to kill you. No, you and I are going to go on a little trip off-planet. That’s pretty much the only option you’ve left us.” Brynn raised her eyebrows. “Well, what do you have to say to that?”

“Need me for company?” Pan asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes. There aren’t many Scaldin off-planet, and those that are, will want nothing to do with me.” Brynn glared. “After the mess you’ve made of our lives, the least you can do is play along now.”

“Okay, come get me.” Pan spread her arms.

Brynn raised an eyebrow. “Do I have to carry you out of here like a baby?”

“No, you have to show me that you’re going to be a good companion. I hug you. You hug me…” Pan didn’t finish the sing song statement. She spread her arms wider. “I would like a hug. A hug to end all hugs.”

Brynn’s mouth turned down. “What are you up to?”

Pan almost hummed the rest of the song that she parodied. Instead, she asked, “You want to be my favorite mentor? Then, you have to do some of the things Chara does. You can do them, can’t you?”

Brynn huffed. She climbed the stairs, and she seemed to sing the song under her breath. “I may be a healer, but I’m still not as young as I used to be. Little reapers should come to big ones. Let’s remember that next time.” Despite her words, Brynn wrapped Pan in a warm hug. It started aggressive and faded to something more comfortable.

Slowly, Pan hugged Brynn. She hadn’t been touched in days, maybe a month. Pan didn’t want to, but she enjoyed it.

If she could just let it all go…but she couldn’t.

Pan stared over Brynn’s shoulder and wiggled her finger. Pan watched a portal open behind Brynn’s back. She pressed her lips together and prepared herself for the most gruesome act she’d ever undertaken. Pan moved the portal, till it served as window into Brynn’s back. Pan plunged her hand inside and grabbed hold of the nearest flesh.

Brynn pushed Pan, and Pan sailed away.

Pan kept her feet and slid along the church patio. She looked at her hand and found it smeared with blood and bits of muscle. On her face, Pan wore her distress.

“Pan!” Aria shouted.

Pan knew she’d heard it all before. She shook off her hand and stood straight. “You blame me for our ruined lives, but it’s all your fault.” Pan’s heart started to beat faster. “When you were young, it fell to you to figure out how to live among the Scaldin and other arcanes. You could have chosen to show them you weren’t like the reapers that came before. You did exactly the opposite.”

Brynn hunched over, probably healing, but Pan needed to say these words.

“If you did things right, we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be one of the only reapers left, and I sure wouldn’t...hate you. It’s not supposed to be my job to show the Scaldin that I’m not evil. It’s not my job to change their minds. It was yours.” Pan glared at her former mentor.

Brynn frowned. Pan thought she might have gotten through. It almost seemed she had. Then, Brynn’s face changed from unhappy and thoughtful to dangerous.

“We’re fighting to the death. Opening move is yours.” Brynn straightened.

Oops. So much for not making her angry.

Pan remembered the pitchfork and a good way to use it. She lifted it into the air and sent it streaming towards Brynn.

With a flick of her wrist, Brynn redirected it towards Pan.

Pan drew her portal. The pitchfork sailed through, and Brynn took it in the arm and flank.

Brynn growled and hunched, hit in the spot that she’d just healed. Fire flickered at her feet. Before Brynn’s fire came to life, Pan ran down the steps. As Brynn worked to free herself of the pitchfork, she startled to see Pan. Brynn’s fire snaked around in a ring, entrapping them both, but the fire stayed clear of the church.

“Isn’t this cozy?” Brynn remarked, pulling the pitchfork from her flank. She began to heal herself, and her fingers sent a slick of ice toward Pan.

Pan sidestepped, leaving through a quickly drawn portal. She brought herself to the sill of the church’s tall front window. Pan portaled to the altar and ran through the doorway.

