A/N: The year is X780. The setting is somewhere deep within the Worth Woodsea. I'll write more at the end of the chapter, so for the time being, let the story begin with a chance meeting... ~CS

Maiden of the Sky, Master of the Tower

By CrimsonStarbird

-We Met in a Place of Darkness-

September, X780

"JELLAL!"

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

This should have been his moment of glory. Right now, he was supposed to be standing triumphant, in control of the powerful and dangerous unsealed magic that would form the last piece of his plan to change the world. Instead, he was crouched with his back to a boulder in the middle of a forest clearing, hardly daring to breathe for fear he might be heard, his attention torn between trying to stem the bleeding from the wound in his arm and keeping an eye on the surrounding trees for the movement of hostile shadows.

Why were the Rune Knights here? It wasn't right. It had taken him months of devotion to reach this place. He had thought of little else during that time: getting his hands on the genuine ancient and forbidden texts after many false starts; interpreting them to find the hidden location; calculating exactly how to unlock the seal and bind it to his will once he found it – that formidable task had occupied all his focus. No one else could have known it was here, least of all those fools on the Council. So why had they made their move now?

Had they followed him here? Leaving the Tower without being detected and making it safely here when the whole world was against him was always going to be a challenge, but he had taken pains to ensure that there had been no one on his tail. A coincidence, then. A scowl crossed his face as he cursed his bad luck. The guardians were tough enough without him having to evade the Knights on top of that. He hadn't been expecting such strong resistance from the forest's inhabitants. Centuries of living in the shadow of such powerful magic had mutated the wildlife beyond recognition, and the monsters who now dwelled here attacked all intruders with savage abandon.

He didn't have a name to put to the thing which had wounded him. Perhaps if you traced its lineage back far enough, it had once been a bear, but he had never seen a bear that was over twenty feet tall before, let alone one with spines larger than he was, and whose fangs dripped a green liquid which burned holes straight through the foliage. On reflection, he had been lucky to escape with such a minor injury.

Maybe, if he was lucky, the monsters and the Rune Knights would all kill each other and he could still turn this day around. Given how well his luck had been serving him so far, however, he didn't much fancy his chances.

It wasn't supposed to be this way!

Sure, it wasn't the first time he had come so close to being captured by the Knights. Nor was it the first time everything had fallen apart during a mission he had planned for extensively. It was, however, the first time he had gambled so much on a move that had gone so badly wrong. He stood to lose far more than he could afford if he couldn't somehow pull a miracle out of the darkness of despair.

"JELLAL!"

He was so distracted by the hopelessness of his situation that he didn't hear the girl's shout until the second time – until it was already too late.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

The dream was always the same, and it was never like this. It began with the great white sky dragon sitting atop the hill, a queen surveying her domain, while the sunset cast her shadow across the rolling meadows of her back garden. Every time, she ran happily towards her mother, knowing in her heart that this time Grandeeney really was back; every time, as she crested the hill, the silhouette was revealed to be a heap of lifeless rocks, devoid of the warmth she sought. But she wasn't alone – now that she thought about it, it wasn't sunset after all, but sunrise, and when she turned around, he was there, smiling at her; holding his hand out towards her.

"I told you we'd meet again."

This time, the dream was different. He looked subtly different to how he did in her memory. He was older now: taller, stronger, a little wilder. It had been over two years since he had left her, and he must have changed in that time, for she was certain her memory would not have faded. In the dream, he appeared as he had the first time she met him, always regal, fearless, powerful; the only one she felt safe with. This too was different now. There was agitation in the repeated glances he cast over his shoulder; vulnerability in the bloodstained cloth binding his arm; desperation in his torn clothes and unkempt appearance.

But it was him, undoubtedly him, and that was, to her, the only thing that mattered. She called his name as she ran towards him.

"JELLAL!"

Perhaps the fact that the dream was different this time meant that it might not end as all the others had. Maybe this time, when he reached for her, fulfilling the promise he had made to her on the day they had parted, she could take his hand and find it real. Maybe this time, his smile wasn't a lie. Maybe this time she wasn't alone in the night. Maybe she wouldn't wake up screaming, unable to sleep until she had run into Master Roubaul's test and curled up beside him; when the gentle way that he stroked her hair until she stopped crying was the only thing in the world that could convince her that she hadn't been abandoned by everyone.

