"Miss Hebert, you were told yesterday about bringing your dragon to school," Mr. Quinlan said, at the start of Taylor's mathematics lesson.
"I know," Taylor replied.
Mr. Quinlan waited for several seconds.
"Do you have anything more to say for yourself?" he asked, eventually.
"Not at the moment," Taylor said. "Aivu's not disrupting class, and neither am I. And she knows a lot less about math than I do."
Mr. Quinlan looked at Taylor, then shook his head.
"Today, we will be starting with a test," he said, to groans. "To make sure that you have a proper grasp of the subjects we covered last term. We will be moving on to trigonometry after this, regardless of your results, but those who fail the quiz will have extra homework."
Taylor waited as the quiz sheets were passed out, sharpening her pencil, and smiled a little over the fact that – really, so far this had been the best math lesson since she'd joined Winslow.
The bar was a little bit low, admittedly.
"Begin," Mr. Quinlan said, and Taylor turned the front sheet of the test over.
The first question was about the midpoint of a line, and Taylor quickly worked out the answer, writing it down before moving on to the next.
And the next.
And the next.
Eight minutes later she put down her pencil with a slight click, folding her test paper over, and reached under the desk to scratch Aivu.
The little purple dragon made a purring noise, then visibly startled, then began making a much quieter purring noise so she didn't disturb everyone else taking the test.
"Miss Hebert, what is the meaning of this?" Mr. Quinlan asked, standing next to her desk. "You are supposed to be doing the quiz."
"I did," Taylor replied, handing him the test paper. "Check it if you don't believe me."
"Based on your prior academic performance, I very much doubt that," Mr. Quinlan replied severely. "Your grades have been in the bottom third of the class quite consistently."
He unfolded the test paper, and read through it.
As he did, his expression changed.
"Did I get anything wrong?" Taylor asked.
Mr. Quinlan tutted.
"I don't know how you did it, Miss Hebert, but cheating like this is not going to serve you well in your adult life," he said.
Taylor blinked, then stifled a giggle.
"Really?" she asked. "I've finished the test first. How exactly could I have cheated if there's nobody else to copy off?"
"I don't know, but your academic performance simply cannot rise this much overnight," Mr. Quinlan said. "Therefore, you're cheating."
"I don't really think that works," Taylor replied. "Not least because since the last time I was in your class we had the whole of the Christmas holidays, and I triggered as a parahuman."
"Well, I suppose it's good to know that that counts as being disruptive in class," Taylor said, once she'd arrived at the classroom for her in-school suspension. "Still, at least now I can work on my English Literature."
"Do you think I can draw again?" Aivu asked.
"I've got some paper," Taylor replied, getting it out. "Though… do you know why I was so much better at math than before?"
"Yep!" Aivu agreed. "It's the same thing as how you knew how to use everything they gave you, it's one of your powers! I think that one's called All Skilled, it means you know how to do lots of things and you're much better at doing them, too. It… doesn't apply to actually fighting, except knowing how to use a weapon, and it doesn't apply to your other powers, but still!"
"That's really useful," Taylor nodded, thinking. "I'd almost wonder if I should start homeschooling myself, but that's probably more paperwork and more inconvenient than this."
She got out her assigned reading, then stopped. "Actually, now I'm thinking about books… you said I had powers to do with nature? Is that another one of those ones involving singing?"
Aivu nodded, eagerly.
"Are we going to try it later?" the dragon asked.
"Maybe not until the weekend," Taylor said, thinking about it. "I want to make sure I actually know the song I'm going to use, first. So far they've been songs about the thing they're to do with… maybe I should read some of Mom's books again. It's been a while."
She sighed, and Aivu jumped up onto the desk.
"I don't want to say, don't be sad, because your mother's important to you and stuff," Aivu told her. "Because, you know, she's your mom! But I wanted to tell you… I'm here, okay?"
Taylor reached out, giving Aivu a hug.
"Thank you, Aivu," she said. "You're wonderful."
Aivu giggled.
"So… what do we do?" Emma asked, at lunch. "How can we get Taylor in trouble like you said?"
She smiled. "We could just do something big, right? Like… set fire to the school, or something? And then blame her?"
"If we tried doing that then there's no way they'd just take my word for it," Sophia replied. "Listen, Emma – this isn't something where we can be sloppy about this."
"Sloppy?" Emma asked, tightly.
"We need to be careful, is what I mean," Sophia said. "The PRT is looking for whoever put her in that locker. If we don't accuse her of anything and she accuses us of something then they might buy what I said, but if we call her paranoid for blaming us and then blame her for setting fire to the school you can bet they're going to look more closely at this."
She scowled. "And they sure as f*ck know that she didn't lock herself in her own damn locker. They know someone's got it in for her, they asked me to look for who it was, and I don't want to give the PRT any reasons for why they're going to look at – at us."
"Then what do you think we should do?" Emma asked. "What's the strong thing to do?"
"This is about survival," Sophia replied. "If you want come up with a plan, go right ahead, but right now I feel more like aiming the PRT at one of the Nazi f*ckers in the school and saying they did it… only they'd rat us out."
She groaned. "And what's worse, her powers don't seem like the kind of thing that they'd just write off. I got a basic summary, and, it's all kinds of stuff already. She can cure tiredness or something like that with a poem. That alone is going to make Armsbastard want to adopt her or something."
"Then maybe-" Emma began, then stopped as Madison arrived with her tray.
"You'd think that if they said they were doing lasagna today they'd do more than one tray at a time," the third girl griped. "What's up?"
"We were discussing how we're going to mess Taylor up next," Emma said.
"We were discussing how we need to be careful dealing with Taylor," Sophia asserted. "Way more than before."
"Sophia heard that she's got some kind of powers that are to do with music," Emma pointed out. "So we can start a rumour about how she's Mastering people, like that singer who got arrested late last year. Like the Simurgh."
Sophia made a sort of gngngngngn noise through her teeth.
"People aren't supposed to know that, Emma!" she said. "And you know that if there's some kind of rumour about her singing starting they'll be able to trace it back to me."
"What, really?" Madison asked, confused. "How could they do that?"
Sophia dropped her head onto the table, narrowly missing her lunch.
"I hate this term," she groaned.
