This is a crossover with Susanna Clarke's epic masterpiece, JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, which is definitely worth a read if you have the time to read an eight hundred page book with fictional footnotes and citations longer than the actual page. But I realized that the system of magic would go very well with TDiR magic, so...
I'm debating on whether this deserves to be its own full-fledged fic. Comment, please?
"And if we look at the Sumerian mythologies, we can see a definite trend; moving away from the sky-as-father, human beings begin to view the Earth as their mother. Agriculture, therefore, shifts the perception of the sacred-"
It's nothing, at first, just a slight sensation at the back of his mind, an itch he can't scratch, awakening a part of him that's been asleep for a long time. He pauses, mid-lecture, staring out blankly into space. He can smell wet grass, and rain, and horses.
"Professor Stanton?"
He shakes himself, casts his mind back to his human job, his lecture, his class. He gives his usual absent-minded smile, very aware of the picture he makes, faded tweed jacket and bemused expression; a typical crazy professor. "As I was saying..."
He pauses in the middle of a dark street on his way home that night, standing very still beneath the yellow illumination of a streetlight. The air is very still, and yet he can feel the wind of an invisible host riding past, so very close beside him.
"As our civilization progresses, we are losing our respect for the wild, untameable forces of nature which so awed early man. The growth of cities contributed too... um... I'm sorry, I'm feeling a bit tired today. For the rest of the class, why don't you read that book I told you to get and see if you can spot any correlations to what we've discussed in class?"
Dear Will, How are you? Is your teaching job going well? Barney's sold his first painting, can you believe it? By the way, our Welsh friend is coming down from his lonely mountaintop and going into politics, can you believe it? I'm fine as always, boring old Jenny. Write back soon, Love Jane.
He smiles as he reads the letter, but his mind is elsewhere, and he thinks he can hear the pound of hoof beats and a silvery sound, like bells.
"Today, class, we're going to learn about Herne the Hunter."
He's been having strange dreams lately. Darkness between the trees, blood on the snow, and the infinite freedom of the open moor.
"What century is this?" he asked a poor passerby a few days ago.
He's standing in the middle of a vast expanse of open ground. Behind him he can sense, far off in the distance, the dark forest. In front of his feet the ground is wet and marshy. As he watches, concentric circles spread over a puddle to the beat of approaching horses.
With a strange, alien sound of cawing birds, a flock of ravens flies up to obscure the moon.
He's suddenly aware of a huge, crushing presence. Wild magic, he thinks, but impossibly powerful. And concentrated.
And suddenly the Wild Company is there, sweeping down, surrounding him, noise and power and magic. He's being crushed.
The horses stop, and he's aware of a pair of eyes upon him.
Will looks up to see the lead rider. Dark hair, dark clothes. A crown of thorns. The ravens settle over him, like a cloak. His face reminds Will of the King's face, old and young at the same time, except that this face is sharp and beautiful and utterly alien. And Will knows, suddenly, that although the magic clings to the rest of the host, it is coming mostly from this one man. And he knows, also, that this man is somehow human.
Impossible.
The rider smiles, and gestures to a horse without a rider. "There's room for another, if you'd like to join us."
He extends a pale and beautiful hand.
Will takes it.