08/14/2026: I Must Have Misseen You (PG-13)

Rampart lies on the common-room couch with an ice pack pressed above one tusk, the bruise beneath it already gone deep purple-black. Someone has draped a blanket over him that doesn't quite reach his feet.

Alternate KFC finds him there. "Looks like somebody had an adventure," she says, and her tone tries for light and lands somewhere else entirely.

"I didn't want to bother you, hon," Rampart says. "I tried sparring with Diro instead. It didn't work out." A beat. "It was two against one, genuinely."

Looking down her beak, KFC observes, "That doesn't seem particularly smart. But I don't suppose anyone who isn't under the influence of alcohol these days makes smart choices. Except for some people."

"I haven't been drinking. What makes you think I've been drinking?" Rampart is incensed.

"Then why would you do that? I thought sparring was our thing. Isn't that something we do every morning?"

"Well — yeah, it is. But you seemed like you had things on your mind, hon." He shifts uncomfortably on the couch. "That brings me to the next thing. Have you noticed things feel different between us?"

"I've been kidnapped, so —"

Rampart sighs. "I know you were kidnapped. I'm sensitive to that. But you don't talk to me about what happened."

"Yeah."

"Are you thinking about maybe taking that to a therapist?"

"I don't think the kidnapping affected me particularly, psychologically. Not that I can tell. If it shows up, I'm sure I can deal with it on my own," KFC states, truculent.

Unsure, but pressing on anyway, Rampart goes on: "I've noticed just a little bit of difference in our interactions, though." He doesn't use his fingers to gesture. He uses the tip of his trunk, pinched into something like two fingers of a hand. "You haven't noticed that?" He looks intently at her.

"I can't say I have." She won't meet his eyes.

"Hm. I see." He sets down the ice pack. "How would you feel if we just postponed the wedding a little bit?"

"Okay."

"Really?" he asks, both hurt and hopeful.

"Yeah. I mean — if you don't want to get married to me, then why would I care?"

"You don't care?" Rampart asks, trying to hide the devastation, but pretty sure this is the crux of the problem.

"No, I don't. I don't want to get married to someone who doesn't want to get married to me. So whatever. It's cool. We're cool."

"That's kind of what I thought."

He starts to hug her. Halfway through the motion he changes his mind and sticks out a hand for a shake instead, and then can't commit to that either, and his hand just hangs there.

Alternate KFC walks past his hand as well as the rest of him, goes to her bedroom, and shuts the door.

Rampart stands where he was left. His shoulders sag by degrees. His head droops. He leans against the arm of the couch like it's the only thing still holding him up.

⚔️

Alternate Hester appears in the doorway, uncertain whether she's interrupting something. "Maybe this is not a good time," she says quietly.

"No, I can talk," Rampart says, straightening up as much as his shoulders will allow. "So what do you say, Hester — you want to come with me? You don't have to. It's not a big thing. But I wouldn't mind the company. We'd go as friends, of course —"

"I've been thinking about it a lot," she says, breaking in. "I've been talking to the other me about it. I think I'm going to stay. I need to try and sort things out. I don't know if my dad will listen, but I need to try and convince him that what I want to learn is worth knowing too. And — I mean, after he fucked up so bad with Pinky, maybe I have a better chance."

"Oh. Yeah. Well — hey, good luck." Alternate Hester can see his Adam's apple jog up and down a few times before he goes on. "And I genuinely mean it, because that's a mess. Dude, that's a mess."

"Yeah. Wow. Thanks. Good luck to you too."

An uncomfortably long silence follows, then Rampart says, "Hey, can I give you a hug?"

"Yeah, sure."

He bends down — she is small, he is very tall — and wraps his trunk around her, mashing her briefly against one enormous thigh before patting her once on the head.

"You take care of yourself, okay? Hester, you're something special. You're going to figure this out. I know you will. You're going to go far."

Rampart turns and notices Diro hanging half out of a doorway, having clearly been listening for some time.

