Cousin Reunion

*A Halcyon City hospital, September 17th 2018*

Rhiannon is lying in bed, propped up so she's at least somewhat upright. Aife had brought by colorful flowers from the staff and Lukas had insisted on sending a Get Well teddy bear. Her ribs are still sore and a nagging cough in her chest occasionally made them ache even worse. Damn ice bitch... The only visible sign of injury right now is a clean neat bandage around her upper arm.

She's currently spacing out a bit, dark green eyes gazing out the window while long black hair cascades freely down to her shoulders. It's only been one day at the hospital and she's already supremely bored...

Gwen sucked in her breath before walking through the sliding doors of the hospital. It had taken her a few minutes to gather her courage again at every step of this journey today. From the moment sir Crisp had told her about her cousin Rhiannon being in the city, to calling Freedo and yelling at him, to going on a brief detour to get her a gift--as welcome and to wish her to get well soon--all the way to here, the day had begun to feel long despite it being only early afternoon.

She rode the elevator up and fidgeted nervously with her hoodie. Staring in the elevator mirror, she took her beanie hat off and put it back on several times, adjusting her hair to hide her side shave and adjusting her sleeves to hide the circular scars on her arms from tubes and injections. Anything that was new, especially as a result of her time at GREY, she was trying to hide. She'd even opted to wear long jeans to hide her pale legs. All of her skin was pale, probably even moreso than her Irish family, and while she couldn't hide her face or hands, she tried nevertheless.

Then, the door.

It was open, but the opening did not seem inviting to Gwen. It was more like the wide gaping maw of a white abyss threatening to swallow her. She was so happy to know Rhiannon was here! And yet... not only had she gotten hurt, but she knew that her cousin would worry if she let her know about anything that had happened. She certainly didn't wish to show it.

She gave a light knock before entering and put on a smile, trying to mimic that childhood mischievousness, but being overruled by nerves and shy insecurity. "Hey Rhiannon."

Rhiannon snapped back to reality at the knock, looking to the door. Immediately her face brightened into a joyous smile, with some obvious relief as well. "Gwen!" She looked much the same as Gwen would remember her. Not a lot appeared to be different, though her eyes maybe seemed a bit more... tired?
At seeing her cousin, Rhiannon promptly tried to get out of bed. Some beeping went off as a connection came loose and she winced in pain as her ribs complained, but it had been three long years since she saw her cousin and damned if this stupid inconvenience was going to stop her from getting a real hug.

Eventually she managed to untangle herself enough to reach her target, and Rhiannon threw her arms around Gwen and hugged her tightly. "I'm so glad to see you. I'm not sure what exactly Cyclone told my parents since they likely didn't tell me everything, but- I was so worried. I got here as soon as I could. Just... hit a bit of a snag that's all."

Rhiannon pulled away and smiled, giving a small chuckle that turned into a heavy cough. She winced again but left her hands on Gwen's shoulders. Like she didn't want to let go.

Gwen was startled a little by Rhiannon's reaction before she could remind herself of who exactly she was dealing with here. Of course, after all those childhood years spent playing knights and witches and visiting one another's families for holidays, she should have expected this. She winced a little at the hug, hoping Rhiannon wouldn't notice how skinny she still was. She'd gained a few pounds over the past two weeks, but she could still count her ribs--well, if she hadn't been wearing her top and her hoodie. She hoped the hoodie at least made her feel fluffier than she was.

"Right, right! I'm so... so very happy to see you too," she smiled. She put her hand on Rhiannon's and fell silent, trying to find the words she wanted to say, but half didn't make it past her throat. Her eyes teared up and she wiped at them with her free hand. "Ugh, I'm such a putz! Let's get you back in bed, you should rest after all that. And tell me what happened! Tell me everything."

"Hey, hey now... What's wrong? I'd say you're crying because you're happy to see me, but it feels like a bit more than that." Rhiannon reached up and swiped another tear from Gwen's cheek. "Bah I've been resting since I got here. All for just playing at hero. You know how I get."

She was still smiling, but Gwen may have been able to sense and see the deeper concern as Rhiannon began to get a closer look at her cousin.

