704Yep, another, relatively short chapter. Still, in this one, we finally catch up to Harry, and learn a few rather interesting things about where he's been and what he's been up to… some of them, anyway. He's been a busy boy. But in the meantime, a certain someone has some catching up to do. And more to learn. It's almost as if she's learning as much from this experience as he is...
AK: Hi!
That would be correct, well remembered. It was after Forever Red.
I am deeply flattered to be so compared – though the themes of dark magic and chaos magic, and, well, Chthon, make it fairly parallel.
I can understand that. This site… isn't on its very last legs, but it's not been the centre of fandom for a while. Which is a great pity, because while AO3 is much more accessible and open, it has much less of a comment/discussion culture.
Random Norwegian: My friend, please get an account, this is cumbersome. And tiresome. Respectively…
With varying degrees of grace and self-preservation instinct.
In the gossip rags. The gist is that he's being educated at an exclusive British school. Put it this way – if the Dursleys hadn't been disappeared, they would probably have been hanged.
Of course there have. None successful.
She spends a month with Patience and his people, in the end. Her curiosity pulls her onward, just as his must have drawn him, but Patience advises that she live up to his name rather than hers for once.
"Not all journeys are meant to be direct," he explained. "Not all of them are meant to be swift. More can often be seen when you take a slower pace." He then smiled. "And not even a telepathic Asgardian can learn the magics that you find so fascinating in a day."
So she stayed, and learned. It was an entirely different approach to magic. Well, not entirely. Some in the Higher Realms advocated a close attachment to the natural world, to the cosmos itself. After all, magic had embraced them, so why not embrace it?
Yet this… this was deeper. That was sailing out in the ocean, exploring the cartography of the sea, the sea bed, embracing both instinct and study to learn the shape of things… yet always at a distance, even if it was as thin as a photon wall. This was swimming out into the heart of the ocean, immersing yourself in it, learning its currents, how to ebb and flow with its tides, to breath its water as you learned every beat of its heart. A parallel approach, a mirror to what she knew. And one that came very naturally to her.
"As it did to Starlight," Patience said, when she remarked on this.
"He is Asgardian, isn't he?" she said.
"In some measure," Patience said.
"And human," she agreed, nodding. "I had guessed. The Middle Folk, most likely."
"You seem surprised, Fire-Star," he remarked.
"I am, though less than I was when I first considered the idea," she admitted. Back then, she had been somewhat revolted, only seeing one likely avenue for such a pairing. Now, such thoughts mortified her. Even still, the fact that she had made that assumption, the attitudes behind it, it made such a pairing less likely.
"I am not certain of it, but it seems right to me. For now, however, all I know for sure is that we are kin." She twisted her wrist and let Phoenix fire dance around it for a moment, letting it flow, feeling it dance into life, each flicker like a miniature heartbeat in time with her own. It was both something unto itself, and a part of her, independent yet not; a kind of cosmic symbiosis. She stared into its depths, before snuffing it out with a thought, drawing it back into her, merging it with her soul and the flame that was intertwined. "In more ways than I had believed possible."
"You are," Patience agreed. "Though there is yet more to him that you will understand, when you find him."
She looked up at him, curious. "How do you mean?"
"That is for him to explain, or for you to see," he replied.
She frowned, but nodded, letting it pass. Then, she paused. "Your people gave him a name," she said. "What did he call himself before that?"
Patience considered that carefully. "I believe that he has called himself many things," he said, rather than answer the question directly. "He did not seem eager to give a name, instead taking them up and discarding them as needed."
She frowned at this once more, but took the time to think it through. "He is trying to avoid notice," she said slowly. "And where that is not possible, to leave whoever is following him with little that is definite." She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "There is a power in names," she mused. "Whether given, or chosen. If they are given, they tell us how we are seen, or what others want us to be. If they are chosen, they reveal who we want to be, if only for the time being."
