The evening of the full moon had arrived. Jade had spent the whole day so highly strung she couldn't think productively, only sit on the balcony, staring unseeing at the mountain and bouncing her legs with the anticipation. Now she was back in her room to get ready. Not that there was much to do. Nothing to distract her.

They had a good plan, which she had gone over a thousand times, and everyone was completely on her side and wanted the best for her.

Still, Jade felt like she were waiting for her own execution.

But really, it was nothing like that, and she would know. She had actually had the experience of waiting for her own execution pretty recently. This time, her family was locking her up for the best and most loving reasons, and very temporarily. What she was really worried about was adding more death and despair to her list. She was worried for them.

They had a good plan, which she had gone over a thousand times...

What if it didn't work?

Well, then assuming it didn't, then how did it fail? Jade couldn't think of anything that didn't just arbitrarily break some rule, but she also didn't have all the information. She didn't even know what she looked like in that form, except by inference from the only other werewolf she had ever seen. What if she started with her current set of abilities and just cranked them to 11... The problem with that line of thought was that it covered all the ground between "no problem" and "Jade bursts out of the egg in a fiery explosion, and eats the whole lab in one bite." There wasn't any information in trying to conjure "the worst case scenario" when she was this ignorant to begin with.

This was silly. She'd be fine. Everyone would be fine.

Right?

The tension between the need to comfort herself and the need to foresee any problems had interfered in her mind all day, but it didn't matter anymore. It was time.


Almost everyone had left hours ago, according to plan. They had said their goodbyes, confident everything would work out. Jade wasn't worried about them. Distance worked.

Allen, her big green brother, as far as she was concerned now, knocked on her door at [4pm, on January 27th, 1992], to lead her to her execution. Oh stop it. He was here to walk her down. She told him to come in, and waved, and they exchanged a signed greeting.

Allen said, "Ready?" with his hands.

Jade, with nearly hysterical laughter and wide eyes, shook her head. Then she nodded and rose to follow him.

Allen was armored, and made a kind of slithering sound as he moved down the hallway. Slither-thud. Slither-thud. At Jade's request, Mary had crafted him some heavy plate armor, and then she had redesigned it to be much lighter to allow him full freedom of movement. The first iteration had made him look like a giant medieval knight, but in this version his body looked more like that of a futuristic robot, or a humanoid fish. The plates fit together like scales, and slid around as he moved. Jade and Allen had sparred a bit to test it, and Jade found it remarkable how well most blows glanced off at odd angles instead of connecting. Dorian had explained the theory, and Jade was impressed. She was comforted somewhat to see him in it as he walked with her.

They approached the hatch, and Allen opened it. As before, it felt like a very serious, industrial place, cold and foreboding. They strode quickly across the antechamber and into The Egg.

Tina was there, sitting cross-legged on the far side. She got up and came over to hug Jade. She had been doing that a lot today, whenever Jade needed it, and Jade needed it now. Tina was now Jade's favorite person in the world, like the sister and mother and best friend Jade had never had. To say that Jade was afraid for Tina would be an understatement. Jade was trembling from horrible thoughts, barely suppressed. Tina held her for a while, exuding warmth and comfort, and then she gave Jade a squeeze and they pulled apart.

"It's going to be ok. I will be fine, and Allen will be fine," Tina said simply, smiling. "I'll be with you the whole time. We'll do this together."

"Okay," Jade said shakily, and took some deep breaths. Allen had been standing quietly near the entrance, giving them space, but Jade held out her arms to him then, and he strode over and hugged her. Then she gave him a firm nod. He put a huge hand on the top of her head briefly, and then turned to leave.

Then she sat down on some cushions they had placed on the floor ahead of time. Jade wore just a bath robe, since there wasn't much sense in ruining more clothes than she needed to. She breathed, and Tina breathed with her, trying to keep the panic down as Allen activated the machinery that would seal the hatch into place over the entrance. He would not be able to unseal it by himself, but in preparation for an unlikely emergency, [Tina could herself physically reach the winch on the shore of the lake. The plan, however, was to wait until everyone returned.]

The sounds of clanking chains and gears were deafening in the enclosed space, and the hatch slid very slowly down over the entrance and then continued to slide for some time after it had reached the floor. Then there was a loud thud that Jade could feel as well as hear, and finally the most frightening sound of all: The sound of the pressure seal engaging. The weight and current of the lake now held the hatch in place, and no organic strength known could remove it. If you could do it, you could lift the lake itself. Even in her state of heightened paranoia, Jade didn't think she had quite that much strength, magical or otherwise, and the thought terrified her.