"Falling back into the big sister role right away, huh?" Gwen playfully chastised her cousin. She nodded and moved to sit on the bed, ignoring the chairs. She took a deep breath.

"I didn't... I didn't want to start off with this, but... I wanted to just talk about you and old times, but... I guess there's no beating around the bush, is there?" She shuddered as she took another deep breath. "Father's gone. I don't know where to, but someone from the Big Team told me he'd help me find him. I think sir Crisp--Cyclone--might know."

She carefully avoided talking about the rest of the past two years. She figured her family had probably heard some things, but she hoped that GREY hadn't been part of that info dump. She hoped she could bring that into light on her own terms.

"It's just been so lonely lately," she gestured hopelessly, wiping her eyes again as tears began to flow more freely. At least she'd been precognizant enough to not put on makeup that would be ruined by this inevitability. "Some people have dropped by occasionally and I've made some friends on the Big Team, but it's... it's hard."

"Well to be fair I've yet to find another role I might be good at." Rhiannon joked right back. She carefully sat herself down on the bed as well, exhaling with relief once she got settled.

"You can't find Uncle Lance? I suppose that makes sense why he needed to contact us then... When did he go missing? Are there any leads on why or where?" Her line of questioning stopped once the rest came out and Rhiannon simply held Gwen's hand, listening quietly until she finished.

"I'm sorry you've been so lonely... I wish I could've visited more often, but they've been real sticklers the past few years." She reached up with her open hand, gently moving some hair out of her dear cousin's face.

"But I'm here now! Back in the old house. They fixed it up good as new, and you're welcome to stay there with me as much as you like. You can even invite some of your new friends over! The old place has always been too big... What's this Big Team though? Playing some sports?"

"That'd be nice," Gwen smiled. She wasn't sure if she was ready to take Rhiannon up on that offer, but it would be nice to at least visit and see the house and the garden with the old tree she had fallen from countless times.

"Sports? Uh... you could say that?" Her expression was sheepish as she turned away slightly. She spoke slowly, trying to choose the right, non-alarming words. "Well, I suppose I might as well tell you, given how you got here. The Big Team is a... well, it's a team, but not for sports. Unless you consider fighting bad guys with super powers sports. Sir Crisp manages the team and I've made some friends, like DomDom and Freedo and... and Olivia."

She pondered quietly for a moment. "I don't have any leads other than Jake and sir Crisp. Jake is another member of the team, but I'm not sure if we're friends. I've asked sir Crisp, but he's very tight-lipped about it, so I'm worried. I haven't seen Jake at all the past two weeks, except for some glimpses at the Dance after... after shit went down." She shook her head. "It's all a big mess around here. You've picked a fine time to show up, Rhi."

For a moment Rhiannon really did look worn out and disheartened as she sighed and nodded. "So I've noticed..."

She quickly perked up again, eyebrows shooting up as she leaned in closer. "Wait wait- you're on a hero team now, cousin?" Rhiannon gave a sly Cheshire grin. "Well it was only a matter of time I suppose. You always were the type, as our pretend sessions made clear. They grow up so fast." She chuckled and gave a little wink.

"So do you have powers like Uncle Lance or...? Tell me about the hero you! And about these new friends of yours! Oh and um- what's Cyclone like...? In person. You've actually met him? Why do you call him Sir Crisp?"

"Hey hey, slow down!" Gwen gave Rhiannon a light shove and laughed. "You and your jokes, you're only a little older than I am!" It felt good to laugh, it relieved some of the tension that had been knotted up in her stomach. She hadn't even managed breakfast yet, let alone lunch, what with this meeting looming overhead until now, in this moment, it all released again.

"I do have powers, yeah. Not quite the same ones, but I do have some. Um. The hero me is... well she's very cool, obviously! Saved a lot of kids from bad guys! The others are pretty cool too. I'll introduce you to them sometime. There's some living in the Big Team base, but they're all guys. One of them is sir Crisp's nephew. Uhhh, I call him that because... well, he's sort of like a knight type? He's like a dad to the whole team and he used to be a big hero, but I don't think he is anymore. I'm honestly not really sure what to think of him. He's just... sorta there? Oh! And apparently the son of King Arthur is on the team, too! I haven't met him yet, though. I go to school with Freedo and Olivia, although Freedo has to remind me sometimes to not call him by his 'hero name' in public. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"

Rhiannon laughs. "I don't think it counts as rambling when I asked too many questions at once. You've been quite busy it seems! And all sorts of new people. Good. I'm glad someone has been around to keep an eye on you. You were of course always the troublemaker. Me being the perfect innocent." She can barely say that last part with a straight face. "The son of the King Arthur?? Wow. Meeting all the famous people!"

