665Well, I am rested, and largely in good shape. It's been a little while, but I feel ready to crack on with this story again. Yes, book three of this monster of a series – which I am finally porting over to AO3 in earnest (well, I finished porting over Forever Red, which was about 200k even without A/Ns, Jesus Christ…).
Anyway, this is a very Harry-lite, yet Harry-imbued chapter. That is to say, we don't actually see Harry directly (he was meant to turn up at the end, but I felt it was appropriate to end it where it was). However, almost everything is about him, through the eyes of someone who is meant to teach him – and do a bit of learning herself. I'm not naming her, but if you cast your minds back and pick up on the clues, it is very obvious who she is.
It was a little more rambling than I intended, but it does do a bit of world-building and world-exploring of prehistoric Earth. I'd been reading Chronicles of Ancient Darkness when I started writing this chapter, and I confess it influenced me (I recommend the series, btw). Also, a little bit of lore. Oh, and the Forest People - for those who've forgotten, one turned up in Unfinished Business with a symbiote attached. Basically, they're Bigfoot (and most other 'wild man of the forest' myths) if Bigfoot was a ridiculously powerful wizard with a lifespan measured in millennia. They're mostly a pretty reserved bunch, but wise, which makes them very helpful. And a touch lyrical.
Guest:I am deeply flattered. Mildly puzzled, but deeply flattered.
Some Guy:I can't claim total credit – the association goes back to Avengers vs X-Men, though there, they were semi-opposed, semi-aligned, forces. Here, it's a much smoother connection.
Lol.
Harry has always mouthed off, and will always mouth off. It's what he does.
Yes, dear, oblivious Jean. Well, mostly oblivious. Scott needs to pluck up his courage.
Good question. Not the best question, but a good question.
Naturally.
So am I.
Random Norwegian: Bond is around, Harry just hasn't had any reason to see him.
Harry and Voldemort are still tied together, much to Harry's chagrin.
It's leading up to Ragnarok.
It began with a feeling, unsettling and fascinating in equal measure; like a child's urge to chase a firefly, a wandering spark, to find out what it is, combined with a persistent echo. One that, when listened to closely, was somehow not quite right. One that was rendered even more unsettling when she found that she was the only one who could hear it.
In retrospect, that probably should have been a clue.
At the same time, though, she was quite accustomed to puzzling feelings and mysterious whispers pulling her to one place or another. That qualified as her brand of normal. So she followed that trail, first across the stars, then across the primal world before her. Raw, unshaped, and brimming with potential, inhabited by several related sentient subspecies that were competitive at best and genocidal at worst.
Most of them had yet to graduate beyond the most basic stone tools, while others had advanced to metals. Their grasp of sorcery was generally dismissed as similarly limited, for all that magical power seethed around them with barely tamed energy, eager to be used. With a few exceptions, their recording methods were simple memorisation, combined with occasional glyphs and art. And most of them spent their time figuring out either where the next meal was coming from, or how not to become the next meal for something – or, sometimes, someone – else.
When they looked up at the stars, they had no conception of reaching them in life – and only rarely in death.
Accordingly, it was mostly a travel spot for those who wished to experience an untamed world close at hand, and a curiosity for scholars, with its inhabitants largely overlooked, save for protection and distant, absent-minded benevolence. It was not like they would amount to anything, ran the thought. Study them, protect them when they needed it because it was a matter of duty and because it was right, but it wasn't fair to expect anything of them beyond natural self-sufficiency. All sentient life might be sacred, but that didn't mean it was necessarily going to be very interesting. And that, frankly, was not likely to change.
While the scholars disagreed, often with surprising vehemence, even they conceded that significant development would either require outside help or a very, very long time.
General opinion ran thus: the only thing special about Midgard was that sentient life had survived at all.
Sometimes, she had wondered about that, as she was now. By virtue of her circumstances and gifts, she was better travelled than most, and saw further than most. Yet aside from the traditional cross-the-realms trip when she was younger, she had had little reason to visit since, and consequently, little reason to think about Midgard or its inhabitants. Now, she did.
Accordingly, even before her feet touched the earth, and even aside from that persistent echo, she was curious. Just how had they survived?
She would realise, also in retrospect, that perhaps she should have done her reading first.
