World Tree MUSH

    The grasslands at night, under the moon, held an eerie otherworldly quality. The breeze moves the grass that looks silver-blue in the moonlight, rippling southward along the foothills. To the west, the lights of the Sacramento metropolitan region sprawls along the ribbon of river, huddled around a handful of skyscrapers. The lone scrub oak on the hill sways. This is the place that the letter Jun recieved said to be, and to bring Julia along.
    Aurelia squints at the city lights, wearing a thick coat to ward off the chill of the foothills at night. "Sure is a lonely place to be."

Jun is definitely here, with Julia. He is in his magical form; there's little reason for him not to be. Besides, he's not completely sure that woman can be trusted, so he's being careful. And he's sticking close to Julia.

He nods to Aurelia's words. "Yeah, something about this place seems off..." Then again, Jun is kind of nervous by nature, so maybe it's just that.

Her fur and hoodie keep Benedicta nice and warm. She looked a bit uneasy about all of this, not knowing exactly what would happen. They could have just easily walked into an ambush but her horn isn't detecting anything out of the ordinary. This is quite a way from San Francisco and she's not too familar with the area that well.

Anne Read is here tonight, she looks out at the moon for a moment. She's already transformed into Captain Seafoam and she wonders what is it oging to be tonight. "It is pretty Aurelia it really is, but...something." She trails off as Jun also seems ot have some forboding about this place as well.

    Lex and Shard are taking the gamble that they won't need to transform; if they're about to meet the silver-haired woman again, she most definitely saw them transformed in that future "vision." So she's hear wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and shorts, her prosthetics in their green-and-white form.

    As she approaches the group, Lightshard 18 materializes on her back. "I'm not detecting anything yet," says Shard. "The only magic here is us."

    "Right," murmurs Lex. She's been busy since the previous incident, but now that she's coming back to this world, she's clearly feeling uneasy about the whole thing. "Uh. On the bright side, the curse didn't actually spread as much as I was worried it was gonna, kinda thing. It sort of just damaged itself trying to spread."

    Aurelia looks up, a confused look growing on her face. "The stars seem off." She points at one place, then another place. She takes a step back towards Jun and Julia, drawing the adamant sword and ready to fend off hostile magic. Benedicta's horn begins to glow and Shard can detect the inklings of chronomantic energy filtering into the area. There's bursts of light and noise, fragments of another person's life shown like television screens in the air. They're scattered across decades of time, including times that have yet to happen.
    The same woman's voice, over and over, asking people if they'd seen her daughter. Sometimes with an old black and white photo that's not clearly visible in the time portals.
    Julia's eyes widen, and she clings to Jun as she recognizes the voice out of a hazy memory.

Jun isn't sure what Lex is talking about, so he gives her kind of a blank look. He wasn't there for Lex's 'encursening', so he doesn't have context.

And then suddenly someone's got a light show going on! Though it's the glow of Benedicta's horn that alerts him first -- he's seen it do that when there's magic in the area.

As Julia clings, Jun moves so that he's between her and whatever's happening out there. He raises a hand to collect a handful of water in floating dots, ready to use as ammunition if necessary. "Be careful," he cautions, to both Julia and the others. Though specifically to the others, he inquires, "Anybody know what all this is?"

Benedicta cringes a bit at the sudden noise and looks around as her horn glows yellow. "Does your mother also have time magic, Julia?" That would certainly explain a few things. "Maybe she went looking for her after she disappeared?" That would certainly explain the odd fragments that they're seeing.

    Lex glances back at Jun. "Oh, uh, the Dawnfall cursed me with the same curse that was in the Lightshard swords, and it sorta fused me with Lightshard 18. I've been having it looked at --"

    And then Benedicta's horn starts to glow. "Wait, never mind," says Shard, immediately after Aurelia speaks up. "There's definitely time-magic going off here."

    Lex promptly draws her sword. She doesn't quite hold it at the ready, but presumably the sight of a six-foot-tall woman holding a sword nearly as long as she is tall in one hand might give someone pause. If not for her general attitude, which makes her seem somewhat smaller.

    She looks back at Benedicta in surprise. "... Never thought of that possibility, and stuff," she remarks.

    "D'oh, I was wrong," says Shard dryly.

Anne Read will start to reach out with her magic, trying to sesne for any sorts of illusion magic given her skills? She's faily adept at dealing with illusion maybe there isd something she can see through?

    As far as the magic-sensitives can tell, they're fragments of memories given a half-life by time magic. Julia glances at Benedicta. "... No? Mama wasn't a witch."
    The memories stop suddenly as a dark-haired woman in her early 30s falls from the sky!

Benedicta's words get a blink from Jun. "...You know what? That makes sense," he agrees. "That could explain all the time screwery -- maybe it's because her mother was looking for her, through time. Something she did along the way started screwing with things."

A pause then, as a thought occurs to him. "...You think she might have actually caused the disappearance by looking for Julia?" he suggests. "Maybe that accidentally made a time loop, you know? It's a result of its own cause -- Julia disappeared due to the time magic, so she started looking, but... but the time magic itself, and the fallout from her search, is what made it happen in the first place?"

He makes a bit of a face. "...I didn't explain that too good. But you know what I'm trying to say, right?" Though Julia's mention of of her mother 'not being a witch' gets a thoughtful look. "Well... I mean. Maybe she wasn't, but then something happened and she became one?" he suggests uncertainly. "I wasn't magical until I ate a dragon pearl."

A bit oversimplified, but it's true.

And suddenly there's a lady falling out of the sky! Jun makes to move forward, but pauses -- Julia's clinging, and he doesn't want to unbalance her. He'll prepare to 'catch' her with a 'net' of water, if someone else doesn't get there first, though! Never hurts to have a safety net, right?