At mention of the Big Team mentor not being a big hero anymore, she sombers a bit. "I read that something happened to make Cyclone leave the main hero ranks... You might not remember, but I used to talk about him all the time when we were little. He and Uncle Lance were who I always looked up to as real heroes. The best..."

Once again Rhiannon shifts back to the positive, playful topics. "I'd love to meet your friends and this Big Team sometime, so I'll hold you to that! I'm also going to have to make sure I see you doing badass hero things. Maybe I should play damsel so you all can come rescue me. Flawless plan!"

Gwen gave a smug smile. "The King Arthur, yes," she nodded along as Rhiannon gushed about her personal heroes.

She opened her mouth to interject, but stopped and gave her cousin a look. "Now Rhi, I'm all for rescuing damsels, but it feels like you're trying to hide something from me." She let her look linger for a second. "You can tell me, I already heard you got into... a bit of a scuffle. What happened?"

Rhiannon looked genuinely surprised. "Oh. I'm sorry, I mean- Not intentionally. But I suppose I've gotten naturally more secretive... Must have rubbed off on me from all those stuffy mage instructors. I'm going to be sticking around Halcyon for a while this time and I'd be surprised if it doesn't come up, so... May as well come clean now. Can you- shut the door and cover that dumb little window in it?"
Meanwhile a small wave of her hand slowly closed the curtains on the larger room windows. She took a deep, slow breath. Well this was going to be interesting...

Gwen squeezed Rhiannon's hand, nodded and stood up. She closed the door, then looked at the window. There was no curtain for it like bigger--actual--windows, probably intentionally so, so that the doctors and nurses could easily check on patients just real quick. A glance around didn't reveal something she could easily affix to the door or stack high enough to cover it. She didn't have tape or thumb tacks, or--

Thumb tacks. Something sharp. An image flashed through her mind from back in Avalon, when a knight had challenged her father to a duel and affixed a piece of parchment with a declaration of the challenge to a tree with a dagger. She stepped back from the door and held up her hand. It became just the slightest bit colder in the room and her hair was blown back, as if by a soft non-existent breeze. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword as it flew like a ghost through the walls into her hand and materialized. She put the large chunk of iron against the door to cover the window, broad and tall enough as it was to accomplish it. She could hear the admonishments of her father to not carelessly have one's sword be leaned on or stuck into the ground--that was a surefire way to blunt it and make it far less useful, like Arthur's 'stone sword'. She smiled at the memory, then turned back and sat down in a chair.

"Right, you were saying?"

Rhiannon blinked in shock at Gwen's display of power and the sudden gigantic sword in her room. She put up a finger then put it back down, speechless until finally she just gave a little chuckle. "Fine I'm first, but you're next."

Rhiannon dismissed the glamor. It looked almost like color slowly draining from a picture as starting at the top of her head, the long black hair turned white and her skin paled to a lightness not unlike Gwen's own. A prominent glowing purple rune appeared on her right cheek and then more manifested on her neck and down her arms. Rhiannon's familiar dark green eyes shone brightly in the now dimly lit room.

The altered teen gave her cousin a small, nervous smile. "Um. Surprise?"

Gwen sat up straight fast and slowly opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. She was still for a moment, then started to gesture at Rhiannon and her face, her hair and the rest of her.

"Wh-what?! How?! What?!" She stammered. She was silent for another tense second. "WHAT?"

"A reasonable enough reaction... I'm afraid this is just what I truly look like now, cousin. For the past eight years in fact. I'm not sure how much my parents really shared with the family, but when I 'Awakened'... I'm the one who basically destroyed our house. I'm the reason it had to be rebuilt and the reason we moved away... When all that happened, this did too." Rhiannon looked down, clearly somewhat ashamed.

