The person once known, on a different Earth very far away from the one they were on now, as Cassidy Evans, had been through quite a lot in their life. Most of the early parts they didn’t think about too much these days. That was all part of another life that they would not be going back to. Yet even if they only looked at what happened to them since they had been transformed from a human into a Seosten, and were brought out of Tartarus to join the Olympus crew, it was still more than most living beings experienced. They had spent over thirty years traveling the galaxy with their new friends, their new family, their new people before ending up back on Earth again.

  But even then, it was the past. And the past of a different Earth entirely, not even their own. It was already too much to try to come to terms with, even when they’d been with their new family.

  For sixteen years, Cassiel had grown up with an Earth family in the twenty-first century. For the next thirty after that, they had truly grown with their new Seosten family, crossing the universe and gradually embracing the full extent of who they were. And now, yet again, that had been taken away. That life was gone. But there wasn’t any other choice. The only way to close the rift in that strange pyramid ship had been to possess Felicity Chambers and help her walk into it. Even though doing so had meant that everyone they had grown close to ever those years would completely forget their existence. Just like that, they were wiped out of all of those memories.

  And because that wasn’t enough, after their existence was erased from the minds (and from all records) of everyone who had known them, Cassiel wasn’t simply dropped back into the desert. The rift itself threw them right back into the universal blender to be dropped somewhere new.

  Or more importantly, somewhen new. They were still on this strange, different Earth. And still in the past. But in a different part of the past, and a different part of the world. A very different part.

  “Cass!” A voice called out, shaking Cassiel out of what had been over a minute of staring into the wide pond of clear water they were standing in front of. “Hey, Cass, you out here!? Come on, you must be out here, this is the way you went!” The voice was closer by then, before the person responsible for it came into view, bursting right through the nearby stand of trees. “Ca-- oh, hello there, Cass. Um, are you okay? I mean, everyone’s looking for you. It’s time to eat.”

  Tearing their attention away from the water where they had been lost in their own reflection, Cassiel took in the other person. He was a small boy with dark, curly hair, about ten years old. Seeing him, they smiled reflexively. “Hey, yeah, I’m here. Just… watching the fish for a minute. Dinner smells so good, it made me hungry enough to try to catch one and scarf it right down.” They weren’t exaggerating that much. The distant scent of gradually grilling meat would have been enough to make almost anyone’s stomach growl, even if they hadn’t just spent most of the day using up quite a bit of energy. It was definitely beyond time to head back to the digsite to eat.

  So, brushing their hands off, Cassiel gestured for the boy to lead the way. The people here knew them as Cass. Not Cassiel, which would’ve stood out a bit too much. And not Cassidy, which might not have stood out as much, but just… wasn’t who they were anymore. They couldn’t go back to being Cassidy, even if they were on Earth. Here and now, they were just Cass. That would be good enough for the time being, until they decided who and what they were going to be next. Cass was who they had been for the past few weeks, since the rift had put them here.

  It only took a couple minutes to walk back to the digsite. But even in that time, the smell grew even better, and made both of their stomachs start rumbling at one another like race cars revving up on a starting line. The thought almost made Cassiel giggle, but doing so would have meant explaining what was amusing, and they really didn’t think the boy was the right person to dump all that information on. No matter how easy and pleasant he might have been to talk to.

  The man who greeted the two of them once they followed the trail (not to mention their noses and ears) wasn't especially tall, though probably above average for ordinary human people around this time period. He was only about five feet, six inches, with brown hair that fell all the way to his shoulders, along with a goatee and thin mustache that were meticulously trimmed.

  “Papa!” With that cry, the boy sprang away from Cassiel’s side to embrace his father. “You’re back from the hunt! Did you bring me anything? Did you save anyone? Did you fight anything!?”

  With a chuckle, the man picked his son up and embraced him. “That’s right, we’re back from the hunt. The whole party made it back today, and I see you’ve kept your promise to watch over the place while we were gone. Have to fight off any Thunder Birds or wrestle any of the Amaroks?”

  Giggling, the boy insisted, “Three Amaroks, with magic armor! But I gave them what for, Papa.”