Now it was suddenly quiet, though not completely silent, as Jade slowly became aware. The sound of the water was discernible after some of the initial shock had worn off. And then of course there was the cow, which Jade had been trying to ignore. It was standing quite still at the far end of the enclosed space, hypnotized, or whatever Tina was able to do to lower animal minds. It still made small noises occasionally.

Tina knew, as she always did, that Jade didn't want to talk yet, but she put her hand on Jade's. They sat in silence for however long, just breathing deeply as Jade calmed her mind.

Part of what made this so awful was that Jade didn't know when it would happen. Nobody in her hometown had been particularly inclined after her first two transformations to volunteer any details. Jade had left plenty of buffer ahead of the most conservative hypothesis about what triggered it: moonrise. [Reveals geography, also may happen during the day, also you wanted to pick a date, so careful about this.] Today the moon would rise at [5:36pm], and set again 10 hours and 27 minutes later. Sunset would be about [two hours later than moonrise, at 7:43]. Tonight everyone was assigned to keep precise track of several variables, especially the timing and appearance of the moon, and they all hoped something clear would come out of that.

Jade's assignment was only to keep the panic down. She breathed in, and she breathed out. There was a clock in the hatch. [4:23pm].

Come on.


[4:53]. Jade and Tina started talking, about nothing at first, just as a distraction. They talked about the view of the mountain, and the smell of the trees. They talked about the feeling of running. Then they talked about the others, and their quirks, small and large. [Mary always smiled with a closed mouth to avoid unnerving everyone with her hundreds of tiny, razer-sharp fangs. Dorian hadn't wanted a lab, but fell asleep in the library every night, wherever he happened to be sitting. Mr. Norton did the shopping for the house as a blonde in a red dress. Tina herself found human males attractive, which is why she appeared as a human woman.] Funny gossip and girl talk. Jade laughed, but it was too loud in the silence, and the echos killed the mood.

The cow shuffled its hooves and then settled back into its stupor. Jade looked over at it, and then got up and walked close.

"Is it safe to touch?" Jade asked.

"Sure," Tina replied. "I've got her wrapped up."

Jade petted its head awkwardly, watched it for a moment; and then said, "I've never been this close to a cow."

"Never been to a petting zoo, or a farm?" asked Tina, already knowing the answer.

"No. Ironically, I was quite the shut-in before. Not an outdoor person, apart from a walk now and then."

"That's too bad. This might have felt more like camping, and less like being an egg yolk," Tina said.

Jade laughed, and was again rebuked by the echo off the walls. Still smiling, she said, "Yeah. I've had sleepovers before though, and so far this is kind of like that. With a few differences..."

Jade looked back at the cow. After a moment, she said, "They're kinda cute."

Tina replied, "Hard for me to see it, honestly, except through your eyes... so to speak. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner ends up just looking... tasty."

Jade giggled, but was getting nervous again. She did think the cow was cute. Ugly-cute. She loved steak, but it felt different when it was on four legs with a dumb look on its face. She didn't want to hurt the cow. She didn't want to hurt anything. The thought stung, and tears sprang into her eyes. She patted the cow's snout, and apologized. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what happens."

Jade looked over at the clock again, and felt a sudden jolt. [5:27]. Less than ten minutes, maybe. She hurried back over to the cushions and sat, reaching for Tina's hands. She held them tightly and waited with her eyes closed, hardly able to breathe.

Tina said, over and over, "It's going to be ok. Everything is going to be ok. I love you, and Allen loves you. We'll all be fine."

Eventually Jade relaxed and just listened to Tina's voice, speaking her litany of comfort. In any case, there was nothing anyone could do now. What would happen would happen. They had prepared, and now they would see. Everything is going to be ok. Everyone will be ok. We'll all be-

"Oh," Jade said aloud, and her head jerked up. She had suddenly become aware of the moon, right through the walls of the Egg, right through water and earth and trees and the rocks of the mountain... It was the most terrible thing she had ever felt, like an eye the size of a planet, staring her down. It was here for her, and she couldn't hide from it.

She felt fear, and shame, and self-loathing, and finally... rage - such exquisite rage. She tore at her own body and found she had long, sharp claws which cut deep past fur. She opened her mouth to scream and found she had fangs in place of teeth which slid past each other and locked back into place when she snapped her jaws shut again. She bit into her own arm, trying to maintain control, but the blood red rage filled her mind until there wasn't room for anything else.

Tina had felt the change in her even before Jade, withdrew her visible projection, and signaled Allen. His second duty was to observe the transformation and Jade's wolf form, since otherwise Tina could only see what Jade saw, and perhaps not even that, they had thought, if something about the transformation prevented it. So as Jade began to experience the physical effects, Allen observed through the diamond sheet that served as a window into the Egg. Allen and Tina watched as Jade's body transitioned slowly and painfully.