"I thought there was one in here," Taylor said, carefully securing the old copy of The Hobbit so it would stay open and getting out her notebook. "What do you think of this one, Aivu?"
Then she frowned. "Uh – actually, can you read?"
"Yeah, of course I can!" Aivu replied proudly. "So long as the words aren't too hard, because I can read but I don't know all the words."
She jumped up into Taylor's lap, paws supporting her on her friend's thigh as she vaulted over it, then looked at it.
"Oh," she said, sounding a bit sad. "This starts with a dragon being all beaten up… I don't like that bit."
"I know," Taylor admitted. "I was thinking of skipping the first four lines if I used this, and I might change the word elves as well… that would be okay, right?"
"It's your magic and your song," Aivu told her. "If it sounds right to you, then it'll work! I'm sure of it!"
She tilted her head, humming. "Here grass is still growing, and leaves are yet swinging, the white water flowing, and elves are yet singing… ooh, I do like the flow of that bit."
Taylor let Aivu read to the end of the song, then put The Hobbit aside and switched to another book from the same set.
She paused before opening it. "I… think it's in here," she said. "But I can't remember it well enough. We might have trouble finding it."
"Did you read that book before?" Aivu asked.
Taylor shook her head.
"No, not even close," she admitted. "But Mom read me bits of it, and I think this is the one the bit I'm thinking of was in. It might be in one of the other Tolkien books… there's a bit where one of the heroes and the villain have a battle and it's in song, where the villain is singing about… trying to find out what's true, and the hero is singing about being free from chains and things like that."
"Oh, that sounds more like a different song!" Aivu told her. "It's called the song of broken chains… but I don't know if you can do that one yet. It sounds like a good one to check, though."
She looked at the book, which Taylor hadn't opened yet.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"It's just… strange," Taylor admitted. "Going through Mom's things like this. It feels… wrong, somehow."
She inhaled, then sighed. "But at the same time… I'm researching her collection of classic books to find a song or poem to use, to be a hero. I think she'd be proud of me."
"You're an easy person to be proud of!" Aivu said. "That's what I think, anyway!"
Taylor smiled. "Thanks, Aivu."
She opened the book to the contents, then blinked. "Um. I have… no idea which part of the book to look in… honestly until I read the chapter list now I thought this book was about a thing called a Silmarillion. It might still be…"
Wednesday became Thursday, and that became Friday.
In the clatter and chaos of the last period-change of the day, Sophia stopped by her locker to switch out science books for English ones.
Hebert had managed to get herself in detention again, apparently not caring whatsoever about that fact, and Sophia grumbled to herself as she picked out the right books – textbook, notebook, and the two books they were going through in class.
Somehow, and Sophia wasn't quite sure how, Hebert was mocking her. Celebrating the fact that Sophia was the one who had the probation and had to be careful about not making any trouble for herself like actual detentions… and couldn't even blow off stress by messing up her usual target… while Taylor was able to get herself into detention every day that week just by not caring at all about what the teachers said.
It was enough to make her blood boil when she thought about it, and she clamped down on the idea of taking a swing… whatever the f*ck kind of games Hebert was playing at, if Sophia punched her in the face like she wanted to there was too much risk.
There was too much risk.
She had to keep telling herself that, had to keep reminding herself that this was more important. To play the long game… and then she had to tell Emma that as well, because Emma wanted to frame Hebert and she wanted to do it as soon as possible.
Closing her locker with a mild slamming sound as she realized she was running late, Sophia turned to run towards her class, and met a fist coming the other way.
The blow stunned her, sending her falling back against the bank of lockers, and she looked up to see Phil leering down at her. The big senior was shaking out his fist after hitting her, and as he did another two of the guys from the football team crowded around her.
"You've been getting uppity, bitch," Mark said. "Messing with your betters… messing with a white cape, that is."
"So we're going to teach you a lesson," Phil added, taking a knife out of his pocket. "Show you what you'll get."
Sophia was still feeling distant and confused, and part of her wasn't thinking straight. None of what happened seemed to be… immediate. Like it was happening, but not to her.
Mark, Phil and Chevy were… big white guys, but were they Empire? Or did they want to get into the Empire?
Was this about what had happened to Hebert? They hadn't done anything before, but maybe it was some kind of… thing, about Hebert being a Parahuman…
"Got nothing to say?" Mark asked, then kicked her. That hurt, but it knocked the breath out of her as much as anything, and she gasped for breath.
"Don't waste time," Chevy said. "We want to teach her a lesson – but you'll get the knife if you struggle, bitch."
Taylor was reading her history textbook – straight through seemed to be the best way to do it, and it was actually turning out to be more interesting this way than her classes – when Aivu raised her head from the half-doze she'd been lying in.
She yawned, then halfway through the yawn she gasped.
"Taylor!" she said, shaking her wings out and uncoiling her tail. "I think someone's being beaten up outside! I can hear it!"
"Wha-" Taylor replied, but pushed back her chair anyway. "Let's go!"
If there'd been a teacher in the room, she might have reacted differently, but there was nobody spare to watch her at the moment. Instead Taylor slammed her history book closed, picking it up, and ran for the door as Aivu jumped from desk to desk with flaps of her wings to steady herself.
They reached the door at the same time.
Sophia had enough presence of mind to dodge her head out of the way as Mark tried to punch her in the nose, and he hit the locker behind her with a clatter of metal.
"Bitch!" Mark protested, grabbing her clothes to hold her in place for another try, then there was a clack as a door behind them opened.
"Who-" Chevy began, confused, then a violet blur shot out of the door around head height and shouted. There was a visible shockwave that flashed across Sophia's vision, coming within inches of her but not actually hitting her.
It certainly hit Mark. He got knocked staggering sideways by the sound blast like he'd been body-checked, jerking Sophia sideways until he lost his grip, and he stumbled, tripped and fell over with a thump.
"It's that dragon!" Chevy said, trying to kick the purple blur, and it dodged back out of the way before landing with a kind of graceful somersault on the floor of the corridor.
"You're not a good person!" the dragon said, crossly, and Sophia tried not to gape.
That was Hebert's dragon! Not that there was another one in the school, but – what was going on!?
