Milly finished the animal pen at the southeastern corner of the meadow as the sun rose high into the sky. Its stone walls were four feet high, and it was large enough to contain a small herd of goats.

“Of course, it’s not goats we’re going to raise,” Milly said aloud. She opened her inventory and, very carefully, withdrew one of the frozen Manifold Toads and placed it in the enclosure. As she waited for the toad to thaw, her thoughts drifted to what lay ahead.

It was the day of the trial. Her trial. Milly headed to the meadow at first light, careful to avoid any wayward eyes that might see her leave.

There will be enough drama today without rumors that the Witch of the Castle of Glass was trying to flee. Which, I guess, in a way, I am. But Elmer and Alison have a plan, and I’m not part of it. I would just get in the way.

The toad twitched its hind leg as it began to thaw. Milly readied ice magic in her palm in case it tried to attack. With the other hand, she used earth magic to churn the land beside the river to create a mud pit for the toads. It was slow work, and her mind drifted to this morning.

Milly had woken up next to Calista and her new daughter before the sun had crested over the eastern ocean. After Calista stirred, the little one still fast asleep between them, Milly had told her about Passi and the decision from last night. It had taken Calista a few minutes to overcome her astonishment, surprised at how quickly it had happened, but once she had recovered, the girlfriends had embraced and shed happy tears on each other’s shoulders. When Passi finally woke, the tears started anew, and they hugged each other as a family.

Calista, true to her word, was fully supportive of Milly’s decision and, though she was not ready yet to call herself a mother, she promised to protect the fairy child with all her strength.

Milly had been able to bask in the joy for a whole fifteen minutes, until Milly and Passiflora’s first mother-daughter fight broke out.

“I want you here, in our home,” Milly said, concerned for her daughter’s safety. “You can go back to the clinic to resume your lessons tomorrow. I don’t want you around Xavier. I don’t trust him.”

“I can handle myself. You can’t tell me what to do,” Passi countered.

“Well… I can, I guess. I’m your mom now. It’s my job to keep you safe,” Milly said, trying to sound firm but coming across uncertain. It was not a productive mix. “So… no, you can’t go. Not today.”

Passiflora had stomped off to her bedroom with all the fury that a human child would have possessed.

“I’d put her temper equivalent to… about nine-years-old, in human years,” Rain had diagnosed, trying to hold back her chuckles. “At least compared to my brothers. Passi is seven, by Twotongue’s estimation, but the fairies seem to mature slightly faster than humans.”

“Milly, you handled that… um… well, you’ll get the hang of it, beautiful,” Calista had added, though she, unlike Rain, had made no attempted to hide her laughter. “Being a mom is hard.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Milly said, and Calista and Rain’s laughter abruptly stopped. “I never had a mom. I have no idea what I am doing.”

“Mils,” Rain had comforted. “I think that makes you the same as every other mom out there. You’ll figure it out in time.”

The Manifold Toad shook the ice from its back, and Milly set aside the memory of the morning and resumed her vigil over the beast.

It shouldn’t be able to attack me in my meadow. I hope. It will either try to flee, or it’ll choose to stick around. If it’s the latter, we’ve got the beginnings of a monster farm. Rain’ll have all the ingredients she needs for her alchemy, especially if we can capture other kinds of rare monsters. This part of the God Contest could actually be fun. Assuming this works.

She could use a bit of fun right now. Xavier wasn’t the only reason she wanted Passi to stay home today. Alison and Elmer wanted Passi to testify at the trial this afternoon, but Milly let them know, in no uncertain terms, that would never happen. Milly wanted the fairy child to stay out of sight until everything calmed down.

My foster father’s trial destroyed me, and I never recovered. I won’t have Passi become damaged like I was. And I won’t let her become a pawn in the CEOs’ stupid game. I’d kill them all before I let them harm a single hair on her precious head.

Milly was so shocked by the thought that she missed the Manifold Toad shaking free of the last of the frost. It glanced up at her, gave a little toady shrug, and bounded over to the mud pit beside the river. Snatching an errant dragonfly from the air, it buried itself into the mud and decided this was its new home. It gave little thought to the strange witch beyond its protective stone wall.

Kill them? I threatened to kill Xavier last night too if he hurt Passi. What am I becoming? Is this who I am as a mother? As a girlfriend? Does having a family change me that much?

Milly left the question unanswered, worried she knew the answer.

Maybe Rain is right, and a guerrilla war will keep the CEOs at bay. This trial will tell us if she is. Or perhaps Calista is right, and we should just fight them and get it over with. I just don’t know. Which way will it play out? Perhaps we will always be at each other’s throats, and the God Contest will eliminate us one-by-one until no one is left.

Far down the valley, a tiny stone on a mountain peak dislodged in the winds. The tiny change to the landscape started an avalanche that crashed down the slope, careening through trees and shrubs and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Milly watched its resulting dust cloud rise into the air, until Calista’s telepathic update arrived.

“Honey, you there?”

