Chapter Text
While the rest of the family had a habit of scattering far and wide to settle down, Damon, Enzo, Bonnie, and Emrys never liked settling in one place for long. Not since losing Camelot. While the four of them sometimes split up into couples, usually they traveled together. Often with Ignotus as well who was much the same, though he wasn’t with them when they got the emergency message from Isolde asking for help. They’d long been forgotten in anything but legends in the isles, so they hadn’t been as worried about visiting the last couple centuries. No more than they had anywhere else as the religious vilification of magic spread far and wide. Magical people weren’t as open with what they were as they had been in Camelot though, so as long as they kept that secret, they were usually fine. Some were caught every now and then, but not as often and it wasn’t just in the isles.
Damon, Enzo, Bonnie, and Emrys had found their way to what would one day be Australia where they’d been learning from and teaching the native magicals for a little over a decade when they got the message, so they packed up quickly and said their goodbyes to their friends. They’d been considering wrapping up that trip anyway since there wasn’t much left to learn now that they’d finished learning how to shift into their spirit animal forms. A viper for Damon, a badger for Bonnie, an eagle for Emrys, and a lion for Enzo. Once they got their belongings together, they teleported to the edge of the forest outside Hog and Meade, the secluded village that Tristan and Isolde had set up as an all magical community. Usually they arrived at the main arrival point in the village, but if there was trouble, they didn’t want to end up right in the middle of it.
It turned out that the trouble was well over and they rushed into the ruins to find Tristan finishing the cleanup of a massacre while Isolde tried to calm about fifty kids of varying ages. They rushed in to see what happened, circling Isolde and the kids to help calm them while Bonnie asked her youngest daughter, “What happened?”
“I-I’m not entirely sure,” Isolde said miserably. “Tristan and I were off to pick up this little one once he was born magical and when we got back…”
“It’s alright, luv. Just take your time and breathe,” Enzo rubbed her back as she tried to pull herself together.
Tristan had returned by then though, so he took up the story. “When we got back, there was no one we could see left alive. Bodies were everywhere. Our people and who we can only assume were non-magicals. I don’t know how they found us, but they clearly attacked in too many numbers…there were about three times as many of them dead as ours.”
“S-some of the children were lost,” Isolde took it up. “Those who couldn’t get to the shelters fast enough. Including those in class at the opposite end of the village where the attack seems to have started. Most everyone ten and under were still hidden in the invisible shelters when we got back.”
“Okay, it’ll be okay,” Damon assured her, already making a plan. “First things first we need to get all the kids fed and bedded down before it gets too much later. Would the emergency shelter be suitable for that?” They’d never seen the emergency shelters.
“It would, but the problem is the babies. There are six of them too young to consider weaning, including the one we just picked up. I’ve already done the spell to feed the new one, but I can’t feed all six myself,” Isolde said worriedly. “That’s not even considering the two more that probably /shouldn’t/ wean yet, but could manage if needed.”
“I’ll do the spell for myself too, giving us three each, which would be tough, but doable,” Bonnie considered.
“I will as well,” Emrys made a decision. The family knew about his ability to shapeshift his body, of course, and he had shifted into the guise of a woman from time to time when needed for a specific purpose, but rarely more than a couple hours. This would be for months or as long as a year. Going back and forth with the lactating spell would be a nightmare. At least he wouldn’t need to, and never did, change his ‘plumbing’. A moment later he was in his usual feminine form, from the top up at least, and his clothes had been spelled to fit. He didn’t want to change all his clothes, so he would get new feminine clothes that fit him later. He was particularly tall for a man of the times, a couple inches shorter than Damon and Enzo, and he didn’t change his height. It tended to make him clumsy when he tried. Which meant he wouldn’t be able to borrow from anyone else either. At least the usual styles of robes were relatively unisex aside from color and he could still wear trousers under them. He just needed tops that would fit his expanded breasts.
While all three of them had two babies each to a breast, Damon, Enzo, and Tristan worked to get the rest of the children fed. They were able to find enough acceptable food in the wreckage of the houses to get a decent meal into them. Most of the buildings were burned out husks, but they could see what else was salvagable after the kids were taken care of. They could already see that at least some of the hogs at the farms had been collateral damage, so there wouldn’t be any shortage of meat for a while, and part of the wheat fields had been trampled so if they worked fast they could get that harvested, even if it was a bit soon. They would just get less from the stalks, but they would die anyway now that they’d been trampled and broken.
Once all the children were eating, the six adults sat down and made a plan. It would be a busy few days, but they would manage. Bonnie and Emrys would stay with the kids and get some sleep while the four vampires who needed less sleep would see what could be salvaged, starting with food and then moving on to clothes and blankets, and continue from there. First thing in the morning, Tristan and Isolde would pop around to the other five magical villages, headed by other vampire couples, to get out a warning. They had discussed splitting the kids there between the other villages, but since this was the safest and most secluded of them, they felt it would be better to stay there. In fact, the travelers had an idea that would eventually allow everyone to come to the secluded area. They still wondered how they were found, and it had to have been a stroke of chance, but they would be fixing that very soon.
They were discussing that very thing during the salvaging which gave Damon the idea to stop and do the spell for any ley lines in the area, at which point his eyes widened. “Why did you two choose this particular place for your village?” he asked Tristan and Isolde.
“It just felt…comfortable. Like home I suppose. Why?” Isolde wondered.
“Because there is an intersection of eight ley lines in this area. I’ve never found more than six anywhere else, and even that’s rare,” Damon answered.
“That means that we’ll be able to anchor the hiding magic strong enough to last for millennia,” Enzo said excitedly. While Damon used ley lines more for rituals, Enzo had developed ways to anchor protective wards through ley lines, and that many had endless possibilities. They would start with the hiding wards, of course, but he could come up with others to add. “I can get started on the ward design first thing in the morning.”
“It would be stronger and easier to add and link later wards if we use runes to connect them to a stone that can be modified and kept hidden within the wards,” Damon suggested. “I’ll help with that part, and designing the ritual.”
“We’ll need at least four people to cover enough area. I don’t want to just do the small village,” Enzo continued brainstorming. “If we’re doing, we may as well cover the village, the hills, and at least a good portion of the forest too.”
“Isolde and I can take care of the children while you four do that. Your magic is much stronger than ours,” Tristan told them. The four of them were very much above average in magical levels. Most people couldn’t even use a staff, or could only do the smaller magics without exhausting themselves. Something that the four had found in their travels too. They had been blessed by magic though, and could feel the nudge of magic in their ideas here as they thought and planned, surveying the area by the light of the full moon as they finished up for the night.