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Chapter Text

“Garlands here!” 

“Ribbons! Come get your ribbons!” 

“Can I interest you in some wreaths for today’s festival, ladies?”  

Yor peered out the shop windows at the crowd of sun-drenched festivalgoers milling about the streets for the May Day celebration. So the Witch didn’t send a frost after all, she thought in relief as she locked up the shop and joined them. 

In spite of rumors that the Witch of Westalis was going to rain on their parade by sending a late-season frost, the morning of the May Day Festival had dawned bright and sunny.   

“But be careful,” Shopkeeper had warned her yesterday. “The Witch has been on a rampage ever since she was jilted by some powerful wizard last May Day. And the wizard himself is known to prey on young, unsuspecting women, especially on festival days like this.”  

Yor reassured him that neither the Witch nor Wizard would ever take an interest in someone like her. She was only going downtown to visit her brother, after all, so she wasn’t even partaking in the festivities.  

However, Yor had only made it a few blocks before she noticed something unusual about this year’s May Day festival: the plethora of soldiers scattered about the landscape of merrymakers.  

They must still be looking for that missing prince, Yor thought as she watched the uniformed men and women surveying the crowds. She had heard about how the prince from one of Ostania's neighboring kingdoms had been missing for a few weeks now, and unless he was found soon, the threat of war breaking out between the two countries was imminent. To that end, Yor was thankful that the soldiers were working so diligently to find him. 

And that was why she was surprised to find a few of the soldiers flirting with some of her former schoolmates instead. 

“Someone has been keeping in tip-top shape,” a bubbly voice cooed as she wrapped a hand around a soldier’s bicep. The soldier grinned and flexed his arm even further, earning a swoon from the freckled young woman.  

Millie, Yor identified. Millie had always been a hopeless romantic and was easily drawn in by a handsome face.  

“I think they’d look even better with a few of our ribbons tied to their uniform, don’t you?” added another voice, huskier than the first.  

“Camilla!” Millie chided. Then she dropped her voice so only Camilla could hear. “What would Dominic say if he saw you now?”  

“What?” Camilla said flippantly. “He isn’t here right now, is he? And who says he has to know?” She turned and batted her large doe eyes at one of the soldiers, earning her a flirtatious smirk.  

“Can you spare a smoke?” asked a raspy voice to one of the soldiers. It took Yor a moment to recognize that voice, changed as it was by years of chain smoking. Sharon, she realized. 

Sharon was the oldest of the trio and decidedly not interested in flirting. As a matter of fact, she didn’t look interested in anything except another cigarette. Well, she IS married now, Yor remembered.  

“Yeah, sure, ma’am. I can get one for you,” said the soldier, fumbling in his pockets for a pack of smokes.   

Sharon bristled at being called “ma’am” and accepted the cigarette without another word. The soldier looked embarrassed and was on the verge of apologizing when:  

“Yor, is that you?” Camilla asked, her squinting look turning into one of recognition.  

Eeep! Yor didn’t want them to see her like this! Not in her dowdy shop dress when they were all dressed up for May Day! Frantically, she looked left and right for an exit, but it was too late. Camilla had spotted her, and the group was headed her way.  

“So it is you! My, you haven’t changed a bit!” Millie said in a clucking tone, looking Yor up and down with a mixture of pity and distaste.  

“Still working in the same shop?” asked Sharon, barely looking at Yor as she lit her cigarette. When she finished, she turned to Yor and regarded her with all the interest she would give a decaying brick wall.  

“Y-yes,” Yor stammered, wishing she could disappear into one of the nearby shops. Why did she have to run into them today of all days?!  

“I don’t suppose you’ve found a man?” Camilla asked, sneering. “I mean, with your...unique personality, surely you’ve managed to land someone?”  

“I—” But before Yor could finish, Camilla interjected. 

“But don’t worry, Yor. We have plenty of attractive ones right here, don’t we?”  

“Like me!” piped up a large, burly soldier as he stepped forward and towered over Yor, causing her to shrink even further. 

“Oh, come on, stop scaring the poor girl,” said another soldier, the one who had given Sharon cigarettes.  

“She’s not scared. She’s just awestruck,” the burly soldier countered, waving off his comrade. “Admit it,” he said to Yor. “It’s not every day you get to lay eyes on the most handsome man you’ve ever seen,” he boasted, preening as he grinned at her. 

“Handsome?” Yor said.  

Whoops. She hadn’t meant it to sound like an insult, but it was already too late. The man’s face reddened. 

“Hey!” the soldier shouted, long trails of spittle flicking across Yor’s face. “I didn’t come here to—” 

“Steal another man’s girl?” a bright, baritone voice interjected. “I dearly hope not. I don’t take kindly to anyone trying to take her from me.”  

All heads swiveled to gaze in shock the man who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Wasn’t Yor standing by herself just a moment ago?  

However, that was not the only thing that caught their attention.  

True to the May Day celebrations, the man wore a loose, emerald-green jacket adorned with ribbons and billowing sleeves, but it was his air of self-assuredness and regality that made him stand out. His posture was impeccable, and everything about this man gave off a subtle aura of refined quality.  

The stranger had rested a hand on Yor’s shoulder, and even though it was only a light touch, Yor could feel such strong power emanating from it that her frame was vibrating just from its proximity. Normally, Yor would have struck anyone touching her so suddenly, but something about the energy he radiated served to reassure her.  

“And who are you?” the officer snapped.  

“Her sweetheart,” the man said, as casually as if it were true.  

Yor had been paralyzed until that moment, but at these words, she jerked her head up to stare at him in utter shock. That was when she finally got a good look at him, and she had to admit that this man, this one, was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. With classical features, eyes sparkling like sapphires, and a jawline that could cut glass, she didn’t think she had ever laid eyes on a man so beautiful.   

As a matter of fact, Yor was so stunned that she didn’t realize she was staring at his lips until she heard him say, “I’m sorry to pull you away from your charming friends, darling, but we really must be going. I still have that surprise for you and who knows when we'll get another sunny day like this one!”  

That shook Yor out of her daze. “Yes! Right! Um, please excuse us,” she said, bowing to the group. “It was nice to see everyone.” 

“Yeah, uh...y-you too,” Millie mumbled, practically drooling as she stared at Yor's sweetheart. It took Sharon ribbing her in the side before Millie pulled herself away. 

“Later,” Sharon said, giving them a mock salute.  

Camilla was the only one who didn’t say goodbye. Instead, she snatched up the arm of her soldier beau and stomped away, giving Yor one last snooty look before they disappeared into the crowd.  

Yor heaved a sigh of relief. She had never expected that to happen in her lifetime, but she was glad this kind stranger had swooped in to help her.  

“Thank y—” she began, but the words died in her throat when she realized how dazzling the stranger looked as he smiled down at her.  

Yor turned away quickly, pulling at her long hair to hide her face. “Thank you,” she mumbled, so quiet it was almost silent. “I appreciate your kindness, but I really must be going now.”  

“Where to?” asked her savior. “I’d be glad to escort you the rest of the way there.”  

Yor was about to say that she could go the rest of the way alone, but then she realized that she might run into the group again, and it would look strange for them to suddenly see her without her “sweetheart.”  

“I’m visiting my brother at the Ostanian embassy.”  

“Then let’s be on our way!” the stranger said merrily, grinning and leading her into the crowd. 

To Yor’s relief, he didn’t try to hold her hand or do anything to make her uncomfortable, but he stayed close by all the same.  

They hadn’t gone far, however, before Yor got the distinct feeling that they were being followed. Surely, her schoolmates had better things to do than follow her?  

However, a quick glance behind her revealed that it wasn’t Millie, Camilla, and Sharon. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even human.  

Yor was hard-pressed to describe it, but to her, the "things" following them looked like amorphous, purple shapes that melted in and out of the shadows as they tailed Yor and her escort. Not only that, but as they crept closer, the temperature dropped, and Yor found herself huddling closer to the stranger for warmth.  

Pretty soon, not even the bright sunshine did anything to dispel the creeping cold, and the next time Yor glanced back, the shapes were only a few blocks behind them.  

“You can see them, too?” the stranger asked, speaking to her in a low whisper.  

Yor nodded. “Can’t you?” 

“Yes,” he replied. Then he glanced at her sideways. “But most people can’t. This way,” he told her as they skirted the crowd and ducked down a side street.  

But their evasions appeared to be of no use. No matter how they expertly threaded their way through the streets or kept ahead of the creeping cold, the bruise-colored shapes only gained on them.  

“Who are they?” Yor asked in an anxious whisper.  

“Spies for the Witch,” he answered, looking around them for an exit. 

“The Witch of Westalis?!” Yor asked.  

“Shh, shh, not so loud,” he said gently. “But yes, that Witch.”  

“But what do they want with us?”  

“Well, the Witch has spies everywhere, but today...” he glanced behind him once more. The purple shapes seemed to wave at him. “It looks like she’s spying on me.” Then he ducked his head at Yor. “I’m sorry to get you involved,” he told her. 

To his surprise, Yor’s mouth set into a determined line. She may not know much, but one thing she knew was how to shake someone who was following her.  

Yor glanced sideways at the man next to her, sizing him up. She sighed. Normally, she hated revealing her strength or speed to anyone, but it was like they said, desperate times called for desperate measures.  

Besides, he had saved her earlier today. The least she could do was return the favor.  

“Hold on to your hat,” she told him.  

“Wha—”  

But before he could finish, Yor took a strange, glittering powder out of her dress pocket and threw it behind them. Smoke burst forth when the powder hit the ground, scattering the shapes.  

“Run!” she shouted as she snatched her companion’s hand and took off. 

“W-wait...I can't...run as f-fast as...y-you...” he rattled as Yor dragged him at breakneck speed through the narrow alleyways of Berlint’s backstreets.  

At one point, the man tripped, and the ground came rushing at him. 

But he never connected with it. Right before he made contact, Yor swung him up into her arms and carried him instead. 

“Wait! Watch out!” he shouted as they headed straight for a solid, three-meter wall. But Yor showed no signs of stopping as she hurtled headlong towards the dead end. “St-stop!” he cried, uselessly flailing in her arms.  

“It’s okay,” she told him as she tucked his head into her shoulder. “I got you.”  

Now only mere seconds from crashing into the wall, Yor suddenly veered left and leapt onto a nearby balcony, then onto a ledge higher up on the wall.  

Somehow, she was always able to find her footing as she hopped from one ledge to another. After a few more leaps, she reached the top of the wall where she continued her mad dash along the rooftops.  

There, she thought as she saw the rooftop of the embassy. Putting on one last burst of speed, she made a flying leap over several buildings before she landed on her feet at her destination, bending her knees to absorb the impact of their landing. She glanced behind her. “I think we lost them,” she told him at last. 

The blue-eyed man could only blink up at her. Did that just happen?  

But Yor wasn’t done yet. The man had barely drawn his next breath before she took him on a vertical leap straight down to the ground. If he had breath enough, he might have screamed, as unmanly as that might sound.  

Once on the ground, Yor unfolded the man from her arms and set him carefully on the ground. “I’m so sorry about that bumpy ride, sir, but it was the best I could do on short notice. If you’re not too disoriented, then straighten out your legs and start walking—”  

“Big Sis, you’re here!” a voice called out to Yor.  

The young woman wheeled around to see her brother waving at her from down the street. She waved back. “Yuri! I thought I’d come see you today!”  

Yor’s companion spoke up from behind her. “Go enjoy your visit with your brother. I’ll go make sure those spies can't trace you.”  

“But, sir, they could be dangerous!” she said anxiously. 

“It’s all right. Now that I know you’re safe, I can handle them on my own.” And with one last dashing smile thrown her way, the handsome stranger vanished. 

Chapter Text

“What?!” Yuri shouted, almost hysterical after Yor told him the story of what had happened on the way to the embassy. “That man could have been a stalker! Or an axe murderer! Or worse, a Westalian!” 

“I’m pretty sure he was an Ostanian soldier,” Yor said matter-of-factly. “He was dressed in Ostanian uniform.”  

“I’m not talking about the soldier who hit on you!” Yuri sputtered, appalled.  

(“Although I should find him and have him executed for that...” the diplomat mumbled to himself.) 

 Yuri shook his head. “I’m talking about the man who showed up out of nowhere! The one who said he was your sweetheart!”  

(I should have him captured and executed, too...Yuri added, making another mental note. How dare these men even LOOK at his sister, let alone try to flirt with her).  

Then he suddenly thought of something. “He didn’t even give you his name, did he? For all you know, he could have been Twilight!”  

“Twilight?” Yor asked.  

“Yes, Twilight,” Yuri grimaced, spitting out the name as if it were some nasty flavor lingering in his mouth. “That wizard everyone’s been whispering about! The one who’s been dodging the Witch!”  

“Ohhhh...him,” Yor said, nodding as if she already knew.  

She had heard about him briefly from Shopkeeper and the others at the herb shop where she worked, but it was nothing more than rumors about how he liked to prey on pretty, young women. Yor doubted the “Great Wizard Twilight” would even deign to look in her direction.  

“Well, even if he were Twilight, he was nothing but kind to me,” Yor said, feeling oddly defensive about a man she just met. “Besides, I don’t think he was Twilight at all. If the rumors are true, he only likes young women.” Yor shrugged. “I’m already 27.” (Which was getting on there in years, according to Ostanian standards.) 

“That’s still young!” Yuri said vehemently. “And if Twilight can’t see what a wonderful, gorgeous, perfect human being you are, then he’s blind and stupid!”  

I thought you were hoping he wouldn’t notice me? Yor reflected in amusement, but she decided not to voice that out loud.  

“Oh, Yuri, you always say such nice things about me,” Yor said sweetly, changing the subject. “But tell me, how has my dear brother been doing?” 

That evening, Yuri insisted on escorting Yor back to the shop just in case anything unwanted made its way across her path. Once they arrived, he warned her again about suspicious characters, and Yor assured him she would be careful. 

As soon as Yor was alone again, she breathed a sigh of relief. It had been an eventful day, and she looked forward to a long bath and a piping cup of tea before retiring to the room she rented upstairs.  

As a matter of fact, she was just about to head upstairs when the doorbell dinged, and someone stepped inside.  

Strange. I could have sworn I locked the door, Yor thought.  

But one look at the visitor instantly erased all thought from her mind.  

Standing before her was a most elegant, young woman. Graceful and fair and slim. Her smooth, silver hair shimmered like a curtain of starlight as it fell to cover half of her face, lending her a mysterious, ethereal allure. Her posture was ramrod-straight, and her limbs toned and slender. Yor thought her unusually pretty. 

Until she looked into her eyes.  

As dark and fathomless as the depths of the ocean, the woman’s eyes reminded Yor of galactic black holes, somehow powerful enough to suck the life out of everything around her. Her clothing gave off a similar impression, all bruised violet hues and strait-laced buttons. Everything about this woman gave her an air of tightly controlled perfection and cold dignity.  

“Yor Briar?” the woman said, her voice the epitome of icy elegance. 

“Yes?” Yor squeaked, stunned that this classy woman would know her name.  

But the woman wasn't even listening. She was wandering around the shop, scrutinizing the plants on display and scanning the labels written in Yor’s neat hand. Yor didn’t think it possible, but it almost looked like the herbs were withering under her frigid glare. 

After a moment of hesitation, Yor said, “I’m sorry, but our shop is closed today.”   

“Is that so?” the woman drawled, turning around in a slow circle as she inspected the layout of the shop. “Did my eyes deceive me then or did I see someone leave your shop a few moments ago? He looked too smartly dressed to be your...” here the woman looked Yor up and down with disdain. “Shop associate.” Her tone was neutral, but everything from her posture to her expression dripped with contempt and mockery. 

“That was my brother escorting me home, that’s all.”  

“Ah, that explains it,” the woman said curtly. “You see, I had doubts that young men would frequent a shop such as this one, especially considering all the antiquated...fixtures found here,” she finished, leveling a look at Yor that appeared very similar to the expression one might have upon finding feces on the bottom of their new shoes.  

Yor frowned. She had dealt with rude customers before, and she knew what to do with them. “We have a great variety of customers at this shop, actually, but unfortunately, the shop is still closed today so if you will kindly return some other day.” Yor was about to move past the woman to escort her out but was surprised to find that she was frozen in place. 

“There will be no need!” the woman snapped, her dark eyes blazing as she turned on Yor. “Especially not to deal with the likes of you! I’ve been watching you, Yor Briar, and I don’t care for your little damsel-in-distress act nor your feigned naivete. I’ve come to put an end to your manipulative vixen ways, and so I shall!” the woman screeched, stabbing an accusing finger in Yor’s direction.  

“W-what do you mean?” Yor croaked, her voice suddenly cracking from terror and bewilderment. Her hand flew to her throat, but she found that her fingers felt knobby and stiff, and her neck was sagging with leathery folds. “What’s...what’s happened?”  

“Hah!” the strange woman crowed triumphantly. “Now we’ll see how many people you can charm looking like that!”  