“I’m here, Cally,” Milly responded. She glanced over at the enclosure and saw the Manifold Toad half buried in the mud, dragonfly wings sticking out of its broad, happy mouth. “Our little experiment worked. The Manifold Toad settled right in. No hostility. I’ll thaw the other ones this afternoon.”

“Excellent,” Rain chimed in telepathically. “I’ve got a ton of recipes I want to try out with that hallucinogenic excretion. It is a perfect base for some rarer psychiatric disorder medications a couple players have approached me about. Everyone’s pretty much out of their meds by now.”

“How are things on your end?” Milly asked anxiously.

Calista’s telepathic sigh rumbled in her head. “It’s as much a circus as a trial. Brass set up the judge’s panel on Shufflebottom’s stage. She’s wearing full on black judge’s robes and swings around that gavel of hers like she’s the most important person in the world. She keeps moving the chairs though, apparently dissatisfied with its ‘lack of grandiosity’, and she just sent Hana to fetch her ‘special chair’, which, apparently, is taller than the ones Billy and Lucy will sit on. She’s completely, utterly, batshit crazy, Milly.”

“It’s actually quite interesting to watch,” Rain chimed in with a laugh. “It makes you wonder how together the CEOs actually are. Stone is clearly irritated at Brass for her antics, and Shufflebottom just grabbed his guitar and marched down to the beach. I don’t think he’s planning to come back until it is over. He kept mumbling how the trial will mess up the ambiance of his stage.”

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“He might be the only one to miss seeing the trial,” Calista added. “There must be over six hundred people gathered on the beach to watch this farce. I saw Edna and Cynthia Carthage working the crowd, trying to get it riled up. Alison and Elmer have planted their own people in the crowd to do the same. I think this is the first time we’ve had this many people gathered together.”

“And everyone is there for me,” groaned Milly sarcastically. “Isn’t that just great. I’m so glad I could bring everyone together like this.”

“I know you’re anxious, honey,” Calista comforted. “You just stay in the meadow while we take care of this, okay? Tonight, after all this is over, I want to see the cabin you built for us this morning. We can grab little miss temper tantrum and spend a couple days out there and really make it our own. Passi can stuff her face full of berries, and Rain can start experimenting with that toad skin.”

“Toad excretion,” corrected Rain. “The toad skin is a different ingredient.”

“That’s what’s really important, my love. Our time together as a family. Not these mind games that Stone and Brass are putting us through,” Calista finished.

Milly smiled. “I’d like that, Cally. I think I need that.”

“Oh, we’re about to start. I’ve got to go. I love you, Milly.”

“I love you too, Cally. Rain, take care of her for me.”

“I always do,” Rain promised. “We’ll see you soon, Mils.”

Milly’s mind went silent.

A soft croak bubbled out from the mud.

“Alright, my new friend,” Milly said to the toad. “I’ve got my family. Let’s get yours thawed out.”

She looked towards the waterfall, where the system backdoor rested behind the waters. Her path to Luna.

“And then I have somewhere else I need to be.”

* * *

“Order! Order! I call this trial to order!” bellowed Judy Brass, as she sat a foot higher than Billy and Lucy in her special chair.

The crowd was so large that her voice was lost in the chatter before it reached the audience’s third row. Coworkers – from all factions – were talking excitedly amongst each other. Friends and coworkers had finally gathered after weeks apart, with tales of adventure and wonder to share.

“We should have brought everyone together sooner, outside of the funerals” Calista whispered to Rain as they observed the crowd. “We forget that most people don’t give a shit about what their bosses are up to. They never have. They just want to spend time with their friends.”

“Even in a death game, people are still people,” Rain reminded her. “They don’t get involved in politics. They just want to survive.”

“I said shut the hell up!” Brass commanded. She slammed her enchanted gavel on the table and the blow created a shockwave that boomed over the top of the crowd. The table splintered in half and collapsed.

Calista snorted, then erupted into a fit of laughter as Bill rolled his eyes, opened his inventory, and pulled out another table. Effortlessly carrying it over his head, he casually kicked the fragments of the first table off the stage and set the new table down with a mighty thump.

“There. Maybe don’t break this one, Judy,” Billy told Brass. She shot him a look of utter hatred, which Billy returned with a mocking air kiss.

“Perhaps we can get this started?” Lucy suggested impatiently, her eyes flickering back to her orchard. Alison had called in an old favor to get her to sit on the panel, but she wanted it over as soon as possible. Her apple orchard needed its daily dose of growth magic, and she was agonizingly close to level fifteen.

“Very well. This is the case of the People verses Milly Persephone Brown, also known as The Witch of the Castle of Glass,” Brass recited, the crowd now anxious in their silence. “She stands accused of viciously assaulting Edna Carthage, level seventeen, Cynthia Carthage, level seventeen, and Hana Hall, level one, three days ago, on this very beach. It was an unprovoked attack that put all of us at risk. This erratic and dangerous individual – this loose cannon – will be brought to justice here today. Does the accused stand ready to be judged before this Court?”