"The glamor to look normal was one of the first things they taught me. It's just second nature now. I'm sorry I never told you, but- whenever I visited you I just got to feel like a regular kid again. I wanted it to stay that way. It was selfish of me..."

"Rhi..." Gwen said softly as she moved closer. She sat down on the bed and leaned over to Rhiannon. She placed her hands on her shoulders and then on the sides of Rhiannon's face. "You're fucking gorgeous, Rhi." Gwen's expression was soft, but serious. "Don't let anyone tell you different, least of all yourself."

"Especially when I can still do this." Then she pushed her hands and squeezed Rhiannon's cheeks together while she made noises that sounded like what little kids thought magic spells sounded like.
"Ah-bloobloo ke-doobloo!"

Rhiannon was totally caught off guard and immediately busted out laughing, reaching up to pull Gwen's hands away and then holding her ribs as the laughter became punctuated by 'ow's and groaning. Once she finally caught her breath, she gave Gwen a grateful smile.

"You're quite the looker yourself now, my little knightling. I imagine we'll soon be beating away suitors with a stick." Her grin grew sly. "Unless... There already is one?"

Rhiannon let that slide. For now. "As for how I ended up in here, well... We were on our way home from the airport. I saw weird things happening with vans at the mall and asked to be dropped off. Went inside; got into a scuffle as stated; may have fallen a floor or so; helped block odd gas and unpleasant folk from reaching some people; now I'm here. Simple as that." She gave a sheepish grin.

Gwen couldn't hide her suddenly flush cheeks at Rhiannon's teasing comment. "Psh, yeah right."
She was grateful that her cousin didn't go further into it. She listened to her story and nodded along. "Yeah, that gas also made an appearance at the dance. Apparently it's caused some nasty effects in people who breathed it in."

Gwen poked at Rhiannon's arm, at the glowing runes traced across her skin. "But that sounds pretty badass of you. I gotta say, I didn't expect you to go face down some 'unpleasant folk' like that. Seems both of us have done some changing in the last three years, huh?"

Gwen's stomach growled loudly as if to affirm this. "Um, sorry about that. Skipped breakfast. I should probably go soon, I don't know how long visiting hours last here."

The sorceress noticed Gwen's blush with interest, pleased at her success. That was totally coming up again later.

"They say change is a constant." Rhiannon grinned. "And I wouldn't exactly call 'hiding behind a barrier' the same as 'facing down'. But I'll allow it."

"Well I'm sure between the two of us we could make visiting hours last as long as we wanted..." She glanced again at the massive blade. "But you should eat and I'm sure they'll be around any minute saying I should rest. I want the story on that monster sword next time though!"

Rhiannon made a few minute hand motions and a small arcane circle appeared on each palm for a moment before suddenly she was back to looking exactly how she did when Gwen arrived.

"It was really good to see you, Gwen. I'm so happy you came. And that you seem alright after- everything that's been going on. Don't be a stranger?" The words were intended to be playful but there's a very distinct tone of hopefulness and uncertainty in them.

"Oh, I'm sure," Gwen agreed as she got up, "but we'll have plenty of visits later," she assured her. She leaned in for a slightly awkward but warm hug.

"I'll drop by sometime if you give me your address. Oh! And here's my phone number. I've got an old second hand thing from sir Crisp." The phone had been a model even older than the last time she'd had her own phone, before the kidnapping.

"I'm alright yeah. And you're gonna be alright too, you hear me? And we're gonna face down bad guys together with the team after you get out of here. Promise."

She extended a hand and the huge sword flipped away from the door and vanished into a cloud of fine mist. It briefly seemed as if Gwen was holding a misty hilt, before any trace of that vanished as well. She smiled at Rhiannon as if to say, *I'll show you more tricks later and I want to see more of yours too*.

Rhiannon smiled back and nodded, waving as Gwen left then immediately texting her home address to the number she was given. Once her dear cousin was gone, she felt a bit of an ache in her chest and her hand slowly lowered to rest on the bed. The smile faded and she turned back to gaze distantly out the window once more.