Yor hadn’t noticed before, but a wind had suddenly picked up inside of the shop and was blowing things about, causing the bottles of medicine to rattle violently on the shelves and the pots of herbs to swing wildly to and fro.  

But something else soon captured Yor’s attention. Her eyes had been watering from the force of the wind tossing things about, but once her vision cleared, she saw that the strange woman had spread her arms wide and that’s when she realized that the woman’s thick, purple coat wasn’t made of fabric, but of feathers. 

“You’re the Witch of Westalis!” Yor cried.  

“Yes, you insignificant, little weevil! And this will teach you to steal things that belong to me!”  

“But-but I don’t understand!” Yor shouted, trying to be heard above the cackling wind. Or was that the Witch cackling? “I didn’t take anything of yours!” 

“Then what was that conniving little act you put on earlier today? You really think you could have taken what’s mine with your mousy little, ‘please-save-me' act? Well, try it now, you vile, worthless worm! See if he still wants you!”

With one last laugh, she wrapped herself in a swirl of feathers and surged out the door, slamming it shut with all the finality of a death knell. 

Chapter Text

Yor stood in shock for quite a long time after that. So long, in fact, that it was hours later before she found herself moving again. By that point, the townspeople were setting off fireworks to close out the May Day celebrations, and their sparklers and flares were the only thing lighting up the little shop.  

Moving in stiff, hesitant spurts, Yor made her way over to the front counter and reached for the lantern on one of the lower shelves. It was difficult to bend down now, and her knees creaked with the effort.  

Once the lantern was lit, Yor closed the front door of the shop (no use locking it if it didn’t keep people out anyway) and struggled her way up a staircase that had always been an easy climb for her.  

When she finally made it to her room, Yor took a good look at herself in the mirror. “Well, at least your outside matches your inside now,” Yor chuckled, smiling in spite of herself. She had never noticed her own smile before, but now that her face was covered in thick, grooved wrinkles, smiling completely transformed her face from a sour, puckered expression to one of grandmotherly benevolence. This suits me better anyway, Yor decided.  

Hobbling over to the dilapidated armchair where she used to sit and read, Yor sank into it and went over her options. To be honest, she hadn’t many options so it didn’t take long.  

Yor knew she couldn’t stay working in the shop. It took quite some energy to even make her way up the stairs, let alone keep up with the stream of customers the shop had on a daily basis. Shopkeeper wouldn’t turn her out onto the street, but she didn't want to be a burden on him, either.  

Yor also decided that she didn’t want to go to Yuri. Mostly because she didn’t want him to see her like this. He would only worry. Or worse, he might get mad enough to go after the Witch herself and she couldn’t have the Witch turning him into an old man. At twenty years old, he was just a baby, after all, and he still had his whole life ahead of him. 

Oh, no, Yor thought, shaking her head. Surely not that.  

That only left one option: Yor would have to leave.  

Where would she go? She didn’t know yet, but she knew she couldn’t stay here.  

After packing a change of clothes and some personal items, Yor hobbled down to the kitchen and took a loaf of bread, a quarter-wheel of cheese, and, of course, her favorite snack: apples. She left a note for Shopkeeper and dropped a letter for Yuri in the post before she threw her bag over her shoulder and set out for...wherever she was going. 

Luckily, most of the townspeople were still celebrating May Day so the streets heading out of town were empty as Yor shuffled along, her bag bumping merrily on her little humpback. “At least you have a friend back there,” she said to her humpback, chuckling at her own awful pun. 

Yor had made it to the outskirts of town and was heading into the countryside beyond when she realized that she would move much better if she had something to lean on as she walked. Being old meant being worn out easily, she realized, on top of the fact that her knees creaked and her joints ached and her stooped posture wasn’t helping things. 

Coincidentally, it was at that exact moment Yor spotted something sticking out of a hedge. However, when she trundled towards it, she heard a whining noise coming from the hedge, too. Her first instinct was to turn away and look for a stick elsewhere, but the whining noise was so pitiful that ultimately, she decided to see what it was about.  

Approaching cautiously, Yor could make out patches of dirt-streaked fur in the branches, and based on the whining noises, she guessed that it might be a dog that was trapped in there. Normally, Yor didn’t like dogs, but something about her newfound old age bestowed on her a sympathy for pitiable, forgotten creatures like herself. 

“Oh, you poor thing,” Yor said to it. “You must have chased something into the bush and then got stuck somehow. Here, I’ll help you,” she said, kneeling. It felt strange stooping on creaky knees, and she was still not used to seeing withered old hands full of bruised-looking veins, but Yor didn’t let that stop her.  

Working steadily, Yor wiggled the stick this way and that before she found the right angle and, with one last heave, yanked the stick clear out of the ground. The dog then burst forth from the hedge and vigorously shook out his shaggy, white coat, glad to be free of the thorny branches.  

“There you are, free as a bird!” Yor said as the dog thumped its tail and rubbed against her legs happily. She petted it and then turned her attention to the stick.  

And that’s when she found that it wasn’t a stick at all, but a scarecrow. “Oh my!” Yor said as she pulled it upright. “You must have been trapped in the hedge as well! But don’t worry. I’ll put you to rights.” She looked around but didn’t see any crop fields where the scarecrow should have been standing. “Unless you were put here to trap the dog?” Yor wondered aloud. Then she shrugged. “In either case, I’ll put you upright at least. That way, your owner can find you more easily.”  

She plugged the scarecrow back into the ground and then stretched. “All that lifting really does one in, my friend!” she said to the scarecrow, who could only stare back at her. “Ah, if only you could come move and speak! You would have made a nice companion for...” Yor waved a hand vaguely towards the surrounding countryside. “Wherever it is I’m going.”  

Then she sighed. “Guess I’ll have to find a walking stick somewhere else.” 

To Yor’s surprise, the scarecrow suddenly leaned to one side, and something fell from its tattered sleeves, clattering to the ground.  

Yor jumped back, but the next time she looked, the scarecrow was upright again and looked like it hadn’t moved at all.  

“Goodness, I thought you had come to life!” she said breathlessly. But then she looked at the ground and found that the thing which had fallen out of the scarecrow’s sleeves was exactly what she had been looking for: a walking stick.  

It was a handsome one, too, polished mahogany with a curved beak for a handle.  

When Yor picked up the stick, she found that it fit her hand perfectly. Then she stared up at the scarecrow. Had this been inside him all along? Perhaps she was imagining things, but it was almost like the scarecrow was gifting this to her.  

“Well, maybe I’m starting to go a little batty, but if this is your way of thanking me, then I'll gladly accept it,” she said, bowing to the scarecrow. 

When Yor tried to straighten up, however, her stomach growled ferociously. “At least that part hasn’t changed,” Yor said, chuckling as she sat on a nearby rock and unwrapped her food. The dog, which had taken a liking to her, trotted up and stuck its head in her lap, sniffing at the food. As a young woman, Yor might have been frightened by the proximity of a giant dog, but as an old woman, she felt only pity for the poor thing. Like her, it was probably a lonely, forgotten creature.  

Yor offered it some food, but the dog only accepted the bread. It made a wrinkled face of disgust at the cheese and had no interest in the apples. And so she shared her meal with her new friend. The dog had only torn into half of the loaf of bread, however, when it suddenly perked up, its ears upright and its body shaking so hard that its long, white fur wobbled as it stood on end.  

“What is it, my friend?” asked Yor, but before she could get any answer from the dog, it gave a whining bark and then bolted, disappearing from her life as quickly as it had come.  

“Now what on earth could have...?” But pretty soon, Yor found out what had scared the poor dog. She noticed the ground rumbling and the wind thrashing about so she jumped to her feet. Or she tried to, but the ground made it quite unsteady. Almost falling over, she had to hold onto the walking stick to steady herself.  

And then it appeared, looming over the heather and brush, a giant, monstrous-looking castle bellowing smoke and grinding on its cinder blocks as it came towards Yor trembling on her little rock.  

The poor old woman could only stare up at it. Her legs were shaking too hard to run, and at this rate, the castle looked like it was about to crush her before she could move anyway. 

Finally, even though she was quaking, Yor didn’t know what else to do except to shout: “Stop!”  

She had thrown her hands up to cover her face, but after she waited a while to be obliterated by the tremendous moving stones of the castle, she found that the grinding, whirring sounds had ground to a halt.  

Finally daring to look up, Yor removed her hands and stared up at the imposing chateau.  

In front of her was the largest, grandest, and most striking castle she had ever seen, and then, to her utter surprise and horror, the castle spoke.  

“How did you do that?”  

Chapter Text

“What?” Yor asked dumbly, staring up at the gargantuan thing before her. Now that she was taking a good look at the castle, Yor could see how worn out it looked. The walls were made of battered, scarred stone, and the windows and ramparts looked like they had weathered quite a few storms. The roof appeared to be overlapping layers of rusted tin, and the giant, spiraling chimney belching black smoke looked like it had never been cleaned of its soot. The castle screeched and groaned as the rumbling blocks (its legs, Yor realized) settled down on the grassy heath. It was several moments after all the clanking and grinding stopped that Yor realized the castle was still speaking to her. 

“I said, how did you do that?” the tiny, high-pitched voice asked.  

Hold on. Tiny? High-pitched? That certainly didn’t sound like the voice of a monumental moving castle. It sounded like a...well, like a child.  

And indeed, it was. It took Yor a minute, but when her eyes had scoured the castle’s many crooked balconies a few times, she found that the voice had come from a round, pink face peering out at her from one of the battlements.  

“Me?” Yor asked in bewilderment, pointing to herself.

“Yes, you!” the child squealed. “How did you do that?” 

“Do what?” Yor asked.  

“You got the castle to stop!”  

But the roaring wind on the heath reared up just then, sending Yor’s skirts fluttering and scrambling the child’s words so much that all Yor heard was, “castle” and “stop.” The child’s next words were completely lost in the uproar.  

Then Yor found that the child’s next words weren’t directed at her, but at someone inside the castle. By the time her head popped back towards Yor, she was grinning widely. “Come on in! Scruffy says it’s okay!”  

Then, before Yor knew it, a fierce gale plucked her off the ground, whisked her inside of the castle, and plopped her into a white, egg-shaped chair.  

The small child had seated herself on a sofa nearby. A very unusual sofa. Its cushions were shaped like flat, colorful circles, and the child was so small that her feet didn’t touch the ground. Instead, she was swinging her legs to and fro as she sat across from Yor. 

“My goodness, where...where am I?” Yor asked, gripping her walking stick for support as she looked around. The inside of the castle was sparsely furnished. Aside from the egg-shaped chair and the colorful sofa, the only other chair in the “living room” was an angular armchair made out of black leather. Its sleek lines and steel frame made it look rather intimidating despite its minimalistic design.  

If Yor hadn't been plopped into the egg-shaped chair, she would have chosen to sit in the black armchair instead. Its simplistic, elegant design and dark colors suited her better.  

But an odd feeling came over her. Somehow, Yor sensed that the chair was meant for someone else. Perhaps this Scruffy character the child had mentioned.  

Speaking of which, where was Scruffy?  

Yor had assumed that Scruffy was either the child’s father or the master of the castle.  Or perhaps a guardsman? A steward? But looking around the small common area, no other person could be seen. Perhaps Scruffy was busy with something else so he had stepped into another room while Yor sat here...answering to a child.  

Still, Yor thought it odd that this Scruffy fellow would be agreeable with letting a complete stranger into the castle and then leaving the stranger alone with said child.  

In either case, she was glad to be out of the biting wind and into some shelter. With some luck, she might be able to worm her way into staying for the night. The thought of returning to the countryside in search of shelter did not appeal to her at all, especially now that she was old and got cold so easily.  

“So, erm, what's your name?” Yor asked, by way of making conversation. She also took this opportunity to take a closer look at this unusual girl. The child was adorable, with shoulder-length hair the color of cotton candy and giant emerald eyes. She had a wide, bright smile, and her hands and feet were so tiny that they were almost doll-like. The child was not dainty or delicate like any dolls Yor had ever seen, though. This one was all exuberance and energy, practically bouncing up and down in excitement as she spoke.  

“Name’s Anya! What’s your name, grandma?” 

Yor jolted backward, but then she realized she must have looked old enough to be the girl’s grandmother. At least she hadn’t called her “old lady.” 

“I’m...erm, Yor,” she said finally.  

“Okay, Miss Yor, glad to make your ack...ack...” The child turned to look into the fire crackling nearby, scrunching her face. Then she suddenly perked up, nodded, and turned back to Yor. “Ack-kway-tents,” she said proudly. 

Yor turned curiously to the fire but saw nothing unusual there. Maybe the child just had a habit of staring into the fire when she was trying to remember something.  

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance as well, Miss Anya,” Yor said, nodding to the child. 

“I’d make you tea, but I’m not allowed near hot things,” Anya said, by way of apology. 

“That’s quite all right,” Yor reassured her. Even though she now realized how thirsty she felt and how foolish she was to not bring any water, she didn't want to make the child feel bad. Besides, it was warm and cozy here inside the castle and Yor didn’t want to be kicked out just yet. Anya’s voice brought her back. 

“So, Miss Yor, how did you do that out there?” 

“Do...do what?” Yor asked nervously.  

“You got the castle to stop.” 

“I...I did?” 

“Yeah! No one’s ever been able to do that before except Papa!”  

“Oh, is...is your father here?” asked Yor, looking around. Perhaps Scruffy was her father, although she found it odd that she would call him “Scruffy” one moment and then “Papa” the next. Or maybe they weren’t the same person... 

“He’s busy,” Anya said, waving it off. “But how did you do it?” she asked again. Then she spied the walking stick and gasped. “You have a magic staff!”  

“Magic staff?” Then Yor saw where Anya’s eyes had wandered. “Oh no! This old thing? It’s a walking stick I found just a short moment ago.” (Although it felt like ages ago considering how sore Yor felt and how quickly the sun was sinking.) 

“Nah, that’s a magic staff if I ever saw one!” the girl said excitedly, bouncing up and down on the colorful couch.  

“I’m quite sure it isn’t,” Yor said, although not unkindly. “Besides, even if it were a magic staff, I couldn’t do magic with it anyway,” she added, somewhat sadly.  

“Are you sure about that?” Anya asked, and Yor was taken aback by the girl’s seriousness.  

“Y-yes,” Yor stammered. What was this girl seeing that she wasn’t seeing? 

Anya looked toward the fire again, then said to Yor, “Okay. Sorry to inter-rupture your day, ma’am.” The child hopped off the couch and looked like she was about to get the door for Yor. 

“Oh, um,” Yor began. "I...I need...” She suddenly felt very desperate indeed so the next words out of her mouth appeared to surprise her more than it did the child. “I need to speak to the owner of this castle!” she blurted breathlessly. She didn’t know why she had chosen those words exactly, but from what she could gather, a magical castle mostly likely had a magical owner so she decided to shoot her shot. 

“Papa?” Anya asked. “He won’t be back until tomorrow. Is there anything I can do for you?”  

“Erm, I’m afraid not. It must be him. I can wait for him, however; it’ll be no trouble.”  

The chair she was sitting on seemed to interpret that as Yor wanting to stay the night so with some gentle jostling, it slid her into a reclining position.  

I’m glad you’re on my side, Yor thought sleepily. Then, making a big show of yawning and curling up, she stuck her walking stick into the giant hole in the back of the chair and pretended to fall asleep. 

Yor must have actually fallen asleep because when she woke herself with her own snoring, it was already dark outside and she could make out the sound of low voices whispering about her in the background.

“I never found out how she got the castle to stop,” whispered Anya. 

“Who knows?” a nasally voice whispered back. “But that’s a powerful biddy if I ever saw one.”  

“So she is a witch!” Anya whispered-shouted.  

“Shh, shh, not so loud!” the other voice hissed back. “And no, she isn’t. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. It looks like her power is mostly untapped, but ooh-wee, what would I give to see it at full force!” 

“Do you think Papa will let me keep her?” Anya said, a childlike excitement creeping into her voice. 

“Anya, she’s not some stray animal that you can keep as a pet! This is a human being!”  

“But you said she has some magic powers in her.” 

“Yes, but she’s still human and you can’t just adopt her like you can with some stray.”  

“Well, I still wanna wait until Papa meets her.”  

“You know, your Papa might not like the fact that some stranger is sleeping in his parlor.”  

“But you let her in.” 

An irritated crackling sound popped from somewhere behind her, and Yor imagined the other person harrumphing. “She stopped the castle herself, and I only let her in because the chair appeared for her.”  

“You mean that funny-looking white chair?” 

“Yep, and you know what your father said about chairs appearing in the castle.” 

Yor heard the sound of rustling hair and deduced that Anya was nodding. Then the girl said, as if reciting a memorized mantra: “If ever a chair should appear, then its person belongs in here.”  

“That’s right, and we haven’t seen a chair appear since you arrived, kid.”  

Anya’s voice suddenly pitched higher. “Do you think she’s here to be my Mama?”  

The voice laughed, but it was a strange sizzling, spitting noise, as if he were a furnace laughing behind an iron grate. “Your grandma, maybe; she might be too old to be your Mama.”  

