(Disclaimer and warning: the Italian is swearing. So be prepared for that if you decide to translate it.)

Ce’rana of Borune yelped as another tense shift rocked the ground, throwing her out of the tree she’d been perched in. She didn’t quite land on her feet properly and lurched to the right, barely catching herself before she cracked her skull on the uneven ground.

Alexander Hawke had also been tossed to the ground, but he landed awkwardly when the shift sent him into the tree Ce’rana had been sitting in from his place near the roots. There was a clearly-audible crack when he connected, like the splintering of bark.

Ce’rana looked over, expecting to see the damaged bark crumbling off the tree and preparing herself to make sure it would be alright; instead, she discovered that Alex had gained a second elbow. In the opposite direction and in the middle of his forearm. How odd, she thought in the moments time seemed to slow to a crawl. It almost looks as though Alex is hurt. But he never gets hurt.

Alex looked at her, his eyes following the direction of her gaze until he spotted his double-bent arm. “Huh. I wonder why it doesn’t hurt?” He tried to move his arm, then doubled over as the break decided that now was the time to start hurting. Thanks ever so, IO. “Figlio di puttana!”

Ce’rana immediately bolted over to her partner, trying to grab the RA as she went and failing. “Alright, that is definitely a bad thing,” she muttered as she tried to look the break over without hurting him more.

“Cazzo! Of course it’s a bad thing. My arm’s broken.” Despite the swearing Alex seemed relatively calm.

“Yes, I know that. That would be why it’s bad,” Ce’rana snapped, glaring up at him for a moment for his lack of care. “Especially since I wasn’t sure that your bones even could break with how much pressure you seem to shrug off every other mission.”

Alex bit back a reply about enough things snapping already without her tone adding to the list, then looked down at his arm. “You don’t know how to do a splint, do you?”

The Dryad shook her head. “I was a scribe, not a doctor. Beyond that, I was the firstborn of a noble, and a female at that. Even further beyond, a Dryad. At no point was I given the chance to learn that, even if I had the inclination to do so.”

“Rana… What part of ‘my arm is broken’ sounds like ‘give me a genealogy lesson?’ Because I don’t think this is the best time.”

She bit her lip and glanced away. “Of course. My apologies. The point is, no, I do not know how to make a splint.”

Alex frowned. “First, get a pair of relatively straight sticks…”

One impromptu lesson later, Alex’s arm was at least not in danger of breaking further. Ce’rana smiled ever-so-slightly at the fact that she’d managed to do something practical and useful, even if she’d needed to be talked through every single step, occasionally more than once. “Alright. Now, where did the RA go…”

Alex shook his head. “We still have a mission to do.”

She fixed him with a Look, now trying to find the RA in her bag by touch alone. “Alex, I am not going to allow you to continue without spending a few minutes in Medical to get that fixed. I have lasted on missions without you for longer, and there is nothing of particular danger coming up save for further tense shifts and timeskips, which we both know I can handle.” The tiny agent chose to ignore the fact that her stomach very much could not. “I will be fine, and you will go to Medical for a very short while, and we will continue our mission from there.”

He sighed. “I’m coming right back, you know that right?”

She smiled at him and patted his unbroken arm. “Of course you are. Just as soon as your arm is fixed.”

Alex shook his head and reached into her pack, trying to help her find the RA. “Not like this is the worst break I’ve ever had.”

Ce’rana blinked. “I suppose I should not be surprised at that,” she admitted as she turned back to the search in full, “but I am.”

He chuckled. “What about you?”

She shook her head. “No, I never broke anything. Not for lack of trying on my brothers’ parts, though - and Korus was the only one who ever came away with any serious injuries. Even then, it was… more than rare.”

“Sounds like you were lucky.” Alex pulled out the RA, then held it out to her. “Can’t really use it one handed.”

The tiny agent nodded, took it, and punched in the coordinates for Medical. “Dryads do not fall from trees easily,” she said with a small smile once the portal had opened, “and my brothers never did figure out how to hold onto me when I wanted to get away. Now go get your arm fixed. You know how to find me in this place.”