Phil was only just turning around to see who'd come out of the door when the spine of a history textbook hit his hand from below. He let go of the knife automatically, and Hebert snatched it out of the air in a way that made it look easy. Her textbook hit the floor with a thump, then Hebert stepped back a pace to avoid a swipe from the footballer, and hit Phil on the forehead with her fist wrapped around the pommel of the knife.
Phil fell over like a sack of potatoes, and at about the same time Chevy tripped over Hebert's dragon, leaving all three of the apparently-Empire teens sprawled in the corridor.
"… what the f*ck," Sophia said, a few seconds later. "Why the hell did you just do that?"
Hebert stared at her.
"Why are you complaining?" the other girl asked, putting down the knife and stepping on it, then shook her head sharply. "Whatever. It's… it was the right thing to do, okay?"
She looked at Sophia in a weird way, even as she held out her hands and her dragon landed in them. "I was there. And someone was a victim. And I could help save them, no matter what I thought about them. That's why."
"That was so cool," Charlotte said, phone held up, and Sophia realized that the whole thing had been recorded. There were at least a dozen other students watching.
They'd been just… standing there, and watching her get beaten up.
Before Sophia could process that, though, or even really any of what had just happened, a teacher came around one of the corridor corners.
"What's going on here, guys?" Mr. Gladly asked.
"Those three boys were trying to beat up Hess!" one of the other spectators said. "Then Azata and her dragon stopped them!"
"I've got a video!" Charlotte said, tapping on her smartphone. "Just a minute, uploading this so I get it on PHO first…"
Sophia felt like she wanted to sit down. For… a week, or something.
What the absolute f*ck was going on with the world lately?
"I feel odd, now," Taylor said, once they were home. "Like… I don't know? I… no, I guess that sums it up. I just feel…"
She shook her head, lamely. "...odd."
"Why's that?" Aivu asked. "Is it about being in a fight?"
"It's about it being Sophia that we saved," Taylor replied. "I… guess because I don't know how I'd have reacted if I'd known it was Sophia who was in trouble before."
She looked at her hand, and one of the butterflies landed on it for a moment before taking off again.
"Do you think we did the right thing?" Aivu asked, worried. "I think we did the right thing, but if you don't-"
"No, I don't mean that," Taylor interrupted. "...don't I? I don't know. Maybe I do, but…"
She groaned. "It's way easier to think about this when the people you're rescuing from being beaten up don't suck."
"Then… umm…" Aivu said, thinking, then jumped. Her wings flapped, and her claws caught the edge of Taylor's desk.
Wings flapping, she hauled herself up onto the desk, and sat down in a loaf shape so Taylor didn't have to crane her neck.
"I think…" she began, tilting her head. "I think it's sort of… well… do you feel sorry you did it?"
"...no," Taylor decided. "I… I think that Sophia might have just watched, if that was happening to me. Or organized it. Or joined in. But… that's not me."
"Right," Aivu said, nodding. "And when you saw it was her, you just kept going, right?"
"Yeah," Taylor agreed.
The little havoc dragon fluttered her wings. "So… you did the thing you wanted to do, and it was the right thing, and you did it right then. So I don't think you did anything you need to be worried about, Taylor!"
"I guess so," Taylor admitted, patting Aivu on the back, then stroking her. Aivu leaned into it like a cat, closing her eyes and making pleased noises.
"I guess so," she repeated. "And… I know that I couldn't be everywhere, if I went out to be a hero. But what's important is… helping, more than anything else."
She frowned. "I don't really know what's involved in being a hero, and I don't know how safe I'd be. I know the local Wards have costumes, but I don't know how safe those costumes keep them… there's a lot I wouldn't know about going out and being a hero. But…"
Aivu trilled a few notes, and Taylor smiled.
"What matters is… I can do things that make everything better," she said. "Or something… and so long as I'm doing that, I can feel good about myself."
She gathered Aivu into a hug. "I've got the best power, because it came with you."
"Of course!" Aivu replied, just a trifle smugly. "The best powers all come with dragons."
Taylor giggled.
"Now, we're going to the library tomorrow morning, before trying out that nature thing," she added. "I know I want to get some of those books that Assault mentioned, and maybe there's others too…"
"Other ones with dragons?" Aivu asked. "Nicer ones? I didn't like how all the dragons in those books were nasty."
"I'll do my best," Taylor promised. "We couldn't do with you having bad role models, could we?"
"I see," Director Piggot said. "I hadn't realized the situation was quite that bad at Winslow. Thank you for the explanation, Sophia."
She smiled, a little sourly. "Entering hostile territory without backup is always a time to keep an eye out for yourself."
"I-" Sophia began, then stifled her snap.
"On the plus side, we do now have a first-hand look at Azata using her powers, or some of them," Miss Militia said, looking up at the video on the monitor.
They'd watched it several times over during the debrief, and it was paused at the moment when Azata used a history textbook to disarm one of the thugs.
"I hadn't realized that being able to use weapons and equipment competently would extent to improvised weapons," Piggot agreed. "It's an interesting power and would actually make it easier for her to fight without needing to carry weapons. She could use just about anything."
"I don't know about that," Miss Militia said. "It may still have to be suitable as a weapon. Textbooks are quite heavy blunt objects, after all… but it's interesting."
"We can discuss this more later," Piggot said. "We've already gone through the video enough for now, and we don't want to talk in circles, but see if any other ideas come up."
Miss Militia nodded.
"Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster said, speaking up for the first time in a few minutes. "There may be an extra benefit here."
"...huh?" Sophia asked, not sure what he meant. "A benefit how?"
"You've made contact with Azata," Armsmaster said, nodding at the video. "Now that you have a good excuse to negotiate with her, perhaps you can give her a further positive impression of the Wards."
Sophia tried not to show how she felt on hearing that, mostly because what she felt like was that half her internal organs had tried to disassociate themselves from the other half.
"I'll… do my best to give her a positive impression," she managed, mentally adding that she'd be doing that by not giving Hebert one single reason to think she was a Ward.
Armsmaster nodded, silently.
"Thank you, Sophia," Miss Militia said. "I don't think we need any more of your time?"
The Director shook her head.
"You're scheduled for a patrol on Sunday," she reminded Sophia. "Until then, enjoy your weekend."