Yor thought about that a moment. Most other women would have scowled at such a comment, but Yor thought it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be Anya’s grandmother. Based on what Anya had said, the little girl didn’t have a mother, and it sounded like she wanted one.  

Yor was about to say that she would gladly volunteer to be Anya’s grandmother, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be “asleep.” 

It was just as well since the other voice told Anya that she herself should go to bed soon and Yor nodded off again not long after that. 

Chapter Text

When Yor woke later that night, Anya was gone, and the fire had died down to a small flame that emitted whistling, crackling sounds, almost as if it were snoring. 

Looking around, Yor spotted a stacked pyramid of firewood near the hearth. Stretching out an arthritic arm, she tossed a log onto the fire and was rewarded with bright orange sparks that bounced up the chimney. Tossing on another log, Yor drew back to watch as the fire leapt to life again. Settling back into her chair, she was about to drop off to sleep again when a small detail about the fire stopped her in her tracks.  

It had an odd shape. Instead of a round, flickering shape, it had a square shape and a giant mass of curly plumes, almost like...a face.  

“What a strange shape for a fire!” Yor said aloud, although her hoarse voice was barely louder than the crinkling sound of the flames. “You’ve got quite the square jawline, my friend. And large, round eyes. The curly flames must be your hair, and you’ve even got a bit of scruff on your chin!” she finished, chortling. She knew she sounded a little batty, but old people sometimes were, and she didn’t mind since no one else was around anyway. 

“It’s not nice to laugh at people’s appearances,” a voice said, and with a start, Yor realized that not only was the voice coming from the fire, but it was the same voice that was speaking to Anya earlier. Now she understood why Anya kept turning to look at the fire when she had trouble remembering something.  

Curious, Yor wanted to ask, “What are you?” but thought that sounded rude, so instead she asked: “Who are you?”  

“Franky,” the fire said, its scruff wobbling as it spoke. “The fire demon who runs the castle.”  

A fire demon! Yor had heard of demons, but she never knew they had specializations. She thought better than to voice that, though.  

“I thought Anya’s father ran this castle?” Yor asked. 

“He may be the owner of the castle, but I’m the one who keeps it going. Who do you think keeps it wandering over the moors?”  

“I hadn’t considered that,” Yor said. “I just thought it was magic.”  

“It IS magic,” Franky asserted. “It’s MY magic.”  

“Oh? Are you two...partners then?” she asked tentatively. The way Franky had said “MY magic” made it seem like Anya’s father was using him, but Yor knew better than to voice that as well.  

"That’s one way of putting it.” A little flame arm popped out from Franky’s side, and he used it to rub his scruff. It looked like he was studying her just as much as she was studying him, especially now that she was sitting closer to him and leaning in.  

“I’m Yor,” she said, partly to introduce herself and partly to distract Franky from studying her so intently. “I’m just an old woman. Nothing special.” 

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” Franky countered, waggling his flame eyebrows. “Not just anyone can stop a moving castle with only one command, especially not one controlled by a fire demon.”  

“You mean, you weren’t the one that stopped the castle for me?”  

Franky shook his head, the earth-colored flames wobbling as he did so. “And you’re not just an old woman. As a matter of fact, you haven’t been old for very long, have you?”  

Yor started. “What...what makes you say that?”  

“You’re under a spell, that’s why.”  

Yor bolted upright, almost throwing out her back with the speed at which it straightened. “You know! You can see it!”  

The fire demon nodded. “It’s a powerful spell, all right, but it looks like there’s several layers to it.” He lifted himself a few inches from the hearth and the tip of his nose wiggled, almost like he was sniffing the air. “The Witch of Westalis!" he gasped. "That’s her signature, all right. At least on the top layer.” 

“You know her then!”  

“No,” Franky said, shaking his head again. “But everything magical has a signature on it, although only some of us can sense it.”  

“Can you remove the spell?” Yor asked, trying not let hope creep into her voice. While she didn’t mind so much the looks of an old woman, she didn’t like the aches and pains and constant fatigue.  

“I can’t in this form,” Franky replied. “Most of my magic’s diverted to running the castle, but...”  

“But?” Yor prompted. The fire demon appeared to be thinking hard about something, his face set in deep lines as his flame hair flickered thoughtfully. At long last, he said, “But Twilight might be able to do it. He’s the most powerful wizard in these parts, after all.” 

“Yes,” Yor sighed, sitting back heavily in her chair. “I’ve heard.” She remembered Shopkeeper’s warning about Twilight, but she knew that she no longer had to worry about it. The lecherous wizard would have no interest in preying on someone like her, especially now that she was neither young nor pretty. However, the mere thought of having to go out and find Twilight exhausted her. Why couldn’t he just come to her instead? Was there a way to summon him? she wondered.  

Almost as if he read her mind, Franky said, “You know, if you stay here long enough, he might be able to figure out that you’re under a spell and break it for you.”  

“Oh?” Yor said, perking up. “Is Twilight a frequent visitor here?” 

When Franky heard this, his flame eyebrows shot up so high that they disappeared into his curly hairline. He stared hard at Yor, trying to figure out if she was playing dumb or if she really didn’t know. Yor only stared back at him.  

When Franky realized that Yor truly didn’t know, he threw his head back and cackled so hard that the logs underneath him rattled. “Yes!” he said, laughing so violently that he was almost crying (could fire demons cry?). “As a matter of fact, he lives here.” 

“He lives here?!” Yor sputtered. “That womanizing predator of a man lives here?! But...but surely Anya’s father would have something to say about that! Oh, please don’t tell me he parades his conquests here on a regular basis. I don’t think it’s very good for a young girl to see women being treated that way!” 

If Yor were still a young woman herself, she would have felt mortified by that little outburst. Then she would have fallen all over herself apologizing for such an opinion when she was not in any position to dictate how Anya should be raised. However, she found that being old meant she didn't care so much about things like decorum and propriety so she freely threw them out the window. Sure, she was just an old woman who had met Anya only a few hours ago, but by golly, she was going to make sure this girl was not going to grow up believing that women were men’s playthings!  

For whatever reason, this made Franky laugh even harder. He was guffawing so hard that one of his logs popped clean off the hearth and he had to scramble to keep it from hitting the ground.  

“Twilight...” the fire demon stopped to wipe something from his eye (was that a teardrop?) and took another moment to compose himself. “Twilight IS Anya’s father!”  

Yor’s jaw dropped. “NO...”  

“Well, adoptive father, anyway,” the fire demon said before Yor could spiral any further. “He originally took her on as an apprentice, but since she was an orphan, she started calling him Papa and well...the rest is history.”  

Yor spent the next several moments gaping at the fire demon like a fish gasping for air. When she was finally found her voice, she said, “So Twilight, the Twilight, the most powerful wizard in this kingdom and possibly the entire continent, is the father to that sweet little girl?”  

Franky chuckled. “She isn’t always sweet. She can be a downright gremlin at times.”  

“What’s a gremlin?” Yor asked. She had never heard of that word, but it conjured images of those mischievous, pointy-eared creatures from fairy tales.  

“Never mind,” Franky said, “but yes, Twilight is Anya’s father and mentor.” 

“But...but he’s a womanizer!”  

“Not exactly,” Franky contended. “At least, not in the way that you think. Actually, he was the one who asked Anya to spread that rumor when the castle started circulating around Berlint. He’s had quite a gaggle of female admirers—more than he cares for, to be honest with you—and he thought that spreading rumors like that would help keep them away.”  

“Really?” Yor whispered, feeling sheepish now for believing in rumors so easily, even if they were from Shopkeeper. For whatever reason, her mind flashed to the beautiful stranger she met yesterday, and she blushed at the memory. In a way, she felt silly for fancying such a young man now that she was quite old, but a part of her couldn’t help it.  

I bet HE could give Twilight a run for his money, she thought, feeling a little proud that she had met someone who could probably rival Twilight’s irresistibly good looks. 

Franky’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Why not see for yourself? Like Anya said, he’s coming back soon so you can meet him then.”  

“I thought she said he was coming back tomorrow.”  

“It is tomorrow,” the fire demon pointed out, turning towards the window where the sky was lightening to a pale periwinkle hue. 

“Oh! That means he might come at any minute!” Yor cried, beginning to panic since she hadn’t prepared herself. She had never met a wizard before so she didn’t know if she was supposed to bring him a gift? Worse, she had no form of payment if she wanted his help breaking the spell, either! Why, oh, why did she not bring money with her?!  

“He might,” Franky commented, looking completely oblivious to Yor’s rising panic. “He barely sleeps, and he has a habit of waking early anyway so he’ll probably walk through that door any moment now.” 

“But I have no way to pay him!” Yor bleated, her voice pitching so high it sounded almost hysterical. “And what excuse do I have to stay? He already has an apprentice, I can’t do any magic, and I’m not good at anything else...” She decided not to mention her other profession just yet.  

Or ever.  

“Oh, he probably won’t ask for payment,” the fire demon told her. “Twilight likes a puzzle so once he figures out that you’re under a spell, he’ll break it just for the sake of solving it. Besides, he has a beef with the Witch of Westalis so if he finds out that she did this to you, he’ll work doubly hard on it!” 

“Then I still have to figure out an excuse to stay here long enough for him to figure out the spell,” she said, wringing her hands. Then she said, “Are you able to tell exactly when Twilight will be back?”  

Franky shook his head. “But I’ll help you think of something.” 

She and Franky put their heads together to think of a plausible reason for her to stay, but after seeing Yor fret so much, Franky told her to lie back on the chair while he worked on something.  

If Yor was being honest, she was feeling worn out from all the worrying and was thankful for the reprieve. After a while, she heard him humming a strange song about a silver prince, but by the time she realized it was a lullaby, she was already drifting off to sleep again. 

Chapter Text

When Yor jolted awake again, she almost thought that the events of the previous day had been some fever dream, but the way her joints ached and creaked when she tried to move proved that the events were all too real. 

So fire demons sleep, too, she thought, blinking at the slumbering Franky who had burnt down to embers. Now that she was the only one awake, Yor took the opportunity to look around the castle.

It was a simple layout. The front door opened onto a large common area that doubled as a living room and a workshop. Cabinets and a sink lined one wall while Franky’s hearth was flush with the back wall. Aside from the mismatched furniture in the living room, however, the castle was sparsely furnished.  

Yor had briefly considered becoming the castle's cleaning lady, but the castle was so tidy she saw they had no need for it. Perhaps Twilight’s servants kept it clean? Or it was kept clean by magic? She decided to figure that out later. 

Yor wondered that Anya hadn’t woken yet, but since the sun had just risen, she deduced that the girl might be sleeping in, especially since Twilight wasn’t back yet. 

Now the thing to figure out is...was there a bathroom she could use? Yor felt quite stiff this morning and did not want to try to venture up the tall, narrow staircase in search of a bathroom upstairs.  

She noticed that there were four wooden doors, one for each wall of the common room. The largest door was the door where she had entered yesterday, but where did the others lead?  

Yor opened one door to find a downstairs bathroom, complete with a shell-shaped sink, clawfoot bathtub, and indoor toilet.  

Oh, thank goodness, Yor thought. After washing up in there, she found herself fascinated with the many sealed jars, corked bottles, and lumpy pouches that lined the shelves of the bathroom. Everything was labeled in neat letters, but they had slightly disturbing names such as SKIN, EYES, and HAIR. One jar was labelled VOICES, and although it looked empty, the jar hummed and vibrated when Yor touched it. She quickly put that down and exited the bathroom. 

The next door she tried led to a hallway with doors leading off from it. Yor guessed that those doors must be the bedrooms and private bathrooms, but when she heard someone mumbling at the end of the hall, she quickly closed the door again.  

The last door led to a storage room that was divided into cleaning supplies on the left side and extra linens on the other. What an odd castle, Yor thought. 

She couldn’t figure out where the rest of it lied. Obviously, the castle had no need of a portcullis or a moat since it roamed about the countryside, but it also did not appear to have a Great Hall or throne room or any towers. If anything, it only seemed to consist of the common area, the large bathroom, the storage room, and the hallway of bedrooms (if bedrooms were actually what they were). She could not find any other rooms at all.  

Still mulling over this, Yor went and put some more logs onto the fire. Where does Twilight get firewood from? Yor wondered. Perhaps he buys them? Or does he magic them out of thin air? 

Orange flames sprang up and Franky’s face unraveled from underneath the logs. “Good morning,” he said groggily, a few fingers of flame reaching up to adjust his hair above him.  

“Good morning,” Yor said. She tried to sound cheery, but her voice came out too high-pitched for her liking. “You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s any food I could use to make breakfast for everyone?” she asked. Normally, she would have been embarrassed to ask these kinds of things, but if she were to assert herself as a way of staying here, she might as well act like she belonged here. She had a feeling Anya wouldn’t mind if she started cooking some of their food, but she was more worried about what Twilight would say. 

Luckily, Anya showed up right then. “Are we having breakfast?” she asked when she saw Yor poking around in the kitchen cabinets.  

“Yes, but I don’t know how to cook.”  

“It’s okay,” Anya chirped. “We can have something easy!”  

With Anya’s help, Yor was able to find bread and eggs and some bacon.  

“How do we cook it?” Yor asked, looking around for a stove. 

“On Scruffy!” Anya cried gleefully as she skipped to the fire demon.  

“Scruffy?” Yor asked, but then she heard the fire demon protest:  

“Oh no, I’m not letting you do that again!”  

Scruffy must be what she calls him, Yor deduced as she watched them bicker. 

“But Scruffy...” Anya drawled. “It’s for our new guest!”  

“Fine, then have her do it.”  

Franky regretted those words just moments later. In spite of his helpful instructions, Yor managed to burn everything she put into the pan. The bacon turned into seared strips of tough, gamy meat, the eggs looked like blackened organs that Yor had scraped from the side of a butcher’s knife, and the bread was so burnt that it looked as if Yor had dusted it in the ashes of the fire rather than cooking it.  

“Oh, it’s hopeless,” Yor whimpered as thoughts of staying on as a cook flew out the window. She was still trying to salvage breakfast when the front door opened.  

“Papa!” Anya screamed as she rushed to the front door and glommed onto the legs of the man who had just walked in. “Can you save breakfast?” she asked hopefully.  

"I’ll try,” he said, setting down the bag he was carrying and scooping Anya up into his arms.  He was about to ask what she had been up to when he suddenly glanced to the living room and noticed the white chair there. “Is that...?” 

Anya nodded. “It’s hers,” she said, waving a tiny hand towards the old woman trying to scrape bacon bits from the bottom of their ruined pan.  

“Hmmm,” Twilight said, setting down his daughter. “Finish setting the table for us, would you? I’m going to give her a hand.”  

“Okay, Papa!”  

Twilight approached the woman slowly. He had already sensed someone new in the castle before he entered, but the fact that Franky had let her in (and that there was a chair for her in the living room) meant that she was safe. More significantly, it meant that she was destined to be here.  

Regardless, he wanted to be careful.  

“May I lend a hand?” he asked as he came up to the woman.  

She still startled, whirling around with the speed of someone much younger. “I’m sorry for ruining the food!” she cried, then froze, her jaw sagging almost to the floor. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  

This man...with the cobalt blue eyes...and the green suit with billowing sleeves...no, this couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.  

Yor was not particularly gifted at math, but the cogs of her mind whirred as she tried to calculate the chances that the dashing stranger she met yesterday (the one she thought could compete against Twilight for the title of the most beautiful man in Ostania) was the wizard himself.  

But then something clicked, and it all made sense. Of course it was him. Who else had a face and figure as perfect as that? What’s more, she now understood why she felt such a strange, resonating power coming from him when he had placed his hand on her shoulder. It was magic, after all. Magic, pure and simple.  

With that, Yor smiled to herself and turned back to her business. She liked it when things made sense, even within a magical moving castle.  

Also, for the first time that day, she was thankful she had been cursed to become an old woman. At least now, he wouldn’t recognize her as that frightened shop assistant he had rescued on May Day.  

Twilight, for his part, was baffled by her reaction. He had often seen women gape at him, but this one only did so for a minute before she smiled to herself and turned away, as if she had figured him out and no longer had any interest in him. The wizard couldn’t explain why, but he didn’t like feeling like he had been figured out so quickly. 

“It’s all right,” he said slowly, still trying to decipher her reaction of him. “We have more.”  

Anya brought forth another basket of eggs, a loaf of bread, and a few more slabs of bacon. 

Before long, Twilight had them sizzling gently in the pan and then dished them out to three waiting plates. He tossed the eggshells to Franky who gobbled them up with a cacophony of noisy crunching. “You’re being so accommodating, Franky,” he remarked.  

“Well, she’s a lot nicer to me than you are,” Franky said around a mouthful of eggshell. 

Anya chattered almost non-stop in the background, and it wasn’t until Twilight sent her to get the butter dish and some jam that the two adults had a minute to speak alone. 

“I’m Twilight, by the way,” he said as he gently slid a perfect omelet onto each plate.  

“I’m Yor. Thank you for your help.”  

“Think nothing of it.” 

As they sat down to breakfast, Yor thought she had better confess now. “I’m not much of a cook,” she began slowly. 

