Field Offices

[Will Stanton]

"And it's not just there, either. Remember, we lost contact back home, and I can't imagine things have gone super smoothly that way."

[Samantha McManus]

"Aye, so it doesn't bloody matter whose mess it is, does it?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Nonetheless, you are talking about taking a life. Two, most likely. And even if Ryn has it coming--which you haven't shared the reason for--Agent Kane doesn't. So just be sure to exhaust all other options first, okay? That's all I ask."

[Miriam Bell]

"Hey, uh, stupid question but why the hell did this ancient stab-happy being steal a magic orb and make people sing?"

[Leo N. Eskandari]

"She didn't. That part is almost certainly Agent Kane's handiwork," Leo supplied as he walked over. He had overheard their entire exchange and was starting to feel ridiculous eavesdropping, though with his hearing that took no real effort. Besides, he needed to stick close to them if he had any hope of preventing these kids from bloodying their hands.

[Will Stanton]

"Alright, then why did Agent Kane steal the orb and get everyone to sing? She's a siren, right? They're not notoriously known for wanting to share the limelight."

[Samantha McManus]

"The fury has a crush on her."

[Leo N. Eskandari]

"I honestly don't have a clue why she did this. But she's never been happy about being drafted into the Society and I guess she seized the opportunity to get out. I can't even really blame her for that. She had a good life going for her when her siren heritage surfaced and ruined it. And the Society didn't treat her fairly, especially Wyldclay," he explained.

"I think maybe she blames them for her fall from fame as much as her powers."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"The siren killed 47 people when her powers developed. Accidentally. Simply based on a metaphor in a pre-release recording for a new single," the Wyldclay said, leaning back against a wall. "That was without aiming or focusing her powers; without intending to activate them; without even knowing she had them.

Her powers fired off randomly, and effectively -- she's a keter-class threat who can not control her abilities. It's one thing to not know your own strength and accidentally crush a doorhandle or something. When a turn of phrase can cause someone to kill themselves, you are a threat until you learn to manage your powers.

She was assigned an agent to watch her in case she became a threat; she was given training and resources to attempt to get her powers under control; she was given technology to help mitigate her abilities. We have done everything possible to keep her safe and to keep the world safe from her.

And now she can make trained agents dive in front of bullets and a war goddess do the watusi. She would be extremely difficult to shrug off under normal circumstances; with the orb altering reality, she's nigh-unstoppable by conventional methods. If anything, perhaps we treated her too fairly. After all, monsters normally end up in the menagerie downstairs, not in a uniform with a badge and a gun."

[Samantha McManus]

"But you're missing what the fury said."

"She said she tried to engage your agent on a level she understood. This is a being that doesn't understand much of being human. We had to teach her about fashion. I'm betting she didn't understand music much, either."

"This isn't the siren's wish."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"She's also the only one who had access to the Orb to begin with," Wyldclay agreed, tipping their head to Sam. "The Siren would have wished to be normal, or something along those lines. This is different."

[Leo N. Eskandari]

Leo glared at the Fae before turning to the others. "Why would Ryn wish for a world of song, though? She's not exactly the type."

[Samantha McManus]

"Do you people not have the story about the monkey's paw in this bloody world?"

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Oh, Agent Eskandari," Wyldclay said, placing one hand on Leo's shoulder. That damned background music started kicking up again.

"The power of love! It's a curious thing.
Makes a siren weep, makes a deva sing.
Change a hawk to a little white dove
More than a feeling! That's the power of love..."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam's eyes narrow at Wyldclay. This whole situation is ridiculous and of course this little shit of a Will was involved. She can feel the smugness radiating off of them. Begrudgingly she picks up on the song as she points a finger at Wyldclay.

♪♫"Don't have Charisma, she don't have game.
She needs a magic wish to ride this train.
It's strong and it's sudden and in desperate times
She asked for your advice.
That's the power of love."♪♫

[Leo N. Eskandari]

Leo desperately tried not to join in on the musical madness.

He failed.

♪♫"First time she felt it, it confused her bad
She could not take it, it made her quite mad
Not in her experience she found
That's the power makes the world go'round"♪♫

[Samantha McManus]

Sam joins Miriam in rounding on the Wyldclay.

♪♫"The fae say that all that's foul is fair
Yeah, but you don't care
But you knew what to do
When she came to you."♪♫

[Wyll Wyldclay]

Sam joins Miriam in rounding on the Wyldclay.

♪♫"The fae say that all that's foul is fair
Yeah, but you don't care
But you knew what to do
When she came to you."♪♫

The Wyldclay grinned, unconcerned with the accusations.

And giving her the tiniest shove!
I showed her the power of love!

Wyll tried to sidestep around Sam and Miriam, resting their hands on both of Will's shoulders.

I don't take money! Won't get paid.
Don't need no credit card to lend my aid
I'm strong and I'm sudden, I can be cruel sometimes
But I might just save her life...
That's the power of love.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam squints at the two, side by side. Cheeky demeanor aside, it still bugs her how similar they feel to her telepathic senses.

