Utterly Mad

It had been a somber affair despite how damn cheery the day around it had been. Catnip and Kathrine had stayed long after everyone else had gone home, but not as long as two others. Medeina stood still by the other, letting the light of day play off the matte white finish of her body and reflecting the bluish hue of the others scaled skin off the few more reflective details. Medeina offered a tissue to the other and she took it gratefully, but quietly. She had scales, like her father but bore the eyes and hair of her mother though these last could said to be far more organized than the woman's unlikely matron. Two pair, rather than the mothers multitude of ocular orbs vying for space in one socket while the other filled out with only a single large and relatively normal eye. She was short and plain, comparatively to other mutants her age, and wore a pair of spectacles over her lower eyes.

"Take all the time you need Miss Mona." Medeina said again, feeling a bit foolish but none less saddened by the sudden passing of the girls father. An issue with his cybernetic heart. In the pre-cataclysm, his CBM would have been replaced with something better long before the unit wore down, but this wasn't the pre-cataclysm. The robot glanced around, scanning first the twin graves of the girls mother and father, then the others. Nearby, she saw the grave of the old cowboy. Floyd. Someone, possibly the ranger, the cyclops, or possibly Catnip, had left an offering of flowers in the bronze vase atop the stone marker. A man had come to them seven years prior by the name of Duke. Floyd's brother. He'd come and taken Kathrine prisoner on behalf of some vile benefactor, and Floyd had stepped in. The duel that followed had ended both men's lives, but not before Floyd had given his goodbyes to his children both biological and adopted.

A cloud moved across the sun and momentarily blotted out the light. When it cleared again, Medeina caught the glint of light on brass. A brass star. A Misling police officer was moving up the gravel path towards them. The uniform was different, less blues and browns and more grays and blacks, but even in these degenerate times an officer of the law was an officer of the law.

"Good afternoon Officer Remington. How is your training progressing?" Medeina asked, momentarily forgetting herself.

"Finished up last month ma'am. How are you, besides the obvious?" He asked back, internally kicking himself for the blunt awkwardness of the question.

"Poorly." Medeina said simply and perhaps a bit sharply. Mona said nothing, having not even registered the man's approach or the short exchange that had followed. Remington had missed the ceremony due to extenuating circumstances, but better late than never he had supposed. He put a hand on Mona's shoulder and squeezed gently. A long silence followed, then the officer leaned over and put something on the grave along with all the rest of the flowers and things people had left. A small electric car. At that moment, as though the sight of it had pulled some deep sad memory from her, Mona began to weep.

---

Jennifer strode into the New Paris Rangers meeting room and slapped her files onto the table before taking a seat and sorting through them, preparing for the coming meeting. The funeral had been hard, especially since even with a crowd of cyborgs and mutants in attendance, it had been just too similar to her own father's funeral. Further, she felt bad for the young lady Dee was leaving behind. So much promise and potential in the girl, but at a time on her life where she was unsure of what she really wanted to do with it. Jennifer had had the benifit of being a marine at the time, Mona had no such anchor in her life. She had friends, of course, but no sense of what she should be doing. Jennifer shook her head to clear it and leaned over to where the fries were before stopping herself. Cheena, the spirit within her, loved fries and demanded them daily. The spirit kept Jennifer healthy and slim, but it was bad for her image to go around gorging herself on fried and salted potatoes. Not that her image wasn't already... Questionable.

The first of her rangers entered quietly and gave her a quick nod. Sylvester "Jannisary" Chetwood, her second 'chosen' ranger. A man ten years her junior with long brown hair tied behind his angular face, smooth tan skin like cappaccino, and slightly angular eyes that made him look determined and a little pissed. Atomos had wanted him for his skill with a rifle, but he'd since shown other noteworthy qualities as well.

"Is Roots here yet?" He asked. Jennifer shook her head and leaned over to the fries again. Rather than take any, she pushed the tray in his direction and he took a handful. Khaki "Roots" Jones was mostly the rangers radio operator and well known to New Paris. Jennifer was quite happy to poach Khaki away from New Paris and it's growing beurocracy.

"I'm here, I'm here," Khaki huffed, "Cher- I mean, Hussar just checked in. She won't be back for another three days. Asked her to send along the news of Mr. Koenig's passing to her client. Ms. Running-Wolf didn't seem to take the news very well."

"Okay." Jennifer said, "Then I guess it's just us today then since Poncho and Cisco are still out on cabbage patrol. Well, us and Guidebook."

"Guidebook never comes to the meetings..." Sylvester grumbled.

"He's not technically a ranger." Jennifer mused, "He doesn't have to come to them..."

"He's a weaselly little piss ant." Khaki spat uncharacteristically.