Patience nodded. "He referred to himself as wanderer," he said. "Some of our young ones took to referring to him simply as 'Wander'. For some reason, he found that rather funny, though he declined to explain why."
She looked thoughtful. "I shall have to ask him," she said.
"He may not give you an answer," Patience warned her. "He was cautious, when speaking of himself."
"Do you know why?" she asked.
"Do you?"
She wrinkled her nose in distaste, but turned her mind to the implied challenge. "He does not want to leave a trail," she said. "Not one that can be easily perceived by anyone other than me. Yet he is not shy of spending time with others, of bonding somewhat." She folded her arms and thought. "He thinks that his knowledge, or knowledge of him, is dangerous," she said eventually. "But does he think that is dangerous to him… or to others?"
"Perhaps neither," Patience said. "Perhaps both." He smiled. "Perhaps you can ask him."
"Perhaps I will," she said pertly, and took his hand, which engulfed both of her own, her expression turning solemn. "Thank you, Patience-of-the-Hills-in-His-Heart. For your hospitality, your teaching, and your wisdom."
Patience bowed. "I am glad to have been of help, Fire-of-the-Stars-in-her-Heart," he said, with equal solemnity. "I wish you both well."
The rest of the goodbyes were comparatively brief, but still heartfelt, with the younger ones being slightly put out at the departure of this second really very interesting visitor. Yet the well wishes were sincere, and when she moved on, it was with a lighter heart and a more measured mind.
After that, her travels became peripatetic once more, her kinsman having taken a more direct route and not bothered to stop as much. That was not to say that he had not met anyone at all, however. Even in this comparatively empty wilderness, as she crossed the beginning of the low steppe, passing along the northern coast of a large sea and across the great rivers that fed into it, still had occupants.
One, a coastal village of fishermen, was protected by one of the Forever People, the Eternals. All of them were divided by function, and he was one of the strongest of their Warrior Class.
Broad shouldered and powerfully built, with vast strength, a ready smile, an appetite for strong drink (which he had apparently been teaching the locals to distil, with… interesting results), good food, and a better fight, he would have been nigh indistinguishable from an Asgardian warrior. The only real difference was that his dark hair was closely cropped and he took even more joy in cooking than in eating.
She knew of him; he sometimes called himself Gilgamesh when he passed among the nascent pantheons to the south. Among the warriors of the Nine Realms, meanwhile, he was often known as Beowulf, and often welcome in their company when he had reason to be manifested.
Some of the Forever People could be rather stand-offish, as a result of their vast age, high and obscure purpose, and the long cycles between emergence and recall into the mysterious state they remained in when the programming of their Celestial creators felt that they were not needed. Even the more amiable ones could regard Asgardians as children. Not him, however.
"Your highness," he greeted her. "Or perhaps, Lady Phoenix?"
She had not manifested her power, or given any sign of it, much less revealed her rank, yet she was not remotely surprised. Both being part of the royal bloodline and being a host of the Phoenix left their mark on one's soul, and the Forever People had their ways, with so many of the secrets of the Celestials having been poured into their minds.
She wondered briefly what had happened to their own Forever People, their own Changing People – after all, every species was so divided, she had seen it herself countless times. Yet now, there was no sign, not to her knowledge. Then, she dismissed it. A question for another time.
"Either is acceptable, Lord Beowulf," she replied. "Or neither. What brings you here, if I may ask?"
He grunted. "Deviants," he said.
"Deviants – oh. The Changing People," she said, before looking quizzically at the villagers. Many were wary, though some of the smaller children looked openly curious. She essayed a small smile and a wink, getting an array of giggles and shy vanishing behind their parents' legs.
He nodded. "Some in this population have minor telepathic talents; mostly empathic," he said. "Working in concert, they can coordinate remarkably well, detect and herd prey…"
"And confront threats," she said, nodding, before reaching out carefully. Yes, she could feel it – a nascent hive-mind, barely out of its infancy, curious and cautious. It was surprisingly sophisticated. It detected her immediately, reeling back in shock, and quailed briefly from her comparatively vast presence, before projecting warning-threat-danger-bad-taste-back-off.
