"Hey Kyubey, what's up?" Cecilia asks when she spots the small ball of fluff. She's never really been able to decide if Kyubey looks more like a rabbit or a cat...

She's sitting in a tree in a park, right now, her back to the trunk, resting from a witch-fight. She got a pretty good grief-seed off of it.

'You know you can speak to me like this, Cecilia,' Kyubey not-quite-scolds, in a repetition of their customary greeting. (This unit has a theory that repetitive greetings like this serve as a low-level identity and freedom of action verification method among non-telepathic social species. Regardless of purpose, though, engaging in 'teasing' and 'in-joke' rituals generate feelings of fondness in the harvest species, and put them at ease in interpersonal interaction.)

She smiles a little. "You know me. I like the sound of my own voice." Except for how she completely doesn't. Still, it makes her feel a bit less lonely, talking out loud... "Anything going on?"

(Kyubey's right, telepathic contact is more secure... And Cecilia needs to grow up. Needs to stop being so emotional, and get some control over herself so she stops wasting magic on tears.)

'Are you holding up okay, with your current work load?'

'Yeah, pretty much. School's still easy. I'll graduate high school soon, and then I'll have more time.' Her father will be disappointed in her for not going to college at thirteen after graduating at twelve, but, well, she suspects her mother will have the 'let Cecilia be a child' fight for her. And it's not like Cecilia isn't used to disappointing people. 'Witches have been getting a bit stronger, but I can handle it.'

'...There's been a trend, in this area. Stronger witches. More witch victims.' Because this unit maneuvered to have more unstable local Potentials offered wishes and more extraneous grief seeds moved from other sectors and hatched here. 'It's enough for one girl for now, but at this rate your territory won't be sustainable forever.'

' - That's not good. But aren't you always saying overlapping magical girls always fight? Should I just shrink my territory, try to get along with - guess a new neighbor?' She's been here five years, which means she's the most senior magical girl in the county if not the state (which is an unnerving thought), so all of her current relationships are extremely stable. A new neighbor - a new magical girl to get used to - sounds unpleasant, but she's not willing to let her people get eaten by witches...

'Magical girls without prior relationships, at least, which is the usual case. It's rare for potential to cluster. But there's a potential you already have a positive relationship with, who I think would make a good partner.'

That gives her pause. She doesn't know many other girls - her social circle's pretty much her cousins and her little sister. Maybe cousin Elizabeth? Elizabeth's her age, which is a normal wishing age, and lives next door so Cecilia sees her a lot... (And kind of has a crush she's not telling anyone about.)

'Who?' she asks, because Kyubey is terrible at responding to silent questions.

'Your sister, Sue Uccelo.'

' - She's seven!'

'So were you, when you wished, and you've done well. I think she's ready, and she'd be more willing to listen to you than most.'

'...I guess...' Except Cecilia doesn't think she wants this life for Sue - except what if she's holding her sister back, restraining her instead of setting the example for her to rise to, test herself against - except Sue might die - except even potentials aren't always immune to the Witch's Kiss and Sue deserves a fighting chance -

Her soul gem dims a little. Why is she so emotional, she needs to consider this calmly, without reference to her stupid dreams she always falls short of -

'I know you want to protect her, Cecilia... But is a cage and clipped wings really protection?'

Appropriately timed metaphors increase efficiency of emotional arcs by 247 percent.

' - I. I don't know.' She hugs herself, then scolds herself for being so silly and lets go.

'You should think about it. In the meantime, I can collect your grief seeds.'

'Yeah.'

She hands over the overloaded ones, then, distracted, keeps going when Kyubey paws at her leg. She says goodbye to him, barely hearing herself, and starts walking home.

All she's doing is holding her sister back, isn't she? Even the example she's set has only caused her father to ignore her sister. And Cecilia's been too busy to help Sue with her homework, or play with her, and - and Sue doesn't really have friends, Cecilia's tried pushing her away from her and Elizabeth's adventures so her little sister will go find someone her age to play with except all she's managed is hurting Sue -

Her parents don't interrupt her just going straight to her room.

It occurs to her she's low, her magic's dipped farther than she usually allows it.

She realizes she gave Kyubey all the grief seeds she'd been carrying. Stupid, silly girl...

But she has the stash in her money box, under her carefully hoarded allowance -

It's not there.

Her stash isn't there.

She tears through her room, can't find it - why is she so useless, it doesn't even occur to her until she's upended everything to use her despair-sense, but she can't feel seeds, just the suffocating despair of her whole neighborhood, a spot of sorrow and worry in her sister's room that Cecilia must have caused - there's no witches small enough for her to fight low like this -

'Kyubey!' she screams over the telepathic channel. 'I'm out of grief seeds - '

No answer comes.

Cecilia throws open her window, then grabs at her soul gem - it's always been odd, black metal and shimmering red liquid more like a grief seed than anything belonging to a magical girl -

The glow is a dull, angry red like drying blood.

She can't become a witch, she can't, her family's right here and Cecilia would never hurt them - she needs to find something to break her soul gem with before she tips over the edge -

Dropping her dresser on it doesn't work. Slamming her conjured shield on it, shooting it with a summoned gun - for fuck's sake she's seen soul gems destroyed like this before, don't tell her she can't destroy her own -

The gun shot must have alarmed her parents, because there's footsteps thundering up the stairs, and Cecilia can't even do this right -

She screams.

And stops being Cecilia.

Sue first notices something is wrong when she spots her sister running into her room, alone and upset. Sue doesn't know how to comfort her, though, and their parents are letting her go -

Her second clue is the gunshot.

Her third is the scream.