Perhaps the fact that the dream was different this time meant that it was not a dream after all. Perhaps the memories she had of waking up before the old women in her village got up to do their chores, sneaking out of the guild, and heading into the forest on her own before the sun rose were real memories, rather than the kind her head made up while she slept. Perhaps she really had run away from the guild in order to find him.

And perhaps he really was there in front of her.

She shouted to him again. It was real. After all this time, he had finally come back for her.

"JELLAL!"

No.

Why was he looking at her like that? He was supposed to be smiling. He was supposed to affirm the promise he had made to her. He was supposed to sweep her up in his arms, laughing like he used to.

"Who are you?"

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

"Jellal…?" That single word hovered on her lips. Once a joyous exclamation, now a murmur of bewilderment.

"Who the hell are you?" he repeated; an accusation. He had never been angry with her before. Not in her dreams. Not in her memories. This wasn't right.

Someone whispered an answer in her voice. "Don't you… remember me?"

Reality was worse than her dreams, worse even than her nightmares. If he wouldn't reach for her, then she would reach for him; she clutched clumsily at his hand, at his clothes, seeking anything which might verify that he was real.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He didn't wait for a response. He shoved her, roughly. She fell to the ground, gazing up at him with eyes that were strangely damp. "Jellal…? Why…?" There were more words than that, but for some reason, they just weren't coming. Maybe they were trapped in the painful prickling at the back of her throat. She stared at him and didn't understand.

"Get away from me!"

After so many long days and longer nights, she had finally found him. She had written a new ending to the dream which had haunted her for so long, that dream in which everyone she had ever loved had abandoned her. It should have been the happiest moment of her life.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

She obeyed his order with tears streaming down her face, and ran from that nightmare as quickly as her feet could carry her.

"It's not like I care."

This was a problem. As if his day wasn't going badly enough already, things seemed to be slipping even further out of control. This situation was complicated enough without throwing confusion into the mix. Who the hell was that girl? How did she know who he was?

It was possible she was a child who had escaped from the Tower, but he discounted that suggestion almost immediately. She was too young for that – she could have been no older than eight or nine. Besides, she didn't have the right look about her. There was an innocence in her eyes that no survivor of the Tower would ever have again. She had been brought to tears so easily, and by mere words at that. He hadn't even been trying to upset her; he had acted instinctively on a mix of bewilderment and fear. He could have done much worse if he had wanted to. It simply hadn't been necessary.

"It's not like I care," he asserted to himself once more.

If there was one stroke of good luck, it was that no Rune Knights had been drawn by the girl's careless shout. That told him the surrounding area ought to be clear. If he was going to make a run for it, it ought to be now. By the time the girl came back, he'd be long gone.

A blood-curdling roar filled the clearing. He froze with one foot in mid-air. His wounded arm gave an involuntary twitch. Angrily pushing away the fear, he forced himself to think rationally. By the sounds of things, the monster was still quite far away. There was no need to panic yet. Besides, that was the direction the girl had run in. It would find her long before it came across him.

What was a little girl doing in the Worth Woodsea anyway? Not even Rune Knights entered the dark forest willingly. Well, whatever happened to her, it was her own fault for coming here in the first place. Shrugging, he turned to leave.

This time, it was a scream of a child that stopped him in his tracks.

"It's got nothing to do with me," he vowed aloud, except it was maybe a little bit his fault that she had run blindly off into the forest. He gave the grey sky a defiant glare. "In fact, this is the perfect opportunity. She can distract the Rune Knights while I take the chance to slip deeper into the forest."

He managed two steps forward before his willpower faltered. He had many enemies, but that girl was not one of them. The way she had looked at him; the way she had called his name; that innocence, the likes of which he had not seen in a fellow human being for as long as he could remember – those memories bothered him.

"It's better if she dies. That way she won't be able to tell anyone I was here, or go around shouting out my name and giving my position away again, or…"

Guilt always chose the most inappropriate times to act, didn't it?

For the third time: "It's not like I care what happens to her."

Then: "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Not entirely in accordance with his will, he had started to run in the direction of the scream. Sharp eyes darted left and right; all his senses were on high alert. He pinpointed the origin of the girl's second cry with the efficient accuracy of a hunter. Not that the beast was difficult to track – its lumbering form cut a swathe of destruction through the dense undergrowth. Nor was it well-camouflaged or at all suited to its environment; it was stray magic, not natural selection, that had determined this creature's evolution.

