Archive of Our Own

Kiki couldn't help but smile as she floated along gently in the breeze, letting her broom -- her old one, her favourite -- carry her along. It knew the way, she could tell; it remembered home.

A tear pricked at her eye, and she let it fall, although she was smiling, too. It had taken her a couple of years after arriving back at her parents to realise that the small little village was no longer her home. Koriko, her city, had taken up its place in her heart, and she could feel her heart bursting with joy at the fact that she was finally returning.

Kiki thought about what changes seven years would bring. Osono's young daughter would be half-grown by now, she knew, and who knew how well the bakery was faring? Very well, Kiki hoped.

"What's that for?" a grouchy voice sounded from Kiki's lap. Jiji rolled over and looked up. "What'cha crying for?"

"Oh, nothing," Kiki explained. "It's just... It's been a long time. I'm happy to be going back."

"We could have stayed in our village," Jiji pointed out. "It's small. Everyone knows us. And no one wants your autograph."

Kiki reached down to scritch the back of Jiji's head. "It's been seven years," she pointed out. "I'm twenty-one now, and I don't look at all like I did back then. I doubt anyone will even recognise me."

"And they won't clue in when you set up for business again?" Jiji complained. "How many Kiki's Delivery Services can there be?"

Kiki laughed, wiping away the tear. The droplet caught the light for a moment as she flung it away, a bright diamond suspended in the air, before it fell out of sight. "I'm sure they won't even remember me," she said. "Seven years is a long time."

Jiji hmphed. "Not that long," he grouched. "But it's not like you'll listen to me anyway. You never do." He leaned into the scritches. "At least I've got you properly trained."

Kiki just laughed a little more, and focused her attention on her broom. Her father's radio once again hung from the end, and she leaned forward to turn it on, letting the music flow around her as she sped up a bit, anxious to finally return home.

It was near sunset when Kiki set down on the outskirts of Koriko. In her memory, sunset was about businesses closing down for the night, and about people laughing as they made their way home from a busy day of work. But there was no one around that she could see. Not even when she reached uptown, nearing Osono's bakery, did she see anyone. It was as if everyone had just vanished somehow.

A shutter banged above her, on a tall building off to her right, and Kiki jumped at the sound. Ahead of her, as she passed around the corner, Kiki finally caught a flash of someone as they turned around a corner into an alleyway. In the eerie silence, Kiki could even hear a deadbolt being slammed shut with enough force to rattle the door, a sign that, whoever it was? Was scared of something.

"This isn't right," Kiki said, settling down to the ground. Jiji leapt off just in time, landing with all the grace and dignity of a cat and looking up, affronted.

"A little warning, next time?" he growled.

"Sorry," Kiki apologised. "Just... This isn't right," she repeated. "It's too quiet. People are frightened."

"Of what?" Jiji asked.

"If I knew that..." Kiki trailed off. "C'mon. Let's get to Osono's."

The more Kiki walked, the more she noticed that things were wrong. Koriko was a city, yes, and so Kiki remembered there being trash, occasionally, in the streets, the detritus of daily life. Now, though, there was litter everywhere, blown against houses and piled not-quite-out-of-the-way. Several buildings that she passed looked abandoned, too, with windows boarded up, and the occasional door hanging open. Even the buildings that had people in them, that were clearly inhabited, were tightly shuttered, only a very small amount of light creeping out to shed dim illumination on the street. The entire thing was eerie, and Kiki began to worry more and more.

They were only a few blocks away at this point, so it didn't take long to climb the crest of the hill. Osono's bakery was just as Kiki remembered it, although there were shutters on these windows, too. The front of the building, which Kiki remembered being warm, lit, and welcoming long after the store had officially closed for the day, was dark. The last of the day's bread was still sitting in baskets behind the counter; so far as she could tell between the slats of the shutters where they weren't quite closed together. Kiki took a breath and knocked, waiting a moment, then after hearing nothing knocked again. "Osono?" she called. "Osono? It's me, Kiki. I've come back."

There was a rustling behind the door, and Kiki could hear someone coming up behind it. "Go away!" called Osono's familiar voice. "I don't know what you want with us, but, please, just go away. Haven't you taken enough already?"

"What are you talking about, Osono? It's me, Kiki!" She set her broom down, and her bag, being careful not to jostle the precious vials inside too much. "I've finished my training and come back. What's happening here, Osono?"