"I wasn't listening," Diro clarifies, immediately, unconvincingly. "I want to make that clear. That was just a momentary thing. I was going to come out and tell you 'you got this, Rampart.'"

He gives a broad grin and an enthusiastic double thumbs-up, desperate to appear as though he's noticed nothing at all.

Rampart turns and glares at him, brushes him off with the flat of his trunk, and turns back to alternate Hester.

"Hey — do me a favor. Keep an eye on KFC, would you? She seems off. She doesn't want me to know, but I can tell she's upset."

"I'll see what I can do."

"You don't have to do much. Just check in. Make sure she's eating. Maybe fix her up with Diro's Stand so she has somebody to spar with — she's a better fighter than I am, anyway."

Alternate Hester and Rampart don't really know how to part. They stand in uncomfortable silence. Then Rampart tells her, "All right. Well — take care. I'll send you a postcard."

He nods once and is gone.

"I feel kind of bad for Rampart," Diro says into the quiet that follows.

"Yeah," agrees alternate Hester. "I feel bad for Rampart too. He's a good guy."

⚔️

Across campus, alternate Reyna turns to Reyna with the particular energy of someone about to reorganize their entire academic future in one sentence.

"Maybe we should research stuff. I'm thinking Prismari is really not my cup of tea. I'm thinking of changing colleges. Lorehold. I want to learn how to make amazing weapons from you. You're a way better blacksmith than I am."

"We're not going to talk about those gloves, though."

"I'm sorry?"

"We're not going to talk about those, okay?"

"Well, you've got to start somewhere, right?"

"I suppose. Maybe artificing. What do you think — do I strike you as an artificer?"

"I was planning on doing something like that on my own back in my timeline anyway. Sounds like a great idea for you." A pause, then, with studied casualness: "Also — do you know if there's any ruins or something we could go explore? Just a random question."

"There's sewers under the school."

"I've been to those plenty of times."

"Nobody here goes to them. They're said to be haunted."

"They're not necessarily haunted. There's some froggy business going on there, though."

"You mean like Professor Murgaxor?"

"Close to home. In our timeline he's a different person. He's not so bad here — you do office hours with him."

"What's he like in your timeline?"

"Trying to kill us."

"Oh."

"He's homicidal. He's collecting magical artifacts to blow up the university and maybe everything else. I think it's just the university he hates. It rejected him once and he really couldn't handle it."

"He doesn't strike me as that kind of guy."

"Not yours. Your timeline's Murgaxor is way different."

"Well — let's go find out what it takes to become an artificer. Maybe a trip to the Biblioplex."

"You wanted ruins. Under the volcano, there's a bunch of ruins."

The volcano wins. Of course.

⚔️

The volcano rises behind the shoulder of Mount Strix, its base a healthy green that gives way, cone-ward, to gray-black ash — the residue of whatever oozes and occasionally spits from the top. In the party's home timeline the same mountain stands dead and green from base to summit. Here it is, unmistakably, still active.

"I know there's a way in at the bottom," alternate Reyna says. "That's what rumor has it. I don't know how to get in. Are you any good at geology, or geography, or any of that?"

"Not super my expertise. Do you think we could fly in through the top? I've got broom flying." Reyna begins to unstrap her broom from her pack.

"I think you'd burn into the lava pit. It oozes lava every so often."

"Probably not the best idea." Reyna reattaches the broom. "If we can find the opening. I've never been inside."

The pair flip a coin and choose the left-hand path around the base of the volcano. Three hours later, ninety-nine percent of the circuit is complete, and then — ten feet from where they'd started — a wooden sign reading YOU ARE HERE, complete with a small hand-painted map. Beside it, a scatter of other signs, more emphatic: DO NOT ENTER. DANGER.

They ignore all of them on principle.

The placard notes that the ruins beyond once served as a Duergar settlement.

"What are Duergar?" asks alternate Reyna.

"Gray dwarves from the Underdark," Reyna tells her.