It was the mental equivalent of a threat display – in this case, a kitten fluffing out its fur and arching its back to look bigger, imitating a serpent with its hiss. She sent a soothing curious-harmless-friend, doing her best not to send a psychic coo over how adorable it was (for one thing, it was undignified. For another, it was horribly patronising), before politely retreating. The psychic hackles settled, and a wary acceptance was sent, as well as a curious familiar-wood-smoke-why?
She filed this away. Her kinsman had certainly been here.
"Yes," the Eternal said, looking faintly amused at the byplay. "They are growing stronger by the day. A clan of Deviants nearby was looking to either eliminate them before they became able to defend themselves or to spread their genes, or to claim them and bend their uni-mind to their own ends. I am here to protect this tribe until they can protect themselves."
She nodded, then frowned. "I have heard little good of the Changing People," she said. "Though I must confess that I have not really met any of them. Is so much judged off of their appearances? Or are they really as malign as they are often painted?"
"I tend not to encounter the friendly ones," the Eternal pointed out. "Though others of us do." He looked thoughtful. "I would say that they are not better, or worse, than many other sentients that I have encountered. Not inherently. I am no philosopher or a biologist, but I would say that it has to do with desperation and their constant mutation."
"Constant?" she asked, surprised.
He nodded soberly. "Their chosen name is appropriate," he said. "They are always Changing, all throughout their lives. When the various species of human, those you call 'Middle Folk', develop abilities, they usually undergo one change or metamorphosis, perhaps two. Usually, it is before or at birth, though within twenty millennia I think we will see more and more who manifest in their adolescence."
"But the Changing People are constantly transforming," she said slowly.
"They undergo many transformations in their lives," he said plainly. "Ones which often cut those lives short, render them infertile, or, in the more extreme cases, transform themselves into something animalistic and monstrous, driven mad by the nature of the transformation. Even smaller changes, ones they don't even notice, can be significant – you are a telepath, and you know better than most how easy it is to unbalance a mind through changes in neurochemistry."
"I do," she murmured, troubled. "So, their reputation comes from those who are warped by their constant transformations, in body and mind?"
"And from desperation," the Eternal replied. "At every moment, they live in fear of their bodies betraying them. They breed fast and young, and they fear all those around them, because every one of their people that is lost…"
"Is one less to pass on their genes and maintain their population," she concluded. "So they lash out. Fear turns to anger, and anger turns to hatred. It is not uncommon." Her gaze settled on the villagers. "And there's another aspect of fear, too, isn't there? Not simply of those like you, or even me, but of the Middle Folk. They are less empowered, but they are far more stable, and there is a resilience to them. The Changing People fear being replaced, even if it is only on a local scale. I would imagine that there is envy, too."
The Eternal nodded soberly. "I have heard it put like that," he said. "Some of our thinkers believe that the Celestials overdid it when they created them. Others believe that the formation of Yggdrasil affected them, as it did the other species in the Higher Realms, making them mutate too much." He sighed. "I don't know. All I know is that evil as they can be, I pity them." He looked at her. "So did the other Asgardian who passed through here. The one you're looking for, I mean."
She blinked. "How did –"
He snorted. "Asgardians aren't exactly common down here, Royal Asgardians even less so. Royal Asgardian Phoenix hosts?" He gestured, as if to indicate how ridiculously rare that was. "Though he's not entirely Asgardian. Might be part human, might be something else, I'm not sure. He was a bit cagey."
"Royal?" she said, startled.
"Definitely part of Frey's bloodline," the Eternal confirmed. "The mark of Yggdrasil is unmistakeable."
She frowned. "Yes, I suppose it would be," she murmured, turning over this particular revelation. She wasn't just following one who was kin in species, but in blood. "I think he may be part human. Perhaps half, perhaps less."