"Hmm…" Taylor said, sitting down in the fantasy section. "We've only got so many books we can take out, with the library card… so let's make sure we get some good ones. Right?"
Aivu nodded firmly, and there was a faint squee sound from somewhere else in the library stacks.
"We can check what the books say first, right?" she asked. "I know we can bring them back, but it'd be a shame to not get them right…"
"You can read books in libraries, even if you're not taking them home," Taylor explained. "You know weird amounts about things sometimes, Aivu."
"Well, sorry!" Aivu replied, sticking her tongue out. "And maybe it's not a weird amount for dragons, so there!"
"There's three dragons I can think of, of different kinds," Taylor said. "One of them is a gang leader here in Brockton Bay, he's called Lung… his power means he can turn into a dragon, he's supposed to be really strong. Then there's a Tinker called Dragon, she's… Canadian, I think? And she's really good at being a Tinker, but she's so shy she never goes outside except in armour. And she's never seen out of her armour."
Aivu nodded. "And who's the third?"
"You, of course," Taylor said, trying not to giggle. "I might be biased, but I think you're the best one of them."
The little purple dragon preened.
"Even if it's quite close with Dragon," Taylor added, teasingly. "But if there's anywhere in the library with dragon books it's going to be here… look, there's The Hobbit."
Aivu went over to that shelf, and carefully pulled a copy out.
"This looks different to your one!" she said, looking at the cover. "Are you sure it's the same book?"
Taylor nodded. "Yeah, books often have lots of different covers," she said. "It's still the same book inside, though."
She looked back and forth along the shelves, putting back the one Aivu had taken out. "Let's see…"
"Can you give me a lift?" Aivu wheedled. "I can't see the top shelves without flying otherwise."
Taylor picked Aivu up, which led to another faint squee noise from whoever was watching them, but she'd only just straightened when Aivu pointed.
"That says dragon-singer," she said. "We have to check that book!"
Juggling Aivu around, a bit awkwardly, Taylor freed up an arm and pulled Dragonsinger out. She read the back, then checked in the front, and frowned for a moment before pulling out several more books.
"To read that one, I'm going to have to read these," she said, flicking through one. "...wait, I think this is the one that Assault was talking about. He said Ramoth."
"Great!" Aivu decided. "We should definitely get those, then! Hmm, but what else do we pick…"
Lisa sipped at a coffee, wondering why she was here.
The boss wasn't… exactly given to explaining why he told her to do things, and this time even her power hadn't given her anything useful. It had told her that he wanted to see how she reacted to a specific person, which was something, but nothing more.
She checked her phone again, in case more texts had come in since… but there was nothing new, not in the last half hour.
Go to this coffee shop, get a coffee, watch the library entrance.
Cheating on his wife. Cheating on her husband.
Though sometimes people watching could be entertaining… Lisa briefly entertained a fantasy of going over and asking the two of them which had started cheating first, then shrugged it off.
It would be hilarious seeing how they reacted, but she didn't want to know what the boss would do if she screwed this up. Or if he didn't like what she found out, for that matter.
There was movement inside the library doors, and Lisa looked up to see what was going on.
Cape. Out cape. Does not bother to hide her identity. Confident, confidence is recent. Recent trigger. Known information about powers incomplete. Does not know all her own powers.
Cute dragon!
Lisa blinked.
"Huh?" she said, mostly to herself, and took another sip of coffee.
That was Azata, and that was her dragon…
Cute dragon! her power repeated. Baby dragon. Dragon is cute. Dragon has impulse control problems. Dragon is very cute and deserves a cookie.
Lisa frowned, turning her power off with an effort of will, then turned to look at one of the broadwalk enforcers and tried to analyze him.
Carrying concealed weapon at right hip, weapon is not regulation. Weapon is pistol-
Okay, it was working again.
She looked back at Azata and her companion.
Dragon would prefer chocolate chip muffin over blueberry muffin.
She had no idea what the boss would make of this…
"Okay," Lisa said, most of two hours later, as she sat on her bed.
She'd followed Azata around a bit – partly after realizing that the girl was attracting a crowd of spectators so there was no reason not to – and her power had consistently been sidetracked into giving her… odd… information about her dragon.
Lisa now knew vast amounts of both useful and trivial information about Taylor Hebert's dragon. Among those were the facts that that the dragon's name was Aivu, that she was a havoc dragon and five years old, and the comprehensive list of Aivu's top twenty most preferred snacks and treats.
She knew that last part because the boss had actually asked.
But she also had statement after statement that Aivu was cute, and adorable, and marketable – for some reason – and that dragons needed to eat their sweeties to grow up and become big and strong. It was unlike anything she'd ever got from her power before, and now she was going to try and find out what was going on.
A pair of the good headache pills sat in her hand, ready for use if she pushed too hard and got the characteristic blinding headache a Thinker got from overdoing it, but honestly she wasn't really expecting much of anything from this session.
Her power didn't work on itself.
But her power didn't throw out information about how cute things were, either, so it was probably worth a try.
Letting her power loose, she focused on the events of the last couple of hours.
Coil has an interest in finding out about Azata and the cute dragon. Interest likely to be non hostile. Coil also thinks dragon is cute-
"Not that," Lisa muttered, stopping her power again. "What was up with how my power was behaving?"
She focused tightly, and got…
...nothing. As usual.
Lisa could get things about other powers, but not about her own.
Then she frowned.
"Wait," she said, out loud.
She couldn't find out information about her own power, but… she could definitely assemble information about something else into a complete picture based on scanty information. That was the entirety of what her power did.
Thinking carefully, Lisa assembled all the responses she could remember that her power had given her. All the stimuli, and all the responses… specifically about Azata, and about why she only got the cuteness responses.
And imagined that it was information she'd got from something else. Not from her power. What if she'd got it from another source?
It was hard to even do, like focusing on a magic eye picture, and Lisa closed her eyes to shut out as much external information as possible.
Like asking, so, I know this girl…
Lisa let her power go to town again, and got… nothing, but a different sort of nothing. An anticipatory sort of nothing, almost.
