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The fifth date goes very well, and the next morning Diana’s curled into his chest and enjoying the warmth of the sunlight when Dan asks, groggily, “Were we...floating last night?”“Mhmhm.”“And the lights from your fingertips?”“Yeah, that happens.”“You're not just a hexenbiest are you?”“Not really.”He strokes her hair softly, heart beating steadily under her cheek. “Okay.”They both fall back to sleep, and its blissful.The sixth date is headed in the same direction, but when they get to her apartment, there's a black limousine parked out front, and Dan laughs a little.“What's a car like that doing in this neighborhood? Do you think they're lost?”But Diana doesn't say anything, because the chauffeur is already getting out of the front and reaching for the back door. And then her father steps out of the car and smiles at her with all of the warmth he can muster.“Diana,” he says, coming close for a wide hug and two cheek kisses. “You look more and more like your mother every day.”Diana sighs and gives him a hug—a real one, with a quick squeeze. “Hi Dad. What brings you to town?”“Politics. What else? And who is this?”He's looking at Dan now, scowling a little at the way he stands so close to his daughter. It's the most human expression she's seen on his face in years.“This is my boyfriend, Dan. Dan, this is my father, Sean Renard.”Dan is all earnest and light, reaching out to shake Sean’s hand. “Hello, Mr. Renard. Pleasure to meet you.”Sean takes his hand with a smirk. “I'm sure.”Diana steps in and takes Dan’s arm. It’s more of a protective gesture than a affectionate one, and when she asks, “What are you here for, Dad?”, he takes the hint and steps back with his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat.“We need to talk about Vienna. There have been some new developments.”“Send me an email.”“Diana, this is your birthright.”“One day. In the future. For now I'd like to finish this date.”“Does he even know what you are?”“I'm working on it,” she says, aiming for patience and missing by a twitch in the corner of her eye. “And my love life isn't any of your business.”“That's rich, coming from you.”“I was five! And I've had a lot of therapy since Rachel, and I'm pretty sure it speaks more to the failings of the adults around me at the time than my moral bankruptcy as a child.”Her father woges then, and she feels Dan gasp beside her. When her father’s face is human again, he glares at her boyfriend.“Oh for the love of—a Grimm, really?”“Well, it worked so well for Mom.”“Your family is such a pain in my—”“It’s been lovely to see you, Dad. Call me later.”Sean stares at her for a long moment, and, for the first time in a long time, she wonders what life might have been like if her parents had stayed together and raised her in the same house. Three hexenbiests under one roof? Someone would have died.But then they did teach her to hold her ground when it matters, and so eventually her father just sighs and shakes his head. “Fine.” He turns his gaze to Dan. “Do not behead my daughter.”Dan just nods, and Diana thinks this is probably as good as it will ever get.When her father and the limo are gone, she leads the way upstairs and straight to the bottle of wine she’s been saving for just such an occasion.“So,” she says, handing Dan a large glass, “that’s my dad.”“He’s terrifying.” Dan swallows a large mouthful and sinks onto the couch.“Yep.”“Is he a zauberbiest?”“Yep.”“And a Royal?”“Yep.”“Like The Royal, right?”“He’s running things in Vienna at the moment.”“What does that mean? How does that happen?”Diana drinks her wine slowly, thinking it through. “Let's just say there was a vacancy a couple years ago.”“Vacancy?”“My Dad ran out of cousins.”“Did he…?”“At least a few. Anyway, we had a family meeting—”“About the throne?”“And I decided let him have it.”“He's a power hungry zauberbiest!” Dan says before a new thought occurs to him. “Who's your father, sorry. I'm sure he's…loving?”“Not really. I mean he loves me, but he's not exactly wired for the familial bonding thing. But that's okay, because there's an insurance policy in place to curb his power plays.”“What's that?”“Me.”She says it calmly, like she's accepted that she might have to kill her father and take the throne one day.Across the room, Dan realizes he's dating the future Queen of...everything?“How did this happen?” He asks himself more than anyone else. “I just went on a blind date, and now I'm two steps removed from both the royals and Nick Burkhardt. How does that happen?”Diana sits down next to him and tops up his glass. “Tale as old as time. Boy meets girl. Girl is a super powered hexenbiest with royal blood and more Grimm family members than you can shake a stick at.”He laughs and takes a sip of wine and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Boy is a Grimm in way over his head.”“You'd be bored without me,” she says, snuggling into his side.He nods, kissing her hair, and then stops cold. “Super powered?”Diana sighs. “I think it's time to go to Portland.”
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It's raining in Portland when they arrive, which just sucks because her hair is frizzy and her bag is wet and why on earth are her parents not at home at one in the morning?Dan is frustratingly sanguine about it all while she pounds on the door and waits for someone to answer.Eventually her sister, the teenager, opens the door looking half asleep. “What!? What do you want?”Her sister's wearing an oversized black t-shirt that says Witchin’ across the front in spiky white letters. Her short black hair sticks up all over like she just stuck her finger in a socket and her dark blue eyes glare up at Diana’s from her full height of 5 feet. Diana grins and feels better already.“Hi Alice.”“Oh, it's you,” Alice says, retreating back into the house without a second look. “I saw you coming yesterday, but I didn't think you'd be this ridiculously late. Don't you, like, have a key?”“He changed the locks again. I think he's getting paranoid in his old age, and I remember the fome.”Alice sighs from the stairs. “Am I my father's keeper? Also, is there actually a lock in the entire world that could stop you?”“You know I try to do things the normal way,” Diana says, blushing and carefully not looking at Dan. She can feel his wide eyed gaze on the back of her neck. She wonders if he will ever get used to the things that she could do if she wanted to.Alice has no such qualms. “I would,” she says, yawning on the stairs. “If I had your powers, I would do anything I wanted.”“Please. Mom and Dad would be all over you.”“They're already all over me. Precognition is bad enough, but now Mom wants me to start looking at the past, too.”“What?”“Something about preventing another damn apocalypse.”“Uh…” Dan says, clearly new here.“Huh,” says Diana. “Neat.”Alice glares at her. “You're just glad it's not you this time.”“You have no idea how glad. It doesn't matter how hot Satan is, he's still Satan.”Alice snorts. “Yeah, well, unless Satan is Satina this time, the temptation is going to be useless on me.”“Wait, the actual Satan?” Dan asks and goes unanswered.Alice rolls her eyes and yawns again. “Look, I love you, but I'm going back to bed. The ‘rents are down at the spice shop. Spare key is in the drawer. Please don't wake me up again.”“Okay. This is Dan, by the way.”“Nice to meet you, Dan,” says Alice, calling down from the top of the stairs. “Don't, like, behead anyone until I wake up.”Dan shakes off the stunned look on his face in time to grin and call after her, “No promises.”Diana feels love and relief wash over her in a gentle wave. It's going to be okay.***Except when they get to the spice shop, the door is in splinters. Wu is unconscious, and just beyond him, Hank is clutching at gashes on his side, blood trickling between his fingers.He spots Diana in the doorway and smiles weakly.“Hey, girl. You're a sight for sore eyes.”Behind her, Dan whispers, “Jesus…” but she's already moving to Hank, hands glowing with something for the pain and a touch of magic to start the healing. Dan takes the hint and bends to check Wu for a pulse.“What have they gotten you into this time, Hank?” She says, placing her hands over his on the wound. His breathing eases slowly, even as he tries to laugh.“Oh, you know, the usual. A prophecy, an apocalypse, your parents going off the deep end. You'd better get to the cellar.”“The gang's all here then.”“Always.”She pats his hands, now resting comfortably over new scar tissue and looks back to Dan and Wu, whose eyes are fluttering softly.“Wanna go save my parents?”“Yeah, that sounds like a good first impression.”There’s a battle underway in the basement, with Nick and Monroe fending off the frontal attack while her mother and Rosalee scramble to find something useful in the books on the bench.“Transfiguration?”“We need a cat’s heart for that. How about a fireball?”“Not in the shop!” Monroe shouts. “How many times? No fireballs in the shop!”At the top of the stairs, Diana sighs and raises a hand. Everything stops for a moment. Time moves forward, but everyone else stands still while she runs toward the creature about to slice into Nick with its shiny, black claws.It’s back is massive, scaly, and green, but as she reaches its side, the scales start to melt into water, raining down and sinking into the floor, as if it had never been there at all.Diana pulls up short, watching the creature make it's escape and helpless to stop it. Slowly, everyone reanimates, Nick stumbling a little as his ax finishes it's arch toward a foe that's no longer there.“What the heck was that?” says Monroe, before her mother spots her and nearly screams with delight.“Diana! You're here! You're safe! My baby girl!” She's quickly engulfed in her mother's arms with kisses raining down on the crown of her head.And then everyone is there. Nick swoops in to rescue her from her mother's grasp with a swift, tight hug and passes her off to Monroe and Rosalee for a fuzzy sandwich between them.“Is this what you all get up to while I'm gone?” she asks, surveying the damage in the cellar with amusement. “Haven't you guys retired yet?”“God no,” Monroe says with a chuckle, looking to Nick. “What would this guy do without us?”Rosalee gasps and starts toward the stairs. “Hank and Wu!”“We're fine,” Wu says, stepping into the light at the top of the stairs. “Hank’s a little shook up, so I'm going to take him to the doc for a look.”