"He's leaving anyway." Jennifer dismissed, then sighed, "I miss Carrie." Carrie Willinsdotter had been the first "Guidebook," and as Guidebook she had been an exemplary keeper or records and a fantastic partner in the New Paris annual pub trivia event during the spring fair. They'd lost Carrie in the battle of Puller's Reach. The sight of her standing over Sylvester, scared shitless but still shooting, had stuck with Jennifer for a long time after the fight. That and seeing the man the people of New Paris called the Iron Marshall laying in a heap inside his totalled tank after a DU shell had struck the ammo rack. Hector had survived the battle in the end, Carrie had not.

"We all miss Carrie." Khaki husked, "I... Maybe we should just stop trying to find a new Guidebook? Its always felt kind of... Wrong." She slumped into a chair and disconsolately nibbled at a fry. Jennifer felt like she was back at the funeral again for a moment, then shrugged the feeling off.

"Yeah, I think you are probably right. I know Cherise's feelings on the matter, and can guess pretty well on what the others will think. Put it to a quick vote?" The others nodded, the vote was called, and the rangers agreed. After, they began to go over other business.

---

Catnip hobbled along slowly at Kathrine's side, brooding over the last thirty years of her life since emerging from a lab with a handler named Nathan. The train was not complete, and it had given her a sense of hopeless helplessness, especially after Mica had passed away. Catnip had sunk into a perpetual depression that had only lifted long after when she realized that "finished" was not the goal. Technically, she'd "finished" the train ages ago when she had finally put the finishing touches on the engine. Everything after that had just been... Adding on. She had been so relieved by this revelation that she'd made one of her rare visits to the Chapel of Agmen and gave a sermon.

Then, shortly after, Agmen had punished her (or so she thought) by breaking her back and forcing her to walk on a cane. Fortunately Catnip had already possessed a very nice cane, a gift from her late sister and brother in law and for some reason, using it had pleased and eased her.

"What do you think Kathrine?" Catnip asked the maid. Kathrine's sad expression didn't change and Catnip marveled again in the moment before the words came at just how little Kathrine had aged since they met. Catnip was only thirty now, but she was beginning to gray around the edges. Kathrine had not in the least.

"I think... I think we should help Mona..." Kathrine said. There was more there, Catnip knew, but Catnip wouldn't push it. The passing of their friend had hurt them all profoundly, but there was no question of helping her niece.

"Yeah. Give her time Kathrine. She came to us after Mica... Went. She'll come to us again when she's ready. Do you remember how to make that spiced apple stuff Dee had you make for her last time?"

Kathrine nodded somberly, she did. The maid knew that it would be needed. Nothing had made Mica and Dee's squishy smile like spice apple pie. There would be baking aplenty as soon as Mona was ready to talk.

   Before the fall of Abbadon, and the construction of the Brand. A suit of armor stood in the center. He gripped a claymore made up of an exotic white metal, with runes along the blade.
   “...There isn’t any other way?” The Chosen asked,
   A voice spoke up from within himself:
We have failed in our mission. The means to truly sunder the parasite in one fell swoop...but we have the means to bind it. Wound it. Then...look to the horizon. Void awaits...and that which has been smote by the scarring flames can fall prey to it.
   The Chosen paused for a moment, glancing at the Ritual Blade in his hand. “I… See. There was a reason that you had me restore my old blade…”
   He paused once more, “My soul for binding that parasite?”

   Yes. It would've been sufficient to use the axe, but then your essence would be consumed. It is your tie to the old weapon that allows a...third option, of sorts. The Veiled King spoke once more.

   The Chosen undid the chestpiece from his armor, revealing the large sigil on the backplate. He gripped the claymore by the crossguard, the point pressing against the sigil. The Veiled King seemed to gasp at that.

   I hope that you realize, that it will be a long, arduous journey before you will be reunited with the hunter...it will ensure you have earned your penance, but there will be grave risk. If you falter in your crusade against Those Below, your very being will be lost, farther into the abyss than the limbo I first called you from. If you are certain…

   The Chosen pressed the blade against the sigil further. “Absolutely.” He confirmed, driving the sword through himself. The sigil and sword’s runes began to crack with blue energy. The Armor, no, Horace drove the blade in deeper, keeling over. Parts of the armor began to fall off, the left arm, the helmet fell into the chest and a pauldron sloughed off.
   The Veiled King spoke up one last time…

   By this mark of freedom, emancipation from your servitude to me, you enter into a new oath. And with it, draw out the parasite, and forge the chains that others shall bind him with…

   The Leather began to petrify and the armor and sword fused together, before Horace exploded with a concussive blast, blowing away the parts of the armor into the sky. As the ground cracked open and formed a peculiar symbol.

   The Brand.

   Like clockwork, or rather, fate… Three people had a piece of the armor land near them.

        An Unaging Gunslinger.

   The Iron Marshal.

   And The Hunter of Hunters.

   Years after the construction of The Brand, inside of an old and creaking mansion, where hunters of the wicked and otherworldly gathered, an old hunter of hunters lit a quintet of candles, fingers of bronze delicately gripping the match with a steadiness unusual for his advanced age. Four flames, surrounding a candle of distinctly pristine white wax, of a clarity greater than the other four candles. "For the hunters who have fallen."

