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14

"Wake up, sweetie," a voice said from the darkness, accompanied by shaking. Megan's eyes slowly worked their way open, revealing something she had never thought she would see again.

Her mother was standing over her, smiling. Megan smiled back, though she had already decided that she was still dreaming. At least this was a good dream, or seemed to be so far. "Good morning," Meg said, her voice sounding odd to her ears for some reason. Probably just the dream...

"Morning, honey," her mother replied, pulling back Megan's covers, reaching down to check Megan's diaper.

Huh?! Meg sat up quickly, pushing her nightshirt down, but it was too late. She winced, bracing herself for the explosion her mom was sure to have, now that she knew that her 12 year old daughter wore, and used, diapers.

"Messy today, huh? Bet that feels icky..." Her mother reached over and picked her up.

Megan was now starting to get very worried, and she felt a dread certainty that this wasn't a dream, even though that was the only rational explanation. Megan's mother might be able to pick her up in real life, but not so easily, as if she were only five years old or something... Meg glanced up at her mom, realizing that she seemed to be quite a bit bigger than usual.

Uh-oh. She looked down at herself, saw that her two tiny bumps, not really worthy of being called breasts yet, nowhere near so, were even less impressive than normal. Her whole body was less impressive, in fact, and the nightshirt had the Powerpuff Girls on it, instead of the Hard Rock Cafe logo that should have been there. This was bad... Bad, bad, bad...

Her mother carried her over to the corner of her room where her desk normally resided, only now the desk was gone. In its place was a changing table, fully stocked. Obviously, her diapers weren't so much of a secret anymore. But what was going on? If this -wasn't- a dream, then what was it?

Whatever it was, she was glad not to have to change her own diaper. She had grown used to doing that, yet not having to, and still getting clean was nice. She could get used to this, she thought. Especially the part with her mother not hating her. And then she looked up at her mother, and, seeing how much larger she seemed to be now, and decided that she'd rather be her regular age. Growing up hadn't been overly much fun so far - she didn't want to have to go through it again.

After a clean diaper had been taped around Megan's bottom, her mother went over to the closet and began rummaging through clothes, emerging finally with a pink dress that Meg normally wouldn't have been caught dead in. She was by no means a tomboy, but she hated clothes that were too frilly, or overflowing with lace, or just plain too girly. Today, however, something made her say 'yes' in her new, or rather, old, childish voice when her mother asked if it was what she wanted to wear.

If Megan had been expecting to get to dress herself, she would have been very disappointed, but she had had a feeling that her mother was going to do it for her. She did. "Oh, you're going to look so adorable for your class picture," her mother gushed as she lifted Megan down from the changing table. Oddly enough, Meg found herself smiling and giggling happily at her mother's words, and then running over to take a look at herself in the mirror on her closet door.

Her heart sank and soared at the same time. She really was five, or somewhere around that age anyway, but she looked absolutely adorable, just like mommy had said. Wait - she didn't call her mommy anymore, she called her... Something... else... But what else -was- there to call her? After all, she was her mommy! She didn't need any other name than that!

"You want french toast, Meggie?" Mommy asked, and Megan found herself jumping up and down, clapping her hands. Mommy laughed, and headed out of Meg's room to get started. The reflection in the mirror caught Meg's eye again, and she snapped her head around quickly, hoping to see what had just moved there. And there he was - the shadow man. He smiled at her, waved, and then he was gone. Megan didn't notice that last part, however, as she was too busy hitting the mirror with all the strength she had in her tiny body.

The glass shattered, shards of it flying everywhere; the ones that hadn't embedded themselves in Megan's hand, that was. A second later, the mirror's frame came loose from the wall, falling to the floor with a loud crash before toppling backwards, towards the closet door.

The blood on her hand caught Megan's attention, and she was staring at it through the haze of tears when mommy came thundering in, demanding to know what on God's green earth was going on here. She drew in her breath loudly, quickly kneeling down next to the girl and taking her hand gingerly, and, after looking them over, led her to the bathroom, where she washed the blood off and carefully removed the shards of glass. Luckily, there were only a few, and they were rather large and easy to spot.

"What were you doing, Megan?" Mommy asked, clearly fighting to keep tears from her eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"N-No, Mommy," Meg answered, unable to look her in the face. She hated lying to mommy, and wasn't very good at it in the first place.

"Do you want to stay home from school today? I can probably get the hospital to give me the day off, if you do..." Megan's mind jumped at the opportunity not to be seen like this by anyone else. Her body had a different idea.

"I wanna go to school," it said, right before bursting into tears. "I-I'm s-sorry about the m-mirror, mommy!" she wailed, not calming down until mommy hugged her.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, Meggie..." Mommy cooed, kissing her forehead. "Let's get you fixed up so you can get to that french toast, huh?" Meg nodded, let mommy bandage her hand, then followed her into the kitchen, where the scent of burnt bread lingered heavy in the air. "Crap," mommy said under her breath, hoping that Meg wouldn't hear, since if she had she would probably decide to tell her new word to everyone she saw that day.

Megan was delighted when she was lifted onto the counter, and allowed to help make up a new batch of french toast. By some miracle, she managed not to get any eggs, or anything else, on her dress. The counter, though, was another story entirely. Mommy cleaned up as much of it as she could while Megan hurriedly ate.

A loud honking was heard outside the house, and mommy said another word that Megan would be sure to impress all her friends with later that day. She handed Megan a backpack that had been hanging on the back of her chair, and she had still managed to forget to grab, kissed her on the cheek, and watched as she rushed out to miss the school bus.

God, she was growing up so fast... Nichole shook her head, almost forgetting about the incident with the mirror already. Her little girl was going to be all grown up before she knew it. Where had the time gone?