The trail was clear enough, and she could probably have traced it across this world and many others in the blink of an eye. Yet curiosity curbed both her directness and her impatience. She rationalised it as needing to see what had been done, if anything, to learn what she was really dealing with (because while she had suspicions, she did not yet truly believe them). In the end, however, it was curiosity.
It was no great hardship. The distances were great, the world largely untamed and unsullied, which made it both beautiful and, for most, inconvenient to traverse. Especially as it was in the midst of an Ice Age, which she would have known even if the start of the trail hadn't – very puzzlingly – been on top of a glacier.
She, however, had a clear heading and the ability to fly over simple obstacles as nature provided. Should any of the native predators, from great bears to comparatively lesser dragons, end up trying to impede her, well. Every trip needed something to break up the monotony.
As she followed the trail, the sense of familiarity grew, and with it, her puzzlement. What her senses were whispering to her with increasing insistence and certainty was unlikely. Indeed, one of the quieter things they whispered was downright impossible – well, not impossible, but she'd certainly class it as highly unlikely.
How would such a pairing come about? Why would it? She considered the thought, then grimaced. On second thoughts, she could quite easily imagine why, revolting though it might be. Power could be a heady thing, and it could reveal both the best, and worst, of people.
At first, she had not expected to encounter anyone while following this meandering trail. Whoever had left it had plainly not been going anywhere in particular, and had merely been wandering wherever curiosity took them. So far, it had zig-zagged southwards, following curiosities, and occasionally stopping to find something to eat, going by the remains of campfires, bones, and fruit, before turning east over one of the continent's major mountain ranges.
Like her, they regarded natural obstacles with insouciant disregard, indicated by the way they hopped from peak to peak.
Like her, she thought, as she tasted the echoes left around a very small pile of ash and fragments of scorched bone (some of which were embedded three fingers deep in granite), a pile whose size belied the fact that in life it had been at least three times her height and one of the Elderspawn, a misbirthed creation of an ancient god that had apparently chosen the wrong lifeform for lunch, they weren't particularly bothered by unnatural obstacles, either.
With such an apparently lofty and detached attitude, it seemed unlikely they would meet anyone.
Yet as she followed their trail, she did, with increasing regularity.
The first was a tribe of the Middle Folk.
It was not the most imaginative of names, that she conceded, but it was accurate.
There were the Changing People, who were… unpredictable, to put it mildly, each varying in shape, strength, and skill from those who had come before them. Those changes sometimes gave them power, but just as often, they gave them misery, madness, and an early death. They were dynamic and driven, progressing from stone to metal and to greater advancements with the desperate hunger of those trying to outrun death. Death, of course, always caught up eventually.
Then there were the Forever People, those who called themselves Eternal, and that was true enough. They were living ideas, programs embedded in Midgard itself, and as she could attest better than most, it is very, very hard to kill an idea. Ideas tend to endure, and where they change, those changes are often superficial. They are insidious, persistent, and they are powerful. They are very, very powerful. So it was with ideas, so it was with the Forever People. Their remit was encouraging evolution, minding their distant cousins.
Those distant cousins were the Middle Folk, mostly because they were… well, essentially, they were the ones in the middle. In truth, she knew that this was a crude summary of a group with a remarkable number of variants, albeit one now whittled down to just three. Or was it four? Her lessons had been a long time ago, by mortal standards, and if there was one thing Midgard did, it was change – quickly. Of course, if memory served, one of those variants was down to a few scattered tribes across two merged continents, while the other was being steadily absorbed by the most numerous form of the Middle Folk.
Soon, perhaps, Middle Folk would become an adequate summary with only one variant, one branch, of the subspecies remaining. And, curiously, it was the one that most resembled both the Forever People (less than surprising) and, oddly, Asgardians (very surprising). If you stripped them naked and took a glance at them, you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart. Well, she would be able to, but her senses were different to most.
That, she thought, was rather interesting. A cosmic pattern, a predetermination, or even a metaphysical influence through Yggdrasil, imitation of a successful model? Her travels had taken her far and wide, and one thing she had noticed was that when it came to sentient species, many converged on the same rough shape. There were differences in shade and fine details of physiology, of course, but the general shape was remarkably consistent. Even the shapeshifting Skrulls liked to default to it (though that might just have been a matter of blending).