“That’s ok!” Anya interjected. “You’re here to be our new cleaning lady!”  

“Cleaning lady?” asked Twilight.  

Yor blanched. The castle already looked clean, and she was worried about getting lost in so many rooms anyway, but before she could say anything, Anya said, “Yeah, you know how you said you wish you had more help around here? Well, Miss Yor can do the cleaning, and you can do the cooking!”  

Twilight mused on that for a minute.  

“She’s also a pot canary!”  

Yor almost choked on her toast. “A-apothecary,” she corrected, wiping her mouth with a cloth.  

“Yeah, that!”  

Yor stared at the small child. “But how did you know that?” she asked. She hadn’t mentioned that to her or to Franky. 

“It’s written on your dress!” Anya grinned.  

The apothecary looked down at her dress. Oh. Right. Of course. She had left home still wearing her shop dress with Garden’s logo imprinted on it. 

Twilight looked over at the old, bent woman in front of him. “Interesting,” he said, but that was all the comment he would make.  

After breakfast, Yor insisted on washing the dishes, taking care to make them sparkling clean.  

To her surprise, Twilight did not supervise her to make sure she didn’t break anything. Instead, he was teaching Anya how to scrape off any remaining food from her plate and then stack them neatly near the sink for Yor to wash. Yor found the scene very endearing.  

Once she was done, she approached them and said that if she were to be a cleaning lady, she would need to see the rest of the castle. All she could find were the common area and the large bathroom. She said she hadn’t tried to go into any of the rooms down the hall.  

Anya laughed uproariously.  

“You tell her, Anya,” the wizard said, chuckling.  

“There aren’t any more rooms in the castle,” the girl explained. “The only other rooms are Papa’s bedroom and mine.”  

Yor sighed in relief. Cleaning a few rooms was much easier than an entire castle. Then something struck her. “But the castle looks so large from the outside.”  

“It does,” Anya said, “But that’s just to fool people.” Something occurred to Anya. “Can I keep her in my room?” she asked.  

“If you’re okay with it,” Twilight said, pulling out books from a nearby shelf.  

“Come on, Miss Yor, you can sleep next to me!”  

Anya showed Yor to her room, but it was just a tiny bed in a narrow space. Anya had a few toys and stuffed animals, but the rest of the room was used for a small dresser and bookshelf.  

I can’t possibly fit in here, Yor thought.  

In the end, they set up Yor in the small space under the stairs. Twilight hung up a large blanket so she could have her privacy.  

Right when he finished, Franky roared up the chimney and shouted, “Berlint door!” causing Twilight to veer to the front door. Yor thought he was just going to open the door, but when he twisted the doorknob, she suddenly noticed that the knob was split into four triangles, each one a different color. It originally had the green triangle pointing down, but Twilight twisted it over to the red triangle.  

When the wizard opened the door, the countryside was gone. Instead, what lied beyond the door were soaring towers and spires, horses trotting by in carriages, and the most finely dressed people Yor had ever seen. The sun reflected so brightly off the golden roofs that it almost blinded her.  

Yor did not see the person on the other side of the door, but the visitor spoke with precise, clipped diction, a sure sign of someone well-bred. “His Majesty sends his regards and his payment of 2,000 dalc for the seven-league boots.”  

2,000 dalc?! Yor balked. That was three months’ wages for her!  

She was so distracted that she didn’t hear what Twilight said nor did she see him set the large pouch of money on a nearby dresser where the drawer suddenly opened and swallowed the money bag.  

The next thing she registered was Twilight shouting, “Franky, I need hot water!” before he disappeared into the large bathroom.  

When Yor finally recovered from this flurry of events, she asked Anya. “Who was that? And where was that?” 

Anya explained about how twisting the knob led to the door opening onto a different place and how each color represented a different location and all the magic behind it, but Yor found it too hard to keep up.  

Magic really is something else, she thought. Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t do magic. 

But at least I can do the cleaning, she decided. Tying back her wispy white hair with a bandana, she rolled up her sleeves, found a broom and mop, and got to work. 

Chapter Text

Yor ended up being more than just a cleaning lady. Even though she kept the castle spotless, she was also there to look after Anya and to teach her what she knew about herbs. She made good company for Franky and even helped with customers when Twilight was out and about.  

With regular physical activity, Yor found her aching joints becoming more fluid, and looking after Anya gave her a renewed purpose and vigor.  

However, life in the castle wasn’t without its uncertainties. Every day for the first week, Yor was afraid that Twilight would throw her out at any moment, but Anya always seemed to catch on to whenever Yor felt anxious about this and reassured her that her Papa would not do that.  

At first, Yor thought that everything would settle into a comfortable routine after a few weeks, but she found out very quickly that life in a moving castle was anything BUT routine. Especially not with a much-sought-after wizard, a child apprentice, and a wisecracking fire demon.  

And then there were the customers.  

Yor wasn’t quite sure what Twilight did for a living, but it involved an odd variety of customers. Almost every day, people came from all over Ostania and beyond for Twilight’s services.  

Most of them were common folk, but occasionally, they had nobility or attendants from the Palace as well. A few times, they even had visiting dignitaries come by to commission Twilight for something, and once or twice, a customer showed up who didn’t look quite...human, was the best way Yor could put it.  

At a glance, the customer looked human, but something about the way they moved or spoke or blinked (or didn’t blink) tipped her off that the customer was not one to walk about freely in their true form. 

Regardless, Twilight and Anya treated each customer courteously (even though Anya sometimes asked them inappropriate questions), and every day became a little adventure with the unexpected clientele that showed up on their doorstep. 

What Twilight did for each customer was as varied as the clientele themselves. He turned out everything from elaborate costumes, gourmet dishes, mended clothes, and once, a giant sandcastle that was so detailed and ornate, it could have been the residence for miniature royalty. (And maybe it was. Twilight never revealed anything about his clients so Yor never found out.) 

Anya, as Twilight’s apprentice, was in the habit of watching everything her Papa did and taking notes on a little notepad she carried with her. (Yor tried reading the notepad at one point but could not make sense of Anya’s jagged scribbles and tangled loops.)  

Twilight also left small projects for Anya to do: little spells for her to try or magical puzzles to figure out. Anya was not particularly talented at most kinds of magic, but something she excelled in was creating secret codes. Yor supposed that codes were necessary in the world of magic to keep certain spells secret and Anya had a great time devising new codes to disguise spells.  

Yor, for her part, gradually took over more of the little tasks around the castle. She wasn’t great at cooking, but she kept every room spotless and pristine, and she even used her experience as an apothecary to sort and organize the herbs and other magical ingredients in the house.  

One day, when Yor knew that Twilight and Anya would be gone all day, she ventured to try out the strange doorknob of the front door. Hobbling over to it, she twisted the knob so that the red triangle pointed down. When she cracked open the door, the scene revealed the sumptuous spires of the capital, gleaming in the rising sun. When she tried it with the blue triangle pointing down, the door opened onto a port town, the smell of salt and sea wafting from the coast. The green triangle led to the countryside, but when she tried the black one, the door only opened onto blackness.  

Not darkness, as in a place where there was no light, but a thick, heavy blackness that gave no indication that it ever ended. Yor was worried that if she tried to step into it, she might fall into an abyss so she only ventured to stick her finger into the blackness, watching it swirl around her wrinkled, brown hand before she quickly retracted it.  

That’s enough of that, she thought, shutting the door firmly and turning the knob back to the green triangle.  

What Yor did not notice, however, was a tiny, yellowed slip of paper that slid under the door right before she closed it.  

A slip of paper that flew all the way to the workbench. 

And waited... 

Yor worked hard every day to keep the castle spotless. However, she was still curious about something.  

That’s why, when Twilight and Anya were out of the house one day, Yor hobbled over to the strange doorknob to try it out. She twisted the knob so that the red triangle pointed down and when she opened the door, it revealed the capital. When she tried it with the blue triangle pointing down, the door opened onto a port town. The green triangle led to the countryside, but when she tried the black one, the door only opened onto blackness.  

Yor felt too scared to step into the blackness so she only stuck her finger in for a moment before she retracted it. Even though she had felt nothing but cold, she didn’t like the feeling. 

That’s enough of that, she thought, shutting the door and turning the knob back to the green triangle.  

What Yor did not notice, however, was a tiny, black slip of paper that slid under the door before she closed it.  

A slip of paper that flew all the way to the workbench...and waited. 

A few days later, Yor was standing in the open field of the countryside while she tried to help Anya with a spell that Twilight had left her to work on. “Read the spell to me again, Anya,” Yor asked.  

The apprentice glanced down at the sheet of paper and read out loud:

She walks in beauty, like the night 
 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 
 

And all that’s best of dark and bright 
 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes; 
 

Thus mellowed to that tender light 
 

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

“Can you make heads or tails of it?” Anya asked.  

“No,” Yor said. “Not any more than you can.” She glanced at the sky again. The sun had just set, and the stars were coming out in abundance. “But I think you have the right idea. Now, let’s see...”  

Yor and Anya checked a list they had written earlier.  

“Like the night...well, it’s nighttime.” 

“Cloudless climes. Yep, you picked a cloudless night.” 

“Starry skies...well, it can’t get any starrier than a night of falling stars.” Anya inspected the night sky. “And I guess we’ll figure out the rest when we catch a star.”  

But catching a falling star was far harder than it sounded. For one thing, stars didn’t fall that often, not even on a night of falling stars.  

(Case in point, Anya and Yor waited for hours before they saw one fall.) 

Second, falling stars are deceptively fast. Once they spotted the falling star, they had to run at top speed to keep up with it. Luckily, regular physical activity had lubricated Yor’s joints enough that she could run almost as fast as when she was still young.  

Third, falling stars are not particularly cooperative.  

As soon as they caught up to the falling star, it kept bouncing away from them, frantically searching for a place to die peacefully.  

“Stop chasing me!” it screamed. “What’s that? Are you serious?! I don’t care if you need me for a spell! I only want to go to my eternal rest! Haven’t I been through enough?!”  

It took so much running after it and coaxing it to stay alive that Anya and Yor were thoroughly exhausted after only a few minutes. “Please!” Yor begged. “Just for a few moments. We only need a little bit of help!”  

What ended up saving them were the snacks that Yor had packed for Anya.

At one point, Anya tripped while running and the snack packets fell out of her coat pockets. When the star saw the star-shaped candy rattling in one of Anya's snack jars, its little eyes grew so wide that it took up the rest of its pointy face.  

Seizing the opportunity, Anya offered it some candy and the star stayed alive long enough for Yor to read out the spell. 

“Beats me,” the star said when she was done. “I don’t think it’s much of a spell, if you ask me, and I've been around for millions of years."

"What's it sound like then?" Anya asked.

"Sounds more like a love poem,” the star answered in between munches of candy.  

“Love poem?” Anya said, making a face. “Why would Papa write a love poem?”  

“Dunno,” the star said, sticking its arm into the candy jar as far as it could go. “Maybe he’s in love with someone. That’s usually why lovesick chaps write those sappy things.” 

At that point, the star had finished all the candy, and before Yor or Anya could do anything, it hopped out of their hands and pranced away to a nearby puddle where it happily dissolved into stardust.  

“Well, I guess that’s that,” Yor said, standing up and dusting herself off.  

“But we never got to solve the spell!” Anya whined.  

“Maybe not, but maybe a falling star wasn't the answer, after all.”  

Anya thought for a long moment after that. Then, while they were walking home, she tugged on Yor's skirt. “Miss Yor?”  

“Yes?” 

“What if the star was right?” 

“About what?” 

“About the spell. What if it’s really not a spell?”  

“Well, what else could it be?” 

“What if it really is a love poem?” 

“Hmmm, why don’t we ask your father when we get home?” 

“You...you what?!” Twilight croaked. 

“I tried to...um...” Anya wasn't sure if she should repeat herself, seeing how her Papa's face was turning a sickly green.

“You tried to catch a falling star?!” 

“Well...yes.”  

“Do you realize what that means?! Do you know what that could have done to you?!” 

“Uh...” 

But Anya never got to answer because Twilight took that very moment to collapse in shock.

Chapter Text

It was that same dream again. The one about the Night of the Falling Stars. Sure, it had happened over ten years ago, but that night had been so fateful that Twilight continued to dream of it almost weekly ever since it occurred.

The night had descended cloudless and clear, the stars practically vibrating with how brightly they were shining, almost as if they were as excited as the people waiting below.

Most people had turned off all their lights and gathered outside their homes to watch the falling stars, but Twilight had higher ambitions: he wanted to catch one.

Twilight had glanced in the mirror right before he snuck out. Good, the disguise potion was working. His blond hair was now blue-black, his eyes were a glass green, and his features were altered to make him look more feminine. Even his voice was pitched higher than its usual tones.

Stealing a pair of seven-league boots from the family closet, he had used them get all the way from his hometown of Luwen to the Waste, that no man’s land in between Westalis and Ostania. It was a place that, even back then, was rumored to be full of hidden magic and mischief (and therefore, devoid of most people).

Of course, being so young, Twilight didn’t know the first thing about catching a falling star and so he hadn’t brought anything with him. No net, no sack, no traps or containers of any sort. Not even a jar with a lid.

I’ll just have to catch one with my bare hands, he thought as he rolled up his sleeves.

That's when he found that he was not the only one who had that idea.

Twilight had been wandering around the Waste in search of a good vantage point when he met a young girl who was doing the same thing.

She was a small, sprightly thing, underfed but full of energy. A frayed and threadbare dress hung on her bony frame, and she walked around barefoot. The only decorative thing she wore was a flowery headband that held her braids in place. Her face, however, was completely different from the gaunt appearance. It was lively and optimistic, with an air of determined purpose about it.

The girl also had no equipment with her, but she looked up at the falling stars with a combination of awe and anticipation.

Twilight stood stupefied, awed that someone else had the same audacity to be out here by themselves. The Waste was no place for children, his father had often told him.

But here they were. He was about to call out to her when she suddenly spotted something, and she dashed off across the field.

And boy could she move! This was the fastest thing on legs Twilight had ever seen, his eyes bulging as he watched her zip down a small hill and zip up the next one with no change in speed. If anything, she seemed even more excited as she moved closed to the trajectory of the falling star.

Wait, a falling star! She had seen a falling star!

Twilight sped up to follow her path, but by the time he crested the hill, the girl was nowhere to be seen.

Then he heard the screaming. Looking around frantically, he found the girl had tumbled to the bottom of the hill and was now fumbling with something in her small hands.

Twilight raced down the hill and almost tumbled over the girl in his attempt to reach her. “What is it?” he asked, panicking. “Are you hurt?”

That’s when he realized that it wasn’t the girl screaming, but the star. A blindingly bright ball of blue flames danced in her hands, hopping nervously from one palm to another.

“I shouldn’t be here!” it squealed. “I shouldn’t!”

“Where should you be?” the girl asked. But the star was too frantic to hear her. It kept leaping about, glancing in panic at its surroundings.

“What do we do?” Twilight asked her.

The girl looked up, as if noticing him for the first time. “Oh, hullo.”

“H-hello.”

“Well, don’t just stand there! Help me!” the star bawled.

The children turned back to the poor creature. “How do we help you?”

“I don't know I don’t know!” it cried, flailing its arms. “I wasn’t supposed to fall yet! It’s not my time! I’m too young to die!”

“Then you don’t have to die!” the girl asserted. “We’ll help you. We’ll keep you alive.”

“But you're just children!” the star wailed. “I need something of yours to stay alive, but I can’t take something from children!”

“You need something?” the girl asked. “How about this?” She took the headband off her head and held it out to the star.

“No, I need something that’s a part of you,” the star said.

“Like from inside me?” the girl asked, somehow unfazed by the idea.

“Yes, yes,” the star said quickly, holding out his tiny arms. “Like that.”

“But that’ll kill her!” Twilight interjected.

“Not if she has magic in her,” the star responded.

“But I don’t have magic in me,” the girl said. “I’m just a human being.”

“I have magic in me,” Twilight said. “Can you take something of mine?”

“That’s fine, too. Just hurry! I can feel my light going out!”

And it was true. The longer the star stayed in the girl’s hands, the more it dimmed and flickered. At this point, it was only as bright as a dying ember.

“Okay, how do we do this?” Twilight asked, determined.

“You just have to swallow me, and I’ll merge with something inside you. That’ll be our contract. I let you use my magic, and you keep me alive.”

It was done. Twilight was surprised the girl handed over the star so willingly, but he supposed that she couldn’t have fulfilled the contract to keep it alive anyway. He swallowed the star, expecting it to burn on the way down, but it only had a soothing warmth about it. Then he fell to his knees, clutching his chest and coughing. The girl dropped to her knees too, whispering urgently to him and patting his back.

Moments later, the star emerged from Twilight’s chest, its flames now a bright blue again. Its core was no longer a blinding white but held something that steadily thumped against Twilight’s hands.

“I need to sleep now,” the star whispered. “Forging a bond like this takes a lot of energy out of me, but...” It wrapped a tiny flame arm around Twilght’s thumb. “Thank you,” it said before it fell asleep in his hands.