In the next moment it was there in front of him, even larger than he remembered, all jagged claws and lethal spikes and jaws open wide enough to swallow him whole. Some of that blood matting its fur was his. One of its blade-like claws had hooked the back of the girl's dress, lifting her inevitably towards its gaping mouth. She whimpered in fear, her eyes screwed shut against the horror of her fate.

Who in their right mind would run towards such a monster?

Him, apparently. There was no time to stop and consider his own stupidity, so he could only conclude that he was no longer in his right mind as he closed his eyes mid-step and sought the source of his power in the darkness. He seized it and drew it fearlessly towards him, filling his body with light.

When he opened his eyes an instant later, everything had changed. The world around him seemed to move at half-speed through a golden haze. He was acutely aware of his own body: his heartbeat, deafening in the emptiness; the breath in his lungs; the balance on his feet; the damage to his arm; his physical weaknesses – he understood all the limitations of his own body and he knew how to overcome them. His power made it possible.

His next step became a great leap. Gravity did not hinder him; he kicked off from the ground and shot like an arrow towards the dangling girl. The monster's other claw swept down to intercept him, but it was fractionally too slow to catch him in this state, and the deadly edge passed within millimetres of his head. He tried not to think about the imminence of death – luck might not be with him today, but surely karma had to be on his side? – and focussed on grabbing the girl round the waist with his good arm.

There was a slight resistance as her dress caught on the monster's claw, but the fabric shortly gave and the two of them fell back towards the ground. He landed lightly on his feet, magic still suffusing his limbs, and pushed off again, this time launching the two of them as far away from the monster as possible. Savage jaws snapped shut an inch behind them but they were already gone, half-running and half-bounding through the forest, the girl tucked safely under his arm, traversing the rough terrain at a rate even the beast couldn't match.

Only when the sounds of pursuit no longer reached his heightened senses did he skid to a stop. He deposited the girl onto the ground and then rested his uninjured arm against a tree, using it to support his weight as the magic passed back beyond his reach. "I think we lost it," he muttered, once he had his breath back.

Not that he was going to get a moment's peace. Immediately the girl dashed over to him, throwing her arms around him and refusing to let go at his protests. His magic roiled within him, unsure of whether or not to treat this invasion of his personal space as a threat; he suppressed it with a growl.

Then the harsh reprimand he was about to give voice to died in his throat as she beamed up at him. Her tears had dried; she gazed at him wondrously with trust and gratitude. There wasn't a single ounce of doubt in those eyes. "Thank you," she whispered, and smiled at him once again with the unreserved joy that only children understood.

An automatic scowl crossed his face. "Go home," he told her bluntly. "This is no place for children."

"But…"

His attempts at shaking her off only resulted in her gripping his sleeve tightly. With an effort, he subdued his impatience and crouched down so that their eyes were at the same level. "The forest is dangerous, and I'm not going to come save you again. So go straight back home, okay?"

Why was she crying now? He had saved her, hadn't he? Wasn't that enough? He wanted nothing to do with this girl. He should just have left her to become that monster's dinner.

Something to that effect must have shown on his face, because the girl shied away from him, wiping her eyes hurriedly on her sleeve. "Okay," she sniffed.

"Good."

Satisfied, he picked a direction at random to begin walking in. He had no idea where he was – his desperate flight had only carried them deeper into the labyrinth of branches and shadows. All he wanted was to put as much distance as possible between him and this girl. His eyes were peeled for the sight of Rune Knights, but he saw no one. Perhaps fortune was beginning to take his side again. If he had somehow managed to slip through their perimeter while running blindly, he might be able to pull this whole endeavour off after all.

His ears pricked up at the sound of soft footsteps, padding along complacently a little way behind his own. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." With a quiet growl, he rounded on the girl. "Why are you following me?" he snapped. "I told you to go home!"

Embarrassed, her gaze drifted off to the side. She pushed her index fingers together. "I can't go home. I'm lost."

"Then go be lost somewhere else."

Turning again, he picked up the pace, forcing her to jog to keep up with his long strides. "Can't I come with you?"

"No, you can't. I'm too busy to babysit children."

"But it'll be just like it used to be. You and me."

