Vignettes

The Forge

Ethan stretched his neck as he stood from the three-legged stool. The small of his back ached, the first sign that the adrenaline of the day was beginning to fade. To be fair, it had been an eventful one; a day full of shock and change. He set his brush onto the tray, careful to keep the bristles out of shimmering gold paint. Ethan had been in the forge and the paint shop for the past few hours, working on his disguise? Disguise didn’t feel like the right word.

Uniform? No, too formal. Most of the folks in Freedom City, at least the people on the news, called the clothes superheroes wore costumes, but the mass of shining metal on the rack was more like armor. “Superhero. I can’t believe this is happening.” Ethan picked up the welding mask as he spoke to himself.

Tommy’s excitement had kept the buzz going in Ethan, but being alone with his thoughts in the silent shop was causing him to sober up. How did this even happen? One moment, he was on the bus and the next he was moving things with his mind, like some kind of Jedi. No not like a Jedi, he could only move metal.

Ethan groaned and put the mask down. He grabbed his forest green duffle bag and started loading it with armor pieces. His thoughts drifted away to the conversation with his father that morning. Somehow that was only a few hours ago. His dad wouldn’t even let him switch his major, how would he react if he found out about the whole Crucible thing? Tommy said that he should have Ryleigh help him with his alter ego, but she’d just run and tell his dad. No. His parents and/or their spouses couldn’t find out yet.

There was also the matter of the others: Marshall, Glados, Ice Princess, possibly even the scary robot octopus. Were they like him? People caught up in whatever gave him his powers, or were they something else? Wait, did the octopus get super powers today too? How did that happen? Was there a sushi restaurant down on Yellow Brick Row with a busted aquarium? It didn’t matter, they all worked together to stop those rampaging lunatics, and that was… Well it was something.

Ethan didn’t know how to get a hold of any of them, but Tommy would probably have some ideas. Tommy was probably going to have a lot of ideas in general from now on. He lugged the heavy duffle up by the straps and looked around the shop one more time. His eyes rested for a moment on Raina’s most recent piece: a framed illustration of a supervillain. She looked unsettling with patchwork skin and a spooky wooden mask. Marionette was written on the frame. He wished he knew the inspiration for Raina’s style. He wished he knew a lot of things about Raina.

Ethan sighed and flicked the light switch off in the shop. He had to get back to Tommy and figure out their next move.

Sophie’s Choice

This wasn’t how it was supposed to feel.

Sophie pushed through the door of her Southside apartment and made her way to the liquor cabinet next to the fridge. She poured a double shot of whiskey with trembling hands and downed it. The warmth passed into her chest, mixing with the adrenaline so that she barely felt the drink. There was only one answer for that problem. Pouring another. She took her second double and dropped onto the red cushions of her loveseat.

The neon lights of a Boardwalk casino bathed the small living room in flashing red and gold. Usually she was used to it, but tonight those lights were vibrant. Everything was. From the ticking of the analog clock above the door to the clinking of ice in her shaking glass. She could even feel the nicotine stains that filled the building’s air on her skin. Fourteen years she had waited. And now it was finished. Adrian Eldritch was dead.

The man who had taken her life, twice, was no more. And yet, that cavernous hole in heart; the empty pit that threatened to swallow her every day was still there. Why was that? Sophie had done what she set out to do. She had fulfilled the vow she made to her sixteen year old self. How was that already fourteen years ago?

For some reason, she could only think of Fletch, the beautiful idiot she’d used in her plan. She wondered what his face had looked like behind the vault door when she laid her cards on the table. He had been sweet, if lacking a little finesse. Sophie couldn’t think about that. She knew this was going to happen when she selected him as her way into the Freedom League Dark.

If anyone was going to find where Adrian had hidden himself it was them. She didn’t want to hurt them, they were relatively innocent in all this. Fletch wasn’t even a magic-user for God’s sake. But she needed to get to Adrian.

Her thoughts drifted back through the years. An exercise she had perfected after clawing back from the dark place Adrian had placed her mind. He robbed her of her identity, tried to place her in a “perfect” world, while denying her who she was meant to be. Adrian decided that on his own, and he defined perfect. Giving her up to a suburban family in Emerald City, thinking that was the end of it. But the mind of a mage isn’t so easily broken. Especially the mind of a Master Mage.

