Solana
{Hey, Sam, are you still awake?}

Jachra
{Yeah} she says back almost at once. {Working late.}

Solana
{Something special for your booooooooy friend?}

Jachra
{Hahahahaha he's not my boyfriend! I asked him out on a date and he said yes and I don't know if it'll even go anywhere from there!}(edited)

Solana
{That sounds like a boyfriend.}
{If you don't want him I'll take him off your hands.}

Jachra
{I admit you two would make a really attractive couple.}

Solana
{How do you figure! We don't even know what I'll look like yet.}
{I guess there have been SOME changes, already.}
Sif takes a photo of herself in the dark, and sends it over

Jachra
{And if I'm to be honest, there's a girl I have a crush on, too. I mean, Kenan is - an angel fallen to Earth, and we have a lot in common, but it's hard to tell if I'm blinded by him being gorgeous, y'know?}
{Girl you already gorgeous - and wow. That's pretty impressive for one day!}

Solana
{I'm actually messaging you for a reason unrelated to boys.}

Jachra
{What's on your mind?}

Solana
{I did the deprivation chamber thing. In the not-cauldron.}
{I'm just going to call it what it is - a cauldron. From which I am being reborn.}
{Anyway. I've always been pretty good at trances. I practiced mindfulness to help block out the pain, but I'd never been in a sensory deprivation chamber before.}
{And I had two hours to kill, so I figured I'd try. Also I hate television.}

Jachra
{Sounds like you had the right idea. You saw something, then?}

Solana
{Yeah.}
{Her name was Cesh?}
{The watcher on the distant shore, garbed in robes of green. She of the emerald tresses.}
{The one who's as broken up as I am.}

Jachra
{Yeah - Ishte's more-lost sibling. I've seen her, never met. I know she's the one who goes back and forth between the worlds.}
{Did you get to talk to her?}

Solana
{In a manner of speaking.}
{She kept repeating 'urgent' and 'archive'}
{Sorry, I think it was 'archived'.}
{I used divination to communicate with her, with limited success.}
{She told me her name was Cesh, I asked her how to strengthen the connection between her and this world. She said she did not know.}

Jachra
{That's further than I've managed.}

Solana
{I asked her what was urgent, what had been archived, and she said 'thunderstorm'.}
{No, 'event', 'thunderstorm'.}

Jachra
{That's peculiar. Could there be something coming up, or do you think this might relate to - well, you?}
{Thunderstorm was an earth-local event though.}

Solana
{When my 'event' happened, it tipped off a thunderstorm that took out the power in half the town.}
{It's hard for me to interpret it any other way.}
{It wasn't just the night I received my shard. It was the night I was born.}
{I'm broken up - she's broken up.}
{Connections abound.}

Jachra
{Yeah. That is an interesting set of connections.}
{I think you should bring this up to Ishte - well, obviously, but still. I wonder if there's a way we could improve the fidelity. I know I started seeing the platforms after they put me under for surgery, and that was as crisp as it got.}

Solana
{I think that might improve on its own.}
{I - something happened before I could ask any other questions.}
{It was a little alarming, but I've only been wearing the suit for a little less than a day at the time. So after about an hour and a half, things went back to being in poor shape. And you remember how I could only half-see Ishte?}

Jachra
{Yeah, I remember.}

Solana
{This wasn't like that.}
{The entire experience, I'd been focusing - I dunno, my will - through my brow. . . crown? It felt like it was spiraling up out of me.}
{So when things fell out of wack, I had an episode, but also, my hame was doing what her body was doing. Artifacting, jumbled up.}
{Except, every time I flickered, some part of me would be - horseish.}

Jachra
{Horseish?}

Solana
{Like I'd have a unicorn's head, and then I'd have half a human face and half a horse's head, and then I'd have a hoof but then it'd be an arm.}
{I think my shard is still trying to seed me. I think it wants to change me.}

Jachra
{That's - interesting. I'm curious, do you have any unusual birthmarks?}

Solana
{But it can't, because it's in pieces, and all it can do is pull me in a dozen different directions.}
{No, I have no birthmarks.}
{Why do you ask?}

Jachra
{Was curious. I guess we'll see manifestations soon enough. That gives me an idea - maybe something as part of your mask, to help focus your energies.}

Solana
{Sam, I don't want to be seeded.}

Jachra
{Why is that?}

Solana
{Remember the conversation about souls?}
{Well I don't believe I have one.}
{If I got rewritten as an infant, fine, whatever. I'd have been like you. There would not have been much of a life to lose.}
{But seeding me, changing me, would have to replace all of this, with something new. I wouldn't be me. I'd be dead.}

Jachra
{Yeah. I can see how that would be anxiety-inducing.}

Solana
{Right now I'm a human with a magic shard inside of her. If I let it consume me - then I'll be a magical being.}
{Well - she will be.}
{A magical being that used this body as a vessel to accomplish what it needed, like I dunno.}
{Tarantula hawk wasps.}

Jachra
{I know I'm speaking as someone external, but I personally don't believe that - I think any such being would incorporate who you are now. I dunno, I don't mean to demean your beliefs and I really don't have any meaningful evidence to say one way or another.}

Solana
{/leans}
{You think so?}

Jachra
{*hug* Yeah, I do}

Solana
{Well.}
{Like.}
{My mom? Was way into unicorns before all this.}
{My dad not as much, but still. Mom's first D&D character was a unicorn that was turned into a noble woman - she'd just read the last unicorn.}
{And she was always obsessed with all manner of magical horses, and I was too - and that was without knowing about all this.}
{So - so maybe it's not just about creating an entity.}
{Maybe this shard was pulled toward me because we're similar, or it's some weird 'otherkin' thing.}
{Where you better look out 'cause the unicorns, elves, and dragons are coming back.}
{or something dumb like that.}

Jachra
{I've noticed that there are cultural factors in Shards.}
{Hell my dad had some bizarre vision of an Egyptian ritual with his - and I guess he is Greek so his ancestors plausibly could have been Egyptian at some point. Though, I know a girl who was born 200 years ago in Bhutan and now has vampiric powers, very Western.} Of course, who doesn't know Fia, the eternal teenager.