There was a long moment, and then Kiki could hear a deadbolt sliding back. The door creaked open just enough to allow Osono to look out before it was stopped from going any further by a chain lock, one Kiki distinctly didn't remember being there seven years before. "Kiki?" said Osono, softly, as if she couldn't quite believe it. "Kiki! What are you doing here?" The door closed just enough for Osono to undo the chain, and then she swept the door open, ushering Kiki inside quickly. "Wait, don't answer that," she said. "Let's get you upstairs first. There's been... A lot's been happening here. Seven years, you say?"

"Yes," Kiki said. "Like I said when I left, after a witch spends her year away from home, she goes back to study with her mother for the last seven years of her training."

"That's great," Osono said, frowning. The door shut, she returned the chain and the deadbolt to their locked position. "Just great. Because we have someone claiming to be you currently running the city. And she's been here for the last three years."

"Wha- What?" Kiki stammered. "That's not possible! I've-" She was cut off suddenly by Osono's arms around her, enveloping her in a tight, tight hug.

"I knew it couldn't be you!" Osono exclaimed. "I knew it, but everyone else, they just remembered your black dress, your red ribbon, it was enough to- Oh, Kiki, you've got to help us."

Kiki nodded quickly. "Of course, Osono," she said. "Please, tell me what's going on."

Osono led Kiki up the familiar steps to the upstairs, which was much the same as it had been last Kiki had seen it -- a few less baby things around, to be true, with newer toys, for an older child, in their stead. It was there, sitting around the table, that Osono explained what had been going on, fragrant, familiar steam wafting up from the coffee cups in front of them. "She showed up three years ago," Osono began, after a few deep breaths. To steel herself, Kiki thought. At her feet, Jiji was silent as he twined around her feet and settled down. "On a broom, in the middle of the night, with a red ribbon in her hair and a black cat in her arms. She called herself Kiki, and set up in the old clock tower. Her magic... We only really ever saw you flying, Kiki, but we knew that some witches could do more, and it seemed-" Osono cut off, choking up a bit. "It was horrible, Kiki. She took over the nights, it hasn't been safe to go out at night since she showed up, and more recently there's been something stalking the streets at night. She took people, at first just a few at time, wrapped them up in magic until they can't think for themselves anymore, and she's got them working in the clock-tower. You wouldn't recognise it anymore, it's... It's her fortress."

Kiki nodded slowly. "And these people, the ones that she takes, what's she making them do?"

"Most of them," Osono allowed, "they're not doing too badly. She has them working as her servants, cooking and cleaning, some construction work for the men, rebuilding the clock tower the way she wants it. And she feeds them, too, and seems to take care of them, and it's better than some people have. But there are- She took-" Osono stopped again. Kiki reached out to take Osono's hand and lend her strength, comfort, and found that Osono's other hand was already occupied, stroking Jiji's fur softly where he sat in her lap. Kiki glanced down -- she hadn't even noticed him moving, but he was definitely no longer at her feet.

"What is it, Osono?" Kiki asked gently. "What did she take?"

"Not what, Kiki," Osono explained. "Who. She took my daughter!"

Jiji and Kiki both sat up sharply. "She what?" Kiki asked. "That's- Osono, that's horrible! What can I- I'll help however I can. No one's tried to stand up to her?"

Osono opened her mouth to reply, even got out a short, "Well, there's-" when someone rushed up the back stairs, the outside door banging behind them. As the door to the main living area opened, Kiki stared in shock at Osono's husband as he stared, mutely, back, a broken, bleeding, whimpering body held in his arms.

"Osono, hot water," Kiki ordered, without thinking, her hands flowing in front of her in a complex pattern. All the dishes -- everything on the table -- floated off and over to the countertop. "Hayao, here, please. Jiji, can you grab the herb satchel from my bag? Not the full one, the emergency pack." Osono's husband placed the body, a young man who Kiki thought she could recognise through the blood and bruises, out on the table as gently as he could. Osono pulled the kettle, still hot from the coffee she and Kiki had shared, off the stove. "Thank you, Osono," she said absently. Jiji jumped up onto the table, deftly avoiding the young man, a small packet of herbs clutched in his mouth.

Kiki sprinkled the herbs directly into the kettle, and quickly a soft, sweet aroma permeated the air of the kitchen, covering the sharp copper tang. "It's all right," Kiki said softly. "I'll help you. You'll get through this." She closed her eyes. Osono and Hayao watched her as she raised her hands again, moving them slowly but firmly from the kettle to the young man and back again. "I'll get you through this." The water, tinted and scented with the herbs from the packet, began to stream out of the kettle, seemingly of its own volition. It moved through the air to the young man, where it began to move across his body, washing the blood away from his skin. Where it moved, the bruises cleared, and lacerations closed, and slowly, slowly, he was returning to health.