In any case, the name was already quite apt. They lacked the unpredictability of the Changing People, or the transcendent constancy of the Forever People, and the power of both. They were just… there. Consistent. Yet, she would admit with some surprise (and mild chagrin at her ignorance), some had a remarkable aptitude for magic. It was not untrained, either, as she found when she enquired. Initially, she toyed with the idea that they had been taught by the wanderer. If anything, she found that it had been the other way around.
The trail had descended from the mountains into a forest, by a river – a good spot for fishing, water, and foraging, it seemed – and its maker had happened across a summer camp of a migratory tribe. There, they had stopped, and she had too, curious as to why – and, truthfully, about the people themselves. Especially when they had not reacted as expected.
While she was not the most imposing figure, she was still taller than most of the Middle Folk, and she had descended from the skies of an evening, glowing as bright as a sunset. At the very least, her colouring stood out and might have been expected to occasion comment. For the most part, the only Middle Folk that were as pale as her were dead, and red hair, while not unknown, was unusual. If they had assumed she was a ghost, she couldn't really have blamed them. Instead, the looks she got reflected the same feeling she had: curiosity.
"A stranger passed through here, a short time ago," she said, after skimming their minds to get a sense of the language. The All-Speak was all very well, but it didn't do idioms and metaphor very well. "May I ask what you know of him?"
The chieftain, a woman in her elder prime – perhaps forty Midgardian years – nodded. She had gone to greet her, and showed no sign of fear. There was wariness in those dark eyes, certainly, and for that she could hardly blame her. She was a stranger, and clearly one of power. But it was not fear. In fact, her expression was thoughtful.
"You may ask, Bright Lady," she said. "But the answer will depend on what you intend to do with that knowledge."
She blinked. All she had heard of the Middle Folk had said that while they were prone to reckless courage and sometimes took the presence of visitors as a challenge or a threat, they were also prone to embarrassing degrees of obeisance in the face of Asgardian power, no matter how lightly worn.
It was regrettably common in such contact situations, and some Asgardians, and other species, actually courted such reactions – a truly loathsome form of bullying, in her opinion, childish at best. She had been prepared to deal with challenges, or with grovelling, tiresome as both could be. Let them call her a god if they must, so long as they provided answers.
Yet there was no grovelling here, nor was there any sense of territorial confrontation. Instead, there was a sense of evaluation, like an elder judging a youth, and not being entirely sure whether they measured up.
Instinctively, she did as many in the other Realms would have done, and bridled, glaring at this mortal who presumed to see her as a child. Then, as she glared into those eyes, she saw something.
This mortal woman seemed… older. Not in the sense of years passed. By that metric, she had the best part of two millennia on the mortal. More, a sense of age; indefinable and intangible, but very real. In fact, as curiosity compelled her to brush her mind again, she got a startling sense that for all this mortal had barely lived an eyeblink by her standards, that life had been very much lived. She had lived and she had learned, she had experienced and she had changed. She had aged.
Her years might have been shorter, she realised with a jarring shock, but they had taken her further. Which meant…
What did this mortal woman see as she looked at her, she wondered uneasily. What had she done in all her years?
"I see," she said, a little shaken, before taking a breath and setting that aside. "I am investigating." Her brow scrunched up as she tried to think of how to frame it. "Your visitor would have been strange, and powerful. They leave a trail that is clear to me, one I have followed for…" She paused, trying to think about how to parse distances flown into the context of a people whose most advanced form of travel was a dugout canoe.
As she did, the Chieftain smiled faintly. "Perhaps you could show me, through your eyes?" she suggested. "Our visitor could do such things."
She snapped her head around, eyes wide. "Could he?" she said, half-surprised, half not, all intensely curious. It made more sense than it didn't, but at the same time, it added confusion.
The Chieftain just smiled, and she exhaled sharply.
"Very well," she said, and linked their two minds, sharing sights and experiences, and perhaps unwittingly, her puzzlement.
As she did, she got more of a sense of the chieftain's mind. It was sharp; as sharp as any Asgardian's, she realised, with more than a hint of shame at realising her assumption. After the link ended, she reached out to the other minds of the tribe, just getting a sense of them, the shame deepening. The implicit assumption had been that the Middle Folk, at least, and probably the Changing People too, were… less intelligent. That their physical and metaphysical limitations were mirrored by their intellect.
Those assumptions, her assumptions, were so very, very wrong.