Jade screamed and screamed, and then the screams became yells, and then howls and snarling. Her face, torso, and limbs lengthened, her claws extended, and shaggy, dark brown fur sprouted all over her body. She grew at least four feet taller and three feet broader over several violent minutes, and then finally fell onto all fours, panting. She bore only passing resemblance to a natural wolf, with vaguely humanoid proportions, stretched and bulked and bent. The only remaining trait in common with her human form was the color and texture of her fur, which matched the plaits of her hair.

A long, rumbling growl came from deep in her chest. Tina released the primitive mind of the cow, and it became fully aware of Jade instantly and tried to bolt. That was when Tina and Allen had their first surprise, relative to their expectations: The cow was dead in a fraction of a second, rent nearly in half by the wolf's claws before they had even registered Jade's motion. The cushions she had been sitting on before had not yet landed back on the floor by the time she began to tear flesh from the cow with her teeth.

Tina told Allen to withdraw quietly. She could feel him preparing himself calmly for the possibility of a level of combat none of them had expected, as he slowly walked backwards away from the other side of the hatch. Then she turned her attention back to Jade.

She was surprised that it was Jade. Tina had expected the wolf to have an animal mind, but in fact Jade was still there, only... horribly distorted. It was as if Jade's human mind had been pulled and stretched as her body had been, the impulsiveness, frustration, apathy, and especially anger, that existed in every sentient mind Tina had ever felt, were unnaturally magnified in Jade's mind now, dwarfing the rest of her thoughts and feelings. But oh, poor girl! She wasn't only "still in there somewhere". She was still there entire, her unmagnified components in abject agony as the worst parts of her seized control.

It was painful to have someone that angry in her head. Tina walled it off reflexively, as she had trained herself to do, and used the time to observe and assess her mind while Jade devoured the cow. After the initial kill, she was taking her time with it.

Tina had incredible emotional control, built up over decades of involuntary exposure to every possible mental state. She wanted to soothe Jade directly, like she had been doing before the transformation, but held off for the moment. This was a psychological puzzle, and Tina had to approach it carefully. For the moment, Jade was safely occupied.

That itself was surprising, Tina thought. Jade had already eaten more of the cow than should be physically possible. They had thought the wolf needed to kill to satiate its bloodlust, but the overwhelming feeling of hunger was as strong as the rage, and she ate greedily as if she needed it. She ate the whole cow over an hour, and left nothing but blood.

Then Tina began her work of mercy. She began with an attempt to sooth the parts of Jade recoiling in panic and horror, even as the wolf savored its meal. Manipulating sentient beings was quite unlike manipulating lower animals: With lower animal minds Tina could take direct control like a puppeteer. With sentient minds, everything became much more metaphorical. Tina put a mental circle around the suffering Jade and drew her into arms of comfort. She hugged her tightly, stroked her hair, and kissed her head.

None of this was allowed to manifest physically, of course. At this point, Tina didn't want to aggravate the wolf, only comfort the suffering human along for the horrible ride, and it seemed to work. Jade still suffered even as she raged, but it was a sleepy kind of suffering. The poor little girl who remained might be able to wait out this horror stoically. That was something anyway. Perhaps Jade would be less scarred for it later. Not that this calmed the wolf in the present - Jade was now prowling around the Egg, growling. Then she charged the door.

This was generally safe, according to Mary. The door was a bit of a decoy from the rest of the Egg. It contained the light source and various doodads and gadgets, and unlike the rest of the Egg was an unpolished matte gray. But it was a layered composite of strong alloys, and the synthetic diamond of the window extended internally all the way to the edges of the hatch in a single shaped sheet. It would be easier by far to drill through the walls of the Egg than to attack the door.

Still, Tina decided now was the time to try direct intervention. If Jade's anger were reduced, perhaps she could regain conscious control. Tina brushed the anger, and then imagined it subsiding for lack of a target, dispersing like smoke without a fire to feed it. She packaged this bundle of suggestions and pushed it into Jade's mind.

And was instantly ejected. For a brief moment, Tina was alone in her cave under the lab, reeling from the shock of this unprecedented occurrence. No one and nothing had ever been able to block her before. There had been a time in Tina's life when she would have given anything to be alone, but that time was past and this was more than unwelcome. It didn't last, however. After a moment of un-silence like a ringing in the ears, Tina felt Allen again, and then Jade, and reached back out.

