The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Hubris et Orbi, Prologue
-Anna-
Life in the village of Aster was sedate, traditional, and unchanging.
It cycled with the seasons, white then green then gold then brown. The winters were never harsh enough to necessitate a change of habits, the summers never dry enough for drought or fire; the rains fell right on schedule to soak or to thaw. One moment flowed into the next, ploughing, planting, hunting, harvesting, trading, ploughing, planting, and the passing of a farm from eldest son to eldest son was the only indication that time here was as linear as it was elsewhere.
Magic was rare to the inhabitants of Aster, and cities almost mythical. Few travelled more than a day's ride to trade, and those who returned from such an adventure were never fully trusted again. Beyond its fields and forests, the borders of kingdoms fluctuated daily, dragons fought and dragons died, humans fought and humans died – but Aster was what it had always been: sedate, traditional, and unchanging. Nothing less, but nothing more.
Life in the village of Aster was sedate, and then there was Anna Heartfilia.
She came into the world as an ultimatum – either the child goes, or I do – and Evelyn Heartfilia, seventeen, unmarried, penniless, had chosen her unborn child, and never seen the father again.
Life in the village of Aster was traditional, and then there was Anna Heartfilia.
She was raised by two failed runaways, each of whom had once tried to escape and been put firmly back in their place by fate.
Gregor Heartfilia, great-uncle to her by blood and grandfather to her in every other way, had begged his father to grant him leave to study at the Mildian Academy of Magic, and let the Heartfilia farm pass to his younger brother instead. When his father refused, Gregor had packed his bags one night and walked away. For five years as a student, five as a postdoctoral researcher, and fifteen as a professor, he hadn't once thought of Aster, until a messenger brought news of a terrible contagion. By the time the prodigal son returned home, there wasn't a Heartfilia left alive to pardon him – save for his five-year-old niece, Evelyn.
That was the day a misguided attempt at experimental magic consumed the Mildian Academy in black death, and the curtain was drawn upon the age of light.
So Gregor had put away his books and devoted himself to providing a stable home for Evelyn, a respectable home, the home that should have been hers by birth – and in doing so, he became the embodiment of everything from which he had once tried to flee.
Evelyn Heartfilia, not yet an adult and stifled by love and sacrifice, had run away from home to seek her fortunes in the capital city and returned six months later, pregnant, alone, and begging for help. Gregor had welcomed her back, although the village had not. She bore the judgement of her once-neighbours in silence; she kept her head down for his sake and worked the farm without complaint.
Thus she had become the dutiful daughter for Gregor just as he had become the dutiful parent for her, bound to the life they had tried and failed to leave by their concern for each other.
Their neighbours judged Evelyn for bearing a child outside of wedlock, but they judged her more for not rectifying the mistake as soon as possible. With every day that passed, her refusal to marry alienated her further, until she would never be more than a scrounger and a runaway to them and they would always be blind and ignorant fools to her. And so she raised a daughter who knew all the customs, but also knew she didn't have to follow them; who didn't have to be alone, but would be just fine if she was.
And that was Anna Heartfilia, a brilliant girl, who taught herself to read from the books in Gregor's attic while the other children were learning to crawl, who thought in numbers and dreamt in forgotten languages, who attacked the world with all the curiosity Gregor remembered from his youth. He saw the part of him that had died long ago reborn again in her.
So he told her tales from the fallen Academies like a cult would whisper of forbidden gods, taught her the scientific method with the curtains drawn and the lights down, yielded the farm to Evelyn and took up his pen once again, because the great Academies might be no more and the Republic of Letters forsworn by its creators, but there was always one wide-eyed girl waiting eagerly to hear about his next discovery.
Gregor taught her magic and Evelyn taught her to be proud of it, so that she would be the freedom neither of them had ever truly been able to obtain for themselves.
Life in the village of Aster was unchanging, and then there was Anna Heartfilia.
Singular.
Revolutionary.
Free.
Death in the village of Aster was part of the natural order.
Births were welcomed and deaths mourned, each as sacred and as necessary as the other, but Anna Heartfilia was only eight years old when it happened, and although she understood most things better than most adults, this wasn't one of them.
She was in bed but only pretending to be asleep, a pretence she shed the moment she recognized Gregor's footsteps in the corridor. She burst from the bedroom and into his arms: "Did-you-find-it-did-you-find-it-did-you-find-it-?"