“You did it!” the girl said, awe and excitement swirling in her voice. “You saved the star!”

“I did! I guess I did!” Then he thought of something. “Why were you trying to catch a star?”

“I heard that I caught one, it could grant me a wish.” Then her face shrouded. “I didn’t know that you had to give up something inside of you to keep it alive though.”

“What was your wish?”

“For my brother to have a good life.”

“Oh.” Twilight hadn’t thought of that. He would have wished to join the military or to become the world’s greatest wizard or something. He had never thought of wishing something for someone else...

“But I can’t do it now...” the girl said sadly.

Twilight was appalled. “Of course you can! You don’t have to wish on a star to make things come true. You can do it yourself!”

“I can?”

“Yes! People achieve great things all the time without wishes or stars or magic!”

Twilight didn’t remember what else he said, but by the end of the night, the girl was beaming at him, and she had the kindest smile he’d ever seen.

The boy never saw her again after that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t try.

As a matter of fact, Twilight had been trying to find her for years, and he was overjoyed when he thought he found her that May Day, but then...

Then she disappeared without a trace after that. And now with the conditions of the curse about to fulfill itself, he was running out of time...

Chapter Text

Twilight woke to a gentle lullaby.  

“Mom?” he asked groggily in Westalian. Then he snapped up very quickly. He had almost given himself away. 

“Twilight, you’re okay!”  

The magician looked up to see two round, worried faces staring down at him. One was an almost-square face surrounded by a pink halo. Ah, Anya.  

And the other one looked almost like... 

Then his vision cleared. Oh, it was Yor.  

“I’m all right,” he said. He sat up and turned to Anya, giving her a stern look. “Promise me you will never do that again.”  

Anya nodded while staring at the floor. “I promise.”  

“What were the two of you doing out there anyway?” Twilight asked, rubbing his forehead. “It’s dangerous to be out in a field of falling stars, let alone trying to catch one.”  

“But Papa, the spell you left me to work on said something about starry skies!”  

Twilight blinked. “What?”  

“It’s right here, Papa!” Anya said, snatching up the sheet of paper and waving it in his face. 

Twilight took the paper, but he hadn’t finished scanning it before he gave a wail and almost collapsed again.  

“Watch out!” Yor said, reaching out to catch him.  

They both froze, Yor glancing down at the man in her arms and Twilight gazing up at her. She never noticed before, but his blue eyes looked almost green when it hit the light at a certain angle. She could also see from the dark roots of his scalp that he often dyed his hair different colors. And his face was so unbelievably pretty.  

Meanwhile, the wizard stared up at her, something at the back of his mind working furiously, nagging him about something that he was supposed to know, but couldn’t quite place... 

“You okay, Papa?”  

“What?” Then: “Yes!” Twilight scrambled upright as Yor shifted him to his feet. He straightened his suit vest and then held the spell paper in front of Anya.  

“Where did you get this?”  

“It was on the end of the bench,” she replied, pointing.  

Twilight strode over to the bench and was about to inspect it when something caught his eye. Something so translucent he almost missed it. Following it with his finger, the wizard traced a silky silver thread that stretched from the end of the bench to the doorknob opposite of it.  

“Ah,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Before either could ask, he swung around and said, “Yor, did you happen to turn the doorknob to black before you opened it?” 

“I...I did, yes,” Yor said nervously, knowing there was no use in trying to lie. “But I only stuck a finger in there. I didn’t step in it or anything!”  

Twilight nodded, as if he already knew the answer. “One finger is enough.” Then he turned back to the doorknob and started examining it, muttering things like, “Very clever. Didn’t think of that...Must have been waiting for the right moment...”  

“Am I in trouble?” Yor whispered to Anya, but she shook her head.  

“Papa’s trying to figure out something,” was her only response.  

After a few minutes, Twilight stood up and moved over to the workbench. “That wasn’t the spell I left you,” he said to Anya as he began to clear a space on the table.  

“It wasn’t?”  

“No, I wouldn’t have left something that complicated.” He paused. “Or that abstract.”   

“Then what was it?” Yor asked, in spite of her trepidation.  

“Well, it’s not a spell really. It’s more a...reminder.” Once the wizard had enough space cleared, he took a stick of chalk out of a nearby box. “Yor, I need you to heat three cauldrons of hot water.” 

“Hot water! Right away!” Yor said, bustling away to the storage room to fetch a cauldron.  

“Anya,” he summoned, waving her over. He dropped his voice as he began to draw strange symbols onto the table. “What part of this spell have you done?”  

"Just the falling star part,” Anya whispered.  

“Did you touch the star?” 

Anya nodded. Loid frowned but said nothing. Instead, he continued with sketching symbols on the table. His apprentice watched for a while before she realized that the symbols were actually ancient Westalian words.  

“Is this spell from...” Anya looked over to make sure Yor was not within earshot. “Over there?” she continued. 

Loid nodded. “But it’s not a spell exactly. It’s a reminder of the conditions for my...“ Something cut off the air from Twilght’s lungs then, his mouth clamping shut on its own. Right. He couldn’t tell anyone about his curse. Standard curse clause. 

“Of something I have to fulfill,” he finished, forcing the words through as his lungs eased up. 

“How are you going to fulfill it?” Anya asked.  

“Well, at this point, I’m going to have to ask for help,” he said, tracing a pentacle that crossed through all the symbols.  

“Will you have time?” Anya asked urgently. “What about...?” she gestured to the window, and then to the doorknob which had the red triangle pointing down.  

Loid sighed. “I’ll have to make time for it. I can’t let her catch me.”  

“I’ll help you, Papa!”  

He chuckled. “You’re a sweet peanut, but this is going to be a lot to take on, even for someone like me.” He stood up. “For now, though, let me see if I can get to the heart of the issue.”  

Something creaked behind them.  

“Um, Twilight? I’m done with the hot water.”  

“Good,” he said. “We’re all going to bathe.”  

“What?! But why?!” Anya sputtered.  

“Because,” Twilight said grandly, striding to the doorknob and turning it red-side down. “We’re going to the Palace!”  

Chapter Text

Yor was glad she had gotten some exercise yesterday night because the day they went to the Palace turned out to be the most physically exhausting walk she had in years. Even though they had taken the trolley for most of the way, it was still a long journey from the trolley stop to the front steps of the Palace.  

“Are we really going to climb all those steps?” Anya asked, her vision almost swimming at the steep mountain of stairs before them. 

“No,” Twilight said, taking a pocket watch out from his suit jacket. “We are not going in through the front. My mentor said she will send someone to show us the other entrance.” He put the watch away and then looked around furtively. “Although she didn’t tell me who it would be. Keep your eyes peeled for someone with a dagger pin. It could be a Palace attendant, a groundskeeper, or even a—” 

“A dog?!”  

“What?! No! Anya!” 

But it was too late. She had spotted a large furry thing coming from around the corner and charged towards it.  

“ANYA!”  

“Don’t worry! I got her!” Yor rushed forward and snatched up the small child at the last minute.  

“But that dog is on our side!” Anya protested, straining her tiny arms towards it. 

“You don’t know that, Anya. It could look friendly and then still bite you.” 

“But it’s got the pin Papa was talking about!”  

Yor and Twilight looked again and sure enough, the dog was wearing a dagger pin in the center of its bowtie collar.  

“A dog?” Twilight said. “That’s new. But it does have the pin.” 

The dog barked once, “Worf,” then turned and began to walk away.  

It walked with its head high in the air, like it was proud to be the one to escort them to its master. However, when it didn’t hear anyone following, the dog turned around and saw that no one had moved. They were still debating among themselves about following a dog to the secret entrance.  

“WORF!” it whined, rushing back and pawing at their knees. It shook its bowtie collar and pointed to the dagger pin again.  

“All right, all right, we’ll give it a shot. Yor, Anya, stay behind me, just in case.” 

The party finally began to follow the dog as he padded his way around the front entrance of the Palace and out to west side, near the gardens.  

Then the dog stepped into a shaded rotunda and beckoned for the others to follow.  

“All safely inside?” Twilight asked.  

Yor had barely opened her mouth when the floor of the rotunda dropped away below them, and they were falling into a windy tunnel.  

The ride ground to an abrupt halt several moments later. A door opened in the darkness and the dog led them into a gigantic sunny room with burnished floors and large windows. And there, sitting in a large mesh chair was Twilight’s mentor, Madam Sylvia Sherwood herself.  

Her appearance surprised Yor. When Twilight said they were going to see his old mentor at the Palace, she expected someone...well, old.  

But Madam Sherwood looked to be her forties and was still very attractive. With sweeping copper hair and heavily-lidded eyes, she looked to be someone who was observant yet perpetually exasperated. Her large, round glasses peeked out from under a wide brim hat and her fishnet stockings matched the mesh of her chair. Her impeccable outfit and intimidating demeanor reminded Yor of ruthless fashion moguls. 

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said, her voice measured and husky. 

"Madam Sherwood,” Twilight said, tipping his hat to her.  

After a round of introductions, his mentor said, “I see that my dog has taken quite a liking to your apprentice.” 

“Yes, erm...Anya, we can let the dog return now. It’s done its duty.”  

“Oh, okay,” Anya said, pouting as she dropped her hands from the dog’s fur. 

Madam Sherwood whistled, but the dog only sat there, panting next to Anya. Madam Sherwood whistled again. The dog did not move.  

Anya finally leaned over and whispered to the dog, “I think she wants you to come to her.” 

The dog startled, yipping pitifully as he finally zoomed over to his master. Something about the way the dog moved jogged Yor’s memory. “You’re that dog from the hedge!”  

“WORF?!” the dog yelped, its fur standing on end.  

“You’ve met my dog before?” Madam Sherwood asked.  

“Yes,” Yor replied. “I was in the countryside when I found him stuck in a hedge. I pulled him out, but he ran off when he saw Twilight’s castle.” 

Madam Sherwood turned to the dog. “Bond, is this true?” 

The dog whined and lowered its tail, slinking behind her chair.  

“Oh, I’m sure any dog would have been scared by that giant castle,” Yor said, trying to make the dog feel better. Bond only whimpered from behind the chair, his tail tucked between his legs. 

“Hmmm,” Madam Sherwood said. Then she turned to Twilight. “I know that you have important business with me, but I’d like to have a word privately with your...housekeeper, was it?”  

Yor was surprised by this, but Twilight looked even more surprised. After blustering for a moment, he said, “Yes, of course. As long as Yor is all right with it.” 

Yor shook with trepidation but nodded. Before he left, Twilight gave her a look that said: If you need anything, I won’t be far. 

“Good,” his mentor stated. “Snacks and refreshments have been set up in the room down the hall. Bond, would you be so good as to guide them there?”  

The dog slinked out from behind the chair and led them from the room. The last thing Yor heard was, “Don’t feel bad, Bond. Our castle is meant to scare people off. It’s worked every time! Well, except for Miss Yor. Did you hear about what she did?”  

Then the door closed on them.  

And Yor was alone with the woman who had trained the most powerful wizard in the continent.    

Chapter Text

Yor’s conversation with Madam Sherwood turned out to be fairly short since she mostly asked the apothecary about her first meeting with Bond. After giving her a summary, Yor asked, “Is Bond in trouble?”  

“No,” Madam Sherwood said. “Bond’s an anomaly is all. He was trained to find missing people, but his instincts are a little...off. I have my other dog, Aaron, out in the field on the assignment instead.” Then, under her breath, she muttered, “At least Aaron doesn’t mix up missing people with scarecrows...” 

It was at that moment Yor remembered how she found Bond stuck in the hedge with the scarecrow. Maybe he got his missing person mixed up with the scarecrow? Or maybe the owner of the scarecrow was his missing person? She shook her head. It was beyond her comprehension.  

“But tell me, Miss...” 

“Briar.” 

“Miss Briar. How did you come to be my protégé’s housekeeper?” 

“I, erm, I was looking for work and stumbled across Twilight’s castle. His daughter told me that I could be their new cleaning lady.”  

“Daughter?” 

“Yes, Anya?”  

Madam Sherwood sat back. “So he has adopted her...” she mused, more to herself than to Yor. Then she snapped back to the present. “I’m glad that Twilight agreed to it. It’s hard for him to trust people, but if he trusts you, then that says something.”  

Yor was about to ask what she meant, but Madam Sherwood said, “If you don’t mind terribly, Miss Briar. I’d like to have a word with my protégé now.” 

“Yes, of course,” Yor said, standing up quickly. “It was nice to meet you,” she told the sorceress, bowing.  

“Likewise,” the sorceress responded. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.” 

“Would you like to fetch Twilight for you?” she asked. 

“That won’t be necessary. He already knows I want to speak to him.” 

Yor didn’t know what to make of this, but she nodded anyway and headed to the door. She was about to turn around and ask Madam Sherwood how Twilight knew to come in, but she was shocked to see that the wizard was already sitting down in the chair she just vacated.  

These magical folks really are something extraordinary, she thought as the door closed behind her.  

Twilight’s conversation with Madam Sherwood lasted considerably longer. 

“I must say, Twilight. You’re a changed man.”  

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he answered, his face expressionless.  

“You’ve avoided this place for years in case the Witch ever found you, but now you’re willing to risk exposure? And for what? Just to see if I could break a curse upon your new lady?”  

“She’s just my housekeeper.” 

“Oh, the same way Anya is just your apprentice?” 

Twilight’s jaw twitched, but he said, “Can you break her curse or not?” 

Madam Sherwood chuckled wryly, then her face turned serious. “No, I cannot. I can detect that it’s the Witch’s work, but something else is layered on top of it. Something that someone else put there.”  

“What, are you saying I put a spell on her?” 

The sorceress shook her head. “It’s not your signature. Nor is it your fire demon’s.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “The layer on top of the curse is almost incidental, like the spellcaster didn’t do it consciously.”  

“So we’re dealing with two curses?” 

“Not so much that. The layer isn’t another curse, but an oddity.” 

“An oddity?” Twilight quirked an eyebrow. 

“Yes, an oddity. Something I’ve never seen before.” 

“Is it harming her?”  

“Why the sudden concern?” Madam Sherwood asked. “I thought she was just your housekeeper.”  

Twilight huffed. “That doesn’t mean I can’t show concern for her.”  

His mentor sat back in her chair. “No, it’s not harming her.” 

“Good,” Twilight said as he rose from his chair. “I’ll have Franky study it some more and we’ll see what we can do.”  

The sorceress nodded. Before her former protégé left, however, she said, “Oh, and Twilight?” 

“Yes?”  

“Are you sure that concern is all you’re feeling for her?”  

The wizard did not turn around completely, but his mentor noticed the slightest hitch in his stride. “I don’t understand what you mean.”  

The sorceress shrugged. “Never mind then. Carry on, Twilight.”  

“I will.”  

Once he left, she propped her hand on one hand. “Sometimes, I can’t tell if he’s highly capable or utterly incompetent.” 

“We have one last stop before we go!” Twilight said to the group assembled at the snack table. Yor, for one, was glad to have a relaxing moment after her nerve-wracking talk with Madam Sherwood. Anya was too busy stuffing herself with snacks and playing with Bond. Yor thought they looked so sweet together and she dreaded having to tell Anya that they had to go home without Bond.  

Twilight noticed this as well because he said, “Never mind, you two stay here and rest. I’ll be but a moment.” 

“Is everything all right?” Yor asked, noting Twilight’s clenched jaw and tense shoulders.  

“Yes, yes! I just need to pop down to the library here to look up something. I’ll be back before you finish your tea!”  

But he wasn’t back before Yor finished her tea. Or her snacks. Or her second cup of tea. Or her third. At this point, she was beginning to worry. Anya seemed to pick up on this and said, “Let’s go look for him!”  

“Are you sure that’s all right?” she asked nervously. “What if we get lost?” 

“Don’t worry. We have Bond! He knows this place. Bond, lead us to the library!”  

And sure enough, Bond knew the way. He padded out to the hallway and led them down several twisting corridors and up several flights of steps to the library. By the time they made it there, Yor was so dizzy that she was glad they had Bond to lead them.  

I never would have made it here on my own, she thought as she and Anya peeked around the library entrance. 

And that’s when Yor saw what was keeping Twilight so long.  

And that’s when she wished they hadn’t come looking for him.  

Draping himself over the front counter of the library, the dashing wizard was putting on his most charming display, all smiles and dazzles and sparkling charisma.  

And behind the counter was a young, pretty blonde who was eating it up. She was a slender, dainty thing with all the giggling modesty of a flustered schoolgirl.  

“Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?” Twilight asked, practically batting his eyelashes at her.  

“Oh, no, my good sir. Not at all. We can’t let you take books out of this library if you don’t live in the area, but I’d be glad to copy it down for you.” 

The young woman practically dropped her papers in her hurry to jot down whatever passage Twilight wanted from the book on the counter. She had just handed the finished paper over to Twilight when Bond's ears perked up, like he was listening to something from far away. Then he barked a quick warning and tackled Anya and Yor, sending all three of them flying down the hallway.  