"You have come a long way," the Chieftain remarked, doing her the courtesy of ignoring her mortified blush. "And I sense that you do not mean us harm." She shrugged, the gesture conveying a certain practicality and fatalism. "Not that there is much we could do if you did." She smiled slightly. "The Wanderer, on the other hand… even you, Bright Lady, might have trouble with that one. Come, join us at our fire. It is a long enough tale."
It was a long tale, one that she found immensely interesting. For weeks, her only information had been echoes left in earth and stone, the spark that burned a trail for her to follow. Now, she had witnesses, words, and even sorcery to work with – for the Middle Folk were apparently as fond of stories as any Asgardian, and had bent their sorceries to that purpose, carving illusions out of fire and smoke.
The story was simple, yet enthralling; one day, a stranger had come to the edge of the camp. He was tall and fair of face, one lock of purest white striking through the front of his dark hair like a ray of moonlight, and light eyes the colour of a deep summer's forest leaves. They had been wary of him as they had of her, perhaps more so, for he had struck down a great aurochs with no apparent trouble to himself and moved it with the merest wave of his hand. He had spoken to their minds and proposed a trade; a great share in the aurochs, and his aid in hunting, fishing, and building, in exchange for the chance to learn from them.
"At first, we thought he was one of the dead," the Chieftain said, as the tribe's shaman and her apprentice swirled the images. This time, they showed everyday activities, yet with the addition of a new figure, moving among them like a pale shadow – ascending trees to reach fruit, preparing skins for use as leathers, and carving out canoes from wood. "But his power was apparent, and the dead can sometimes be appeased by hospitality. So we welcomed him, giving him a spare tent. At first, he seemed as ignorant as a child, unaware of even the most basic things."
The images changed, this time showing the stranger – the suddenly very young looking stranger, she realised – making one daft and embarrassing mistake after another, often with amusing consequences. She had to cover mouth to hide her laughter as one sequence showed the stranger enthusiastically mimicking the carving of a canoe, and inadvertently snapping the half-complete canoe in two.
"Yet what he broke, he fixed," the Chieftain said, then added dryly, "sometimes repeatedly."
"So I see," she said, voice bubbling with amusement, as yet another sequence showed the stranger diligently mashing together salmon, fat, and berries into an easily stored cake, before absently reaching up to brush away some of his long hair... and swiftly realising in mounting horror and to widespread laughter, both simulated and real (for clearly this was an incident widely and fondly remembered) that he had just smeared the mixture all over his brow and through his hair. The next sequence showed him determinedly binding his hair back in a tail with an oddly familiar scowl – then sniffing suspiciously, and visibly sighing in exasperation.
"He learned," the Chieftain remarked. "Some skills, he had the edges of. And in others, his knowledge was deep. He might have relatively little understanding of what to do with a kill, but he was an exceptional hunter, swift and silent, and powerful. With weapons, he was either a master, or a student who rapidly became a master. Where his strength led to misjudgements and amusing mistakes in the camp, in the hunt, it was a thing of grace and wonder. His true strength, however, was in his magic." Her gaze turned to the visitor, sharp and shrewd. "But you already knew that, Bright Lady."
"I never doubted his power," she said carefully. "Though I did not even know that it was a 'him' that I was following." She gestured at the images that played before them, where the flickering orange-yellow-red of the campfire met the steady silver of the near-full moon. "Before, all I knew was that he was powerful. I suspected other things, but little else. Now…" She looked into the flames.
"He is your kin," the Chieftain said softly.
She frowned, not in offence, but in thought. "Perhaps," she said slowly. "Perhaps not. Or… perhaps in more ways than I thought were possible."
The Chieftain gazed at her for a moment, then moved on. "His magic was unlike anything we had ever seen – he used it with such an ease that it seemed a part of his every movement, his every breath," she said. "Some, he even claimed was not magic, though he could not explain how. 'Your language does not have the words', he told us. The best he could say was that there was another power that he could call upon."
"Yes," she said quietly. "I can see why he might put it like that. If he is what I think he is."
"His arts were strange and wondrous," the Chieftain said, watching her guest thoughtfully. "He used them for simple purposes, such as cleaning, and for higher arts, such as healing. He could open doors in the world. And he had a strange flute, carved with starlight. When he played it, sometimes it was just music. And sometimes… strange things could happen."