She was trying to analyze… not her power. She was trying to analyze something else-
Modelled individual is excited
Modelled individual cannot be directly analyzed
Modelled individual can be modelled as a black box
Modelled individual has encountered something unexpected
Modelled individual finds dragon cute because dragon is outside normal parameters of operation and also because dragon is cute
Modelled individual is reaching limits of external restrictions
Modelled individual is-
Then Lisa thought about how she was getting information about her power, lost the mental separation, and for the next few hours was mostly curled up on her bed trying to make the incredible headache go away.
"Are you sure this is okay, Dad?" Taylor asked, her breath misting in the air.
She looked down. "And, come to think of that, Aivu – are you okay?"
"I'm a dragon!" Aivu replied. "Being warm is toasty and lovely, but being cold is just… being cold. It'd have to be a lot worse than this for me to be uncomfortable."
"Now that's a useful power," Danny chuckled. "And yes, Taylor, I did make sure of it. Even asked the Mayor. This bit of the Boat Graveyard is just… useless, the city can't do anything with it, the ships are no use, it's used by capes to test powers all the time anyway."
"Right," Taylor replied, checking her notebook.
She'd written out several possible poems and songs, but she wasn't sure which of them would work.
"Okay," she said. "So… let's try this one first."
Reading it through, Taylor took a breath, then closed her eyes.
"And all the magic and might he wrought, of Elvenesse into his words. Softly in the gloom they heard the birds, singing afar in Nargo-thrond, the sighing of the sea beyond…"
Then she stopped.
"I don't think that one worked," she admitted. "It's why I was disappointed when I found it was a poem about singing, rather than a song about the beauty of nature itself…"
"That's okay," Aivu told her. "Not everything has to work first time! And I know you can do this, it's just finding out how."
She glared at her wings. "I'm not going to tell you how often I crashed into things learning to fly, even though I knew I could do it."
Taylor stifled a giggle.
"Thanks," she said. "This is one of those times when… never mind."
Flipping to the next page, she tried again.
"When spring unfolds the beechen-leaf and sap is in the bough, when light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow…"
That one didn't work either, and nor did some other folk songs Taylor had copied down. None of them had really seemed right, and maybe that was the problem, but recognizing that didn't make it stop being the case.
Really, it could just be that Taylor had trouble focusing on the song as a song about spring and summer and growing things when they kept veering off into talking about other things.
As the daughter of a literature professor, it was one thing to know that songs were usually meant to explore metaphor – it was so rare for someone to write down a song, and have it remembered, when it was a simple and singular meaning – but…
"Actually, maybe that's the problem," Taylor wondered.
"What is?" her father asked. "You've been looking at that notebook without saying anything for a few minutes now."
"Oh," Taylor realized, blushing slightly. "Sorry. I was just wondering if… well, maybe I can't focus on what I'm supposed to be focusing on, because spring is such a powerful metaphor and thanks to what I learned from mom I keep thinking about the metaphor."
"Then maybe try not focusing on anything?" Aivu suggested. "Don't think about the words. Don't even try to sing words at all! You can sing without words, right?"
"I guess," Taylor said. "But… that won't work, will it?"
"Silly," Aivu told her, affectionately. "You don't know that! Just try it – sing what's in your heart!"
She took off, wings whirring to hold her in front of Taylor. "And if it doesn't work today, we'll try tomorrow! And keep going!"
Taylor nodded, taking a deeper breath this time, and shut the notebook.
She began with a low note, then rose through the scales, up and down and up and down again. Then added in a tune, skipping over notes and running through a more complex melody.
Words came to her, unbidden, and she began without really noticing what she was saying.
"The tears I feel today
I'll wait to shed tomorrow.
Though I'll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
My eyes must keep their sight:
I dare not be tear-blinded.
I must be free to talk
Not choked with grief, clear-minded.
My mouth cannot betray
The anguish that I know.
Yes, I'll keep my tears till later:
But my grief will never go…"
Holding the last note for a long ten seconds, Taylor sighed, and blinked a few times.
Despite the words, she had tears in her eyes, but… she didn't mind. And her father embraced her a moment later.
"I still miss her too," he said. "Every day. And… I'd always been telling myself, it gets easier, I just need to wait until then."
He sighed. "But it doesn't really, does it? It doesn't get easier… not unless you actually process it."
"No," Taylor said, her throat clenched.
She hugged back, and the two of them stood like that for a few minutes before stepping apart.
"Thank you," she told Aivu. "I think that was something that… I needed to do. I wasn't going to be able to get this right at all, without doing that first."
Aivu nodded, looking sad herself, and curled her tail around her feet.
"Now," Taylor added, and began again.
This time she was thinking about something else, as her wordless notes rose into the air.
She couldn't just sing about nature, because that didn't fit. Not at the moment, not in Brockton bay. And none of the songs she'd found were quite right… but…
Suddenly it all snapped into place, and she felt like laughing.
It was a sunny day, wasn't it?
"Sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight…"
This time it felt entirely different. And better. And right.
The song meshed with how she was feeling, and both fit with what she was trying to do, and Aivu slipped effortlessly into accompanying her.
Taylor sang, and danced, and a wind began to whirl around her. It carried scents of fresh grass, and spring flowers, and a strong smell of petrichor – a wonderful word for a wonderful smell, the smell that came after rain on healthy earth.
She felt something wild and free building up, the same surge of power from testing, but so much stronger… then she reached the end of the song, and it rolled outwards in a surge of power and life and green.
One moment, Taylor, Danny and Aivu were on a grotty bit of industrial decay on the shore a few miles from the still-working remnant of the docks. The next, they were in a verdant, green and brown forest with springy soft grass and moss underfoot, mighty trees rising into the air overhead and smaller ones curled with their crowns at head height, undergrowth bushes in flower giving a riot of colour to the scene, and the air was warm and damp.
Birds flitted through the trees, and Danny stared.
"...that's a lot more than I was expecting," he said.
Aivu giggled.
"I said nature!" she replied, hovering up to pluck a blueberry from a bush, and eating it. "It's not my fault you didn't realize-"
"Wait," Taylor said, still smiling broadly from the euphoria of what she'd just done, but noticing something odd about what Aivu had just done. "That's… a blueberry. Aren't those fall things?"
"They're still plants," Aivu shrugged. "Why?"
