This chapter is an EXPLOSION of explaining, magic, and backstory. I normally don't settle down to explain so much exposition in one place, leaving little to unfold later. But it is long and complicated, and shapes the entire story; so we're just going to word vomit it all at once and get it the heck out of the way. And believe me—there will be plenty to unfold later.
Again, this magic system is a complex one of my own engineering, and this fanfic is only the springboard for it. Hopefully, this is merely the basis for an original fantasy series I will write one day. But it works very well with this particular story. I still refuse to believe that Rowan went on to live a nice, normal life in the end. He's too special. And I seriously doubt that Sheba have him the medallion TWICE without having plans for him later. We all know her better than that by now. ;D
So, mage. Earth Titan. Married to a Zebak. He's kind of a big deal. XD
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Chapter 3: The Lairad
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As soon as she was inside the cool dimness of the house of books, Star set about finding the tomes she needed. If she was correct, the ones she had been using all week would suffice; she knew exactly where to find them all. She knew the layout of the building as if it were her own home. The histories she was looking for were all exactly where she had left them the day before. She collected them quickly, and carried them to her favorite table near the back of the building.
"Back so soon?" asked a friendly voice. That was Violet, daughter of Maisie, who now kept the books in her mother's place, with the help of her brother and her own sons. She had a kind heart, and was used to seeing Star. She helped the girl in any way she could, thrilled that The Book was being made ready to add to the village's collection. Star nodded agreement with a smile, and Violet smiled back.
"As always, if there is any way I can be of assistance, please let me know," the woman said politely, and returned to her own work.
Once Star was settled in her usual place, she began opening up the books to the places she had marked, arranging them in an arc on the table, as she liked them. In the space between them, she placed the old Book beside the new one, opened these also, and arranged her quills and ink on their right-hand side. Satisfied that her workplace had been properly set up, she sat down on and began to work.
For long hours she studied the scrawls in the old Book, and tried to match the words against her father's notes. The inclusion of quotes, things her parents had said to one another on their terrifying journey through the Pit of Unrin, was especially helpful. This alone painted a much clearer picture of what had happened, exactly. Whenever she came to a loss of good words, or had trouble picturing something in her mind, she would flip through her other books, looking for details she could use. She would scribble notes in the margins of her father's writing, organizing her thoughts and the words she liked. Only when she was satisfied, would she finally copy the complete idea into The Book.
The process was slow—she had been working on this particular tale for nearly a month, and it was only now drawing to a close. Which was kind of funny to her, because this series of events had taken place in a single horrific night. She knew the story well, because it had been recounted to her over and over since her babyhood. All of her father's adventures were common knowledge to her, which was part of why she loved being the one to write it down. This story, however, had always been her favorite; it was the one she had asked for most often, when she had been little.
"Tell me about how you and mum met and became friends," she would ask, as her father tucked her into bed.
"Star, you've heard the tale a thousand times, if you've heard it once," her mother would point out, amused, but eager to have her child asleep.
"That is no trouble at all, my small Star," her father would say instead, untucking her and taking her in his arms as he told the story all over again. Her mother would be reluctant, at first; but she would quickly join in, playing her own part in the story, and stopping to correct her husband when she felt he wasn't being elaborate enough in his retelling. Sometimes, when Star could no longer contain her excitement, she would leap up and pretend to be one of the flesh-eating trees, chasing them around her room, growling like a monster and latching onto them in inescapable hugs.
Star loved it when her father told her stories. Much like her, he only ever told the truth. He told the stories very well, much better than he had written them, with character and feeling; but he never exaggerated anything he or anyone else had done. Nor did he downplay the hard things for her sake, even when she had been a small child. It was his own way of making her strong.
She had made especially sure to ask many people who had been involved with the story about their parts in it, to make sure what she had written of them was as close to what had really happened as possible. That side quest had led her to even interview people who didn't care for her or her parents; but her insistence on being honest had caused them to set aside those differences for a moment. The Book was important to everyone. Even if they had been unpleasant back then, they knew they had a duty to contribute to its completion, and to be as honest as she was.