"Well, she wasn't when you left...there's no telling what she might have done to try and get you back..." Benedicta's suddenly pauses as the woman starts from falling from the sky, "Oh crap!" Normally she would try to avoid swearing in front of a kid, but there's other things on her mind at the moment. Her legs propel the al'miraj girl into the air as she tries to catch the falling woman before she hits the ground, hopefully they don't collide in mind-air. That would be bad.

    At the sight of the falling woman, Lex holds her sword out to the side. "Á virya!" she exclaims. Transform! In a swirl of mint-green pixels and Elvish computer code, she transforms. "Shinewander Sky!"

    ... But in the time that took her, Benedicta is already in the air and Jun put out a safety net. She quickly puts her sword on her back, ready to help some other way if that becomes necessary; she isn't immediately sure how she'll help, but it seems that this fact isn't going to stop her.

    Benedicta manages to catch the woman falling out of the sky without colliding with her.
    A familiar voice says from beside Jun and Lex. "And that's how things are." It's the white-haired woman, kneeling near Julia and handing her something looking like a hand-made doll. "Go on, your mom is going to be very happy to see you, Julia."
    The child nods and runs to where Benedicta is going to land.

Jun turns quickly at the sound of the voice. "How'd you get there?" he all but squeaks. Though since she seems unhurt, he doesn't react much more negatively than that. Once Julia runs to where Benedicta will land, Jun asks, "So... what's going on? Or rather, what just... got done going on?" He's having trouble articulating it.

Benedicta gracefully lands and sets the woman down carefully, "Wow, I never thought I would be happy to be a rabbit." She's certainly not going to thank Sybil for doing this to her though. "I guess we should wait for them to finish the reunion before asking what's going on." She certainly would like an explanation for all of this.

Anne Read is not expecting a fragment of memories which were given life by time magic? That's some fairly advanced magic or at least magic beyond her own skill at the moment. Thing progresses as she Julian speaks how her mother was not a witch. However someone is falling Anne is not quickly enough to react, no someone else has it handled. Jun is faster on the draw as is Bene who seems to be able to catch the person falling in the air. Anne will break into a run at this point as she makes ready with a spell of her own. She calls out to Bene. 

 "Is the woman injured as far as you can tell? Does she need healing?" 

 "I'm not sure Jun..."

    Lex knows she can't help with actual healing, so she just leaves it to Anne and possibly Jun, if it becomes necessary. And she, too, is startled by the woman's arrival. "Ghh--!" She takes a few deep breaths. "What ... is going to have been going on," she says, adding to Jun's question. "What did that comedy book have as time-travel grammar ... uh, what 'wioll haven bee' going on."

    "In short, what the hap is fuckening," says Shard in a low voice so as not to be overheard by Julia.

    The woman seems.. exhausted more than anything, as far as Benedicta, Jun, and Anne can tell. She thanks Benedicta for catching her, saying something about falling asleep while she was traveling. 
    Julia stands a litle way away, not sure if this woman really is her mother. She clutches the doll tightly, the familiar smell of the homemade toy keeping her from freaking out entirely. "Mama?"
    The white haired woman gestures, explaining quietly to Jun, Lex, and Shard. "I get to meet my daughter again after a hundred years of looking. A predestination paradox that I only knew about after today."

"So... she disappeared, but then the fallout of looking through time for her caused her disappearance in the first place?" Jun inquires. "I'm still a little confused, but... well, that's pretty standard for me these days, so I've gotten used to it," he admits, reaching up to rub at the back of his head.

He looks to Julia and the tired-looking woman, then to the white-haired woman. "...So who's who here now?" he asks. Julia seems to recognize the falling woman as her mother, but then... the white haired woman is HER mother? For once he's trying to make sure he understands and not just shrug.

Benedicta cringes a bit as she hears Shard, and she was worried about being rude. She can't heal people herself, but she figures she's already done enough here. "So one of those stable time loop kind of things? Well, I guess that's better than breaking space-time. But couldn't you just tell your younger self where she is or that would make even a bigger mess? And are you planning on going back to your original time or staying here?" She's just as confused as Jun is.

    "Fascinating," says Shard. "I've never seen a temporally-displaced time-duplicate before, in the ... three months of my effective existence. But let the record show that my completely random joke turned out to be almost slightly correct."

    "Hah." Lex chortles, and reverts her transformation. "This is why everyone hates the idea of getting mixed up in time-travel and stuff. Doesn't the World Tree have, like ... rules against that, kind of thing?"

    "Not according to the studies I've given a passing glance, but I don't want to try causing a grandfather paradox either way," says Shard. "Ah ... quick question, though, miss. Well, two questions, really. First, is that temporal displacement we received actually going to happen? And second, how full of shit is Vanguard 'nascence of a divine life form' Vanguard?" Beat. "You aren't going to answer, are you."

Anne Read takes a moment to access the women's condition it looks like that she's just worn out. IT doesn't seem to be anything she can deal with. She looks to Jun for a moment. 

 "I know the feeling." 

 She notes to Jun for a moment she seems to be thinking. She looks back to the Woman, as she tries to figure this whole thing out. "We just keep getting in deeper it seems."

    Giana shrugs, watching the happy reunion of mother and child from a slight distance. "Maybe they'll happen. The future of this world keeps changing, so that's probably true for others." She rubs her chin. "I'm actually Julia's mother, ten... ah- experiential years from now. Years lived. I ended up having to arrange things so the time issues are... self-contained? Closed? Yes, closed. I wasn't really great with my magic when I suddenly found myself in 1982. Julia was six when the time magic happened, and I was never good enough to get back to the moment I left. I still don't know where that grendel came from though."
    The mahou offers hugs to each person in turn. "I'm going back to when she's 21 and studying agriculture." Giana smiles at Benedicta, before vanishing in a blink.