And none too soon: sweat began to bead across Kiki's brow as she concentrated on the flow of the water, feeding power into it from herself. Tears streamed from her eyes as she felt the pain, for a brief, sharp moment, of every wound she healed, the price for such a powerful piece of magic. She had just enough strength, though, to direct the stream of water, bright red with the washed-away blood, into the sink and down the drain before the spell broke.

"You'd better catch her," Jiji said, and even as Kiki wavered, Hayao was lurching forward, his arms out just in time for Kiki to fall into them rather than to the floor, her strength spent completely. His eyes were wide, though, as were Osono's. "What? Haven't you ever heard a cat talk before?"

Kiki knows it's not her memory even as it unfolds before her. Even though it's a familiar place -- Osono's bakery is a second home to her, after all -- she knows that she wasn't there when this happened.

Hotaru, Osono's daughter, is six years old, playing with a doll at the counter while Osono carries the last of the day's unsold bread out back. She and Hayao will take it tomorrow to the soup kitchen, where it can be used to feed those who need it. There's a batch, too, of cinnamon rolls, topped with glistening frosting, that are still just a touch warm from the oven. They came out not long before the end of the day, so she knows they'll still be quite fresh tomorrow, a nice little treat for those who don't often get one.

The bell above the door jangles, and without looking behind her, Osono calls, "Sorry! We're closed for the day!" The newcomer doesn't answer, though, and Osono is confused until she turns around. "What are you-!" she exclaims, only to see that the invader has swept Hotaru up into her arms.

"I'm looking for a daughter," the other Kiki explains. The Kiki watching the memory cringes. The other her wavers a little, like she's being watched through hot summer air. Kiki recognises it as a sign that the memory is indistinct, that the mind isn't quite certain what it saw and is trying to fill in what it can. "I thought yours would do nicely. Such a pretty little thing, isn't she?"

"You can't-" Osono cries, but the other Kiki just laughs.

"Of course I can," she says. "In case you didn't notice, I own this town." She's gone before Osono can say another word. The baker just slides to floor, leaning against the counter and sobbing. She's still there an hour later, when Hayao comes looking for her.

Kiki awoke to soft fluffy whiteness, and for a few moments she worried she'd fallen asleep on her broom and drifted into the clouds again. Except the fluffiness was warm and cozy, and she realised that it was a feather-filled comforter.

A moment later, memory rushed back to her, and she remembered her panicked, ill-advised healing spell. It seemed -- from the light streaming in through the window -- to be the next morning, so Kiki pulled herself out from under the blanket (Osono and Hayao's, she assumed, and their bed, too, that she was in) and looked around.

"So I hear I have you to thank for saving my life."

Kiki whirled around to see, sitting in what had to be the coziest-looking chair she'd ever seen in her life, the young man whose life she'd saved the night before. A young man she now recognised. "Tombo!" she cried gleefully. "I'm so glad to see you! Are you feeling all right? Did I get everything? I wasn't sure right at the end, but my strength ran out and I thought I had it all but I didn't know if-"

Tombo laughed, cutting Kiki off. "Still the same old Kiki," he said, grinning. "I knew the witch in the tower couldn't be you."

The mention of the witch chilled Kiki's heart. "I need to do something about that," she said. "If I'd known, I'd have come back a lot sooner."

"Well, you're here now," Tombo pointed out. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"Make some coffee," Kiki replied. "And talk to you, Osono, and Hayao. I need to make some plans."

So it was that, five minutes later, five people sat around the table in Osono and Hayao's kitchen. Well: four people and a cat, but the cat could talk.

"Since when can you talk, anyway?" Tombo asked, eyeballing Jiji as he lapped at the saucer of milk that Osono had placed in front of him.

"I could always talk," Jiji replied, smartly. "It's just that now you can hear me. Ask Kiki, I still don't understand how she did it."

Kiki waved it off. "That's not important right now," she said. "We need to talk about... this other me. The fake Kiki." She took a sip of her coffee, letting the warmth spread through her body. Even with the several hours of sleep, Kiki could still feel the last threads of the healing spell holding her down. "Tombo, what happened to you last night? Was it because of her?"