Jade had gone berserk in the interim. She was crashing against the door again and again, clawing and biting at the vents and crystal. She had already torn off and destroyed everything that could be removed from inside. Whatever had broken their connection, it must have set her off as well. Tina ignored this for the moment, and prepared to try again. She wasn't certain precisely what had triggered the apparently magical backlash, and she would have to figure that out in case her plan could still work. She had no choice, after all; This was a fight for her own life, as well as Jade's.

Perhaps if she were less heavy-handed. Reduce the anger, rather than dispel it completely. Tina imagined the same dissipation of rage, but gave it the quality of a meal eaten at the end of a hard day. That could be better anyway, since it might go unnoticed as a result of eating the cow. A light touch this time, and Tina made the suggestion.

After a feeling like a punch in the gut, Tina found herself alone in her cavern home again, with the same un-silence tinnitis in her mind, this time accompanied by a sharp headache. That was concerning. She had been more gentle, but felt worse than last time. There was no telling what effects the werewolf's magical defenses could have, but an increase in severity suggested that Tina would have only a limited number of opportunities for intervention. She would choose her battles very carefully from now on.

When she regained her sense of Jade, she was about to reach out again when Allen asked, "Tina, what's wrong?"

Surprised, Tina asked, "What do you mean?"

Allen said, "You were screaming, or something. It was... 'loud'. I couldn't think about anything else for a while. Twice now, I think. I'm still feeling off from it."

Tina was speechless. Then a nagging anxiety made her quickly check Jade's vision. She needed to see... The clock was gone. It had been one of the nonessential components attached to the hatch on the inside. There was also no clock in Tina's cave. She had never needed one before.

"Allen, what time is it?" Tina asked, but Allen was already approximately aware of the time, and before Allen looked over and responded, Tina knew it had been hours. They had lost [hours] without realizing it.

"Explain later," Tina said, a little panicked, and now gave Jade her full attention. What she saw as Jade prowled around the inside of the Egg frightened her. Jade had been stopped by the door, but left alone to her own devices for hours, it seemed she had been systematically testing the rest of her prison. The walls of the Egg were dirty and... scratched. And then Jade stopped walking and turned to the side opposite the door, and as she approached the wall she bent down and began working her long claws with both arms in a rhythm. In front of her, now clearly visible, there was an indentation surrounded by metal shavings. Jade was burrowing through the wall.

Every once in a while, the werewolf would pause and pace around in a wide circle. Perhaps Jade needed to heal her claws, or her ears. The reason for it wasn't in her conscious mind, so perhaps it was instinct. But after less than a minute she would be back at it, in the same spot, digging. The screeching of Jade's claws against the cast steel was deafening in the enclosed space, but it was clear to her and to Tina that she was making progress. There weren't nearly enough hours left before moonset to contain her at this rate.

"Jade is burrowing through the wall," Tina said to Allen. "I didn't realize the backlash against my interventions were causing us to lose time. If I can't find a way to slow or stop her, she will be out in maybe... three more hours?"

Allen absorbed this, then asked, "Should we run?"

"Yes. You should run. I can't though, and there's still a chance I can reach her."

Allen said simply, "I will stay."

The resolve and love behind those three words was overwhelming, and Tina couldn't argue. After a pause to collect herself, she hugged and kissed him, and then whispered, "Back to work for me then." They were on the clock.


Before, it had been a hypothetically life-or-death puzzle, but now there was a time limit, as well as a limit on how many moves she could make. Jade must be reachable, but how?

Tina thought hard. Perhaps she could introduce some confusion about the anger. When people notice that they don't really know why they're angry, sometimes it helps... It didn't feel right. What about the opposite? What if she pointed out many specific targets for Jade's anger, to force a battle on many fronts? That somehow seemed even worse. Or perhaps she could combat it with fatigue. It's always hard to hold onto anger when you're tired out, especially if the anger itself is what you're tired of exercising...

The problem with these ideas was they were too similar to what Tina had already tried. She would spin some fiction to reduce anger, and hope it affected Jade in the expected way. That should work, or at least it would likely help someone with emotions within normal bounds, but the difference with Jade right now wasn't only one of degree. There was some active magical defense that-

Tina wondered then whether the defenses were for her specifically, or rather, for her kind. That would be hard to explain, but it did seem unexpectedly targeted.

There was some kind of active magical defense that prevented Tina from trying anything normal for anger management. Sample size three, of course, including the successful attempt to comfort Jade's better side, but the latter two attempts were also the first two times Tina had ever experienced anything remotely like that, and she had no choice but to guess. She had to find something substantially different from what she had already tried, aiming to avoid the defenses.

What if she didn't affect the anger directly? What would leave the anger untouched, but still prevent Jade from killing them?