She found the shards of the sarcophagus, swirled them off the floor, and formed herself a set of steps. Pan ran up the steps to the next windowsill. She didn’t relinquish control of the shards but instead pulled them up and created more steps along the church’s exterior. She didn’t have enough to reach the roof, so she kept spiraling the shards up. She built ahead and tore her work down behind to reuse materials in her climb. It took a lot of concentration, and Pan hoped that Brynn wouldn’t teleport to the roof.

When Pan made the roof, she found herself alone. She balanced on a gentle slope. Behind and below, she saw the garden. Ahead, the church's spire shot into the sky. On the other side of the spire, branches from the Mother Tree blossomed. Beyond that, rooftops dotted the horizon.

“Imagine my finding you up here. Not a bad idea,” Brynn congratulated. “Let’s see what you do with it.”

Brynn’s fire ran in a whip, straight for Pan.

Pan drew her portal, not to send the fire elsewhere, but to quench it. She sighted a small lake and traced a large portal above the fire. Water poured out and drenched the blaze.

“Good, but it does make it easier for me shape ice if I don’t have to draw water out of the air to do it.” Brynn froze the wet spot and added to it, mounting ice into a weapon.

Pan drew a portal around the growing ice tower. She bisected the creation, not bothering to give the portal a hard destination. She watched the ice fall in twain.

“How much can you really make use of portals and telekinesis in a fight?” Brynn asked. “You might win against law enforcement and military like this, but you won’t win against me or another arcane. Come on, Pan. Give it all you’ve got. I plan to kill you.” Brynn raised her hands and floated a thousand things from below.

Pan would have quipped some line back at Brynn. Maybe, something about how Brynn should just kill her already, but Pan didn’t have the time.

She ripped tiles from the roof and held them in the air. They were large, rust colored, and reflected the sun. Pan searched the sky for Brynn’s levitated things, and to her alarm, there were a lot. They sailed skyward.

Pan ran to the edge of the roof. She pulled her tiles along and clicked them into a stairway. The tiles hugged the church’s side, and Pan ran down. Now, she hid below Brynn’s eye level. She pulled tiles from behind and sent them ahead. Again, she created a walkway around the church, one Brynn couldn’t see.

Brynn’s levitated objects crashed against the church side. They sought Pan blindly.

Pan nudged the things below and above her path. She dodged them. All the while, she ran along her moving walkway and drew a portal on the ground below. She traced her finger around the church’s foundation.

“What in the world are you up to?” Brynn called. “These things aren’t just going to disappear once you dodge them.” Brynn kept the objects coming.

Pan sent a wheelbarrow up above her head and a shovel below her path. She nudged a potted plant and some loose stone work behind her and pushed an old bench askance.

Below Pan spotted Aria and the others, they must be wondering what she was up to as well. She wondered what Aria saw, but Pan had to ignore them. She felt the wind in her hair, the narrow misses from Brynn’s flying circus of things. Pan kept running.

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Brynn stayed on the rooftop, back on solid ground, feet planted firm on tiles. Pan had passed that section. She found herself near the Mother Tree, a place where the roof was nothing but branches.

Guessing at Pan’s location, Brynn started to reuse some items and sent them in larger groups.

Pan usurped control of a bench and sent it out and away. She grabbed a few other things and threw them into the Mother Tree. With its tight branches, the tree held the things fast. Pan rounded the halfway mark.

From out of sight, Brynn congratulated, “Well, this isn’t half bad. You have more precision with telekinesis than I realized, though I still doubt you could write your name with a telekinetic instrument. But, remember Pan, you need to get rid of all of the projectiles if you want to stop this attack.”

Brynn set the last things on fire, and Pan had to push them further afield to avoid the heat. The flaming wheelbarrow singed her legs, but finally, Pan completed her circuit.

The portal flashed into being around the church, and the church fell. Pan didn’t fall because she wasn’t on the church, but Brynn was. Brynn fell.

Pan drew herself a portal and found her way to the top of a new building. She watched the church fall from the sky, thousands of feet up. The Mother Tree’s roots stretched below the church, some shorn off. All of Brynn’s projectiles got left behind and littered the empty foundation.