And then reality stops making sense very, very quickly. Her room dissolves into jagged, blood-red spikes, angles weird and dizzying. Sue flinches.

She jumps to her feet, runs to the door - which still exists, there's just spikes in the way, but she can dodge around or crawl under them - and throws it open, intending to run to Cecilia's room -

Her parents are on the landing. They're moving strangely, a distant look in their eyes, fighting each other.

Sue holds her hands over her mouth as her mother throws her father down the stairs and then turns to her.

Sue slams her door shut.

There's noises, in the rest of the house, distant screams and chains rattling.

Sue puts her back to the door, and starts hyperventilating.

There's a creature in front of her. Pure white, jarringly contrasting against the blackish red of the room. His eyes, though, gleam a bright red that echoes the blood outside.

'Hello,' he says to her. 'You can save them, if you make a contract with me and become a magical girl.'

"What - what are you, what's going on - "

'I'm Kyubey. I grant girls wishes, so they can become magical girls and fight witches. A witch attacked your house. It's controlling your parents.'

"What's a witch? Where's Cecilia?" Why is any of this relevant -

'A witch is a monster made of despair. Cecilia was a magical girl, and she died trying to stop this witch from coming here.'

Sue's sister is dead - assuming this thing isn't lying -

But maybe her parents aren't, maybe magical girls can do anything like in the shows - maybe she can put back the dead, except...

She doesn't think a wish would carry that. Would save everyone. It doesn't feel - it doesn't feel like what a magical girl gets, one wish to fix everything, and if everything can be fixed all at once surely Cecilia would've done that -

"I wish to be strong enough."

To fight this thing off. To save people. To change the world.

'An interesting wish.'

And Kyubey starts to glow.

And the world unfurls before her - the universe - it's hers, it's clay in her hands, it's - everything can change and she WILL change it if she has to fist-fight the universe -

Crashing back to herself is a rather rude feeling. But that high remains, and Sue rides it as her body glows, and wisps of white light settle around her. She's wearing a dress, now, knee-length, pure white with impossibly black accents, entirely made of sharp lines. A jacket snaps into place over it, a gem of pure white metal with blue lightning crackling inside it forms at her throat, and a white bow with a humming blue string materializes in her hand. There's no quiver. She doesn't need one.

She's standing, now, back straight like it's never been. Her sight's better, when she opens her eyes. The chaotically shifting angles behave, now, their geometry sensible to her.

And she can feel the broken pieces of the world around her.

'You need to move quickly, now. The witch will grow stronger the more people it kills.'

"Right."

She grips her bow tighter.

Magic is - more instinctual than she would've thought.

She spins, throwing the door open - her mother's crumpled, bloody - Sue's heart races - she darts past, jumping clear over the blood.

The hallway's not behaving. There's more twists, more space than there should be, all cut up with those spikes. But it's still her house, just chopped up and repeated - 

And her sister's bedroom door, the name 'Cecilia' replaced with something in an odd language Sue can't read, is before her.

Sue kicks it open, and the space becomes something else. Pure, unrelenting white for the ceilings and walls and floor - assuming those exist at all. Black chains rush from all directions, wrapped around a dark figure in the middle, a jittery thing that looks like someone ran a human through a bunch of fun house mirrors then added static for the fun of it.

It shrieks when it sees her, and Sue draws her bow, firing one glowing arrow then another - 

She only just barely catches the whip of a chain out of the corner of an eye. Not fast enough to dodge it.

It throws her into the ground, hard and fast enough to make a sound like boulders colliding, and a crackling black energy surrounds Sue.

She's uninjured. She's warm. She's loved.

She rolls to her feet, and keeps firing.

There's a rising tide in her head, a wailing drowning out the rage, a stubborn thread insisting I'm going to lose and nothing will change - 

But it's quieter than the anger, than the instinct to go out kicking and screaming and fighting if she goes out at all.

Sue's arrows strike like lightning, and the witch falls with a sob, chains going slack and then vanishing, strange room dissolving.

And Sue's left in her sister's room, Cecilia's untouched body sprawled face-down on the floor in front of her, right where the witch had collapsed. Cecilia's wearing a perfect inverse of Sue's outfit, unrelenting black where hers is white, limed in a gleaming white. Her hand's outstretched, just short of a jagged metal sphere wrapped around a black gem. Sue wonders distantly if that's Cecilia's version of Sue's own gem.

Cecilia's dress dissolves back to her normal clothes in a shimmer of black particles.

Sue falls to her knees and screams.

(She wishes God existed so she could kill him for this - )

It's unideal if Magical 90304-NISRV witches this soon. Her maximum usability hasn't yet been attained.

Kyubey places a paw against Sue's leg, then nuzzles her. 'You need to take the grief seed. You used a lot of magic, and it's making you feel bad.'

(Sue isn't close to witching. Sue is close to setting the universe on fire. There's a difference.)

She takes a deep breath. Looks at the gem. "That's not - Cecilia's gem thing?" She has to skirt around Cecilia's body, and she's going to - to find someone whose fault this was - 

There's a thin layer of grime on her gem, that leaps into the grief seed, making it somehow blacker. The wailing voice that Sue's going to fail fades, and Sue realizes she can take on the world.

"...Is anyone still alive?" She needs - needs to call 911, get paramedics...

'It's not a soul gem. A few neighbors survived; they're calling emergency services now. You don't need to worry about it. You did very well, Sue - that was a dangerous witch, who could've caused a lot of problems.'

"What's - what's going on, why wishes, why - why did using magic make me feel bad, what's with the gems - "

She'd leave the room except then she'd have to turn around and look at Cecilia's body.

'Wishes are how magical girls become magical. Magic makes you unhappy because your hope powers your magic. Your soul gem holds your magic, and it grows dark when you're low.'