That was Sophie’s destiny, not to grow up to be a doctor or lawyer or whatever passed for the American Dream now. She was supposed to replace Adrian, as Earth’s greatest sorceress. The parents Adrian gave her were good people, but they were normal people who wanted normal things. That was like Hell.

Sophie took another sip from the whiskey and walked over to the window. Across the way, she could make out Freedom City’s skyline, with Freedom Hall shining bright in the night sky. Every day she was bombarded with the news of superheroes battling supervillains across the world. For a while she couldn’t remember who she was, but each news report dug into her subconscious like an archeologist searching for hidden wonders. Eventually, pieces of herself began to surface.

It was a rush at first, feeling the taste of magic again. Keeping her abilities secret, in case Adrian had instructed her parents to tell him if she began to manifest again. That rush gave way to cold anger, and the pit in her heart. It was worse when Adrian “died” and Seven took his place.

Sophie snarled in disgust when she thought of Seven’s name. She wasn’t even strong enough to fight Una with four other heroes helping her. How did she get to stay Adrian’s apprentice? She was a decent enough mage, but Master Mage material? Not with a hundred years of training. Sophie was relieved when she died, not happy, but grateful that the Master Mage energy would once more be up for the taking. She was twenty then, and for the last ten years she wondered why the energy never came.

It wasn’t because she wasn’t strong enough. She practiced her magic every day, even created her own Cloak of Flight to replace the one Adrian took from her. Una must have done something to prevent a new Master Mage from being named. That was the only logical explanation. Or it went back to Adrian. Now that he was gone, maybe, just maybe the mantle would finally pass to her.

Sophie downed the rest of her drink and looked down at the glass. The triangular pattern in the crystal looked like arrowheads. Fletch again. Her body shivered as a tear slid down her cheek. She barely heard the glass slam into the wall before she turned to enter her bedroom, hoping the pit wouldn’t feel so empty when she awoke.

Something… Something… Mutants PC Preview

Flashdrive

Emery Harper is a technopath with the ability to talk to machines, use their senses, control them, and sometimes even reshape and convert them. Flashdrive is played by Orange.

This character concept was one of the more “out-there” examples, but since Orange was a veteran of Mutants & Masterminds, I didn’t worry too much about helping her conceptualize the character.

There will probably be some tweaks to the character sheet as Orange plays her, to refine the powers to work more the way that she wants them to. But we’re pretty happy with the first pass.

Neko Guardian

“So, Dad, I kind of want to play a Magical Girl. But one who is so tired of it. Can we do that?”

That’s how Blue introduced me to her concept for the game. And to be honest? I kind of loved it.

Neko Guardian has a fun concept – she’s a typical Magical Girl (like Sailor Moon) but one who hates all of the tropes associated with. Not with being a superhero – she’s fine with that part. But the activation phrase? The transformation sequence? The talking cat?

She is so over it.

The funny thing is that the character sheet itself is almost exactly taken out of the same Quickstart generator that we used for Finn. She’s just an Electrical Controller. But she doesn’t feel like anyone else’s electrical controller, and I’m here for it.

Possession

Green threw me for a loop. Her idea for a character came from an existing fan-created character based in the My Hero Academia world. No problem, right?

Wrong.

Possession’s powers were defined without game mechanics to support them, so I was forced to try to create a power in Mutants & Masterminds that fit for how she conceived of the ability. I’m not entirely certain I succeeded, but I think I came close enough for the one-shot. One thing that is difficult is that Afflictions in the comics usually just work, but in the game, they are often resisted. This can make it really hard to build a character around Mind Control or Webbing or any other common affliction.

Lost in Transit

“I thought you said this was going to be an easy job!” Minerva shouted at Liam over the cacophony of machine gun fire that dominated the night at the Titan City docks.

“Aye, ’twas supposed to be! Damn Ruskies musta got wind that me old crew was expecting a shipment tonight and decided ’twas theirs for the taking.” Liam said, glancing over the large crate that was providing the two of them cover. He jerked back quickly as a stray bullet tore through the top half, chewing on his cigar like a nervous tic. “Last time I trust James when he comes to me with a tip, boyo must be playing all sides of this to his own benefit. Whatever’s in that shipping container must be really important.”