They pause to read the rest of the sign. Ages past, Duergar began pouring up out of the Underdark to make war on the wizards of Strixhaven, before the passage was sealed by more powerful wizards than the ones currently standing here reading about it.

"I'm sure they meant for it to be opened eventually." The Reynas grin at one another.

Muddy, sweaty, and thoroughly bug-eaten, they finally find the entrance. Simultaneously, both draw out their Wands of Wonder, just in case.

Alternate Reyna's — duct-taped together from some unknown incident in its history prior to her finding it — emits feeble sparks at the tip. Something that glows green oozes from beneath the tape. She's compelled to grip the wand awkwardly to keep whatever it is from getting on her skin.

With relief, they decide to gear up properly before going in. The Duergar, the Reynas agree, are a little bit scary. Even with one and a half working Wands of Wonder.

⚔️

Later in the morning, back at the dorm, Titania finds alternate KFC in the Hex common area, curled up and staring into the middle distance.

"What a night. Are you all right?" Titania inquires, not entirely sure that they themselves are all right after their own evening.

"I just don't get it," KFC says, without preamble. "I did everything. Everything. I did everything a good partner is supposed to do. My grades are perfect. I tutored him. I practiced sparring with him. I gave him money for no reason, just for fun. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong."

"Well, maybe he's just being stupid —" Titania starts.

"Not helping. Good Lord, you're making it worse," objects alternate KFC, "and even if he is stupid, I still don't get it. Things like this aren't supposed to happen to people like me. I'm sure of that."

"So you don't know what's gotten into her…" Titania queries.

Alternate KFC rounds on them. "Are you misgendering Rampart right now?"

"I'm sorry. Slip of the tongue. Keep going, girl."

"Doesn't matter. There are plenty of fish in the ocean, though. I just — I don't need anyone else. Everyone I know lets me down. I thought that sharing my life with someone would mean strength in numbers. That's how it was during the war. That's what kept us alive. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I wouldn't even have had to come to this stupid school if it wasn't for the mistakes of my comrades. Maybe if I'd been smarter back then, I wouldn't be dealing with this now." Her hand drifts up to adjust her hat.

Titania, possibly no longer talking about alternate KFC's woes, mutters, "So, maybe we have to go back in time and slap some sense into our past selves?"

Snapping at Titania, KFC snarls, "You're getting a little ahead of yourself there. Do you know how much that would cost? That's not feasible in any way. Even just nudging a rock in the wrong direction could have devastating effects. Who knows? Oh, but you would know that."

"Just metaphorically. Why would you suggest that?" Titania turns cagey.

KFC rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Just metaphorically. See — proving my point." The barbarian stands abruptly. "I think I'm going to ask for a private dorm. I'm going to go to the dean's office and get a head start on my master's. Thank you, Titania. I really needed this talk."

"Er — you're welcome. Anytime."

"I hope I never see you again. Or any of you."

KFC storms down the staircase. On the way down she passes Squid coming up.

"Hey, KFC. I just saw Rampart. He looked really sad."

"Well, I don't know if you know this, but the wedding's off, so I don't care. He's not in my life anymore."

"Okay. I thought you should know."

"Goodbye."

The child presses themself against the iron railing of the spiral staircase and lets a furious alternate KFC pass by, down to the common room. Squid reaches the landing of the Hex rooms and tries to open the door very, very quietly.

⚔️

Diro finds alternate KFC not long after, wearing the specific posture of a man about to make things slightly worse on purpose.

"Hey, I'm really sorry about — earlier."

"About what?"

"With the Stand. Knocking Rampart out. Technically it was him, and he pointed at the — but I kind of control him, so." Diro calls this apologetically from a desk by the fireplace in the common room.

"Save it for Rampart. I don't know where he is. Probably outside or something. Actually, I'd like to thank you. For knocking some sense into him. And me."

"What did I do?" Diro looks puzzled.