- She has to - 

She turns, looks - there's no gem, nothing that feels like the thing Sue has. Maybe it's under Cecilia's body. Sue doesn't think she can touch her, and - her father complains about people who mess with crime scenes - (Her father's dead, though.)

"So where's Cecilia's soul gem? I should - I should keep it..."

'Only living magical girls have soul gems. Sue... You should go back to your room and wait for the emergency personnel. It's not good for you, being in here.'

Sue narrows her eyes. "Don't tell me what to do!" she snaps, that sad-angry feeling in her chest flaring. "I - "

"How did Cecilia die anyways - " 

Sue's sister is amazing, is always so far above her, no way a witch someone like Sue took down could've beaten someone like Cecilia - 

'She ran out of magic.'

Sue frowns, but - there's sirens, in the distance, growing louder. She tightens her grip on the grief seed.

'You should dismiss your raiment. Focus on turning back to normal.'

Doing that feels icky, like when you're changing and someone doesn't even bother knocking on the door, just opens it - 

Sue scrunches up her face, but settles back into her (weak) old clothes. Her bow's gone. 

"What now?"

'They won't be able to see me. Only potential and current magical girls can. You can talk to me mentally, by intending for a message to get to me. I'll help you get used to being a magical girl.'

Sue nods, and stands there, staring at her sister's body, until some adult - someone she thinks might've worked with her father, she's seen him before - blocks her line of sight.

"We're here, kid, it's going to be okay - " he says.

(It's not okay. But Sue will make it better - )

The funeral's two days later. Sue doesn't want to go. She doesn't see the point. They're just bodies.

It's big. Her parents and her sister and cousin Elizabeth and Elizabeth's family and three separate neighbors' whole families and scattered people at the edges - 

There's a lot of police officers. They keep giving Sue their condolences for her family. Her dad was a very good chief of police, you know. Very fair.

She zones out.

There's a lot of worried chatter. Don't they know it's a funeral? Sue kind of wants to punch them but that'd require moving and then people would stare at her - 

But it's been years and years since this area had one of those mass killings or suicides like you see on the news, and it hardly has any crime at all compared to other places, doesn't it? (Cecilia, Sue thinks, because she's gotten Kyubey to tell her what witches do to people by now. Cecilia kept them safe, and Cecilia's dead now, isn't she?)

"Hey Sue," says a familiar voice from behind her. He sounds quiet. Subdued. Not much like his usual self.

She recognizes her cousin after a moment, and turns. "Shisui?" she asks. She hasn't seen him, much, not lately.

"Yeah. Got the first flight I could." He steps up to her, conveniently putting himself between her and someone who's been looking like they want to bug her. "Wanna get out of here? I've let the social worker know I'm picking you up, so."

"...I guess." A pause, and: "I wanna get fries."

It feels stupid. Her parents never let her eat unhealthy stuff, which, Sue doesn't like sweets, but the ban extended to fried foods. Which are pretty much just a vehicle for ketchup. And - getting a food she doesn't like that much just cause her parents aren't alive to say no - it's -

Sue's not very good at being dutiful.

"Fries I can do." He starts heading for the door, continuing to keep himself between her and people, but not touching her. "Greasy or sensible?"

She keeps pace, vaguely noticing that he's walking slow enough she doesn't have to run. The question might've made her smile, three days ago. Now she just says, "Greasy," with a serious look on her face.

"Know just where to go, then."

He stops by the door to chat with the social worker briefly, then leads Sue. The funeral home's not near much, just the park and the graveyards, so the best fries mean driving for a little. 

When they're seated, piles of deep fried heart attacks waiting to happen before them, he asks, "So. What do you think about coming to live with me in Charlottesville? I know it's pretty far, but..."

"I don't have friends, so it's okay." And people are unlikely to have heard about the whole mess as more than a brief news clip before the next tragedy. And if they have, they won't think to connect Sue. "But you can't tell the teachers about this." She's seen the whispers that follow kids around after teachers make those 'so-and-so has had a tough time, so be nice' speeches.

"I won't tell them." He's kind of worried about her not having friends, except he totally doesn't know how to fix that. Maybe some of his classmates - no, more likely his professors will know other kids her age...

She nods. She... Should probably say something, but there's an empty screaming where words are supposed to be.

He lets them sit in silence for a bit, then starts talking about school arrangements - he's not sure he'll be able to move his class schedule around much, so she might be alone a lot after school... He's pretty sure his professors won't mind her coming with him as long as she can entertain herself, though? His apartment's not very interesting, after all. 

Speaking of, they can go apartment hunting once she feels settled in, since he's in a studio right now...

She lets the words wash over her as she eats, only responding here or there. Apartment hunting sounds boring. Going with him to class sounds okay. She can read or do homework.

He's not going to try too hard to pry her out of her shell, but if she feels like coming out - he tries to make clear he's here for her.

But for now, distractions! He can talk about life in Charlottesville. He's not certain about kid stuff, though. There's definitely movies, probably museums, there's gotta be playgrounds somewhere? Plus hiking right outside of town...

Movies are noisy. She doesn't like playgrounds. But hiking sounds fun. Museums are nice if they're not kid museums. Kid museums have too many people.

He'll have to plan some trips, then.

Good. She wants to go to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian is supposed to have art.

"That's a bit farther than a day trip, unless we feel like a really long day, but we could find a long weekend, or spring break's coming up. Plus I can always just not have summer classes..."

She nods, and goes back to her fries.

And he lets the conversation drift.

Getting them ready to go is kind of depressingly easy. No one else wants to claim Sue, he is her relative, and law school at least made him decent at paperwork and legalese. People are oh-so-sad to see her go but not really uneager.