"Whatever else he was, he was set on his course," the Eternal replied. "He only stopped to investigate what I was, and what I was going on. He was a little reluctant to move on, but once I assured him that I was staying to keep an eye on this tribe, he did." His teeth gleamed as he grinned. "After he stopped for a spar. The boy can fight! Quick as greased lightning, with moves I've never seen before!" He grimaced in remembrance. "And he hits below the belt."
She smiled faintly. "I'd say it's the human in him, but we both know that's not true," she said dryly.
That got a rolling chuckle. "That we do," he said, before looking thoughtful. "He is like you, in many ways," he added suddenly. "But different in others. He is… something new, in the shape of something familiar, if that makes sense."
"It does," she said. "More and more, it does."
This departure was swift, after a quick drink for old times' sake (in the case of Lord Beowulf, those 'old times' were most of a million years ago), and something to eat that would hopefully soak up the improbably potent alcohol that the immortal had managed to distil. Asgardians might have stomachs of steel, but even steel could be corroded. Still, she took it as a point of pride that she managed to walk out of there in a straight line.
Mostly.
After that, she encounters others who have seen him; wandering tribes of the Middle Folk (of multiple kinds, no less), strange spirits, even a pack of wolves in the foothills of snowy mountains. They spoke of a lone wolf, far from his pack, one who smelled of wood smoke and starry nights. He smelled like her, they said, and his mind sang.
The same pattern emerged; he never gave his name (or if he did, he would simply give it as 'the Wanderer' or 'Wander', the latter with a certain amusement), he avoided all questions about who or what he was, and where he came from, and he was dead set on a path that led nowhere she could tell for sure. Yet, he also could not resist stopping to help, whether it was with a lost child or sick wolf cub, so far as it was within his power.
Some took the name he gave and fashioned it into something new – the Bright Wanderer, or, sometimes, the Wandering Star. This last seemed somehow appropriate, she thought, as she reached the banks of another sea, this one a great salt lake. Here, he had taken ship, of quite a particular kind – first, travelling across the water, and then, leaping into the sky, sailing through the night. She touched the place memory to confirm her suspicions, searching through it. It wasn't as hard as it might have been. Her kinsman left a broad, psychically saturated trail, when he wasn't trying to hide it, and it grew stronger the more emotionally engaged he was.
Elves, it seemed, had rather fascinated him.
Truthfully, he was not alone in that. Elves fascinated many people. Immortal beings, eternally youthful and among the fairest in all creation, they danced back and forth across the line between the idealised physical and the refined spiritual, belonging to neither and walking in both. Impossible to define, they were liminal beings, both ever-changing and ever-changeless. And they took such a wonder in simply embracing nature and the universe as a whole, at one moment being as wise as sages, at the next, being as carefree as children. It even tinged their magic, which was either simple as could be or esoteric beyond words.
It could make them utterly enthralling. It could also make them a little disturbing. The opinion was very much in the eye of the beholder, and often subject to change.
For now, however, the opinion of her kinsman had settled on 'enthralling'. And, interestingly, the feeling had seemed to be mutual.
"Where do you Wander now, kinsman?" she murmured, then shrugged. The truth, of course, was that only exploration and time, would provide an answer to that.
She had skimmed over the waves, then up into the sky, following closely to try and pick up something more than 'just' a trail. Mostly, what she got was a fragmented sense of wonder, a carefree joy, the echo of a whoop of delight. Whatever else could be said about him, he clearly loved to fly. That much, they had in common.
And there was something else: relief. Relief from cares and burdens, ones that had followed him even through all his travels, far from anywhere he had called home. Relief so pure and clear that the seas and skies wept with it, from joy at freedom and grief at its weight.
"What demons are you running from, kinsman?" she murmured to herself. "And where are you running to?"
