Earth was....complex.

That, Dagon thought, was the truest lesson of her time here. That this planet was strange, and that things were infinitely more complex here than she could have imagined.

So, with a huffed sigh, she decided to test what Viatrix had given her--the phone application that, allegedly, would carry her home. She wanted to take Encke, to let him wander the foggy streets of her world with her, but she wanted to be...

Well, she wanted to be entirely sure that she would be able to get back before she took someone else. So she went out on her own, and found a nice roof, and climbed it, and took a long moment to sit on the edge and look out at the starry sky. It was so hidden here, by all the city lights, and below her, she could hear the hustle and bustle of the city. Even so late at nigh,t it was so vivacious. So full of all the life that the rest of the universe seemed to lack.

A smile crossed her face. The life the rest of the universe lacked for now. She had now been to two worlds that had animals. Insects, mostly, but insects were a start. And that start might mean that there was more coming. That worlds might wake up, that they might teem with life again. Perhaps they would not be like this, like Earth--not for a long time--and they certainly wouldn't be what they had been before, but the past was past, and nothing could bring it back in truth.That was simply the way of things.

It was with a soft sigh that she closed her eyes, heart racing with possibilities, and pressed the button on her phone that would carry her away to space. This had to work--it had worked for Encke and Keiko, and there was no reason that she ought to be different.

Before she opened her eyes, she knew.

There was no breeze, but she could smell the salt-tang of the sea in the air. She could feel the chill of the fog, as it threatened to sink into her bones, and she knew.

She was home.

She was still seated, too, and she could feel water around her legs. She kicked once, twice, contentedly, glad to feel it on her skin again, before she opened her eyes--

And realized exactly where she was.

A knife across her throat. Adalinn's scream, Kalari's wail of agony--

Wet. Cold. An inhale--salt water in her lungs. Eyes coming open to find herself under the surface of the healing spring, and she scrambled to breach it, because she needed to get back to her wife and child, needed to make sure they were okay--

Gasps of horror as she breached the surface. But she'd barely had time, or thoguht, then--she had to get back to their little house, to find--

To find

Bodies.

The love of her life, her soulmate, and their beautiful daughter, slaughtered.

She had come to understand, later, exactly what had happened. The invaders had intended to leave her corpse in the healing spring to pollute it with death--but they had not counted on its last gasp of strength giving her life again. They had not counted on her returning, to slaughter her way through their armies, and to lead a resistance that ultimately destroyed them.

Not that it meant much, when the world itself was dying--but that last scream of defiance, the last war of the Dagonite people...it had meant something. Dagon felt, in her bones, that it must have.

And for all the pan she endured that day, she knew--this spring meant new life. Meant her life.

She sank from the edge into the waters, and closed her eyes, and ducked under. There was still magic here, she knew, but it was much weaker than before. And as she let herself sink beneath the surface, towards the bottom, Dagon felt something sink into her.

Her world was welcoming her home. And while she knew she intended to return to Earth, she stayed there for a time, in the embrace of the spring.

And when she left the waters, when she returned to Earth, the fog of her homeworld came with her.

[wc: 710 words]