“We'll all go,” says Rosalee, but Wu has other ideas.“I'm the Captain. I can handle one trip to the emergency room with my head detective. And you, Madam Mayor, do not need this kind of press.”“That's crazy,” says Rosalee. “I didn't run for office to turn my back on my friends.”“No, you ran for office to cover our asses. I got this.”“Do you need a ride?” Dan asks, all earnest good will and helpfulness. Everyone turns to look at him, wesen in the room woging for a good inspection.Dan stays very, very still while Diana backs up to take his arm and press against his side.“Everyone, this is Dan. He's my boyfriend, and he won't behead anyone we care about.”“I wish we didn't have to keep saying that,” Dan whispers as everyone moves forward for the introductions. When Nick ignores his hand shake and goes for the shoulder squeeze, Diana lets out a deep breath.After they help Wu and Hank get underway, Monroe starts tidying while Rosalee brews a strong pot of tea. Her parents are trying to make some sense of the chaos in the Grimm paraphernalia, so she and Dan join them at the table.Dan picks up a Grimm book and flicks through. “I can't believe the collection you have. They just gave me a scythe and a shove out the door.”Nick grins at him over a stack of black candles and parchment. “Yeah, I'm beginning to think my family were just hoarders. Although the original stash was destroyed a long time ago. Trubel didn't even get a scythe until she stole one of mine.”“My aunt,” Diana says by way of explanation. “Well as good as. She's a traveling Grimm.’“She's a menace,” says Nick, grinning.“Can't wait to meet her,” Dan says. “You guys really have this town sewn up, don't you? Police, mayor—DA?” He asks, looking at her mother.Adalind smiles and shakes her head. “General counsel. Better hours. No one sues anyone at 3 in the morning.”“And what are you?” Dan asks Monroe, “the city council?”Monroe shrugs with the broom in his hand. “Nah, I'm just a small business owner and a stay-at-home dad.”“He's the backbone of the whole operation,” says Rosalee from the stairs. “God help us.”It's warm and peaceful in the basement, but Diana can sense a strain in the room. Rosalee passes out the tea in silence while Monroe gives her that married couple look of concern. Nick is looking at Adalind with a question in his eyes, but she's just flicking through the pages of a book like it's any other day at the office.Diana looks at Dan and shrugs before turning back to the room at large. “So... another apocalypse, huh?”Monroe groans and her mother finally looks at Nick who gives her the patented Burkhardt “Who me?” eyes.Adalind turns to Diana with a sigh. “We were waiting to tell you. We didn't want to worry you for nothing.”“Mom…”“It's just a little one?”“Mom!”“Fine, it's another apocalypse. Happy?”“No! Have you told Kelly?”Her mother purses her lips, and Nick rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, which she takes as a no.“Trubel? Eve?” More awkward silence. “Oh come on.”“It's been...busy.”“It's an apocalypse! Do we need a freaking phone tree?”She starts a little when she feels a hand pat her shoulder. It's Monroe, who leans in to give her a half hug.“It's good to have you home, kid.”The next hour passes in a bit of a haze. They spend it pouring over texts looking for a clue to what's coming next, with her mother muttering under her breath about a book that she can't find.“Did Hank say something about a prophecy?” Diana asks. “What are we working with here?”“I wouldn’t exactly call it a prophecy,” Monroe says. “I’ve had more informative predictions from a fortune cookie.”Rosalee slides over a photo. It’s not great quality, but it doesn’t take a magnifying glass to see the massive tree in the middle, split down the center as if cracked open by a lightning blast.“My contacts in Europe sent us this. It’s from the UK. They said there was a legend of a sorcerer who was trapped in the tree for a thousand years. They said he would come back when the tree opened, and when he did, the world would be in great peril.”“Was he a good witch or a bad witch?”“We don’t know. All we know is the date. It opened on your sister’s fifteenth birthday.”“Isn’t that when—”“Her second sight started?” Adalind finished. “Yep! So glad we went for that third kid.”“We love her,” Nick reminds her with a smile.“Of course we do!” Adalind says. “I love all my cursed children equally.”Diana rolls her eyes. “Gee, thanks, Mom.”Nick finally sends them all home. He and Monroe pause to nail the front door shut while Dan hovers nearby, sensing a manly job to be done.Diana rides home with her mother, who raises one eyebrow at her as they head out.“He's sweet.”“I know. I'm wondering how long I'll get to keep him.”Her mother shrugs. “Grimms are built for the hard stuff. He'll be fine. Besides, you already like each other, and you aren't even pregnant. That's a land speed record in this family.”“Mom!”Adalind grins, unrepentantly. “Have I ever told you how much I love your brother? I really love your brother.”“I know,” she says with a sigh.Adalind glances over and then reaches out to pat her knee. “And I love you more than the world itself. Never forget it.”“You know, Mom, that's not healthy,” Diana says, feeling warmth bloom in her chest all the same.Later, when she slips into her old bed with Dan, it creaks under their combined weight. It feels so good to be home.Dan is half asleep, but he shuffles over to curl around her.“Thank you for bringing me. They're terrifying.”“I know. They're the best.”
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The next day, she leaves Dan at the house with Alice, some Grimm books, and a cheeky lunchtime beer while she and Nick head into the woods.That morning, Wu had stumbled across a report of college kids tripping on mushrooms by a forest spring. They had called 911 to scream that there was something with scales growing out of the water, and they’d been so incoherent that a ranger had been dispatched to the site to rescue them. They were a mile down the path by the time he got there, and the ranger didn’t notice anything out of place at the spring.It's peaceful in the woods now, and Diana enjoys the hike with Nick, rising through the forest slowly without a word. An hour in, they break through the trees onto a small, sunny ridge, and she stops there to take in the view.“It's beautiful up here.”“It is,” Nick says at her side. “I forget sometimes.”“Well, you've been kind of busy.”“I haven't had a quiet day since I met your mother,” he says with a smile. “Wouldn't have it any other way.”“You don't get sick of all the fighting and the running and you know, crazy things with claws?”Nick shrugs, looking out over the forest.“If it wasn't all of that, it'd be something else. All of that brought me all of you, and that's worth it. All of it.”She slides an arm around his waist and leans into his side like she did when she was a little girl. He squeezes her tight and presses a kiss to her head. All these years, and he’s still the chillest parent she has.“I saw my father in Boston.”“And how is the King these days?”“The same. He scared the crap out of Dan.”“Smart boy.”“I like him.”“I like whoever you like. But I'm glad for you, too. That he's a part of this world. It makes it easier, I think.”“I used to hate it. That I was different. I couldn't really get close to humans.”Nick pulls back and takes her face in his hands to look at her.“Diana, you are human.”“Right,” Diana says, avoiding his eyes.“You are. You're also...more. It's a gift.”“I don’t know.”Diana finally meets his eyes, and all she sees is love. Deep and still and unconditional, and she wonders how they got here. The most powerful hexenbiest in all the world, and the man who raised her to be a good human instead.“It doesn’t feel like such a curse now,” she says, and maybe she means it. Maybe she wouldn’t have it any other way.Eventually, they find a spring in a dappled clearing at the heart of the wood. Nick has Monroe on speaker phone, and they're debating whether the spring is a portal to another dimension. A little way on, Diana spots a stream of water rising from the pool to pour upward into the shape of the same monster from the shop.“Uh, Nick?”But Nick is arguing with Monroe about traveling to another dimension, and he pays no attention to the now multiple forms filling up in the spring.“Nick?”They're turning green now, the black claws starting to solidify, and she squares off just as they leap from the spring, holding them in midair with her power, and gritting out a muffled, “Dad, a little help here?”Nick is there in seconds, and he aims for the heads. They splash around his sword into clear water and quickly drain away. Diana lets the force field drop and then there's perfect silence in the clearing. Even the spring has run dry—no water gargles through the rocks.“What the hell?” Nick is already back on the line with Monroe. “They just melted away! What's the point of that?”“They're growing their numbers,” Diana says. “There was one last night, and there were three now. How many will come next time?”“Too many. Monroe, we need to lock this down. Maybe Alice can have a look?”“Nick…” It's her mom on the phone now, and Diana can see the worry in his eyes.“I know. I know. But they're after her anyway. I'd rather she was prepared. We'll need a dry place. Monroe, look for sheer, rocky areas with no water and a lot of legroom.”“Oh man. How do you feel about snow?”“I don't love it, but see what you can find. Adalind, call Alice and Dan and have them pack warm clothes and the weapons chest. Rosalie, call the triplets and get them out of town. Clear your schedule and pack warm but light. Call Wu, too. We need him and Hank in Portland if this goes poorly. Diana and I are going to get off this mountain and get supplies. We'll all need to hike to safer ground tonight.”There's silence for a moment, then her mom comes through again:“That was kind of hot.”“Mom!”Adalind laughs softly. “You're so easy. I'll call Kelly, too. He’ll need to lie low at college, and then I’ll call Trubel. Nick, do you want to try Eve?”“Want is a relative term.”“Maybe she'll bring her girlfriend.”“Honey, could you not?”Adalind laughs even harder, causing static on the speaker. “Never.”Diana raises an eyebrow at Nick as he hangs up the phone in his hand.“Eve has a girlfriend?”“I don't want to talk about it.”“That's so cool!”“Yes,” he says with a sigh, “I suppose it is. Now let's move.”