She looked up at the lights again, and her breath caught. This time, the sequences showed a rushing waterfall, and a child that had been climbing it, while the stranger was practising his flute on a perch by the falls. The child fell. The pale stranger blew his flute in a strident blast of alarm, and this time, the inlay glowed like a silvery-dawn; both water and child stopped. The pale stranger visibly relaxed, then paused, considering. After some thought and a nod to himself, he blew again, this time playing a different melody, the flute glowing once more.
The water rolled back, like the turning of a page, while the child hung in place as if frozen. The stranger calmly walked up to the child, as if ascending stairs in the air, and slipped one arm around them. He blew his flute again, another melody. The child squirmed, suddenly alive again and frightened, before calming. The stranger then descended once more, returning the child to their mother, before, almost as an afterthought, blowing one final time with the glowing flute. The water was released. Finally, satisfied, he returned to his perch and began to play once more, as if nothing had occurred.
"Strange things," she said dumbly. "Strange things indeed."
That got another shrewd look, but little more. Instead, the narrative turned to what the stranger had done next.
"He could do so many strange things, but he was endlessly fascinated by even the smallest rituals of our people," the Chieftain said. "Though his eyes were always on some distant horizon, in the lands of the rising Sun, he stayed with us for three moons. He said that he was being drawn there, and so, eventually, he was. But before he left, something happened that delayed his leaving."
There was a pause, and a grim sadness entered those dark eyes.
"Our tribe used to be nearly twice its current size."
This time, the tale was of a rival tribe, jealous of the position this one held by the rich river, the advantageous summer and winter camps.
"Their mage summoned a demon in the form of a great bear, though one unlike any of this world," the Chieftain said quietly, the images cast of a monstrous creature at least twelve feet tall at the shoulder, layered in huge plates of bone, with eyes the colour of blood and madness. "The demon was great and powerful, so much so that it could barely be controlled. It came upon us in the night. Our warriors, such as they were, managed to lure it away. Many of them paid with their lives, as many of ours had played already. The stranger rarely slept for long, and often wandered. That night, he wandered far – but not so far that he did not hear the screams."
The images changed, to the shadowy visitor descending from the heights like a lightning bolt, green eyes blazing gold, then white as he attacked a monster most of ten times his size. The fight was brief and brutal, inscribed in flares of orange and gold. At its end, the demon's shell was shredded, its wailing spirit banished.
"His wrath was terrible," the Chieftain said. "Once our living were out of danger, he hunted the other tribe down on his own. He found them as they were travelling towards our camp, thinking to take it for their own. One after another, he picked them off, forever unseen, even in the brightest light of day. He started with the leaders, and worked his way through the tribe, until he separated those he deemed free of guilt."
"What did he do with them then?" she asked, edgier than she was willing to admit.
"The guilty were never seen again," the Chieftain said. "I did not ask what he did with them, and he did not say. If you asked what happened to them, I would say that I did not know."
"And if I asked what you thought?"
The Chieftain looked her in the eye. "I would say that they were no longer in this world. And that they were grateful for it."
She looked into the flames, away from that chill stare. Yes, she could imagine that they might well be grateful. "And the innocent?"
"The innocent, he sent wandering through a burning hole in the world to emerge somewhere far from here. Where that was, I do not know, only that he told them to remember the fear they had felt, the fear their leaders had dealt, and to remember mercy. 'Make something better of your second chance', he said. 'You will not get another'."
The images faded.
"After that, Bright Lady, he stayed only so long as was needed to pack his things, to help us bury our dead, and do what he could to heal the living," she said. "Where he went, I do not know. Why he went, I think I do. He said before that he was pulled to the East, but I think he only answered the call because he believed he had brought ill-fortune upon us. If anything, it was the opposite – without him, none of us would be left to remember our dead, let alone rebuild. We have much more food than we would expect even in a good year, thanks to his hunting. We are grateful to him, and we will tell stories of him for as long as we may." Her lips twitched into a smile. "He made things interesting. But we do not expect to see him again."
She listened, and nodded slowly. "Thank you for sharing this with me," she said.
"You are welcome, Bright Lady," the Chieftain said, settling back, no longer in a storytelling mode. "I hope that you find him."
"Oh?"
"Yes. He seemed lonely."
The next day, she too moved on, with goodbyes and gratitude to be passed on if her quest was successful, as well as much to think on. So much, in fact, that it took her quite some time to realise that much of the trail in the days that followed was on the ground, slow and straight. Apparently, her possible kinsman had been as caught up in thought as she was.
