Mimisbrunnr hated the night. She hated the very idea of having to keep going through with a fight that had become all but meaningless to her. But she had very little other choice - sleep came in fits and starts, interrupted by nightmares of a colder, harder Mimisbrunnr who glowed incorruptible but who did horrible things without batting an eye in the name of freedom, a Mimisbrunnr who had stood unbowed and unbent and unbroken even at the end, swearing to return and wreak vengeance. A monster.

She was alone in her apartment, which was so obsessively cleaned that it practically sparkled. Marie was gone, school was out of session, she had done all the work she could manage on her dissertation for her Ph.D.

There was nothing to do but be Mimisbrunnr, because Talaitha Lovel had nothing else.

So she moved from rooftop to rooftop in the dark, the glow of her bow and of Hyperborea’s hope pendant illuminating her. There was no hiding, not when she was all in white and her weapon glowed like it did. That was fine with her. She wasn’t trying to be Batman, or anything, and if her being a bright beacon kept the Negaverse out of the way, then all the better. Let them run. Let them be afraid.

Because maybe Mimisbrunnr could become the nightmare she’d seen in the future. She could be dangerous, could be strong and powerful and violent, even - surely that was something she could achieve. Maybe it was even what the city needed, because being gentle wasn’t getting anywhere.

Case in point, Fangite.

She tried. She was trying every time she met him, to find the bright spark she knew had to be there. The spark that would make him Nile of Uranus, instead of an officer. But she was failing and she was just making things worse, she suspected. He looked sick and sad and drawn all the time, and she was constantly afraid that her efforts to bring him to the light would make it worse. He had lost so much, was in so much pain - and she couldn’t do anything about it.

Mimisbrunnr sighed and continued on her patrol, thinking back to the last time she had been to her Wonder. She had been working at her Knighthood, and Aishe believed that there was only one thing left before she could take up the full mantle of Knight Mimisbrunnr - an oath sworn over the Well.

Aishe’s had been one of silence, made a thousand years ago, that she had kept until the day she died. Her only communication with the outside world had been frequently-exchanged letters, sent by signet ring to other Knights all across the galaxy.

Talaitha could not afford such an oath, but she couldn’t think of any other to take. Perhaps silence wouldn’t be so bad - the grim-faced, unspeaking soldier of Mercury, withdrawn from everything else. She would have to quit her teaching job, and the thought broke her heart because she loved her students, but could she really serve them as she was, angry and bitter and broken inside? The last school year had been extremely difficult for her, and she knew that it showed when she was dealing with her kids, and that hurt. She didn’t want to be a bad teacher, didn’t want to be a disappointment in her chosen career, but maybe if she quit and got her doctorate she could teach correspondence classes or something. Surely DCU could make accommodations for someone magically rendered medically disabled.

(She suspected, given Hvergelmir’s oath, that her Wonder would have ways to enforce her silence. That...sounded less awful than she’d considered.)

She sighed, continuing on her way across the rooftops near her school, and suddenly the aura of a Negaverse Captain caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes behind her visor and leapt from one rooftop to the next, boots clicking faintly against the roof. She drew, aimed, fired her bow - the bright blue arrow struck the startled Captain in the chest, lighting him up for a brief moment, him and the broken, still body of a Page in the rich green and brown and garnet of Pluto underneath him, and the puddle of blood spreading around them both, and he narrowed his eyes at her.

She felt a surge of horror. Watching someone murdered was bad enough but -- but that wasn’t it, that wasn’t all, not even close.

She knew that face.

She knew him as a General, as a monster who had attempted to forcibly corrupt her and then, when he couldn’t, had slaughtered an entire class of children and forced her to flee after she killed him.

Her heart began to race, as she watched him buckle and gasp under the force of whatever horrifying cosmic revelation her magic had forced on him.

“I know you,” she said. “I know what you’ll do. I’ve seen what you’ll become.”

“And I’ve seen what you’ll become,” he sneered back at her, eyes narrowed, and suddenly there was a pair of curved daggers in his hand, wicked-sharp and reflecting the light of her bow.

“Then you know I’ll kill you.” She wondered if he remembered her civilian identity, or just what he’d done to push her to murder.

“Not if I kill you here and now,” he snapped back, and he struggled up against the grip of her magic, throwing himself forward. She stopped bothering with channelling, bringing her bow around as a melee weapon and fending off his attacks. They were evenly matched - she was small, but quick and practiced, and he was angry and defensive and a little wild with his strikes. Mimisbrunnr felt her heart pounding, and her focus narrowed to nothing but catching, deflecting, moving faster and surer than him, ensuring that she caught all of his strikes. One slipped under her guard, slicing her open across the hip, and she swore violently, taking a few steps back. He was on her again quickly, and now he was pressing his advantage, moving them closer and closer to the opposite edge of the roof. Her heart began to pound. If he didn’t stab her to death or slit her throat or pull her starseed, he could just throw her over the edge, and that would be it.

She was going to die tonight, unless she thought very fast and fought very hard.

She let him close in again, but held her ground, refusing to be pushed back anymore. This was it, her only choice, her last stand.

She brought her knee up between them, hard, making him double over and gasp, and then she twisted around, getting behind him and bringing her bow up against his throat. She felt his entire body tense, and he dropped his daggers, hands coming up to try desperately to pull it away.

Time froze, for her. Could she really do this? She was sure she knew how, just a twist and a...a snap, and the threat would be over, he would never hurt anyone ever again. But he was a person. A person who’d hurt other people, but a person. Young and scared and fighting for his life.

“I’m sorry,” Mimisbrunnr whispered, and then she twisted her bow just right, catching him across the side of the face and twisting too far until -

Snap.

She let him fall at her feet, panting heavily, and took a step back, the glow from her bow still illuminating them both. She stood, and she waited, waited for the officer to melt away to be replaced by the civilian. In the minutes that ticked by, she found herself second-guessing, recounting - should he have tried to talk, to bring him around? But he’d barely given her a chance, had made it clear that he wanted her dead, had…

No, surely, she had no other choice. He had to die, that was that.

She turned back around, walked over again, and this time it was just in time to catch the fade-away of his uniform.

She choked on a sob.

She knew this face, too.

He had bene in her Computer Science classes for two years, working his way up. Shy and quiet, on scholarship, and, she was fairly certain, the victim of bullying, with, from what she had gathered, no real home life to speak of - no wonder he was so angry, no wonder he had made easy prey for the Negaverse. Her bow slipped from her fingers and she sank to her knees, hands folded over her mouth and eyes wide. Tears began to well up, as the full weight of what she’d done crashed down on her.

He was a child. A child she had taught, that she had liked, mentored even, to try and pull him out of his shell. And she had murdered him in cold blood.

It was a stark, painful reminder. No matter what else was under the Negaverse uniform, first, last, and always, they were people. People like Fangite, who she had never seen powered down but who she still felt like she knew, sad and broken and lost. People like this child, angry and manipulated and not at all deserving of the death she had so callously handed out.

She thought again of the oath she had to take to become a full Knight, and she glanced down at the body in front of her, and she knew.

“I pledge my life and loyalty to Mercury, and to Mimisbrunnr. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine.”