15

Footsteps echoes in the cold stone hallways of the castle, but she was too busy to care at the moment. It didn't really matter anyway - if it was just a servant, then they couldn't possibly enter the room. If it was one of the knights, well, there were times that she doubted that they were smart enough to know how to open a regular door, much less this one. The Queen perhaps might know how - she had heard rumors about her that suggested she was secretly a powerful wizard, though she didn't really believe them, so that didn't worry her much either. And if it was Merlyn... Well, if it was him, there wasn't anything she could do to stop him, and she was already too late to escape anyway.

Besides, she was too close to stop. She had almost managed to do something nobody else alive except Merlyn had done, open the book containing the Atlantian's most secret spells, so dangerous that the book was sealed so that they could be used only by those wise and patient enough to break through. It was a long, slow, and exceedingly dull process, but if she could actually do it, it would all be worth it. Merlyn couldn't deny that she was the one with the real power then - he surely couldn't have opened it, if his father hadn't shown him how.

The final stages of the unbinding began to take shape in Nimue's mind as her hand brushed the surface of the ancient volume, and then went through, into the pages within. This was it... If she made a mistake now, the next time the book was opened, it would be blank. Not that she would care. If she made a mistake now, she would most likely be dead before she realized it. She closed her eyes to center her mind, which she was using to cut through the mystical bonds that locked all of that knowledge away from her.

She gasped in pleasant surprise as they sprang apart like rotten twine under the edge of a well sharpened dagger, and the covers of the book shot away from each other, opening the book to the last page that had been viewed. Nimue glanced it over, hardly believing her luck - the words within weren't in some strange, long forgotten language after all! She could read them, and, she was quite sure, use the spells that they represented. She really was more powerful than Merlyn!

She even -looked- dangerous, or so she thought, even if no one else would have. At least, she did until her pride began to bubble over, and she started giggling, making her look just as fragile and powerless as she normally did. In the best of times, her body seemed to have seen no more than eight, perhaps nine summers, completely ignoring the last five she had lived through. Merlyn told her that she most likely had Atlantean blood in her as well; they were said to age more slowly than those who were born elsewhere in the world. And now that she was a wizard, time had even less effect upon her. Maybe even less than it did upon Merlyn - after all, she was quite possibly a full-blooded Atlantean, and he was only half. Some days that thought cheered her, and on others it disturbed her to no end. How much longer would she be stuck in this child's body? It had its benefits, of course, but they were far outweighed by her desire to be seen as the woman that she was.

Perhaps there would be something she could do about that, with the book finally opened. She could do almost anything, if the rumors were true. Merlyn would bow before her power, recognize her as a true wizard, instead of an annoying little apprentice, good only for doing boring chores that he felt he was too good to do himself, or she would kill him. No, death was too simple, too quick... She would find some suitable prison for him, where he could spend the rest of his long, long life, where she could make him pay for everything he had done to her, everything he had put her through.

Her hand stretched forth, almost of its own accord, to turn the page, to begin her search for a suitable penance for the old man when she heard the door behind her creak open. She spun around, trying to close the book at the same time, somehow knocking it to the floor instead. It hit with a muffled thump as the spine knocked against the stones. Nimue joined it a moment later, having forgotten that she had been standing on a stool so that she could reach the top of the pedestal that Merlyn kept the book on, probably for the sole purpose of reminding Nimue how small she was. The stool was not the best in the castle, and had been wobbling the whole night, as she had worked the unbinding. Her quick movements had been just enough to finish it off, and it tipped over when she was still halfway through the spin.

She certainly didn't feel powerful anymore as Merlyn glared down at her as if she were some disobedient child. In fact, that was what she felt like, even if she would never have admitted it to any living person, much less Merlyn.

"What have you done?!" he roared, using his magic to appear to be growing ever taller and more fierce, letting his voice echo dramatically around the room. Nimue would have been more impressed if she hadn't seen it so many times before, whenever she did something to anger him. "How many times have I warned you to never touch that book?!"

Nimue tried to get to her feet, was pushed back down by Merlyn's magic. "I got it open," she informed him icily. "I have opened the Book of the Sun, without any help from you, or anybody else. You should be worshipping me - only a high priest ca...."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Merlyn growled. Nim was beginning to think she had made a mistake; he was much angrier than she had anticipated, even if he hadn't shown it yet. She could see it boiling beneath his skin. "I was the one who told you about the high priests, and the Book of the Sun, and Atlantis, you little ingrate! Without me, you would be totally ignorant of your heritage."

"That doesn't change anything, old man. I still opened the Book..."

"Which proves nothing, except that your parents both came from Atlantis." He tapped the end of his staff against the floor, and Nimue suddenly found herself in the air, being pulled towards Merlyn despite her struggles. He smiled mirthlessly at her when she finally stopped moving. "You see? You have no real power. You couldn't even counter my levitation spell - how did you expect to use the Book of the Sun?"

Suddenly, Nimue was being flung through the air like a rock from a catapult until she hit a bookshelf on the wall behind her. Books showered down, yet she was still in the air, held there by Merlyn. "You have disobeyed me yet again, Nimue. I would like to say that I'm surprised, but that would be a lie, of course. You were an insolent little wretch the first day you came here, and you haven't changed a bit. I have gone easy on you so far, though I see that that has been a grave mistake. I have been neglecting your discipline, both as a master and as a guardian, for far too long." She began to move again, this time slamming into bare stone wall, falling to the floor below afterwards, struggling to regain her breath so that she could do something, anything, to stop him.

"If you were truly the high priest you claim to be, then surely you would not be enough of a child to be doing this," Merlyn smirked, making a minute gesture with the hand that the staff wasn't in. Nimue's bladder, bursting from spending the entire night locked up in here, not moving from her spot in front of the pedestal, relaxed, and she felt a warm wetness splashing against her legs, soaking the skirt of her dress, the best she owned. She knew she should have changed after the feast the night before... Or, better yet, waited for another night. She had only chose this one because she had assumed that Merlyn would drink too much wine, as he usually did, and sleep for most of the next day. Or perhaps this was why she had chosen -not- to change. Merlyn seemed to enjoy making her humiliate herself, though usually in public, like that. The dress, while being her best, was one of her least favorite, having been made for somebody of her size, not her age, and made her appear to be even younger than normal. At least she wouldn't have to wear it again...