Minerva shook her head. “It’s not what, it’s who, Liam. The Kelly Gang and the Russians have been escalating their little arms race lately, using their contacts in Europe to ‘help’ monsters make their way to Titan City, promising a better life, only to enslave them when they get here for their own purposes. Every shipment of these we stop helps those just looking for that better life.”

Liam adjusted the lapels of his suit, then gave her a knowing grin. “Aye, and that’s just what we’re gonna give ’em, once we get ’em out of here.” He looked down at his Tommy Gun, then back to her. “The usual?”

Popping her head up to survey the scene at the docks one more time to take note of the gangs’ positions, Minerva turned her head towards him and nodded. “Long as you’re sure your luck will hold out.”

Liam gave her a short laugh. “Y’know better ‘en I that even if luck were to run out, we’d still need to get this done, and we would.” He reached down and hefted his Tommy Gun to his shoulder, then took a big drag on his cigar, exhaling the smoke out. It coalesced around him, wrapping him in a dark gray cloud that seemed somehow less permeable than it let on. “On three?”

Getting her hands under the bottom of the crate next to the one providing them cover, Minerva nodded back towards Liam, tensing her body as she readied to heave the box into the middle of the firefight.

“THREE!”

The crate launched effortlessly into the air, powered by Minerva’s inhuman strength. It reached its apex, smashing into the crane towering over the docks, raining debris down upon both gangs. They stopped firing, scattering towards cover from the aerial assault. Night fell mostly silent around the docks, the staccato of multitudes of firearms traded in for one, as Liam stepped out from behind the crate. He took another drag on his cigar and smiled wide, raking his Tommy Gun back and forth towards both his former allies and their rivals.

Smoke roiled around him, enshrouding his form in a nebulous aura. As the gangs recovered from their initial shock and found cover where they could, they turned their attention towards him. Once again the night was filled with the clamor of gun fire. Liam disappeared into the maelstrom of bullets that tore through the night, his Tommy Gun barking out rounds of deadly fire.

Minerva’s sprint had already begun across the docks before Liam started his assault, her course heading straight towards the gangs’ intended prize. She reached the container just as the mobs turned their attention towards his distraction. Noting the lock, she ripped it and the attached chain off, then swung the door open just enough for her to step inside. She could feel the humidity in the air and took a quick breath. The air was fetid, but not from rot or decay; moreso the press of unwashed bodies kept in close proximity to one another. “I’m not here to hurt you.” she said, the magic inside her translating her words to the native tongue of whoever had called this cage home for the last few months. “I need to turn on a light before I get you out of here. Don’t be alarmed.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small stone that flared to life, bathing the area in a dim, almost ghostly light. Various faces stared back at her; green, gold and red scaled, slit pupils in their large eyes, shying away from this human who’d just entered their midst, unsure how she could speak their tongue. They looked vaguely like Naga, except their coloration was more vibrant.

“I know you don’t have any reason to trust me,” Minerva said, addressing everyone inside the container “But I can get you out of here, to the life you all came here for. You might have been led here by a falsehood, but if you come with me my friends and I can get you somewhere safe, somewhere where the men outside can’t get to you.” Her voice was steady and firm, her posture confident and sure. With her persuasive nature on full display, she saw an older male look at her and nod curtly, accepting her words as truth. The others took notice of this and nodded towards her as well.

Smiling, she worked her way to the back of the crate, to the curiosity of those gathered. Reaching the back of the crate, she jabbed a hand into the metal and wrenched it back like a can opener, the metal screeching as it contorted out of shape. Stepping through, Minerva motioned for the rest to follow her, and pointed towards a boat loosely moored at the dock. “My friends are on that boat and will help you get out of here, get you somewhere safe. Go, quickly.”

The elder nodded to her. “Thank you for your kindness.” he said, his voice low and melodic, with a hint of a lisp from the long tongue that slipped from his lips as he pronounced the s. Motioning for the rest of the group to follow him, he then took off across the dock in the direction Minerva indicated.

