((last scene was Arachne, not Morgana, sorry about the confusion))
Lilly felt compelled to find the shiny things...
She knew what they were. It was so clear in her head. They came in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes circles, and stars, or curious polygon shapes but they were all shiny... it was the currency of this world, and there were only a few ways an 'animal' like her could get them. Right now she was just an animal, in her primal most basic state. A squirrel made to forage... born to survive with the world as all her enemy...
Fortunately, she was not alone. The forest had many of her tribe. So many brothers, sisters, cousins... an entire family. The Squirrels, were all small and tiny but numerous in their hundreds just in the local area. They scoured the forest, seeking and hunting the unfortunate adventurer that was sleeping and were not protecting the 'shiny' things they worked so hard to gain... Their lack of wit paid the heavy price of loss. It was their right when they claimed it from them.
For most, Squirrels were just thieves...
Lilly followed one of her kin, who had taken a very special 'shiny' shaped like a star. He moved so... gracefully, it made her blush a little to realise she was staring. The young male gave a rather charismatic grin to her as she followed, and he placed the strange shiny object into a tree hole. It descended down there, with an almost light glow as it was taken deep into the earth.
"Where does it go?" Lilly asked the male squirrel.
"To the Tree of Life of course. Come on there are more shinies to find! Silly-others always leave them lying around. We have to hoard them safe and keep them!"
Lilly wondered why this was the case. Keep them safe? Safe from what? What exactly were shinies? She wanted to get a better look at the shiny thing... there was something familiar about these 'tokens'. Whatever they were. It was important. She had to get one of her own, but if it was this new compulsion or a genuine need to study it she wasn't sure. It was too confusing to think on it. "What's your name?" she asked to the handsome male squirrel.
"Name? I don't have one," he said back with confusion tilting his head.
"Oh.. well I'll call you Swift," said Lilly in the end. He was... quite swift, after all.
"Oh my- an Osili named me? I'm honoured! What's your name?" He asked smelling her face and fur. He was clearly very taken to her.
"Uh.. It's Lilly." she said taking a slight step back. It was weird enough being an animal, but she still had her 'human' mind. Even if it was currently going through some kind of mental flipping.
Swift looked at her very confused. "Weird. You don't smell of flowers. So... Who named you? Must not have had a good sense of smell to call you that."
"My mo-" Then Lilly stopped at that. Actually... who did name her. "...Four..." she said whispered. Yes, Magic Girl Four, Jenny named her. All those years ago, back when she first changed into a child. It was the first step towards.. accepting her new life. Becoming who she was. But.. what exactly was she now?
The other squirrel got startled at this, his whiskers bristling. "You were named by a Num-" but then they both heard something. Lilly knew what that sound was..
...a gun shot.
The two raced to the sound, but it was clear that Swift had never heard anything like it. His first instinct was to run away, but Lilly's human mind decided to seek out the strange sound.
They found a clearing with two men, one clearly armed with a shot gun as he made some of their tribe scatter from the sheer noise of it. A few of them lay dead, and were being skinned by the other male. It looked like their attempt to take their shiny things had met with a terrible fate for three in their tribe. Lilly felt herself blanching at the sight. This is what it was to be an animal.. they were prey. It was a cold reality.
What was the nature of this world? Why was she an animal now?
"How can a human command thunder?" asked Swift looking quite terrified as he perched on the tree.
Lilly shook her head. "That isn't thunder, its a gun."
"What's a gun? Uh Nevermind. It's Ocili magic We have to get away from them. They have an arm that kills. We don't go after powerful ones."
Lilly stared at the two figures. As the light dawned on one of them, and his features her heart missed a beat. "...impossible." She whispered. It can't be! It just... it just couldn't be! That was a face only she knew... a face faded far into memory, and yet she knew it every day of her life. And the companion... "I... I know who those two are."
"Forget it just go! Run!" And just like that, Swift was gone.
Lilly however, stood perfectly still, her twin tails bristling.
"Jenny," she whispered.