OoOoO
She travelled over sea and across the sky, over burning deserts, thick forests, and frozen plateaus, and encountered no challenge. Few beings could keep up with her, and those few, mostly spirits of air and light, shimmering in the midday sun and gleaming in the moonlit night, had no interest in impeding her.
Instead, they often dropped down or rose up to her from whichever part of the sky they had been occupying, or whichever cloud they had been lounging on, piping songs of greeting in the music of the earth, dancing around her and in her slipstream. Sometimes, they shared glimpses of memory of silver-vessel-that-flies and one-like-you.
She had barely been able to restrain laughter at a moment when her kinsman had vaulted over the guardrail to join a group of air-spirits in a midnight dance – especially when one had stuck in his silver chased flute, causing all sorts of strange things to happen. Such remembrances were brief, however, and soon enough they would fall away with a brief, birdlike farewell, returning to their chosen pockets of the world, or the overlap between this mortal realm and the ones in which they resided. She returned their farewells, and powered onwards, following a trail only she could see.
Soon enough, she began to sense an ending, as it led into the high mountains that rose from the edge of that plateau like a great wall. There was a power here, wreathing this entire region of the mountains; a sense of divinity, a higher plane linking itself to this specific portion of the mortal world, weaving the tethers of heaven to the highest peaks, thinning the borders between mortal and immortal. However, the trail led deeper, into another tether, one just as new, but of a different vintage… and strangely familiar. Then, as she descended into a vast bowl of a valley, a moat ten miles wide around a great city carved out of the crown of three mountains, and realised just what that taste of familiarity was, why it resonated in her soul, that she understood why.
"So," she said softly, bathing in a light that illuminated the night skies, reflecting and magnifying the light of moon and stars. "This is where you went."
In retrospect, she should not be surprised.
Just as she had followed the spark within him, he had followed the beacon that had alighted here; K'un Lun the Immortal, one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, had come to Earth. And with it, of course, was its lord: Shou-Lao the Undying, Shou-Lao the Defiant, greatest of the Great Serpents of old, bred for war by Surtur in the War for the Dawn, who had seen horrors uncounted before finally rising in rebellion against his dark masters with the cry, 'No More!'
All of this would be incidental, of course, if it wasn't for the very deeply buried and very well guarded secret of just what Surtur was. The power he had stolen, the power he had twisted, it was imbued in some measure in all of his Captains and creations, in all of their kin. Including in one who had led those to try and bend it back.
No wonder her kinsman had been drawn here, she thought worriedly, young and new to his power as he was. He probably had no idea what he was stumbling into. The likes of an Elder Wyrm, even a reformed one, were not to be taken lightly, one as mighty as Shou-Lao least of all. Amenable the rebels of the Dragon Host might be, when they chose to be, but they were mighty and they were prideful. And they did not take well to being frightened, such as by, say, the sudden appearance of a Phoenix host on their doorstep.
She barely resisted the urge to hurtle into the city, ready for battle, instead squashing her panic with hurried good sense. For one thing, whatever had happened, had happened long ago. What was done, was done. What is… is.
Besides, she thought as she critically examined the surroundings, it didn't look like her kinsman had been endangered here. There was no sense of distress, which would presumably have been embedded in the bedrock in a land as rich in power as this one, especially during such a conflict. It was true that such impressions could theoretically be erased, but the physical manifestations generally stuck around in spite of all efforts to the contrary.
For instance, if prior events involving her kinsman were any guide, along with her own experience of wielding Phoenix fire in battle, then the mountain range would be a lot smaller. In fact, it would probably be more of a crater or a canyon, a temporally displaced one at that, like that very large, very puzzling one on the other side of the world.
She'd examined it shortly after becoming a Phoenix Host, as a part of learning the ropes, so to speak. It was many millions of years old, and due for creation in approximately thirty eight thousand years by someone wielding a very small fragment.
Phoenix fire, she had quickly concluded, was very weird. Very weird, and very, very dangerous. Very little she had seen since had contradicted that impression.