Minerva kept watch as the refugees streamed out of the container and towards the boat. She saw Eric and Sarina pop out from their hiding spots as the first of the group made it; Sarina hurrying them onto the boat while Eric got the motor going. A cry from behind her caught her attention; she spun, seeing a male helping a female stand up after stumbling, almost falling. She seemed to be clutching a large bundle tightly to her chest, desperately trying to keep it from slipping out of her grasp but failing. Minerva rushed over to help, kneeling down to catch it before it could hit the ground. It was then she noticed it was an egg, bound in soft fabrics. The female glared at her, hate seeming to cloud her vision before the gold scales around her eyes softened. “Thank you.” she said, as the male finished pulling her up to her feet, before they both recoiled slightly.

The steel barrel of a pistol pressed into the back of Minerva’s head, causing her to freeze. “That doesn’t belong to you,” the figure at the other end of the pistol said. “None of ’em do. Now stand up, nice ‘en slow, and hand the egg over like a good lass.” Minerva stood, slowly, keeping the egg cradled to her chest. She looked at the couple, portraying confidence, before turning around towards her assailant.

The man looked to be in his late 20s and solidly built. The fedora on his head and the lack of much ambient light kept Minerva from seeing his eyes, but she saw the leering grin on his face. “Looks like the rumors were true; little vixen running around the city helping out the monsters. Hand over the egg, and the rest of our property, and I might be inclined to let you go.” he said, keeping the gun pointed at her head.

“I highly doubt your boss would approve of that.” Minerva said, her eyes scanning the crates behind him, checking for Liam, but she only saw a couple of wounded Kelly Gang members making their way to their boss.

“Surely right, but as long as I get what the boss wants, he doesn’t need to know. Can’t have him knowing me and the boys weren’t able to protect his shipment from a couple would-be ‘heroes’.” The man sneered and looked back towards his men. “Now, the egg, and be quick about it. Then the boys and I take the rest of ’em, and you get to live. Any funny business, and, well, you don’t.”

Minerva sighed, forcing the air out of nonexistent lungs, and slowly made to hand the egg over. At that moment, she saw a cloud of smoke appear on one of the crates. “Craddoc, you bastard!” Liam shouted, firing his Tommy Gun at the feet of the three Kelly Gang members. As the gunman, Craddoc, Minerva assumed, turned to get a look at this new assailant, she quickly tucked the egg under her left arm and swung a haymaker with her right. Her fist connected with Craddoc’s jaw, the inhuman strength sending him flying backwards towards Liam’s location. The other Kelly Gang members ran for cover, leaving Minerva free to escape. She grabbed the female’s hand and took off, pulling the pair towards the boat.

As they reached the boat, Minerva handed the egg back to the female, who grasped it tightly. The male embraced her and the egg, then looked towards the boat. Sarina reached out a hand to help the pair onto the boat, then helped Minerva on, as she was looking back towards the firefight, which had died down considerably. “He’ll be along.” she said, before reaching out to hold Minerva’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Sure enough, a flare of a match soon caught Minerva’s eye, and Liam stepped out of the smoke, raising a new cigar to his lips. He eyed her with a look. “What, didn’t think I’d make it ou’ a that lil’ scrape?”

Minerva smiled and offered him her hand. “Didn’t doubt it for a second, Lucky Liam.”

Her footsteps echoed up the empty staircase as she made her way to the dance studios on the fifth floor of the building. She had a shoulder bag slung over one arm that held two pairs of shoes and socks that came to her mid calf. The lights were dim in the staircase, as befit the fact that she was technically here long after the building was closed. But it was part of the campus of NYU in the City That Never Sleeps, so as far as Kennedy was concerned they really should have been prepared for someone to use the studios at 3 a.m. Not that the dim light bothered her.

Even though she was inside she could feel the moon high in the autumn sky outside. It was nearly full but not quite, pregnant with anticipation and the promise of what was to come. Her moon sign, her auspice, the Galliard moon, and she could feel its song beating in her heart.

That was why she was here. It had been months since Fya had left, and while her ID had let Kennedy into the buildings for a short time afterwards, once tuition stopped being paid, the ID no longer allowed Kennedy access to the studios. It had been months since she had been able to get access to a proper dance floor – and with how busy the Pack had been, it hadn’t even been like there had been time to regret not dancing.

But they were back in the City, back from the deep Umbra, and whatever terrors the Wyrm had to throw at them were still distant. There was only so much time you could spend in preparation and study. With the Galliard moon high in the sky, she had to dance.