June 2010, joint mission, Agents Dawn McKenna and T'Zar (DOGA) with Agent Abaddon. Dawn is seventeen:


"You're joking," Abaddon said. "You've been an agent for how long, now?"

Dawn glared at him. She'd liked him well enough the first few times they'd met. Right now, though, she could only think sourly that she wished he'd stayed far away from T'Zar after the Vulcan was repartnered with her. "Three years."

"Three years, and you've never broken a bone!" Abaddon laughed. He even looked stupid, Dawn decided, with his stupid punk look and his stupid floppy hair and the stupid little braid in his floppy hair. "How does it feel?"

Forget everything: Dawn picked up the nearest object and threw it at him. "It hurts, you moron! What do you think?" She was tearing up again, half from frustration. Why wasn't T'Zar back yet? Abaddon had managed to find the regular strength painkillers, but neither of them knew how to set a broken bone in anything more than theory. Which left Dawn stuck leaning against the wall with a broken leg supported by their packs, and only a stupid, laughing nineteen-year-old boy for company.

"Sorry, sorry," Abaddon said. He'd managed to catch the notebook she'd thrown; now he set it aside and cautiously moved to sit next to her. "I'm a prat sometimes."

Dawn looked away, trying to blink back tears. It didn't work. "You are."

"I really am," Abaddon agreed. Quite awkwardly, he put an arm around her shoulders. "T'Zar should be back soon. She'll know what to do--and she's got the RA."

Dawn sniffled, and could barely bring herself to hate that she'd done it. "The painkillers aren't working."

Abaddon winced. "I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I laughed before--it's just, I broke my first bone before I even became an agent, so it's..." He glanced at her. "Not funny, not at all, just different--"

Dawn closed her eyes, and tried to pretend she wasn't leaning into him. She didn't even like him anymore: he was just T'Zar's annoying ex-partner, who looked and sometimes sounded a bit too much like the latest Doctor for his own good (which...made absolutely no sense, come to think of it. He'd said something about fancasting, when she'd idly commented that he was really kind of the new Doctor in blond and black, but had anyone even known Matt Smith before this role? Well, some people must have, she thought. Just because she hadn't heard of him didn't mean no one had.)

"Go on," she said dully. She needed a distraction from wondering how much longer T'Zar would be, and she now knew from experience that Abaddon could talk forever if no one stopped him. "What's the story there?"

"Oh, well." Abaddon shrugged and pulled one knee up, resting his free arm on it. "I was a kid--only about eleven, I think--and we were visiting my uncle. He's brilliant, my uncle--have I ever--? No? Another time. Anyway, my mum and dad were being boring with him, so I thought I'd go exploring. Clambered over everything, like some sort of ibex--or, you know, like a young idiot." He shifted, rolling his shoulder. "I fell, obviously. My balance wasn't as good as I thought it was back then." He glanced at Dawn. "Rolled down a hill, hit a tree, and then just lay there screaming for a bit. I thought I'd broken my neck, but it was really just my collarbone."

Dawn made a face, eyes opening again. "That sounds awful." Uri had been eleven not too long ago; it was a little hard not to picture her little brother in Abaddon's place, especially since he did like to climb things when the family went camping. He'd never broken anything doing it, but there had been some close calls...

"Oh, it was," Abaddon said. "Dad found me, though. Always seems to, really...anyway, he and Mum and my uncle sorted me out. Never even reached a hospital. But I didn't get to climb anything for the rest of the trip." He paused. "I...I must've scared them, really. They didn't say it in that many words, but Dad barely let me out of his sight for the rest of the day--and he usually says he doesn't actually need his eyes to keep an eye on me."

There was a brief silence before Dawn spoke again. "What do your parents do, anyway? I told you about mine earlier, but you never--"

"Dawn?" T'Zar was back, a tiny frown creasing the skin between her eyebrows. "Why are you crying?"

"She broke her leg," Abaddon said quickly. "You know how to help with that, right? Neither of us have ever done it. Oh! I gave her painkillers, but they're too weak to do anything." He stood up, hovering while T'Zar put down her bags and knelt to examine Dawn's leg. When she finished, Dawn was crying outright.