“As if she’d show up for this farce, Brass,” shouted Calista from the crowd. Rain hooted her agreement, and a spattering of Freelancers and friends joined her.

“Of course Ms. Brown would abscond from this trial. After all, that is what guilty people do,” Brass countered. In the crowd, Edna and Cynthia hissed and booed and prompted others to do the same.

The majority of those gathered on the beach stayed silent, undecided, and unwilling to risk the ire of either faction.

“This afternoon, you will hear from an array of witnesses who saw the accosting of these three fine individuals. You will hear from others who know Ms. Brown to be an uncontrollable menace. At the end of it all, we three judges will render our verdict, and the sentence we give shall be carried out. You will see us finally control this woman, so you, our valuable employees, no longer need to watch your backs for fear she will skewer it with her lightning or scorch it with her fire.”

“Only if she is found guilty, you old hag,” Elmer interrupted, as the leader of the Freelancers marched up the stairs to the stage. “And I know, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that she is not. She is a kind and generous soul, and we will prove that here today, once and for all.”

The Freelancers in the crowd cheered, and Elmer built on the momentum. He launched into his opening speech. “The Witch of the Castle of Glass? Of course I know her. You know her too, as you know her friends, Calista - The Huntress – and Rain – the Alchemist and proprietor of Rain On My Parade. Milly has healed you. She’s fed you. She’s protected you. For those of us who are fortunate enough to know her better than most, she is our savior, not our Satan. And many of us would not be here today if not for her.”

Elmer stopped to let his words sink into the silence of the crowd, giving each and every person time to digest his declaration.

“During those first days, while we were scared and huddled in our cubicles, on the verge of starvation, Milly was out there in the wilds, charting the course that would become the path for our survival. She was brave, but make no mistake, she was as scared are you were.”

Calista had never seen Elmer this passionate and eloquent. This was Elmer the lawyer – the former employee of Legal Eagles – in his element.

This afternoon, when so much was on the line, Elmer tapped into every ounce of skill he possessed – both legal and theatrical – to defend Milly and undermine the CEOs.

“Here it comes,” muttered Rain. “Time to call a spade a spade.”

“Milly was the poor girl that life abandoned. Like so many of you, she was trying to find her feet at Acicenter. She wanted a new life, filled with meaning and love, as we all do,” Elmer boomed out to the crowd. “But this socially awkward, lonely girl, dressed all in black, was an easy target for the CEOs’ political games. I was there that day in the lobby, when the CEOs were handing out our job assignments, as if their former positions at their companies still mattered in this new world. Do you remember that? Do you recall signing up for an assignment? Perhaps you can be forgiven for missing the small exchange that set in motion the very dynamics that brought us here today – a people fractured, seeking to punish an innocent girl.

Elmer drove the dagger home.

“Stone and Brass took one look at Milly – the strange girl who dared to be braver than any of us – and they saw an opportunity to turn her into an object of hate. And they succeeded, because you and I let them succeed.”

Elmer let his words rinse over the crowd, and waiting until the murmurs had died down before he finished his opening.

“That day, Stone and Brass cast Milly in the role of the demon. Not the scared girl she was, but an object for us to fear. And in that fear, they bound you to them – the all-powerful CEOs, who were the only ones who could save you from the Witch of the Castle of Glass and the horrors of this world. They declared Milly an ‘enemy of the tower’, and with innumerable whispers they solidified that narrative in your mind. They made you believe that Milly’s bravery was wrong. That it was something to dread. That her kindness should be met with suspicion and answered with hatred. This trial – this farce – isn’t about Milly. It’s nothing more than a continuation of their efforts to use her to control you. Because without that control, their dreams of superiority will crumble beneath them.”

Elmer turned and faced Brass, fire in his eyes.

“This trial isn’t about Milly. It’s about all of us. It’s about who we are after today. Will we be scared employees that allow ourselves to be manipulated by a few, or will we be players, and finally start thinking for ourselves?”

If Brass’ gavel hadn’t been magically enchanted, her furious grip would surely have snapped it in half.

“I stand with Milly because she embodies what we should all be. Strong. Brave. Honest, and true. So bring on this hearing, and let’s hear from the witnesses,” Elmer announced, turning back to the crowd. “And, by the end, you will stand with her too. Together – all of us, together – will give Milly the vindication she so rightfully deserves.”

Calista’s heart filled with pride for her girlfriend, and she wiped away a tear. She hadn’t realized how captivated she’d been by Elmer speech and, as she scanned the crowd, she wasn’t the only one. Those who had grown to know Milly cheered enthusiastically, and those who did not squirmed uncomfortably where they sat.

“You gave us this opportunity, you fuckers,” whispered Calista with determination. “Now watch us use it to take away the power you’ve so desperately used Milly to build.”

Billy smirked. “Well, Brass, that’s a hell of a start. I’m actually looking forward to this now. Why don’t you call your our witness?”

Brass stared daggers at her former employee and called Edna Carthage up to the stage.

Milly’s trial had begun.