Fortunately the only locks between her and the studio space were mechanical, and no match for a well-placed claw. Shifting just enough for claws to appear on a single hand was still novel to her, but while her jacket was dedicated to stay with her while transforming, a full shift into Crinos would have destroyed the shorts and sports bra she currently wore beneath the black leather coat.

Her wandering mind kept her occupied until she realized she was in the studio. The mirrored walls, the bars along the edge of the room, and most importantly the floor and the soundproofed walls, the window showing the moon outside, high in the sky.

Tossing her jacket to the side she closed the door, and pulled out her iPhone, plugged it into the speaker system built into the room, and blasted her warm-up music.

Over a dozen years of training and habit made her feel wrong not stretching before she started to dance, so dutifully she went through her stretches. Calf-raises, lunges, seated stretches, the routine was automatic to her. As natural as breathing. Of course, now that she was Garou, pulling a muscle was hardly a serious setback, and although she was outside of her “prime” dancing years at the advanced age of nineteen, she was in better shape than she had been even when she was expected to take the O16 championship at Worlds two years ago.

Feeling a slight sheen of sweat begin to coat her skin, Kennedy decided she was ready. She was agitated, full of passion, full of Rage. “Ye’ve got an unquiet mind, dove,” her teachers would tell her. And they were right. Sitting and waiting and talking was for others, it was never Kennedy’s style. Liam and Emily? They were the thinkers in her circle. She was like Brian, always ready to jump into a fight, even before her First Change.

Which is why she forced herself to lace up her soft shoes. With a selection on her phone, the gentle melodies of the slip jig began to come over the speakers. Taking her position, she forced herself to stand stick straight, hands locked down at her sides, feet turned out as she waited for her time to begin the dance.

There was passion in the slip jig, but it was a dance of being airy and controlled. “In that, it was like the Changelings,” she thought. Memories of Lord Devon Mayfair invaded her mind as she moved through the dance. Some of those memories were from her recent meeting with him in his new form, but she knew some were from her ancestor – the White Howler who he had enslaved in his previous existence, and who in turn earned her the right to wield the Klaive she now carried.

She hadn’t even realized that the song was over until she found herself bowing to the non-existent judges. “Stupid girl,” she thought to herself. “Letting yer mind wander like that. Focus on the damn dance.”

Kennedy looked around the empty studio. “Fuck it.” Trying to stay focused and do the dances to their proper forms was an exercise in futility. She wanted to punish the floor with her dance, she wanted to work herself into a state of sweaty exhaustion. It may have simply been Mother Luna calling to her through her Auspice sign, but with the passion she was bursting with and the way her mind kept drifting, she needed to either fight, fuck or dance herself into oblivion. The first two were irresponsible, no matter how tempting they might be. And the latter meant that the only dance that was going to satisfy her was a Treble Reel. Quickly she changed into her hard shoes, set her phone to play the Dropkick Murphys, and began to dance.

As her body moved through the studio, feet hammering into the floor in complex rhythms and patterns, Kennedy let herself go. Her form was perfect, every step hitting the beat in perfect time. It was a prize-winning performance, although no one was there to see it. But as she lost herself in the dance, she lost herself in her memories too. Her body knew what to do, even as her mind went back to all that had happened over the past year. Fighting trolls and Black Spiral Dancers. Nearly dying at the hands of a damn leech who drained her blood at a distance using magic. Watching her friends fight and nearly die battling an impossible creature that warped reality. None of her pack died that night from the Nexus Crawler, although there were scars earned that night, but she had to watch as Lishta sacrificed herself.

Why? Why would she do that? They had barely known each other, but there was something about the Dancer Galliard that had called to her. Maybe it was the ties in blood from Kennedy’s own White Howler ancestry. Maybe it was just an attraction to her lithe form and dark hair. But there might have been something there, even though they were on different sides of this war. She’d never know, because Lishta was dead.

Thoughts of Lishta led to thoughts of Fya. Her runner’s body, her short stature, the mischief in her eyes as she learned about the world they could explore together. She had left months ago, but Kennedy still thought of her. But of course she had left, everyone left. Or they died.

Everyone. It had been so long since she let herself remember, but the memories were there. The alley. Liam, Emily, Katie, Brian, and Bridget. They were young and invincible.

