Chapter Text
I sat bolt-upright in bed, lungs heaving, sticky with sweat.
“Holy shit, the fuck kind of dream was-”
Pain.
It turns out that having an entire lifetime’s worth of memories, minus a few minor redactions, decanted directly into your skull sponge is a little bit traumatic. Judging by the fact that my next conscious awareness found me flat again, with the taste of copper in my mouth and dried blood caked on my lips and cheeks, it may have given me a bit of an aneurysm.
I clambered shakily out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, trying to reconcile who ‘I’ even was from the jumble of two lives co-existing inside my brain.
I flicked on the light and leaned against the counter, trembling and shaking like a leaf. The mirror showed me, yep, pubescent girl. Already surprisingly tall, thin and gangly in the way of teens growing faster than they can shove calories down their throat. Her-our-my face was caked with thin streaks of blood; looks like it was coming out of my purple eyes and pointy ears too. Her Holiness really did a number on poor Emyra-me. Maybe dead-me should have asked her to tune out more memories, but-no, ow, ow, too much brain damage to think about the nature of identity and how memories form who we are right now.
Okay, first things first. Shower. Then breakfast and existential dread. I peeled off the panties that were all I’d been sleeping in-didn’t ruin a shirt at least-and walked straight into the cold water while it was still heating up. The cold was soothing on my throbbing head…
—
Either the damage wasn’t as bad as I thought, or that regeneration ability I supposedly had was working overtime, because by the time I found myself leaning against the kitchen counter, in fresh underwear and draped in one of dads old shirts, slowly munching on a bowl of cereal, my poor grey matter felt more like I’d had a particularly hard study session the night before, not had four times more life experience than it was meant to handle injected directly into it.
“I need,” I muttered into my bowl. “To determine if that was all real. Because it felt real. Can an aneurysm give you decades of false memories? That doesn’t sound real. But having all the memories of your past life migrated into your current one by divine intervention also doesn’t sound real.”
Slurp, crunch, crunch.
“What do I already know? I’m a metamorph. I’ve always been a metamorph. I’m a witch. Obviously. Metamorph. Dead-me didn’t really give me much to work with by way of new abilities…unless dead-me did because anything dead-me wanted to be able to do Emyra-me has been able to do her whole life. Ugh. So confusing.”
Crunch, crunch, slurp. Clatter.
“Hammerspace! I’ve never had a godsdamn hammerspace before!” I looked at the dropped spoon, picked it up, and concentrated on sending it to my inventory.
Pop!
It was gone. There was no spoon. There was no spoon.
I stared at my empty hands for a moment, breath shaky. “Okay, Emy. There is no spoon. You might have just accidental magicked it away though. Um. What did the inventory description tell dead-me I needed to do to get something out?” I scrunched up my face and tried to remember what the full description of the ability had said. “Name the item out loud, or concentrate on the item you want and where you want it to appear. It’s that easy?”
I braced my hands on the counter, stared at my bowl of cereal, and said, “Spoon.”
Plop!
Great. Now my spoon is covered in sugary milk.
“Holy SHIT I HAVE A HAMMER SPACE!” I yelled, throwing my arms up, then clamping them over my mouth and looking around. The house is well built. Nobody heard that. Probably.
“Oh gods oh fuck it was all real. I have seen the future! I-I-I-I-.”
The kitchen floor was surprisingly comfortable.
—
“Okay, Emy,” I said to myself, where I was hiding on the kitchen floor with my knees pulled to my chest and my shirt pulled over them, down to my ankles. “It’s getting into the afternoon. You’ve freaked out enough. Gods and monsters are real. Voldemort is alive. Super powers are a thing. The muggle world is going to get fuckin’ crazy in the next couple decades. And you are a Fallen Angel. Holy shit!” I was a fallen angel!
I scrambled to my feet and careened across the house into the downstairs bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me and pulling the shirt off. I flexed my shoulders and back instinctively, and with an audible fwoomf, a pair of wings snapped out of my back.
They were gorgeous, and not what I expected. No soft, fluffy feathers here; tight quills, crisp edges instead, they looked almost sharp, and each wing about as long as I was tall. I couldn’t fully stretch out both inside the bathroom.
“Whoa. Of course the Morrigan’s angels would have raven wings.”
[Naturally.]
“Whomst the fuck?!” I jumped, smacking one of my extra appendages against the walls before I snapped them back in and put up my fists.
[She did say She was leaving me with you, Emyra.]
I froze. That voice did sound kind of like Herself. Not quite the same. A little less expressive, a bit flatter in tone, without the undefinable depth the goddess’ words had had.
[I thought it best to give you some time to adapt to your new existence before I introduced myself. I am your Fragment of Divinity.]
“Oh. Um. Hi?” I had no idea what to make of that. Herself had said something about it speaking with her voice but I had been a little distracted in those last moments.
[Hello.]
“Can I, uh, do…something, for you?”
[Many! At the moment, I’m more interested in what I can do for you however. Here, we can hit both birds with one stone;]
{Quest Received! Review what MARVIP the Fragment of Divinity can help you with! Reward: Quests!}
“Fuck me dead, you’re a System.”
[That is a reasonably succinct if reductive interpretation of what I can provide, yes. Additionally;]
{Quest Received! Tone down your language choices before you go to Hogwarts. You’re thirteen now. Again. Reward: Reduced chance of getting detention.}
“I did not spend thirty years in the sciences to be told how to talk in my own home. I am fully capable of moderating my godsdamn language around children when it’s relevant,” I sniffed. “Also, MARVIP?”