Now he rounded on her again, his abruptness a manifestation of his answer. "I don't know what you're talking about. We've never met before."

She tilted her head to one side, blinking up at him with bright, curious eyes. "You really don't remember me?"

"No. And I think I'd remember if I'd met an annoying brat like you before."

"…Oh. Then…"

"Get lost, kid." Though she flinched backwards at his words, his harsh expression didn't relent. "You're not coming with me, and that's that."

Persistent little brat that she was, she only ran after him as he tried to leave once more. "JELLAL!" she wailed. He winced, envisioning all the Rune Knights in the forest converging upon that noise. How could such a loud sound come from such a small child?

"Don't call me that! Someone might hear."

She frowned, trying to understand. "Then are you… not Jellal, after all? Is that why you don't remember me? But you look just like him…" She did not believe he was lying; for her, this situation had become more confusing than hurtful. "Oh! I know! Are you maybe twins?"

He'd take anything to make her stop talking. "Yeah, that's right. Jellal's my twin brother."

"Ahh." She nodded sagely, once; twice. "I get it now. I'm sorry for thinking you were him. Jellal's my best friend. I haven't seen him for a while, though… Oh! I'm Wendy, by the way."

"Okay."

There was a pause. "And you are…?"

He dragged his attention away from the surrounding forest to find her gazing up at him expectantly. "Right. Well. I'm, uh, Siegrain. Nice to meet you."

Was that the end of it now? He had hoped so, but apparently introducing yourself to an eight-year-old automatically landed you in the 'friend' category. She fell contentedly into step beside him. "Why are you in the forest, Siegrain?"

A sigh. Well, it didn't matter now, did it? "I'm looking for Nirvana. I don't suppose you'd know where it is, would you?"

"Nirvana? What's that?"

"Really powerful magic. It's sealed somewhere in this forest."

To his surprise, she stopped in her tracks. "Oh! You mean the big shiny thing?"

"Big shiny thing…?"

"Yup!" She nodded emphatically. "It's kind of… leaking. That's how I know where it is. It's half white and half black, but there's some black in the white and some white in the black, see?"

He didn't have a clue what she was talking about, but if he had been told to describe Nirvana using only colours, then going by what he had read about it, the description he would have given might not have been too far away from hers. "Wendy, do you know where Nirvana is?"

"I've never heard of Nirvana. But if it's the big shiny thing, then yup."

"Can you take me there?"

"Sure! Though, actually, Master Roubaul made me promise never to go near there…"

"It's very important that I find it, Wendy."

"Well… I did promise…"

This time, he didn't hesitate to crouch down again in front of her, one hand resting reassuringly on her shoulder. "It's okay to break a promise if someone's life is in danger. You see, I need to find Nirvana because, uh, its seal is coming undone, and that means it is very dangerous to everyone in the forest. If we can find it and re-seal it, we'd be helping a lot of people."

"Oh." Her doubt only lasted for a moment. "Okay! Let's go!"

Grabbing his hand, she set off at a brisk trot. She led him on a haphazard path through the undergrowth, scrambling over enormous roots and jumping over brooks as if she hadn't a care in the world – as if she had already forgotten the monster which had almost eaten her alive. Children were so foolish… but wasn't the foolish one him, for following her so blindly? What on earth was he thinking?

"Hang on a minute." With one eye keeping a careful lookout for any signs of movement amongst the trees, he inquired, "You said you were lost earlier, so how come you know how to get to Nirvana from here?"

"I am lost." She gave him another beaming smile, causing him to groan inwardly. "But I can always find the shiny thing. It's really bright, like the sun. The sun's a long way away, but you can always see it, right?"

"I don't think I follow you."

"Well, you know how it's cloudy sometimes, but not too cloudy? And the sun's there behind the clouds. You can't see it directly, but there's a little extra bright patch, and you know that the sun is over there. The shiny thing – I mean, uh, Nirvana – is like that. It's leaking, like the sunlight leaks through the clouds. I think it's getting brighter. Or maybe the clouds are getting thinner. See?"

Her juvenile similes might have made sense to another child, but he hardly had the will or the patience to try and decode the ramblings of a little girl. He had a growing suspicion, however, that there was far more to this girl than met the eye. Could she really sense Nirvana's magic, at this distance? Even he couldn't do that. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't detect even the faintest trace of it above the background noise, and yet she was leading him through the forest without hesitation. Was that even possible?