  “Oh, three of them, huh? Well, everyone was lucky you were here,” his father teased, ruffling the boy’s hair before setting him down and sending him on to grab some food from the table that had been set up at the edge of a semicircle of a dozen or so small, rickety-looking houses. Then he turned to focus on Cassiel. “Some of the men thought you would’ve left before we got back.”

  “I said I’d stay and make sure your families were safe while you went on that hunt,” Cassiel noted. “I owed you that much. Probably more, since you saved me from the Nuckelavee pack.”

  At least they weren’t flying completely blind when they’d arrived here. Thanks to a quick mental crash course in the history of this Earth from being in Flick’s head oh so briefly, they were all caught up on the Bystander Effect, what Boschers were, Crossroads and Eden’s Garden, and plenty more they hadn’t even had the time to think about with everything that was going on.

  The man shook his head with a snort at the suggestion that his group had actually saved them. “To be honest, you seemed to be handling yourself pretty well, all things considered. That’s why I felt safe enough leaving you here with the others while we chased the ones that were left. If any of them had doubled back while we were gone, and there wasn’t someone here to help…” He grimaced, hand catching Cassiel’s shoulder to squeeze it. “What I mean to say is, after seeing how well you held your own against the things, I’m glad you were willing to stick around.”

  The man, the boy, the place, the people, Cassiel kept thinking of them like that, in those terms, because it was easier. They would be moving on from this place soon enough, once they had their bearings, and… and came up with some idea of where to move on to. It had been tricky enough to work out a way of asking what year they were in without giving away too much. Not that the answer of 1797 AD had exactly helped come up with a solution to the problem of where they should go, or what they should do. The rift had catapulted them a few thousand years into the future, but that was still hundreds of years shy of the world their child self grew up in. And it was light years away from the society they’d adopted for twice as long as they’d been human.

  They were here, in fledgling America shortly after the Revolution. 1797. Over two hundred years before they had been born. And this wasn’t even the same world they’d been born on to begin with. This was a different Earth entirely. And now, this time, they had nothing and no one. Sariel, Lucifer, Chayyiel, none of them knew Cassiel anymore. They had no home to go back to now.

  All of which was to say, they didn’t actually have a problem with sticking around this place for the past few weeks, while the majority of the stronger troops from this group went off to hunt down the Nuckelavee pack. It gave them a good chance to rest and try to come up with what their next move should be. Not that they’d actually managed that, but at least they’d ruled out plenty of options. They weren’t going to go straight back to the Seosten and try to explain who they were and what had happened, that was for sure. But on the other hand, if the upload they’d been given from Flick (or the Flique, since they had been the ones to throw as much information at Cassiel as possible right before they went through the rift) was accurate, Lucifer -- Apollo now -- wouldn’t be with the Seosten anymore. And he was good at keeping secrets. That was a real possibility. It was just that they couldn’t decide if it was the right move. Could they convince him that his memory really had been altered? Would he listen to them, or think it was just a trick?

  Maybe that was why it was so difficult to decide what to do. Cassiel was afraid of being rejected. If they went through the effort of finding Luc-- Apollo and he wouldn’t listen to them, then… then what? What could they do? Sariel wouldn’t leave the Seosten for another couple hundred years herself, and given everything about her history, Cass really couldn’t risk changing that timeline.

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  Then there was Chayyiel, but she didn’t come back to this planet for a long time. She was off being a Seraph right now. Which-- damn, Cassiel was proud of the kid, seriously. She’d really grown a lot, even if a big part of that growth had apparently stemmed from being so furious at Puriel that she had actually threatened to kill the man if he ever tried to give her another order.

  With those thoughts swirling through their mind, Cassiel assured the man one more time that they didn’t mind helping out. Together, they headed in toward the source of that mouth-watering scent, and met up with everyone else. The feast to celebrate the return of the hunters was in full swing, and Cass didn’t have much of a chance over the next few hours to think about what they were going to do next. Everyone just wanted to party, and to be honest, they didn’t mind at all.