The pedestal started to shake, and then slowly rise into the air. It was made of extremely heavy wood, weighing more than Merlyn could have ever hoped to lift by sheer physical might, most likely the reason he was having trouble with it. Nimue leapt to her feet, dashing to where the book lay on the floor, hoping that there would be something useful in there. The pedestal fell to the ground with a loud crash as Merlyn turned his attention to her, knocking her back against the wall. "Don't you ever learn?" he snarled. "-Never- touch the Book of the Sun!" The pedestal began to shake again, and Nim once more got to her feet, rushing back towards the book, wishing that she could have used her own magic upon it without risking its destruction.

She collapsed to the ground just inches away, stars appearing before her eyes, her spine aching as if it had been broken. The pedestal fell beside her, making a near deafening sound. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she nearly gave in to the pain, the temptation of unconsciousness nearly too much for her, but she knew that if she did, Merlyn would make sure she never got a chance to use the book again, most likely by taking out her eyes.

Her arms refused to work. Her tears increased as Merlyn advanced on her, grinning like a wolf on the prowl, while all she could manage to do was lie there like a slug, the pain paralyzing her. She was helpless, like the child that Merlyn made her out to be, completely at his mercy yet again. Memories of things he had done to her flashed through her mind, and it didn't help any knowing that he would make all of those seem like nothing this time.

Her vision cleared up, allowing her to see the last few words on the page the book was opened to. With no other choices, and nothing to lose, she began to speak, her voice weak, though growing stronger with every word. "Stop that!" Merlyn commanded, lifting his staff.

It was too late. A strong wind rose, blowing everything in the room around, pushing the cover of the Book of the Sun closed. A small black circle appeared before Merlyn, and before he could do anything about it, it grew into something more recognizable to him - a portal. He tried to escape, but the world of dreams would not be denied. The wind continued to blow, gaining strength. Nimue, however, knew nothing of it, having passed out from the pain, and the exertion of using such strong magic. She didn't even realize that she had made a mistake with the final word of the incantation.

When she awoke, the first thing she noticed was the Book of the Sun. It had opened again, though now there was nothing within the covers. The pages were all gone, blown away to the ends of the earth, certainly Merlyn's revenge upon her for using its power on her. She started to cry, unsure of what else she could do. What was she now, without the book to give her power? Just a child, capable of only the most basic magics, unless she could find any other mystic books in Merlyn's collection that she could read.

Well, at least Merlyn had decieved her for the last time, she consoled herself.

Little did she know how very wrong that would turn out to be.

16

"Mrs. Spratt!" Megan wailed, running towards the teacher's desk with tears in her eyes. "Billy pushed me!" Meg pointed towards the tiny wounds on her knees, not really even worth a Band-Aid, though traumatizing enough for a five year old. Or this five year old, anyhow. "A-And he called me a baby!"

Doris Spratt sighed, reminding herself that she really did like kids, because why else would she have taken this job? Not for the money, that was for sure... She smiled at the little girl, wishing she knew what in God's name had possessed her mother to enroll her in school early, instead of waiting another year, like she had been advised to. It was hard enough for 'normal' children to start kindergarten when they were four. But when they were so much smaller than even other four year olds, and still wore diapers... It was just asking for trouble. Even more so now that she was in first grade, still tiny, still diapered.

"Do you want to go see the nurse, Megan?" she asked sympathetically. She may not have agreed with the girl's mother's decision, but the girl herself was a good kid, really. Pretty smart, really, and she never broke any rules. And she was one of the cutest children that Doris had ever seen. Sometimes it was all she could to do stop herself from picking her up and hugging her. But she couldn't show favorites, even subconsciously, in case the other children picked up on it - Megan didn't need anything else for them to tease her about.

Megan shook her head, sniffling softly. "Okay, then," Doris said, turning back to the subtraction worksheets she was going over. Megan stayed there, in front of the desk, however, instead of going back out to recess. "Is that all, Megan?"

"H-He called me a baby, Mrs. Spratt," Megan reminded her helpfully.

Doris sighed again. She may love this girl to pieces, but... Well, in truth, she would have to agree with Billy. It wasn't Megan's fault so much as her mother's, but there was no reason why she couldn't have gotten potty trained by now. "I'll talk to him about it." Megan, who seemed satisfied by this, called a thank you as she ran out of the classroom, back out to the playground. Doris might actually talk to Billy, though chances were that she wouldn't have time. That was just her all purpose answer to everything related to teasing. The principal might not like it if he heard about it, but it satisfied everyone most of the time. The kid who had done the teasing, if they weren't busy with something else, would usually have forgotten about what he was making fun of the other kid for by the time they got back outside, and if he hadn't, the other kid 'knew' that the teaser would just be getting in even bigger trouble. Sometimes she had to take a little more active of a role in tease-squashing, mostly on behalf of Megan, but a lot less than Mrs. White, the other first grade teacher, did.

Doris smiled as she wrote 100 % at the top of Megan's worksheet. Math was the little girl's worst subject by far, yet today she had been wonderful, outshining even Mike, who was usually her star pupil. It was as if she had grown up overnight or something.

Sneakers squeaked loudly in the hall right outside the open classroom door, and a few seconds later, Megan was standing in the doorway again, crying her little eyes out. Doris sighed. Well, grown up when it came to schoolwork, anyway...