"Wendy, can you sense my magic?"

"Yup. You're kind of shiny too. All mages are."

"I see."

"Oh! Can you do that thing where you make a monster appear, and it's all scary and looks like it's going to eat me, but then I touch it and it disappears, like, poof?"

"…Illusion magic? No, I can't do that."

She stuck out her bottom lip. "Jellal could do that."

"Well, I'm not him, okay?"

"Okay…" she said, despondently.

At last, a moment of quiet. Children were so annoying. If they somehow managed to get there without being discovered, he silently made a vow to ditch the girl as soon as she had taken him to Nirvana. As if on cue, the sound of a distant shout reached his ears, and he froze. That wasn't the sound of a beast – no, the only people stupid enough to shout commands like that in such a perilous environment were the Rune Knights. They were closer than he thought. Cursing inwardly, he strained all his senses, trying to find them before they found him. His ears picked up the sound of nearby footsteps; of an intruder trying to be silent when his standard-issue army boots didn't lend themselves to stealth.

Wondering why he had stopped, Wendy turned to look at him. "Sie-"

Immediately, he bounded forwards, seizing her arm and dragging her sideways into a bush. At the same time, his other hand clapped firmly over her mouth, cutting off her startled shout. He pressed her deeper into the undergrowth and crouched down beside her. He could feel her little body trembling in fear.

And then, amazingly, her shaking subsided; she pressed herself closer to him, seeking reassurance. She trusted him. He had to fight the sudden urge to laugh.

Instead, he just whispered, "Be quiet." He felt her nod, and removed his hand. To him, the sound of her gasping for breath seemed deafeningly loud in the silence, but it was a big improvement over the non-stop chatter of earlier. And it wasn't a moment too soon.

A trio of Rune Knights crossed over the path they had been on, coming within metres of their hiding place. They were moving slowly, carefully; he assessed their movements like a hunter would watch his prey. If Nirvana had been found, they would be rushing towards it, not searching the area like this, and that meant he still had a chance of getting there first. On the other hand, if all they were doing was searching, there was no need for them to try so hard to be stealthy. He could only hope that it was the denizens of the forest they were trying to conceal their presence from, and not him. If they really did know he was here…

The feeling of Wendy tugging on his sleeve dragged him back to the present. At least she had the tact to whisper when she asked, "Who're they?"

Only once they had moved out of sight did he reply. "Rune Knights. We can't let them catch us."

"Why not? The Rune Knights are the good guys, aren't they? Master Roubaul said they help the guilds."

"True. But, ah, if they see me, they'll mistake me for Jellal and try to arrest me. They won't know we're twins."

"Why would they want to arrest Jellal?"

"Because he's a bad person who's done a lot of evil things."

Wendy took offence on behalf of his fictitious brother. "Jellal's not evil! He's a good person. He's kind, just like you."

"Me, kind?" He had to fight not to laugh at that. Smiling to himself, he emerged from the bush and removed stray bits of thistle from his clothes. Wendy wriggled out beside him. She glared up at him, as if expecting an answer, so he sighed. "You're right. Jellal used to be a good person, once. Then he came to realize that the world is a cruel place, and that to survive in it, he must be even crueller. He'll seize the power to change the world, no matter what it costs him."

"Oh," she said, sadly. "I wonder if that's why he left me."

He shrugged, saying nothing. They set off again. Wendy led him through the forest with just as much certainty in her step as before. He left the navigating to her, focussing instead on trying to detect the patrols of Knights before they blundered into them. After the third time he dragged her into the shadows just in the nick of time, she gave voice to her frustration.

"I don't get it. They're the good guys, and we're the good guys. Wouldn't it be faster if we just worked together?"

"That would be a very bad idea."

"But they're trying to protect people from Nirvana too, right? Like we are?"

"I already told you. They think I'm the villain."

"But you're obviously not." She folded her arms in defiance. "If we just explained to them that you're not Jellal then I'm sure they'd understand."

"No. We're going to beat them there, seal the magic, and then leave again. No one needs to know we were there. As far as they're aware, Nirvana was properly sealed the entire time – understood? Wendy?"

He added her name to the instruction, a touch of frost lacing his voice. He thought that would be enough to make her comply; he wasn't expecting her to suddenly round on him, her eyes wide with understanding.