"Hey, Sam? Do me a favor and really look at those two. And then tell me if this isn't something that would pop out of the cauldron when asked to fill in as Puck at the local theater?"

[Will Stanton]

"LOCAL theater?" both Wills sputtered in stereo.

[Samantha McManus]

"I mean, they're certainly versions of each other, aye?"

[Leo N. Eskandari]

Leo smirked. "They certainly both smell like ham."

[Miriam Bell]

"Yeah but... They're not even funhouse mirror versions. I mean yeah, that one is clearly a jerk but don't they feel like they could get both mixed into the cauldron no problem? In fact I bet that's how he 'learned how to lie'. The same way ours combine their memories when they go in the pot."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"The jerk is in the eye of the beholder, madam. Perhaps you prefer your clay tamed, but there are others with different opinions," Wyldclay said, turning up their nose.

[Samantha McManus]

"So you think he's... just a bloody theater kid playing at being fae."

The Wyldclay gets the rather sudden sensation that a lot of attention suddenly zeros in on them. Hundreds of eyes.

[Leo N. Eskandari]

Leo barked a laugh. "Oh, please, please let that be true," he said giddily.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

Getting too close to the Wyldclay was like treading over Lego, or walking through an electronics department with 12 stereos playing at the same time, or trying to fix your hair in a funhouse mirror. It would not be entirely dissimilar from experiences Sam might have with some of her fellow patients at Muir. The Wyldclay wasn't quirky or odd; their brain simply did not function in normal ways. A functional brand of insanity, for sure -- she would have sensed more organized minds gibbering in straightjackets -- but clearly the result of something that had been broken and put back together with wire and string.

The Wyldclay didn't have the same impression that Will gave off. Whatever his Morrigan had done to him, she had left some sort of fingerprint on his mental presence that Sam would recognize as familiar. Wyldclay didn't have that. Instead, their soul was inundated with a sense of wild, elemental magic -- fairy bullshit, deep and to it's core. The Morrigan wasn't this Wyldclay's master, but someone was. Perhaps this Wyldclay was not a fae by birth, but foundlings and changelings were not unheard of, even in their own universe.

That, though, was ultimately surface level -- the way the clay was molded. Beneath the insanity and the fairy thumbprints and the full bottle of hairspray was the Wyldclay's bare essence. And while, say, the Morrigan in Sam's head felt familiar, and the Cailleach felt familiar, Sam could still distinguish them from herself -- they were off the same cloth as herself, but different. But spotting a difference between the Wyldclay and Will was tougher...much, much, tougher. In fact, she may not be able to do that at all.


"I perform on Tuesdays and Fridays; there's a $5 cover charge," the Wyldclay sniffed. "Gawk to your heart's content then, Raven Queen."

[Samantha McManus]

"...you jumped without a parachute, you daft little thing," Sam murmurs, voicing what came to mind almost without realizing it.

[Miriam Bell]

"See what I mean? Baked and glazed differently but it's the same clay! How is that possible?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Could you have split across multiple universes on your long trip to ours?" Tosh asked Will.

[Will Stanton]

"I mean, I'm no physicist..." Will frowned.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"No, wait! Of course there'd be multiple versions of this you that formed. Every iteration of our universe would have a you with the same home universe," Tosh theorized excitedly, then suddenly looked defeated. "That... doesn't explain being in this universe though. Nevermind."

[Miriam Bell]

"So all the Wills that came from a version of our universe are all the same? Or... what? Are there multiple Wills that got black holed too? I hate this multiverse shit."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"I am the Wyldclay," Wyll said, narrowing their eyes as they took a step back from Will. "I dance upon the breeze and trip the light fantastic. The Wylyam of the Wispe, the merry wanderer of the night. I brook no pity..."

[Samantha McManus]

"They feel like... a puzzle that someone lost the box to, and put together without knowing what the picture was, or whether they had all the pieces. They just... tried to make things fit for what they thought it was supposed to be."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Maybe the Fae found a mentally broken Will and tried to put him back together in the only way they knew how?" Tosh proposed.

Meanwhile, Leo was enjoying the Wyldclay's discomfort at the direction the conversation had taken.

[Miriam Bell]

"Yeah... One of ours. I don't understand how that's possible."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh shrugged. "I mean, it's just blind speculation at this point. I wouldn't even call it a proper hypothesis just yet."

"Well, don't ask me. I'm an archeology major," Leo supplied. "I only follow half of what you're talking about."

[Miriam Bell]

"For what it's worth, they did dig our Will out of a glacier in Antarctica. And when I... split him down the middle those two also didn't quite come out right. Or... different anyway."

"Hey Tosh, you're the nerd here. Could a black hole rip you apart when it pulls you in?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't... think this one ever had the box."

"Or this world's Morrigan was thoroughly uninterested in opening it."