Megan was starting to get extremely upset with herself. After all, some little kid had called her a baby - big deal. If she had been at her regular age, she could have called him the same thing. But her body didn't really seem to care what her mind thought, and, before she could even think about stopping herself, she was in tears, whining to the teacher. She sincerely hoped that she wasn't stuck like this, because while being cute was all fine and dandy, being a cry-baby wasn't.

And, amazingly enough, having her picture taken with a bunch of snot nosed little kids hadn't been all that and a bag of chips, either. It must have taken them ten minutes to calm down enough so that the photographer could even take the first picture. After that... Well, Megan didn't know how the poor man had been able to stand them long enough to take five. She wouldn't have.

Mrs. Spratt was pretty nice, however, and Megan remembered now why she had been her favorite teacher, back when she had actually been in first grade. But had she been such a teacher's pet back then, too? God, she hoped not... She could see why everybody teased her. Well, the fact that the dress was altogether too short for her five year old body to understand how to wear properly, so that she kept flashing views of her diapered butt to nearly everybody in the building, and, now that they were at recess, out of it. To a five year old, it might not have mattered so much, but she was twelve, damn it, and it was embarassing the hell out of her.

"Look, the baby's back from crying to the teacher," Billy taunted. Megan told herself to ignore it, to just walk away, but, of course, she didn't listen to herself.

"You're gonna get in trouble!" she told him, sticking her tongue out. "Mrs. Spratt'll make you come back to first grade again next year if you don't leave me alone." She was embellishing, maybe, but Billy didn't know the difference.

Or so she thought. "Will not!" He stuck his tongue out too. "She knows you're just a stupid little baby who should be back in preschool."

Megan inwardly gave an exasperated sigh as her eyes filled with tears. Again. "I'm -not- a baby!" she yelled as something inside her snapped, and she raced towards the much larger boy, shoving at his chest with all her might. He gave out something of a quiet roar as he tumbled backwards. Megan watched, shocked, and then started laughing at how easy it had been. He wouldn't dare make fun of her now, wou...

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she winced as she looked up at the face attached to it. Mrs. White, the teacher in charge during recess that day, was standing over her, frowning. "Why did you push that boy, young lady?" she demanded. Megan didn't like her very much, even when she wasn't mad at her. She wasn't very nice, and she was always frowning, no matter what.

"H-He called me a baby," she said meekly, knowing that wouldn't be good enough.

"That's no excuse. I think you need a time out."

"But..." Megan's protest was cut off by a glare from the teacher, and she let herself be led back into the school for the rest of recess. Life just wasn't fair sometimes...


'You have -got- to be kidding me,' Megan thought, her heart sinking. This just couldn't be happening. It had to be some horrible, horrible dream, or something like that. Her life just couldn't be -this- unfair.

"Aww, isn't she just so cute, El?" Cassie asked with a smirk.

"Adorable," Ellen answered.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" Meg asked, surprised to hear the words actually coming out of her mouth instead of staying in her mind.

"Tsk, tsk... You wouldn't want us to tell your mommy that you spoke to your babysitters like that, now would you? Cause then big bad Megan would get a spanking." Cassie crossed her arms, a superior look on her face.

"Now, wouldn't that be horrible?" Ellen copied Cassie almost exactly, so much so that it was almost spooky.

"Oh, don't worry Meggie, we won't tell your mom," Cassie said, almost surely a bold faced lie. "If you just do a few things for us..."

Megan glared at them, not having any idea what they could possibly want, not wanting to know. It wasn't anything she would want to do, that was for sure. "Screw you," she growled, stomping off to her room, where she was resolved to stay for the rest of the afternoon.

She quickly changed her mind as her bowels announced that they hadn't completely emptied themselves the night before. Oddly enough, they gave her enough of a warning that she might have a chance to make it to a toilet. She opened her door a crack, enough to be sure that Cassie and Ellen weren't waiting for her right outside, and then dashed out, running into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door. Her bowels rumbled, reminding her that she couldn't stop now, and she quickly set to taking off her diaper, which, as she had discovered earlier in the day, was an actual Huggies, something she had never expected, or wanted, to fit into ever again.

She was glad that it only had two tapes, instead of the four she had gotten used to undoing. It was hard enough with just the two, and her hands seeming to be battling against her, not wanting to do what she told them. There was a loud knock on the door, and Cassie's voice came through. "What do you think you're doing, young lady?" The doorknob rattled loudly. "Unlock this door right now!"

Megan almost obeyed, made herself stop. She wasn't going to let her two worst enemies see her like this, and she certainly wasn't going to let them force her to mess herself again. She breathed a sigh of relief as the diaper fell to the floor beneath her, still unused. As she pushed the lid of the toilet up, she heard a rattling at the door, one that was made only when somebody was using the key that went with it.

"No, no, no," she whispered over and over to herself even as she tried to make herself poop, while she could still do some with a little dignity, to no avail. The door burst open, revealing her, still sitting on the toilet, the diaper on the floor in front of her. "What is going on here?!" Cassie asked angrily, though she knew full well. She walked over, snatching Megan up as if she weighed nothing, handing her to Ellen as she picked up the diaper. "Baby shouldn't run around without this..." she said, waving the diaper in Megan's face. "She might have an accident and make a mess..."

Megan squirmed uselessly against Ellen's grip as Cassie moved the diaper from right in front of her face to her crotch. "Let... me... go!" She strained against Ellen's arms, her legs kicking wildly, almost beyond her control.

"Ow!" Cassie took a step backwards, rubbing her forehead, where Megan's foot had made contact with it. "Why, you little..." Meg flinched, almost certain that she was going to get slapped. Instead, Cassie just grabbed Megan from Ellen and carried her to the changing table in Megan's room, where she none too gently diapered her, pulling it closed so tightly that it almost hurt. Megan was too scared of what the now much older girl could do to her to do anything else to her, though. When you were as small as Megan, angering a potentially dangerous person more than twice your age was a rather stupid thing to do.