***
They get off the mountain and end up climbing another one. Alice does not handle the ascent well. She maintains that she's a witch of leisure, but she stops speaking altogether after the first hour.Diana spells the air around them for light as the sun starts to set. Eventually they reach a flat, bare plateau with no water or vegetation. They make camp behind a shard of rock that gives them some wind protection, and everyone bundles up quickly. “Worst mission ever,” Alice grumbles. She's in a tent with Adalind and Nick while Diana is cozy between Dan and Rosalee in a tent next door. It's a ridiculous situation all round, but it’s still kind of nice to be camping with her family again.She wakes to the sound of a helicopter overhead and then heavy boots on the ground. It would be worrisome, but she can hear Nick's voice outside.“It's about time!”And then Trubel:“You have to call me when the Apocalypse starts, Nick! Those are the rules!”“Who needs rules when we've got old friends?”“What do you mean old? Eve, you hear this?”“I hear it. Women get better with age, Burkhardt.”“Lucky me.”Diana pokes her head out of the tent to get the lay of the land. Straight ahead, Monroe and Dan are building a fire. The wood must have come from the treeline a mile back on their hike, so they’ve been working on it for awhile.To the right, Rosalee hugs Trubel, while Nick and Adalind share an awkward moment with Eve. As far as Diana can tell, they’ve been awkward with Eve for almost twenty years, so no change there.Farther out, Alice sits alone in a nest of blankets, facing the rising sun in the east. The work has begun.When the fire starts to catch and crackle, Diana spells it to burn indefinitely without further fuel. Nick gives her a little smirk, which she ignores in favor of praise and wonder from Dan. It’s kind of fun to be able to surprise someone for once. Her family barely registers her magic these days unless something blows up.Monroe turns his attention to breakfast next, and Dan and Rosalee keep him company by the fireside. Trubel and Eve are setting up their tent in the circle and unpacking their own impressive range of weapons. There’s enough firepower and arcane Grimm paraphernalia on this ridge that they would be pretty well prepared for a new crusade if required. Diana hopes it’s enough.Nick and Adalind stand further off now. She’s leaning into his side while he presses a kiss and words of reassurance against her temple. They’re watching Alice, and Diana feels her own worry start to gnaw at the base of the her stomach.She’d been so young when Zerstörer had come for her, the fear almost hadn’t registered then. She’d lived with Nick for only a few months at that point, and her father had sowed doubt at every turn, but still, when Nick had told her that he would keep her safe, she’d believed him. She’d known then that Nick would defend her and their family until his final breath, and he had. Saving him was easy, after that.Eventually, she takes her own nest of blankets and goes to sit with Alice, who looks pale. Her mouth is drawn tight against pain, the source of which Diana can’t see. “Don’t say anything. This is going to get worse before it gets better.”Diana nods and offers her hand to her sister, palm up and brimming with all the power she can muster. Alice gives her a half smile of thanks, then grabs on.She’s in another world immediately. Alice is up ahead, wading through a lake in a high mountain valley. The water is an opaque, azure blue, and the falls beyond are frothy white. There’s a sword sticking out of the lake, held aloft by a graceful hand. One long, delicate finger beckons, and Alice goes further and further, deeper into the lake but still wading as though through the shallows.She reaches for the sword and everything rotates suddenly—the lake becomes the sky and the cloud under Alice’s feet is pulling her into its depths while the lady of the lake rises from the water flanked by watery, green scaled soldiers stretched out in every direction. Her skin is bare and dark with her long white gold hair sticking to her breasts and stomach in wet whorls like ancient runes. Alice bows her head before her, not even struggling now as the sky drags her down.“Will you join me, Emrys?” asks lake witch, spreading her arms wide. Her voice is deep and echos with rolling water and far off thunder. “I’ve waited a millenia for your return, my love. Will you come to me now and rule at my side?”Alice lifts her head and sways, closer than ever to collapsing as though into a lover’s arms, but Diana is moving now, floating through the sky beneath her feet, trying to get to Alice as she starts to fall. She’s not fast enough—there’s no traction in the air—so she transforms in mid stride—a giant hawk to beat the sky with her wings, racing toward her sister.It would almost be comical how Alice falls like a medieval damsel in distress, if it weren’t also so distressing. Diana sweeps in and snatches her just as the lady of the lake folds over her like a wave. She flies straight and true, and water splashes around them as they burst through her melting torso.“Morgana, the witch,” says the same deep voice full of tempests, echoing from everywhere now as the lake above starts to shed rain. “I thought you were dead.”And then they hit the ground on the plateau with a thump against their backs.Diana dimly registers Nick’s worried face above her before she’s turns her head to look for Alice. Her sister is stretched out beside her, still holding her hand while their mother strokes her head.“Baby, talk to me,” Adalind is saying. “Are you all right? I need you to breathe.”“Water,” Alice mumbles, so softly they all have to lean in to catch it. “So much water.”Diana sits up and checks to see if the sky is in the right position. Slightly reassured, she squeezes Alice’s hand and folds it carefully to rest on her stomach. Nick offers her a hand up, and she takes it to stand and step out of the blankets.“What happened?” Nick asks, but she doesn’t answer while they both watch Adalind cradle a limp Alice against her chest. Nick gestures back to the fire with his head and drapes an arm across Diana’s shoulders to lead her toward the warmth.“Are you okay?”“Yeah, just wiped. That bitch was everywhere.”“Anyone we know?”Diana shakes her head. “Not unless you know any sexy lake witches. I meant she didn’t even woge when she tried to drown us.”“Sexy?”“Yeah. She was gorgeous and terrifying. I think Alice has an admirer.”“Oh good. That’s definitely not how we’d hoped she’d start dating.”“Yeah. I had money on the goth girl she waxed poetic about last summer.”“I have it on good authority that full goth was so last year,” Nick says, chuckling a little despite his worry. “I was hoping for the new bookworm she’s hanging out with.”Diana meets his dark eyes, and she thinks of the teenager her sister will never be. How do you start a young relationship when you can already see how it ends?“Well,” Diana says, looking for a bright side, “this lady looked like she’d read everything and critiqued it like a thousand years ago.”Nick smiles and shrugs.“Well, that’s something, at least.”
***
The mood in camp is subdued that afternoon. Adalind and Alice are in their tent. Alice needed the rest, and Adalind needed to be with her to keep her worrying under control.Monroe and Rosalee went on recognizance, but Diana’s pretty sure that just means they're taking a walk. Diana doesn’t blame them. There’s no such thing as alone time around the fire.Nick and Trubel sit on the far side of the fire, sharpening various weapons with the steady scrape of metal on stone. Eve hasn’t said anything for hours, but the way she’s staring into the flames speaks volumes. She’s always been a loud thinker.Diana leans into Dan and rests her head on his shoulder while his arm pulls her close.“So, is it all you hoped for? My family in action?”“It’s an experience, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen a team like this.”“Yeah. Sometimes I think there’s a reason most Grimms and hexenbiests go it alone. Smaller targets are easier to hide.”“I can't see this bunch hiding anywhere for long.”“Yeah, they don’t really do subterfuge. You should ask Nick about his first beheading. It’s a real doozy.”“Was that the mail incident?”“Yeah.”“The legend precedes him.”“Of course it does. Anyway, none of us are exactly subtle. Maybe Kelly, but he hasn’t got any powers yet, so who knows? Mom still worries he’s going to go full Zauberbiest, but I think he’s just going to be a Grimm.”“Just?”“I mean you’ve met our sister the fortune teller, right?”“Is that where you two went? To see the future?”Diana frowns. “I don’t know. It was pretty mythic—it could have been any time. It felt like the present, though. But the lady, she was ancient—timeless, maybe. You could hear it in her voice.”“Did she say anything?” This comes from Eve, and Diana jumps a little. Eve shows no reaction, just stares into her eyes like she’ll find the answer there. Maybe she will.“She recognized us from somewhere. She called Alice ‘Emrys,’ and she called me ‘Morgana.’ She said she thought I was dead.”“Now that is interesting,” Eve says.“Do you know who she thinks we are?”“Perhaps.”“Do you want to share?”“Give me a few hours.”Eve leaves then, and Diana and Dan watch her go until she ducks into her tent.“Is she always like that?”“Always. I wonder what she’s like with her girlfriend?”“She has a girlfriend?”“Apparently. It’s not the gender thing I wonder about—it’s the closeness to anyone that seems like a stretch to me.”“Well, who among us hasn’t expanded our horizons for the woman we love?”Diana turns to him with a smirk. “Is that what you’re doing? Expanding your horizons?”“Is it working?”“Oh yeah.”“Excellent,” Dan says, grinning as he leans in for a kiss.