  Eventually, however, the party and feast were done with. Things had quieted down enough that Cass was right back to thinking about what was next for them, where they could go. Sure, this group wasn’t going to object too much to them sticking around for awhile, but was that really a long-term solution? What if they ended up changing history by-- nope, they weren’t going to think about that too much. The truth was, if they did change history accidentally, it would just put them in some slightly (or very) different version of this world, which was a place they didn’t really belong in anyway. Sure, they wouldn’t go out of their way to completely alter its history, but they weren’t going to sit around agonizing forever over every little move they tried to make, either.

  Still, there was no sense in rushing off half-cocked. They needed to have some idea of where to go and what to do that might actually be useful. Especially if they were going to help end the Fomorian threat once enough time passed that they could properly reintroduce themself without screwing things up. But for now, they were going to go to… they were going to try to… they were.. ahem, they were going to take a walk up on the hill behind the digsite, where their new friends had apparently spent the past few months trying to dig out some sort of special crystals.

  Standing up on the rocky outcropping overlooking the rickety homes, with the actual mine visible in the distance, Cassiel took a deep breath and let it out again. The first few days they’d been here, even after getting help from the hunters and agreeing to stay behind to help watch over the civilians for a while, they had been convinced they were here to do something about those crystals. Or maybe to stop them from being dug out of the ground. But, after looking into the crystals, and what the hunters intended to use them for, it… didn’t seem likely. They were power sources, but nothing earthshattering. Or galaxyshattering. Apparently, whenever there was a big enough spell, or other magical event, some of the energy from it would spread out through the surrounding area. It tended to seep into rocks, turning them into crystals that held that energy.

  That was what these guys were digging up, just some crystals of magical energy they could use for other things. Most likely, the source of the crystals was magic that seeped through a rift that had been nearby, but did that mean the crystals themselves were too dangerous to let them have? They’d run a few tests they’d learned from spending several decades with Sariel and Apollo, and as far as they could tell, the crystals just had normal, blank spell energy. They were fuel. Useful for sure, but far from world altering. So, at least for the time being, they’d let it go.

  “It’s really hard to make those sorts of decisions, isn’t it? Especially when you end up liking the people you’re making them for.”

  The voice came out of nowhere, with no warning, and Cassiel practically lunged out of their skin. Their only consolation was that they managed to stop themself from crying out, jerking around to stare at the figure who had appeared behind them. “Cusp of the void-- er, wait a sec… Flick?” They looked the new arrival up and down uncertainly. “Why are you disguised as Jacob again?”

  “Uh… that’s a long story.” After saying that, the snappily-dressed figure gave a soft chuckle. “That’ll be funnier in a little bit. But the short version is, I was Felicity at one point, a long time ago. Now I’m Jacob. I uh… I was one of the other versions of Felicity, at a different rift. You and I never technically met. Things went wrong, and I had to let the rift send me back in time. Which left me allergic to time travel and such, so I’ve been living through the years the long way since then. I do my best to keep myself busy, including finding you.”

  Absorbing that, Cassiel hesitated before giving a slow nod. “Okay, so you’re-- wait, why should I believe any of this? You could be anyone posing as her-- or him -- or, you know what I mean. You could be a trick, a magical hallucination from those crystals, or from someone trying to get them, a--” They stopped, looking at the figure’s hand as it was stretched out to them. “Err…”

  “Possess me,” Jacob suggested. “Go ahead, it’s okay. Unless you think inviting you to possess me is also a trap. But then we’re just going to be stuck going in circles, and I’d really rather get on with things. I promise, for what it’s worth, you are safe with me. I know I’m not the Flick you met. And now I’m not really any Flick at all, to be honest. I’ve been Jacob for too long. But you can still trust me, Cassiel. We’re on the same side, and now, we need to get on the same page.”

  Obviously, even that invitation could be a trick, a way to mindcrush them. But something in the way Jacob looked at them, or maybe just in what they said-- whatever, something in all that told Cassiel it wasn’t. Even if that was just wishful thinking, they had to take a risk at some point. And it wasn’t like taking risks was anything new. That much, at least, hadn’t changed, no matter how many different lives Cassiel ended up in. With a shrug, they accepted the offered hand and, as they had so many other times throughout their existence, jumped in without wasting time fretting over details.