Now that she was back in diapers, the pressure in her bowels returned, much more powerful now. The thick, warm paste oozed its way into the minute space between her bottom and the surface of the diaper, pushing outwards and downwards, squishing between her legs. She gulped as she finished, glancing up at the two girl who hated her guts, had just seen her fill her pants, such as they were, and were in charge of cleaning her up, or not.

Cassie turned and grinned at Ellen. "I think she'll be fine for a little while, don't you Ellen? Why don't we go see what's on TV?" The two turned to leave the room.

"B-But..." Meg protested, getting stopped by the stream of urine that suddenly poured out of her, making the inside of her diaper an even squishier, ickier place to be.

"I think you need to take a nap, little girl," Cassie told her, pausing for a moment in the doorway. "And don't even think about budging from that bed until I come in to wake you up, or you'll be sorry!" Cassie laughed as she shut the door behind her, leaving Megan alone with her angry, twelve year old thoughts and innocent, though rather smelly five year old body. How had her life gotten this screwed up?!

17

Nimue curtsied politely, even though, or perhaps simply because, Guinevere didn't expect it from her. Somehow, she always managed to forget how long Nimue had been at Camelot, and that she was a great deal older than she looked, old enough to know that the woman was queen, and deserved her respect. She was rather fond of Nimue, too, though not as a female companion, but as a child, one of the few left at the castle, that she could teach to knit, and embroider, and all of the other womanly arts. All of the things that Nimue could already do, but she had nothing better to do most days, now that Merlyn was trapped within wherever the portal had led to, and the king and knights were off on some quest or another. Nimue never bothered to keep up with politics, so she wasn't sure exactly why they were gone, just that they were. Which was good enough for her. If they weren't there, they could whisper among themselves about her being Merlyn's lapdog, or that she was keeping him hidden away for some reason, perhaps to test the loyalty of his spies within the castle.

"Good evening, Queen Guinevere," she said, trying to sound as regal, yet still somewhat humble, as she could.

"Hello, little one," Guinevere smiled, kneeling down in front of her. Nimue fought back the urge to hurt her, knowing that the penalty for that, even for one thought upon as a child, would be extremely painful, if not lethal. "Shouldn't you be abed at this time of night?"

Nimue sighed; she was beginning to get frustrated with this entire castle, or at least the few people left in it. Would it really be any better elsewhere, however? Most likely, it would be worse, and much more dangerous. "I couldn't sleep, Your Highness," she lied, her head bowed.

"There's no need for titles, Nimue," the queen told her, still smiling. Nimue was a little surprised that she actually remembered her name - most days, she just called her 'little one' or 'child', or occasionally 'dear'. Sometimes it bothered her, but she comforted herself by saying that that was why Guin always confused her for a little girl, because she didn't know who she was.

"Thank you," Nimue curtsied again.

"Quite all right, dear, but you really must try to get to sleep again - Run along, now." With that, Guinevere stood, turned, and walked away. Nimue glared at her departing back, despising being dismissed like some child. Someday she would make the people of this castle respect her for what she truly was... Today didn't seem to be that day, however.

She turned, continuing on to Merlyn's former, and now her own, rooms, nearly running into Lancelot, one of the knights who had stayed behind, to guard the castle. He was one of the few that Nimue could actually tolerate being around for very long, mostly on account of his being gorgeous. She knew better than to think that he would ever think the same of her, though, and so she found it much easier just to pretend to be the little girl that he saw in her whenever he was around.

"Pardon me," he said pleasantly as he bowed to her, most likely in a mocking way, though to her it didn't really matter, and continued on his way, disappeared down the same hallway that the queen had entered. Strange...

Nimue stood there for a few moments, pondering, before her curiousity got the better of her, and she followed, her instincts telling her that something beyond the ordinary was going on. A low moaning met her ears as she quietly walked to the edge of a closed door, the only thing that this hallway seemed to lead to. It was most likely locked, yet she tried anyhow, finding that it was. She looked around, making sure no one else was around, whispered a few words that she had read in one of Merlyn's old, dusty books earlier in the day. She didn't expect them to work by themselves, without her having a focus, like Merlyn's staff, to channel her powers through, but the door suddenly popped open, revealing something that should have caused her to turn and run, hoping that they hadn't recognized her, yet instead made her stand perfectly still, as if she were frozen, staring wide-eyed at the scene before her eyes.

Lancelot leapt to his feet, quickly pulling his breeches up, glancing over at Guinevere, who looked as if she were trying to hide under the sheet. The dress she had been wearing a few minutes before lay on the floor next to the bed, crumpled up like it had been tossed aside. The two exchanged guarded looks, obviously trying to figure out what to do about this threat to their secret.

Nimue's eyes fell upon a sword in the corner of the room at almost the same instant that Lancelot's did, and her eyes got even wider. Guinevere seemed to almost read Lancelot's intent, and cried out, "No! She's just a child, Lancelot..."

"We cannot allow her the chance to tell anybody of this," he said, though Nimue could tell that he didn't really want to kill her.

"She doesn't even understand what was going on, most likely."

Nimue glared at the queen. "I'm -not- a child," she growled, glad that Merlyn wasn't there. He would have caused her to soil herself for saying that, as he was fond of doing, just to remind her that he saw her as a child, and wanted her to see herself that way as well, so that she wouldn't think of contesting his power.

Lancelot took a step towards the sword. "No, Lancelot!" Guinevere shouted.

"My love, we have no choice. If the king was to find out..."

"Then we shall have her swear to us that she shalln't tell a soul." Guinevere sat up, holding the sheet with both hands. "Now, dear little Nimue, we shall see to it that you get the most beautiful doll in the kingdom, how would you like that? And the royal seamstress will be at your command, to make you the finest new clothes. The cooks will see to it that you get as many sweets as you desire as well. There's just one thing that you have to do..."