        Then, he lit the fifth, a peculiar blue flame taking to the wick. "And to those who still wander, but are not yet lost..."

The whistle over the chapel let loose it's mournful howl, signalling the coming of dinner and the start of the evening break. Not that there was anything keeping the people working in the chapel of Agmen from taking a break whenever they wanted. It was more about keeping the faithful from over working themselves. Long ago, when the workshops had been first completed and Catnip's train had been moved into the chapels berth, the mechanic found that Agmen's adherents would easily lose track of time and work themselves half to death in the pursuit of creation and invention, and so she had installed the whistle to remind them not to do so. Hammers and wrenches would be set aside, aprons and goggles hung up, and welders switched off as Agmen's followers prepared to cool off and unwind for an hour. All except one. In a quiet corner of the chapel, a lone Misling taps away at rivets in a piece of metal.

"Why can't I get this right..." She mumbled, adjusting her die preparatory to bringing down her tiny hammer onto the too cool metal. Tap tap tap, and a sigh. Rose didn't want to use the riveting machine, it could ruin the detailing on the piece, but lacked the talent of her mentors for manual work. Catnip would tell her the problem, but Catnip was busy. Catnip was at a funeral and would be away from the chapel workshop for several days. Visiting her would be out of the question, tactless even. Rose set down her hammer and die, and frowned at the work before her. Steel rivets littered the table with only a few actually in the metal she was working with. It was just a simple decorative plate, and she'd been working on it all day. An embarrassing amount of her time had been poured into it. The filigree she'd worked so hard to get just right was perfect, but the rivet work was less than ideal.

"Steel rivets have to be heated every few strikes Rosey." came a familiar voice from beside her, making her jump a little.

"Ms. Walker! You startled me, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to a funeral?" Rose asked. Catnip had come up on her so quietly that she'd not noticed the low tap of the cane on the hardwood floor of the chapel. The old mechanic rubbed the bridge of her nose where it had been broken and mended and broken again on several occasions and smiled warmly, and a little sadly.

"Dee's funeral ended hours ago. Kathrine and I stayed awhile longer to say our goodbyes, but... Well, we can't linger long. Your details are nice." Catnip explained. The compliment wasn't a surprise, the mechanic some of Agmen's faithful called "artifex" was very free with her compliments. Despite how common they were, such small accolades were still greatly appreciated. More appreciated was the advice that usually came after. "Heat your rivets to red before tapping them down and rounding them off. As soon as the metal starts to turn dark, heat it up again." She watched the young artist for a long time, giving advice here and there on how to strike each rivet, how to hold the torch, and how much heat to apply.

"It's done, I think." Rose said as she set aside the hammer and held up the plate of decorated metal. "Thank you Ms. Walker."

Catnip waved away the thanks and looked at what the girl had wrought. Simple spiraling patterns on a cylinder of super alloy, a purely decorative sleeve of metal for a truly important piece of Catnip's own revolutionary technology. The final part of a vortex engine. Rose was one of Catnip's special few, her chosen individuals, to work on the rare engines. It didn't matter to Catnip that Rose had very little mechanical aptitude, Agmen himself had shown Catnip who to select to replace her. Rose had been one of five. She watched the way Rose moved the sleeve in her hands with a dexterity that belied her lack of skill.

"Rosey?" Catnip said finally, "Can I ask you a favor?"

The Casino was empty today, out of respect for the recently deceased and the young lady he'd left behind. A lot of establishments were closed in fact, even those operated by people migrated to the area after the events that had made the man a hero to the New Paris refugee center, now called the New Paris administrative building. A town had sprung up around that center after the influx of people coming to New England and the establishment of the Big Smoke Caravan Company. In fact, life had become relatively pre-cataclysmic in New Paris. So what if the rare undead lurched its way into town and the world outside had become something not nearly but almost entirely fantastical? Life was stable, and people could still mourn the dead in peace.

"Charity!" L shouted across the lobby, "Get your butt over here! Family meeting! And put whatever it is you've fished out of those pockets back!"

There came a hushed "shoot" from the front of the casino, near the always in use coat room, and after a moment a young mouse featured women shuffled hurriedly from behind the Casino's broad crescent shaped front desk to present herself before L along with the other "employees." It was easy to tell, even among their oddly uniform kind, that the boss of the outfit also happened to be their mother. To look at the dour head of the casino's security though, you'd never know he was their father.

"You've all done really well this month, staying out of trouble. Cept' Macie, who isn't here right now because as we all know, she's gone and got herself arrested again. Kurt, Abby, Dwayne, you three can go." L said, giving the last with an approving grin.

"Aw, ma, why do they always get to skip the meetings?" Said Charity. Chyna stood close next to her, picking something out of her unusual black fur. Several of L and Mohammad's thirteen children had been marked out as unusual in such a way, making known to the father some small mutation he himself had no knowledge of until testing for the cause.