Packing isn't fun. At least Shisui's said they can put whatever she can't get to or bring with her into storage. She takes some of her mom's poetry books, a few pictures, her sister's favorite necklace, the one stuffed animal she kept from her childhood because her sister got it for her...

Everything else is... Not really something she can bring herself to be around.

"Ready to go, squirt?" he asks once she seems to have slowed down and started drifting. He's noticed how little she's packed, but, well, he's not sure she's ever been the type to hoard things... Helps with his small apartment, too.

"Yeah. We got a plane to catch anyways, right?"

"Yeah. I know flying's a hassle, but you'll like Charlottesville I think."

She nods.

Fortunately no one notices her being - not really human anymore - while they're traveling. She's trying to conceal how she only kind of gets hungry or sleepy, how she thinks she could cover for it with magic (except using magic makes her feel bad and could kill her, though she's got a weird feeling from how Kyubey approached telling her about that...)

Her grief seed from the witch that attacked her family will last her another week, according to Kyubey, so she'll have time to settle in.

(Time to think.)

Kyubey accompanies her. This unit has a rather narrow assignment - of course, it's rare for a unit to manage more than three active Magical Girls, but this unit is specialized. Magical 90238-NISRV-Cecilia's wish was the culmination of years of surveillance and modeling. Magical 90304-NISRV-Sue's wish was harder to predict, and given that target's poor fit for many standard models, she will require continued special handling.

This unit has already contacted the four units currently located in the final destination. City designation 'Charlottesville' is atypical, with only a single, low-activity Magical Girl stationed there full time, and the full time unit having a rare specialization in conflict reduction among Magical Girls. The three other units are following transient Magical Girls - school designation 'University of Virginia' has attracted two stable Magical Girls highlighted as potential assets, and one Magical Girl who wished for mental acuity and whose full stability report is pending.

Slotting Magical 90304-NISRV-Sue into the existing dynamic, given 90304-NISRV-Sue's uncertain loyalties, will be an intellectual challenge. However, letting the units handle 90304-NISRV-Sue's integration was judged more efficient than attempting to engineer her relocation to a more typical location. That suits this unit; their plan will benefit from surrounding her by loyalists who've already resolved their questions about 'Kyubey's' motives.

'Kyubey,' she asks that night, as she lays on the couch cushions she pulled to the floor, wrapped in unfamiliar blankets, staring at someone else's ceiling, 'Are there other magical girls here?'

'Yes. Charlottesville is odd for a city - most magical girls fight each other over territory, but because Charlottesville is a college town and mostly has nomads, the culture is different.'

'Fighting each other's dumb. How many? What are they like?'

'There's four. Only one's local, Delilah Reeve. She's fifteen, and has only been a magical girl for one year. She mostly keeps to herself, and doesn't hunt often.' A picture floats across - a gangly teenager, white, with pale blond hair, a greyish green-blue raiment that swirls around her knees, edged with a soft yellow, wielding a sickle.

'The others are college students. An Hu is a fourth year undergraduate, and has been a magical girl for ten years. She is from mainland China, and has not significantly interacted with any American magical girls.' An image of an adult Chinese girl in a bright yellow and dark gold raiment wielding an odd spear. 'Mallory Delvin is a first year undergraduate. She has made several friendly overtures towards other magical girls. She has been a magical girl for six years.' An image of a white girl in her late teens, wearing unrelieved black and wielding a handgun. 'Felicity Sommer is a new magical girl, like you. She wished to be a child prodigy, and is a first year undergraduate. She's been a magical girl only four months.' An image of a latina girl in her early teens or late preteens, wearing a frilly magenta raiment decorated with black, wielding a rapier. 

'Guess I should probably try to meet them sometime...'

It doesn't sound fun, though.

'I told their Kyubey you're here, so they won't be surprised.'

'You don't have your own names?'

'Kyubey is enough. Our society's different from yours.'

'I guess.'

She rolls over.

'I'm going to sleep.'

'Good night, Sue.'

She makes an 'mhm' noise.

(She doesn't sleep well.)

The next day, she decides she hates school.

Hates hates hates hates it. So much. The kids whisper about her a lot. She's been shoved twice, and then got in trouble with the principle for punching someone who started it.

(The teachers were whispering about her being a troubled problem kid picking fights with that nice boy. She can hear them. He's not a nice boy. He's not - )

She has to clear her soul gem a few times.

When Shisui comes to pick her up: "I want to be home-schooled."

"...I'll look into it. Can I hear your side of the story? It sounds like the teachers didn't stop to listen."

"He pushed me! And then told me I don't belong here and when I got angry said I should go running home to mama except he heard I don't have a mama because I'm dirty, so I punched him. Then he started crying and went to the teacher and said I was being mean."

"...Fair. I'm going to go yell at the principle a bit, okay? And then we can talk to - I guess a social worker - about home-schooling you."

She nods.

He pats her on the shoulder and heads in to use scary big words at the principle.

Arranging to have her home-schooled fortunately isn't too hard, though she'll have to put up with a few more days of normal school, and continuing will depend on how well she does on her own.

(He has so much work, he's... Mostly just hoping she can self-teach some... Or maybe one of his friends can help; he knows some people in the school of education...)

She avoids any further fights by preemptively growling at people.

And she takes her books and her notebooks and her pencils with her and sits beside Shisui in his classes, and is polite to his professors. She ignores the people whispering about how cute she is.

She is, actually, working on school stuff.

But she's also thinking about that night. About the witch, and Cecilia, and Kyubey...

She asks Kyubey a lot of questions. He's not very good at answering her.