Nimue stepped further into the room, keeping a cautious eye on Lancelot. "As I have told you, Your Highness, I am not a child. Perhaps if I was, I would take your offer. But, instead, I think I will offer you another. There is but one thing that I want, and you two are going to get it for me, or else the entire kingdom will know about this by the dawn." She was bluffing - she sincerely doubted that anybody would believe her, even if she told them, but she needed to sound threatening, or else this would never work.

It couldn't have worked out more perfectly if it had been planned. While perusing Merlyn's library, she had come across a reference to the Book of the Sun, and its first destruction long ago. The high priest had used an instrument to scry the locations for the missing pages, and Nimue had planned on doing the same thing, except that she didn't have the correct tools. That would no longer be a problem, however...

She grinned, crossing her arms in front of herself, trying to appear as intimidating as Merlyn had always made himself be. "I want the Holy Grail."

18

Megan was a little apprehensive as she woke the next morning, but all of her fears were put to rest as soon as she had thrown aside her blankets and looked at herself. She was twelve again, thank God. No more just being a little kid, having to do whatever the older and bigger kids told her to. Well, no more listening to, and getting upset by, taunts made by some bratty five year old.

She glanced at the door for a moment, wondering if her mother was going to come through it any second and change her. She wasn't sure if she wanted that or not, but it didn't happen after a couple minutes, so she did it herself. It seemed strange, after a whole day of other people doing it for her, yet it made her feel grown up for some even stranger reason. It was probably the only time that wearing diapers made her feel like a big girl.

As she reached into the bag for a new one, her hand had to reach nearly all the way in to grasp the final diaper. She sighed unhappily as she put it on, remembering how she had hoped to have beaten this bedwetting thing before she ran out. Now it had only gotten worse. And she had to go out and buy more! As if doing it once hadn't traumatized her enough...

She got dressed in a hurry, grabbed a Pop Tart from the kitchen, and nearly ran out of the house. She wasn't about to carry around a package of diapers all day, but she needed more than one, or her rash would be getting even worse. Maybe being in a hurry helped her get through it better, since she didn't have time to be embarassed as she grabbed a package, not looking at it, and then got some diaper rash ointment, and some baby oil and powder, rushed to the cash register, and darted home with her bag. She had just enough time to rip open the bag, stuff a couple diapers in between her books, and run, her lungs trying to burst by that time, to school.

Classes themselves went quite well, really, until she had to change herself. As usual, she went into a stall in the bathroom, locked herself in, pulled out one of the diapers. It felt odd even when just her fingers were touching it, and when she had put it on, she figured out why. It was about twice as thick as the ones she was used to wearing. She couldn't even squeeze her legs all the way shut now! She took a few steps, growing more and more hysterical with each, watching herself waddle like a toddler. She moaned, her brain working up a plan.

Of course, the warning bell went off just then, telling her that she had about a minute to get to her next class. She pulled her pants back up, shocked, pleasantly, that they went on over the diaper, but just barely. If her shirt hadn't gone nearly to her crotch, the diaper still would have been noticable to anyone, and recognizable as such to anyone that had a baby brother or sister.

Running had never been a strong suit for her, and the added mass between her legs didn't help at all. Her next class, Western Literature, had already started by the time she made it there, on the verge of tears. Cassie, who was at the head of the classroom, glared at her as she walked in, and then turned back to the paper she was holding in front of herself and reading from.

"Oh, shit," Megan whispered to herself as she slid into her seat blushing at the angry look the teacher gave her. Sifting through the contents of her bookbag, she was relieved to see that she -had- brought her own paper with her. She sighed, relaxing for a split second.

No more than that, however, because that was when Cassie finished, and the teacher said, "Since you were late, Megan, you must have been getting some last minute work done on the presentation, huh?" Megan blushed again as the class turned to look at her. "Well, we wouldn't want that work to go to waste, now would we? Let's hear you masterpiece next." Megan was still blushing as she got up from her seat, walking - or waddling, rather - up to the front of the class, her paper clutched so tightly in her fists that she was afraid she would rip it.

She cleared her throat, forcing the look of absolute fear fom her face, replacing it with an obviously fake smile, and not much of one at that. The words on the paper seemed to be leaping up and down, so that she wouldn't be able to make them out, though she was pretty sure that they weren't really, unless they were trying to make her sick. In that case, they weren't doing too badly of a job. "M-My paper was on..." she began, trying to recite the words from meory so that she wouldn't need the jumpy paper.

Cassie was pointing at her, stifling laughter. That in itself wasn't all that unusual, but today Megan was even more paranoid than normal, so she quickly glanced down at her diaper bulge, sure that that was what had drawn Cassie's attention. Whether it was or not, she still didn't know, but the moment she looked at the diaper, it began filling up with an unpleasant mass that her body hadn't asked her if she minded expelling. She paled, and then blushed.

"Were you planning on continuing this astounding piece of literature any time soon?" the teacher asked dryly. Megan's blush deepened about ten shades, and she nodded, quickly returning her eyes to the paper, which had, luckily, stilled itself a bit.

This was going to be a bad day.

As she waddled from the classroom, she wondered if all of the rest of school, until summer vacation finally set in, were going to be like this. These diapers were much too thick, and she only had a few things that would fit over them inconspicuously. She couldn't very well take them back, however, and she didn't have enough money left at the moment to get any more, so she was pretty much screwed.

"Come -on-, move it!" Cassie growled from behind her a split second before shoving her out of the way. Megan stumbled, caught herself against the wall, losing her grip on her school books, which she was frantically trying to stuff into her backpack, at the same time. She bent over, picking them up before they could be trampled, and when she stood again, she found Cassie hovering over her. "You just looked so cute giving your presentation," she said, teasingly. "For a second there, you looked just like my baby sister when she craps herself." She laughed, and then walked away.