"Oh, I see! We're superheroes!"

"Yeah, we're… what?"

"Superheroes! Like in all those stories Master Roubaul tells me. They save people, but they always wear costumes to hide who they really are. Is that what we're doing?"

"Sure, why not? But we don't have costumes, so we have to be sneaky."

"Wow!"

Just as he thought he had managed to placate her curiosity, she piped up again, as irrepressible as ever. "I never really understood those stories, though. I mean, if you were saved by a superhero, how would you know who to thank?"

"We don't require gratitude. Virtue is its own reward."

She missed the irony in his voice. "But that's not fair. You'll end up saving everyone, but you won't get any of the credit. I think you should tell the Rune Knights-"

He was no longer listening. At last, they were close enough to Nirvana for him to be able to detect it with his own senses. All mages perceived these things differently; the interplay between magic and their five ordinary senses was unique to each person. Wendy had compared it to the sun, but to him it was like a wave, and as they drew closer it crashed against him in a great roar of noise, sending shivers racing up and down his spine. He swayed on his feet, overwhelmed by its sudden intensity. When he opened his eyes, they gleamed with a new light.

"We're nearly there," Wendy informed him, unnecessarily.

"Yeah." He still wasn't really listening. "Wendy, I need you to wait here, okay?" She tilted her head to one side, gazing at him with curiosity, but without suspicion. She was so sweet. He was almost tempted to keep her. Almost. "I'm going on alone. Keep a lookout for me. If any Rune Knights come here, tell them that you're lost, and that you need them to take you home. Can you do that for me?"

"Yup!"

With that settled, he turned to leave, only to have her grab his sleeve once again. "What?"

"Don't die," she beseeched him.

He raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't planning on dying," he returned, affronted. Reassured, she beamed up at him once more. He took this an as invitation to shake himself free of her grip and set off down the trail.

At long last, things were back to how they were supposed to be. Victory was once more within his grasp. This path was one he was always meant to walk alone.

Wendy waved at him until he vanished from sight. Then she found a boulder to sit on and swung her feet back and forth, waiting for him to return. She had no doubt that he would come back for her. After all, she was no longer alone. She was happy. Siegrain had saved her life, and now they were travelling together, just like those few short months of bliss she had spent with Jellal.

She wanted to do something for him, though. Something to thank him for saving her, and for being her friend…

An idea came to her and she sat bolt upright, her eyes sparkling. She jumped to her feet and was immediately restrained by her conscience. "He did tell me to wait here…" she pondered aloud. "But I want to help, and I can't help if I'm here. It's not like I promised to stay here…"

That settled it. She dashed back into the forest the way they had come. Siegrain was going to be so proud of her.

A/N: So, hello! CrimsonStarbird here. This my second story for Fairy Tail, and as you'll have guessed if you've made it this far, it is a prequel story focussing on Jellal and Wendy, about how the former is able to infiltrate the Magic Council and carry out his Tower of Heaven plan. It will span the four years up to and including canon's Tower of Heaven arc, and while it will be non-canon in as much as Wendy and Jellal are going to be spending a lot of time together, in other matters I will attempt to account for as much of canon as possible. Picking a place to start was tricky, but it will all settle down and make sense within a few chapters.

In terms of characters... everyone you'd expect to be in a story like this - Carla, Ultear, Lahar etc - will all turn out to be major players in this game, although it will be a while before any of them actually show up. Don't be surprised if they start off quite out of character - four years is a LONG time, especially when your characters are young to begin with, and odds are they will tend towards their canon selves towards the end. Conversely, basically none of the main Fairy Tail characters - Natsu, Lucy, Gray and so on - will be in this; even Erza will only show up in maybe one or two chapters. Also, there will be OCs. It's unavoidable in prequels. Most will be minor, but there will be one OC joining later on who is not only a main character, but will also be integral both to the plot and to Jellal's character development. Just pointing this out now in case there's anyone out there like me who is likely to get annoyed if important OCs are brought in without warning (or, in fact, are brought in at all). This is the advance notice!

In terms of updating, I'll put up one chapter per week since that seems manageable for me, on Sunday evenings (my time zone). Some of the chapters at the start will be fairly short, so the story might move quite slowly early on, but I just don't have the time to do more than one a week.

Right, that's all the admin out of the way! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and thanks for reading! ~CS