But maybe someone else will be...

Kyubey said Mallory Delvin was the friendly magical girl. So, Sue approaches her first.

She's not too hard to find, at least, even during the day when school's in session and it's between Shisui's classes.

"Hello!" she says, when she notices Sue, with the friendly sort of smile adults tend to direct at strange children. 'You're the new magical girl, right?' she asks then over telepathy. 

"Hi Mal," says Sue, because it's less suspicious if she pretends to know her. 'Yeah. I wanna talk.'

"You doing alright?"

And, quietly: 'We should find a time to talk later. The telepathy has a pretty wide range, though...'

"Yeah. I'm waiting for my cousin." She sits down on a ledge and starts kicking her legs.

'Shisui trusts me but getting away's sometimes hard. He's trying to find me a tutor?'

"Well, I'm waiting for a classmate. Do you mind me waiting with you?"

'Does he know you're a magical girl?'

"Don't mind."

'...No.'

She nods, leaning back. 'You might want to tell him. It isn't safe, to tell random people, because witches go after people who know more... But he's your guardian, right? So telling him might get you more freedom of movement. And... It's kinder, in a way. And if something happens to you - he'll be able to ask one of the other magical girls what happened.'

'I guess, yeah. So we can talk after I tell him?'

Mal hums. 'That's probably best, yeah. I get you have questions Kyubey's having trouble answering, but... Well. Seven's a tricky time to wish. You don't have as much freedom as you would at the higher range.'

Sue nods, looks away, and heads off as soon as soon as she spots Shisui.

"I got something to tell you tonight," she says when he asks how her day's gone. "It's a secret."

"Secrets are very important! I'll make sure my schedule's clear, okay?"

"Thanks, Shisui."

"No problem, kiddo."

That night, after dinner (and after a very frustrating argument with Kyubey that she stormed out of), she sits her cousin down.

"So. I got something to tell you. It's really big, so you gotta promise not to freak out, okay?"

Not freaking out doesn't really work like that, but: "Cross my heart."

"So. Uh."

She gets up from the table, stands back...

And transforms into her magical girl raiment.

"Tada? Magic exists."

He blinks pretty hard. Tries not to freak out, which means he takes a few moments. "Have you - always had magic?" he asks at last.

She shakes her head. "Nuh-uh. Got it... Recently. Kinda."

"...What happened?" That is not a happy expression on Sue's face.

"There's things that cause those mass killings. Monsters. I - there was one. In the house. I wished to be strong enough, and I killed it."

He does to kneel beside her and hugs her.

She starts sniffling.

He'll just rub circles on her back for a while.

When she seems to have calmed down a bit: "How can I help?"

"I don't know! Everything's - I'm going to change it, but - "

She takes a deep breath. "I gotta fight witches. Keep them from hurting people. And I gotta get stronger, and figure out everything that's going on."

He nods. "I'll do everything I can to help," he says. "But you got to promise me one thing, okay?"

"...Okay."

"Stay safe. I already lost Cecilia and Miku. I don't want to lose you, too."

"I promise. I won't leave you."

"And I'll be here for you, too, okay squirt?" He reaches out to ruffle her hair.

She bats his hand away. But she's smiling, a bit. "I'll remember."

Hug. "You better."

And, after re-situating themselves around the table: "There's more going on, isn't there?"

"...Yeah. There's a lot." 

And, slowly, she explains everything. Kyubey. The pressure. The odd words he spoke, which stuck in her mind like burrs - Cecilia's body overlapping with the witch - 

It causes her breath to catch in her throat, like she's teetering over the edge of something horrible.

He grows increasingly grim.

"Do you know if Kyubey has ever lied?"

She shakes her head. "Mallory said he doesn't, but that he's bad at humans so he doesn't always give enough information."

"Well, assuming he doesn't... I'm going to make you a list of questions to ask him, okay? Even if he lies, or tries to weasel out... His answers should be informative."

'Attempt to interrogate a letter of the law potential asshole alien via a seven year old' had not been what he thought the first major use of his ongoing law degree would be.

"How long's it gonna take?"

"I'll try to have the first questions by tomorrow morning, okay?"

"Okay." She goes to hug him. "Be careful, okay? I dunno if he's a good alien."

Hug.

"I'll be extra super careful. Cross my heart."

"You better."

And then it's time to finish dinner, and turn to her homework for the night.

And he spends the evening and night with pen and paper, his head in his hands, wracking his brain for every little implication of every tiny detail Sue revealed - 

And in the morning he has a list for Sue.

She takes the list. Reads it over.

Those aren't very happy questions.

She clears her grief seed, tells herself 'I'm strong enough to change the universe' and - 

"Kyubey?" she calls out, softly, sitting on her bed, wrapped in her favorite blanket.

He hops onto her windowsill.

'Yes, Sue?'

Sue turns and slides the window open. "I've got some questions," she says, voice soft. It's still the morning, and they do have neighbors.

'I might not know everything, but I'll try my best,' he says, hopping in.

She nods as she slides the window back shut and pulls the curtain.

A deep breath, and:

"My first question is: Why is a soul gem called a soul gem?"

'When magical girls were naming things, the ones who spoke English thought that the gems house their souls.'

It's off script, but... "Were they right?"

'It's hard to define what is and isn't a soul.'

She nods, thinks, looks at her list, and: "What happens if I get too far away from my soul gem?"

'You'll pass out.'

"Why?"

'Your magic is in your soul gem. Being away from it means it needs to go farther. You get tired when you use more magic.'

She furrows her brow. She's not - super sure those statements are as connected as Kyubey's pretending.

"Am I my magic?" she blurts out. "My mind, the - thing that's thinking 'me' - is my mind in the soul gem?"