The hours went by in what seemed like no time at all to Star; she forgot completely to stop and check the time, as she had said she would. The passages she had planned to finish that day, which she had listened to so many times before, had been harder to face than she had expected. She was writing them almost the same way she had heard them told to her all her life. She had schemed for weeks what little twists she would work into them. Now that she was here, it was hard to write about her parents like this: alone and afraid, not sure if they trusted one another, being chased by flesh-eating trees through the ruins of what they now understood had once been their home. It was all so different from how she knew them now: confident and powerful, trusting in one another completely, using the knowledge of that evil place to propel themselves forward, into the future.
The few paragraphs she had floundered through seemed pathetic, compared to days when she had completed a whole chapter or even two before she had gone home for the day. The hours of research and interviews were nothing to her; that was half the fun of her work. If she was honest, the bulk of her delays were caused by hesitation, fear, and sometimes the inability to put her family's hardships into words. She had faced similar problems over the winter months, when she had begun The Book by writing down her father's first adventure. It had seemed easy then, too, for it was another story she knew by heart.
But when the moment came to describe her godfather's inability to swim, her godmother's ridiculous fear of confined spaces, how her grandfather had nearly given up and frozen to death on the Mountain's summit, and how their hearts had all broken so unexpectedly...
Being honest had been so hard all of a sudden, when she could have easily glossed over it, or written something entirely different in its place. Something glorious and miraculous, and easy. Those brief chapters were very simple and wholly honest, in their completeness; but they had taken weeks to overcome and to finally write down.
Slightly exhausted from her struggling, Star closed all her books and stacked them neatly to one side, feeling in need of a short break. To fill that time, she pulled another, much smaller book from the bottom of her bag, and flipped it open to the middle. A little light reading and reflection would ease her mind, and perhaps give her the spirit to write a little more.
It was a book her father had loaned her from his personal library. More and more often, these days, he let her read from his own books on healing and magic, because he knew it was vital that she knew where she came from, and who she was. Also, he knew it would help her put the adventures of his past into perspective with what he had done with his future.
After hearing the stories for the first time, it might have seemed inconceivable that Rowan, the hero of recent legend, would have settled down and become a healer by trade. Let alone a truly magical one, since his adventures had always been overshadowed by some sort of frightening magic. 18 years later, however, that was exactly what he was. In fact, there was very little doubt that he was one of the most magical people in all the world. The talisman of gold that he wore at all times was not only proof of this, but the source of his power.
He had often remarked that during his adventures, he couldn't have wanted less to do with such power. It had been repeatedly thrust on him without request or warning; when he experienced the power of the Earth sigil for the first time, as a boy on an urgent mission, the idea had filled him with revulsion. He had thought of himself as a simple boy with a simple purpose, who could lead a somewhat normal life if only destiny would leave him be. But the power of the Earth sigil had bonded with him, and he had bonded with it in return. All of a sudden, there had been little left to do but accept the fact that his destiny was still to be met, and that he had a lot of training and study to do.
He had been left with few other choices. The Wise Woman Sheba still lived, but she had already been an old woman at the time. She had needed an apprentice to carry on her work, and quickly. All the other small, shy, weak ones she had hoped would take her place had died suddenly, tragically, before their time. She had almost given up hope that someone would come along to take the sigil when she died... And then Rowan had come along, completed every impossible task that had come into his way, and she had known. He was, without a doubt, the one destined to take her place. Not only as the village healer, but as the Wise One. As the one who would carry the sigil. As the Earth Titan.
And now, he was Lairad. One of the four great mages of the world, who bore the ancient magic of the stars, themselves.
The stars, in another, ancient, mystical language, were called Lairad. A collection of all the elemental energy in the universe, which shone so brightly from their own worlds that they were bright enough to see from all other worlds, far and near. In that pure, perfect collection of power, there was room only for creation—and create, the Lairad certainly did. The greatest of the Lairad had created the Dragons in millennia long past, and sent them to carry that perfect creating magic into other worlds. Yet each one came with its own element to rule over, one of the four World Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.
All combine in the Dragon's lair, her father had been told once. And it was truer than he ever could have guessed as a child. In the Dragons, the four elements combined perfectly, and balance was kept in the world. They, too, were called Lairad, after their mothers and fathers.