Now, Brynn focused her telekinetic power on the church, and Pan watched it slow. Brynn didn’t teleport, and Pan guessed the power had limited range. Pan couldn’t let Brynn get away so easy, so she drew a new portal beneath the church. The church entered the portal, crashed into the lake, and sank.

Brynn just made it out. She teleported to the lake’s edge. She stood far from Pan’s position. Pan shielded her eyes and decided that the elder reaper seemed flustered.

But, not dead.

Pan growled. She traced a portal beneath the stunned Brynn and sent the woman hurtling through the sky again. Then, Pan picked up a slew of items from the ground and sent them towards Brynn. Brynn deflected each one and, once she fell close enough to the ground, she teleported to a rooftop.

Pan estimated that Brynn’s teleport power had a short range, only about two hundred feet. Pan sent a few more items at Brynn, daring the old reaper to come closer. These things, Brynn changed into animals of light, but Pan noted that Brynn only did it to items of a certain size. This power, too, had limits.

As Brynn teleported from rooftop to rooftop, Pan got ready.

A rooftop away, Brynn shouted, “If I didn’t know any better, Pan, I’d say you were trying to kill me.” Brynn didn’t jump the gap between the roofs. Instead, she laughed at her own joke. “Let this go, and let’s get off planet.”

“You said we were fighting to the death.”

Brynn smiled. “I changed my mind. You’ve rather impressed me.”

“I haven’t changed mine!”

Pan drew a portal beneath her own feet and dropped herself into the lake. She bet Brynn didn’t expect that.

Cold water swallowed Pan. She drifted a few feet, then kicked up. She swam towards the surface. She looked below, and to her surprise, she saw the church. The lake, it turned out, was not all that deep. Pan saw the Mother Tree underwater and took a moment to mourn it. She doubted it lived, but why not take it up anyway?

Pan had never levitated a church before. Keeping it in one piece would prove challenging, but she’d impressed Brynn. She could impress her more.

Pan pulled the entire church up. Bits of stone and rubble flaked away, but Pan kept most of the structure intact.

As the church rose to meet Pan, she stayed above it. The roof touched her feet, and Pan rode it up. She scooted towards the opening above the Mother Tree, and just as the church cleared the water, she slid inside, hiding among the uppermost branches.

Pan took a breath and kept the church going up. She pushed it over and plopped it on the ground. It landed lopsided but in one piece. Pan breathed hard. She couldn’t keep the church aloft any longer. So much for creating a kind of holy airship.

Footsteps sounded on the church’s rooftop. “What in the world are you doing now? I find it hard to believe this might be a mistake.”

Water drained around Pan, running down the tree branches in gushes and rivelets. Brynn could track her, and Brynn could enhance her senses. Brynn likely knew Pan’s direction, and Pan was wet, which meant ice could pose a devastating risk. Just as she predicted, ice spread over the top of the Mother Tree and shot snakes of frozen water down. They probed for Pan.

Pan avoided the spikes and, with telekinetic power, reached for them. She broke several from the whole and kept them under her power. Pan saw other items amid the branches, things that Pan had wrested from Brynn’s telekinetic storm. She swept those into her power too.

Pan aimed her entire array up. Then, she got a better idea. She heard Brynn’s feet close to the Mother Tree. Her former mentor walked on the ice. Why send projectiles through the ice, when Pan could give them a clear shot?

Pan sighted through the frozen leaves and inches of ice, just barely able to see out. She inched close and took the risk of catching frost in her hair. Pan drew a portal on the ice’s surface. She sent every one of her projectiles through and watched them rain down from the portal’s exit, a few feet in the sky.

Objects bumped and pounded the roof. Pan heard thumps and slices. A few of the projectiles even came through, and Pan whirled to see a shovel pierce the ice nearby.

Pan thought she heard Brynn grunt. She drew a portal, slipped through, and landed atop Brynn’s ice with a soft fall.

