[kellyn/any] devil with a black dress on

[Harmonia]

She leads the girl here, from that meadow, that place of neutrality. Harmonia with her special skills bubbling under the surface, waiting to be used. She'd restored a few traits here and there but this time it would benefit her directly. She tells the girl - Kellyn, she thinks she remembers - to follow her to Pangea. Here they spit at the fairies and what they've done. Here, she will have her powers restored.

At a price.

They crest the hill into Pangea, which is slowly growing back to a normal state. Carnage's presence made it a wasteland as far as the eye could see. Desolate, ugly really. But it wouldn't be a drastic change from the girl's homeland of the Tundra. That place was infinite snow and ice and those hideous, monotonous plains for days. Harmonia should know ,she visited often when her eldest were still alive. Covet, the only one of her children to amount to anything (until Ajatar, that is).

"Pangea," she announces to the golden girl in tow, a slight smile on her face. "In return for your powers we only ask fealty to our king, Pollock, for at least two years. If you'd like less, trade for recruitment." She offers a shrug as though it's a menial task, something easy to do. Something Harmonia would never agree to herself.

"Do we have a deal?"

[Kellyn]

I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could do it all for you

She follows. There is no choice, not for her, but what is offered. She wants to be herself again. They don’t talk on the way from the Meadow to Pangea – what more is there to say? They are not friends (perhaps someday, but something tells Kellyn it’s unlikely), they are simply joined by a common goal. The roan girl wants her powers back, and Harmonia wants her to serve this Kingdom. In this they are thrown together.

When the reach the Kingdom, Kellyn takes a long look, and is rather ambivalent about what she sees. It’s not disgustingly green, but perhaps it’s a little drab. Still, it’s warmer than the Tundra, which has to be a perk. Of all of the reasons she had loved the Tundra over the years, the temperature was not one of them. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, she can live with anything to be herself again.

When Harmonia speaks, she turns from the landscape to the mare and watches her closely, absorbing the words. Curious about the phrasing, she tilts her head when she says Kellyn will pledge herself to the King – not the Kingdom itself – but again, she tells herself it doesn’t matter. She has served the devil in Carnage before, this Pollock cannot be so different. “We have a deal. Two years of fealty to Pollock in exchange for my powers.” she agrees, lending the words the gravitas she is sure they are supposed to deserve, and waits hungrily.

Kellyn

the girl who walks in time and talks to ghosts
daughter of cagney and elite

[Harmonia]

Harmonia smiles.

It's usually a sign of things to come, a warning to check your back for a proverbial "kick me" sign. It's not unkind, though its intentions always are. Harmonia looks so harmless, so small, so frail. Her whole life has been spent disarming and charming. Previously she feigned stupidity, acted like the magic was just too much for her small, simple brain. It worked very well with magic to protect her. Without it? She found that she relied so heavily on magic to transport her, to walk, to deal with childbirth that she'd become a hollow, empty creature.

Some would probably pity her. Most would just avoid her.

Her smile is not unkind, but it is loaded. It radiates. With little more than a nod of her head the deed is done - magic that is not hers to possess or hone unleashes upon Kellyn and brings the dormant genes to the surface. Who knows what magic the fairies used to take the magic away, but adding it back to a creature was just as painless and sudden.

And like that, Kellyn is restored.

"Welcome to Pangea," she says.