Yikes. Yeah, same sort of grief, maybe. 

Even the Noldor don't practice slavery, or at least I've never heard them accused of it.

It's illegal over the whole country now. And most of the rest of the world with better or worse enforcement.

Good.

Humans: we often get it right eventually.

Let's hope that we do, too.

Here's hoping.

It's a lovely month. She makes all the trees healthier and blankets the ground beneath their tent in flowers so it's cozier and practices English.

And when they are coming up on the time limit -

Time to go see if the song works on the big witch. The song'll have to play in the open, she doesn't have a barrier, but we can hang back - will it matter if I can hear it but not very much? - and for everyone else it might just counter the miasma -

It'll cheer you up but probably not have lingering effects for weeks or anything. 

Should be fine, then. I'll teekay it into the storm and to keep the rain off it.

Alright. Where are you going to do it?

Earliest point at which I know where the witch is is over the water by Vancouver in a day and a half, which is enough time to drive up and get some rest.

Okay.

So Bella goes and steals that one car that nobody notices missing if it vanishes at any point during this month, and she takes a scenic route up to Vancouver and finds them the prettiest hotel she can.

She enjoys the drive up to Vancouver. She is nervous about the world ending.

Reasonable. Do you want to come watch or stay behind?

I think I want to be there.

Okay.

So they go sit on a pier. Storm starts in five and gets obviously weird in ten minutes.

Okay. Ugh, all these poor people...

Yeah.

The storm shows up right on schedule.

At first the only weird thing is that the shrieking of the wind sounds awfully... lifelike. At first.

But it gets closer, and the sky darkens; and it gets closer, and space seems to distort; and it gets closer, and the invisible edge of the witch's labyrinth overtakes them.

Mad laughter echoes down the cold stone halls, mingling with the fainter sound of agonized screams. The air stinks of smoke and blood. The immediate vicinity is lit by dim, flickering torches held in flesh-and-blood hands that reach out from the walls. Now and then, one of them twitches.

A giggling circular saw and a bloodstained pair of hedge clippers advance down the hall toward them.

Bella hits play and flings the recording in the labyrinth by teekay, pauses time, picks up Lúthien, retreats to high ground farther back.

The storm cuts out like its funding was cancelled. Clouds clear. Rain dries. Wind halts.

And rather a large number of people fall into the ocean.

It's hard to tell which one is the former witch, but right in the middle of the chaos there's a pair of magical girls clinging to each other, too shocked to cry.

- the fuck.

Bella's got enough charge to teek them all out of the water and jump down among them.

"Which of you was the witch or was it all of you - I need to know everything you can tell me now before Kyubey shows up."

"Fuck," gasps one of the pair. They're not even the only two magical girls around - there's a blonde ten feet away, another brunette near the edge -

But this is the one who says, "It's me, it was me. What—what did you do, what do you want—"