Blackbird/Synopsis

## Blackbird

We return to the time when Kagan capitulates and starts treating Joe like he isn't simply a construct holding Ralabast's place until he returns, just before Sean is kidnapped by the witches. She has just finished giving him her lecture on chimera, and she tells him he is skilled, but Ralabast is so much more. She admits he may not be Ralabast, but the power is his … if he wants it. What follows next is after that conversation.

Joe listens to her, but he rejects the power she tells him is his, saying he doesn't want it. He shapeshifts easily into the familiar red-tailed hawk and dives off the branch they were sitting on, his clothing clutched in his talons. He tells her he needs to think, and he instructs her not to follow him. From her perch in the tree, she watches him fly away, his pants waving in the air below him.

Turning away, Kagan leaps off the branch wearing her harpy form, and she flies away under the light of the full moon. She makes her way out of the forest and passes over the nearby coastline to the sea. Tears stream from her eyes, whipped away by the wind of her passage, and she tries to understand and accept Joe's rejection. She skims along the ocean's surface with moonlight frosting the cresting waves. A disturbance in the water alerts Kagan to an intruder, and she quickly identifies it as Typhon, an ocean-based chimera. She just as quickly discovers she has flown too close to the water's surface. More than a half-dozen suckered tentacles emerge from the wave tops to capture an angry Kagan in mid-flight. Typhon emerges from the water to greet the sulking Kagan after she has her subdued. Tentacles aside, Typhon has a vaguely human female form with neck frills that obscure her breasts, and a head shaped similar to a squid's, adorned with multiple rows of eyestalks across the front of what passes for her noseless face.

Growing the 'shark' smile she so badly frightened Joe with, Kagan begins gnawing at the tentacle holding her in its grasp. She tells Typhon she's too late, that the Zodiac can't kill him because Joe is already coming into his power. Typhon says she is aware, but 'the rat' was very insistent that she come here now, and he's been watching all of this with great interest. Recognizing his MO, Kagan identifies 'the rat' as N'Daigoshii with a snarl. Continuing to shift, Kagan becomes a giant leaf-nosed bat and bites through one of the tentacles holding her, blue-gray blood spraying from the wound. Holding her above the water with other tentacles, Typhon acknowledges Kagan's guess, but then tells her she's not there for Ralabast, she's there for her. This stops Kagan's efforts to free herself, puzzled by Typhon's assertion, and she urges Typhon to explain. Smiling with oddly human lips, she tells Kagan the Zodiac is not what it once was. There were twelve, but now there are eight, and they're recruiting. She tells Kagan she hasn't opened her eyes as they have, but she *is* strong. Looking at Typhon through slitted eyes, Kagan tells her she is wrong, there are only seven, and she converts herself into a flock of birds, eluding the tentacles grasp. Hands grow out of the ends of the tentacles in an attempt to grab the fleeing birds, and Typhon informs her she never did know when to accept a good thing.

The flock of birds wheel and turn back to Typhon, changing into a black horse just before making contact. The impact creates a tremendous splash, and they drive deep down into the water. Typhon gleefully asks if this was productive, seeing as they are now in her element. Her tentacles multiply, growing pincers at the tip and streaking toward the horse stranded in the aquatic atmosphere, and Typhon comments this seems unwise. Getting no response from Kagan — who is fast becoming some sort of reptile — Typhon chides her for never learning to speak underwater. Finished with her change, Kagan has become a crocodile, and she moves toward the multiple pincer-tipped tentacles facing her. The tentacles are *fast* and quickly deal a lot of damage, causing the surrounding water to darken redly with Kagan's blood. With blood flowing from her mouth, Kagan appears to succumb to her wounds and starts drifting back. Typhon continues with her diatribe, claiming it doesn't matter, that she supposes Kagan doesn't have anything to say worth hearing. She mocks Kagan, saying what fun they could have had.

Kagan's right eye is nearly closed as she drifts, then it suddenly snaps open. Long strands of kelp reach out and capture Typhon's tentacles, causing her to shout out a denial. Just as suddenly, Kagan shifts to a great white shark, and with her mouth open wide, she bull-rushes the struggling Typhon from out of the surrounding cloud of red blood left in the water. Bubbles rise to the surface of the ocean cloudy with red blood, and Kagan bursts from the water with her wings swept back, Typhon firmly clutched in her talons. She tells Typhon her first mistake was to come here at all. Climbing higher and higher, she crosses over the face of the moon and a severed tentacle falls away. She tells her captive that her second mistake was to come alone. No longer so self-assured and with her face streaked with red and blue blood, Typhon demands she be let go. Without batting an eye, Kagan grants her wish and releases the marine chimera from her talons.

It's been said that it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end. Perhaps that thought passed through Typhon's mind, and she may even have regretted demanding to be let go. She certainly had plenty of time to contemplate her mistakes on the way down. Impacting with the ground like a fleshy meteorite,     tentacles go flying as she dies amid the rocks on the shore. High above, Kagan makes the observation that if she'd had someone to catch her, she might have lived. No one survives alone.

Her head snaps around when she sees Ralabast flying in the distance; he has taken to the sky after defeating the witches. It takes her little time to catch up with Ralabast as he glides toward the sunset. Thinking he might be Joe riding in Ralabast's form, she calls out to Joseph, apologizing for intruding. He cuts her off, correcting her mistake. "I am Ralabast."

Kagan is quite pleased with this declaration.

## References

1. ↑ Episode 48 Lullaby
2. ↑ See Trivia:Shark smile
3. ↑ Episode 56 Hey Man Nice Shot