***
After dinner, the group gathers in a circle around the fire. Diana holds Alice’s hand and recounts what she remembers. Alice has her eyes closed. She still hasn’t recovered from the journey.“Emrys and Morgana,” Monroe says, looking to Rosalee as he always does, “why does that ring a bell?”“Arthurian legends,” says Rosalee. “Morgan Le Fay or Morgana was Arthur’s sister wasn’t she?”“She was a witch,” Eve says, and everyone turns to look at her. “She was the first witch—a goddess of sorts. She had dominion over war and fate and birds. Her flock of crows could send you to sleep forever, or wake the dead.“She was Arthur’s muse. She led him into battle, and Emrys, Merlin as we know his name now, could see the future and the past, and he led Arthur through the present to victory.“But there was another goddess who wanted what Morgana had. Nimue, of the changing sea. The Lady of the Lake. She lead Arthur to his fatal sword, and she seduced Merlin to his doom, and without her champions, Morganna left the land until the day Arthur and Merlin returned and would need to be protected again.”There’s silence for a minute after this speech, and then Monroe lets out a deep breath. “Well that’s not the version they’re teaching in 10th grade poetry class.”“Thank god for that,” says Rosalee.“So I’m Merlin?” Alice asks, sounding small and young, suddenly sounding like the teenager she is.“Maybe,” Eve says with a steady look. “You are the only hexenbiest I’ve heard of who can see the future and the past without a scrying bowl or some other spell.”“But I’m a girl.”“Merlin once turned himself into a tree. I don’t think switching genders would worry him in the least.”“Well, that explains the tree then,” Rosalee says. “You gained the sight when the tree split open. Some of his power must have come to you.”“Okay,” Nick says, “Let’s slow down. Alice, we love you. Whatever powers you have, whatever their origin, they are yours. Let’s not worry about old wizards and their ex-girlfriends.”“That’s all well and good,” Monroe says, “but that ex is making some serious moves towards forced reconciliation. What do we do?”“What we always do. We fight.”“How?”“I’m working on it.”In the following silence, Dan raises his hand. Everyone turns to look at him. Adalind and Rosalee trade a smile. Nick sighs.“Yes, Dan?”Dan looks a little sheepish, but he presses on anyway. “Are we not going to talk about the part where Diana might be a goddess?”Everyone turns to look at Diana, who squeezes Alice’s hand for comfort.“I mean…” Trubel starts.“Yeah,” Monroe agrees. “Would anyone actually be surprised if Diana turned out to be a goddess?”“Oh god,” Diana says, blushing despite her best efforts. “I really hope not.”“Could be cool?” her mother offers with a small smile.“Did you miss the war part? I’m really not looking to start any wars.”“I think it’s probably more about finishing them.”“That’s a weird flex there, Mom.”“I’m just trying to help!”“Please stop. Let’s talk about Alice’s girlfriend again.”“She is not my girlfriend,” Alice says quietly, and everyone shuts up. “She’s my destiny.”Eve nods from across the fire. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”Alice shakes her head. “Both options are impossible.”“We do impossible twice a year, kid,” Monroe says. “Try us.”“Well, I can try to trap the water goddess like she trapped Merlin of old, but she’s literally made of water. She’ll leak out.”“I could freeze her?” Diana offers.Alice rolls her eyes. “Like you didn’t try that in another life. Spoiler alert, it didn’t end well for anyone.”“Okay. What did Merlin do last time?”“He got trapped in a tree! The man had no game.”“Oh-kay. What’s the other option, Alice?”Alice sits up then, suddenly looking a little more prim than Diana’s seen her in years.“I was thinking…”“You were thinking…?”Alice gives her parents a quick look, and then looks away, up to the stars.“I was thinking...what if I seduce her, instead?”No one has anything to say to that. Nick carefully avoids any expression at all.Alice sighs and looks back at the group around the fire, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.“I told you it was impossible.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When morning comes, the atmosphere is subdued. Diana wonders if anyone actually managed to sleep besides Alice, who thankfully looks better than yesterday. The view from the plateau goes on for miles and miles, and they can see dark clouds forming around peaks in the distance. If the clouds shift closer—and Diana suspects they will—the peace on the plateau will be over soon.At noon, Diana takes the eastern watch, gazing out at the path where danger might arrive at any minute. She can sense something gaining down below—too small for a bear, too large for a wolf—and she almost hopes tigers have moved into the area, because otherwise it’s a man, and they’re not expecting company.“Tigers? In Oregon?” Nick says when she tells him, and she rolls her eyes at the old Monty Python joke.“You are such a dad sometimes.”Nick smiles—just that little quirk of his lips at the corners—and bumps her shoulder with his. “Of course I am. I’m your dad.”The smile drops when a head crests the ridge, and they both lift binoculars to see.There’s a lot of shaggy black hair and over-sized sunglasses, but then Diana recognizes the Burkhardt nose and laughs. Nick does, too.“I’m also his dad, although clearly my fatherly advice has fallen on deaf ears.”“What’s he doing here?”“Oh, you know. I’m sure that famous Schade-Burkhardt impulse control is functioning as usual.”“Which is to say not at all?”“Doesn’t exist! We’re lucky you’ve got that Royal restraint.”“Is that what it is?”“That or we put the fear of god into you. You turned out all right.”“Thanks.”Kelly waves then, 100 feet away, and Diana can’t wait any longer. She levitates him the rest of the way so she can give him a hug.“I hate when you do that,” Kelly whispers in her ear while squeezing her tight.“That’s why I do it, baby brother,” she says, pulling back to pinch his cheek for good measure.Nick steps in then and hugs his son with a good old hair pat thrown in. Diana feels something warm settle into her bones watching the two of them again. She remembers when they were her guys, and today, as they pull her into a sandwich hug, they still are.Adalind is there next, hugging Kelly tight and already asking the tough questions:“Why aren’t you in California? We told you to stay safe and stay put far, far away from this mess.”Kelly sighs and rests his chin on her head—something Adalind hates but will tolerate from him.“Well, I got off the phone with you, and I ran into an Eisbiber and saw his woge on my way to the car. Scared the crap out of him. And I figured that might mean I wouldn’t be totally useless up here, so I came to lend a hand.”Adalind pulls back to look at him, reaching for his face and staring into his eyes. “You’re a Grimm?” She woges then, and they look at each other carefully across a matter of inches.“It’s just me, Mom,” he says softly.When she turns back, Adalind is glowing with pride. “I’m so glad you’re not a Zauberbiest.”“Yet,” says Nick, because he has two hexenbiest daughters and a healthy sense of precaution. “Welcome to the business side of the family, kiddo.”Kelly laughs. “Feels like a long time coming. Can I have a sword now?”Nick grins at Adalind. “What did we say, twenty-five? Phone in second grade and weaponry at twenty-five, right?”Adalind grins back. “Oh, definitely. Twenty-five at least. How old are you again, sweetheart?”“You guys…”“Sounds about twelve,” Nick says, reaching out to ruffle Kelly's hair while Kelly tries to dodge his hands. “Maybe we should wait until thirty.”Kelly just glares at them. “I hate you both so much.”“I know, darling,” Adalind says, pulling him into another tight hug.“Trubel's got a whole war chest,” Nick offers. “We'll find you something.”Alice arrives then, pushing her mother out of the way, and, without any words of greeting, latches onto Kelly like a limpet.Kelly pats her back like he has plenty of times before and looks to the rest of them for insight. When none is forthcoming, he gives Alice a jiggle in his arms and addresses his question to the top of her head. “Hey bugbear, what’s up with you?