Kennedy’s thoughts swirled around her mind as her body whirled around the room, feet beating a stacato pattern that could be heard even over the punk rock music.

She told herself that she had blacked out. But that wasn’t the truth. She remembered everything. Every moment as Brian stepped forward to confront the five men. She watched as they tore Brian’s throat out, the blood splattering across the alley.

It was the splash of Brian’s blood on her skin, the scent of his death that triggered the change. Kennedy had been angry before, but that was the first time she felt her Rage. The change was as natural as breathing and the creature that killed her ex-boyfriend was no match for the nine-feet of angry muscle and blazing red fur that was on it in a second. The one that had done the killing was drunk on Brian’s blood, and never knew what killed him.

His friends, however, knew. Kennedy would never know if they had met a Garou before, but they knew enough to be afraid. They fought, but it barely mattered. The Galliard Moon had been high that night, and Kennedy was in a full on Frenzy as she tore through the leeches. She had howled with Rage and a newfound sense of freedom as she looked down on the bodies of her enemies at her feet.

And then… then the memory she had been suppressing for so long. Katie freaked out at the sight, and in a blind fury ran towards Kennedy, swinging her purse as some sort of stupid, ineffective, improvised weapon. The Beast that rode Kennedy in that moment only saw Katie as another threat, not knowing the long nights that Katie had practiced with Kennedy, the secrets they had whispered to each other, the first kiss they had shared when they were thirteen before Katie decided she didn’t like girls “that way.” The Beast remembered none of that, it only saw a threat, and it thrust a heavy clawed hand straight through the slender girl’s body.

Tears poured down Kennedy’s face as the memory came back, as she danced across the room. Four songs had played already, and she was exhausted, but she would not… she could not stop. She danced like that was the only thing left in her life, and maybe it was.

Liam and Emily tried to run, but the Beast only saw them as prey and it easily overtook them, tearing them apart with a powerful combination of tooth and claw.

But Bridget… the girl Kennedy had crushed on for over a year, the girl who Brian had left her for, causing her to be jealous not over her ex-boyfriend, but jealous of him for being with her… she simply cowered before the monster.

Perhaps… perhaps if that had not been Kennedy’s First Change… perhaps she might have recovered her senses.

Perhaps. But that was not what happened.

Kennedy howled a scream of pain and rage into the empty dance studio as her muscles gave out. She collapsed to the floor, exhausted, hurting, filled with impotent rage.

“When the fuck does it get easier?” she asked no one in particular, the empty studio surrounding her. “Is any of this worth it? The pain, the loss, the death?”

The moon shone its light on her. Giving her no answers. And Kennedy Donovan, known to her pack and the Garou as Blood-on-the-Dance-Floor simply collapsed to the floor, crying out her pain and sorrow. Later, perhaps even later that night or morning, she would again be a warrior for Gaia. A Galliard of the Fianna. A part of the Trail Mix pack. But in that moment, she was just a girl who had lost nearly everything she knew and loved.

“Live like there’s no tomorrow. Love like you’ve never been hurt. And dance like nobody’s watching.”

The din of Club Tartarus could barely be heard behind the heavy oak door that led to Minerva Vantner’s office; a heavy drumbeat accompanied by the amplified sounds of guitar strings being strummed, the vocalist almost screaming the song’s lyrics. Tonight’s lead singer was female, she could tell, though what future she came from that made her so angry, Minerva didn’t know. To tell the truth, she could feel some of herself, her old self at least, in the angry harmonics, yearning for something more than what she was given.

She sat behind her desk, her outbox full of papers and manila folders, the inbox much the same. Pictures of monsters living in Titan City poked out of some of them, offering a brief look at the work she had taken on. For now though, her eyes slipped back to the blank slip of paper in front of her, the ink pen set next to it. Through force of will, she huffed out a sigh, not actually needing the breath of air she’d taken to make it. Picking up the pen again, she began to write, fervently at first, almost in time with the drum beat coming from the club proper, the page filling up with ink made of emotions and memories. Suddenly she paused, the pen quivering in her fingers as though continuing would condemn her very soul to some horrific fate based on the words she had written if she finished her thoughts. In frustration she threw the pen across the room, the point sticking into the wooden door frame like a dart, and crumpled the paper into a ball inside her hands. Hands that were suddenly much larger and less human looking than before, the clay of her golem skin becoming more pronounced as she lost her temper. She tossed the wad over to her waste bin, and it bounced out as it landed on a mountain of other similar ink stained lumps of paper, her arms now trembling as she fought to regain control of her form.