“Bond?!” Yor shouted, gasping for air. Before she could say anything further, an explosion ricocheted from the end of the hallway where they were just standing, sending rubble and debris flying in all directions. 

Twilight and the pretty librarian ran out to see what was happening and that’s when they all heard a voice that turned everyone’s veins to ice. 

“I KNOW HE’S HERE! WHERE IS HE?!”  

“It’s her!” the librarian screamed. “I can’t believe it’s her!”  

“Get behind me!” Twilight shouted, pulling something from one of his billowing sleeves.  

But then Madam Sherwood appeared in the hallway and shouted, “No! If you reveal yourself now, she’ll know for sure. Go!” She turned to the librarian. “Karen, evacuate this wing!” The librarian nodded and rushed off to carry out the order.  

The sorceress turned around to face the thudding of some gigantic creature crashing its way through the ruined walls towards them. Without turning around, she said, “Bond, make sure they get out.”  

For a moment, Bond looked torn on what to do. It was clear he did not want to leave her alone to deal with the invader, but he also knew that he was their best shot at getting the others out. It wasn’t until Madam Sherwood turned and said, “I’m counting on you,” that really did it. 

Barking once, he whirled and pushed the others ahead of him down a corridor that Yor hadn’t noticed before. Truthfully, Yor didn’t want to leave Madam Sherwood alone, either, but Twilight told her, “She’s the best. If anyone can handle what’s coming, it’s her.” Besides, they had Anya’s safety to think about as well.  

And with a silent thank you and prayer to the brave sorceress, the group turned and fled.  

Chapter Text

When the group arrived back at the castle, Franky was so alarmed when he saw everyone’s panicked and disheveled state that Yor had to pause and give him a quick summary of what happened during their visit to the palace. She also introduced him to Bond while Twilight threw up protection spells and cloaking shields around the castle. 

“Are we going to be okay, Papa?” Anya asked, her small voice quavering.  

“Yes, peanut. We’ll be all right. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” He looked to Bond and Yor and Franky. “To any of us.”  

"Anya, are you sure you’re not hurt?” Yor asked again. The little girl nodded but clung to her all the same. She was still shaking so Yor and Twilight took turns holding her and rocking her until she fell asleep.  

Once they put her to bed, Twilight paced back and forth in the common room, muttering out loud as he tried to figure out some things.  

“I don’t see how she could have traced us!” he hissed. “We all bathed in enchanted water! It should have erased anything traceable!”  

Yor suddenly remembered the three cauldrons of hot water that Twilight had her boil. No wonder that water was so refreshing, Yor thought. It was enchanted water! 

Franky eventually grew tired of watching the wizard pace and said, “If you have that much energy to spare, why not make something for the rest of us to eat?”  

Without a word, Twilight rose and began bustling about the kitchen. Before long, he had cooked up something simple for them, even whipping up a little gourmet dish for Bond. 

“Twilight, please eat,” Yor begged as she watched the wizard pick aimlessly at his food. “You need your strength.”  

Twilight ate a few more bites but did no more than that. After a while, he got up from the table and fished out the paper with the passage on it. “At least I got this done before we had to leave...” But he frowned when his fingers clamped the edges of the paper. “But why is it wet?” Extracting it carefully, he unfolded the page and pinned it to the hanging line where he hung his herbs to dry. “Should be dry by tomorrow,” he sighed. “I’ll deal with it then. For now, we better get some sleep.” 

But Yor knew that Twilight didn't sleep much that night. He spent most of the night rearranging the strange symbols he had drawn onto the table and at one point, he must have gotten something right because the voice of Madam Sherwood came through: "I can't talk for long," she said urgently. "Since I don't know who's listening. Just know that the situation at the Palace has been contained, but the Witch got away and the king is not happy about it. For now, keep Bond with you, at the very least to guard Anya. And for heaven's sake, get some sleep! You look like hell." 

Twilight would have chuckled if he weren't so exhausted. But heeding his mentor's advice, he finally wiped away the symbols and went to bed. 

The next day, however, brought a new problem. When the group came out to the common room for breakfast, Franky said that a notice had been posted on the front of the Berlint door early this morning. 

“Not another curse, I presume?” Twilight asked.  

“No,” Franky responded, flickering green for a moment. Yor knew that he only flickered green if he was worried. “And no enchantment has been placed upon the door itself. It’s safe,” he confirmed.  

“All the same,” Twilight said. “Seal the door’s perimeter. Nothing to come in except the notice.”  

“Got it.”  

Twilight then murmured some strange words and stuck his hand right through the door’s wooden surface. When he retracted it, his fingers were clasped around a scroll of parchment. He unfurled it, but before he was finished reading it, Yor could already hear him gritting his teeth.  

“And this on top of everything else!” he said, tossing the parchment onto the worktable.  

“What are you going to do, Papa?” Anya asked, her voice small and frightened. Yor didn’t understand how Anya could already know what her father was upset about, but the child did always have an uncanny sense for these things. The girl’s face had turned a ghostly white as her father collapsed into his black armchair.  

Yor, meanwhile, inched toward the worktable. She wasn’t sure if she should be reading it, but Twilight did leave it out in the open. She quickly glanced at it and was surprised to find that it had the official seal of the King of Ostania.  

At that point, all hesitation flew out the window. She read the entire notice through, then read it again since many of the flowery, diplomatic-sounding words were taxing her already overwrought nerves. The notice appeared to be a summons to the Royal Palace for “strategic planning for tactical advantages.” Twilight’s presence was required, that much was clear.  

“Is this...?” Yor began. 

“A summons from the King of Ostania himself,” Twilight sighed. He steepled his hands and closed his eyes, breathing heavily through the narrow space in between his palms.  

Anya climbed up next to him, placing her tiny hands on his shoulder. “Do you have to go, Papa?”  

“I’m supposed to go,” he said through his clenched jaw. Yor knew that it was an evasive answer, but he sounded more exhausted than annoyed.  

“But you’re not going to go...are you?” Anya asked. The wizard turned to look at his daughter then. A watery, soft smile expanded over his face. “No, peanut. Not if I can help it.” Then he stood up. “But if I’m not going to report there, the king will send his soldiers after me, and we can’t have that.” The wizard looked to the hearth. “Franky, conserve your magic for the next few days. We’re moving house.”  

That night, after Anya had been put to bed and all was quiet, Yor worked up her courage to speak to Twilight. She originally wanted to ask Franky about the summons, but he had gone to sleep as soon as Twilight told him to conserve his magic so the only one left to ask was the wizard himself.  

Yor approached him and said, “Twilight, that notice you received...Is it really for...for...?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish her question. Images of crumbling buildings and the smell of charred flesh came back to her. Sounds of artillery fire and inhuman screams flooded her senses.  

“Yes,” Twilight said quietly as his images of destruction mirrored her thoughts in his mind. “The king is summoning me because we might be getting into a war soon.”  

“But...but why?”  

Twilight exhaled slowly and said, “Have you heard about the missing prince?” 

“Yes, he’s been missing for a few months now.” 

“Well, he was supposed to come to Ostania for an educational exchange, but then he disappeared right after he crossed the Ostanian border. His father suspects that Ostanians might have kidnapped him.”  

“But does anyone know for sure?”  

“No, but no one has been able to find him, either, and that’s brought underlying tensions to their boiling point. The prince's father has announced that if his son isn’t returned safely by the end of this month, he will mount a full-on war against Ostania.” 

Yor almost collapsed but luckily, her white chair came by to cushion her below. Her heart hammered as she clutched her chest. To her surprise, Twilight took one of her hands and pressed the soft spot of flesh in between her thumb and forefinger. Gradually, she felt her panic subside.  

“Thank you,” Yor said once she felt better. “That was a strange kind of magic you just did. You didn’t even mutter any magic words.”  

Twilight grinned at her, and Yor found the effect to be almost blinding. No wonder women fall for him so easily, she marveled. Yor was sure that if she had been her young self, she would have fallen for his charms just as easily.  

“No magic that time,” Twilight said. “Just a matter of knowing which pressure points to use.” He let go of her hand and Yor suddenly wished he hadn’t.  

Flustered by that thought, Yor looked away, hoping her wrinkles and leathery face didn’t give away any emotion she might have been feeling. 

To cover up her embarrassment, she said, “You’re really not going to report to the king.” It was more of a statement than a question.  

“No,” Twilight responded. “I’ll have to dodge the king for as long as I can and for that, we’ll have to move house.”  

“But where will we go?” Yor asked.  

“Don’t you worry your silver head over that,” he said to her. “We’ve got plenty of places where we can move. Why, just the other day, I saw an old herb shop for sale, and I think it’d make the perfect spot to set up!” 

“Herb shop!” Yor exclaimed.  

“Yes,” Twilight said cheerily. Then his expression changed to confusion when he saw the look on her face. “I thought you liked herbs? You’re constantly organizing them into little jars and such. I thought you’d fit right in if we got an herb shop.”  

Yor gulped. But surely he didn’t mean...! Did he?

Chapter Text

But yes, it was indeed the same herb shop Yor had left behind all those months ago. She was surprised to find that it was for sale, but when she eavesdropped on Twilight signing the papers with Shopkeeper, (how strange it felt hiding from her old boss behind one of the flimsy, wooden doors in the back of the shop!), she discovered why.  

Naturally, the wizard was using a fake name when he was speaking to Shopkeeper. Once they had signed the papers, Shopkeeper shook hands with Twilight and said, “Thank you again, Mister...”  

“Forger. Loid Forger,” Twilight said, flashing Shopkeeper one of his winning smiles.  

“Yes, of course, Mr. Forger. Please take good care of the shop. We would have left it to our best employee had she not upped and disappeared one day.” 

“Oh? How very tragic. I do hope she’s all right, wherever she is.”  

“Yes, no one’s been able to find her, but we hope to see her again someday. If you ask me...” 

Here, Shopkeeper dropped his voice so low that Yor couldn’t catch what he was saying. The men both straightened up again a moment later and tipped their hats to each other before Shopkeeper left.  

Then Yor heard Twilight bustling towards the back, and she hurriedly returned to the castle. 

And just in time, too, because the wizard burst in a moment later. “It’s settled. We now have a shop!” Then he turned thoughtful. “An herb shop would require a lot of maintenance, but we do have the space for something else. Hmmm...” Twilight took off his hat and twirled it absently on his fist. “Well, if we’re not opening an herb shop, then what shall we do instead?”  

Yor eyed the wizard warily. Then, on a whim, she said, “Why don’t you open a hat shop instead? You’re always wearing a variety of hats so why don’t you sell them to people?”  

Twilight’s face lit up. “Capital idea, Yor! We’ll open a hat shop!”  

Yor blanched. She didn’t expect the wizard to take her seriously, but before she could protest, he and Anya were already drawing up plans for the hat shop. Anya spent the rest of day drawing funny, unusual hats while Twilight pored over the layout of the shop, muttering to himself about where to set up certain hat stands.  

The only one who was as disgruntled as Yor was Franky, who muttered that they should sell more interesting things like mechanical inventions that could change color instead of hats. Anya caught onto this and when she asked Franky how to make a hat that could change colors, that’s when Franky began to get into the spirit of it.  

Yor was soon won over to their side when Anya kept showing her hat drawings and asking for her input on them. In the end, Yor thought that maybe a hat shop wasn’t such a bad idea. Besides, one of their doors led to a remote part of the countryside that grew splendid flowers so maybe she could harvest some flowers to decorate the hats... 

The day after that was moving day. Yor and Anya had moved everything in the common room off to the sides while Twilight chalked strange, circular symbols on the floors and windows and doors. He even worked on the ceiling beams and support beams so that after a few hours, almost every surface was covered in odd, spiral runes. They looked vaguely familiar to Yor, but looking at them too long made her cross-eyed so she didn’t bother trying to decipher them.  

Once Twilight was done, he knelt near the largest circle, the one in the center of the common room and shouted to his fire demon, “Ready, Franky?”  

“No...” the fire demon whined, his tiny flame arms grasping the grate like he was hanging on for dear life.  

Twilight turned to glare at the fire demon, one of his eyebrows shooting so far up his forehead that it practically disappeared into his blond fringe. “You want to wait until tomorrow then?” the wizard asked. “I hear it’s going to rain.”  

Franky yelped. “No, no, I’m ready today. Let’s do it now!”  

“There’s a good demon,” the wizard said, grinning mischievously. He picked up a nearby shovel and very gently, very carefully, scooped Franky onto it.  

The fire demon held onto the sides of the shovel in the same way he had held onto the bars of the grate, wobbling in a precarious, terrified manner.  

Now that Franky was fully out of the grate, Yor could see that he was not just a ball of fire, but had a round, solid stomach, one that appeared like a smooth black stone through his orange flames. The “stomach” wobbled even more than his flames did, and Franky was desperately trying to keep it away from the sides of the shovel.  

“On my mark, Franky!” Twilight barked. 

“R-right!” Franky flamed up to the ceiling, growing to five times his size as his arms came bearing up on the roof of the castle.  

“Now!”  

“G-got it!” Franky shouted, closing his eyes and straining.  

Yor felt the floor rumble under her feet and immediately scrambled to shelter Anya. However, she found that Anya was already seated on the workbench and watching everything with giant, sparkling eyes. It was clear that she had seen this kind of thing before.  

Yor wobbled over to the workbench as the rumbling rose to a roar. The beams of the castle creaked and crackled as they magically expanded and lifted. The seams of the castle appeared to pop open, one brick at a time, only to pop back together with a satisfying crunch of stone. The light in the room wavered as the windows contracted and morphed into wide windows with spacious sills. The air shifted from the smell of sawdust and wood to the scent of musty herbs and ivy-covered stone.  

Once everything was done, Yor thought about how strange it felt! And how familiar at the same time! Walking through the hallways and running her hand along the countertops felt so like greeting an old friend, even though everything was bare and empty now.  

When Yor pulled her hand away, dust lingered on her fingertips. Hmm, cleaning was in order.  

The next few days were a flurry of tidying, ordering materials, and organizing. Twilight, knowing a surprising bit about hats, wasted no time at all in churning out one hat after another, in his usual quick and expert fashion. 

After Twilight put multiple protection and cloaking spells on them, Yor took Anya and Bond out to the countryside to collect flowers.

And that's where they ran into the scarecrow again.  

Chapter Text

But the scarecrow could move now! Hopping excitedly on its stick, it seemed as surprised to see them as they were to see it. Yor quickly introduced Anya to the scarecrow and it even made a little bow to her as she tried to shake its gloved hand.

Anya took to the scarecrow immediately and they became fast friends. The scarecrow had endless patience for Anya’s imaginative chatter and the little girl enjoyed decorating the scarecrow with anything she found on the ground (mostly leaves and ladybugs).  

The scarecrow also turned out to know the countryside well since it would show them the best places to find flowers and other decorative items. Every once in a while, it could even eke out a “Here” or “Follow” although speaking proved to strain it quite a bit.  

Bond was more ambivalent towards the scarecrow. At first, he seemed relieved and overjoyed to be reunited with it, but other times, he appeared to be annoyed with it, especially when he saw how much Anya got along with the scarecrow. It took coaxing on Anya’s part to reconcile them, but eventually, the three of them became friends.  

Yor also admitted, she very much enjoyed decorating hats with them. Large, showy flowers for ostentatious customers and tiny, modest pinholes for more conservative ones. Anya shined buckles for the men’s hats while Yor used her strength to bend metal into interesting shapes for decoration.  

Before long, the hat shop was open. Business was slow at first, but all Twilight had to do was don a hat and a disguise and walk by chatting with people. The hats he wore were always fashionable and eye-catching, guaranteed to draw admiring comments and questions about where he purchased them.  

Yor and Anya also wore hats from the shop when they went shopping together, but Yor did not know if they drew attention because Twilight had bespelled their hats or because Anya was quite chatty about them.  

Regardless, business soon began to pick up, and it wasn’t too many weeks before they had a steady stream of customers.  

“I heard about this hat shop from a fine gentleman visiting from Nortica. He had a strange accent, but his hat was the epitome of a high-class gentleman!”  

“We heard a diplomat from Hugaria visited town just to see this hat shop!” 

“You two looked so adorable the other day in your matching hats, I had to stop by and see if they had any for myself and my daughters!”  

Even Bond enjoyed the attention he got from the customers, looking dashing in his black bowtie and the shiny, black top hat Twilight had made for him.  

The only one disgruntled by this change was Franky. He grumbled about how no one came to see him anymore since they spent all their time in the shop or in town.  

After that, Yor made a point to talk to him every morning and Anya came to consult him on matters of magic, even if she could have easily asked her Papa.  

Yor also noticed another change: Twilight’s attention to women. He had always been charming to women, but now he seemed to scrutinize every young woman who came in, searching their face as if he were looking for something.  

He was nothing more than courteous to them, of course, but the extra attention he was paying to them often bothered Yor.  

“He’d do so much better as a wizard if he paid half as much attention to his magic!” she’d mutter under her breath as she attached flowers and buckles to hats.  