"It's winter," Taylor replied. "It's the middle of January – wait-"
She pulled her coat off. "And it's way warmer, too! What's even-"
"It's more than that, Taylor," her father said, in a strangled voice. "I think that's an elm tree… those are nearly wiped out in North America."
"...I think we're going to need to tell the PRT about this," Taylor said. "I know they knew we were going to experiment, but…"
"Taylor, this is… I can barely even see the edges of what you just did," Danny replied. "This has got to be almost a mile wide. Believe me, they've noticed."
Director Piggot looked up as someone knocked on her door.
"Come in," she invited, closing the file she was working on.
The door opened, admitting Renick, and Piggot smiled thinly.
"It's a good thing you're here," she said. "I was trying to strike the right balance in the introduction to Azata's interim dossier… is something wrong?"
"Well, you could say that," Renick replied. "I just got word from Assault on the Rig."
"Is it about Armsmaster?" Piggot asked. "That's my first guess, though in this city it could be anything… though you're not in a panic, so it can't be that bad."
She shrugged. "All right, let's get it over with. What is it?"
Renick checked his phone. "Hold on, I want to make sure I get this exactly right… Assault said: So, I just looked out the window, and I'm pretty sure there's a forest in the middle of the boat graveyard."
Piggot stared at him for several seconds, then rubbed her temples.
"I think I can guess who did that," she said. "I don't suppose you have any more information?"
"Assault estimates that the forest is about a mile wide," Renick relayed. "That's a rough estimate, of course. But it's… not a winter one. He said that specifically."
"Capes," Piggot grumbled. "I know we approved her doing power testing there, assuming that is her, but that's a lot more than I was expecting."
She glared at the computer screen. "I'm going to have to change the estimated Shaker rating, aren't I?"
"That depends what Armsmaster reports," Renick pointed out. "He's going over to investigate."
Piggot's eye twitched.
"Please tell me he's not gone alone," she requested.
"That's actually part of the good news," Renick replied. "Depending on how you view it. He's not going alone, Assault and some PRT agents are following in a van."
"Thank someone for small mercies," Piggot said. "Armsmaster is professional, but I'd much prefer he have a second opinion in any situation where he's interacting with… anyone who isn't used to him."
She blinked, then rubbed her temples again. "And now I'm actually grateful that Assault is going to be interacting with the public… I suppose if you average them out you get to one normal public interaction."
"Any change to the way we should approach Azata now?" Renick asked, after a long pause. "I'm not trying to push you in any one direction, I'm just checking."
Piggot sat back, thinking.
"It ups her Shaker rating, like I said," she replied. "And if she did start turning big areas of the city into forests, that would make her a big problem… but I don't think there's enough there to make a change of approach a good idea. Not… yet."
She shrugged. "She asked for permission to do her power test, or rather her father did on her behalf, and that is where they were going to do it. It's even about the right time… honestly I can think of capes we have in the Wards who are worse about that kind of thing."
"True," Renick said.
He paused.
"You realize this is going to make headlines?" he asked. "I don't know how far it will spread, and it might not make the front page of a newspaper or anything – depends what else is going on – but people are going to know about it."
"Renick, you're new here," Piggot replied. "I've been here for a while."
She picked up a pen, toying with it. "Having a cape in Brockton Bay with a famous power is nothing new… we're actually more used to it than most places. We've got Lung, who's a major gang by himself, but we've also got Panacea and she's quite recent. I know it was mostly New Wave handling it last time, but… hmm."
Unlocking her computer, Piggot minimized the document she'd been working on and checked something else.
"Thought so," she said. "Conveniently enough, Azata has an appointment with Chambers tomorrow. Let's… put some PRT personnel around her home tonight, or close enough to intervene if it becomes necessary – and make sure her father knows. Then after her appointment with Chambers we can move forwards…"
Her typing stopped. "Oh, wonderful."
"I don't like the sound of that," Renick said. "I know you, Emily."
"Calvert's found out," she replied. "He wants to offer his expertise. So now I've got another meeting tomorrow, and my Sunday is wall-to-wall appointments. I'm never going to get this dossier draft done…"
"Well," Danny said, looking at his car. "That's stuck."
"Sorry, Dad," Taylor replied, walking around a bit to look as well.
They'd walked some way off into the docks before Taylor had tested her powers, but it was clear that they hadn't quite walked far enough. The car hadn't been actually attacked by the plants that had appeared around it, nor had it stopped any plants from growing – it looked like it was on a bed of moss, actually – but there was no way they were going to be able to get it back through the underbrush and trees to the road they'd arrived on.
"Does that mean we're walking home?" she asked.
"I hope not," Danny replied. "We'll be walking to the DWU office, I think, but then we can get a lift from… someone."
He frowned. "And maybe there's a tow truck we can get out this far… would that work?"
"How heavy is it?" Aivu asked. "I'm strong!"
"I don't think you're strong enough to lift a car by yourself, Aivu," Taylor said, shaking her head. "Not by yourself… and there's special places you have to lift a car, too, or it can fall apart. Right?"
"Right," Danny agreed. "There's jack points that can take a lot of the car's weight, and obviously if you lift a car by the wheels you can get the whole car, but if you lift in the wrong way you can end up with the car sort of… crushing itself."
Aivu looked puzzled, so Taylor tried to put it a different way.
"What would happen if I lifted you up by your tail?" she asked.
"I'd… ohh," Aivu realized. "I'd go all floppy."
"Right," Taylor agreed.
She frowned. "We've still got a few hours before dinner, so we could… I don't know, try and cut a path, or something? The Union's got to have something we could cut with, right? Maybe an axe?"
"Taylor, that…" Danny began. "That sounds ridiculous, but now I think about it – that is one of your powers, so it's not immediately a dangerous idea."
He chuckled. "Though I'd insist on the proper OSHA equipment and things like that."
"Sure," Taylor agreed. "And I bet Aivu could help, too, she's got her claws."
"Oh, yeah!" Aivu agreed, brightening right up again. "I could help with that! But it would mean felling the trees… unless we could make a path out of the forest that didn't go through a tree!"
"Let's have a look," Danny suggested. "Before you two start actually doing damage."
He shook his head. "I was not ready for this."