“I probably have to seduce a sea witch,” Alice says, mumbling into his coat.“Okay. Is she hot?”Alice pulls back to give him a look that could freeze a lesser man, but Kelly just grins.“Very,” Alice says finally, through gritted teeth.“Yeah? Okay. Go get that sea witch!”“You are an idiot. The first hexenbiest that gets her claws into you, you’ll be a total goner.”“Well, it worked okay for Dad.”“Dad has taste!”“Okay kids!” Nick says loudly. “Don’t make me send you to your tents.”They head back to camp where everyone is thrilled to see Kelly. Monroe and Rosalee woge in greeting and Kelly goes in for the sandwich hug. He and Trubel share a complicated secret handshake and even Eve pats his shoulder in welcome. Looking around the group, his eyes come to land hard on Dan.“You’re new here. Where’d they dig you up?”“Hi, I’m Dan,” he says, holding out his hand to shake. “I’m with Diana.”“Oh, really?” Kelly ignores the hand and looks for his sister. “Diana, are you bringing home strays now?”Diana steps in to take Dan’s arm, smiling up at him while she addresses Kelly. “What do you think, should I keep him? He’s a Grimm, too, you know.”“Of course his is,” Kelly says with an eye roll she’d hoped he would have outgrown by now. “You are such a daddy’s girl. No offense, Dan.”Dan shrugs, chill as ever, and Diana is starting to wonder if there’s anything that would shake him now. Maybe after you met a Zauberbiest Royal, there wasn’t really anything else to worry about.“I’m offended,” she tells Kelly. “But also, can you imagine…?”Kelly shudders. “No, no. A Grimm is good. Welcome to the reasonable side of the family, Dan.”Diana meets his eyes again, and Kelly grins. “Okay, that’s a stretch. We’re up a mountain with a small army, and we’re the normal ones.Dan shrugs again with a small smile now. “I like it. It’s a good normal, for a Grimm.”“Yeah? You’re going to have to show me your moves. Trubel says she’s running out of things to show me.”“I said you were running out of things to use without Grimm powers,” Trubel interjects on the other side of camp. “Now you’re souped up, you’re going to have to show us everything you know.”“”I’ll help,” Dan offers.“So will I,” says Eve, with her usual terrifying gaze.“So, no pressure then.” Kelly says with a sigh. “Di, tell me about this sea witch.”Diana fills in the previous day’s revelations, and Kelly lets out a long whistle.“Does that make me King Arthur?”Everyone shares a panicked glance, but Nick just looks at Adalind with a smirk.“Let’s have a third, you said. It'll be fun, you said.”Adalind fights to control a smile of her own. “Listen, we had to plan one, just for the novelty.”“Do you think if we’d had a fourth, he would have been Lancelot?”“I don’t know,” she says, grinning up at him now. “Wanna find out? I’m sure I can find a spell to reverse this pesky menopause.”“Oh no. I am not doing that again.” He looks to Monroe with a wince. “She threw a kettle at my head when the thermostat broke.”“Don’t talk to me,” Monroe says, looking to Rosalee. “You haven’t seen a hot flash until she’s covered in fur.” He tries to dodge Rosalee’s swat to his stomach, but she’s faster.“Three it is,” Adalind says, then, as an afterthought, “Kelly, if a lady offers you a sword from here on out, don’t take it.”“What if she’s hot?”Adalind closes her eyes in exasperation and nods. “Even if she’s hot. Go get yourself set up in the tent, you’re in with us and Alice.”“You guys really cramp my style,” Kelly mutters on his way to the tent.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Diana’s a hawk again. That should be weird, probably, but it just feels lovely to float up here on a thermal, swirling higher and higher toward the bright warm sun shining on the endless sea below.“Emrys,” someone says—a soft, loving whisper—and below she sees Alice floating on the water in one half of a human sized eggshell.“What the hell?” Alice asks. “Why an eggshell?”There’s no one there for a moment, and then there's Nimue, standing in the water in all her dark, watery glory with a crown of white curls. The look she’s giving Alice sulky at best.“It’s traditional for witches, my love.”“It’s weird,” Alice says, peering down at the water below and tipping the eggshell as she does. She leans back quickly, and it dips in the opposite direction while Alice starts to panic and flap her arms.“Shit, shit, shit!”Nimue huffs and rolls her eyes, reaching out to steady the eggshell with one perfectly manicured hand. It the most human she’s ever looked. Diana wonders who does her cuticles.“You were always so picky.”“Sure, take that tone,” Alice says with her own huff. “Is this a dream?”Nimue gives her a look. An “even you can’t be this stupid” look that Diana can read from the air. It’s almost...sweet.“Fine, well, I’d like a rowboat. This eggshell is unstable as all hell.”“Make your own rowboat.”“Fine, I will!” Alice’s face scrunches up tight and moments tick past where nothing happens. Nothing. Nothing. Then, there’s a rowboat. Built from what looks suspiciously like eggshell.“Oh,” Alice says, looking a little deflated. Nimue looks smug.“You are out of practice, Emrys.”Alice sighs. “You can just call me Alice, you know. I’ve been...reincarnated, I suppose. I’m a girl now.”“Oh.”“Is that a problem?”Nimue smiles, maybe a little shyly. “I didn’t fall in love with your looks the first time. There was a lot of...” Nimue strokes her chin, miming a long beard, and Alice blushes and shifts a little in her seat.“Right. This must be weird for you, too.”Nimue shrugs. “I much prefer this. He made such a gnarly old tree.”Alice snorts. “I bet.”They stay there in companionable silence for a moment, staring at each other.“You are so beautiful,” Alice says finally.“As are you, my love.” Nimue leans into the boat then, while Alice leans over the bow and their lips meet for a brief, tender kiss.Alice sits back, smiling. Diana wonders if it’s her first kiss, and then she realizes for the first time in this hazy dreamworld that she shouldn’t be here at all, spying on her little sister and her...girlfriend?“What’s the plan, then?” Alice asks.“Plan?” Nimue looks confused, as if kissing Alice has always been the plan and there is no follow up.“Yeah, the plan. You’ve been searching for me since that damn tree cracked open—what did you plan to do with me when you found me?”“Oh,” Nimue says, and Diana gets the feeling that this is a new thought for her. She’s always chased Merlin, but never thought about what would happen when she found him.“We could…” she starts. Stops. “We could…”“We could.” Alice offers. “Is there a place you had in mind? I’m not sure I could live in a lake, but you know, we could try.”“No,” Nimue says on a deep exhale. “No, I do not want to drown you.”“Well...my world then?”Nimue sticks her lip out, pouting. “They want to kill me.”“They thought you were trying to kill them.”“I was.”Alice sighs. “See, it’s stuff like that that gives me the heebie-jeebies. If we’re going to be together, you can’t hurt my family.”“But—”“Or friends, or really anyone on Earth. We kind of have this hero thing going on.”“Like Arthur,” Nimue says, eyes hard now, frosty.“Sort of?”“You always did take his side.”“Well, he’s my brother. I do love him.”“I knew it!”“Not like that! Oh my god, you are so jealous. This whole thing—this whole time—you just don’t want to share me with anyone else, do you?”“Of course not!”“Well, tough! I’m mortal! I love my people and even if I go with you, even if I spend another millennia trapped with you in a damn lake, I will still have room in my heart for those I leave behind. Grow the fuck up.”Alice is nose to nose with Nimue now, who looks just as surprised as anyone would be that a sixteen year old just told an immortal goddess to grow up. Alice looks away first, turns skyward and sighs.“Can we go now?”Diana barely has time to register that Alice has clocked her presence before she hits the ground again, tangled in her sleeping bag and Dan’s arms in the crowded but toasty tent.“Alice?” she whispers, weaving a channel through the air to speak directly to her sister in the next tent.“Go to sleep, Diana,” Alice says, and that’s the end of that.
