It didn't know. Morgana frowned. How could it not know? She was of course aware of the elemental keystones' limitation on physical range (and the conditions under which it might be lifted, though unfortunately she was far from any such alignment at this time.) But as far as she knew, there shouldn't be any temporal range limit. She and Merlin had both made it a rule not to look into the future unless necessary (it led to far too many too-long-term plans that might fall apart if circumstances changed enough to alter the events on which the plan was formed,) but it was possible. So why couldn't the air-bubble tell her?
Perhaps it was simply impossible to say. She knew from their own experiments that even small details over short periods of time could alter the course of the future, and at present she only knew where the new sun would appear next, not even exactly when; perhaps there were simply too many factors at work for her wish to be able to provide a meaningful answer. But surely her wish could simply follow the current course out to some conclusion... She wondered if there were some other force withholding the answer, but what could compare to the might of the keystones? Only the gods wielded comparable power, and she had sent them to sleep.
In any case, she was without an answer. Morgana thought briefly of wishing to know why she hadn't received one, and perhaps fixing it, but that was academic; it had no bearing on the question of whether she would go into the Sun, it only meant that she would be going blindly, without knowing what form her changed body would take.
In a way, it was the first real test of her resolve. Sending the gods to sleep was no struggle for her; while she believed what she had said to the girl, the truth was that at the time her anger was so strong that she would certainly have done it anyway. Sealing herself away to await the reawakening of magic was simply a further step in her plan; with no family left to hold her to her own land and her own time, what reason did she have to hesitate?
Here, however, was the first true difficulty. To face uncertainty about the fate of her own body...her mind whirled with possibilities both intriguing and disturbing, while a nagging little voice kept asking, what if she did become a puppet of the gods in her new form? As committed as she was to her cause, she was still human, and she was afraid.
No. She could not allow herself to be held back by fear. She had to be there, in the future, to guide humanity. She was needed, and she would not hold back from her duty for the sake of her own safety. She would go into the Sun.
Sam eyed his daughter with a mixture of curiosity and disquiet. "You saying you know her, Nikki?" he asked. "In the future?"
A flash of realization came over the little skunk-girl's face, and she bit her lip. "I...um, I..."
Erica chuckled. "Not much point in hiding it when you're basically giving it away right now."
Nikki looked a little flustered. "I...it's a long story, I shouldn't say any more than I have...it's just kinda hard to forget things like that. It's all so complicated, tryin' to remember what I'm supposed to tell you..."
Erica nodded. "I'm sure it is, and I don't know that we could do as good a job as you have, Nikki. Guess we'll let it drop, then." She stared at the newcomer - this girl was the vicious bandit she'd helped to stop only days ago? If her own situation wasn't so strange she would never have believed it. She seemed so timid...
Kimi tried to make sense out of what she was hearing. Were they saying that she was friends with...with this skunk-creature? Were they saying that she was going to go into...?
"No!" she yelped. "I don't want to go anywhere else! Bad enough that I'm stuck like this here! Bad enough that I've got a witch tryin' to kill me! I can't go to...to some future! What about...about..." What about Lomasi? she was going to say, but trailed off. Why did that matter to her? Why did she feel any connection to some Indian girl? But...but Lomasi was the first person at the camp - the first person in a long time, actually - to be truly kind to her...she called her "sister," even when they weren't, even when Kimi wanted nothing to do with any of them...she didn't want to lose that...
But there was Kiki to consider, too. If the witch was right, if that part of her belonged to some other time, then if she stayed here...would she lose that connection? And if she wanted to go back to being a man, she'd lose that, and probably her relationship with Lomasi... Kimi felt torn between different lives, with no idea how she wanted any of them to resolve with the others. Why did her feelings have to be so confusing!?
Hiro watched the cat-girl fairy while she went about her own business, trying not to stare. He felt...well, confused. From most of what he'd read, it had sounded like the relationship between a digital fairy and their host was usually kind of a sibling sort of thing, or sometimes more of a parent-child bond. So why did he feel this way? Was it normal for a brother to notice how attractive his sister was like this? He didn't know, Hitomi was too young for him to have any idea. Or was it...was it not really a sibling thing at all? He didn't know...
"You...you know," he said, "you shouldn't feel so embarassed...there's a bunch of people with changes like yours these days, it's not like you're any more of a..." For once he realized he was about to put his foot in his mouth, and cut himself off before he could finish: any more of a freak than the rest of us.
Judging by Riko's expression, he didn't really need to finish the sentence for her to get the gist of it - but she didn't seem quite as pissed as she had when he was staring. "Huh, maybe," she muttered. "But that cat-girl here isn't stuck dressed like this, you know."
Hiro nodded thoughtfully, and made a note to try to make sure he considered things more fully before saying them...