She somehow doubted that Shou-Lao would change that impression. Or her kinsman, come to that.
It was then that she realised, with both a thrill of excitement-curiosity-anxiety-anticipation-trepidation that could probably have been felt on the other side of the planet, and a profound sense of embarrassment, that at this point, she could probably just reach out to him. Resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands, she did exactly that.
What she found were several surprises, but most notably, perhaps the most intricately constructed psychic defences she'd ever encountered. Even briefly ghosting across them as they snapped up with the ease of experience, she could tell that behind outer strength lay a maze of traps and danger, which her instincts said wasn't entirely to do with the Phoenix that they both shared.
Shoving down her frown at this and an instant of irrational hurt at being so suddenly shut out, she made to knock politely, but was instead pre-empted, as the defences slid down, revealing a steadily burning flame. It burned bright and clear, like a golden beacon, reaching out towards her, plainly recognising the kindred fire within her, both flames mingling a song of welcome. As the song rose, an outburst of delight-surprise-trepidation-anticipation flared outwards from that disciplined presence, and an impression of an impish smile.
Then, before anything could be added, another presence bestirred itself, patient and vast; not so bright and fierce as either of them, but somehow grown with great, great age.
Be welcome in my home, Princess of Asgard. Your presence has been long expected, and long awaited.
I thank you for your welcome, Lord Shou-Lao, and I accept your invitation, she replied politely, descending from the clouds into the city at a measured pace. It would be rather impolite (and send off quite the wrong impression) to approach it like a missile, no matter how much part of her was eager to do so. I only hope that I have not kept you waiting too long.
There was a rumble of amusement. On a distant mountain, an avalanche started.
I have all the time that I need, Princess, and I have been kept very busy, came the dry reply. Certain others, others with a youthful sense of impatience and dramatics – (This was punctuated with a brisk and pointed psychic prod) – might have thought otherwise. They learned.
This time, the impression from her kinsman was an unmistakeable roll of the eyes, followed by a contrite waving acknowledgement as the vast presence of Shou-Lao faded into the background, and a switch of attention followed by gleeful come-find-me. He seemed to be looking forward to it. He wasn't alone in that.
When she descended into a neatly managed garden, however, she was not greeted by her kinsman. Not precisely. Instead, to what was both her surprise and a complete lack of it, she was greeted by one of the Alfar, presumably one of the sailors who had met her kinsman by that lake. This one was female, nut-brown skinned, with hair the colour of autumn leaves, and silvery eyes. She was, like almost all elves, strikingly beautiful. Then again, she mused, if you were a species whose physical form was based on your imagined self, a people of spirit and living dreams, wouldn't you be?
"Hail, your highness," the elf greeted her, a ready smile on her lips and genuine pleasure in her eyes. That was another thing about elves. They tended not to be have much of a middle-ground with emotions, varying from delight and wonder in the universe around them, in the very simplest things, as carefree as children, to as careworn and embittered as the most cynical veterans, or as wild as the storm and the sea.
Given what they were, the lack of grounding provided by a permanent physical form, it wasn't surprising, and much the same could, and was, said of Asgardians. Even still… 'there is no more terrible enemy than an elf'. That was how the old saying ran, and like many old sayings, it had more than a grain of truth in it.
Some conjectured that it was because of their agelessness, their consequent memory and capacity for holding grudges, and that was true. But she saw with more than mortal, or even divine, eyes. She knew it was far, far more than that.
For one thing, it was not wise to make enemies of those who existed in time with the beat of the cosmos and danced to the song of the stars. For another… history carried warnings of its own, and she had had some very good tutors, who had taught her why Asgard had always been very careful to maintain good relations with both realms of the Alfar. They were much more than they seemed to be.