***
The storm in the distance gains in size and speed all day. They take turns standing over Alice on the eastern edge while she sits in silence with her eyes closed, watching the future and the past unfold.In the late afternoon, Diana takes Dan to stand watch while she joins Alice on the ground. Alice cracks an eye to look at her, and Diana waits until the storm clears behind her eyes before handing over a thermos of hot chocolate.“How's it going?”Alice clutches the thermos to her chest and shivers.“Very...damp.”“Water goddesses, am I right?” Diana leans in to brush her sister's hair out of her eyes, but Alice shrugs her off with a huff. Diana follows her stare out to the gathering storm. The clouds around the far peak are streaked with lightning now. Diana can feel the power growing there.“She’s coming for me,” Alice says, and Diana turns with back to her sister with what she hopes looks like a reassuring expression.“We’re going to do everything we can to keep you safe, though.”“She doesn’t want to hurt me,” Alice says quietly, then looks back to meet Diana's searching eyes. “She just wants...me. She wants to love me. She just doesn’t understand what that really means, yet.”Diana considers this. She thinks about a time when she was sixteen, and she would have given anything for the boy she liked to have wanted her back. She thinks about the way she keyed his car when he wouldn’t—couldn’t reciprocate. She wonders if a thousand years is long enough to get over your first real love and then realizes that the clouds around the far mountain means it isn’t.“Do you know what happened? Before, I mean. With Nimue and Merlin?”Alice nods slowly. Her eyes shift again—dark now as she looks back in time.“He promised her magic and love and a world without end. And best of all, a place in his world, away from the lake and sea. A human life. She’s stuck in the water, you know. She’s cursed to stay there. She thinks her soulmate can free her.”“How?”“I don’t know. I don’t think she does either. Merlin said he would try, but when Arthur died on the sword she gave him, Merlin blamed her.”“Was it her fault?”Alice closes her eyes and shakes her head. “No. Some things are just fate. But they fought about it, and he threatened her, and then she trapped him in a tree at the water's edge, and he refused to speak to her for a thousand years.”Dan lets out a sharp whistle, startling both of them. “That's a heck of a fight.”“Pouting,” says Diana. “Isn’t that just like a man.” She sticks her tongue out at Dan who smirks and shrugs in return. Diana turns back to Alice, who is hugging her arms around herself.“Alice?”“Mmm?”“Are you...well. Are you Merlin, now? Do you remember her?”“Yes,” Alice says on a sigh, long and weary, eyes still closed.“Oh.”“When I went back—when I watched them fight—when I watched them fall in love—I could feel what he felt. I felt it, too. I fell in love with her, and I felt betrayed when Arthur died, then I was angry, and she must have felt the same way.”Diana looks up to Dan, Grimm-faced now and impassible. He raises one eyebrow, and Diana shrugs. Who are they to judge?“So...you do love her then?”Alice nods slowly, eyes finally opening to watch to clouds on the horizon.“What if…” Alice takes a deep breath and holds it. Lets it go. “What if she weren’t threatening the world?”Diana nods and shifts closer to rest a hand behind Alice while they both watch the lightning flash around the far peak.“That would be a good start.”“Yeah.”“How would you convince her to stop this?”“I could go with her.”“Where?”“Wherever she wants.”Diana does her best to keep her face neutral, staring out at the horizon. “Wouldn't that be…”“Damp?”“I was going to say dangerous.”“Maybe.”Diana takes a deep breath then and looks to Dan, who’s showing no emotion, and then looks to Alice. Her baby sister. Eloping with a sea witch.“I don't know if this is the most helpful thing to say right now, but Alice—you are only sixteen. Going away with Nimue...that sounds like a forever thing.”“She is a forever thing.”Well, Diana thinks, a seer would know.“Okay. I would miss you though.”Alice makes a noise then—something like a sob—and slumps into Diana's lap. Diana gathers her up, cradling her close and stroking her short hair.“We would all miss you, Alice. We love you. Very much.”Alice cries for a long time while Diana strokes her hair and wonders if she could rig up a long distance phone connection across dimensions, if it comes to it.Finally the sobs turned to sniffles and Alice sits up, wiping her eyes and nose with her sleeve.“I would miss you guys, too. Especially if one of her warrior dudes killed someone. I can't let that happen.”“That sounds like a good plan.”“Maybe…”“Maybe?”“Maybe she could come with me? Maybe she could just...be human? Ish. Like us?”“Like Merlin promised? The first time?”“Yeah. I’d have to go digging in his past for his plan to free her from the water, but if he could do it…”“Maybe we could?”“Would you help me?” Alice looks up at her with those big eyes—her little sister, facing her own demons, looking to her big sister for help—and Diana feels warmed through for the first time in ages. “Would I help you break a curse on your deadly, ancient, goddess girlfriend so she could come live happily ever after with you in Portland?”Alice blushes and nods. “Yes?”“Of course—I thought you’d never ask,” Diana says, grinning now. “You have to tell Mom and Dad you’re immortal soulmate is moving in though.”“Oh, crap.”
***
“You want to do what?” Nick’s hands are stationed in the crisis position on his hips while he surveys Alice like a crime scene. Alice scowls under his gaze.“I want to free Nimue from her immortal, watery prison and then maybe date her?”“You just met her! Like yesterday.”“Yes, but—how long did it take you to fall in love with Mom, again?”Nick’s eyes flick to Adalind, who’s smirking, and then to Eve, who’s doing her best to look as inscrutable as the rock behind her.“Years.”“Dad.”“Okay, fine,” he says, rubbing his neck now, “I should have known sooner.”“Like first-sight sooner?”He sighs then and drops his hands to his sides with a small smile. “Don’t push it.”Adalind leans into him then, and he wraps an arm around her, dropping a kiss in her hair. “Our teenager wants to move her girlfriend into the house. I feel like that’s problematic from a parenting point of view.”“Probably,” Adalind agrees. “Everyone in the neighborhood is going to think we’re the reckless, cool parents.”“We are the reckless, cool parents.”“Since when?” Diana asks.“Since we let you run off to Boston on your own at nineteen.”Diana laughs and rolls her eyes. “It’s called college, Mom.”“Mmmm. Well, at least we’ll have a few more years with this one.” She’s looking at Alice now, who’s doing her best well behaved little girl routine—hands clasped behind her back, lips pressed together, bouncing on the balls of her feet in anticipation.“And Nimue, I guess,” says Nick. “But first, we have make her human. Ish. Otherwise she’ll be hell on the wood floors.”“Is that a yes?” Alice asks, eyes wide now. “You guys will help?”“Of course we’ll help, baby,” Adalind says, pulling Alice into her arms with Nick. “We love you, and we’ll support you no matter what. We’re just going to have to figure out the living situation later.”A few steps away, Diana smiles at them and then looks out at Dan and Kelly, standing watch on the eastern edge. They look like brothers at this distance—all dark hair and broad shoulders, but Kelly still has to look up at Dan, who has a few inches and pounds of muscle on him. Dan looks like family—her family—and she hopes he’ll want to join her here in Portland when this is done.“Nimue can live with me, if it comes to that,” Diana says, out loud, and her parents look up, wide-eyed. Her mother starts to tear up. “I’m moving home. I think it’s time.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The book crackles as Diana turns the pages. There's a sense of age there—centuries in the binding, decades in the lambskin cover—each page another year in the life of an immortal sorcerer. Or maybe just a powerful zauberbiest. Who knows what Merlin really was, back in the day.Across the room, Alice is digging through scrolls in a frenzy. Diana can’t image that she’s going to find anything, but if it helps, well…Nimue arrives eventually. There’s a puddle of water at her feet and for once she looks less than perfectly composed.“What are you doing here?” she asks, and it’s the first time she’s ever been surprised to see them since these freaky dream meetings started happening.“We’re looking for a way to free you, my love,” Alice tells her and then looks at the puddle on the floor in confusion. “How are you even here? Aren’t you stuck in the water?”“The sorcerer that lives here—he spelled the floor for me. It shares a plane with the lake.” Nimue tells her, peering at her in the dim torch light. “Your love? I don’t even know you, child.”Alice freezes half way across the room, eyes wide.“You don’t know who I am?”Nimue shakes her head. “Who are you?”“Freaking powers,” Alice mutters, and then she looks at Diana, who shrugs. For all her magic, Diana’s never conducted an inter-dimensional love affair, and she has no advice to offer at this point.Alice sighs and continues her path to Nimue, reaching tentatively for her hand—a little shy and a little cautious—but when Nimue gives her hand freely, Alice smiles into her watery blue eyes.“You know me, my love. You always know me. Bird and fish and snake and bear—you know me in all my disguises. Is a modern girl so very different?”Nimue blinks and smiles. Blinks again.“Emrys,” she says, like a prayer, leaning in, and Alice leans with her, a breath a part.