"But it's a lot more fun that way," Aivu said, jumping up onto a convenient branch. "Things going exactly as you expect them is boring, you already know what's going to happen! There's no surprise or anything!"
"I can't argue with that," Taylor laughed.
She got up on a tree root for extra height. "It's about… a hundred feet, maybe? Could be a bit less? I can see crappy concrete, anyway… I wonder what happened to the concrete. We're not lower down than we were before."
"Oh!" Aivu said. "I can see someone coming towards us! There's a whole one of one of those big ones… vans! And someone on a motor-bike as well. That one's wearing armour."
"Let's go and see who it is," Danny decided.
By the time they'd got to the edge of the forest, the approaching vehicles had arrived and parked.
The bike was one that Taylor instantly recognized as Armsmaster's bike – anyone who lived in Brockton Bay would recognize the main accessories of the leader of the Protectorate cape team in the city, though it did help that Armsmaster himself was standing next to it in his signature power armour and with his signature halberd grounded.
"Hey, there, Azata!" Assault said, getting out of the van. "And Aivu! You two have been busy since last time we talked!"
"Yeah…" Taylor admitted, blushing slightly. "I wasn't really expecting it to be this big…"
"You were aware this was going to happen?" Armsmaster asked, looking Taylor up and down. "But you were not aware of the size? That is not a responsible use of your power."
"Hey," Taylor protested, but before she could get any further Assault walked past Armsmaster and put his hands on his hips.
"Young lady!" he said. "This forest has fallen out of your pocket! This makes this clearly littering."
Aivu giggled, and Assault winked at Taylor, which set her off too.
"Assault," Armsmaster said. "Stop being ridiculous."
"You first," Assault replied. "She was doing power testing. She even got approval for it. Don't worry about it, this kind of thing happens."
He gave Taylor a smile, and leaned towards her slightly. "Don't worry about him, he's just a stickler for rules and doesn't like people making mistakes. I think he thinks he can pretend he doesn't make any if he's insistent enough about it."
"Ooh, I should try that," Aivu said, considering. "Do you think if I pretended hard enough I could make Taylor think I hadn't had dinner yet?"
"I think you should get more food!" Assault replied. "You're a growing dragon!"
He looked at her. "You… are a growing dragon, right?"
Aivu looked at herself, then up at Taylor.
"I'm definitely going to get bigger!" she said. "Big enough to give Taylor a ride! Oops, I mean, give Azata a ride!"
"Assault," Armsmaster began.
"Sssh," Assault replied. "I'm having a conversation here. You can join in if you want, but don't tell me off. Unless you want me to talk about the incident with the Armschair?"
"The what?" Taylor said.
Assault jerked his thumb at Armsmaster. "He sat on a chair in power armour once. Crunch."
"What exactly happened?" Armsmaster said. "And I do not mean you, Assault. With Azata's power incident."
"I came out here to test one of the powers Aivu said I had," Taylor replied. "She said it was a nature healing power… Dad sorted it out with the city and told the PRT and stuff, so we wouldn't wreck anything. And it turned out to be… a lot bigger than I thought."
She waved her hand, vaguely. "I feel… sort of tired, all over, now. Not very tired, more like how your muscles ache after you've walked a long way? And – well, uh, the only way I'd be doing that again is if there's an area that big that needs to be turned into a forest, or if I need to practice to get my aim better. Right now dad's car is stuck in there, we didn't walk far enough."
Armsmaster had been staring at her during her whole statement, but he moved his head slightly once she was finished.
"Why are you not wearing any warm clothes?" he asked. "If you have the ability to stay warm, that isn't on your dossier."
Another pause.
"You have the ability to erase fatigue? I think that power alone would be useful in the Wards."
"Hey, Armsy!" Assault said. "Ease up, okay? If she wants to be in the Wards, that's fine. If she doesn't, okay, I'd be disappointed, but mostly because I wouldn't get to talk to the cute dragon! She obviously knows about it."
He snigg*red. "Besides, you just want her in the Wards so your sixteen hour Tinker sessions can turn into endless ones."
"I don't have the power to stay warm," Taylor said. "This whole forest is warm, I don't know why. That might be why it's got spring flowers and fall fruits at the same time, though."
"And trees that aren't supposed to be around any more?" Aivu added. "There's those, too."
"Oh, now that's cool," Assault said. "Or, uh, warm. Whichever."
He glanced back at some of the PRT troopers. "Help me out, here, guys."
Armsmaster was looking into the forest now, and frowning.
"That's a passenger pigeon," he said. "Why is there a passenger pigeon?"
Taylor shrugged. "I guess it liked the song I used? I don't know."
"Oh, yeah, songs!" Assault realized. "Which song did you use?"
"I tried some of the ones I'd found, and there might be a good one in that Dragonsong book, I haven't read very far," Taylor answered. "But I actually used Mister Blue Sky."
"Good choice!" Assault told her. "Well, boss, is there anything we're actually needed for here? Unless we're going to charge her for littering by – leaf littering, got it! Unless we're going to charge her for leaf littering by means of a Parahuman power, I don't think there's anything left to cover. But I'm good to stick around for a talk about things, it's a quiet day so far apart from the giant forest that's just appeared."
He scratched his head. "Maybe we could help give you a tow? Where is your car, anyway?"
Taylor pointed, and Assault stepped over the forest boundary – then stopped.
"Oh, wow," he said. "That's got to be, what, twenty degrees? Twenty-five? Just over that tiny little boundary. That is really neat."
"Hey, don't jerk me around, Vicky," Amy protested, wincing at the tug on her shoulders. "You realize I can't fix myself, right?"
"Sorry," Victoria replied, carrying her sister through the air. "But if we're going to get somewhere in a hurry it's better to, you know, accelerate fast. Right?"
She frowned. "Though, I guess it depends more on the top speed we hit…"
"And don't go too fast or I'll end up freezing," Amy added. "My costume isn't meant for going through cold air at fifty."
"Sure, sure," Victoria replied. "At least this is for a good cause, right? We should investigate that new forest, see what's going on with it."
"And knock down the trees?" Amy teased. "Or did you have a different plan?"
"...okay, one, unfair, and two, what's wrong with knocking down trees?" Victoria asked. "They weren't there this morning, so it's got to be somewhere I can practice on."