A deft knock at the door and the slight rustling of the blinds on it were all the notice she got before Sarina stood in front of her desk, two drinks held in her right hand. She stared down at Minerva, her indigo eyes highlighted by the fierce makeup she wore this evening, a slight smirk on her ruby lips, hinting at the fangs concealed within. Her outfit accentuated her pale skin; an emerald green silk blouse with the top few buttons undone, a loose skinny black tie draped around the collar, the knot sitting just below her clavicle, and a pair of dark work slacks that clung tightly to her hips. “Eric thought you might need one of these,” she said, placing the drink on the desk in front of her, her hand brushing the envelope as she pulled it back, lifting her own drink to her lips with the other.

“I thought you were still working your shift,” Minerva said, eyeing the drink as she tried to will her arms and hands back into her preferred form.

“I am,” Sarina answered, her eyes never leaving Minerva’s. “Eric told me to take my break, then handed these to me and gestured up here. We haven’t seen you out among the patrons for days; I think he misses seeing you out there. I know I do.”

Again Minerva forced the air through non-existent lungs in a sigh. “I’m sorry, it’s just, we’ve had a lot of new people wanting to get registered within the city, monsters willing to live among the humans, or at least, to try to. I’m trying to do my best to help all of them get the best start. There’s enough fear and hatred out there that any help they get could be crucial to their well being.”

Sarina shook her head, her black curls gleaming purple in the office lights. “Dear heart, that’s not the only reason you’ve locked yourself up in here. You haven’t finished the letter to your family yet, have you?”

Her shoulders slumped reflexively, and Minerva reached for the drink, arms still shaking just a bit. “No, it’s been more… challenging than I thought.” She gestured at the waste bin with the hand holding her drink, then pulled it back and took a sip, wincing at the bite of it.

Making her way around the mahogany desk, Sarina put her hand over Minerva’s as she sat on the desktop. “I can see that. Anything I can help with?”

Minerva flipped her covered hand so she could hold hers, then gave it a squeeze. “I don’t know. I’m torn; how do I tell them I’m not really dead, that I’ve been alive, in a sense, since that night, just different from before? And is it right for me to do so now, after all this time has passed and they’ve moved on? They’ve dealt with their grief and feelings of loss, and been able to move forward with their lives. Would it be better to just let them believe what has been their reality, rather than selfishly pierce that veil?”

A loving smile graced Sarina’s lips as she squeezed Minerva’s hand back. “Dear heart, I think you’re allowed selfish desires from time to time. It’s what makes us human. Well, not human, but human? You know what I mean.” She glanced at the mountain of wadded up paper in the waste bin, and grabbed a fresh sheet from her desk before producing the ink pen Minerva had darted into the doorframe with a flourish. “I think what you need is to get your feelings out, to write down all the words you want to say to them, all the things you love and miss about them. Once you do, you’ll know whether or not it’s best to send this or just frame it to remind you of them. But not now. Now, you are accompanying me down to the floor before my break is over. It’s my turn to be selfish, and I would like a dance with you this evening. And I’m not taking no for an answer.” she said as she slid off the desk and onto Minerva’s lap, causing her to blush.

“I think that’s fair,” Minerva answered back, leaning in for a kiss before helping Sarina off her lap. “A little change of scenery might help me figure out just what it is I’m trying to say.”

Sarina led the way, opening the door and letting the sounds of Club Tartarus be heard a bit more clearly. The band had shifted away from their heavier tone of earlier, opting to instead play something a little more relaxed, a song not so much about loss but about love. And as the two women made their way down to the dance floor, the wad of paper last flung towards the waste bin was enveloped in a purple glow, and moved back down onto the desk, no wrinkles or creases to be found on it. In a dark corner booth, a man surrounded by historical figures touched the bridge of his sunglasses. “I believe you were very close with this, Minerva. Let’s give you a second look at it,” Mr. Powers thought to himself, before turning to answer a question of one of his guests.