Kyubey is silent for a beat. However, while some magicals react sub-optimally, calculations of this one's personality reveal a statistical tendency towards emotional resiliency, and a tendency to form the irrational opposition humans name 'grudges' if given incomplete data.

'You could say that, yes. Some magical girls learn how to run new bodies.'

She's thrown off by the unexpected information, like if she was playing tug of war with someone and her opponent suddenly let the rope go slack - 

Usually if you're in tug of war and they do that that means they're about to yank it though.

"What happens to the soul gem when a magical girl runs out of magic?" She hadn't found Cecilia's, after all. (Something's wrong with that thought.)

'It stops existing.'

"Does a soul gem, when a magical girl runs out of magic, dissolve?"

'No.'

"Then what does it do instead?"

There's a long pause. 'Most girls don't like knowing this.'

"I wanna know. About soul gems and why Cecilia was overlapping the witch and near the grief seed - "

'Magical girls who run out of magic die, and stop being magical girls, and their soul gem stops being a soul gem. Witches come from magical girls who die with their soul gems intact.'

"The grief seed - it's Cecilia?"

'Witches are not magical girls. Grief seeds are not witches.'

"That's not how humans do being people!" She clenches her fists, shaking - 

But she's not despairing.

She's mad, and she feels almost more hopeful than she did when she made her wish, full to the brim with I will change this - 

'I'm sorry. That's how we consider people.'

"I'm going to change it! I won't - I won't let Cecilia be destroyed, and I'll fix her someday!"

'The grief seed will hatch again, even if you don't use it.'

"Then I'll fight her again! And again and again, as much as I have to!"

'That's your choice,' Kyubey acknowledges. 'You will need to be careful about where and when she hatches. It's risky.'

"I'll take on all the risks I have to."

'You should still hunt,' he says. 'Witches are a danger to humans, and you won't do well with just one grief seed.'

"Do all witches come from magical girls?"

'No. Most come from familiars.'

"And where do familiars come from?"

'Witches make them as they grow.'

"How do witches grow?"

'Witches feed on despair. They get bigger if there's a lot in an area, or when they put a Witch's Kiss on someone, especially if they manage to kill someone."

There's an odd thought that echoes back to her with that... But it flees when she tries to poke it. 

"Why don't most magical girls cooperate?"

'Almost all witches can be taken down by a single magical girl. Grief seeds are very valuable, but if you only have one, you have to decide who keeps it, and if you have two, you have to decide who gets the bigger one. And if two magical girls are hunting the same witch, they might not want to make that negotiation.'

"How old is the oldest magical girl?"

'Six thousand five hundred and seventy years old.'

"That's a lot."

"If you remove the longest lived five percent of magical girls, what is the average time from when a magical girl wishes to when she witches or her soul gem's destroyed?"

'Ninety six days, seven hours, and fifty nine minutes. Approximately.'

So three months.

"How many witches does the average magical girl kill in her lifespan, also removing the longest lived five percent?"

'Twenty-seven point one.'

She writes down the numbers, both for lifespan and killing.

But she thinks that's about nine a month... Three every ten days? Kind of - twice a week? Which seems like a lot, but maybe most magical girls start older.

"What's the age range for magical girls to wish?"

'Ages seven to seventeen, as measured by the most common human metrics.'

Which puts Sue at the very bottom edge.

"What's the average age for a magical girl to wish?"

'Thirteen years, three hundred and eighteen days. Approximately.'

A lot of notes being taken here.

(This means almost no magical girls ever become adults...)

"What traits make a magical girl more likely to survive a long time?"

'Carefully considered wishes. Speaking to her Kyubey extensively, especially early on. Hunting smaller targets more often. Meditating often, as well as other exercises designed to promote what humans would term mental well-being. Minimizing practice outside of fighting witches. Emotional resiliency. Any acquaintances selected carefully for emotional stability. Girls with unstable acquaintances are more likely to witch than girls with no acquaintances. Girls with stable acquaintances do better, but the emotional investment in acquiring them is dangerous. This effect is significantly more pronounced when looking only at relationships with other magical girls. Magical girls who have a close acquaintance witch are themselves over ten times as likely to witch within the following month.'

"Do you usually tell magical girls this?"

'They don't usually ask.'

"Why don't you volunteer it, then?"

'Do you expect everyone around you to volunteer everything you may potentially need to ever know?'

"No. But - you've got that thing. A duty of care. You offered me the magical girl contract, so it's your job to make sure I know all the stuff to be safe as a magical girl, and most of the stuff to be successful. Same way parents gotta tell their kids that sticking a fork in an outlet's unsafe, and teachers gotta tell kids not to stick their fingers in the pencil sharpener, and bosses gotta tell employees how the equipment works."

'It seems I don't know as much about humans as I thought. Young Kyubey need to be told less.'

Yeah, right. And she's got some fine land down at the bottom of the world to sell him.

"Well, my cousin's studying to be a lawyer, so he knows all this type of stuff. There's legal outlines, for what's the minimum to communicate."

'Well, maybe I can work on learning that, then.'

She nods, slowly.

'Do you have any other questions?'

"...No. I don't think so. Not right now, at least."

'Alright.'

He jumps up to the window.

'You'll make a great magical girl, Sue.'

And he's gone.

She goes to relay the conversation to her cousin.

"I don't like the sound of a lot of that," he says, frowning, turning it all over in his head. "Some of these are - weasel words, too." He sighs. "I'll have to look at it all, though. Maybe sleep on it..."

"Do you think Kyubey's working against us?"