Tombo nodded. "There are a few of us who are trying to fight Kik- the pretender. I got caught out last night with them when the street monster caught me. If Hayao hadn't come along when he did..."

"You'd be monster food," Jiji filled in, and Tombo nodded.

"Exactly."

"Okay," Kiki continued, turning her attention back to the table at large. "So there's a resistance. Are they going to be able to help me?"

"Probably not," Osono said. She explained, "There are enough people out there who do think it's really you, that you... went wrong somehow. And the more people we involve, the more people who could get hurt."

Tombo shook his head. "They'd believe it if they saw her," he pointed out. "I mean, they look similar, kind of, but Kiki, you're obviously not the woman in the tower. You're not as..." He hesitated. "Polished, I guess? She looks like she spends half the morning in the bathroom getting ready for the day." Kiki made a face at that. "Exactly," Tombo said, smiling. "I never thought you'd go for that."

Hayao raised his hand, gathering everyone's attention. "We still need some kind of actual plan," he pointed out. "What are we going to do? Just sneak into the clock tower and confront her?"

Glances shot across the table. Finally, Kiki said, "Why not? It's as good a plan as any. And I've got a little more than flying at my disposal now." She bit her lip. "You all saw that last night."

Jiji stalked across the table and dropped into Kiki's lap. "Are you sure?" he asked. "That spell took a lot out of you."

Kiki shook her head. "I'm fine. I can do this. I'll go in tonight. I can fly up and enter near the top of the clock tower." She looked around the table. "There's just one thing I need to do first. Tombo, while I'm gone, you need to rest. A healing spell like what I used last night will wear you out if you're not careful. It's your own body's resources that were used. And. I..." She swallowed, nerves getting the better of her for just a moment. "If I don't succeed, you and your friends need to be ready for whatever comes.

The door hangs from one hinge, the bottom half swinging softly to and fro as Kiki brushes by it. The inside of the cottage is dusty, and there is very clear weather damage where rain has fallen in through the broken windows. Dead leaves, rotten fruit, and animal droppings send up a pungent aroma that has Kiki clearing the air with a simple cantrip.

Ursula isn't there, and clearly hasn't been for quite some time.

There's a painting hanging against one wall, scratched and tattered. Kiki lifts up a flap of torn canvas and looks into the eyes of the girl she once was. She wishes she could use magic to fix the painting, a portrait painted during her last visit to Ursula's cabin before she returned home for her apprenticeship, but she knows that she cannot spare the power, not even for the memory of Ursula.

A tear falls down her cheek, and Kiki weeps for the girl she once was, until she sets aside her tears. She has work to do, after all: a witch's first duty is to the preservation and protection of her city and its people. Koriko, her city, needs her. There will be time for grief, she tells herself, when her work is done.

Still, her eyes are blurred when she steps outside and kicks off into the air. She tells herself that it's just the wind, or dust, but these haven't blinded her for years.

The taste of fresh-baked bread, still warm from the oven and spread with plenty of herbed butter, stayed with Kiki as she kicked off in the back yard of the bakery. She held close the image of sitting at the table with Osono, Hayao, and Tombo, Jiji twining around her feet, as she picked up speed and flew towards the clock tower in the thickening dusk.

"Are you sure about this?" Jiji asked. He sat perched just at the end of the broom, keeping watch forward as Kiki made her way to the unknown witch's fortress. Kiki just held closed her cloak with one hand as she guided her broom with the other.

"I have to, Jiji. This is my city. You know that."

"I'm just saying," he replied, "I'm just saying that you haven't been here for seven years. And you don't know anything about this witch."

"First duty, Jiji." And that, Kiki knew, would be enough to silence the cat's objections.

Around them, the night was still. No monster that she could see stalked the streets below, although she didn't doubt its existence, not after seeing the injuries that Tombo had sustained. It just meant that Kiki didn't know where it was -- although it also meant, Kiki told herself, that it wasn't terrorising the city below, and that was the important part.

There were no guards posted at the top of the clock tower, not that Kiki could see, and the watchers on the ground didn't look up as she approached as stealthily as she could on a broom in mid-air. Kiki found an open window near the top of the tower, open to the breeze, and it was large enough for her to glide in softly and set down. "Jiji," she said, whispering, "can you slip out the door there and see if there's anyone around?" Jiji nodded and did just that, gliding out through the tiny space between door and door-jamb, while Kiki took stock of the room in which she found herself.