Perhaps mindfulness meditation? Tina almost laughed aloud. If mindfulness meditation saved their lives, she would have to get Norton to buy her some granola and candles. But maybe. The point of it was to make anger just another mental experience rather than the decisive impulse, so as to free Jade's higher mind to decide whether to act on it. That sounded great. How...? It was a skill, and Jade had never even heard of it. But what did that matter. It wasn't about sitting comfortably or breathing regularly; it was about noticing that you are not your emotions, that you are separate and distinct from them. The skill was in learning to get there and stay there. Tina had quelled Jade's conscious mind earlier to protect her from suffering, but maybe that had been the wrong move. What it she did the opposite?

Strengthen Jade for a mental battle with herself. So Jekyll-and-Hyde. Tina wondered for a moment when she had become cynical, and realized that it was coming from Jade, another unnaturally magnified component. Fine. This was Tina's genius. She separated it out in her own mind, and went back to thinking.

She would wake up Jade's intelligence and compassion, and help her to accept the anger without acting on it. Tina wasn't sure if she could communicate with Jade, but perhaps it would be enough to wake her all the way back up and help create the right framing on the problem. Tina could only hope that Jade would be able to regain control then. She began to brush at the corners of Jade's mind, like waking someone up with a gentle caress and soft words. "Jade, honey, wake up ok? We need your help. Don't be afraid."

Tina did not speak aloud, but let the texture of the words bring Jade back up to the surface. Still, it wasn't ultimately a gentle wake up. More like being gently awakened to find the house burning down around you. Jade's other mind was horrified and went back to screaming internally. Tina could see the flaw in her plan now: The rage wasn't an object to Jade as it was to Tina. It was the surrounding envelope, the very air Jade was breathing. For her to take control, she would have to see it as only one of many emotions, but for that to happen she would first need to see it at all, to step outside of it and see it as an object to be contemplated, instead of lenses through which she saw everything.

Tina thought. To run with the physical metaphor, she couldn't shrink it, she doubted she could move it... Whatever the werewolf curse had done to grow Jade's worst characteristics so grotesquely out of proportion, Tina didn't think she was remotely capable of producing a matching effect in Jade's other components... Ah, but she didn't have to. It was a matter of perspective, not reality, and Tina already had the necessary perspective. She would try to let Jade into her own mind, to lend her that perspective on her own rage.

"Come here dear. This is not something I do often, but there's something you need to see..." She imagined taking Jade's hand, and leading her inside the dark cave of her own mind.

For just a moment, Tina thought she had done it. Jade accepted the invitation, and in a perceptible flash of awareness, she could see her own anger. And then the anger came in too.

Unbearable pain. Tina was the wolf, and cursed anger, hatred, and conniving malice turned on the intruder, dove in, and attacked. Tina was also herself, and both perspectives were terrible. She shoved out reflexively, and the instant they connected her connection to Jade was broken.


Tina regained consciousness, with the most splitting headache. She could see she had had some kind of seizure, and the putrid contents of her stomach was everywhere. She felt tired like she had never felt before, and despite the danger, she lay still for minutes before even attempting to move. Slowly though, she regained her own spirit, as well as her own sense of self-preservation, and reached out for Allen. He was there, but whatever she had done while unconscious had knocked him out as well. She wondered if she should wake him. Yes. She brushed his mind, and then left him to get up on his own. She had to check on Jade immediately.

There was water in the Egg. It came up to Jade's knees when she stood, and was preventing her arms from swinging like before, but the monster persevered. She crouched in the water on the far side from the door and worked her claws in the gap.

Tina despaired. Her time was up; Jade was nearly out. Jade would unwittingly butcher her and Allen, and wake up hating herself. Jade had a good heart; she would isolate herself then, and die a little more every day. Allen... was here because of Tina... She began to cry. Thank goodness the others had gotten away. That was some comfort in her last hour. Tina's eight eyes dropped hot tears into the pool she occupied, deep in her cave under the lab, with a sound like light raindrops. She tuned out the world for a while, as much as she was able, and just cried.

But she had never been able to block it out completely, or ignore it for long. All minds nearby were present in her own, and she had lived through too much to lie down and die without every last effort. So she stood up out of the muck, and cast her mental web for the last time.

She was met with something remarkable. Jade had stopped digging at the hole. She started back up again almost immediately, but the reason for the pause was plain in her mind. Her compassion had turned on Tina, briefly, at the moment of her peak despair. Jade's compassion had been strong enough just then to introduce the choice.