Brynn knelt, pierced by a dozen objects, including a trowel and a rake. “You still want to kill me. Fine.” Brynn’s eyes lost all friendliness.

Wind brushed Pan’s hair, and she looked at their surroundings. She saw no buildings, just sky. Brynn had levitated the church where Pan left off.

Brynn teleported, and the church fell. Pan had just enough time to portal to the lakeside. She leapt through, followed by stones, rubble, and dust.

Not far away, Brynn stood. She still carried some of the sharp implements in her person, but she seemed not to notice.

The air around Brynn wavered, and the setting started to change. Pan narrowed her eyes and watched a new place form behind Brynn. The barren land contrasted with the nature-filled city of Kallitech. As Pan watched, Brynn’s land bled outwards. Pan drew a portal and leapt away.

The changed landscape kept coming, and Pan recognized it. It was the work of a famous painter. Pan had shown the work to Brynn not long ago. Pan had tried to connect with the older woman, with a kind of desperation.

“Like it? I can take you anywhere. Just an illusion of course, but good luck using either of your powers in it. You need to be able to see your surroundings for telekinesis and portal making.” Brynn pulled a trowel from her arm, and her arm started to knit closed.

Pan’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t heal like that...yet.

She also couldn’t allow Brynn to take away all her weapons and escape routes. Pan continued to jump from location to location, eager to escape the illusion.

It followed, keeping pace. Soon, it would overtake her.

Pan knew she was in trouble. Her warning said not to let Brynn get angry, not to let Brynn resolve to kill her. She’d also warned herself not to let Brynn get too close, but Pan thought she might as well break the rules if it suited her.

Just out of Brynn’s view, Pan pulled a metal bar to her hand. It snapped into her palm, and Pan held it tight. She prayed she could take it into the illusion. As the world of the painting overtook her, Pan still grasped the bar. She tucked it against her side.

“Well, how do you like it?” Brynn asked, sweeping a hand around the painted world. “I remember you were so eager to show me this one. It’s not bad, but of course, I don’t love it as you do. You knew that though. You used to be so needy. You wanted my approval. I always wondered if you could tell I was a reaper. It made me guarded, but I do like you Pan. Last chance, should I kill you?”

Pan looked at the ground. She shook, not from fear but from anger. Brynn had let everything about their reaper-hood ruin their time together. Was it just Brynn’s relationship with Pan that suffered? Or, did Brynn hold everyone away?

Pan certainly had. She’d let all her relationships suffer, except for the one with Aria, and that was gone now. Pan hated to think she was like Brynn. Pan hated to think that Brynn could have just announced herself as reaper and changed the entire course of Pan’s life and all those that came between.

“Don’t kill me.” Pan kept her eyes on the ground.

“Alright. Then, we leave. Come on.” Brynn might have beckoned to Pan, but Pan didn’t look up to see. “Come on! I can teleport you if you touch me.”

“I’m scared to move. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.” Pan kept her metal bar concealed, feeling its uneven tip against the soft flesh of her flank.

Brynn sighed and approached. “The illusion will come down eventually, but we can’t wait too long. Your friends are still stalking us.” The sound of Brynn’s feet didn’t match the surroundings. Brynn’s tread shouldn’t ring like shoes on stone, but instead like shoes in dusty soil.

Brynn laid a hand on Pan’s arm, and Pan looked up.

“Mother Tree, you’re mad,” Brynn said, with some trepidation.

Pan wondered if Brynn meant angry or crazy. She felt a lot of both.

She released her bar and sent it into Brynn’s breast. Pan grabbed hold of the bar and twisted it, seeking Brynn’s heart.

Pan looked into Brynn’s eyes and said, “There is no way I’m going anywhere with you.”

Holes shot into the illusion, and it started to fizzle away. Whether Brynn’s injury played a role in the change, Pan didn’t know.