"I will portal you to Medical," T'Zar told her. She hesitated, then put a hand on Dawn's shoulder. She'd told Dawn, on multiple occasions, that she did not understand both the human need for comfort and the idea that touch alone could give it, but here she was doing it anyway. Dawn wanted to hug her. "They will have stronger painkillers, and the ability to repair the broken bone. Abaddon and I will finish the mission and meet you there."

Dawn wiped her cheeks and nodded. "O-okay. Okay."

"Okay," T'Zar repeated, in the dry tone that Dawn was really starting to think meant she was teasing. "I have broken bones as well, Dawn. The statistical probability that you would--"

"Oh, stuff the statistical probability," Abaddon said cheerfully. "Your partner's in pain. Open a portal to Medical so she can get out of it, yeah?"

T'Zar raised an eyebrow, and pulled out the remote activator to input coordinates. "I was about to do so."

"'Course," Abaddon said. He leaned down to pat Dawn's shoulder. "You'll be alright. Hey, maybe we'll find you a souvenir from here! You like chips, right? They have a weirdly awful scene in a chip shop later--"

Dawn barely had time to say that, yes, she did like 'chips,' only they were called French fries where she was from, before the portal opened underneath her and deposited her on a bed in Medical with barely a centimetre's discrepancy. T'Zar followed via a second portal, and stayed long enough to catch the eye of one of the Medical staff and give strict instructions regarding Dawn before disappearing through a third portal.

The staff member in question smiled down at Dawn. "Don't worry, honey, we'll have you fixed up in no time. First broken bone? I don't remember seeing you in here for one before."

"Let me guess," Dawn said. She knew this woman, if not very well. With a bit of effort, she managed a strained smile. "Do you have a story about the first broken bone you ever got?"

The woman laughed. "Me? Oh, no." She smiled at Dawn, and turned to pick up the nearby scanner. "I've never broken a bone in my life!"

Agent Alleb stopped outside the door, preparing herself. Every time she came back to the RC, she always walked in on her partner in the midst of some unexplainable, and often embarrassing, shenanigan. Last time he had been dancing. The time before that, he'd been in a shouting match with the microwave. And the time before that, he'd somehow managed to stick himself to the ceiling using the "tape of ducks" one of the RC's previous occupants had left behind in a drawer.

Mithe, her fire-lizard, gave a questioning chirrup from her perch on Alleb's shoulders, the blue swirl in her eyes slowing slightly.

"Just wondering what unexpected happenstance I will find today, girl," Alleb said, reaching up to give the fire-lizard a scratch."Might as well get it over with." Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and swung the door open, revealing--

Jesse McKines, sitting at the table, gazing thoughtfully into a half-full tumbler of whiskey.

"Oh," Alleb said, forgetting to come in. That certainly was unexpected.

"What?" Jesse asked, looking up. His brown eyes, beneath a thatch of blond hair (it was far too long and therefore far too unruly to be without a hat, Alleb decided) looked quiet and faraway. "Find what you were looking for?"

"What?" Alleb repeated, then looked down at the burlap sack in her hands. "Oh, yes. My apologies, Sir Jesse. I am used to finding in you in far--well, nevermind. Yes. I found the 'grocery store' Agent Yarwick spoke of, and also the 'hum-moose' that Lord Virneleski recommended," she said, pulling out a circular carton of beige paste.

"I think it's pronounced 'hummus,'" Jesse said. He looked back down at his drink, his eyes still seeing something she could not.

Frowning, Alleb thumped her grocery sack onto the kitchen counter, then walked over to the table and pulled up a chair beside her partner. "Sir Jesse," she began, "is something troubling you?" Mithe leapt off her shoulders and landed next to the sack, sniffing at the opening.

Jesse took a breath, coming back to himself a little. "Hm? Trouble? Aw, nah, Alleb. Just... thinkin'."

Alleb blinked. "Forgive me, Sir Jesse," she said, as gently as she could, "but you do not often do that."

It was Jesse's turn to blink. "Ouch."