"You didn't directly influence me. But it helped me realize some things about where I'm headed with my life, and what I need. I want to thank you for that. I'm also probably never going to see you again. Goodbye, Diro."

"Good Lord. Wow." A pause. "Welcome. Bye."

"Don't take it personally," KFC tells him. "Rampart's never going to see me again either." She departs from the Hex.

⚔️

Titania and KFC settle in peaceable silence in front of the Hex room's fireplace, KFC with coffee, Titania with something considerably less appropriate for the hour.

The door to the Hex opens and closes very quietly, unheard by either. But then the door to Titania's room, with its distinctive rusty hinge, alerts them that someone has entered and closed it behind them.

Titania smooths their hair, crosses the floor, and knocks. "Squid? Can I come in?" They open the door without waiting for an answer.

Squid is on their knees, pulling clothes from a drawer to stuff into a rucksack.

"You're packing to go." This is not a question. Titania stands above the crouching child and hands them the pack, peering inside — expecting to find it full of semi-clean clothing and unpaired socks, as it would be on their own timeline. Instead, there are two neat piles of freshly laundered items, the scent of lavender wafting upward.

Squid looks up, concerned. "Is that okay?"

Titania's eyes go bright with tears before they can stop it. They try to hide it. "Of course it's okay. Let me help you pack."

Squid hands over the bag and sits on the bed to watch. "Make a list for me," Titania says, over their shoulder, "of all the things you want. I wouldn't want you to forget anything."

"It'll be okay if I forget something. I'm not that far away. I can come back to get it." A beat. "Can't I?"

"Of course, child! You're always —" Titania prattles, making a mess of refolding an already-folded shirt.

"So how come you didn't tell me she was my mom?" Squid's question freezes Titania, shirt suspended mid-air.

Their voice cracks as they answer. "Do you mean the Votress?"

"Her."

"She wasn't alive in our world, so I didn't want to bring up people that —" Titania stops. There is a medallion around their neck; they lift it off and hold it out. "I should give this back to you."

Squid takes it, pockets it without putting it on. "If you open it up, there's one of me, and her, your other mother, and you."

"I see it. I've looked at it before. I didn't know who she was, and you wouldn't tell me." There is a stubbornness in Squid's expression that Titania doesn't want to meet.

"I'm sorry. I feel like I let you down in a lot of ways." They look down at their hands.

"No, not really, but — I wish you wouldn't drink so much." Titania watches the child cross their arms and look out the window.

"I'll stop doing that. It's a stupid habit."

"It's not good for you. You do dumb stuff when you're drinking."

"That's true. But I'm not the queen of anything anymore."

"You could be, in this world, if you stuck around and stopped drinking."

Squid says, with the frankness only a child can manage, "It sounds like that guy you were married to isn't around anymore. A bad thing happened to him. Ayan told me."

"Yes, that's so unfortunate."

"I figured you'd feel that way. Maybe you could go back and be queen, and I could come visit sometime when you're queening."

"Are you saying you want me to stay here?"

"I want you to have a job where you couldn't drink like you do here at Strixhaven. There's already a Titania at school, so maybe you could be queen and you'd be too busy to drink. I don't know if that would work. But I would miss you, if you left to queen."

Titania's eyes go bright again. "You should do whatever makes you happy, Squid."

Squid hops down, bag slung over one shoulder. "All right. Hey — see you around, okay?"

They hug Titania around the waist, then push back immediately. "You smell bad."

"I'm sorry. I'll deal with that."

"This is from my mom." A folded letter goes into Titania's hands. Squid skips to the door, pulling it open.

"You're sure you've got everything you need?" They hate the note of desperation in their own voice.

Squid turns large, sympathetic green eyes on Titania, silhouetted in the window. "I've got everything I need. And if I forget anything, I can come back, right?"

"Always. Anytime, any place."

"Or I'll just steal it. I mean 'borrow' it."

"Borrow it. Yes." They manage a watery smile.

The child pauses before closing the door. "Take a shower, okay?"

