The Bloodforged Kin

Luna floated in empty space, an infinite array of colored threads stretched out into the nothingness on all sides. She touched the one closest to her and felt it resonate. She gripped it and-

Luna walked around the outside perimeter of their house, waving the wand of living wood that had helped paved the way of her druidic class. Tree roots stronger than any steel surged out of the lawn to cover her family home in a living shield. She cast a glance at the Bouchard's wall, broken, the inhabitants long dead. The wall had held against smaller creatures, but not against the massive bear that had been taller than the wall itself. It had ripped through the barrier like paper and the Bouchards were completely unable to defend themselves. Her family had not gone the martial route, all of them choosing defensive classes to help protect each other. They couldn't kill the bear, but she could erect a wall that would constantly heal itself…

Luna released the strand with a gasp. She realized that she could 'see' the life of that Luna, her past stretching far behind her, the druidic girl's future fading into fog ahead of her. She gripped the strand again and tried to look ahead, only to be met with an obscuring fog. She could tell the future existed, just not for how long, or in what fashion.

She reached out and touched another, this one dark gray and gold.

Luna was on her knees, praying. She felt the touch of her husband and looked up at Gabriel, her eyes wide with love and worship. She was his second-favorite wife, an honor she had killed for…

Luna released that one, choking on bile at the sensations she felt with that one. She was dulled, controlled, and twisted.

"Are these all me?" Luna stared and began to move, flying slowly at first then more quickly. She flew with arms out, twisting and turning between the strands, touching them as she passed to get the flavor of each.

Fighter…

Mother…

Alone…

Dead…

Light mage…

Dead…

Sad…

Dead…

Unbelievably happy…

Dead…

Dead…

Dead…

Alarm flared in Luna's mind and she stopped her flight, looking around. She saw threads falling around her, their future ends connected to nothing. Even as she watched, more and more of them began to fall. With dawning horror she realized she'd flown far from her origin strand and was becoming lost in an empty space that was quickly dissolving around her. Her life was ending in a multitude of realities and she didn't know why.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

With a burst of concentration she flew, faster than Cass could run, faster than Superman could fly - faster than anything she could imagine. She pictured her timeline in her head and realized she couldn't ever truly be lost from it, just distant. The closer she was to her current timeline the more the other Lunas would be like her, the further she flew the more different they'd be. An innate understanding began to grow in her.

If my choices branch off into different realities then of COURSE the ones closest to me would be the most like me, they're the result of my most recent decisions! If I want to meet a me who isn't like me at all I need to go back really far and find one of the paths that was nothing like me at all.

She didn't know how Cass or her dad would phrase it, but it just felt right to her. She started paying attention to the strands she was passing, watching the moment they faded out. She looked into them as she passed, the images coming quick and easy, since they were happening now in all realities. In many of them she collapsed, her brain overloaded from too much concentration concentrate. She giggled at that and realized she was cracking from the situation.

She decided to ignore those since there was nothing she could do about them. She had already taken the injections so the timelines where she died from it were unsavable. The instant she made the decision to ignore them those realities faded to almost-invisibility. She gasped, something inside of her clicking that she could filter her realities with a thought. She could still see them - they were just semi-transparent. She watched as more of them died off, feeling a loss for those but focusing on the more pressing timelines.

She sped toward a huddle of threads that were bright and alive but quickly dying out. She dove into the threads and stretched her arms out, running her hands across as many as she could, like strings on a harp. In all of them she saw the same thing - A shadow had detached itself from the tree she was leaning against, its jaws clamped around the back of her neck. Luna looked closely and saw blood welling around the fangs in every reality.

Terror and hopelessness flooded her. Was this it? Was this where she died? She knew her strengths and weaknesses, and she knew that there was no way she could kill this thing - especially not when it already had her in its grip. Panic sent her heart into her stomach and she saw at least a quarter of the strands die out right then.

"WHAT DO I DO??" Luna screamed in frustration at the darkness, begging anyone - anything for help.

Her helplessness doubled as her voice disappeared into the emptiness around her. There was no one to help her because the only one here was her. She would fix this herself or she would die.

The hopelessness she felt drained away, replaced by determination and cold reality. She was on her own - completely in control, however it ended. She didn't try to push away the fear - her dad had taught her that fear was a valuable tool. She began to look around at her potential futures. She reached out and gripped them all in a tight hug, not sure what she was looking for, but needing to feel all of them. She scanned them all with her emotions, with her eyes, but most of all with the sense of luck that she now realized was just a sort of GPS to help guide her down different paths.

"Please," she whispered to herself, her Luck, and The System. "Please help me find a path. I just need one! Help me find the one where I survive the longest!"

She felt the forces around her move, beginning to bend to her will. It fought her though, the future did not want to give up its secrets. Luna redoubled her efforts, sharpening her will to levels she'd never reached before. She'd never had to concentrate this long and this hard on anything, but if she didn't learn to do it now she never would.

She closed her eyes and pushed, the pressure inside of her mounting and mounting. When it finally became unbearable and Luna's consciousness began to fray around the edges she screamed her defiance, her refusal to pass out, her refusal to just give up and die.

Her refusal to be controlled by anything ever again.

She screamed, and The System responded.