Pan pushed Brynn onto the ground, still stirring the metal stick. Brynn coughed, and Pan thought she saw blood at Brynn’s mouth. She stared at Brynn’s eyes and watched light go out.

“Pan!” Aria shouted.

Pan looked up to see Aria running. The men lagged behind, even Sotir.

Pan looked back at Brynn. She would know that emptiness anywhere. Brynn was…dead.

Pan held out her hands and saw blood on them. She stood. Her hands shook a little.

The sound of ships came over the air. Pan looked up.

As she brought her gaze back down, her eyes caught Aria’s. Aria stopped about fifteen feet away. Sotir and the other man still came.

Aria said nothing, but that didn’t matter because her eyes said it all. Open wide, so wide that Pan could see their clear blue even from a distance; Aria’s eyes held real shock.

Aria seems not to know me.

Pan looked down and saw a lot of blood. It painted her body. She felt Aria’s shock mirrored on her own face.

I don’t know me.

Sotir started to come around Aria. With a single finger, he beckoned. “Pan…”

Numb and still shaking a little, Pan turned. She looked at the horizon and drew herself a portal there. Once on the horizon, she looked back, only a moment. Then, she didn’t stop.

Aria stared at Pan’s escaping figure and Sotir’s back. She’d seen none of Pan’s regular aura – not the purple, nor the grey, not even the blue. Pan’s aura didn’t run with little red rivers of rage. All Aria saw was the yellow-white of fear. Through it, she saw blood.

“Where do you think she’ll go?” Aria asked.

“She’ll go farther than we can reach.” Sotir bowed his head. “I feel her fading from my sight. She’s getting too far away. I imagine, she’ll try to leave the planet.”

Above, ships sped for the site. Aria watched their white-grey forms descend from the sky, amid shadowed outlines of clouds.

“We’re going to be in some trouble.” Sotir also looked skyward.

Aria could see him well now. His subdued aura was a sheen of blue and grey.

Gavain finally caught up. From behind, Gavain grasped Aria’s shoulders. She recognized his comforting yellow and purple as it reached around her person.

“Let me do the talking,” Gavain warned. “Otherwise, the three of us could face punishment. You listen closely to my story and memorize it. It’s what we’ll stick to from now on.”

Sotir shook his head. “No. Let me take the blame. It’s my fault. And, I can recover from it. You can’t. Your job as an ambassador can be filled by many. My job as a seer can’t.”

Aria bowed her head. “I should take some blame.”

“No, Aria. Let me,” said Sotir.

Aria sat with a blanket around her. She didn’t understand why she needed the blanket but she accepted it. She waited on the back of a truck, and her legs dangled. Every one gave her a wide berth because she still stunk. No one wanted to be close, and for now, that suited Aria just fine.

She wondered where Pan had gotten to. She knew that for now, she couldn’t search for Pan. She had to stick to the story.

She’d followed Sotir’s lead. Aria had been naive but not malicious. Sotir claimed they would lose Pan if they didn’t go without Alban and the others. Aria took him at his word, but it turned out, Sotir just wanted to keep Pan from Alban’s cruel forms of restraint. Sotir failed to capture her, but he kept her from Alban. That was the story.

Sotir found himself in a heap of trouble, but he seemed confident he could come through it.

Gavain and Aria got away with reprimands, and in Gavain’s case, a period of probation. He had some work to do to fix things, which was both good and bad for Aria. It was good because Gavain couldn’t possibly find and marry another woman while he had to focus on his job. It was bad because Aria wanted the man she’d vested her interest in to have a good job. Aria didn’t get paid enough for the work she did.

Aria sighed. She seemed to get away with the least repercussions. She guessed it had to do with the way the older arcanes and navy officers viewed her. They saw a foolish, young woman, and Aria thought they might be right.

Though they all tried to convince Aria of Pan’s depravity, she would never let them replace her memories of the real Pan. She knew Pan was not the reaper they claimed her to be, and one day, Aria would prove it, with or without their permission.