Squid becomes invisible on the way out. The door to the dorm seems to open and close on its own.

Titania hugs the pillow and starts crying the moment the latch clicks.

⚔️

Through the wall, Diro hears it — weeping, and then, not long after, a voice that isn't weeping at all.

"Enough of this rubbish crying, Alistir. KFC was right. We don't need anyone. And that includes you, by the way. I'm splitting us at once."

Diro raids the dorm's first-aid kit for a potion of Lesser Restoration and tips it into an open beer, on the theory that Titania will never turn down a beer. He sends the Stand to deliver it — knocking, waving with what little face it has, handing the can through the door with an expression that would be a smile if it had the features for one.

"You don't actually have something to sober us up, do you?" Alistir asks, pushing the can away. "We need a clear mind for this next step."

The Stand only nods, points at the can, and tries to hand it back.

Alistir does a quick, suspicious once-over of the beverage, sniffs, then drinks it anyway. It works. They still smell bad, but their headache is retreating. They are sobering.

Diro appears in the doorway a beat later, arms crossed with the theatrical seriousness of a man rehearsing his own apology. "I'm sorry, but I had to make sure you were sober for that. I know that probably didn't taste like an actual beer — that was a potion of Lesser Restoration." He pats his Stand on its back, or what passes for one. "I kind of heard what happened. Are you okay? I'm not really used to this whole people thing, but I can tell that sounded bad."

"That was Titania. But the thing is — I'm going to cut her out of it. I have a spell for it and everything. We'll go back to being two separate people."

"I assume she wants that too?"

"A hundred percent. This was mutual. I was very happy about it."

"Does she need the potion too, or will that carry over?"

"Technically the same body, for the time being. But thank you for your concern. Titania's dealing with it."

"Well — good luck. Let me know if you need anything for the ritual."

"We're going to find the spell components now, actually."

"I haven't got anything better to do until we go to the other timeline. Do you know when that's happening?"

"We don't. I've had all my work completed for a while — I'm just slowly turning it in so they think I'm still working."

Titania resurfaces long enough to add, "We'll let the rest of the group decide."

Diro squints at the empty air where a personality has apparently just changed hands. "Is Titania okay? Why did they just — appear like that?"

"There's no use trying to get inside their head. Luckily, we're going to be separate shortly."

"Can I talk to Titania?" Diro asks.

"They can hear you right now," Alistir tells him.

"You do realize how this looks, right?"

"I'm not really adept at the ways of mortals," Alistir dissembles.

"Neither am I, and I can tell it looks bad," snaps Diro.

Nonplussed, Alistir sneers, "Well — luckily, we're going to be separate. Not that I'm calling myself immortal. That would be a bit cocky."

"I want to talk to Titania," Diro presses.

A pause, and something in the air shifts. "Yes, Diro?" Titania says, warmly. "Hello."

"It really seems like he's trying to force you out. I don't know how this works, but you get what I'm saying, right?"

"Oh, yes, totally. We understand. I was quite happy with where I was — I was taking a nap."

"I just want to make sure you know he's trying to split you two."

"Yes, we decided upon that. That's just the way Alistir is," bubbles Titania.

"It was my idea, actually," says Alistir, surfacing again as Titania goes back to napping.

"Okay. I'm just making sure — you were being very suspicious. I'll help you, Alistir," Diro decides. "So what school of magic do you use, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm a dampir," Diro says, as they walk. "That's mostly where my powers come from. But I've spent years studying, trying to surpass my brother, actually. Real POS he is. And what school of magic do you —?" He trail off.

Diro nods enthusiastically. "Witherbloom. Necromancy. The darker magics in general. If I hadn't studied them, I wouldn't have this guy." He gestures at his Stand.

"A nice little fellow. He's as tall as me," observes Alistir. "I thought he was a table."

"You thought he was a what?" Diro stops walking, stares wide-eyed.

"I thought he was a table," they repeat. "I must have misseen you."