Tina scrabbled frantically for it, and it responded to her call, but faintly, subconsciously, ineffectually. Emotions were such fickle things. Powerful, controlling, but fickle. It had not receded, it was still larger and more present than before, but now it was not enough to counteract the curse. Tina felt the full force of the irony that the causeof her hope was nullified by the hope itself. She couldn't manufacture that despair which had a moment ago racked her mind and body. She had hope now, and it was darkly amusing that if she didn't, she could perhaps be saved.

But her hope didn't fade. This was the breakthrough she needed. Jade did have a good heart. Compassion was at her core! The fires of her heart just needed stoking. With what? Tina had no time now to deliberate. Jade, can you feel my fear and love for Allen, our brother? Yes! You can!

Even as Jade kept digging, perhaps more slowly, Jade's human compassion nodded vigorously. She loved him too. And she loved Tina and wanted her to live. What could she do?

What a thought. Tina didn't know. Jade's compassion needed fuel, and guidance. What can you do, when you've become a monster, but wish you hadn't? When you want to make amends, but the monster is present with you still? When you've killed, and... may yet kill... What can you do for redemption, and forgiveness. Tina remembered, and it was her last idea. If this didn't do it, there would be no more chances. And yet, she almost felt that it would be a fitting end. Full circle, a beautiful, poetic end, if this couldn't reach Jade, of all things.

Tina was crying again. "Jade, my dear, here is my most precious possession. If I can't save us... perhaps Mary can." She opened her heart to the wolf one last time. This time, she accepted the burning rage, guiding it into her oldest and darkest memory.


Ma'rowey glided through the water like a falcon in flight, purposeful, focused, and swift. She had been traveling alone for days, killing and eating what she could find on the way. Her clan had received new information, the first such to appear in decades, longer than she had been alive: A fresh clue to Atlantis.

She, the most promising new zealot candidate of the Seekers, had been chosen to go alone, as the final rite in her initiation. She would observe and report from the site, in advance of a platoon of experienced warriors. They would conquer whatever obstacles stood in the way, and claim the prize, possibly the last league of their generations-long journey to the Lost City.

She was nineteen.

As she approached the location they had found not two weeks prior in a sunken ship (what blasphemy that surface dwellers had stolen such knowledge, but at least they had met an appropriate end), she followed her training with a perfection commensurate to her reputation, and became a silent, nearly invisible, predator. With the razor tips of her twin spears held just to each side of her eyes, she presented the lowest possible profile, and crept forward through the shadows.

A cave mouth, set into the side of an undersea mountain wall, rose up to meet the eager mermaid, and she approached with unflagging caution. It was huge, and she thrilled to be entering the heart of the mountain itself. Such scale and grandeur belonged to the stories she was steeped in growing up. She longed to be the one to find Atlantis, and how better than through a doorway the size of a village.

Movement ahead. She froze, and allowed her sharp eyes to adjust. She could just make out gigantic, organic shapes ahead, just over a crest of rock. Monsters. She steeled herself for the mission, and continued inching forward, little by little, so that hardly any creatures known were sufficiently sensitive to detect her, but when she finally peeked over the rocks, she was shocked to see that every eye in every horrible body was staring directly at her, from the far side of a broad underwater hall with a high, vaulted cave ceiling. At least ten giant, grotesque, slippery, oozing, water spiders, or close enough. They were shuffling around into a semicircle to protect something behind them, no doubt that which the merfolk sought.

She was disturbed at the sight of them, the most disgusting shapelessness evoking her worst nightmares, and at the feeling of eighty eyeballs, each the size of a boulder, staring right at her. But even as she watched them, she noticed something.

They were slow.

Ma'rowey was the fastest, deadliest creature of her size in the ocean, and these monsters were slow. This was an opportunity. Her mission was to gather intelligence and then brief the warriors in advance of their assault. But she too was a warrior, trained to their standards, and only lacking the ceremony and brand. And of course she was allowed to defend herself. What was the difference? The glory would be hers when the assault team arrived to find their job completed already by the jewel of their clan.

She selected a first target. Knowing nothing about these creatures, she still felt somehow that this one was old, and perhaps even slower than the rest. She tensed her muscles, cast aside stealth for agility and strength, and shot forward. She could almost feel their fear in her own mind, and it excited her. Giants of the undersea cavern, you should fear me. She struck at an eye, burying the spear a meter deep before wrenching it back out and darting away. It writhed in pain, but so deliciously slowly. Before it could mount any defense, or any of its horrible compatriots come to its aid, she struck again, and again, and again, and to her astonishment, it collapsed. Slow and weak!

