Response to reviews by Marvynthephoenix: Wow, four reviews? Thank you for taking the time to ask questions.
First things first, Aileen is the biological child of Lily and Poseidon, blood adopted by James (as her father) and Sirius (first as godfather, and then as father to extend protection). Her relation to Sally is through Percy – she sees her half-brother in demi-god dreams and knows that his mother was Sally and so she sees her like an Aunt or step mother despite never meeting the woman in person.
This story is set in the HP Universe, the sequel will be set in the Olympus Universe. But a lot of Aileen's important backstory and connections happen in this story – like her training with Triton and her learning to love and have a relationship, both as a lover and a daughter.
Middle names all have significance that will be explained.
Sirius and the goblins are the only ones who truly knows who she is, with Andromeda hearing a little bit. No one else knows that James isn't her birth father, not even Remus knows the true nature of her family history. The breathing under water was first explained with the potion that she invented, and most recently she would brush it off as Rune combination which she has shown high proficiency in.
Did I get everything?
Other reviews: For those who pointed out errors in my writing, thank you. I didn't edit the last three chapters because they were too fresh in my mind and I wouldn't notice issues. I have gone back and edited 50-54, but please be aware that I struggle to notice errors in my own writing if it has been under six months since I wrote the chapter.
A/N: I would like to thank horsesandpercabeth for being kind enough to offer their time in order to edit my work. The changes to this chapter were minor, but they helped improve the reading flow of this chapter by making minor grammar changes and removing or moving a particular word in a sentence.
Chapter 55: Year four: Challenge of Words and Knowledge P2
I am the third from a sparkle bright,
'Sparkle bright'. That was the sun, and the third from the sun would be the planet earth.
I thrive throughout the day and night,
Deep in the path of a cows' white drink,
These two lines were confusing, and seemed to be referring to a niche piece of knowledge typical to rural agricultural knowledge. Grass thrived in day and night, was necessary for the biological process that allowed cows to produce milk, and had its roots in the earth. When a cow couldn't eat grass, they were given buckets of what was known as 'cows white drink' in order to sustain them until they were able to graze again.
I've had thousands of millions of years to think,
The planet was believed to have formed millions of years ago, and as a living being it could be metaphorically referred to as having a sentience which would allow it to 'think'.
But one of my creatures is killing me,
Current non-magical, scientific investigations suggest that the earth is currently experiencing severe environmental changes caused by pollution, erosion and deforestation – all of which scientists have linked back to humans as the cause. So, it could be argued that humans were the creatures killing the planet.
And so the question I ask to thee,
Is Who Am I?
So, the question was – Earth or Planet? Considering the specific details of the first line, the answer was likely Earth. Unless the authors of the riddle had been trying to trick them, and the answer was Gaia – the lady who was claimed to be Mother Earth. Both were reasonable answers to the riddle – until you took into context both the answer to the first Riddle and the challenges that she faced in the first stage of the task.
"Earth," Aileen placed the tip of her wand on the indent on the door.
There was a click and the door slid sideways to allow her passage into the new room. It was dark, and once the door slid closed behind her there was no light – she could not even see her hand right in front of her face.
"Lumos," she tried to cast, only for the spell to fail. Humming in thought, Aileen cast the bluebell spell into her hand, which worked. Needing more light in order to assess the situation, she cast a larger and more powerful bluebell to her left and then her right. Once she had light, she put out the one she was holding.
The room was empty except for two large stone giants with blades and shields who were guarding the door to the next room. The swords and shields were both made of bronze.
"Well, you're both very intimidating," Aileen informed the frozen giants. There was a proximity rune carved into their left shoulders, which would activate the moment she took one step closer. It was a good thing she had decided to stop once she entered the room and establish light instead of blindly walking forward even a single step.
She could use her pendant, but that would be revealing that she was wearing enchanted jewellery which could be turned into weapons, bringing her hair clip and the teardrop necklace into question. The teardrop necklace wasn't a problem, as the only enchantment on it was the notice me not charm, keyed specifically to non-magicals and not mortals in general. The hair clip was a completely different matter, since it would turn into a bow when she needed to fight long range, and it didn't have the same notice-me-not spells on it because it was very normal to use hair clips.
Using her dagger would be ineffective against creations of this size, even if it was the only other weapon on her person known to the teachers and other members of the school. This left her with runes or magic, and she could see the beginning of strengthening and resistance formations carved into the stone giants, their weapons, and shields. Fighting two of the creations at once would have her using powerful magic which could leave her drained as she moved into the next three stages – a dangerous prospect.
So, runes it was.
Aileen settled onto the floor with her legs crossed and pulled out her rune kit which she had stored in the bag – grateful that the bag had internal dimensions which were bigger than the outside, allowing her to store her kit without compromising the materials for her runes. She had three options of using her runes: offensive, defensive or neutralisation.
Offensively, she could use a fire rune set which created a firestorm to destroy the stone creations. Defensively, she could create a barrier to protect herself until she got through the door on the other side. The easiest way, the one which would have the highest chance of immediate success, was the neutralisation option. She needed to create her own rune combination which cancelled out the runes engraved on the creations. If they were animated using runes she couldn't see, then they would be immediately frozen and their resistance removed. If they were transfigurations – like the chess set from her first year – then the neutralisation of the runes meant that she could use a blasting curse to take them out.
She used four base runes: Dazaz and Naudiz to symbolize her desire and need to end the cycle of magic, and Nyd and Ear to direct the runes, identifying her plight as belonging to the soil. It was very rare for two different rune alphabets to be mixed for the same purpose, but she stabilised the magic by using mostly Futhark runes around in order to spell out the truth of how she wanted the magic directed.
Once she finally finished carving the stone, she regained her feet. Charging the stone with her magic, she threw it until it was directly between the two stone giants. There was no flare of magic to show the activation, nor was there a discernible difference in the creations. Stepping forward, Aileen prepared to fight, but the creations didn't react, which meant that the proximity rune had been disabled. Unwilling to test to see if they had a secondary transfiguration animation element, she started cast blasting hexes at each of the creations until they were just dust.
The new riddle to let her pass into the next room was:
Three lives have I.
Gentle enough to soothe the skin.
Light enough to caress the sky.
Hard enough to crack rocks.
Word count: 1,997
Edited: 04/03/2021