It appeared to be a bedroom, although further investigation revealed that it was more like a small apartment: there was a kitchen area off to one side, and a water closet attached. Kiki was just stepping out of the WC when the door out of the bedroom creaked open and a thin, elegant hand flung Jiji back in. "Hm," came an unfamiliar voice. "Look what the cat dragged in."

Kiki turned to face... herself.

Truly, the similarities were striking: beyond the elegant black dress that the other witch wore, and the red bow in her hair, Kiki couldn't help but pick out other features they shared. Their hair was close in colour and they had the same little half-smile -- although Kiki's was rarely seen, given as she was to laughter and full-hearted joy. There the similarities ended, however: the other witch's nose was larger, definitely, and her ears wider and stuck further out from her head. Her eyes, too, were much, much darker, both in expression and in colour. Kiki wondered how anyone could have truly thought them the same person.

Except she knew that people would sooner believe an easy lie than a hard truth, had seen it countless times over the last seven years as she helped her mother, and admitting that you'd been duped was one of the hardest truths of all.

Jiji picked himself up off the floor and stalked over to face the impostor. From between her legs, another cat, black like Jiji, stepped forward and hissed. "Well," the impostor said. "This is a surprise. I never expected to see you here."

"Why have you done this?" Kiki asked. "Koriko -- what did they ever do to you? And why me? We've never even met before, why would you-- Why me?"

The other witch just laughed, and the sound sent chills down Kiki's spine. "What do you mean? They were just ripe for the picking, that's all. You were all the rage, Kiki, and without you here, they were just waiting for someone to come along and take over. I figured, with you gone, it might as well be me!"

Kiki nodded slowly. "That's it?" she asked. "The first duty of any witch is to protect her town, her people, and you threw all that away because... Because why? It was fun?"

A shrug from across the room. "Sure, why not? It was fun. At least this way I've got people to serve me, and a city that bows to me. What have you got?"

"Friends," Kiki said. "Family. People who love me, and who I love." Jiji snuggled up against Kiki's leg, purring softly. "I just don't understand how you could... You're a witch. It's not what we do!"

"You have no imagination," the other witch said. "Clearly I deserve the name Kiki more than you do."

Kiki pulled out a small crystal she'd prepared earlier in the day. It glowed softly with its own eerie, silver-white light. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice quiet. "I didn't want to have to do this. I'd hoped that I could talk to you, help you, but I think this is the only way."

A bright shining light shone from the top of the clock tower that night, shining straight through the walls of the tower, illuminating the city, turning night into day.

"You have to promise me, Kiki, not to use this without the direst need."

Kiki, fifteen, nods solemnly. She and her mother stand together in a clearing in the woods outside of their village. Their brooms lean against the thick trunk of an old, wise tree at the edge of the clearing, and between them sits a crystal, quartz, the size of Kiki's fist. "Of course," Kiki says. "But what is it?"

Kiki's mother sighs, shakes her head. "Not every witch is like us, Kiki," she explains. "Most witches come from a tradition like ours. We go away for our year when we're thirteen, we come home to learn from out mothers. and then we go out into the world to find our own way where we will. Some witches, though, some witches find... a darker way. If you come across one of those witches, if you think there's no other way to stop her, you can use this. But there's a risk, Kiki. You can take away another witch's power, but you might lose your own if you do."

Kiki tries to think of any situation where she might have to risk losing her own powers. She remembers how it felt to lose them before, even temporarily: to lose confidence in herself, to think that she can't fly anymore, or talk to Jiji, or do any of the things that, so far as she knew, make her who she is.

She doesn't want to feel that way ever again. At fifteen, she doesn't think there's anything that could possibly be bad enough for her to risk that.

"What have you done to me?" the other witch said. Her cat was looking around the room as if she didn't recognise it, all magical essence fled from her body with her mistress's power. "What- my magic, what have you done?"

The stone that Kiki held shone much more brightly now, pink and blue and green and red by turns. Shadows flickered against the wall as the light fluxed and shimmered. "Your power is locked away now," Kiki said softly. "I can't let you... I can't let you stay a witch. Not like this."

The witch glared at Kiki, angry and petulant. "How dare you?" she demanded. "Who gave you the right?"

"I didn't have a choice. You were hurting my city."

"It's not your city anymore!" the impostor insisted. "It's my city now!"

A soft smile spread across Kiki's face as she slipped the crystal into a rune-embroidered bag. "It will always be my city," she explained. "The fact that you don't understand that..."

