Chapter Text
The bird was a pet again. That was good. Morrigan was so tired of monsters and being blamed for all things going wrong by dint of being a wundersmith.
The ghosts seemed happy too, they’d all given her an actual real round of applause for that when she’d got into her room right after washing off all the feathers, dirt, and wunder-bird thingy vomit (gross). She hoped that her half-way decent performance wouldn’t make Gavin Squires of the Beastly Division call on her again next time something bad and questionable happened, but who knew? Not her. She was too tired to know. Too bloody tired and exhausted.
The last few weeks had been too tiring. She’d trained for so long on how to reverse what had happened to the bird, to drain the Wunder like Griselda had taught her, syphon it off, so it would diminish on its own, which was less invasive apparently, and safer for everyone involved, according to Odbuoy.
She’d done it though, in record time, according to Gavin Squires, who was delighted , and told her if she wasn’t probably going to be off doing Wundersmith things in the future, that they’d be delighted to have her in the Beastly Division. She did not point out that if she hadn’t been a wundersmith, there would be no conceivable way she would have been able to actually do that.
Morrigan saw her future, for the time being, as spending nearly all of it in sub-nine. Maybe she’d find new Wundersmiths and she’d teach them like the ghostly hours had taught her, and the ghosts in these last few weeks. She liked that idea, of teaching and rebuilding the School of Wundrous Arts properly.
Jupiter had taken the haunting thing well. Sort of. Overall, considering the circumstances, he’d taken it well. Morrigan had spent several evenings in the Smoking Parlour in complete silence so he could talk to them since they followed her everywhere.
She took notes. She didn’t mind being silent for that, what they were talking about was so much more interesting than literally any single lecture she’d attended or seminar she’d partaken in at WunSoc. Her brain slightly hurt by the end, of course, and she’d definitely been writing down concepts and ideas without actually comprehending it for a while but it was fascinating even when she didn’t understand it.
He was really interested in the ghosts, and since some of them told him locations of where they’d created Wundrous things, the address of a spectacle or where to find a curiosity, he was already planning on some new trips out. Even promising to take Morrigan with him, as long as he’d checked they were safe first.
Her hand was prickling in that all too familiar way though now. Either Fen had introduced a very specific flea into her bedding that only targeted her un-imprinted finger or well… it wasn’t going to be un-imprinted for much longer. It was pressing through from inside her body, to finally be shown on the outside
And the ghosts… It was like they were connected. For as much as she could feel her imprint develop through her skin, they seemed… weaker. More transparent. She wanted to think she was seeing something but she had to accept it as it was. They were going now. They were leaving.
“We’ve done what we came here to do.” Odbuoy still looked sad. “Sorry. We’ll see you though. Sometime. Not too soon though,” he waggled a finger in her face on the last night she saw them, and it made her smile.
For the first time in a while, her room was empty when she woke up, her new imprint on her hand. Morrigan Crow was alone.
She didn’t cry. She wanted to though. But they were already dead. She’d been lucky to meet them again, but they’d been gone for years and years, a whole century at least before she’d even met them. And now she was back to being one of two wundersmiths left in the Unnamed Realm. And the other one was genuinely the worst .
It had been nice not to be the only one around. The pain of losing them wasn’t unbearable. She’d known it was going to happen the whole time. They weren’t going to hang around forever. That was frankly impossible from what she understood of wunder and souls.
It comforted her that, maybe one day, when she had a wundersmith student she’d taught the Arts to, they’d have this too. And she could see them again then. Perhaps. Discounting that Jack and Jupiter were Witnesses, the only person to see the ghosts was her. But wasn’t that why Squall had been staying away? To avoid them? She supposed she’d have to ask, and hope he felt like answering her questions.
She was truly angry with him this time. She was angry with him a lot, and she’d never trusted him, and he’d never liked her either. Which was good. She didn’t want him to like her. Sometimes he became more bearable, in their lessons. And she might be able to tuck the fact that he was an evil failed tyrant who’d murdered countless people for unreasonable things, including literal children , away into the back of her head, only to get her work done sooner so she could be rid of him as fast as possible.
But she did hate him here, in a far more settled and decided way. In a way that baked itself into her bones, and calcified her DNA. After this, she was never not going to despise the air Ezra Squall breathed, or feel ill with hate when she’d hear his name mentioned. It was downright impossible.
Squall was back when she went down to the Liminal Hall to make her last first pilgrimage. “Hello, Miss Crow-” he started, as if he hadn’t been gone this whole time, leaving her alone to figure this out herself. “How have you-”
“Fuck you. I have questions.”