Disclaimer: I do not own WITCH. This story was inspired by the seemingly abandoned fic "Books of Forgotten Memory" by Essence of Soup.

Betaed by: Zim'smostloyalservant & Chaotic9

Ripples

Chapter One

The Prince of Meridian had seen better days. While he took a great deal of pride in once more slipping from the clutches of his captors, the fact was that he now had to sneak through the palace he had once ruled from like a common thief.

Well, theft was his goal, but he would never class himself as a "common" anything.

"Third time will be the charm," he told himself as he stalked the rows of the royal library. His escape had been quiet and hardly a prelude of returning to power. What remained of his forces were still captive, as was the illusion of his continued captivity. He would need to be prepared for war by the time his foes learned that he was on the loose again.

"My sweet sister, so easily distracted, and with her on the other side of Meridian, I can retrieve you," the white-haired prince smirked. Stopping, he reached out and pulled a thick and large tome with unmarked brown leather binding from the shelf.

"Elyon and the rebels have been thorough destroying or sealing away the dark magics I spent so many years gathering. But they would never look for a magic book hidden in plain sight," the fallen tyrant smirked. In his hands the book changed, the glamour about it burning away like paper held to a forge's flame.

The size of the book was unchanged, but little else remained the same. The book's binding was black, a sheen catching in the light, a crystalline catch latching the book shut. Runes had been imbedded in the binding, shaped from gold, silver, iron, granite, and even what he believed was some kind of wood. Despite his vast knowledge, he could only read a few of these runes, and those made little sense.

"The Book of Fate, a relic so ancient some say it was created before Kandrakar. On its pages, everything that has ever been or will be recorded, but such knowledge is guarded by spells so powerful even I set it aside as a task for another day.

"But some say knowledge is not its true power. He who can open the book can see his own fate, and change it," Phobos said, stroking the book's binding like it was a beloved pet.

"Really, Princey? Now you're doing your own narration?" a girl's voice called. Phobos sucked in a breath, raising a hand as he held the book close with the other.

"Well, it must be lonely in that cell," another voice added.

"Like anyone would want to talk to him, beside himself," the first voice called again.

"Nah, he's just crazy," another voice put in.

"Guardians," Phobos spat.

The five Guardians emerged, flying over the shelves to close off both of the escaped prisoner's escape routes.

"You really thought you could fool us that easily?" Taranee asked, sounding a bit insulted.

"We've had you since you got into the castle. We figured that ogre being released was your doing to draw Elyon away," Cornelia added, smirking.

"We figured you must have some trick up your sleeve, so we just waited to take a peek at your cards," Irma said.

"Though it's actually a book," Hay Lin pointed out.

"Still two steps behind, eh Phobos?" Will asked.

The Prince looked thunderous, giving no answer, save for a ball of fire loosed at Will and Hay Lin.

The melee was on, the Prince lashing out with his power while the Guardians countered and protected the library as best they could. A burst of crackling magic gave Phobos a reprieve, facing only the Water Guardian.

"I was hoping I could rewrite the fate of others to simply erase you five. But oblivion may be too generous a use of the book's power," Phobos hissed.

"What book?" Irma quipped, tilting her head. Phobos blinked, before reaching for the pouch he had stashed the book in… and finding nothing. Whirling, he saw the Keeper sneaking away behind him, holding the book.

"Thanks Irma," Will ground out. Phobos nearly roared with fury, raising both his hands to lash out at her with as much power as he could muster.

"Quintessence!" Will called, raising her own power to protect her. Her eyes widened as Phobos' attack broke through the counterattack. She barely heard her friends cry out, instinctively thrusting the large book in front of her as a shield.

She had not seen her own magic playing across the book, and now Phobos' attack struck it head on. The blazing white filled Will's vision, the book outlined darkly in her sight as strange symbols blazed to life on it.

As sound seemed to fade, she heard a lock turn over, and darkness burst out from the book, swallowing the burning light.

"Well, what have we here? I think I may know just what to do with you two," someone whispered from far away.

'Who…?' Will wondered, before fading into the screaming silence.

Meridian:

Kelvon gave a contented sigh as he lay back on the soft grass above the riverbank. The sky was beautiful, with only the occasional fluffy cloud, and the heat of summer had only begun to fade towards winter. The result was the sort of comfortable daytime weather that in his experience was only found in early autumn, late spring, or goddess-sent days of the summer.