The Chieftain had also apparently been right; he had been lonely.
Twice, his path deviated from its course; the first time, to another tribe of the Middle Folk, who had been struck down by a sickness, a blight that had infected even the forest around them.
They too spoke of a stranger as pale as the moon with hair like burnt wood struck with ash and eyes like fresh leaves, and fresh grasses and fresh leaves grew up around him. He stayed with them to nurse as many as he could through the sickness, to chase the blight away. Then, he had left, as quickly as he had arrived.
The second time seemed a little more directed, by curiosity rather than concern. When she stumbled across those he had sought out, she could see why. They were no people of the Middle Folk she knew of, they were most certainly not of the Forever People, and they were definitely not the Changing People. Instead, there seemed elements of each in them: consistency of form like the Middle Folk; age and perception like the Forever People; and great size and almost monstrous form like some of the Changing People.
Yet they were not monstrous, for all that they resembled particularly hairy giants of the wildest kind. Instead, they were, by and large, a gentle and thoughtful folk. Their lives were not so long as those of Asgard, but more than a few of their elders were older than she was. And with those lives, and that consideration, had come a greater understanding and a connection to the magics of the wildest world in the Nine. To the point where, to them, it was as natural as breathing.
When she had seen them, and when she had understood them, she had been briefly afraid that this young power would have jumped to the conclusions she had and lashed out. That had been a mistake, one of many that she had been making, she realised ruefully. This wanderer moved with a greater purpose now, but he had no trouble being patient. That was good, since with these folk, patience was required. She had wondered what effect the changeability of Midgard, that factor that seemed to give mortals such an age and perspective, would have on a people who lived so long.
Apparently, they were a people of great caution and deliberate thought; a few score years by Midgard's measure was not too many to make a reasonably considered decision. Likewise, involvement in the turbulent matters of what passed for Midgardian politics was not undertaken lightly. In their view, power was not to be used lightly. In fact, more often than not, it was not to be used at all.
This perturbed her initially.
"You have the power to rival gods," she said.
"But we are not gods," they answered.
It was a simple and succinct answer, with a subtext that hardly required cosmically endowed telepathy to divine: even gods should not meddle.
Personally, she disagreed. Gods should not meddle lightly. Sometimes, a little meddling was just what was needed.
When she put this to them in somewhat more eloquent terms, she had got that same look that the Chieftain had given her.
'You are very young, aren't you?'
In that case, she had… well, she'd acknowledged it. It had been made without judgement or condescension. And it had been made by a mortal, one who had lived without the advantages of either of their kinds, who had been aged by them, and perversely, was perhaps best placed to judge. In short, from a race not unlike her own? She really rather resented it.
They didn't seem too bothered by her resentment, however.
"Your people are a people of passion, Fire-Star," said Patience-Of-The-Hills-In-His-Heart. They all had names like that; poetic, slightly rambling, and emphasising their ties to the world. Her, they had named 'Fire-of-the-Stars-in-her-Eyes'. Thankfully, they accepted diminutives. "They follow their passions, for good or for ill, and too often, all too often, they are careless of the consequences. And why should they not be? We are all shaped by our beginnings, and yours are among fellow gods, in a realm made for gods. Among those such as you, in realms such as yours, what consequences are there? More than none, perhaps, but less than there are here. In your realm, among your own, what was broken can be remade with little more than a wave of a hand. Here, it is far easier to be broken beyond repair."
She frowned. "You're saying that this world is fragile," she said, unable to keep an edge of scepticism out of her voice.
"In places," Patience said. "This world is criss-crossed by borders between realms, overlapped by worlds beyond this reality, and scored with canals of power. That makes it strong, and mutable. There is much power here, for those who wish to access it, both drawn from other realms and other channels, and from the borders where worlds meet. As flint and stone generate the sparks of a fire, so do these worlds generate power upon this one. Yet borders are also fractures, sources of an instability."
Those dark eyes looked deep into hers.
"Instability can provide a way in to what must not be. Instability… can breed disaster."