Solana
{Okay.}
{We'll work together on seeing this through?}

Jachra
{*taps paw against your hoof* Deal}

Solana
{Heh.}
{This is going to be one interesting costume.}
{Hey Sam?}
{Goodnight.}

Jachra
{I'm going to have to work on some designs~ Okay. good night, Sif. I'm glad you stopped by - nice to have a friend.}

Solana
{Yeah, it is.}

---

Sif's dreams are muddied, filled with darkness and light, a scattered array of subconscious anxieties, hopes, and the subtle influence of a shard that continues to drift, closer and closer together, however slowly. In one dream, she and her mother had both been transformed by the Event. Her mother, a unicorn, and herself one of the anakiram, from her books growing up.

Their lives had not been much better. Moments of tranquility and peace were interrupted by episodes of violence and persecution. Her father tried to hold the normal humans at bay. That was her earliest memory. But then he'd been shot by people in the crowd, hauled away and ripped apart for daring to protect the 'aliens'. As if she hadn't been born to that country, that world, as if the Event itself had somehow made her other, not worthy of life, a threat to their own well being.

"We need to find Cedilla." Her mother said, tucking her close in an old river culvert of impacted concrete and shattered stone. ". . . Liberation. They're the only ones who can keep you safe now."

"What about you, Mom?" The filly asked, staring up at her with fear in her eyes.

"I'll be just behind." She said, nosing her along into the tunnel. "Go on, I'll cover our trail."

Sif hesitated, then gave a nod, loping off into the darkness. She carried herself a good distance away, but stopped when she didn't hear her mother's footfalls. Anxious, she poked her head out over a bit of rubble, searching her mother in the distance.

No sign of her, but she could hear something near the mouth of the tunnel. Slowly, she made her way back. peeking from behind a sharp corner.

Her mother was hurt, how she hadn't noticed before was beyond her understanding. She lay there, sheltering in the shadows, nursing a hoof. Sif was about to gallop back to her when a small object split the air - soaring into the cave like a streak of lightning, stopping just shy of her mother. His eyes glowed like a god's in the low light, and he was able to make her out very clearly, even in her hiding place. Ruby gasped.

"You know, I should be thanking you, Miss." He said smugly, crossing his arms. His long hair tosses in the breeze around him. "We've been looking for this Liberation hideout for months, and now you and that kid of yours led us right to it."

"My daughter is not a goat!" Ruby growled, stamping the ground with her good hoof. "Why are you doing this?! Just let us go!"

"I'm sorry M'am. I'm afraid some of us have chosen to put their petty personal desires aside, in service to the community. In service to our country."

Ruby staggered, racing into the tunnel - but she'd chosen the wrong fork, leading away from Sif, not to her.

"Sif! Run! You have to worn the others! I'm-"

Six Ankh - Sam's father - lifted his hand, and suddenly the tunnel was very bright indeed. Sif's mother fell in a crumpled heap, eyes tilted back, lips parted. She wasn't moving.

"Alright boys, let's get moving." Six Ankh called back to the rest of the humans. "They'll know we're on our way." He glanced once at Ruby before moving on. "And don't forget, if the IA boys ask, she opened fire with that horn of hers."

Sif watched on in horror as Six Ankh and his men continued on, heading down the wrong tunnel, away from her. With tears in her eyes, she broke into a gallop, sprinting into the darkness.

---

Sif woke with a groan. Her head was pounding like a drum, a kind of pain she'd never really experienced before. One born not of sickness, but stress, unchecked anxieties. She must have had them before, but they were always drowned out by the rest of her body and its needs.

"Fucked up dream." She sighed, checking her phone on its charging pad, noting the time. 7:40 AM. Sif slipped out of bed and gave a good stretch. Her entire body was sore - but in a good way - and she made her way across the room. She didn't even notice at first that she was standing on the tips of her toes, the rest of her body weight supported by something else, her nascent powers.

The room's floor was fake, dark-hued stone polished to a mirror-like shine, and little potted plants dotted the room. Something told her that if Ruby and Miguel ever spent any significant amount of time together, they would like each other very much. The two sharing a common love of plants. A dark bookshelf was secured to the left-side wall next to a large window looking out into a garden at the center of the research building, exotic flora of all kinds, most the work of Pharmacon and his exception herbalism talents. A tree with blue leaves and large purple fruit sat at the middle, framed by a clear pond. Sif rotated the blinds opened and turned toward the shelf.

Most of the books on the shelf were medical books, works by noted psychologists, and a few airport paperbacks. The one thing that stood out to her was a small, hardcover book with a fresh jacket that looked like it had never been touched. "The Calling" was printed on the spine. 'Memoirs of an American Hero, by Gary Wright'. Sif slipped the book off the shelf to get a look at the cover. It showed Six Ankh, smiling, his androgynous features framed by the light of a rising sun, his long hair blowing in the breeze. His domino mask sat perched on a pedestal, upon which his arm was braced.

Sif frowned, slipping the book back onto the shelf and brushes her dark - now longer - hair out of her eyes. She'd need a proper stylist by the end of all these treatments, or else she'll just look like a wolf girl or something.

Finally, she made her way back to the full length mirror, to check her progress over the course of the night.