"Because Kurt, Abby, Dwayne, and Remington are good boys and girls, and the rest of you aren't. You've all been taking things from customers. You've done well this month, but that doesn't mean you haven't been doing it. None of you are quiet as bad as Macie..." L explained harshly, leaving the comment about her most ill behaved daughter hanging for a moment. Of all the children, Macie was the most overtly criminal. Most of them had small vices, mostly picking pockets or small slight of hand thefts from hotel rooms when the traders were in town, but only Macie had the gall to outright threaten and rob others. A bandit well and true was Macie Stuart. Her recent bit of "work" had landed her in the New Paris big house for two years. Two years, or until L paid her bail. L would pay the bail after all, but only once she'd thought Macie had been punished enough. L could swing the cash for it. After all, the casino had been her finest and most profitable gamble. "But I still don't appreciate it when clients come to me asking about 'lost' property, only to go and find one of you suddenly had more allowance than you should or suddenly come into a fancy new piece of clothing or toy or something."

The children stood nervously in a line, knowing that they'd done wrong but seemingly helpless to stop. L was mad at them, but she still loved them all. After a long moment of silence, she sighed. "What am I going to do with you?" After an even longer silence, one of the children cleared his throat. Andre, one of L's better behaved kids, quietly piped up.

"Uh, ma? I uh, gotta get to work. The next scav crew is heading out this afternoon..."

L grinned again, Andre was a crook like her other kids, but he at least had a job outside the casino. One that won him some favor not just with her, but with the whole family. "Yes sweety, while you are out do you think you could look for new pinball machines?"

"I suppose ma." Andre said, perking up a little. He had his burglary game, but that was becoming less and less of a focus for him. His talents were better put to use in this other more noble trade. "Might have to go further afield for that though. Most of the machines we've seen close by have Auntie Catnip's mark on them."

"Auntie Catnip won't mind if you cover over her marks with the casino's, and if she does then she won't be after you about it. She'll come to me and I'll smooth things over. She owes me a favor anyway." L mused, then said, "Don't forget your sandwich sweety."

The man stood quietly behind L, put away the old phone he'd been playing with and reached into a paper bag on the card table next to him and fished out a long object wrapped in brown paper. "Andre, Salami and three cheese on white with mustard." Mohammad mumbled while rummaging, then offered it with a faint, and some might think fatherly, smile.

In days past, during the battle for Maine, and for the fate of a realm...

Helen grimaced a bit as she pored over the maps, pieces of intel, taking in intermittent radio chatter. Victor had practically forced her to take a less proactive, less risky role in the ensuing bitter struggle over Bangor, Maine, and yet it was no less stressful strategizing over their next move in-between assisting with the wounded. Having made Victor sit it out away from the front lines alongside her did little to ease the stress.

"We're near the very heart of this. That thing hasn't made an appearance nor directly tested my wards over this area, but most of its forces have been worn down." she remarked, sorting through her notes. "Those two revenants evidently already tested using directed rifts in a prior encounter with it, and all that did was drive it off..."

"You'll need something that can not only banish it, but also seal the path it used to get here." Victor added, thumbing the pages of The Source, his other hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "If we had to, the pieces could be used as the centerpiece for that."

Helen nodded at that. "Makes sense. I don't think we can use force against force though, that thing relies on absorbing energy and feeding on it. We'd need something that draws upon voids in reality...as loathe as I am to suggest such." she said softly. She perked up, watching Victor draw his sword and lay it out on the table. Void.

"It could draw upon its affinity for binding with spirits and direct it without opposing it. Then it'd be easier to seal it in a way that prevents it from bringing its power to bear. Only problem is, well." He hesitated, before giving a sigh. "It'd be similar to what those two mentioned, a sort of vacuum in the fabric of reality guiding it. But it'd draw its wielder in with it. Whoever you send out there won't survive, even with the kind of protected magic you have at your disposal."

Helen gave a nod at that. "I see. If you lend your sword, and I choose someone to use it...we'd need to at least select someone who has the best possible chance of surviving it. My magic might not be enough, but...if we combined it with Keeper magic, but nothing even close to being powerful enough can be found in Oaths To The Chalice. Only their..."

Through her mask, she looked at the two armored figures outside. Hector, and Horace. They seemed to be talking, but about what she couldn't tell. A dick-measuring contest over who killed more of the abominations at Astor's disposal, she suspected. The strange unlife permeating the armor was barely discernible to her mask's senses, yet she could tell he seemed listless over something, faint flickers of another looming presence suggesting something else had the knight of the veil's attention.

"...Chosen." The helmet turned, as though looking back towards Helen, despite the wall between them.

---

There was the smell of blood in the air. Fetid death, burning decay. The Siege Tower's turret traversed as treads tore at the ground, crew in a state of shock as an AP round screeched uselessly across the armor plating of a mechanical monstrosity unlike any they'd seen before. Within, Hector frantically turned the tank about, full-speed towards the nearby cover of a bern. Roxanne had no sooner savored the thrill of firing its main gun when she soon made the choice to phase through the machine, to take to the battle and wreak her favored carnage more personally.