A tentacle-like arm was nearly upon her from the adjacent animal, but she had seen it coming ages before it might have struck, and she whirled around, the side blades of her spear flashed, and severed the arm. Then she attacked that creature, and the next, and the next. The thrill of battle and the bloodlust fueled her until the end; until she floated alone in a circle of carnage, mountainous carcasses slain by her hand. She was exhausted, and elated, and... somehow mentally exhausted as well. It was hard to think straight now. She assumed it was a natural effect of the exertion and the glory of victory. She felt drunk with it. She had never even heard such a tale of the initiation as she had just enacted, and she knew she would go down in the history of her people for this.

Then she snapped her spears back up to full alert. Something else had moved, behind a rock nearby, almost against the back of the cave. She didn't approach, but swam slowly in a circle around the rock until she could see behind it. She stopped dead. There was... a mermaid there. No, a mermaid girl, sitting in the silt and crying.

Ma'rowey stared. Was this real? It seemed off somehow, but the stories of the previous locations of the Great Quest were always bizarre. Then the girl spoke.

"Please don't kill me," she sobbed. "Please don't kill me."

Without lowering her spears, Ma'rowey responded instinctively, "I won't hurt you. Were you captive of the monsters?"

The girl spoke slowly and thickly, through her tears. "Monsters... Not monsters. No monsters. You killed... mommy, and daddy... and uncle... and grandma and grandpa... and poppy and nana..." She dissolved into tears. As she spoke each name, Ma'rowey remembered the battle. She remembered it too vividly, and not from her own perspective. She became each of the hulking giants, too slow to defend herself against the beautiful and terrible angel of death. The expression on the angel's face... so happy to be committing murder after murder.

"You killed them all," said the little girl, now slumped against the rock. "Please don't kill me. I'll be good. I promise. I promise."

Ma'rowey was crying now herself, tiny bubbles rising from the corners of her eyes, though it was all wrong. She had saved the girl, hadn't she? She had bravely... won her freedom... But she was beginning to suspect something else had happened. "Who are you? Why do you call those monsters-"

"Not monsters!" the girl screamed. Then quietly, "We're not. We're nice." And she went back to sobbing.

Then Ma'rowey understood. Her stomach dropped. She resumed swimming in her wide arc until she could see all the way around behind the rock. In the shadows behind the pitiful mermaid girl, there was one last monster, tiny compared to the others, barely larger than the image of the girl. It was obviously in pain, curled up and lying on its side in the silt, like a parody of the girl's own pose. As soon as she saw it, Ma'rowey's spears snapped up again automatically, and then dropped to the ground. She followed them down. What had she done. What had she done?

She was a killer. She was a proud killer. It was the merfolk way. There were wars even between merfolk clans, and they were horrible, but also glorious. And yet, Ma'rowey had never felt such remorse. She had never seen herself like that before, nor felt the suffering of her prey... She had never been confronted with their loss...

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said, and meant it.

The creature and the girl looked up at her simultaneously, and, between sobs, the girl said, "I know. You didn't know."

So wrong. That was so wrong. Ma'rowey yelled, "Be angry! You should be angry. You should hate-" The little girl didn't say anything, or move, but Ma'rowey was suddenly overwhelmed with the jumble of thoughts and emotions emanating from her. Love for her parents and family, hate for their murderer, utter understanding of Ma'rowey... Her own personality and motivations reflected back at her in all their beauty and ugliness... And in the end, it didn't coalesce. The wretchedness and understanding coexisted, and though they informed one another, they failed to annihilate. The girl didn't hate her. Ma'rowey didn't understand. But no, she did. It was all there, in her mind now. She didn't want to understand. It wasn't how you were supposed to deal with... what she had done. It was moments after the murders! It was a thousand years too soon to be forgiven!

They stared at each other for minutes, hours, days, across the rapidly shrinking chasm of their cultures.

Then the girl said, "I have to. I can't know you and not. I'm sorry..."

"No, don't apologize. If nothing else, don't you apologize to me."

Then the girl smiled a little then, and "explained", in a gesture of the mind. She had learned the concept of apology from the mermaid, only just then. These creatures didn't need it. They knew already. They forgave because it's wrong to hate another who is you. There can be no enmity with such intimacy.

Ma'rowey was changed. How could she not be? She had seen herself in the harshest possible light of undeniable truth, and she didn't like what she saw. More to the point, she could see what atrocity she had committed, and what suffering she had caused. If the girl had really been a mermaid, she would owe her a life debt, ten times over. Her perspective even on that was different now, but she still knew she owed this girl everything. And what was better, from her new perspective, she wanted to give it.

She left the spears behind, unstrapped her other weapons, and swam naked over to the little girl, and then past her, to the creature. It... no, she, was small enough to be lifted, and Ma'rowey took her in her arms and rocked her.