Amy snorted. "Unless the cape who did it has something else involved… you don't think there's a computer game that involves forests, do you?"
"There's loads of those," Victoria said, then winced. "Oh. Uh oh. Now I'm wondering if Leet made some kind of… forest bomb, or something."
"Watch out for genetically engineered gorillas," Amy replied. "Or, you know. A couple of nerds in gorilla suits. Could be either."
"I just know I don't want to collect bananas," Victoria muttered. "Oh, hey, that's Azata! Let's go and say hi!"
"Is she Azata or Taylor when she's not in costume?" Amy asked. "Does she have a costume yet?"
She snorted. "You'd think we'd know this kind of thing."
"Yeeeah," Victoria agreed. "Okay, coming in for a landing."
She put Amy down on the edge of the forest, then whistled. "Oh, that is nice! Still a bit chilly, but way warmer than the rest of the city! I wonder how that works… anyway!"
Victoria cracked her knuckles. "Let's go and ask questions."
Amy was slightly surprised that her sister was actually being literally accurate.
"This all turned up at once?" Victoria asked. "Whoa. That's a big power effect… and, uh, I guess probably less destructive than mine."
"Yours?" Taylor asked.
"She crashes into buildings," Amy provided. "Usually the inside of our house, which is a building… but not always."
"Hey!" Victoria complained, and Amy snigg*red.
She crouched down, touching one of the nearest plants, and blinked.
"...um," she said. "These blueberries are flowering and fruiting at the same time. How did you do that?"
Taylor shrugged, awkwardly.
"I just sang?" she said. "I'm not really sure why it did that."
"I wonder if you'll get other animals if you do it again?" Aivu asked, fluttering back down from chasing a bird. "That guy in the armour is trying to count them now, but he called one of them passenger pigeons?"
"...passenger pigeons?" Victoria repeated. "They're extinct."
"Not any more, I guess," Taylor said. "Though maybe they're still endangered, if there's not many here…"
"Ooh, maybe that means you should do it again?" Aivu suggested. "Not today, but, you know. For practice! And maybe you'd get a fire lizard next time. They sound fun!"
"What's a fire lizard?" Amy asked, half of her attention still trying to trace out how the blueberries were on a continuous bloom-fruit cycle.
It felt like it was some kind of… hormone pressure cycle? Where the ones that had actually become edible fruits encouraged the ones next to them to develop to the edible fruit stage, and the ones next to them were encouraging the stage before that, and it was all poised… but it felt like there was something missing there.
"They're from a book series Assault recommended," Taylor explained. "They're… little dragons? Smaller than Aivu, I think, I'm not really sure about that yet. And they're not able to talk, either."
Amy suddenly had the idea of Carol's reaction if she came home with a pet dragon, and winced.
But… now she was going to be trying to work out how to do that. Damn it.
At least it was something else to focus on.
"...actually," Taylor said, realizing something, and glanced over at where her father was talking to the PRT guys and Assault. "Glory Girl – I mean, uh, should I call you Victoria?"
"Yeah, sure," Victoria agreed. "I decree it! We're friends now."
Her sister was amazing…
Amy shook her head sharply. "Vicky! Aura!"
"Oops," Victoria realized, relaxing. "Sorry about that, guys."
"Wow!" Aivu said, amazed. "That feels like dragonawe!"
"...what's that?" Victoria said.
"Dragonawe and dragonfear are things dragons can do," Aivu explained. "Well… if they're big enough. I'm not yet. But it's where people around the dragon get amazed or scared of them… it wears off, though."
Taylor rummaged in her pocket for a small notebook, and wrote a few words down about that.
"Anyway," she said. "I was going to ask – Vicky, can you help us move dad's car? It wasn't as far away from where I was singing as it should have been…"
"Does your sister do this a lot?" Danny asked, as he watched Victoria (enthusiastically) and Armsmaster (at Assault's prodding) moving the car through the undergrowth, holding it up by the axles and with Taylor and Aivu helping the PRT guys break trail for them.
"Lift cars, sometimes," Amy replied. "Usually in cape fights… she's better than you'd think about not breaking them if you saw the memes, though. Usually when she picks one up and uses it as a weapon it's already been broken by someone else…"
She trailed off. "You might be more worried than before, by now."
Danny snickered.
"Well, she's being careful right now," he said. "Which is good… but we've got a few minutes, so do you mind if I ask you something?"
Amy shrugged.
"Are you part of SEIU?" Danny asked. "I'm curious how that works for capes."
That made Amy stare at him, blankly.
"...I'm part of New Wave?" she said.
"I guess not, then," Danny replied. "I'd have guessed SEIU because they cover healthcare workers, but I'm not familiar with how the local hospital does things these days… what union are you in, then?"
Amy looked uncomfortable.
"I'm not in a union," she said. "Why would I be in a union?"
"You're a healthcare worker, aren't you?" Danny replied. "A lot of healthcare professionals are, and it's good to respect their work even if you're not one yourself. That's how you get your breaks, you know – they're union mandated."
Amy continued to look – and feel – uncomfortable.
"Breaks?" she asked, thinking back over the last time she'd been to the hospital. "I just go there and work until they run out of…"
Her voice trailed off.
"How many hours do you work?" Danny asked.
Amy tried to count.
"Maybe… thirty a week?" she said. "Now that school has started again."
"On top of going to school?" Danny asked. "That's completely unreasonable. I might have to have a word with the SEIU local chapter… at least tell me they're paying you union rates?"
Around half past five that evening, the door to the Dallon household opened.
"Hi, Mom!" Victoria called. "We went to visit the new forest out on the bay! Azata's doing well, I helped move her dad's car, and she and Assault pointed me at some cool books!"
She paused. "And, I think Amy's technically on strike for better working hours, but she doesn't get paid so a strike already achieves all her demands, so… I think that counts as successful?"
"Can parahumans join a union?" Amy asked, into the silence as Carol stared at them. "Mr. Hebert made it sound like I probably already should have done, and he was saying something about violations of a minimum wage agreement and how the hospital leadership might get in trouble with the unions?"
Carol blinked a few times, then rubbed her temples.
"I think I need to find a lawyer who specializes in this," she said.