He was a middle-aged man with greenish-gray skin, small ridges of hardened skin framing his face along with a dark beard starting to sprinkle with gray. Still tall, he had clearly been an impressive man once, but whatever discipline had once dominated his life had faded, leaving a small paunch on his torso even as his arms remained thick and hard. His clothes were loose pants and an open vest of faded blue, both well worn.

Yawning, he scratched at his cheek with his right hand, the left missing and replaced with a blunt steel hook secured to his forearm by leather straps.

"Too good a day to look for more work," he told himself, reaching out to grab a squat bottle of red liquid nearby. Lifting his head, he expertly took a pull from the bottle without spilling a drop. He grimaced slightly before re-corking the bottle and putting it aside again.

"And that would be why he threw it in for free. But free spirits are free spirits," he mused. The retired soldier glanced to the crumb-covered piece of cloth his lunch had been wrapped in. Alas, nothing left to wash the sour taste from his mouth.

Pulling himself back up reluctantly, Kelvon made his way over to the short clay embankment that separated the riverbank from the grasses. Descending with ease he knelt down on the rock-strewn bank, cupping his good hand to draw water.

Taking his drink, he noted something red pass him.

The thought reached his relaxed mind a moment later, causing him to spill the water and look at what was drifting downstream.

Rather someone, someone small.

"Blood and ruin!" Kelvon cursed. Running into the swift-flowing water he kicked up foam, wondering why good days could never be his to enjoy.

XXX

Loud knocking was hardly noteworthy to the old doctor. As the only reliable healer residing in the village, it was his lot in life to be interrupted when a crisis arose. So it was with sureness and swiftness he returned the dried herbs he had been inspecting to their drawer and grabbed his cane as he rose from the stool.

Making his way out of the supply room into his common room, the knock came again. The old man noted two things with interest. His name wasn't being called, and the arrival had not burst in, so it was likely the problem was not too urgent. And as something of a connoisseur of knocks, he thought someone was knocking with an elbow or something rather than their hand.

"Interesting," he muttered as he turned the doorknob and pulled it open.

"Alric!" Kelvon shouted as the door opened, rushing inside. The doctor frowned as the one-handed man rushed past him into the house. The younger man was soaking wet, and getting mud on the clean floorboards.

"I tell you again! It's Doctor Alricvandelus! And if you are running and shouting like that you can't be that bad off," the old man barked. The crippled soldier turned on the spot, a reminder he still had a warrior's reflexes, and scowled back at the doctor.

"I'm fine, ya old lurden! She's the one that needs help!" Kelvron shouted, pointing at the blue bundle under his arm with his hook.

The doctor squinted at the bundle in puzzlement, and then recognized the mop of red hair for what it was as the bundle squirmed.

"Put her on the table, and tell me everything," the doctor ordered, rapping his cane on the floor. The soldier almost snapped to attention at the tone. He carried the child to the doctor's work area, a long table with a sheet of clean linen draped over it, with a counter close at hand with the doctor's bag resting amidst tools of the trade.

The one-handed man retreated, making room for the doctor after setting his burden down. The doctor stepped up and began pulling back the cloth covering the patient, first revealing her face. A girl, pale, with bruising to her left cheek and brow. Choker necklace with a dull pink rock cut into a sphere. Completely unwrapping her, he sucked in a breath.

She was naked, revealing more bruises and a numbers of shallow, rough, cuts.

"Explain," Alric demanded.

"I was having my lunch by the riverbank, near Torvock's meadow. I saw her drifting down the river and pulled her clear. She was like that when I found her," Kelvon explained hurriedly as the doctor examined the small child.

The doctor faced the girl's rescuer, fully noticing the wet man was half naked. A glance to the soaking wet cloth answered that question and brought a small smile to the old man's face.

"How is she?" Kelvon asked as the doctor opened a cabinet on his counter and began to dry the girl off.

"Well, she's breathing fine, so that is the greatest worry with a river victim settled. The bruises and cuts are worse than they look. She may have picked those up in the river. There's a bump on her head under her hair," Alric reported. Satisfied she was dry, he covered her up to her chin in a dry piece of linen.

"Robbery, most likely. The bandits in the woods have been getting desperate; they might have stripped her down and given her to the river to cover their tracks," Alric mused.

"How far could she have drifted?" the old soldier demanded, realizing the implications.