Megan glared after her, and then zipped up the backpack, once again heading for the bathroom. It was empty, as usual, since most of the students used the bigger one now, and she started to get her new diaper out even before she was in the stall.

Bad idea. The door swung open with an audible squeak, and she turned without thinking, the diaper in one hand, her open bookbag in the other. Cassie was standing there, smirking. "I-It's not what you think..." Megan mumbled, trying to put the diaper away.

"Oh, I think it is," Cassie told her as she reached behind herself, locking the bathroom door. "In fact, I'm almost sure of it, though he never told me that you wore diapers when you were twelve... Just five. By the way, I had a blast yesterday. Hope your mommy lets me come over more often."

Megan might have fainted then, if it wouldn't have simply made things worse. "Y-You remember?" she managed to get out eventually.

"Of course." Cassie smiled, taking a few steps toward her prey. "How could I forget the look on your precious little face when you filled your diaper, right in front of me? It was the same look that you had in class. And the same look I bet I'll be seeing quite a lot from now on."

Suddenly, Cassie was right there, in front of her, and then Megan's pants were around her ankles, revealing the diaper underneath. "Now let's get baby into a nice, fresh diaper, huh?"

19

Camelot had changed quite a bit in the past few months, and all for the better as far as Nimue was concerned. Guinevere was smart enough to know that she, and her husband, most likely, would be laughed out of the castle, and perhaps the isle of Britian if she voluntarily gave all power over to what appeared to be a little girl. She also knew, know anyway, that Nimue would settle for nothing less than that. So, they had come to something of a compromise - Nimue had all the power she wanted, but nobody except for her, Guin, and Lancelot would know.

And that worked, sort of. Those in the castle knew that Nimue carried at least a bit more power now, since she had been all but elevated to the rank of princess. Despite what she had said that night, not so long ago, the thought of having the prettiest clothes in the kingdom had attracted her, and she now had a whole closet full of dresses that she would only have dreamt about when she was studying under Merlyn. They were mostly fairly childish; part of the compromise had been for her not to attract too much attention to herself, and if dressing, and sometimes acting, like a little girl was required for that... Well, she was starting to get to like it, now that Merlyn wasn't around.

She had a much nicer room now as well, about twice as large as the one she had previously occupied. It was nearly indistinguishable from the room of a regular child, even had a few toys, mostly dolls, scattered about. For the sake of the maids that kept the room clean, Nimue told herself, trying to hide how much she enjoyed playing with them every once in a while from herself. Most of her time was spent in Merlyn's library, however, so the temptation to play wasn't too large. Or so she would have liked to think. In the beginning, it had been that way, yet none of the books had interested her, not knowing that she could reconstruct the Book of the Sun. So less and less of her time was spent actually studying, and more and more taken up by napping in the warm sunlight on Merlyn's chair, arguably the most comfortable in the castle, which she had never before been permitted to so much as touch, and, as much as she hated to admit it, playing.

The former was what she was doing now, as she pretended to be looking at some old, dusty volume she had dragged from one of the shelves, in the hopes that maybe it would give her, or, more accurately, the knights that were out searching, more clues as to the location of the Holy Grail. None of the books she had looked in had told her anything, so she had really all but given up, only looking at books when she was bored out of her skull.

She yawned, covering her mouth with one hand while flipping to the next page with the other. Some days - this one being a good example - she wondered why she even bothered with the book. It would be much simpler to just curl up in the chair and fall asleep without having it perched on her lap. She had gotten to the point where she didn't even bother to read anything, just turned pages until she was asleep. Sure enough, only moments later, her hands both fell limply onto the fragile pages, her eyes closed tightly in slumber.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The cup glowed brightly as the water within began to swirl around, seemingly of its own accord. Nimue stared at it, fascinated, anxious to see what it would tell her. Soon, now, she would have the power to track Merlyn down, to figure out where the portal had led, and then finish him off for good. It wouldn't do for him to find some way to escape a few years down the road...

The water sped up, starting to take on different colors, becoming brighter. The colors seemed to blend into each other, though she could still see and tell the difference between all of them somehow. She was entranced, couldn't have stopped watching even if she had wanted to. The colors continued to get brighter, until it felt like her eyes were going to dry up in her skull.

And then the colors seemed to go on fire, right there in the water. She forced herself not to give into her fears and pull away, knowing in the back of her mind that if she did, she would get nothing more than the pretty lights she had already seen out of this. The colors burned for another few moments, and then the water cleared up.

Hadn't it worked? she wondered, feeling disappointed.

"Hello, Nimue," an all-too familiar voice said from behind her. She jumped, feeling quite a bit like a child that had wandered where she didn't belong, and had been told repeatedly not to go. The look on Merlyn's face only made things worse.

"M-Merlyn?" she stammered, trying to figure out how he could have managed to escape already. Had the portal been even weaker than she had feared? Her gaze raked the room, seeking out possible weapons in case he decided to attack her, which would almost certainly be the case.

"Oh, don't worry, dear little Nimue. I wouldn't think of harming my favorite apprentice." Merlyn smiled, obviously trying to be comforting. Nimue was comforted, yes, but more because she knew from his words that he -couldn't- hurt her. Why, she didn't know, but that wasn't important at the moment.

"What do you want, old man? I'm busy." She tried to stand in front of the Grail, not sure what powers it would have in his hands.

"I can see that. But that isn't going to help you. You're going to need the real one..." Nim arched her eyebrow; had the world beyond the portal driven him insane? Of course it was real! Sir... something or other... had brought it here for her... sometime... He had almost certainly had some grand adventure that he had told her about when he had given it to her, and that she had just as almost certainly ignored. Merlyn sighed. "Dear, dear Nimue, haven't you learned anything yet?"

The library seemed to blow away like smoke, the Grail with it, leaving the two of them hovering in the blackness of nothing. She looked around frantically for something, but there was only her. Her and Merlyn. "It's just a dream, Nimue. Don't worry, nothing can hurt you..."