"Why would he be a table? Are you sure you drank the beer that was going to sober you up?" Diro asks, with real concern. "Wait — were you imagining, this whole time, that a table floated over holding a beer?"

"Yes." Alistir is staring at their nails.

It emerges, gently, that Alistir has spent this entire morning picturing a table flying at Rampart at high speed and headbutting him, and has found nothing about this strange enough to question.

Diro generously changes the subject. "So, what do you exactly need for the potion?"

"Four components," Alistir says, counting them off on their fingers: "A pumice stone that has softened the feet of a queen. Three drops of sweat from a salamander that has been afire and yet lives. A shard of obsidian touched by a dark dwarf. A pinch of ash scraped from a ruin destroyed by Hephaestus."

The artificer nods. "Would Titania count as a queen?"

"They're an ex-queen, so we don't know if they'd still count. They technically got excommunicated." Alistir grimly pauses. "If we have to get them reinstated as queen of wherever they're from, this is going to take a lot longer."

"You could just find another queen," suggests Diro.

"That’s not something you do in an afternoon."

"I wondered if the other Titania counted, but they got excommunicated too, or I think, so."

They agree to get the pumice stone first. It's volcanic, and volcanic means the volcano.

⚔️

The Reynas gather what they need. They’ll return to the volcano as soon as they finish copying a scroll of See Invisibility spell out of the Biblioplex onto a clean parchment roll. They will try to learn the spell so that if Duergar are still beneath the volcano, they will be able to combat their invisibility, one of their less scary talents.

⚔️

In front of alternate KFC's bedroom door, the shambling mound is doing the four-legged, sometimes-three-legged, sometimes-one-legged dance of a creature that needs something and cannot say what.

"We need to release this thing into the swamp," KFC suggests.

Hester smiles, observing, "You've had a pet for two days and you already want to get rid of it.”

KFC considers this, “Mound, I will get you what you need. You just have to wait right here for a second, all right?"

Nobody present is confident that shambling mounds require anything so mundane as a bathroom break. Eventually the working theory they settle upon: Not a bathroom emergency, but hunger. 

However, the mound ate a dog the last time it was allowed out unsupervised, and everyone would very much like to avoid that becoming a pattern.

"What if we tie it to Diro's returning knives, so it can't get too far before we call it back?"

"Wouldn't it just rip through the rope?" Diro asks.

KFC turns to the mound, "Okay, buddy. You can go out on one condition — you don't eat a dog. Can you say ‘dog’? ‘Dog!’ Don't eat one. Promise?”

Whatever the shambling mound's version of shame looks like, it is apparently written all over this creature's non-face.

"Since you ate a dog last time, I'm going to tie these daggers to you, I guess." KFC moves closer to the mound, Diro’s returning daggers in her hands.

Alistir intervenes before the rope comes out. "If we find something equally dense to replace the dog, we should be fine. We don't need the ropes. Let's just feed it a tree, then. It eats trees. It ate a table once."

This lands on the Stand like a physical threat. The mound, ever so slightly, begins drifting toward him with what can only be described as deep interest. The Stand, apparently delighted, starts petting it.

Humphrey the Shambling Mound engulfs the Stand whole.

KFC frantically shrieks, "Humphrey, no! You spit that out!" 

The Stand floats free a moment later, trailing a great sodden chunk of compost and vine, turns itself upside-down in midair to shake it off, and — fingertips stretched carefully to avoid what might be mouths — resumes petting the mound as though nothing at all has happened. Humphrey begins to purr.

"Maybe we should just release it."

Alistir, translating: "He would like to go back to the forest, please."

"We can do that on the way to wherever we're going." Diro decides.

Hester, weighing her options — stay and finish things with alternate Hester, or go — decides there's a quest leaving and she'd rather be on it. 

⚔️

At the YOU ARE HERE sign, Debbie, Diro, Hester and KFC find identical pairs of boot prints heading off in the direction marked DO NOT ENTER — someone else has already been here.