That was indeed Jenny... when she had been a man. That old version of her, was there. And that other one? That was... that was Cliff's father.
The man... Jenny was going to kill one day.
Lilly stared at the two, as they were packing a bag filled with shinies and skinning the coat of the fallen squirrels. She jumped down slowly from the tree, her feet touching the grass easily as she approached them, her eyes in a wide daze.
"What do we have here?" said the male version of Jenny.
"Hunt," called Cliff's father. "Just kill the bloody rodent! I already lost five tokens to these ruddy things."
Hunt took out the shotgun, aiming it at Lilly. Lilly however, stood perfectly still, staring at 'Hunt'... her eyes intelligent, and calm. You are my friend... I know you won't hurt me, she said to herself. Jenny would never hurt her... never.
Hunt stared at Lilly. Why was it just standing there? Looking at him like that? Something about this was completely off... it didn't feel right at all. "It.. it has two tails," he said quietly. "And it seems... tame." Finally he glanced to his partner. "Jacob, let's trap it instead. I think it would sell well or maybe make a good pet."
Jacob looked at the squirrel and shrugged. "If you think you can catch it, sure."
Hunt took out one of the 'shinies' "Come on, you know you want it... just follow me..."
Lilly looked mesmerised by the shiny. Damn that.. compulsion! It just awoke in her blood. It was... so tempting. She felt drawn to it... she had to get it... of course she needed it! To take it back...
... then she heard the slam of a cage behind her, as she was taken by the two men.
Arachne looked into her crystal ball again. She shook her head. "It's... not enough."
Brad was dressed in a robe. She.. wasn't looking too happy about this. Not at all. "This is about your daughter right?"
"It has everything to do with it." The witch replied. "The situation spans eons... I am acting as a goddess, and re-writing lives on the whims of my desires. A mortal as you can never understand."
"Why? Why are you doing this? And how is this going to help me get back to my male body?"
Arachne sat on her 'throne'. A black chair fit for a queen of night. "My daughter was one of the magic girls.. an incarnation. She died, and her sacrifice 'ended' my world in more ways then one. It ended the ways of magic and gods... and ushered in your age of stone and steel. All my reality was turned into mythology... the universe has ways of tidying reality."
"So.. all those things in mythology are real?" Asked Brad.
"Some more real then others... but essentially, yes. It's quite real. It happened... and it also never happened. All the more insulting. So many died to make your world a reality. However.. your people have brought magic back into the world. This world is now connected to Earth... and I tried to bring my daughter back. I had no idea... the paradox that would be created. I thought it would mean your world of techonolgy will become as myths. Instead I've created a.. stable time loop."
"So what's happening exactly Arachne? This is all.. really confusing.
"Plain and simple... There was spider girl, who stood where you were. Who was born a man... and I sent her in my daughter's place. I used all the tokens and made her into the magic girl in her stead, so that my daughter could live.
"Pretty cool," Said Brad with a little smile at that.
"..Unfortunately... it turned out that girl 'was' my daughter. A reincarnation. All I did was... loop her through time. I was out weaved.. I can not see the consequences of my own actions. My own... fate."
Brad sighed. "So, what happens now?"
"I aim to bring that moment of the previous age, to touch upon the moment when the sun changed. I need to create a huge paradox.. to make the time loop unstable. Then I will.. simply fix it, as one fixes a tapestry. My daughter will live... and you will become a man again."
"So... how are you going to do that?"
Arachne looked into her crystal ball. "With your time travel magic..I need to change one life... someone with enough potential to affect billions, rippling through time. It must be reasonably predictable.. Also it can only be one single event... and I need to make an ally out of this situation. The paradox will grant them great power..."
Thought Brad. "How about whoever did the thing to the sun?"
The witch glanced up. "While... I could do that, it is dangerous to affect the very person that has made all this possible. The keepers tend to be highly protected. I need to alter one life... and make things happen... differently."
Slowly the image of a young teenager trying to climb a tree to get a football was shown.
Arachne tapped her cheek in thought.