Personally, though, she rather liked elves. They were refreshingly unvarnished in many ways, for all their diplomatic graces, a trait she appreciated all the more after developing the ability to read minds and detect emotions. Even if they might dance gracefully with words around a subject, they were honest to what they felt, for the most part. Those who were not tended to give her a headache these days. And even before she had accepted how she had been changed by wielding the power of the Phoenix, she had recognised that of all the beings in the Nine Realms, they were the ones closest to being able to understand what she experienced.
With all this in mind, running through her head in the blink of an eye, her reply was surprised, but pleasant.
"Hail and well-met, Lady…" she replied in kind.
"Anaire, your highness," the elf said, with a graceful bow. "Just Anaire, no more. I and my companions are explorers."
She nodded.
"I had half-expected to find some of the Alfar here, but only because of echoes I had seen on my travels," she said. "I must admit, I had wondered what brought you here – echoes tell me much of what, but little of why." She glanced past Anaire, into the garden. "And there was someone else… someone else who I have been searching for, for quite some time. I would ask if you know where he is."
This was a trifle blunt, but the elf rolled with it. Just as Asgardians grew used to elven oddness, elves grew used to Asgardian directness.
"Your kinsman, yes, he is right this way," she said, leading the taller woman down the path. "He has been waiting for you." She smiled impishly, the same kind of smile that her kinsman had sent in thought. "He has not been idle, largely as a consequence; when Lord Shou-Lao has nothing to keep him occupied, we and those who live in this city have found entertainments."
"Entertain –" she began, curious, then paused, tilting her head. Music. "His flute," she murmured. "Of course."
Anaire blinked, surprised, and she smiled.
"Echoes," she said. "Both in this world, and in the memories of people he has met. They remember him fondly."
"I can understand why," Anaire replied. "He has carried many burdens, and they have tired him. But beneath those burdens is a soul that is bright and carefree; when it is set free, he shines like a wandering star."
"Oh?" she asked, interest piqued, as they passed through a carefully carved golden-green forest of trees that shimmered against the night.
"He can be cynical, at times, for the universe has taught him hard lessons," Anaire explained. "According to him, it has been how he has survived. And yet, there is a light about him, and when he can be persuaded to let it out… it is infectious, the joy of youth magnified tenfold."
"How young is he?" she asked. "I had thought he was young, perhaps only a few centuries old…"
She trailed off in the face of bubbling elven laughter, as gentle and natural as the babble of a river. It was somehow more pervasively embarrassing, especially as she just knew that one of her assumptions was about to be overturned.
"Your assumption is understandable, but… no. Forgive me, we made much the same mistake at first. The question of his age is complicated, your highness, but the most generous estimates do not put him far past fifteen years."
She stared at Anaire.
"You are, of course, joking," she said flatly.
"You can ask him yourself," Anaire said, as light and shadow swirled on the edge of a clearing up ahead, where the sound of flute music became all the clearer. "He will tell you. You, I think, may even have the honour of knowing his true name, rather than merely bestowing one upon him as so many others have."
"As you did," she said. It wasn't really a question. Even if his reticence might not make it necessary, elves were fond of choosing appropriate names for things – and for people. There were, she supposed, worse ways to pass eternity.
"We named him in the old tongue," Anaire confirmed, parting a curtain.
Before them was such a whirl of light and shadow and flying limbs that for a moment, she thought she had stumbled into a battle. Then, her eyes adjusted, she saw it for what it was – a dance.
The participants were elves and men, Middle Folk who inhabited this city, and perhaps other incarnate spirits, who, like the elves, shifted between material and immaterial between heartbeats as part of their effervescent dance. That dance was set to a music that was almost primal, yet merry and upbeat, carrying an almost familiar taste to it.
It was lively, joyful, and apparently untutored, instead welling with delight and mischief, and no wonder – for the flautist, distinguished by weather-beaten white robes rolled up to the shoulder and the knee, and long dark hair, leapt freely into and amongst the dancers. The movement was a kind of beautiful chaos; he was always half a step ahead of everyone else, stepping, sliding, and spinning into the smallest of gaps in between the other dancers, making his own path, yet never crossing anyone else's.