"Honestly, Anna," sighed her mother, emerging from another room with a candle in her hand. "He will still be here in the morning. Let him rest."
"Did you find it?"
A smile cracked through Gregor's bone-weary exterior. "I found it." Grandfather and granddaughter alike ignored Evelyn's sigh as he uncurled his fingers to reveal an acorn like no other – an impossibly perfect shape of gold and silver. "The acorn of the Aureum Oak."
So close she could see her own reflection in its golden haze, the girl breathed, "It's real…"
"And almost certainly the last one in existence."
"What are you going to do with it?" she inquired, unable to look away from its beauty, or perhaps from its rarity, or perhaps from its potential, known only to those who had studied as she and her grandfather had. "Be the first person ever to do experiments on an Aureum Oak? You'd go down in history! Or use its natural properties to forge the most powerful protective amulet man has ever created? Oh- with this as the focus, I bet we could cast the strongest magical shield in existence, strong enough to withstand a dragon attack! We could go to the king- offer to cast it around the capital city- we could change the entire course of the Dragon Wars in return for a proper functioning lab to carry out our experiments-"
"None of those," he smiled, closing his fingers around his prize once more. "I am going to plant it, Anna."
"You- what?"
"It's the last one in existence," he told her fondly. "But I hope that one day, it won't be."
"That's- that's ridiculous! Aureum Oaks take centuries to grow! We'll be dead by then!"
He ruffled her hair and stepped away, but she stepped with him, jumping up to try and snatch the acorn held just out of her reach. "This is stupid. Let me have it! I worked through the theory while you were away; I am ninety-five percent sure I can enchant it to enhance its natural properties, so that it will absorb any magic thrown at it – at least that way it'll protect you while you're off on your ridiculously dangerous expeditions!"
"Don't you think a natural wonder such as this would be wasted on something so trivial?" Gregor asked. There was something teasing in it, but also something serious, though it was only in her nature to hear the former.
"Better than throwing it away, like you'd do with it!"
"You'll understand one day, Anna," he said, and that was that.
She'd wanted to laugh, because for the first time, he was the one who didn't understand; he was the one being just as ignorant as those fools in the village.
She'd watched from the window at dawn as he'd planted the acorn of the Aureum Oak in their garden, that natural artefact of unparalleled magical potential, protected only by a single line of runes and the certainty that no one from Aster would recognize it for what it was. In a way, the garden was the best place to hide it, because no one who understood the importance of the last surviving Aureum Oak acorn would believe Gregor Heartfilia had done something as monumentally stupid as planting it…
She'd still been in a mood with him three days later, when he embarked upon his final expedition, the one from which he would not return alive.
Death in the village of Aster was honoured.
As was their way, the villagers gathered in the centre to remember Gregor Heartfilia, the maverick they had finally forgiven in death. They respected tradition more than they didn't respect what the Heartfilia family had become. The other farming families, the other local landowners, the people who were their neighbours, though never their friends, stood one by one at the lectern and spoke kind falsehoods about a man they hadn't understood.
And all the while, the only person who ever had understood him – though not as much as she'd thought, not back then – stood in the garden with her foot hovering over the tiniest green seedling. If not for the runes, she wouldn't have even known it was there. So small, so pathetic, so fragile for something with a legendary ability to absorb magic, so worthless for something that could have saved him, if only he'd used its power properly, if only he hadn't thrown it away…
But he had, and it was all she had left of him, and she hadn't been able to bring herself to do it.
No more than she'd been able to cry, that day.
Because it was his stupid fault that she'd lost the only person who understood her.
Because he'd filled her head with stories of the lost Academies and scientific discovery and intellectual rivalries, and now her only link to that world, the place where she belonged, was gone, and she would have to find her way through this horribly prosaic reality alone.
Death in the village of Aster was respectful of life, just as life was respectful of death.
It took no more than it needed, and made sure enough were left behind. In a time of chaos, the Dragon Wars largely passed Aster by, this village which kept itself to itself and lived as it always had. While the world existed, so would Aster, quietly ploughing and planting the farmland between field and forest, a way of life passing from father to son until the end of days.
Or, so it should have been.
But then there was Anna Heartfilia.