(AN: Someone please tell me how it's possible to catch two colds in one week.)
That Isabelle's cousin, was still her cousin, meant logically of course she was now also the
cousin of Hope, Grace, and Kaylee. This of course created the paradox since Hope, Grace,
and Isabelle no longer had the same parents before reality altered, and thus no longer had
the same aunts and uncles, and therefore no longer had the same cousins.
To make things even more confusing, Timothy before had been Isabelle's cousin, not her
nephew. But this was somewhat logical in that Isabelle was now an adult woman, not a
teenage girl while Timothy was still a little boy.
This was likely due to there being a reason why Julie would hire Madam Serenity to find the
parents of the gem wolves, and why she instead chose a PI whose investigations were
always related to the curse and dabbled in fortune telling and alchemy to boot!
So Isabelle's aunt had become her cousin instead, and her cousin her nephew. And the
non-identical quadruplets' mother had gained a sister, a brother in law, and a niece, a
nephew in law, and a great-nephew!
And Isabelle's family tree was sliced and diced to make up for the rearrangements in ways
that would have left any genealogist openly weeping!
None of these lupman had even the most remote clue that a week ago none of them were
even remotely related and did not even known each other! And Isabelle's family of course
had no idea they had lost a daughter, and another chunk of their family as well. And reality
didn't care. It was internally consistent, that was all that matter. Reality had no heart to
appeal to with guilt, no mind to argue with impressive speeches, reality simply was.
+++++++
On the most eastern edge of the border between United States and Mexico, a small cabal of
fairies resided, of course direct descendants and some members of the swam of fairies that
the witches had brought into being three hundred years before though none had a clue to
their previous human existence.
There were creatures however that had never been humans, and were legally documented
as extinct. The fairies only having limited knowledge of how much humanity had (relatively)
changed in three hundred years, liked to keep it that way least these rare trees now the
last of their kind were to truly go extinct...
'Though,' Though the fairy who had picked up the nickname 'Lady MacBeth' from her real
name, 'Sometimes I wonder if they keep their own numbers down better than even humans
are able to.'
To the sound of fiesta music, a two hundred and ninety year old American Boxing Tree,
was punching it out with a Mexican Fighting Tree. 'Your nuts shall not cross the border!'
Declared the bold American Boxing Tree as it duke it with it's permanent neighbor a
Mexican Fighting Tree (also considered extinct).
And the two trees continued to use their two giant wooden fists to punch each other in the
trunk. They had plenty of practice. They had been punching each other's nuts out since
they were saplings...
+++++++
The doctor slammed down a hammer they had found to act as a stand in gavel. And the
trial began.
Linus covered his arms with long sleeves to hid fleshy stumps of where his hands once
were, he did have a little vanity. Kathrine looked at him as she sat next to him. 'I've known
men who'd scream in terror and sob for months at such a tragedy. .. Linus, he's just going
foreword. Like he almost doesn't -care-... or is he just hiding it that well?' It made Kathrine
wish he knew how to read minds, it certainly would have made a lot of her life easily and
make it much easier to understand people.
"Defense. Persecution. You may make your opening statements." Said the good doctor.
Linus stood up with as much precision and skill as a soldier at war.
"The defendants have over the course of their lives had annihilated out of existence the
identities, memories, and psyche of countless people to remake them as they see fit like
they were clay to be sculpted leaving nothing of their previous selves behind! The persons
they were in any shape or form no longer exist, and they are directly responsible! I ask
you, how can this -not- fit the definition of murder? And I am certain if the witches slaves
were all conscious and aware they would tell us how the witches had repeatedly harped
their plans to tear down all the nations of the world."
Marie Cruz shouted, "Conjecture!"
The doctor nodded, "Sustained. the jury shall ignore the last part of the prosecution."
Linus continued, "Sorry your honor."
"The defense may make it's opening statement."
Marie Cruz spoke, "I will remind the court that weather the witches are a danger to
themselves and others are not what is being discussed with this trial. Nor is the point of
this trial weather or not they are too dangerous to live or not. I hold that the point of this
trial as said before, is weather the witches are truly in their right mind, and thus weather or
not they can actually be held accountable for their acts of murder and treason. If they are
truly lost in their own world, then there is no point in punishing them for they can not
connect their actions with consequences."