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Interlude: Times of Trouble
🕑 Added 2025-01-11 17:00:13 +0000 UTCIt had taken Jenn two days to acknowledge that something strange was going on. She had seen magic in action, from the awe-inspiring feats of Jade to the somewhat pathetic efforts of some neophyte spellcasters, and there were undeniable, fundamental similarities between those abilities. The spellcaster, at least according to Jade, had to know what they wanted to accomplish and have a vague idea of how that goal was to be accomplished as defined by certain concepts depending on the elements used for the effort. So, if you wanted to simply conjure water, it was easy; the concept of Rain was within the domain of Water, the concept of a wellspring was within the domain of Water, as were the concepts of rivers, tides and a dozen other concepts that could end up with a certain volume of water when the required Astral Power was applied. At least, that was how Jade had explained it, who almost certainly knew what she was talking about; the results of her teaching and abilities were undeniable.
With all that in mind, there was no real way for Jenn, who didn’t have any real magical abilities or one of those affinities, to do what she had been doing these last two days and conjure up something to hide herself and little Sebastian. It should be completely impossible; she only had the vaguest idea that Darkness could be used to hide from sight, but beyond that, she was clueless. Maybe Air to conceal smells or something entirely different; she had only superficially listened to Jade’s lessons simply because she didn’t think she’d be able to use any of it. The only reason she had listened at all was that maybe, if he was lucky, Sebastian might be able to use magic in the future, and if that were to be the case, she wanted to have some idea of what might be going on.
But now, she had managed to hide herself while out in the open and had been able to remain undetected even when Sebastian had let out a few far-too-loud whimpers, something that should have attracted the strange, shambling figures roaming the area she had been in. And yet, nothing bad had happened to her, as impossible as that sounded.
It was only late at night when Jenn had made a simple camp, little more than a sleeping bag with a simple mat beneath it that she shared with her baby, that she felt ready to mentally confront the strangeness she had experienced earlier. The impossibility of it all, or maybe calling it a miracle, would be a better description.
But a miracle from whom or what?
There had been people at the farm who had remained devoutly Christian, had even preached to people and tried to convert them, and in a surprising number of cases, successfully so. Maybe the feeling of community had been what called to those, or a hope for deliverance from the utter mess they all had been in but no such hope was fulfilled, and the community, under the leadership of her oh-so-wonderful husband, had fallen apart. If she could even consider Chris her husband any longer, she certainly didn’t feel like it out here, in the darkness of the night. For better or worse, in good times and in bad times, well, it didn’t get any worse than what she had been in. And in those bad times, she knew what choice she had to make: to abandon the sinking ship and get her child to the safest place she could find, maybe seek out one of the many groups who had abandoned the farm before her, as the demands of the Council had become more and more strenuous and unrealistic.
What little she had heard from Chris about their plans and predictions was still enough, now, weeks or months later, to make her scoff in disbelief. They had neglected to keep the size of their economy in mind, or rather the lack thereof, and its inability to absorb even small troubles by shifting work around. There were no additional people searching for a job, and there was no foreign talent who could be lured in with promises of a better life and additional money; there had only been those already working, and many of them had fulfilled roles nobody else could fill thanks to their individual talents.
Even if she wanted to scoff now, with the benefit of hindsight, she might have had doubts at the time. And yet, despite those doubts, she had accepted the lofty explanations and reasoning of the people who supposedly knew better simply because, like so many others, she was used to listening to people who spoke in certain ways, wore certain clothes and displayed a specific set of mannerisms.
She needed to improve if she wanted Sebastian to survive. Surviving by herself would be difficult enough while trying to cling to those old ideas, but to keep a baby alive in these circumstances was even more difficult. And yet, she was unwilling to leave him behind; she was his mother, and she would be damned to whatever hell could be worse than the mess the world had become if she abandoned her baby.
With those thoughts running through her head, she eventually fell into a troubled sleep, her mind still going hundreds of miles each minute, but her body simply gave out. Not that she immediately noticed; she only realised that something seriously strange was going on when she heard a soft but incredibly familiar voice sing a faintly familiar song. Though while she knew the song, or rather, the songs, she was left wondering why on Earth somebody would make a medley out of ‘Let it be’ and ‘Let it go’, even with the two near-identical song titles.
Hearing the strange song brought part of her mind into a state of awareness. However, the awareness did little to reduce her confusion. Instead of sleeping within a partially ruined industrial building, she was now standing in the snow in a pristine forest. Well, pristine but fantastic; the trees all around her were incredibly weird. Beautiful, but utterly weird; whoever had heard of trees made of glass, or maybe crystal, outside of fantasy novels? Or maybe dreams, which this might well be.
Just as she was about to ignore the sights around her and let herself drift with the dream, the song gained a secondary melody, one she recognised but in a different way. This one she didn’t recognise with her ears, but somewhere deeper, it was almost as if she was feeling the melody on her skin, the soft sound becoming incredibly familiar and comforting, like the loving and safe embrace of her own mother. The same feeling, as she now realised, she had experienced when hiding in the dark and praying that the monsters out there wouldn’t be able to find her, but what she was supposed to do with that realisation, she had no idea.
But given that this was a dream, following the sound and song might be the best option if she wanted answers. Thus, convinced that she was dreaming, she decided to be brave and investigate.
Following the sound of music was trivially easy, especially as the snow was strange to walk across. It was almost as if she was walking on clouds between those trees; there was no cold, nothing threatening to make her stumble or slip, just the endless white and the strange trees all around her.
Soon, she arrived at a still pool of water, the light of the full moon above her reflecting off the surface and somehow illuminating the entire clearing and even the crystal trees around it despite the impossibility of it all.
A waiting figure was next to the water, resting on a small wooden seat. From afar, it looked like a young woman, but as she got closer, she noticed that each step revealed details that made the figure look older and older until Jenn was right in front of it and noticed the woman’s ancient eyes. Behind the figure, strangely hidden in the mist, were two different figures: one somewhat small, almost child-like in proportion, and the other taller, almost certainly female, but otherwise concealed.
“Greetings, young mother,” the ancient figure in front of Jenn said, startling the woman who had thought this was all a dream. The voice was completely unfamiliar but filled with that familiar sensation of comfort.
“You are one of the first to come here, and maybe the first to come here in the way you did,” the ancient woman continued, “You may think of me as the Crone, the Grandmother of all,” the crone paused, “I’m here because, sadly, the Mother who you should have met is, well, let’s just say she’s unavailable at the moment. But even unavailable, she managed to give you a sliver of her power. Not enough to be considered a true blessing, too much to be a simple spell; it’s quite fascinating,” the crone mused, her voice slightly distant.
“But be that as it may, you are here because you sought protection in the night, something the Mother’s domain resonates with. So you may find help here if you are willing to take it,” the crone’s voice explained, her tone both caring and serious at the same time, making Jenn swallow with trepidation. By now, she had completely lost any confidence in the idea of this being a mere dream, but she didn't know what she had managed to get involved with. But she really liked the idea of finding protection.