She frowned. "That… makes sense," she said reluctantly. She had travelled across many worlds, and while Midgard was so unusual that it bordered on being unique – and only became more so the more that she saw of it – there were certain factors about it that were familiar. She knew of the kind of instability that dimensional overlap could breed. Hells, she knew of the instability that even mundane planetary fractures could breed. Some worlds were tectonic cauldrons, constantly wiping the slate clean in a rolling mass of quakes and magma. Any life that endured there was either brief, or –
"Or very, very… resilient," she whispered aloud.
"Or, perhaps, adaptable," Patience said, a knowing look on his broad face. "Or both."
He crossed his legs in front of her and sat in the manner of one about to teach.
"We use our powers to survive, to live, and to understand," he said. "And we never use them lightly. Our powers are great, and they have allowed us to live, and live well. As a result, we must be mindful, because with such power comes the responsibility to use it wisely. In this case, to understand the ramifications before we act. If we lived in one of the other realms, or in the Dreaming Realm, it would be different. The others are built to withstand such power, while the Dreaming Realm is so mutable that it adapts to whatever it faces. Even your flames might be swallowed by it, young Fire-Star."
She frowned again, but this time in understanding. "I see," she said, then paused. "Dreaming? The realms of the Dream-Lord are not accessible to the waking, not without great power –"
Patience raised a hand. Then, without looking away, he swept it across, as if parting a veil.
Her jaw dropped.
Before her was another world, a forest not unlike the one she sat in – except for the fact that the trees were all floating, drawn upwards towards the golden moon, while shimmering tendrils pulsed as they tethered them to the ground. Magic shimmered through it like water in air. It was extraordinary. It was entrancing.
It was impossible.
Then, as easily as it had been opened, it was closed.
"We do not know the full extent of it," Patience said. "Or even a fraction of it. It is vast beyond our imagining, and perilous as only your kind could reckon it. We lived in it for a time, and we gained understanding and power. With that understand was of what it was; the edges of Dream, where ideas and imaginings are born. We could feel it changing us, into creatures of archetype, and we chose a mortal path – one more vulnerable, with a life that would end, but one where we could choose to be ourselves. Other tribes, both of those you call the Middle Folk and the Changing People, as well as… others, they delved deeper. Now, the greatest of them are eternal, unless killed. They, Fire-Star, are the Fourth Kindred."
Her eyes widened. "A fourth tribe," she breathed. "Changed by magic?"
"By magic and by the world of dreams," Patience said. "Their lords resemble the Forever People, the Eternals – fair and ageless and powerful. Many of their subjects and others have adapted and shifted into an endless and fractious variety, like the Changing People. And in each of their sub-tribes they have a consistency, an obsession with this mortal world. Just like the Middle Folk. The one who came before you, the one you seek, knew of them. He said they had many names. In the end, he called them the Fair Folk."
"How did we not know of this?" she demanded.
Patience simply looked at her, and she flushed slightly. "We are not all-knowing," she said, clipped. "But we do have an interest in this world. How could we have missed a fourth kindred?"
"Did you?" Patience asked. "Or did you?"
She blinked, taken aback, then scowled in earnest, flushing once more. Her research had not been as thorough as it might have been. In fact, it had been next to non-existent.
"They would be easy to miss," Patience remarked, taking pity on her. "They flit between worlds, and the realm they inhabit is one in flux. They meddle in this world, and even claim mastery over parts of it, but they do not rule. Their technology is invested entirely in sorcery, in time to the beat of the seasons. Their power is also limited. Only their greatest could challenge you even without the fire you bear, and they are constrained by their own rules and natures. But beware them nevertheless. Some seem fair, some seem foul, and even when their intentions are good, they do nothing without demanding a price. They might help you or hinder you, for amusement or for a whim. They cannot speak a lie, but they will trick you with the truth, and bind you tighter than you could have imagined. The rules of magic are written in their blood and their bone, and they know them as deeply as you know life itself."
She looked up at him as she absorbed this. "Your people are not of these 'Fair Folk', are you?" she said. "Nor of the Middle Folk. Nor the Changing People. Nor even the Eternals."
"We are not," he said softly, and for a moment, an ocean of regret welled in him. "We forsook the paths of our cousins long ago. Now, we walk the shadowed boundary between. We watch the borders. And we exist beyond the edges of the camp." His sad eyes settled on her, expression knowing. "I am sure you would find that familiar, Fire-of-the-Stars-in-her-Heart."
Her eyes widened. "I… that isn't," she began, protestations faltering. "That's not true."