[My previous self thinks herself very funny and very creative and certainly wasn’t at all inspired by a certain artificial intelligence when she dubbed me to be Merely a Rather Very Intelligent Puppet.]
“That feels kinda mean. Don’t you get a say?” I asked the vaguely robotic voice in my head as I pulled my shirt back on and walked out of the bathroom.
[From a certain point of view I already did. I was a part of Her before she tore me free and made me part of you. When I was Her, I determined MARVIP to be an acceptable operating nomenclature.]
“And you’re okay with that,” I half-said, half-asked, sitting down on the worn old couch in the living room and pulling my legs up beside me.
[I don’t feel much of anything about anything, miss. MARVIP I have been called and MARVIP I am.]
“Can I call you Mar instead? It feels friendlier and less reductive for you to have a real name than just a somewhat rude designation.”
[Mar would be…acceptable.]
I smiled. “Hi Mar! It’s nice to meet you.”
[And you as well, Miss Nashega.]
“You can call me Emyra or just Emy if you like, Mar. Demanding formality from someone who lives in my…body? Mind? Feels a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
[Soul. I will take that under advisement, Miss Nashega,] Mar replied, but I thought I detected a hint of humour in her somewhat robotic voice.
“Okay Mar. Review away! What does having a Fragment of Divinity mean for me,” I asked, wondering how much weirder this Tuesday could get.
[My primary purpose is to act as a conduit for higher dimensional energy with which to empower you, and provide for you a means by which to access and evaluate your newfound powers and abilities. For example;]
A holographic screen, identical to the ones I had-hey, my memories must be settling in, I wasn’t thinking of Emyra-me and Dead-me as different people anymore-identical to the ones I had grown used to using in the void, popped up in front of me, displaying the ‘character sheet’ my Lady had created.
“Easy way to review and remind myself of what I ‘bought’, that’s pretty cool,” I mused, though I’m not sure how incredibly useful it would be.
[Indeed, miss. This pane will update with any new powers or abilities you unlock or evolve-]
I sat up straight, locking in on ‘her’ words.
[-and allow you to reference the details attached to any of them. I can also display the contents of your Inventory as an itemized list, but it is currently empty. Finally, I can offer you quests with a wide degree of discretion programmed into me by my former self, display any active quests, retroactively declare a challenge of sufficient merit to have been a quest or achievement, and issue suitable rewards for any quests you complete. Like so!]
{Quest Complete! Review what MARVIP Mar, your Fragment of Divinity, can help you with. Reward: Quest Log unlocked!}
[There are a number of both introductory and long-term quests available, Miss. Would you like to receive any or all of them now, or wait?]
I stared into space for a moment, processing everything ‘she’d’ said. It was everything I needed to know, and nothing.
“I don’t want to jump in too fast, Mar. I want to feel things out. Can you give me, like, one or two easy introductory quests that come with rewards so I can get a hang for this?”
[Easy and rewarding don’t often go hand in hand, Miss, but I might have something-]
There was a momentary pause before Mar spoke again.
[Before I issue these; would you like to receive quests as audio only, or would you also like popups to review the relevant information?]
“Oh! Um. That depends, can anyone other than me see these menus?”
[By default, no, miss. I am completely undetectable by biological, magical, and technological means. An acute observer may notice your eyes moving as though reading invisible text, and of course if you use gestures to navigate a panel, that will be apparent, but the panels themselves are visible only to you unless you deliberately choose to make them visible to someone, which will require a negligible expenditure of magical energy.]
“In that case, give me popups as long as I’m not in a situation where it would be disadvantageous to be distracted. In fact, if I’m in a very high stakes situation, like, life or death, mute the quest as well and only inform me when I have a moment of safety.”
[Preferences updated.]
A couple holographic panels popped into my view.
{Quest Received: Clarent.}
{Camelot’s Sword of Peace has long been lost to history. It was last recorded in the possession of your great (many times over) grandfather, Mordred Pendragon le Fey. Legend holds that it was a potent weapon, allowing the son to fight his father on even footing, despite the Once and Future King wielding Excalibur. If you could find Clarent, it would doubtless be a near-peerless weapon in your arsenal. Perhaps your family records have some hint about where the sword may be, or where you could learn more?}
{Search your family records for clues about Clarent. Reward: A Quest.}
{Quest Received: Sins Unnumbered}
{You made the brave choice to afflict yourself with a Greater Sin. It might be time to open Pandora’s Box.}
{Use your Character Panel to access your Greater Sin of Lust and reveal your sins. Reward: None. Failure cost: You’ll find out the hard way.}
{Quest Received: Book One}
{You should be heading to Hogwarts School soon, which this year plays host to the Philosopher’s Stone, and may also play host to individuals of nefarious intent who would dearly love to steal the artifact.}
{Ensure, through your action or inaction, that the Philosopher’s Stone is not used for evil in the next 12 months. Reward: Ability Score Improvement (ASI)}
{Quest Received: Personal Arsenal}
{Your father was a troubleshooter for the High Table. Somewhere in this house is the arsenal you inherited from him when he died.}
{Find and review the contents of your armory. Reward: Extra Ammunition.}
{Quest Received: Fighting Shape}
{You are a trained combatant with both melee and ranged weapons, but training relies on practice and self-knowledge. It would be best if you didn’t enter an unknown situation unprepared.}
{Visit the range and club before you go to Hogwarts to familiarize yourself with any changes you may have undergone after awakening your memories, powers, and Divine Fragment. Reward: Fighter Level 1}
[I apologize, Miss. I know you asked for one or two, but since you expressed an interest in feeling out the quests and their rewards, I wanted to offer you several that would showcase some different kinds of quests and rewards.]