Another near-miss. Where the hell did they get UAFVs? Hector hadn't seen one, since. No, he'd never witnessed an intact tank drone, never faced one like this. His counterpart had, those decades ago, and paid the price. He'd soon relayed an order to the homunculus occupying the commander's hatch. They were in the open, and Branches was better-suited making use of her strength on solid ground, not playing at being tank commander.

A few meters more. Too exposed. Suddenly, deafening thunder. Rusty old blowout panels flying across the field. Metal caving in, biting deep into armor, flesh, cutting to the bone. A wicked gouge rent down the whole left side of the tank, engulfed in flames as it jolted to a halt.

"Hector? HECTOR!"

"Grandmaster?" Hector tensed up, jolting awake to the voice that stirred him from uneasy rest, and a gristly dream of the past. A young man, wearing the white-on-red surcoat of their order, stood at the doorway to the room, within the small roadside inn the group had taken their night's rest at.

They'd been up early, making final preparations, some talking with the locals at the small settlement a few miles from Walkerville, a few exchanging medical supplies and helping patch up a few injured day workers in exchange for supplies. Armor and equipment cleaned, weathered old vehicles checked and refueled. They'd given Hector an extra hour of rest, time spent suiting back up sharply reduced by having been the only one to spend the night sleeping in their armor.

And as the morning sun grew pale in the sky, they'd soon make their way back home...

Branches rose sharply and blinked at the early morning light creeping in through the tiny fogged glass window overlooking the small table opposite her sleeping mat. Sleep had never come easy and when she did sleep, it came in short spates of two or three hours from which she woke feeling not much different except for a strange heaviness in her eye and stiffness in her limbs. Both feelings were quickly and easily adjusted via liberal application of movement. She clambered to her feet as she always had and checked her appearance in the mirror, inspecting for cracks or fissures in the otherwise lifelike surface of her body. There was still shrapnel in there somewhere that no one had yet been able to find through the various methods attempted on her strange flesh, and the inclusions occasionally found their way to the surface and cracked through her skin to be released. There was a crack, a sizable one along the line of her neck the width of a pencil. Looking around with the help of a magnet turned up a fragment of metal the size of a bean mixed into her blankets. She judged it carefully before putting it in the dish next to the door and getting on with the process of mixing dried clay with water to seal up the damage.

"May I come in?" Said a voice from outside. Branches had seen them coming through her automatons standing watch over her territory by the lake. The man, more a boy really, waited patiently outside until Branches finished her maintenance and donned one of the two "uniforms" of her trades. This one was an old spruce and nettle cloak and simple wide brimmed hat of the same material. It suited Branches about as well as the other, her business suit. "Um, miss one-eyed witch?"

"No, stay outside a moment." Branches instructed. She frowned and dug around in her cabinet, knowing the voice and why it was here. Tommy Fletcher was one of Catnip's chosen along with Patricia Baines, Rosia Ortiz, Matthew Kramer, and Missy Renoit. Tommy would be here for his usual, a little something between himself and Patricia. Patricia was someone that Branches good friend Roxanne would have called "a catty bitch" while Tommy was what another friend in knights armor would have referred to as a "mirror gazer." The only thing the two liked more than themselves was each other, and they did well to hide it from just about everyone. Everyone except Branches. "The usual then?" Branches asked from within, already spooning out a dose of goat weed and placebo into a tiny jar.

"Er, no, actually..." He mumbled. That was interesting and new. Branches had gone to both Helen and Roxanne to get the special herb to put that extra bit of ram in Fletcher's rod and had gone to get it from Helen ever since because Roxanne had a habit of making disgusting jokes and lewd innuendo. Helen understood though that the goat weed wasn't for Branches.

"Oh?" Branches said curiously, emerging from her hut in the full foliage getup she reserved for witch seeking clients. Her amethyst eye, the only part of her body visible under all the spruce and nettle, did nothing to show her interest. "Settled your little problem downstairs then have you and come to settle up? Hm?" She went on. The last twenty years had been incredibly kind to Branches, besides the constant need to repair since the Battle of Puller's Reach. She'd started a pair of businesses, one of which would nettle her creator a little, and she'd picked up certain habits and behaviors, several of which would displease Illiana deeply. Roxanne's interest in the affairs of others, and the more malign prankishness of the ghost being chief among them. In short though Branches had grown up, in so far as a primordial homunculus can grow up.

"I-I need something to give me an edge on the other chosen..." Tommy asked reluctantly. Branches half grinned, half sneered, under her nettle cloak. Things weren't looking good for the fragile ego'd narcissist if he was looking for hoodoo remedies and foul tasting tisanes for a solution to whatever the problem was. Branches smirked at him under her cloak and gave the request a cursory thought before scoffing at his need. "What? What's wrong with that? I should have the edge on the others, I deserve it!"