“Aw,” says Diana. “You’re both so cute!”They both turn to her look at her then, and she jumps a little under their bug eyed stares."Right! Private moment, right. I'll just--" She waves her hands behind her vaguely and then does her best to fade into the background by the bookshelf. Alice rolls her eyes."Sorry, she's such a weirdo.""But you love her.""Of course. She's my big sister, and she's going to rule the world someday. She's going to be great at it. She’s also just a total weirdo sometimes.""You don't want to rule the world?” Nimue asks. “I could give it to you. You could have your pick of palaces, and we could travel all your dominions in full state like the queens of old."Diana holds her breath, but Alice is already rolling her eyes again."I don't want dominions, my love." She reaches for Nimue, pulling her into her arms. The goddess is a full head taller than her, but somehow she seems to fit. "I want you, and I want to finish my education, and get a job and a dog, and help Mom and Dad and Kelly run Portland, and help Diana not screw up the world, and be with you and my family and just, you know, live a full life together. Would you be interested in that ever? With me?""Oh.” Nimue looks surprised. “A mortal life? A mayfly existence on one plane with no escape?""Yeah, although when you put it like that, I can kind of see where you might not—"Nimue's already kissing her—pulling her in closer and deeper until there's no space between them. Diana closes her eyes and tries to block out the little moans they're making. She's going to have to quarantine and expel this memory from her mind later. She doesn't need to know this about her little sister's love life."Yes," Nimue says, finally, a little breathlessly. "Yes, I want a mortal life. If it has you in it, that's what I want.""Thank goddess," Alice whispers, and then leans in to kiss her again.***It's all rather anticlimactic, in the end. While Alice and Nimue neck in the middle of the room, Diana spells her ears with the magic equivalent of noise cancelling headphones and gets to work. She finds it in the fifth book she tries and when she turns to get Alice's attention, she's relieved to find that they're just holding each other now while kneeling on the floor."I found a thing," she tells them. "A way for Nimue to become mortal and join our world. Any takers?"They both scramble up, and Diana is struck by how much younger Nimue looks all of a sudden. Like a teenager. She is a goddess, Diana thinks, and they tend to go in for that triple form thing, don't they? Maiden, mother, crone. She's gone all maiden-ish for Alice. It's really sweet."What did you find?" Alice asks, peering down at the text. Diana waves a hand and the letters rearrange themselves into modern English for Alice's review."It's a spell—more of a ritual really. A marriage, of sorts, between you and Nimue and the elements of our world. The ancient ones, you know? Earth, air, fire, water. We'd need to do it in our world, though. No dreamscapes.""Okay," Alice says, and then she grins, looking to Nimue. "Wanna meet my folks?"***When they get back to camp, there’s a surprising amount of activity. The whole family is training Kelly, and it looks like brawl. They arrive in time to watch Eve throw Kelly into the sheltering rock with her power, and everyone winces for him.“That’s got to hurt,” Monroe says, and Nick and Adalind share a look.“It totally does.”“Yeah,” says Nick, “give him a second. You all right, kid?”Kelly waves a hand where he’s laying on the ground and rests his other arm over his eyes. “I’m just going to stay down here. Aunty Eve can throw someone else around for a bit.”Eve just shrugs. “Sure.”“That would be a hell no,” Monroe says while Rosalee goes to assess the damage to Kelly.“He’s fine. Just some bad bruising. I can make something for the pain—start the healing faster.”“I got it,” Diana says, and the group turns, not expecting her and Alice to have returned. Diana goes to help Rosalee and Kelly, and he’s back on his feet in no time.“Well you’re getting handy with the healing magics,” Rosalee says, giving her a smile. “It’ll be good to have you back in town.”Diana blushes and feels something like guilt pass through her. She’s been in Boston for years, and her family has been here defending the home front, mending themselves when she should have healing them all along.She opens her mouth to apologize—for not being here, for not taking care of all their scrapes and bruises and wounds over the intervening years—but Rosalee is still smiling. She reaches for Diana and brings her into a hug.“It’s okay, Diana. You had to go. And now you’re home, and we’re just glad you’re here.”Diana swallows and nods, speechless, and lets Rosalee pat her back and hair like she always has, soaking it in to make up for lost time.***Diana steals a quiet moment with Dan before dinner. What with one thing and another, there’s been no time to talk to him since she decided to move back to Portland, and she feels guilty. He probably should have been the first to know.“So, I have some news—”“You’re not coming back to Boston,” he says, deep and serious, staring down at her with that quiet Grimm stare that’s eerily familiar.“Well, I’ll have to go get my stuff, but yeah. I need to be with my family now. I’m ready to get back to saving Portland every week.”“Okay,” he says, still giving her that look. She fidgets a little, and he takes her hands. Gives them a squeeze.“Diana—”“Dan—”He laughs then, just a little, and she can breathe again.“Where do I fit in?” he asks.“Anywhere,” she tells him. “Everywhere. I know we really haven’t been together that long, and I can’t make you follow me across the country, but my teenage sister met her soulmate yesterday, and they’re getting married tomorrow, and I just don’t think the normal rules apply to our kind of people, you know?”“I know,” he says, pulling her into his arms. “I’ll follow you. Anywhere you go, I’ll follow you.”“You know there’s probably a throne at the end of this, right?” She mumbles the question into his chest, half hoping he won’t hear.“Does it have you on it?” He’s whispering in her ear, and she shivers. It feels so good.“Most likely, yes.”“Then that’s where I’ll be,” he tells her. “Right next to your throne and probably, what—three steps behind? I’ve seen the Princess Diaries. I know how this works.”She giggles, but then she pulls back to look at him, serious now.“Are you sure?”He grins. “Are you kidding? I’ve never been to Portland, much less Europe. Show me the world, Diana. I’m yours.”***Diana and Alice share their news of Nimue and the ritual over dinner around the fire. Everyone’s taking it surprisingly well, but their mother looks a little shaken.“You’re getting married?”Alice squirms a little in her seat. “Well magically, yes. And metaphysically, also yes. But legally—we can wait. Maybe after college? You can help me pick out the perfect white suit then, I promise.”Adalind looks at Nick. “Our baby is getting married tomorrow.”Nick squirms a little now, clearly uncomfortable, but he rises to the occasion as usual. “Yes, Adalind, I think she is.”Adalind sighs and pulls Alice in for a tight hug. “It’s going to be a really nice suit. And we’re going to rent a ridiculous venue, and there will be flowers and cake, and you will be twenty-five, and it’s going to be spectacular.”Alice looks to Diana, panic in her eyes, but Diana just looks back with a shrug. If she’s old enough to commit to Nimue for life, then she should be old enough to handle their mother on her own, too.“Sure, Mom,” Alice says finally, squeezing Adalind back. “The legal one will be beautiful.”“So, this is it then?” Kelly asks. “This sea witch chick, she’s the girl for you?”“Yeah,” Alice says, still leaning into her mother’s arms. “I think she is.”Kelly shrugs and nods. “At least you're not like, five. That's better than Diana and Zerstorer, I guess.”Diana jumps a little at the name, and Dan gives her a puzzled look.“Who?” he asks.Alice looks up at him with a grin. “Her first boyfriend. He was the actual devil.”“What?”“He tried to end the world for her, too. There's kind of a high bar for romantic gestures in this family.”Dan looks to Diana with one raised eyebrow. “Should I be stepping up my game?”Diana shakes her head and kisses his cheek. “You brought me flowers on our fifth date, and you've never killed my mother. We’re good.”***The night passes without incident or dream meetings for once, and the next morning they prepare for the rain. There’s a lot of bustle while they pack up camp and sort out weapons. If today goes well, they’ll all be home tonight. If it doesn’t, well—They won’t need the camp.When everything’s packed, they move to the eastern edge, watching the storm. It’s moving closer now, while puffy white clouds trail behind it like a bridal train.Everyone has a weapon ready—magic, claws, swords, and crossbows. They’re ready for anything—joy or battle. It’s a Burkhardt family wedding, all right.When the rain starts, Alice looks up, letting it wash over her. She looks blissful, but Diana shifts around with the water in her boots thinking that it really isn’t fair that they’re all going to be soaked through because her girlfriend is a total drama queen.“If those scaly things come back, go for their heads,” Nick orders, and Diana sighs.“Dad, really?”“Don't care,” Nick says. “Aim for their heads.”“It's always the heads with you people,” Dan says, and Nick grins at him.“Heads work, kid.”There’s no need for beheading when Nimue arrives. She rises from the water on the ground like the goddess she is. She towers over them, staring down is disdain.“This is the army you would bring against me?”Alice looks around at them and grins. “This is us. Meet the family.”“They are tiny,” Nimue says. She does not look impressed.Nick shrugs. “You’d be surprised what we can do without an army, even. You better treat my little girl right.”Their eyes lock, and there’s a tense moment. Nimue doesn’t woge exactly, but Diana has a feeling she’s getting a full dose of his Grimm eyes all the same. Nimue looks away first. She might even be blushing.“My men—” she says to Alice now, almost a whisper, “they almost killed one of them.”Alice lets out a deep breath. “Yeah, that was not great. But, well, you know, that's just Tuesday for Hank. He's very...forgiving.”“Very forgiving,” adds Adalind.“Seriously the best,” says Monroe.“And I mean Eve helped kill my grandmother in another life,” Alice says, “and we still invite her to everything.”“They're very nice,” Eve agrees with a shrug. “It's their biggest weakness.”“And strength,” Rosalee says.“The new trailer doesn’t hurt,” Trubel adds.“See?” Alice says, reaching for Nimue’s hands. “Let us love you. It'll be great.”“And you?” Niume only has eyes for Alice. Diana thinks she’s shorter now, closer to Alice’s height so that they can look into each other’s eyes. “You will love me?”“I will love you best of all,” Alice promises. “Come and be my love, Nimue.”The ritual is simple, which is how Diana knows it will work. Alice and Nimue stand together in the puddle. The sun has come out again, and Diana does a quick evaporation spell on their clothes to put everyone in a better mood. With that taken care of, she goes to the couple with a length of thick rope stolen from Trubel’s war chest.