But aside from that, Twilight’s plan appeared to be working. They had not seen or heard from the king nor the Witch of the Westalis since they moved the castle.  

Twilight still made sure to check the protection spells every day, of course, but it looked like they were in the clear.  

Once business was steady, however, Twilight spent more time away from everyone, disappearing into the black door that had slipped them the mysterious love poem. 

He’s probably gallivanting off to see that librarian again, Yor thought ruefully. Bet that’s why he’s been reading those books of love poems every day, all to court that pretty blonde who loves books as much as he does! 

And this made Yor a little sad because she liked to read, too, but she knew she could never be as smart as someone who spent all day around books. Yor sighed. And Twilight was so intelligent, too. Of course he’d be attracted to another intelligent being. Not...not someone frumpy and old and who never even finished school.  

It was exactly one of the days when Yor was decorating a string of hats in the castle that they received a surprise visitor.  

Twilight had left early that morning and when Yor checked, the knob was turned to the black triangle. “At it again, he is!” she muttered. “He must be trying to meet up with her before she goes into work, that sly one! Perhaps inviting her out to lunch later on! Or worse, dinner!”  

“What are you grumbling about?” asked Franky from the hearth. “He’s been with lots of women, but it never means anything. Wait and see. Once he learns what he wants to know, he drops the woman like she’s old news.” 

“That’s so heartless!”  

Franky shrugged his little orange shoulders. “Twilight’s a heartless man. He’s been that way for...for as long as I’ve known him,” the fire demon emphasized, leaning forward and nodding meaningfully as he said it.  

“Hmph, well, maybe one day he’ll have his own heart broken and then he’ll know what it feels like!”  

“If he had a heart to break!” Franky cackled, but his voice was mirthless, as if his statement weren’t really a joke.  

It was at that moment that the doorknob twisted, and Yor turned towards the door, ready to shout at Twilight for breaking so many hearts. 

However, the person who stepped through the door this time was not Twilight at all. 

“Oh, dear me. I must have come at a bad time,” a soft, feminine voice said, catching the look on Yor’s face which was caught halfway between a scowl and a yelp of surprise.  

“Ms. Librarian!” Yor cried before she could stop herself. Of course, she knew it was rude to call someone by their occupational title, but she was so surprised that she couldn't remember the woman's name. 

“Ah, yes...Karen’s the name. You’re, erm, Robert’s grandmother, I presume?” 

“I’m his aunt,” Yor said curtly, bristling at being called his grandmother. For whatever reason, she didn’t want to reveal that she was actually Twilight’s housekeeper. She was also surprised that Twilight had given the librarian one of his alternate names, but then she remembered that Twilight gave out fake names to all the women he chased.  

“Yes, his, erm, aunt,” Karen said, squinting at Yor as if she were so old she looked more like a great-grandmother, let an aunt. 

Then Karen shrugged, seeming to dismiss it as irrelevant. At any rate, she did not see Yor as a threat.  

“Can I help you with something?” Yor asked, planting herself squarely in Karen’s path so she could not move further into the castle.  

“I only wanted to see if Robert were here,” Karen said, a look of apprehension creeping into her eyes. Apparently, Yor was not one to be trifled with, even if she looked to be ninety years old.  

“Well, he’s not here,” Yor said, crossing her arms and scowling, her wrinkled lips sucking further into her mouth. Even with her stooped height and withered appearance, Yor looked every bit as formidable as a titan, and the librarian knew it.  

“Perhaps I can wait for him?” Karen asked, trying to sidestep Yor towards the couches and chairs in the living room.  

“He’ll be out all day,” Yor said, not knowing if it was true or not. She hoped it was. She may have looked sure of herself in that moment, but deep down inside, she fervently prayed that Twilight wasn’t going to waltz in right that second.  

“Should I return around dinnertime? Or tomorrow?” Karen asked, glancing around the room to see if she could find an opening.  

“He’s very busy,” Yor growled. “I’ll tell him you came by,” she lied, throwing out her arms and herding Karen toward the door.  

“Oh, so he has been writing love poems!” the librarian cried suddenly, dashing underneath Yor’s arm and snatching up one of the sheets on the workbench. “I do hope he finds the right one!”  

So Twilight was writing the perfect love poem for her, Yor thought, bile suddenly erupting in her throat. She turned on the librarian, her thick, gray eyebrows lowering in disdain. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I think it’s a bit rude to barge into someone’s home and fondle their things. I told you he’s not home and I’m very busy myself so if you would be so kind...” Yor threw her arm out toward the door and tried again to herd Karen out.  

“Yes, yes, of course. You are very busy. I’ll...I’ll take my leave now,” Karen said, retreating in a flurry of skirts.  

“Ahem, Miss Librarian,” Yor said again, refusing to use Karen’s name. “The poems...” (She also refused to call them love poems.) 

“What about them?” the librarian asked innocently.  

“They belong to Twi—Robert. Leave them with me.”  

Karen balked. For a moment, she looked as if she were about to dash off with the poems, but a sudden flaring from the fireplace made up her mind.  

“Oh, keep the stupid poems!” she screamed, crumpling up the paper. “You’re probably obsessed with them yourself!” With that, Karen tossed the paper ball to Yor and dashed out the door.  

Yor caught the crumpled ball, momentarily stunned by Karen’s outburst. She was about to shout an obscenity towards the librarian’s retreating back, but the firm slamming of the door and a cackle from the fireplace cut that short.  

Chapter Text

As the days went by, Yor grew more agitated with Twilight’s disappearances into the black portal. Little by little, this resulted in lopsided hats and decorations that looked gloomy when attached to the hats instead of spruce and lively.  

Anya wasn’t entirely sure why Yor was so gloomy, but she did her best to cheer her up by offering peanuts and reassuring pats on the knee. Bond did his best as well. Whenever Yor appeared merely melancholy, he would patter up to her and rest his giant head in her lap, offering what small comfort he could.  

One day, Twilight came whirling into the shop all aflutter. “I’m so close! I almost have her!” he crowed triumphantly to no one in particular.  

“Wha —?” Franky asked, but before he could finish, Twilight had fixed his appearance in the mirror and then dashed out of the shop again.  

Yor drooped. So this is it, she thought. He’s almost won over the librarian. Her thoughts, unbidden, strayed to images of Twilight proposing to the lucky blonde. Sure, he would still come home to teach Anya and to tend to the shop from time to time, but now that he was so close, he wouldn’t have time for much else, least not for her.  

Not that she was entitled to his time, she reminded herself. She was just the housekeeper after all. 

Then a thought struck Yor. What if Twilight started bringing the librarian here instead? What if that woman started spending the night here? What if she and Twilight spent all day making doe eyes at each other and whispering sweet nothings? What if the librarian won over Anya? 

Well, why wouldn’t she? Yor thought. The girl was young and pretty and far more normal than pitiful, old Yor.  

That settled it then. She would just have to leave. She didn’t think she could stand to stay around the shop if Twilight started bringing his new lady love here all the time. Although Yor couldn’t decide what was worse, seeing Twilight flirting with his new beau here at the shop or having the two of them gone from the shop while they went on long, romantic dates around town.  

The only regret she had was leaving behind Anya and Bond and Franky.  

But they can manage on their own, thought Yor. They managed just fine without her before. Maybe I can go live with the scarecrow out in the countryside, she mused as she secretly packed her things. 

This time, however, Yor was a little wiser about leaving. She decided she would go down to visit Shopkeeper and see if he could find her a job and a place to live out in the countryside. She knew better than to go to Yuri because he would have a heart attack if he found out she were cursed, but Shopkeeper was more likely to keep a level head. Surely, he would know what to do.  

Yes, that’s what I’ll go first, Yor decided as she tied her up bundle of belongings and left a goodbye note for everyone. She had just turned the knob to green and opened the door when she was stopped by none other than the scarecrow! 

“Well, fancy meeting you here, old friend,” Yor said, already feeling much better from seeing him. “Have you finally decided to move in with us?”  

But something was off about the scarecrow this time. He looked agitated and his head was swiveling this way and that, as if he were looking for something or making sure no one was following him.  

“What’s the matter? Is something—” but before Yor could finish, the scarecrow suddenly keeled over and clattered to the floor, its stick arms rattling against the wooden floorboards as if it were convulsing.  

“Scarecrow?!” Yor dropped her bag of things and hurried forward, but before she could reach it, Franky flared up in the grate.  

“Don’t touch it!” he snapped. “It’s trying to say something, but whatever spell it’s under is stopping it.” 

“Can you help him?” Yor asked, frantic.  

“Me? No, but maybe Anya can.” 

“Step aside, Miss Yor. I got this,” Anya said, materializing next to her suddenly.  

“But Anya, it could be dangerous!” Yor cried.  

“I’ll be okay,” Anya said, sounding unusually certain.  

At the sound of Anya’s voice, the scarecrow stopped convulsing and turned to its side, as if realizing she was there.  

“There, there,” Anya said soothingly, coming up to the scarecrow and patting its tattered cloth shoulder. “Don’t be scared. It’s going to be okay.”  

Anya then spoke to the scarecrow in a strange language, and Yor recognized some of the words as the classical language that she used when she was learning spells with Twilight. After a few more moments, the scarecrow straightened up and bounced a few times on its wooden stick.  

“It was looking for someone in this castle to help him with his spell,” Anya translated for Yor. “At first, he thought he was looking for you, but it turns out he needs someone else living here. Probably Papa.”  

Yor, having forgotten about leaving, immediately started thinking of ways to contact Twilight. She was about to ask Franky if he could do it when a voice suddenly boomed into the castle:  

“This is the Witch of Westalis. I’ve captured Twilight’s precious lover. Tell him that if he ever wants to see her again, he will come for her and submit to my conditions. If not, well, I don’t think I have to tell you what I have in mind for his lovely little librarian.”  

Chapter Text

Yor froze. Everyone froze. This was an unexpected turn of events.  

Yor turned to the doorknob and the color drained from her face as the memory of a few days ago returned to her. She had kicked out the librarian when the knob was turned down black! That meant Yor had abandoned her in the middle of the dark nothingness! And the Witch must have been waiting there!  

This is all my fault, she thought, wanting to collapse on herself.  

“This is NOT your fault,” Anya piped up suddenly. Yor looked up, surprised. The tiny child wasn’t here when she had kicked out the librarian. How did she know about it? Then she glanced toward Franky. Maybe the fire demon had told her?  

But then Yor stood up. She had always been a woman of action and now was not the time to wallow in self-blame. It was her fault that the librarian was in this mess, and the wretched lady needed rescuing so... 

“Anya, stay here and don’t open the door for anyone.”  

“Okay, but—” 

Before Anya could finish, Yor snatched up her walking stick, turned the knob to black, and threw open the door. 

The last thing she heard was Anya’s screams as the door shut behind her.  

“Miss Yor! No!” Anya dashed to the door and tried to pull it open but found that it wouldn’t budge.  

“Scruffy! The door won’t open!” 

“I know. She magically locked it.”  

“What?! How?!” 

Franky sighed. “She has more power than she can imagine. I don’t think she realizes all the things she can do with her mind alone, but since she took her magic staff with her...” 

“So there’s no way to open the door?!”  

“I can work on it, but it’ll be my magic against hers, and I don’t know the full extent of it.” Then the fire demon narrowed his eyes. “I also don’t know if I should open the door. You’re likely to run after her, and we can’t have that.” 

“But we have to help her!” Anya screamed as she pulled on the doorknob.  

Franky groaned. “I’ll see what I can do.” The fire demon dipped under his logs as he tried working through the inadvertent magic Yor had thrown in to lock the castle. 

In reality, Franky hadn’t realized what Yor was about to do, or he would have tried to stop her himself. That old biddy really did move way too quickly for someone her age. For now, he would have to work extra hard to keep up the protection spells around the castle until Twilight came back. He could only hope that Yor would be okay and that Twilight would come back soon.  

Where are you when we need you, you rotten wizard?  

When Yor threw herself through the black portal, she expected to fall away into nothingness, but all she did was stumble forward in the darkness for a bit until she found her surroundings growing brighter. After a few more paces, she stepped directly into a world so full of color and life that it almost blinded her.  

Around her was fields of flowers that stretched as far as the eye could see, the vibrant colors popping brightly against a backdrop of deep azure sky. For a moment, Yor was disoriented and had to lean on her walking stick while she took in her surroundings. After her eyes adjusted, she took another look and recognized some familiar hills dipping down into a wide valley below. When she looked behind her, a skyline of dusty buildings rose against the horizon, but they seemed impossibly far away, almost like a mirage compared to the flowers bursting at her feet. 

Yor vaguely remembered having been in a place like this before when she was a young girl, the night she snuck out to the dividing land between Ostania and Westalis. She didn’t remember much about that night. 

Except...except meeting a young boy. An extraordinary boy. Someone she never saw again. 

And that’s when it hit her.  

She was at the edge of the Waste, but on the Westalian side of it. That must have been why everything looked unfamiliar at first. And the tiny town far off behind her...Luwen, was that the name?  

Yor shook her head. Now was not the time for that. She could ponder about this later (if she lived long enough to see a “later”). For now, she had to find the Witch. 

Peering out over the landscape, she spied a glint of what looked like sunlight reflecting off a towering shape of ice.  

Ice? In the middle of summer? How? 

At that moment, memories of her first meeting with the Witch flooded back to Yor. Her icy elegance. Her frigid stare. Her cold demeanor. Hmmm, if she had to take a guess, the Witch was somewhere there.  

Hiking up her skirts, Yor told her skinny old legs to move as fast as they could. They had a librarian to save.  

A while later, Yor arrived at the towering shape and found herself standing in front of a gleaming ice castle. The summer sun glanced off the castle in all directions, highlighting its intricate glacial structure and soaring crystal spires. The castle itself was a frosty opaque hue, lending it an atmosphere of cold, regal dignity.  

It would have been a gorgeous sight to behold if Yor’s knees weren’t knocking together from the anxiety of what she was about to do. Well, here goes nothing, Yor thought.  

Chapter Text

Yor didn’t know how she expected her gambit to play out, but it definitely wasn’t THIS. She had barged into the Witch’s castle, demanding that she release the librarian when she found herself immediately bound and captured by the Witch’s magic.  

Now she found herself thrown against a wall and wrapped in magical chains that prevented her from moving.  

And now she was completely helpless as she listened to the Witch seethe with fury at Yor’s audacity in showing up on her doorstep. 

“YOU?!” the Witch raged. “YOU! As if you haven’t fouled up my plans enough! Now you dare to show your face here! As if YOU could be anything of a challenge to ME! Me, the Witch of Westalis! The most powerful sorceress in the East and the West! Do you know how long I’ve trained and how hard I’ve worked to become ME? The BEST? And yet still, he chooses...!”  

The Witch broke off suddenly, almost as if she had caught herself in the nick of time. Her icy mask reformed as she smoothed out her violet dress. Her hair, which had turned wild with rage, flattened itself into its pristine state, not a strand out of place. It took a few moments, but the Witch managed to return to her usual state of restrained perfection. Impassive. Resplendent. Icily beautiful and emotionless.  

“Hmph,” she said, the contempt seeping back into her voice. “It looks like this might work out in my favor after all. He’ll come all right. Twilight will come. And when he does, I’ll have to pleasure of showing him how wrong he was, once and for all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my spell. I know Twilight will come to rescue his so-called lady love, and I intend to be fully prepared to capture his heart when he does.” 

Yor blanched at that. While she knew that Twilight was powerful, she also knew that the wizard must have had a reason for avoiding the Witch all this time.  

And now she had really done it. Instead of rescuing the librarian, she had gone and gotten herself kidnapped as well. 

Honestly, Yor didn’t know what she was expecting. Did she really think she could just demand that the Witch release Karen and the Witch would comply? It wasn’t like Yor was any challenge to her. Sure, Yor still might have some of the strength and speed of her youth, but the Witch wasn’t going to fight her in hand-to-hand combat. Yor didn’t have any magic to counteract the Witch’s magic, and she had nothing to use as leverage. Now that she thought about it, her decision to come here by herself with nothing more than her walking stick was rather rash and stupid. 

Wait a moment...her walking stick. It had clattered to the ground when the Witch had snatched up Yor, and now it lied forgotten behind an ice pillar. 

“Oh, walking stick, if only you could help me now,” Yor whispered. “If I could get ahold of you, maybe I could take a good whack at these chains.” To her great surprise, the walking stick rolled out from behind the pillar and stood upright. Then it began to whack away loudly at the chains.  

Whaaaa? Was Yor seeing things? She shook her head numerous times, but there it was, her walking stick was steadily hacking away at the chains. 

“Um...could you do it a little quieter?” Yor asked. “Lest the Witch sees!” She glanced over at the Witch, but the dastardly woman didn’t turn around. She only said, “Struggle all you want. Those chains are greater than any human strength, even yours. They’ll not budge unless I give the say so.”  

“Well, in that case...” Yor said. She whispered something else to her walking stick, and before long, the tapered end of the stick began to work away at the ice pillar instead. To Yor’s surprise, the ice pillar wasn’t actually made of ice. It chipped away like cheap plaster and the flecks that flew off did not feel cold to Yor’s touch. But she did not have time to worry about that right now. 