"And you don't have it already? There's nothing I can do for you there, I don't have anything that would help you without cheating. Besides which, I wasn't even aware you could cheat at being whatever it is Catnip has chosen you lot for. I know though that if she knew you were trying to get all clever on it, she wouldn't like it. Why don't you just keep on doing things the way you are doing them and see how it turns out. Go on and live your life according to the teachings of the chapel and making all the good things it produces for New Paris?" Branches suggested.

"I am the best!" He affirmed, more to himself than to Branches, "I shouldn't have to prove it, but now that I must do just that, then I need to go all out!'

"You've already disproved it." Branches said not a little scornfully. If his workmanship was all he was being judged on, then Tommy would be little more than any other laboring under Catnip's strange god of creation. He wasn't though. Catnip had picked them out on Agmen's word, but Catnip would judge them all based on their own qualities. Their own character. It would displease Agmen, but Catnip had not often knelt to the whims of a god she both worshipped and held in such low regard. The chosen were selected, but Catnip would separate the wheat from the chaff herself. The man's shoulders sunk at Branches proclamation, then tensed again.

"How would you know? You aren't even an adherent!" He growled, becoming strident at the last.

"Because your work is good, but you are greedy and self important. You are overconfident and narcissistic. Agmen may have chosen you, but Catnip gets the final word. I have nothing for you unless you want something for that usual little problem of yours." Branches explained, speaking stridently herself. She had turned back to return to her morning rituals when the man's shadow fell over her. Hector had taught her to expect something like this if Lilith or her brood came after her, if bandits ever tried to get the drop on her, or when a desperate client couldn't take no for an answer to some idiotic question. Roxanne had taught her the answer to such. Tommy's hands reached for her neck, an absurd reaction to such a small slight, and Branches responded by grabbing ahold of the mans left hand with both of hers and hauled on it with the tiniest fraction of her strength. Branches had carried the burning wreckage of the siege tower away from the field of battle on her own, could and had carried greater weights even, and Tommy didn't even have a chance when she leveraged the strength of the earth against him. The man flew screaming into the trees beyond the stone fence that lined Branches clearing, crashing through like a launched stone to wind up a broken heap in the forest. He would likely make his way back to the chapel or New Paris and give a heavily edited report of the events to his betters. Branches would likely hear about it from Catnip, and Branches would set the record straight when she went to tea with the mechanic.

"Don't come back!" She shouted after the man missile before settling back to her morning chores.

---

"I mean, I can't say I know how it feels." Rosia said nervously, "I mean my parents are... um... Nevermind..." She ran a finger over another of the multitude of jars sitting on the table and read the labels for what felt like the thousandth time. D's strawberry, D's waffle flower, D's fish. Things that Mona and Mica either would not or could not touch. Neither the girl or her late mother would dare to so much as eek a single whisper of the sour smelling canned fishes scent from the jars, nor would Mona touch her father's strawberry jelly without permission. As for the waffle mix, Mona had no clue how to use it. Rosia had suggested she ask Kathrine, but the very idea of smelling or tasting them now that Dee was gone brought fresh dry sobs from the young lady opposite her. Now she was sitting there across from Rosia, her glasses set aside for the time being, with only a pile of jars and an awkward silence between them. Without warning, Rosia picked up a jar and twisted the ring off of it.

"What are you doing!?" Mona cried with a shrieky little voice filled with surprise and anguish. What Rosia was doing was obvious of course, she was trying to pry the fiddly metal cap off the top of a jar of strawberry jam with the back of a spoon.

"Why did we get them all out if we aren't going to eat them?" Rosia asked, keenly aware of the trespass she was commiting and feeling hot about the face for it. The jar opened with an audible pop, and the room filled with the smell of it almost immediately. The beautiful aroma of strawberries and sugar long lain dormant and finally free from it's glass prison. Not just the kitchen, the whole house. The fragrance of the preserves ran to riot throughout Mona's empty home, filling every corner with the sweet smell. Mona looked about to start crying again, but Rosia wouldn't let her. She foisted the jar and a spoon on her before beginning work on another. For Mona, the day had been awful, as awful as any in the days immediately after the funeral, but all the same she found herself looking into the jar at the stuff so jealously guarded with a growing hunger. When she thought about it, her father hadn't actually been all that stingy with the stuff, he'd just had a love of it and... And what? Dean had never actually said that Mona couldn't have any. It had been her mother. Her sometimes infantile ignorant mother. Mica had meant well, but at the same time...

Mona didn't notice Rosia digging through her kitchen in search of bread. The Misling had momentarily given up on the new jar to search for missing ingredients. When she finally turned back victoriously holding aloft a loaf of Kathrine bread and a truly ancient jar of still edible peanut butter, Mona was already digging into the second jar, crying gently as she did so.