Alleb gave him a look. "You do not often brood," she clarified. "What is it in your drink that you find so interesting?"

Jesse stared down at his whiskey again, and Alleb suddenly wondered if he'd gotten some sort of ill news while she was away. "Mike Green, down the hall, told me it was some sorta holiday on World One today. At least, for how time moves for his folks. He called it 'Memorial Day.'"

Alleb frowned. "A rather somber name for a holiday. What does it celebrate?"

Jesse didn't answer for a moment. Alleb began to think he had not heard, but then he asked, "You're a soldier, ain't you?"

A few details clicked into place. "I fought in King Eliam's army, yes," she replied. "And you fought for the Union, during your country's Civil War, did you not?"

"Yep," Jesse said, nodding. "After the Civil War, we called it Decoration Day. Come May, some folks'd go out and put flowers on all the soldiers' graves. Wasn't made official till after one 'a them big 'World Wars' I keep hearin' about." He hadn't looked up from his whiskey the entire time he was talking.

And now it all made sense. Alleb laid a bone-colored hand on Jesse's shoulder, and gave it a hard squeeze. He winced, and she lessened the pressure slightly. "I have also lost comrades, Sir Jesse," she said. "It is good that your country sets aside a day to honor the fallen. Alleble does the same, in its own way. We who are left can only trust in King Eliam, and in His ultimate plan."

Jesse's mouth twitched, as if he wanted to give his usual half-smile, but didn't have the energy. "Yeah," he said. "Guess so."

"In the meantime," Alleb said, getting up and fetching another glass from the cabinet, "may I join you?"

This time, he did manage a small smile. "You bet," he said, unhooking his flask from his belt and pouring her a half-glass.

Alleb raised her tumbler. "To the honored dead. May their memories live on in glory."

Jesse raised his glass as well. "To the lost," he said.

They drank together, while Mithe crooned a lilting almost-song from the counter.

---

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Feels good to get back to Jesse and Alleb. I haven't written them in forever!

-Alleb

Harris had been drinking coffee, ever since it was invented. He goddamn loved coffee. Not for the flavor, no. For the sweet caffeine that did wonders to his permanently waking brain. He loved coffee so much so that when the first automatic coffee machines came into production, he bought one of every brand. He tested and tried each and every one of them, to find out what made the best coffee. As more and more machines were produced, he eventually settled into a particularly fancy dispenser. Every morning, he would place his #1 Dad mug underneath (despite his lack of children, partner, or desires for alternate progeny) and warm, dark roast coffee would be poured into his cup. Like magic.

Recently, his favorite coffee machine had been stuttering, spitting coffee, rather than pouring it. It came in bursts, rather than a smooth stream of caffeine water. He had been using this particular machine for centuries, and oh, it just might be nearing the end of its life. However, Harris routinely magically enchanted the hunk of junk to make sure this never was the case. So, if not the machine, it must be the power supply.

Harris was lazy and irresponsible. He very much did not like paying taxes or bills or reading whatever mail the government happened to send him. And so, he decided to switch off his water and electricity and open portals to other dimensions to supply his own needs. For his water, a portal at the bottom of an untouched ocean, completely devoid of life. For his gas stove, a portal to a brightly burning star. For his footstool trashcan, a portal to his local recycling plant.

For his energy, he'd went into a nightmare dimension full of eldritch abominations and monstrosities. He'd found the biggest baddie he could find, chained it up, and stabbed some cables into it, and ran them all the way back to the portal, to his house, to his coffee machine.

As Harris began strolling to his portal room, and as he passed through the endless void between dimensions, he wondered how much of that critter was left. Following the thick cables, some electrocuted entities lining the sides (thanks to a neat little charm he had learned in Pre-K) he approached the end of the cable. There was no hulking terror left, only a very, very small toothed worm. Like a leech, except smaller, and more vicious. He supposed that this was what remained of his cash cow, or as he put it, his voltage Varuh'tynyopai.

Harris pulled the cable out of the critter, and it seemingly faded into dust in his hands. He removed the magical bonds, and began his search anew, to find the second-biggest baddie that this dimension held. Harris just couldn't go without his coffee.