“I’m going to bind your hands together, okay? Place your left hands together—yes, hold each other’s wrists, it will be easier. Now the rope—” She winds the rope around their hands in a figure eight pattern—back and forth in the infinity sign—until the rope runs out and she tucks the end into the pattern.“Now your right hands. Alice, yours comes to me. Nimue, yours goes to Kelly.”Kelly’s there now, reaching for his future sister-in-law’s hand like this is just another day. He sends her a wink, and Nimue blushes again. Alice hasn’t stopped smiling since they started, but now she sticks her tongue out at Kelly. Diana feels the warmth of them there—Alice, Kelly, and Nimue. The new generation of Portland’s heros, rising to take their place in the next phase of Grimm, Inc.“Kelly, give me your left hand, over theirs. We complete the knot. Alice, it’s time for the vows.”Alice nods and take a deep breath. She looks to Nimue and smiles again, just for her now. “My love, I promise to cherish you in this mortal life and whatever world waits for us beyond. I promise to tether you to this place with my bones, to hold you in my heart, and love you with all my power.”Diana can hear their mother and Rosalee sniffling somewhere behind them, no doubt in Nick and Monroe’s arms, as usual. She sniffs a little herself and then nudges Nimue a little with her mind.Nimue glances her way, surprised, and then looks back to Alice.“I—”Everyone holds their breath then. This is it. Will she or won’t she?She will.“I promise, my love. I promise to do no harm to this world that you love. I promise to learn your ways and join your life in this family of witches and warriors. I promise to live with you a mortal life and love you still immortally from this day until the last.”There’s a sigh of relief from the family, and Diana looks to Kelly with a nod.“With the earth, I bind thee,” he says, serious, finally, for the first time in a long time.“With the air, I honor thee,” says Alice.“With the fire, I shrive thee,” Diana says.“With the water, I follow thee, now and forever, world without end,” says Nimue.There’s a moment where nothing happens, and Diana almost looks around to check, but then everything happens—all at once. The wind picks up and the rain lashes down, while the earth surges under their feet, and purple fire rages from her chest, sweeping over them and catching the rope on fire. The flame springs up and passes through all of their hands, and then it burns out, just as abruptly as it began.They’re all on the ground now, knocked down by the elements. Alice and Nimue are still holding hands, and they’re glowing. The light recedes into Nimue, lighting her from within for one glorious moment before it reaches her eyes and streams out into the sky.She takes one breath and then another.“How do you feel?” Alice asks, moving to sit beside her and looking down.“Tiny,” Nimue says, staring up at her. “But loved, I think.”“I feel like that a lot,” Alice says, reaching out with her right hand to stroke Nimue’s white, curly hair. “Do you miss it? Your goddess powers or whatever?”Nimue blinks with the strange ground against her back and a new sky above her for the first time in a thousand or more years.“I don’t think I miss it at all.”***They wait to celebrate until they make it back home. Hank and Wu are at the house by the time they get there. Wu’s kids are running around with confetti that he does not look sorry enough about, and Hank’s girlfriend brought a very nice bottle of champagne to start the proceedings off right. Everyone wants to meet Nimue, and Diana wouldn’t blame her if she took to the stairs and hid from all the commotion, but Nimue stays beside Alice, holding her hand and blushing like a sixteen year old girl. Which she is now, Diana thinks, and won’t that be fun.“So she’s a real girl now? How did you do it?” Wu asks Nick, handing him a beer, and Nick just shrugs.“Ask Diana. We couldn’t have done anything about this without her.”“Oh-kay.” He looks to Diana. “Same question, then?”“Where’s my beer?” she asks, and he grins.“I always liked you. Come on then.”They head to the kitchen, and he finds her a beer while she tells him about Merlin and Nimue and Morgana and Arthur.“They were physical manifestations of this ancient power, I think. They each embodied an element, and they held the world in balance. But there was a price—immortality—and they had to give it up to live in the world. They all did it, at one time or another. They traded eternity and some of their power for successive human lives—reincarnation, almost—but Nimue didn’t or couldn’t. It’s not clear how, but she got stuck, basically, in the water she ruled. But she loved Merlin in all his forms, and when he fell in love with her, he had to figure it all out again. He came up with the ceremony to free her and bind her life to his, but then Arthur died. And without him, the whole ritual falls apart. They had to wait a thousand years to find us all together again.”Wu snorts around his beer. “A thousand years and the whole world to choose from, and you all ended up here in Portland? Figures.”***“I've been thinking about Vienna,” Diana tells Nick later in the kitchen.Alice and Nimue are in the living room, testing her hexenbiest-like mortal powers under Adalind and Eve’s supervision. Dan and Kelly are in the backyard, shooting beer bottles with crossbows while Kelly grills Dan on his intentions, one Grimm to another. Trubel’s already headed off on her next adventure, and everyone else has gone home—Wu and his family, and Hank and his girlfriend, and Monroe, Rosalee and the triplets. She hadn’t seen the triplets since their high school graduation, and she’s so glad to be back now, she could almost forget that this isn’t the last stop on her life’s journey.Almost.Nick's quiet for a moment while they both think about the throne and the long line of dead princes that stretches out behind it.“Kid, I told you years ago that you could make any kind of life that you wanted. I meant it. You never have to go to Vienna, not if you don't want to.”Diana smiles at him and leans into his shoulder, resting her head under his. “I know. But when my father goes—and eventually he will—the power vacuum won't end just because I don't show up. Someone else will, and they could be worse than me or my father. At least we know I was raised right.”Nick wraps his arms around her and kisses her head. “Raising you was a privilege, Diana. We all did our best.”“I know. I'm so lucky to have you all.”They stand like that for a long time, resting against the counter and each other. When it's almost dark outside, Nick stirs. “Let’s go watch the magic practice. I can’t believe we’ve got another hexenbiest in the family.”Diana snorts. “You started it.”Nick grins. “True. Thank god you’ve found another Grimm. Should I tell him you want a big diamond?”“Dad—don’t you dare.”He laughs then and gives her a hug. “I’m just happy for you, kid.”Diana’s happy, too.As they head out of the kitchen, Nick pauses.“Maybe you should talk to Rosalee,” he says. “She's been running this town for a few years. She might have some insight into ruling for you.”“There’s an idea,” Diana says, considering. “ We have a pretty weird family, you know?”“Wouldn't have it any other way.”“Me either.”***Two days later, in her official office, Rosalee puts a fresh pad of paper down in front of Diana. “I want you to write down what you think government should be doing,” she says.“Your government?” Diana asks. She hasn’t lived in Portland for ten years, and somehow she can’t remember anything about Rosalee’s policy platform.“Any government,” Rosalee tells her. “It's a big job, and at some point you're going to be so deep in the details that you're going to forget why you started and what you want to accomplish. So, I want you to write it down, now.”Looking at the blank page, Diana is suddenly overwhelmed by the scope of it. There's so much to be done.“What if I can't do it all?”“You can't,” Rosalee tells her, and it’s a relief. “That's what your staff and your friends and your family are for. Leading is about setting a course for a better place and then doing your best to help everyone else get there with you. You’ve seen Nick do it. You have to listen and help each other and work together, even when you really don’t want to.”“So I can't do it alone?”Rosalee just smiles.“Well, you are only human, Diana.”
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Fourteen Years Later
***
When Alexandra is nine, she sets the school library on fire. It's an honest mistake, or at least that's what they say when the arsonist is a princess. Still, the headmaster asks the palace to send a car for her. Everyone could use a little break, and the sprinklers are still going off in the 2nd floor corridor.No one expects the Queen, least of all Alex.“I thought you were in Rome!”“I was. And now, I'm here.”“Uh oh,” Alex says, staring up into her mother's cool, blue eyes. “Is this an international incident?”Diana raises an eyebrow. “You set a building on fire. Your Aunt Alice saw it from Portland. The word she used was conflagration.”“It wasn't on purpose! I was trying to summon a book, and I got a candle instead.”“And?”“And it, like, exploded. It was totally awesome!”Diana levels a stern look at her daughter—one she’s learned from the best—and Alex folds almost immediately.“Sorry, Mom.”Alex looks to the floor, scuffing her dirty sneakers against the marble of the entry hall, and, for a moment, Diana wishes she wasn't the Queen. She wishes she could give her daughter a normal life in a normal school with no powers to get her into trouble.But then, no one is normal, and her little girl will be Queen one day. It's time to start raising her for the responsibility.Diana squats down next to her daughter, meeting her eyes with a smile.“Let's go get some ice cream, kid.”Alex blinks. “Don't you have, like, a government to run?”“Mmmmm. But the trick to running anything is to get good people you can trust and give them the tools they need to do their best work. Then you give them the direction to go in and do your best to help them get there.”“Are you even running this government?” Alex wants to know, and Diana smiles even wider.“Every single inch of it. But I've got a few hours.”“For ice cream?”“And a walk,” Diana says, holding a hand out to her daughter. “Let's take the long way.”