"So uh..." Rosia said, trailing into a mumble, "You uh... Wanna take these jars into the living room to watch 'The Princess Bride' or something?" Mona nodded furiously, spooning more sugared fruit into her mouth.

Mona jolted awake suddenly and with the sensation of a sugary film coating the inside of her mouth and the smell of strawberry jam filling the house to the point where it made her feel instantly nauseous. When her feet swung out over the floor, they encountered something hard and hollow and she realized they were jars. A pile of empty jars. The sound they made reminded her of all of the night before and she felt instant intense embarrassment. Even more when she remembered the half worried, half amazed look Rosia had given her near the end of the night before she finally passed into a sleep that was half sugar coma. Mona vaguely remembered crying herself to sleep with the taste of strawberries on her lips, and even more vaguely the feeling of a blanket being thrown over her.

"Oh my god..." She moaned feeling as though she could just die from the humiliation at what Rosia must think of her. She closed her eyes and lay back, not wanting to see the shades of red her scales would be shifting at that moment. It would be a welcome change from the blues and purples she'd been exhibiting in the days prior, but Mona still didn't want to see it. After a while, when she knew the color would be fading back to it's usual sandy tan, she opened her eyes again and scanned the coffee table for her glasses. Then, slowly, she began the laborious task of cleaning up.

Jars on rack, lid rings stacked to dry, Mona slid back into her usual place at the small dinner table she'd been sitting at for the last twenty years of her life. At first with mother and father, then just father, and now all alone. She felt so alone, but Rosia had showed her she wasn't. Not really. Catnip was still there, along with aunt Kathrine and the others. Not too far away, a few minutes walk at most. Mona couldn't keep being alone, her mind would eat itself with grief if she did. Rosia had taken her on the second step to recovery, it was up to her to do the rest.

---

Kathrine opened the front door as though she’d been expecting Mona, and she probably had been. The smell of apple pie and apple fritters, already seeping from the house in a spicy miasma, exploded from the door and nearly knocked Mona over with the nostalgia that swept over her with it. It was late summer now, but she smell brought thoughts of late fall and winter to come. Of warm buttered cider and roasting pumpkin seeds.

“Mona!” Kathrine cried in faux surprise that Mona secretly appreciated, “We’ve been expecting you! Come in silly!” She slipped around behind Mona and ushered her into the den of apple spice and the faint aroma of oil and hard work that would never really leave the home Kathrine and Catnip.

She was shown a chair, the big comfortable one saved for special dignitaries which Catnip sometimes met with here in her living room, and Kathrine vanished into the kitchen. While she was gone, as if on cue, Catnip appeared carefully taking each step in turn carefully but purposefully.

“Hello Mona.” Catnip said, “Finally decided to come out and see us hm? Has Rosie been around to see you yet?”

“Yes Auntie Catnip.” Mona said automatically, “She fed my chickens.”

Catnip looked like she wanted to stroke her chin or look musing, but she didn’t do either. Instead, she slid comfortably into her own chair across from the one Mona had been assigned and took a dowel from a jar bar the arm of her chair.

“These aren’t as good as the ones they had in Pricetown.” Catnip commented, “With the path through Texas open we can get the good stuff, if only the cost wasn’t so high.” She wrinkled her nose at the word “cost” and Mona knew why. Her own father had been fine with being paid in New Paris bills, and so did Mica and Mona by extension, but Mona’s Aunt had been firmly against currency of almost any form. Service rendered for service given, and all that. “So, anyway, I’m not going to ask why you came for a visit since it’s only been a week and a few days, I’m just happy you’ve come to visit. Period.”

Kathrine emerged then with a large tray adorned in all the things Mona expected. Fritters, cider, pie, sweets. “We’ve um, been expecting you…” Kathrine explained a little sheepishly while she pushed a small plate into Mona’s hands and placed upon it a slice of pie.

“I um…” Mona began. It was hard to say the words and she knew the color in her scales would just be beginning to shift, but finally she finished, “Thank you.”

Catnip chatted about current events, covering everything that had been going on since the funeral but being very careful not to actually touch on it. Kathrine brought more snacks, all the things Mona liked. After listening for a long time and easing into the company of her aunt Catnip, as Catnip had planned, Mona broached a subject she very much wanted to know about.

“Um, Auntie Nip? What do I do now?” She asked.

“You eat your pie is what you do.” Catnip said cheerily, “Silly head.”

“No. I mean, yes, but… No.” Mona went on hesitantly, “I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I’m… All alone now.”

Kathrine looked worried, but Catnip smirked as though it were the silliest question she’d ever heard. “You aren’t alone. You have us, and you’ll always have someone.” It wasn’t quite the answer she wanted or needed, but to Catnip it was true and was all she needed. The look Kathrine shot her told her that she had made a mistake, and Mona’s reaction a few moments later only added to that.