“Faster!” Yor whispered to the stick. “Faster!” Before long, the stick was sawing away diligently at the pillar until the ice began to come off in mounds of ice shavings and the chains began to grow slack. “There’s a good walking stick!” Yor said, goading it on. “You’re doing wonderfully!” The stick seemed to like this praise since it doubled its efforts and within another minute, Yor’s chains dropped away from the ice pillar.  

She rubbed her sore wrists and arms from where the chains had cut into her. “Oooh, that smarts.” Then she picked up the stick. “You’ve done very well, my friend. Now we must be off to find the librarian!”  

Yor had not gone more than a few paces, however, when something grabbed at her and clamped down on her mouth before pulling her backward. 

“Mmffmmph!” Yor tried to scream, but then the scent of suit freshener filled her nostrils.  

“Yor, it’s okay. I have you,” came a familiar, wizardly voice.  

“Twilight!” Yor breathed in relief. Then she turned around and met a sight that gave her such a shock she would have collapsed had Twilight not been supporting her. “Twilight, what happened to you?!” she whispered frantically, looking him up and down.  

Yor had never seen the wizard like this before. He was disheveled beyond recognition. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and the usual dark circles under them were now so dark they looked more like bruises. His usually clean-shaven face was now covered in rough stubble, and his hair was so unkempt that it looked like several birds had been squabbling over which one got to make a nest out of his golden locks.  

Moreover, his suit, which had always been neatly pressed and orderly, now lied in sad disarray, almost as if he had pulled on the suit while he was rushing somewhere and he never bothered to straighten it out. She could hardly believe what she was seeing, but then she realized that must have been in such a hurry to come rescue the librarian that he neglected his usually prim and proper appearance.  

He must really love her, Yor thought sadly. And now I’ve gone and become a burden to him again. Yor looked around quickly. The castle led off into many hallways that were so long the ends of them disappeared into the distance. Yor hadn’t the faintest idea where the librarian might be held and she didn’t know if they would have to time to look for her before the witch caught on... 

That’s when she suddenly remembered the Witch’s entrapment spell. “Twilight, you can’t be here! The Witch—” 

“Has you right where she wants you,” the woman’s voice echoed down to them. Leaping from a balcony, the Witch made a perfect, noiseless landing onto the polished, gleaming floor of her ice castle. She had an expression of triumphant gloating which quickly devolved into a furious hiss when she saw how Twilight placed himself protectively in front of Yor. Her mask slipped only for a second, however, before its usual placid expression replaced it. “I knew you would come for your lady love so all I had to do was wait until you arrived.”  

“You were right, Nightfall,” Twilight replied, pulling Yor close to his side. “I have come for my lady love and now that I have her, we’ll be leaving.”  

He already rescued the librarian? Yor thought. She looked around her but did not see Karen anywhere. Maybe she was already safely outside, Yor thought. She breathed a sigh of relief. Now all they had to do was get out of here.  

“Leaving so soon?” the Witch asked. “Won’t you stay and enjoy the sunset? I hear the view is spectacular from...here.” The Witch waved a hand, and the ice castle suddenly melted away, its pillars receding into the ground and the walls and ceiling disintegrating like snow in the sunshine. Instead, familiar wooden walls replaced the regal architecture of the ice palace, and a warm fireplace came into view. 

Yor couldn’t believe her eyes. How were they back inside the moving castle? 

“Miss Yor!” a child’s voice cried out. “Papa!”  

“Anya!” Twilight and Yor said at once.  

“You’re back!” Anya cried, running towards them with Bond in tow. “But how did you get in here without using the door?” she asked. She had almost reached them at this point, but a flick of a pale wrist and both Anya and Bond were thrown back against the wall.  

“Anya! Bond!” Yor cried. She turned to swing her walking stick at the Witch but found herself flung against the wall as well.  

“Yor!” Twilight shouted. 

Despite her dizziness, Yor was trying her best to stand up again, using the walking stick for support. She sidled her way towards Anya and Bond, trying her best to get in between them and any spells the Witch might throw their way. Then she heard the sound of clinking metal and that’s when she saw that Twilight had yanked out the pin from his lapel and twisted something on it. Immediately, the pin lengthened into a long, black staff that he held out in front of him as he chanted something in Westalian.  

A bolt of blue magic shot from his staff towards the Witch, but she merely held out her hand and absorbed the magic. 

Except she didn’t stop there. She pulled at the length of the blue bolt as she began to drain magic out of Twilight’s staff. The wizard redoubled his efforts, but the more magic he used, the more the Witch drained.  

“Franky!” the wizard shouted, but the fire demon had turned a stark white. In a panicked voice, he screamed, “I’m...I’m frozen! I can’t do anything! I can’t even reach you!” 

“You’re a day late and a dalc short, darling,” the Witch said, her voice suddenly morphing into the wheedling tones of someone with a distinct Ostanian accent. “Now that I have your magic, I can finally get rid of this useless husk.”  

To everyone’s horror, the Witch’s face slowly melted away from her frame and peeled off like a second skin. Eventually, it sloughed off completely and slithered to the ground. 

Stepping out from the discarded husk, a slender, pretty blonde stepped forward. Her dead fisheyes flashed with calculated malice. “Hello, my darling Robert,” said the librarian to the stunned wizard. Then she shook out her shoulder-length blonde hair. “Or should I say, Twilight?” 

Chapter Text

“Miss Librarian?!” Yor gasped, her throat going dry.  

“I have a name, you know!” the librarian hissed, raising her arm and wrapping Yor, Anya, and Bond in her magical chains.  

That was the same moment that a bolt of Twilight’s blue magic shot towards her as he finished another chant. But the bolt never reached her. Instead, it dissipated a few inches from her skin. 

The librarian turned in a menacingly slow circle towards the panting wizard. “Not so strong now that your curse has come to completion, are you? None of your magic will work against me anymore. Not your protection spells. Not your offense magic. Nothing.”  

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Twilight said through gritted teeth.  

“Oh, but my darling wizard. This is where I’m right. Remember, you only had until the eve of the next May Day Festival to break your curse and as you can see,” the librarian said as she gestured to the window which looked out over the Waste. “Since the sun has already set, the evening has already started.”  

Everyone turned toward where she was pointing and sure enough, the last rays of the setting sun were already dying on the horizon.  

“You never found your lady love so therefore...” here she twirled in one graceful motion and scooped Franky straight out from the hearth. “Your heart is MINE.”  

“Franky!” Twilight shouted.  

“I’m sorry,” Franky coughed, a puff of black smoke rising from his green flames. “I can’t hold on anymore.”  

The next moment, a blur of blue and green flashed towards Miss Karen, but the wizard found himself knocked backward instead, all color draining from his face and his breathing more labored than ever. 

“Nuh-uh-uh,” Karen said, wagging her finger disapprovingly. “Your curse has come to fruition so there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”  

With a flick of her finger, the librarian pinned Twilight to the ground as she conjured up more chains to restrain him.  

“Now, with Twilight’s heart, I can make him do anything I want. All I have to do is...” She gripped Twilight’s heart so hard it looked like she was going to crush it with her bare hands. 

"NO! Twilight’s heart is actually very soft!” Franky cried desperately.  

“Impossible!” Karen spat. “He’s broken so many hearts there’s no way he’s soft-hearted!” And with that, she squeezed Twilight’s heart until sparks of magic flew from it.  

But that last sentence was lost amidst the screams. The horrendous, soul-rending screams.  

Franky screamed, his magic and lifeblood bleeding from him. Twilight screamed too, but it was not the scream of a fully-grown man. Rather, it was the scream of a tortured little boy.  

“Not so fast!” someone shouted, and everyone turned in surprise to the tiny voice that had piped up.  

“Anya, no...” Twilight wheezed, barely able to breathe. “Don’t...put yourself in...danger.” 

“I don’t think I have to,” Anya replied. “That boring blonde lady is no threat to us.”  

“WHAT?!” The librarian wheeled on the small child. “I could destroy you right now, you impudent pustule!”  

“You said that Papa had to find his love by this evening to break his curse!” 

“And he’s already failed!” 

“Well, what if he has found her?” 

Karen scoffed. “If he had found her, then where is she?”  

Anya turned to the wizard, who was struggling to breathe. “Papa, you should tell her.” 

“But...” 

“Papa,” Anya said, exasperated, as if she were speaking to a stubborn child. “We have some boring blonde who’s infilterated our castle, Franky’s in danger, you’re in danger, and you can’t mustard up the courage to say what you need to say?” 

In spite of his pain, Twilight sat up and thought for a moment. “Well, when you put it like that...”  

“Enough of this!” Karen shouted, squeezing Franky even further. The fire demon and the wizard screamed again, with Twilight writhing on the floor this time. 

“Papa!” Anya cried out.  

But before Anya could go any further, the scarecrow, who had been propped up in a corner to recover, suddenly leapt up and snatched the piece of paper that Twilight had left hanging on the drying line. Then he bounded forward and slapped the paper on top of Franky.  

“Oh no, you don’t!” Karen screeched. “I thought putting you under a curse was enough, but even you have gone over to their side!” She flung out a hand towards the scarecrow, and it slammed into the wall, its tattered clothes charred and smoking from the force of the magic.  

But the deed was done. Once the paper touched Franky’s flames, it melted into him, sending off sparks that burned Karen’s hand. Franky gasped, then took a shuddering breath, as if breathing for the first time.  

“What did you do?!” Karen screamed. She frantically tried to put out the sparks that were prancing up her arm, but they only caught fire and lit up even faster. Before long, they had reached her shoulder and were spreading across her chest. “Aaaggghhh!” she howled, dropping the fire demon. 

“FRANKY!!!” everyone shouted at once. But luckily, he never touched the ground. The scarecrow had rocketed forward and caught him on the end of a stick arm. Then he hopped over to Twilight and held out the fire demon.  

“Twilight. I think it’s time,” Franky said, panting as he tried to regain his breath. 

Twilight smiled fondly. “It’s well past time, my friend. Thank you for sticking with me all this time.”  

“It was my pleasure,” Franky said. “Although it will be an even greater pleasure to finally connect you to the rightful owner of your heart.”  

Despite being restricted by chains, Twilight held out Franky to Yor and said, “Yor, my heart belongs to you. It always has. It always will.”  

Yor blinked. Was she hearing that right? “But...but I thought you loved Karen.”  

Twilight shook his head. “She had enchanted the poem she copied down for me. For a long time, it made me think it was her. Then when I found out she wasn’t the one I was looking for, I kept searching in all the wrong places. But it turned out I was looking for you all along.” 

“But I’m...I’m old! I’m ugly! I...I can’t even cook!”  

Twilight chuckled. “You’re not ugly. It doesn’t matter that you can’t cook. And you’re only old because you’re under a spell.” 

“Wait, you could tell? You knew I was under a spell?!”  

The wizard looked embarrassed for a moment. “I did, but I didn’t want to bring it up in case you were self-conscious about it. I tried several times to break it but...” He shrugged. “Even my magic can’t break through everything. At any rate, all that matters is that I’ve found the girl I met on the Night of the Falling Stars.”  

“Night of the Falling...” Then it came flooding back to her. The falling stars. The young boy. The bright thing that she caught and gave to him. “That was you! That boy was you!”  

Twilight nodded.  

“But you look so different!” 

He laughed. “I was under a disguise then.”  

“So...so does this mean...?” Yor couldn’t bring herself to say it. 

Twilight’s mouth quirked into a half-grin. “Instead of talking about it, why don’t I prove it?” He turned to the scarecrow. “Since I’m a bit tied up, could you do the honors, my friend?” 

The scarecrow nodded and tentatively brought Franky over to Yor. She stared at them, bewildered. “Um...what happens now?” 

“You can release me,” Franky said. “Since you now own his heart, my contract with him is done.”  

“You mean I’m going to...” 

Franky nodded. Then, without needing an explanation, Yor knew what she needed to do. It was all so simple. With the fire demon raised to Yor’s face, she said, “I humbly accept.”  

The scarecrow then placed Franky against Yor’s chest where he separated from the heart as it incorporated itself into Yor’s body. As soon as it did, Yor felt a warmth spread through her, flowing outward from her center. It seemed to heal things in her, things she didn’t even know were broken. It healed not just her creaky knees and arthritic joints but renewed her vitality and sense of purpose. She watched as the sunspots and veins faded from her arms and her skin retract until it became smooth and supple again. Even the wisps of white hair that had escaped from her braids turned back to their sleek, midnight color.  

Yor was amazed and when she looked up again, she saw the same sense of surprise and awe on Franky’s face, although his emotions were for a different reason.  

“I’m free!” Franky said. Then: “Wait a minute, I’m free! I’m free!” He gave a holler and disappeared up the chimney and out the roof of the castle. 

Yor breathed a sigh of relief but then:  

“NO!” came a scream from behind her. “I won’t lose to you!”  

With a flick of her hand, Karen batted the scarecrow to the side and charged forward, her arm outstretched towards Yor’s face.  

Then her hand froze as the spreading flames engulfed her, paralyzing her.  

“I wouldn’t try that against someone who has Twilight’s heart,” Anya said. “I’ve seen what happens when Papa gets mad.”  

“Yes,” Twilight said in a cold fury. “And with the curse lifted...” he chanted something in Westalian that was accompanied by a giant rumble from deep within the earth. Parts of the ceiling crumbled as the very foundations of the castle shook. 

When Twilight was done, Karen’s chains were gone and the wizard stepped forward with an icy, snow-white lump in his hands. Karen shrieked and dove for the lump, but Twilight neatly side-stepped her.  

“I’m afraid not,” the wizard stated calmly. “You had your chance to change, but it looks like you were attempting to obtain a new heart as well. You were planning to absorb my heart and let my friend die, weren’t you?” Then he turned to Yor. “My love, would you do the honors?” 

“Me?” Yor asked, pointing to herself.  

Twilight grinned. “Yes, love, you.” He handed the white lump to Yor and made a squashing motion with his hands. “Now that you’re back to your true age, your strength should be back as well.” 

Yor nodded. Taking the lump, she pressed it between her palms, first vertically, then horizontally. She kept pressing until the lump disintegrated into white sand, then dust, then nothing. Once she opened her empty hands, Karen’s screams faded, too.  

Something else happened as well. As soon as Karen was gone, the scarecrow disappeared, too. In its place was a young boy, roughly Anya’s age, who shook himself loose from the last of his enchantment and reintroduced himself to Anya as the third prince of Septevia.  

The prince said he had better return home now he was back to his normal self. However, he insisted that Anya must keep in touch, and he made her promise to write him letters every week.  

“You’ll have to learn to read my handwriting,” Anya said wryly. 

The prince smiled. “With all that’s happened to me in the last year, I think I can handle that.”   

Meanwhile, Twilight said to Yor, “I had a feeling you were that beauty I met on May Day. I’ve never encountered someone so extraordinary.” 

Yor balked. “I wasn’t extraordinary! You had to come rescue me!” 

“Ah, but then you rescued me afterwards!” 

“But then you had to save me from the Witch’s castle!” 

“And you saved me from the Witch’s clutches!” he said, grinning that dazzling smile at her. Yor thought her knees would give out. Twilight thought so too because he swept her up into his arms and said, “I think we ought to be married,” he said to her. “At least that way, it’ll make sense why we keep running off to rescue each other.” Yor could only turn beet red. 

Bond, having been freed from his chains, was barking and running in joyous circles around everyone before he fell into a dizzy heap.  

After he finished giving his report, Madam Sherwood’s astonished voice came through the dagger pin on his collar. “You’re saying the scarecrow was the prince? And now his spell is broken? Report to me immediately! And bring him with you!”  

Bond could only bark, exhausted and happy.  

“Hey!” Anya shouted, pointing to the chimney. “Scruffy’s come back!” 

That got everyone’s attention. They looked over to the hearth and, sure enough, the familiar square face was beaming at them on top of the logs. 

“You didn’t have to come back,” Twilight said, although he was relieved as he said it.  

“I like it here,” Franky said simply, shrugging. “And I'll stay as long you two don’t keep making those faces at each other.” 

“What faces?” Yor asked, turning from gazing at Twilight to the fire demon. 

“THAT one! That one right there!”  

“I’ll make no promises,” Twilight said as he ducked his head towards Yor.  

“No, no! Blegh!”  

“Come on, Scruffy,” Anya said. “Let’s leave these two lovebirds in the dust. I think we have a prince to return.”  

“Anything but this,” the fire demon grumbled as he floated from the hearth to join the two children and the dog waiting in the doorway.  

“Now, if you’ll sit back,” Franky said once he reached them. He inhaled a huge breath and grew to ten times his size. “I’ll show you what a free fire demon can really do!”  

And with that, he scooped them up and carried them away.  

“Is that safe?” Yor asked as she watched them rush away on the breeze.  

“Not exactly,” Twilight said. “But I was always one to encourage hands-on learning over memorizing facts in a book.” Then he glanced back to something in the castle. “Speaking of books, I think I finally found the perfect love poem for you...”