[Week 0]

Isabelle traced the ward stone with the tip of her boot. The 1ft by 6in by 6in solid stone slab sat flush with the ground, practically invisible within the golden summer grass. To Isabelle, it glowed a faint blue; the sigils etched into each stone almost neon.

She’d always found the sigils themselves beautiful. SERENITY, written in an alphabet that didn’t quite fit into three dimensions. Carved into stone nevertheless. SERENITY, a blue aspiration she herself tried to embody.

The next stone in line, about a foot away, would say REJECTION. Then would come INTENTION, and SERENITY again after. Repeat a few hundred times, one long line of warding wrapped around the sprawling mansion that represented their shared home.

She kept walking, enjoying the cool coastal wind. It brought a chill even to summer nights, but Isabelle didn’t mind it. The hillside gave a fantastic view, and she could just about make out the ocean in the distance. At night it was too dark to actually see the water, but she could see the twinkling light lining the coast and defining the crescent shape of the bay.

SERENITY, all the way to the horizon.

Isabelle walked down the north slope for the final time of her watch shift. It wasn’t the worst way to spend to spend three hours, and she got to feel the act of service with each dutiful step.

Halfway down the slope, she noticed it. The smallest spike in adrenaline, as her body told her what her mind hadn’t quite caught up to yet. Something yet distant, but rapidly approaching. She’d be tested tonight.

She leant down to touch the nearest ward, and the steady vibrations confirmed it for her. The stones always quaked a little, like train tracks beneath an approaching locomotive. She followed the line to where the vibrations were strongest, then knelt and waited. Everyone in her greater chosen family had a different ritual here, but for her kneeling had always felt the most right.

SERENITY, in the face of danger.

A few minutes later, the skitterer emerged from the brush. It dwarfed her, not so much in height, but unquestionably in length. At about 6 feet tall, she only had to look up a little to see its ‘face’, a chitinous black crushing apparatus that reminded her of a beetle’s jaw. The head lacked eyes, but made up for it with its oversized maw, a gaping black hole at the center of the beetle-jaw. 

The rest of its 12 foot length comprised a long torso and seven asymmetrical legs. One of her sisters had once tried to classify them by leg count, by torso shape, by jaw, but none of it had led anywhere. They were too random, too illogical, too not-from-this-world for human minds to sort.

Even the long, fishlike scales of their torso shined in an un-color that eyes couldn’t properly perceive–Kevin had said the word for it once, but no one else had been able to hear it. Isabelle thought it was closest to a kaleidoscopic iridescence, flashing an otherworldly light as they rushed towards you (because they were always rushing, always skittering across the ground, always scampering towards large sources of magical energy).

It approached at the speed of an oncoming car, but Isabelle didn’t move from her spot.

SERENITY, before life or death.

It tried to hop over her kneeling form, only to collide with the invisible wall of the warding line. Rejection–Intention–Serenity–Rejection in an ever repeating pattern. Will carved into rock carved into their universe. An irrefutable statement, as Frankie once called it.

The wards wouldn’t last forever, so Isabelle prepared herself to implant her own will into the universe. She thought of her family, thought of her commitment to them and to each other. Thought of her Miss. Thought of everything they all shared. Then she thought of fire.

The magic manifested a little differently every time. This time, it evoked embers. The ground under the skitterer began to glow, chaparral turning into coals turning into heat. There was a moment where the air shimmered, where her enemy was standing on the lingering smolders of a dead bonfire. Then the bonfire came back to life.

The ward line kept the excess heat out just as much as it did the skitterer–better even, since the fire lacked any intention of breaking through. Unfortunately, the skitterer kept the heat out almost as well. Flames licked over its body and into the sky, but it kept pounding on the wall. Unfortunate luck then–this one was temperature insensitive, and this night was about to get considerably more difficult.

Isabelle closed her eyes to think, but opened them almost immediately when she heard–no felt–the crack. Her eyes swept the closest stones. The one just to her left, REJECTION, had a jagged vertical break running through it. It wasn’t going to hold much longer. An incident on a previous night must have weakened it. Maybe not enough for it to be caught in inspection, but enough.

In moments, the will for REJECTION embedded in solid stone would be overwhelmed by the skitterer’s single minded desire for ENTRY.

The lone sentinel thought fast–hit the alert beacon on her keychain–and crawled over to the stone. She placed her hands on it, let herself think thoughts of rejection: the unwelcome advance of a boy, the unwanted love of a mother, the abandonment of friends. She directed the thoughts through the stone and into the wall.

It helped, briefly, but will alone would never be as powerful as will together, even this close to the house. 

The rumbling took on a discordant tone as the stone began to fail. Shouts from the house, her backup on the way. Not fast enough–she’d have to hold the line.

She took a breath.

SERENITY, before an uncertain future.

Isabelle gathered her serenity around her soul, then thought thoughts of physical destruction. Her nightstick graced her hand like an old friend, drank her intentions like a greedy spirit, and the mostly human girl readied herself for a close combat fight.