The other girl growled, a low, dark sound like nothing Kiki had ever heard from another person, but it was the single word she cried that sent chills down Kiki's spine. "Ursula!" she called, and a lumbering, slithering sound came from the corridor outside the room.

No! Kiki thought. It can't be!

The monster that entered the room was hideous, all tentacles and claws, green scales and slimy skin, writhing in a way that hurt Kiki's eyes to look upon. The eyes, though, set in the center, in what could almost be called a face: they hurt, those eyes, they were filled with pain and grief. They were Ursula's eyes, the eyes of the woman who had helped Kiki find her way back to herself when Kiki thought she had lost everything.

Ursula was the monster that stalked the streets of Koriko.

"Good," the other girl said, a malicious grin across her face. "You recognise her. Now you can be killed by her. She's bound to my voice, you see, not my powers. Even without my magic, I can still rule the ci- What are you doing?"

For Kiki had lunged forward, dodging in between the writhing tentacles. The claws reached for her, and Kiki felt them rend her cloak, her dress, her skin. She did not relent, however, instead throwing her arms around her friend, changed though she may be. "I'm so sorry," Kiki whispered, and the eyes closed once, slowly blinking in understanding and forgiveness. "I didn't know. If I'd been here..."

A single tear fell from Kiki's face, and then another, and another, and where they fell Ursula's scales fell away to new pink skin underneath. Even as Kiki pulled away in wonder, the scales continued to fall. Ursula's tentacles pulled in, joining back into arms, into legs. Breasts swelled, hair cascaded down Ursula's back, and the eyes -- those sad, pained eyes -- settled once more into Ursula's familiar face. With a gasp, Ursula's eyes shot open, and she stood there, naked, herself once more.

"This- This isn't over!" the fake Kiki insisted. "You won't get away with this!"

Kiki shook her head, even as she lunged at Ursula to pull her into a hug, throwing her arms around her friend. "Please," Jiji said derisively. "It was over the minute we came back to Koriko."

Ursula laughed as she wrapped her arms around Kiki, hugging her back. "Thank you so much," she said. "You have no idea what it was like to be that... that thing. But do you think I could get some clothes? It's a little drafty."

There were five people gathered around the table again -- well, again, four people and a cat. Hayao was manning the bakery downstairs while Kiki sat with Osono, Ursula, and Osono's daughter Hotaru. Tombo was out with some of his friends, going through the clock tower and helping all those who had been released from the witch's power the night before.

"I'd heard you were back," Ursula explained, as the quartet sipped at their steaming hot drinks. Jiji, perched on the table between Kiki and Ursula, lapped at a saucer of fresh cream. "Of course I came to investigate. It's... a little blurry, but I think when she realised who I was, Ki- whoever she was, she decided to use me. I don't think she even really knew what the spell was when she used it. It was out of some old crumbling book."

"And you don't remember anything from when you were... that thing?" Osono asked. Hotaru was watching, wide-eyed, and hadn't said a word yet since her return, but when Ursula -- wrapped in a sheet, for they hadn't found anything else to fit -- and Kiki returned to the bakery, Hotaru in tow, the young girl had rushed immediately for her mother's arms, so Kiki figured things would be okay there in the end.

Kiki vowed to herself, though, to keep an eye on Hotaru, and make certain that she got any help she needed as she recovered from her own ordeal. The fake Kiki had kept her as a daughter, apparently, and had pampered her, by the state of the room in which she'd been found, but there was no way to know how she'd actually been treated over the last year.

"Only bits and pieces," Ursula clarified. "It's like I went to sleep and, y'know, woke up last night. Most of what I do remember just seems like a nightmare. It's already fading."

"What about the impostor?" Kiki asked. "Is anyone talking about what will happen to her?"

"Oh, that's right," Osono said, "You were still asleep when Tombo was by earlier. He said that they've got her in the city jail for now, but the council's still in disarray. They've been struggling to try to hold the city together for the past several years, and now that they've actually got some power again... And no one's really sure how to charge her for impersonating you. She won't tell anyone her real name, or where she's from... Between that and being busy with the plans for getting the city back to normal, I don't think anyone knows quite what to do with her."

Kiki nodded, thinking that there was still a lot of work to do in the wake of the tragedy that had befallen Koriko in her absence.

But she was back, now, and would do everything she could to help the city heal.

"Osono?" she asked. "Is the attic room still available?"