She put her forehead against the slickness of her improbable new friend's skin, closed her eyes, and made promises to her.

And then she kept them.


Jade?

Tina rose back to the surface, from miles down in her own mind. Reliving the past.

Did you see?

I felt.

Tina wasn't coming back up as quickly as she normally would have. She was so tired. But eventually, she was enough herself again to notice that Allen was awake and alarmed, trying to reach her, and she brushed his lips with two fingers, and said only, "Wait."

Then she gathered her remaining strength, and checked Jade over. She was standing up, shoulder-deep in bloody, filthy water, and her mind seemed... certainly not normal. The anger was there, unchanged from before, and the hate, and hunger, and contempt, and cynicism, and apathy.

But Mary was there too, and Tina was there, acting as exemplary guides to the twin arts of compassion and forgiveness, and Jade leaned hard on their example as she stood outside the anger. She had options now, and she was choosing, again and again, to rehearse Tina's memory. Her control became more and more stable.

Tina, still very groggy and content to recuperate, didn't interfere for a long while. She was no longer afraid. In any case it was out of her control now. But when the water was nearly at Jade's eye-level, and Jade had to raise her snout to breathe, Tina decided on one last risk.

Tina spoke gently, aloud this time, "Jade, honey, I think you'd better finish your escape, just in case you can drown."

The werewolf nodded. She nodded! And then she put her head under the water, felt for the breach, reached her claws in, and wrenched it widely apart. As the water rushed in and she was washed out, Jade hugged herself and thought of Mary's forehead on Tina's skin, in all the complexity of that moment. She was angry, but there were better emotions, and better choices than hate suggested, when everything could be shared, and she was so well understood.

Jade closed her eyes as the current took her over the waterfall.


Awake.

Jade was being rocked, in a gentle rhythm. She enjoyed this on its own merits for a bit, and then opened her eyes. Allen was carrying her. He had removed the armor, and held her in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, as he walked with a rocking gait. He was rocking her like a baby as he walked, back and forth, back and forth, making far less forward progress than he could be. It was so nice. She closed her eyes again.

"Tina?" Jade asked, sleepily. Then with a jolt her eyes snapped open and she sat up in Allen's arms. "Tina?" she asked again more urgently. Then she noticed she had blood under her fingernails and in her hair. She looked up into Allen's eyes, and said, pleading and panicked, "Blood? Why am I covered in blood? And how am I outside?"

Allen didn't look concerned. Shifting so he could hold her with his left arm, he held his right hand up to his head in a fist, stuck out his thumb and pinky, and touched his thumb to the side of his head. Jade didn't know that sign, and said so. Allen kept his hand up like this, and said, out loud, "Moooooooo," and smiled broadly. Jade died with relief. Then she laughed.

Allen's demeanor was comforting, but Jade still asked, "Where's Tina?" Allen made an "Oh, of course" face, looked up, squinted, and pointed. Jade turned her head to look in that direction, and then realized that she didn't recognize anything nearby. Far off in the distance, she could see the waterfall, and the Eastern face of the lab. The rising sun shone orange off the windows, and the waterfall sparkled. It looked like a toy from here.

"We're out of range?" she asked.

Allen nodded.

"Ok." Jade paused, thinking, and then gave up on that. Allen and Tina were safe. That's all she had to know. She burrowed into Allen's chest and arms, and he continued to rock her.

After several minutes, Tina said, "Welcome back darling!"

"Tina! I am so glad to hear your voice!" Jade exclaimed.

"Likewise! Though it's a bit of a strain to talk at the moment. I'll explain later, ok?" Tina said.

"Yeah, of course." said Jade

"But really, it's amazing to hear your voice again, and to have you back whole," Tina said.

"Thanks," Jade replied, wondering what had happened.

"All in good time," said Tina, responding to the unspoken question.

When they finally arrived back at the lab, Allen put Jade in her shower, and turned to go, but Jade felt a little panicked at that. "Allen... could you just sit around the corner? I don't want to be alone." Allen nodded, and walked around the corner. Jade scrubbed the blood and filth off, and then just stood under the hot water for a while. She took a few stabs at absorbing the profundity of her situation, and then gave up again. Processing could come later. Right now, she would just sleep.

Jade dried off and got into pajamas, then went and hugged Allen. "Stick around until I fall asleep?" she asked. He nodded and smiled at her, then flicked her wet hair over her shoulder. It was endearing, for all that the gesture resembled a rolling pin narrowly missing her face. She crawled into bed and he tucked her in and sat down cross-legged on the floor. She was asleep in two minutes.

"Well, that went pretty well," said Tina.

Allen suppressed a laugh.