"You saw her hands? She might have been in the water a good while. Tell the village head, word needs to go around if the bandits are moving to the forest's edge," the doctor ordered. The younger man moved to obey, before stopping to pick up his vest. He watched as the doctor inspected the bump under the red hair gingerly.

"She will be alright?" Kelvon inquired.

"Hopefully, these deep sleeps can be tricky. In the mean time, I will make a poultice for the injuries and bandage her up. Now get," the doctor snapped.

The old man didn't watch even as he heard the door close with a thud. Pushing back an eyelid, he was pleased that the eye below looked as it should. But still…

He gently drew out one of the tiny hands. Webbed fingers, one joint short of the tips, and webbed toes. Unusual; he had not encountered people with such features. Was the girl one of those unique individuals that sometimes came about of nations mixing?

Turning his attention to the stone necklace, he thoughtfully tapped the stone. A weak groan answered him, with the girl shifting.

"Well, you may have an interesting tale when you wake up, little one. Though I fear it may be tragic," Alric sighed, turning away from his patient to open his bag and find what he needed.

XXX

Will had always been a heavy sleeper, and when she awoke on her own it tended to be a drawn out return to the land of the living. This time was no exception; her eyes opened, blinking against a light and she rolled over in protest. The tightly wrapped sheets were a surprise.

"Did I get wrapped in my sheets again?" she yawned. That was when she noticed where she was, namely not her room.

It was a cabin, er, wood house? Cabin didn't seem to fit. Whatever it was, it was big. Whoever lived here had to be enormous.

"What?" Will questioned, before coughing. Her voice sounded off too, and putting a hand to her head, she felt a bandage wrapped against her head.

The thought of injuries brought her tired mind back to full steam.

Phobos!

The last thing she remembered, she and her friends had followed Phobos into the royal library on Meridian. This place certainly had a Meridian feel to it.

And now she saw a nearby counter where a roll of bandages and some medical instruments that looked old fashioned lay out in a tray.

'A doctor? But that makes no sense. They would have taken me to get healed or back to Earth. Unless…' Will thought, bolting up in the bed only to fall back down.

'Did Phobos kidnap me?!' she shouted in her head. She didn't remember fighting him; had he lured them all into a trap? She knew it was a bad idea to play around with him, they should have just thrown the white-haired loony back into his cage as soon as possible!

But this place… wouldn't Phobos throw her in a dungeon, or at least tie her up? Her head throbbing, Will pressed a hand to her forehead. That was when she realized why her hands felt a bit funny.

Will had seen a lot, and done a lot. But she was still a relatively young person, who was lost, hurt, and confused. Therefore, she did the only reasonable thing in the face of her own two webbed hands.

She shrieked in an embarrassingly high pitch and passed back out on the bed.

XXX

"What are you doing? You have taken a memory from her, that almost breaks the rules."

"But not quite!"

…

"Oh, don't be like that, I wanted you to see this. I'm not being sneaky."

"I do not appreciate you honoring the letter of the agreement and not the spirit."

"Oh, but I am. I merely wish for a new accord this time, a reasonable quid pro quo, I think you will find."

"What do you want?"

"In exchange for withholding that memory from her, for a time, I want to cross paths with her once."

"The rules are clear – you can set these evens in motion, but not interfere after the initial stage. It is their free will that will determine the outcome."

"I won't be using magic, at least no more than needed to make contact. I will answer some questions for her, nothing more. And I will give her back the memory I took then."

"Will you answer truthfully? And 'some' implies only more than one."

"My answers will be helpful, if not appreciated. The number depends on how good she is at asking questions."

"Why should I not just put the memory back?"

"The same reason God put the forbidden fruit where mortals could reach it. True virtue can't exist without the opportunity for sin. Or perhaps I should say trust is only real when there is the possibility of betrayal.

"You want to give me slack on my leash to see what I will do with it. Have I gotten better, worse, or am I the same as I was when you first spared me?"

"We have an accord, but remember, the 'leash' is in my hand."

"Of course. This will be most interesting; she had best not disappoint us.

Author's Note:

Yet another new project. Honestly I am glad the plot bunny's are getting out of my head. Even with school writing remains my beloved pastime, so I have decided it is better to begin than risk nothing of the stories getting told. And in the events of blocks more choices to take around it when one story is blocked.

I loved the concept in BoFM, and decided to create along similar lines. Thanks to Chaotic9, Zim and Trackula for their support in these Yuletide endeavors of mine.

Merry Christmas to all, with long days and pleasant nights.