If Nimue's gaze had been teeth, then it could have bitten through stone then. "What do you want, old man?"

Merlyn tried to act surprised. "Why would you suspect that..." Nimue's glare intensified. "All right, I do want something. Don't worry, it's something very simple. I'm sure even you can do it. You've already begun, in fact."

Nimue crossed her arms defiantly. "If you think I'd ever release you, you must be even madder than I thought."

Merlyn sighed, again trying to appear stung by her words. "If you don't help me, I may be forced to... persuade... you."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Nimue's eyes came open, and instinctivly went to her crotch. If Merlyn had ever wanted to persuade her of something, usually her own inferiority, then his efforts were usually focused there. Nothing seemed wrong, however, and she began to giggle softly. How foolish could she be?! It had just been a dream... And dreams never hurt anyone, now did they?

20

Megan glanced nervously in Cassie's direction, but the other girl was busy talking to her friends, and wasn't looking at her after all. Meg gave a little sigh of relief, glad that she had just been being paranoid. She felt a tap on the shoulder, turned back around to see Cherise shoving a piece of paper at her, the words 'What are you looking at?' written on it. Megan wasn't sure why Cherise even bothered to come to rehearsals anymore - she couldn't talk or sing, two of the most important things that you could do in a play, in Meg's opinion anyway. But she hadn't missed a single one. Megan hadn't either, since Cherise was her ride, and now that she had finally gotten a driver's license of her own, she would sit outside Meg's house and honk until she came out, even if she didn't feel like going that day. Megan was very glad that her mother wasn't home at that time of day...

Meg shrugged. "Nothin'," she muttered, not feeling like explaining the events from earlier that day to her best friend. Or anyone, for that matter. At least Cassie hadn't told anybody either, as far as Megan knew.

"Were you planning on paying attention to the music today, Megan?" an exasperated Mitzi asked. Megan blushed, twisting her chair back around to face the front of the room again. Nobody seemed to want to listen to Mitzi today, and the woman wasn't too happy about it, and willing to take it out on anyone and everyone. Even poor little Megan, the star of the show, who was really just as guilty as anybody. She just had too much on her mind at the moment to worry about music, even a song that was supposed to be one of her biggest numbers - I'm Flying. She didn't really like it that much; they had already gone over most of it - the part she sang - the day before, and were only going over the chrous parts now.

That was mostly because she would actually be flying during it. She wasn't really fond of heights, and the thought of flying wasn't helping her any. Sure, three other people would be flying too, and they all weighed less than her, so that if any of them was likely to be dropped, it would be one of them, but just thinking of being even a foot up in the air freaked her out. And Jeremiah had said that they would likely be flying her at least five feet off the ground, maybe more. She wasn't even five feet tall, even if she wore heels! Perhaps she should have mentioned that at the audition, she had thought to herself often, ever since Jeremiah had announced all the little flying statistics. It was too late now...

"Sorry," Meg said meekly. Mitzi glared at her for a few minutes, giving just enough time between Megan's word till Mitzi started playing the piano for Meg to hear Cassie and her friends giggling. Feeling paranoid, she looked over at them, and this time they were looking back. Megan blushed as Cassie leaned over to whisper something to Ellen, and they began giggling again.

"Megan!" Mitzi hissed.

"Sorry," Megan repeated, her blush deepening as she faced the musical director again, the laughter spreading throughout the room.

Mitzi sighed, obviously sure that there was no way she was going to restore order in ten minutes left in rehearsal. "You might as well get ready to leave," she said. "Our star obviously doesn't feel like practising, and if the title character doesn't know what she's doing, what's the point?" She stormed out of the room, much like she did at just about every other rehearsal; why she continued working with teenagers if she hated them so much Megan was fairly certain she would never know.

Meg did know that she should have been used to it by now. She was, sort of, but she wasn't used to Mitzi's anger being directed at her. Her blush deepened another five or six shades, and tears began to sting her eyes as she closed the score, shoving it into the bag that she always carried to rehearsals now, even though most of the time it only had that and the script. She saw Cherise scribbling something, wasn't in the mood to be told that it wasn't her fault, so she got up and tried to make a rush for the door before she started crying too heavily.

"Awww, what's the matter, baby, did you get yelled at?" Cassie's voice broke through the jumble of voices that had arisen since Mitzi's departure. Megan paused, just long enough for Cassie to get behind her. "Does baby need another change?" she asked, thankfully just low enough for Megan, and not the rest of the cast, to hear.

"Leave me alone," Megan whimpered, starting to walk away.

"Now that's not very polite," Cassie reached out, grabbed Megan's wrist, pulled her backwards. "Didn't your mommy ever teach you manners? I guess we'll have to fix that." An image of Cassie revealing her diaper flashed through Megan's mind.

"Just leave me alone," she begged quietly.

"You just don't get it, do you, lil Meggie?" Cassie shook her head. "When somebody invites you to their house, you don't just walk away... You see, that's rude. And rude little children have to be punished, or they just get ruder, and ruder..."

"But you didn't..." Meg protested, her heart pounding away. There was no way this was going to end well.

"That's because it's not an invitation. You're coming, or everyone here finds out the truth about our precious little star..." Megan gulped, wishing that the hand that Cassie didn't have an iron grip on wasn't in a cast so that she could have fought back, or at least prevented her pants being pulled down, if it came to that. And even if Cherise came to her rescue, Cassie would still have time to show off Meg's undergarment before getting smashed to a pulp.

"Fine." Her shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Oh, goody!" Cassie grinned, pulling Meg even closer to herself. "I'm sure we're going to have a great time, little Meggie-poo. Well... I am, anyway." Megan cringed at the sound of her laughter, trying hard not to let her brain realize just how much it sounded like the shadow man's laugh.

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