He frowns deeper. "Not necessarily. He started offering more information when you pushed, but... I think he has his own agenda. Most people do. And that agenda probably only sometimes aligns with human interests - the variable here's how often."

"Yeah. I'm - not good at reading people, though. Especially not aliens."

"We'll work on it. For now... Maybe back off on him. Get to know the other girls. They might've seen things you haven't, though if he's introducing you to them he's probably at least a little sure of their loyalty."

She nods, quietly and slowly.

He's going to keep an eye on her, but - possibly the best he can do is space, right now.

He turns to keeping up with his school work.

She tries reaching out to the other four local girls more. But Mal - Sue kind of likes Mal, but Mal's convinced Kyubey can do no wrong. And Sue, well. The only authority Sue's ever trusted is her sister.

An Hu, the Chinese magical girl, just blows her off. Felicity Summers, the other newish girl, is nervous and high energy and unsure and knows nothing at all.

Sue has yet to successfully meet Delilah Reeve, the only one who lives in Charlottesville full time.

She keeps up with her studies. She hunts, occasionally. The odd energy that protects her keeps popping up every time she'd be injured. It feels like being hugged and knowing she's loved. (She hates it, she thinks.) She keeps the grief seeds instead of giving them to Kyubey.

And then her sister's seed hatches.

Sue wins the fight. Her sister's tactics haven't changed at all.

She spends the next day staring into space, blank.

Shisui comes to sit beside her, pulling her into a sideways hug.

"It's not fair," is all she can say, voice muffled and weak.

"Then we'll change it."

She nods.

And the days roll on.

It doesn't take very long, before Sue's stash of grief seeds starts hatching and needing to be fought down one a week. She's hesitant to get more, because she hasn't had two hatch at once yet and even though the witches never change - it's the same motions, over and over and over, and she can almost beat her sister with barely any magic now - she's hesitant to risk that. Sue... Super doesn't know what to do, here.

She contacts Mal, for a meeting with Sue, Mal, and Shisui.

Mal accepts, and sends over her schedule for the next week. It's pretty packed, but there's some availability Thursday afternoon.

Well, that runs slightly into Shisui's classes but if they push it back a bit it works?

She's perfectly alright with that.

Shisui's there at the scheduled time.

Sue's with him.

Mal's waiting for them.

"What's up?"

"I had some questions about grief seeds and - strategy."

She nods. "Can't promise I'll be able to answer everything, but I've run into most problems there before."

She nods and pauses, trying to marshal her thoughts.

Mallory waits, expression patient.

"I don't want to let my grief seeds get destroyed," she starts, then pauses.

"Why not?"

"They're people. Magical girls become witches and witches become grief seeds. They shouldn't be killed."

"Sue... The transformation's permanent. Nothing's left once a magical girl witches."

"But grief seeds can turn back into witches if they get enough grief! So maybe - maybe witches can turn back into magical girls if they get enough hope, and has anyone ever tried to undo the transformation, or do people just kill other girls without even thinking about it?"

"Magical girls have existed for millennia," Mal says, voice gentle. "And no one's figured out how."

"No one knew how to go to the moon for hundreds of millennia, and space has always existed!"

"Advances in technology are - different. Magical girls have always had the same broad capabilities."

"Someone could make a wish."

"I - don't know what kind of power you'd need for that..."

"Most girls aren't wishing as smart as they could. I bet people'd get more out of their wishes if there was - some kind of coordination or advising or something."

She seems thoughtful.

"Maybe so..."

"We're managing to not all kill each other here, even though Kyubey says girls usually fight each other. Maybe we can make that bigger."

She nods. "You have a good point. Still, in the mean time... I'm not sure it's safe to be carrying grief seeds around long term."

"What're the big problems with it?"

"Do you have a plan for if multiple - or all - hatch at the same time?"

Sue shakes her head. "Not right now."

"It's not safe to keep them, then."

"That's why I wanna find a way."

"Can you manage that before anyone dies? Before you die?"

"I gotta try!"

"How long will trying take you?"

"Less time if I get help."

"And the casualties in the meantime?"

"There'll be fewer also if I get help!"

"I'm not sure your goals are even possible, is my problem."

"I think they are. And we can't know until we try."

She sighs. "You're really determined about this, huh?"

"The most determined."

"...I'll think about it."

"Thanks."

She nods, slightly. "You're welcome, I guess?"

She sighs.

"Did you want to talk about anything else?"

"Dunno. Don't think so..."

"If you end up wanting to, you know my contact info, okay?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"Thanks for talking. I guess."

She smiles a little.

"It's not a problem."

"Good luck, and - see you around."

She nods, and they go their separate ways.

Shisui, who'd been quiet, sticks with Sue.

"She does seem - very sure Kyubey is doing everything right."

"Yeah."

Shoulder bump. "Good job sticking to your guns, though. I'll help you where I can, okay?"

She smiles a little. "Okay."

"Thanks, Shisui."

"No problem."

She keeps training in magic. Keeps working. Keeps slowly accumulating grief seeds, learning how best to fight the witches that inevitably hatch - ends up fighting two at once, wins anyways -

She works with Kyubey, too. Slowly pokes at the edges of his opinion of her, asking questions he mostly avoids -

She wants to know how to stop grief seeds from hatching, mostly...

They have to have some way of doing it, to transport the seeds for destruction if nothing else.

A possible answer comes one day, when a nomad passes by -

She feels incredibly, immensely powerful. Magical girls normally only kind of register to her senses. This one, though...

She appears to have been following a genuinely massive witch.

Sue had noticed the witch coming. Decided to deal with that first -

She's there, resplendent in her raiment, when the nomadic girl arrives.

"Who are you?"

"...Gwen. I have dibs on this witch."