  From an outside perspective, it would look like Jacob simply stood there a few feet back from the cliff edge for about thirty seconds. Then the glowing figure of Cassiel emerged once more, stumbling a bit as they solidified and turned to stare at him. “You-- oh God, you lived through all that, and you were-- I mean you’re really-- you’re the one who… oh. Oh. That’s… that’s a lot.”

  With a soft snort, Jacob replied, “You think it’s a lot to think about, try living through it. But yes to all of that.” He stepped up to stand beside them, looking down at that digsite in silence for a bit before adding, “And now you know why I needed to find you, when I found out you went in the Egypt rift too. You absorbed some of that temporal energy. Which, for the record, is why I really can’t spend much time here with you. Like I said, allergic. You’ll make me break out in hives.”

  Cassiel just squinted at that, unsure if Jacob was kidding or not. Shaking that off after a moment, they nodded. “Yeah, I know why you need my help. Desoto. You want to save Desoto.”

  “Correction,” Jacob pointed out, “I want to save the people of Desoto. The land itself is… eh, it’s complicated. When Gaia and the others do the spell that will banish the Fomorians, the land of Desoto will be sent to merge with Tabbris of Llylewys’s missing planet. Because that’s what his original spell actually did. He didn’t find a world and erase it. He used a spell that took pieces of other worlds, erased their existence from everyone’s memory, and brought all of them together into a new world in an uncharted area of space. Then that new world was hidden. This spell they’re going to use, part of it is from his spell. It moves that land to his world. But the people…”

  “Don’t Gaia and the others who work on that spell evacuate everyone in Desoto before they cast it?” Cassiel put in.

  Jacob nodded once. “They do everything they can, yes. But there will still be many people left behind. They won’t have time to save everyone. But with your help, and your connection to the rift, I think we can come up with a way to make that happen. And, if it works, we might even set up Earth to be protected from Seosten occupation too. I can’t do it because I can’t go through the rifts. I can’t even get near them. Can you help me?”

  “Please, as if you even had to ask,” Cassiel started, before considering. “I mean, I guess you did need to ask, or I wouldn’t have known you needed-- never mind. Yeah, I’m here. What do we do first?”

  “Uh, well, actually, you stay put,” Jacob replied with a shrug. “The best way you can help right now is by remaining with these people for the next few years. That’ll put you in the best position for what comes next. I’ll stay in contact, as much as I can.”

  “You want me to stay here, with them?” Cassiel turned a bit, looking out that way. “I mean, I don’t mind, they seem pretty nice. And effective. But now you’re telling me they’re actually important?”

  Jacob coughed softly, giving a wry smirk. “Yeah, you could say that. And in case you were still wondering, yes, you can trust them. I mean, not with the whole truth. Keep that to yourself. But you’ll be safe with them. And you’ll help keep them safe. Good luck.”

  “Good--” Cassiel started to echo, turning to find themself alone. Except not totally, because the sound of footsteps quickly arrived, as the boy and his father came through the trees.

  “Apologies,” the man offered, “I suppose we aren’t the only ones who like to see the view from up here. Ah… are you well?”

  Eyes shifting a bit to look around, finding no trace of Jacob, Cass gave a slow nod. “Yes. I think I’m doing just fine. And if you… don’t mind, I’d like to stay a bit longer.”

  The man beamed at that. “We don’t mind at all, do we, son?”

  His question was met with enthusiastic agreement as the boy darted forward. Then Cassiel turned back to look out at the digsite once more. And this time, as they were joined by those two, father and son, Cass allowed themself to think of their names. After all, they weren’t just standing alongside two people they were about to walk away from forever. They were standing alongside two people they would live with for at least the next few years.

  They were standing alongside Lyell and Joshua Atherby.

  Joke Tags: As A Quick Reminder? We Saw A Future Version Of This Cassiel Appear In The Rift Where Flick Was With Sands And Sarah And Take Them Through It To Go To The Desoto Fight