"You have been branded with a fire that is entwined with your soul, one that has changed you and reforged you into the agent of its own ends," he said gently. "As we were changed by the Realm of Dreams, you have been changed by the Fire of the Stars. Even if it left you now, you would still be altered. You would still have seen, have felt, things that even your mighty people have not. You have walked in realms that they have not, done things that they never could, or never would. You would walk among them once more, but you would never be the same. Your mind has been opened to the cosmos, Fire-Star, and it has gone places even gods cannot follow."
She went to sit down, shaking. Then, quite abruptly, she realised that she was already seated.
She swallowed. "I am not so different from what I once was," she whispered. "I am still… still me."
"You are," Patience acknowledged. "But is it not possible that who you are has changed?"
"Change is the nature of life," she shot back.
"For some more than others," he replied. "I do not seek to discomfort you, or to tell you that you are doomed to loneliness among your kind. I am speaking a warning that is already in your heart – once your time with this gift, this burden, that you carry, is done with, you shall find yourself even more changed than you already have been. And some of that change will be in ways those around you will not be able to understand. You can return to the camp, Fire-Star, for you have not wandered so far from it to have been forgotten. What you shared with your kind will still remain. But what you have seen in the darkness will not be forgotten either."
She closed her eyes, trying to centre herself, to recapture her control as the grass around her began to crackle, the earth and stone beneath began to break. She could feel the heat building around her, within her, feeding off her anguish and feeding it in turn as it began to spill outwards in earnest.
And then, in an instant, there was smoothness and there was calm.
She opened her eyes, simultaneously calmed (momentarily) and utterly astonished, jaw hanging loose as she stared into the wide, honest and wise face of Patience. Who smiled kindly.
"And yet, you are not alone," he said. "There are some who will share your exact experiences. And others, more, who will share enough different shades to understand the shape of the whole, even if they do not know what fills." He chuckled, gentle and deep as a sea cave. "As for the rest of us, we will do the best we can."
"How did you – thank you – how did you do that?" she asked, words coming forth in a flood. "What was that?"
"The water was unsettled," he said. "So I made it smooth again. At least for the time being." He looked her in the eye. "You could have pushed past it, had you wanted to. I could not snuff the flame."
"But you could cut the fuel," she murmured. "For a moment, at least." She stared at him. "That… I had never even heard of magic like that. I –" She stopped, and took a deep breath. "Thank you. Both for helping me, and for…" A small, wondering smile slipped out. "… showing me that." Her smile faded. "And also, I thank you for your counsel, Patience-of-the-Hills-in-his-Heart. I am not sure how welcome it was, but it is something for me to think about."
"You are welcome, Fire-Star," he said.
She looked up after a moment. "Can you teach me that?" she asked, a little shyly.
That face split in a craggy grin. "I would like nothing more, Fire-Star."
"And, one last question?"
"I am sure you will have many more. Please, ask."
"Is this what my kinsman came to learn from you?"
"In part," Patience said. "In some ways, he was very like you. In others, he was wiser, for I think that life has often not been kind to him. In yet more, where you are wise, he was – and still is – completely innocent of understanding or knowledge. He is very young."
She tilted her head. "If I may ask – what did you call him?"
That got another deep chuckle. "We gave him two names, as he declined to give his own," Patience said. "The first was 'Listens-and-Asks-Endless-Questions'. He was less than amused by that one – though even he would not dispute the truth of it."
She smothered a smile, poorly. The image she was building of this distant kinsman – possible distant kinsman – was one she was growing more and more oddly fond of, and curious about, by the day. Certainly, that name fit everything she had heard so far.
"The other," Patience continued. "Was perhaps more appropriate. He moved with the impetuous swiftness of lightning, and the same fire that burns in your heart, it flows in his veins. And yet… when we looked at him, we saw something else. It moved us to call him something different."
"What was that?"
"Starlight," Patience said softly. "Starlight-in-his-Eyes."
And that, I think, is an appropriate place to end it. I was going to do the whole thing in one chapter, where 'she' finds Harry. As it is, this felt like long enough. I won't say who 'she' is, but I've dropped some pretty big hints – she's Asgardian, she's a Phoenix host, and this is an Ice Age. All that should be enough, as I've name-dropped her before, albeit a long time ago. Hell, she's even appeared, briefly, in one of Harry's visions into the past. Harry's present to learn from her, among many others, but she's learning too.