21.2 Keys Find Locks
General Summary
Day 309
I wake regrettably early in the morning but such is life when travelling. Hella is already tidying camp when I rise. Before we head out Void takes a moment to teach me some magic that he has been using to travel unaffected by the storm. The diagram he sketches out for me on a panel of ice is unique - glyphs and runes in the draconic language arranged around a drawing of a winged person the same way I might arrange glyphs around a casting hand for a somatic component. I shake my wings out and begin following the sketched instructions, finding myself rising into the air unaffected by the wind. It's exhausting and unsustainable for travel but it works! "Practice," Void nods to me as we return to packing.
He pulls the sleds as we walk and Hella picks his brain about weather magic, leaving a space for Mystery and I to speak more. She asks and I tell her a bit more about the family I've assembled (all of whom are on this side except for Alwen, it occurs to me). I tell her how Hella joined my family and how special she is. Mystery tells me that she's never had family, never formed those attachments that she can remember. As far as she's concerned she's only ever had Void.
What's the point of an anchor if you can't find your harbour?
Along the way we are attacked by some ice drakes and fall into an easy partnership. Void flies above, breaking wings and slamming the drakes down towards us where Hella and I destroy them and Mystery defends us. It feels comfortable - she has clearly fought like this before, defending casters like Doraal. They've had to fight like this alongside dwarves, humans, and even some trolls, but not fae. Void apparently doesn't get along with most fae. It seems like everywhere they've gone has had conflict and strife, civil wars that keep popping up again.
Days 310 - 311
The next few days pass uneventfully. Hella and Mystery spend some more time together, even fighting off some ice wolves on their own, laughing and keeping score. By the end of our second day of travel they feel like sisters.
Mystery is an exceptionally good fighter, probably as good as Dal or Thalien and better than anyone in our small party lately. She doesn't hold a candle to Mistress or Doraal or even Lyssa, but in another century or so she certainly might.
Void and I take up a companionable silence walking together. Somehow he feels like shade.
Day 312
We arrive in Drognar much to the bewilderment of the guards stationed at the walls. A troll asks me kindly if we have a place to stay and tells us to keep warm when I tell them that we're taken care of. Partway to our house I meet Bran in the street, grinning. He may not be able to see
my thread approaching but he saw Hella's.
We settle in around the fire with hot cider and Bran goes to fetch Caravel. My poor old teacher is bundled up in a robe and slippers as he comes down the stairs and promptly drops his mug upon catching sight of Mystery. He doesn't remember her either but has precisely the same reaction I do, especially as I conjure the matching portraits of Mistress and Doraal. But he wasn't around much 150 years ago and he certainly doesn't remember or know her, just as I don't.
"I'm afraid I don't remember much..." Mystery offers.
"That's not surprising. You can't dream either, can you?" Bran responds in his Fatespinner way.
Her thread is completely disconnected from everything around her - no memories, no family, no past, no influence at all on the things around her. Wherever she goes she is forgotten (she nods, humans don't remember her after a decade but she thought that was normal) and her actions have no impact. The strife around her these past fifty years...nothing she's done has ever changed it.
Bran can feel that whatever did this was incredibly powerful, isolating magic with a keen understanding of fate. It's not elvish, Osyr, or any other magic he recognizes. My mind is instantly on the Collective, the trolls, or the Master.
"I shouldn't even really be able to see her," Bran muses, "I don't know why I can..."
Keys find locks and they recognize each other. Him you can trust just as much as her.
And Void reassures Mystery that even if they solve her past, he will still be there for her. Bran and I leave our small group to share some happier stories while I take a moment to let all my fears and doubts wash over me.
I tell him about Dawn become a fae and about the constructed human magic I saw in her. I fret about the Zephyr and my fears that in 2000 years maybe I'll forget how this happened and think that I could solve a problem by giving magic to a race of people and then abandoning him. Like always he reassures me that the person I am and will grow into can handle that sort of problem.
And he thinks that the real danger of my lifespan will be facing situations like the one that sent me into a dark spiral before. What will I do if some war far away takes one of my family away forever when I'm not there to help? He's probably right...better to focus on that than the hypothetical future where I accidentally create a splintered race with borrowed magic.
But back to Mystery. We both intend to ask Thalien about her even if we can't bring her to see him. Her thread can't reach the Dreaming and it's remarkable even that Void has managed to stay connected to her. Bran notes that Void's thread seems to begin 50 years ago, when he and Mystery would have met. It goes no further into the past.
From Bran's own analysis he can think of five reasons that someone might have done this to her:
- To protect her from her own fate. But how terrible would a fate have to be for this transient, disconnected life to be better?
- To protect someone else from her fate. If she is blood kin to any of my family what might have happened if she were a victim of our war? What sort of destruction might have arisen?
- To prevent her from achieving great things for whatever reason. To hinder her, essentially.
- To allow her to cross the Barrier. Fifty years ago it was much stronger than today. Considering everything I had to sacrifice in order to cross, what might she have had to give up to cross back then?
- As part of some impossibly long plot that we don't understand.
All of these wipe the Collective out as an option. It's too delicate, too careful. It doesn't fit with trolls either, though I might be missing a piece. That leaves the Master...proprietor of impossibly long plots. I knew I was going to bring Mystery back to Dreamfall regardless of whether I intended to ask Magdalena's opinion but I hope she'll be able to feel someone else's hand in this.