“No! I mean, yes! But but… What am I going to DO!?” She cried, feeling the warmth of tears coming on again. “What am I going to do with myself Auntie Catnip? I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m… I’m… I’m not ready…” Kathrine hugged her and gazed pleadingly at Catnip. She couldn't stand to see Mona in such a state and neither could Catnip. "I can't go to the church, I already tried that before and I just couldn't. I can't do what daddy did because I'm not any good at it. I don't know anything about robots or making things or farming or… or… what am I going to do!?"

Catnip stayed quiet, thinking hard about it. She'd never had this problem before herself, and Mica had been too simple to have it. When she tried to think about it from Mona's perspective, it almost made her want to cry herself. Instead she considered a few other options while Kathrine quieted their niece. Mona had tried the chapel a few years after Mica had passed, but she had no passion for the work of her hands. Likewise, she had no fighting aptitude and no talent for the sort of things Helen's people could teach her. To top it off, Jenny had volunteered to show Mona how to go out and survive in the wide world of she needed to and it had been a miserable experience for both of them. What did Catnip do when she was on her own? Catnip did all of those kinds of things and more, besides the magical stuff. Catnip had put her life on the line for her own benefit and that hadn't been easy. Dodging the undead and wildlife all while trying to find food and tools and materials. It had all been almost too much, now that she looked back on it. It only really got much much easier after she found…

"I suppose," she sighed a bit and realizing what she must do, "Kathrine and I could help. Kat, could you get the keys for my wardrobe? I have some things that have been put away for too long that our niece could probably put to use."

"Right, that's thirty Chapel Repeaters for New Paris, forty-three refurb jobs on pre-cataclysm arms, and the three of the prototype seeders we put together." Listed off a foreman of the Chapel of Agmen. The litany of fresh outgoing and incoming orders was an oddly calming influence over Rosia. It always came at the end of the work day for her. A simple pleasure that most people wouldn't understand. The other chosen had left long before her, and sitting to listen also gave her time to put space between herself and them. Especially Tom and Patricia. Mean spirited and vile tempered bullies that they were, Rosia had been their target even before being chosen by Catnip. So when she finally left the chapel, she was not surprised to find them waiting for her.

"What's up rat?" Patricia snarked from behind her as she slipped out the chapels small side door, the woman sliding up behind her along with Tommy, looking like he'd lost a game of chicken with heavy traffic. They followed close behind and Rosia could feel the tension of what she knew was coming at the back of her neck. As she predicted, once they were out of the sight of eyes that would be certain to help, Patricia grabbed Rosia by the scruff of the neck and shoved her to the ground. The woman stood over her menacingly and looking less like the bitchy college chick and more like the wicked witch. "So that little cunt across the river beat seven shades of shit out of Tommy here and on top of that, seems to think YOU'RE going to be the next Artifex. YOU of all people. Well, that doesn't suit us at all."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Rosia said, trying to get back up and dust herself off. Her next words and attempt were cut off rather crudely by Patricia's casual slap across Rosia's mousey face.

"Don't talk back to me, rat. Don't you dare. I'm in no mood for your whining. I swear, the gall of Catnip for even considering you..."

"Don't talk about Catnip that way..." Came another voice from nowhere. There was a quick flash of something red and angry, and then a jar collided with the side of Tom's head and filled the air with the smell of strawberry jam. Rosia saw an odd shimmer in the air a mere ten or so feet away, but only for a second.

"OOOOWW! Holy fuck, what-" Tom began before another jar painfully collided with his hip, bouncing harmlessly aside to land safely in the grass.

"Who's there!?" Patricia cried in a screamy voice that belied her fright at being suddenly assaulted by something she couldn't see. A second later, Mona appeared for a split second and a third and final jar arched out and slammed squarely into Patricia's left breast. "OW! WHAT THE FUCK!"

"Why don't you get lost you two, stop harassing your betters."

"Is that Mona? Little bitch, we know where you live." Patricia screamed at the invisible girl.

"And I know where you live, Patricia Baines. I know where you live and now you can't even see me. Get lost."

Patricia sneered and didn't move for a moment, not until a stiff breeze that was not the wind passed too close by and she flinched away from it. "We aren't done!" She shot at Rosia, "Next time you won't have some invisible daddyless cunt to protect you! Come on Tommy!"

Once they were gone, a firm unseen hand grasped her by the elbow and helped hoist Rosia to her feet. The cloak slipped down, turning into a scintillating blanket like thing hung around Mona's neck. Her skin had turned the stark red of anger and Rosia had to take a step back for fear of being bludgeoned with a jam jar. Red faded to a lighter shade of pink, and then the sandy tan of Mona's usual skin color.

"I um, wanted to come by and thank you for keeping me company. I saw those two hanging around and figured something was up, so I went to find help. Took me too long, so I grabbed some jars and... Sorry I was a bit late." Mona said, becoming a bit more self conscious as she explained.

"You could have just gone inside..." Rosia suggested. Mona turned red again, but only for a moment.

"Yeah... Sorry... Um, would you mind coming by again? I don't have many friends, and I'd like to show somebody I can trust the stuff my aunt gave me."