Sometimes, he slowed to dance with a small group for a few measures, playing specifically to challenge them to change the tempo of their dance. Sometimes, he let a note carry and float for impossibly long behind him, stopping to dance with even greater speed and grace as the note carried on without him, before taking it up again without dropping a beat. And sometimes, the tenor of the melody changed, an air of power in the air, rising to a crescendo, light flaring and congealing into ribbons and dancing a measure of its own around him, leaving a trail of colour and woven shadow behind.
Then, suddenly, it rose to a final crescendo, a complex harmony that summoned the last energies of the dancers for one more round, vaulting onto the top of a cairn that had almost certainly not been built for that purpose, before stopping with a final, red-faced, panting flourish, bowing before an ecstatically cheering crowd.
He was tall, she could appreciate that now that she saw him in person, though not outstandingly so. His hair was long and black as a raven's wing, though far messier than the feathers of any raven she had ever met, save for that long lock at the front that was as white as the moon. His skin was currently reddened but otherwise fair, while his brow was marred by a scar like a lightning bolt.
That was not the only scar, either, she realised, noticing the vein-like branching scars emanating from under his robes, near the left shoulder. That was unusual, even considering the fact that he might have been living largely alone on this world, and concerning. A distant cousin he might, he must, be, but kin nonetheless.
Much, much younger kin who should have been looked after rather than abandoned as little more than an infant with only the skills to defend himself rather than actually, truly fend for himself. It. Just. Was. Not. On. No matter what some might have thought of his origins. She was going to have words with whoever was responsible for this. Brief, fiery, definite words.
Speaking of fiery, why in the Nine was a child wielding the Fire of Life? How was he wielding it without being consumed by such power? Yes, he might be able to pass for one some years older than he was – even some centuries, given the ageing process and the thrum of assurance in his raw strength. But he was fifteen. And those scars…
She had known that he was young, but this was appalling.
Setting her deep-seated fretting and seething outrage at Powers that were known and Parents that were not (yet) aside, she continued her assessment. He was muscular, with the physique of a trained warrior, and handsome, very much so in fact, though in a leaner fashion than was usual in most Asgardian warriors she knew – though some in her own family were different. More in the line of an elf, actually, with the grace to match (no wonder they'd taken to him). If most men she knew were broadswords and axes, this kinsman of hers was a blade of a slimmer make, swifter and no less deadly.
His most outstanding feature, though, the one that had stuck out in every memory and echo, was the one that immediately drew her gaze: those emerald green eyes, shining like jewels, fresh as leaves, and bright as flames. As his eyes met hers, a recognition sparked, of kin by blood, and by a bond far deeper and far stranger. He tilted his head and smiled that impish smile.
"Lord Earendil," Anaire addressed him, gaining a cheerful nod in return. "If I may, I would introduce you to your kinswoman: Princess Sunniva Vesdottir, of Asgard."
A typically educated Prince of Asgard would have bowed in reply, or presumed upon familiarity. Looking back, she didn't even know why she was surprised about which one he chose.
"Hello, auntie. What took you so long?"
Yep, Sunniva has finally caught up with Harry. Wait, what are they calling him? Is this significant? What do you think? If you look at the chapter/arc title, you might see the joke. Anyhow, she has, at last, caught up with him and is doing a lot of fretting and seething appropriate to an older relative, while also maintaining astonishing emotional control. It's probably best for Strange that he isn't in range.
Of course, she's missing quite a bit of context, and she's still seeing things through an Asgardian lens. That isn't to say that what Harry has been through, at his age, isn't appalling, it's just that fifteen by human standards is near majority – and has been, in some places, historically speaking. By Asgardian standards, it's not even the blink of an eye, he's barely more than a baby.
So, yeah. She's mad.
And now, the real hijinks begin…