"It's threatening my town. I can help."

She sighs. "Keep familiars off my back, and don't get in my way, alright?"

"Alright."

The girl - really more a woman - turns, opening the portal into the witch with a small gesture, before stepping inside.

Sue follows her in, white bow drawn.

The witch's exterior blends the city streets into odd, twisting shapes, opalescent gems cracking through the pavement like tree roots. Gem-encrusted squirrels dance around, chittering, and the trees sway oddly in a non-existent wind.

The squirrels don't seem to be the current biggest threat... She keeps her eyes open for if any approach them, or for more threatening familiars, and pays attention to what the older magical girl seems to think is a good strategy here.

She's conserving her magic, mostly, rather than opening up with attacks and rousing the witch. She's also deftly avoiding clusters of familiars as she works her way deeper into the maze.

Sue is less talented at evasion and stealth, but sticks close to the magical girl, effectively borrowing her sensory abilities.

Sue barely gets a chance to fight, the few times they're successfully ambushed.

Whoever this woman is, she's powerful.

Kinda impressively scarily so.

Sue pays close attention, tries to learn.

And, sooner rather than later: the center of the labyrinth. The woman doesn't try to stop Sue from following her in.

She bites her lip - 

And goes in.

The center of the labyrinth resembles the inside of a tree hollow, the witch's seat an enormous woodpecker made of glittering gems.

The strange woman takes the lead in the fight - Sue won't have much space to interfere, but she can learn a good bit just by watching.

She watches carefully. It's - instructive, definitely.

The woman finishes, more quickly than Sue's used to these fights going - and, apparently, without burning much actual magic.

The witch labyrinth dissolves, and the woman walks over to find the dropped grief seed.

"That was cool," Sue says, very clearly making no attempt to try and steal the grief seed. "You're really good."

"I've been at this for a very long time. I wouldn't be alive if I wasn't 'really good.'"

She nods. She doesn't know exactly how old the woman is, of course - magical girls either stop aging or age really slowly once they're adults -

But she's definitely a woman, far past the vaguely twenty really old magical girls seem to settle in. At least thirty, maybe forty - Sue's pretty bad at guessing the ages of adults who aren't really obviously barely not teenagers or really obviously someone's grandparent.

"How long a time?" Sue asks.

"Oh, I've never really counted. Millennia, at least."

"That's a really long time."

Almost unbelievably so, really.

"How come you haven't witched?"

"Unusual for a new magical girl to know about that," she says, instead of answering.

"My older sister was a magical girl first. She turned into a witch."

"How come you haven't?"

She pauses, clearly thinking.

"Kyubey doesn't lie," she says at last. "He'll mislead you, and he won't answer questions entirely, but you can back him into a corner and get the truth that way. They were a lot more desperate for recruits, in my day, and especially with my high potential they couldn't afford to just waste me. So they let me wish."

"I worded my wish fairly carefully, it seems, or at least enough for the millennia so far. It prevents me from becoming a witch, centrally and foremost, and from being mind controlled by other magical girls. By the time other magical girls were common enough that conflict between us was even really possible, I was already the most experienced girl on the planet, and no one could successfully beat me."

...Huh.

"That sounds - smart."

The woman smiles a little. "I like to think of myself as wise, at least, and perhaps sometimes even smart."

That gets her a shy smile back.

"I didn't have time to think my wish through... I just wanted to be strong enough for - "

She shrugs, awkwardly.

"A powerful sort of wish, still, and one unlikely to turn on you. You have good instincts, it seems."

"I don't know if it's really that unlikely to turn on me? Girls regretting their wishes seems pretty common..."

"It is. That is, as far as I can tell, likely the most common reason girls witch. Still... Your wish sounds unlikely to backfire - to you, at least. I'd be wary of facing your witch, especially once you've gotten stronger yet."

"But if you regret your wish, it seems likely to me that will be because of missed opportunities, not the wish itself."

"...I don't think I could've made a better wish without knowing - everything already. If I'd known I could've tried to wish my sister back, but. I didn't know."

"I don't actually know if someone's ever successfully wished a witch back to a magical girl. But that might be a selection effect - most magical girls don't learn the truth of witches until they've been active for a while, if ever, and most magical girls are young enough they're not thinking things through or asking questions carefully. Especially nowadays." She eyes Sue. And, bluntly: "Quite frankly, modern children are significantly more dumb than they were when I wished."

She considers that. "I mean, if you're really really old... Didn't kids used to just. Have to be adults super early? So even if you were in the wishing age range, you'd be kind of more an adult anyways."

"That was part of it. But... Even before stepping away from our parents - we didn't have all this silly division of adults and children. The entire concept of developmental stages and age segregation is... New and strange. I spent time with the adults in my band, and listened to the same stories as them, and did the same chores as them. I was the only child my exact age, so all my friends were older or younger than me."

"...Huh."

"I wish adults would involve me in their stuff, yeah. Kiddie museums and shows and stuff are - dumb. I don't like them. And I don't like it when adults think I'm too little to decide anything, or hear about upsetting stuff, or think very hard. The world sucks. I know it does. Telling me I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it doesn't make it suck less, just - takes away my weapons against it."

She nods to Sue's bow. "You seem to have found new weapons all the same."

She blinks. "Yeah, I guess I did." Frown. "I need more, though."

"Why?"

"Because I need to be strong. And win all sorts of battles."

"Why?"

"Because they'll always come."

"If I don't win I'll get squished. Everyone I care about will get squished."

She inclines her head a little. "You have good instincts."

"Course I do. I'm still alive."

Smile. "A challenge, certainly. But you haven't crossed the full gauntlet yet."

"Has anyone?"