Luna Lovegood walked through the corridor as though she were late for tea.
The floor was cold beneath her shoes, the sort of cold that hummed faintly against the soles as though her fuzzy socks meant nothing, as if the metal itself remembered other feet—heavier ones, booted ones, marching with purpose instead of curiosity. The walls were a dull, unpleasant grey, broken only by strips of light that buzzed faintly overhead. Luna found the sound rather rude.
She adjusted the laces of her shoes as she walked, humming quietly to herself.
The disillusionment charm lay over her like a soft scarf, not hiding her exactly, but persuading the world that she wasn't terribly important to look at just now. People's eyes slid away from her without quite knowing why. The Notice-Me-Not wards followed, blooming unconsciously with every step she took, curling through the air like invisible ribbons and settling into corners, doorframes, the backs of minds.
It wasn't something she was actively doing but more of a subconscious desire taken shape.
That was the strange part.
*The charm you did; from what I can tell it makes people not perceive you, that is extraordinary.* Egeria observed Magic and from what Egeria is experiencing first hand and from Luna's memories continue to fascinate the Queen.
"Oh," Luna said softly. "Yes that sounds about right."
She passed a glass-walled room and glanced inside. Empty now. The tank—her tank—stood open and dry, its surface still marked with condensation rings like the ghost of water. Luna paused, tilting her head.
"That was rather unkind of them," she said, mildly. "You looked uncomfortable."
*I was dying*, Egeria replied, not accusingly. Simply factual.
Luna nodded. "Yes. That's what I meant."
They moved on.
Soon, alarms began to arise. Luna felt the shift before she heard it: a tightening in the air, a sense of attention snapping into place.
Footsteps echoed.
Voices followed—quick, sharp, frightened.
"She's gone—"
"Lock down the sector—"
"Where's the specimen—"
Luna wrinkled her nose. "Specimen is a dreadful word, don't you think?"
*It is not one my kind prefers*, Egeria agreed. *Nor yours.*
Two men rounded the corner ahead of her, weapons raised. They looked young. Apprehensive. One of them blinked as Luna walked directly toward them, his eyes sliding past her face, then snapping back with visible effort.
"Hey—!" he started.
Luna lifted her wand.
She didn't mean to do anything complicated. Really, she hadn't. But her thoughts were already elsewhere—on how odd it was that they carried such clumsy objects, how heavy the fear felt on them, how inconvenient it would be to hurt anyone unnecessarily.
The spell answered those thoughts instead.
The gun in the man's hands sagged, melted, and reformed into something floppy and pink, drooping over his fingers like a wilted flower. His boots fused gently to the floor, stone flowing up around the soles like thick mud left to harden.
The second man shouted and raised his weapon—
—and found his mouth suddenly full of feathers and his hand full or sand.
They stared at her in stunned silence.
"Oh dear," Luna said apologetically. "I didn't mean for that to be feathers. That can feel quite itchy."
She cast a simple stupefy charm on both men. They slumped gently, unharmed but unconscious, aside from some bumps from the ground.
Luna stepped around them, careful not to tread on the feathers.
The corridor opened into a vast circular chamber, and Luna stopped dead.
"Oh."
Before her stood the Ring.
The Stargate dominated the room, its immense metal ring etched with symbols that shimmered faintly under the harsh white lights. The floor bore marks of use—scratches, scorch lines, places where something very large had stood very often.
Egeria's attention sharpened immediately.
*That is a Chappa'ai.*
"I thought so," Luna said cheerfully. "It feels like one."
They approached together. As Luna drew closer, the symbols began to shift—not physically, but in her perception, sliding into alignment, whispering meaning she didn't quite have words for yet.
Egeria supplied fragments. Memories. Half-remembered sequences, broken by centuries of captivity.
Luna filled in the rest without realizing she was doing it.
Her fingers brushed the controls.
*You cannot enter random symbols*, Egeria said. *They either won't connect or could lead us to someplace dangerous or kill us immediately.*
"I know," Luna replied. "I don't really understand. But I will. These symbols will lead us to a safe place."
Her hands moved.
Symbols locked into place one by one. Each press sent a gentle thrum through the floor, through her bones, through the place where Egeria rested within her. With every activation, something between them loosened, memories slipping across the divide—stars, tunnels of light, a thousand worlds threaded together.
The simple alarms rose into a shriek.
Red lights flashed.
The ring began to spin.
Energy built, roaring outward as the event horizon burst into being, a shimmering wall of liquid blue that rippled and hummed like a held breath.
Luna clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels.
"Well," she said. "That worked rather nicely."
*They will be here soon*, Egeria warned.
"Yes," Luna agreed. "They always are."
She skipped forward.
The event horizon swallowed her without resistance, light folding around her like a curtain drawn closed.
Behind her, the chamber filled with shouting, boots pounding toward the Gate only for it to shut off—
—but for the strange girl there was only motion, and light, and the feeling of threads brushing against her skin as the universe rearranged itself around a girl who did not belong where she was supposed to be.