Slowly, over many thousands of years, each of the four great Dragons had been won over, in part, by humanity. One by one, each Dragon had gifted humankind with a part of their magic. A small piece of themselves, a powerful talisman wrought from their own bodies, each to one exceptional human being, to carry that power and share its ability to create. These talismans had been passed down through the ages, to this very day. Only one man or woman could hold all the power of a talisman at once. And so the balance remained kept.
These brave, powerful, destined people were called Titans, and were Lairad in their own respect. Even now, there were four of them, keeping their people's talismans.
Star knew the stories of all four talismans, how they had been created and given, and mostly where they were and what was being done with them now. Her own father was responsible for one of them. The disappointingly unlikely boy Rowan had grown up to become the Earth Titan, and wielded the power of the Earth sigil; for it turned out, the people of the Valley of Gold were also the people who represented the element of ancient, silent Earth. Their talisman had the power to grant prophecy, to heal, and even to cloak things and make them invisible for a short time. Earth was the element of solidarity and truth; but at the same time, it kept its secrets. The Earth Titans were excellent guardians of both truth and secrets, giving what they could, but holding back what they knew could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Indeed, there was no one better alive the sigil could have chosen to be its keeper.
Element Air was represented by the wandering Travelers, who had rescued and raised her mother; and their newly appointed Titan was none other than her adopted uncle, Mithren, who had also been a forerunner as a boy. Star had even seen their talisman, once—a magical crystal pipe, which could summon the wind from any direction, cause changes in the weather, granted clairvoyance, and sent messages on the wind. Air was the element of freedom and happiness, and was also the only truly neutral element of the four. It could do little to effect its brothers, and it could never be swayed by any of them. Earth, Fire, and Water conflicted one another in an endless cycle of chaos and destruction. When Air entered the equation, unable to really move or be moved, the cycle was broken; the elements flowed with one another instead of against one another, and creation was made possible.
Far away in Maris, on the eastern coast, the people of Water were led by the Keeper of the Crystal—who had once been Doss of the clan Pandellis, and was only still called so by his fellow Titans. This talisman, the legendary Crystal of Maris, was unique in the way that it could show its keeper the past, present, and future in clear, exact visions, instead of in riddles or faint glimpses of time. It held the knowledge and wisdom of all its past Keepers, giving as much as it took; for aside from purity, Water was also the element of unity and remembrance. While the other elements came and went, being created, existing for a time, and then fading, Water never changed. It rolled in and out, giving and taking, but always remaining. Always remembering.
Meanwhile, far across the sea, the people of Fire—the feared, dreaded Zebak people—brooded in their desert fortress, led by a Titan that the others had no hope of knowing. As far as they knew from study and meditation, the talisman of Fire was a shard of obsidian, for the rather rude, base mineral was precious and powerful to their element. And yet their real power was so much more than a mere token from their host Dragon. Fire was the element of valor and passion, burning fierce and powerful, all-consuming, but easily swayed for good or for ill. According to legend that was almost certainly true, the Dragon of Fire had been so moved by humanity, that he had surely endowed something solid with his power for a Titan to bear; but it was the only talisman that had not been wrought from himself. Instead, he had gifted his people with his own magical Dragon blood, infusing them all with his mighty power for all time.
Only the true Titan could wield the power of the talisman, this much was true. But the Zebak, the people of Fire, all carried a trace of that power in their very beings. They were, themselves, all to be considered Lairad. No other people in the world could claim such a birthright.
The Titans of Earth, Air, and Water had wisely agreed to keep this knowledge to themselves. Star only knew of it because, after long discussion, her parents had agreed it to be only fair that she know and be prepared. When her mother was content to live so simply and peacefully, and so many people were still ignorant of who she really was, it was easy for even Star to forget that she was, herself, half Zebak. Half Earth, and half Fire. She was the only child of the reigning Earth Titan, and that was impressive on its own. It was a closely guarded secret of his, that she also carried at least a tiny amount of the Fire Dragon's blood in her veins. Only a tiny amount, but it was more than enough.
The Titans all had an innate ability to communicate with each other, because their minds were loosely bound to one another; Star knew this not only from her father's stories, but from experience. For as long as she could remember, she had often seen her father enter a trance-like state, as the three of them linked minds and spoke to one another from afar. It was a practical way for them to remain in contact, to discuss the happenings of their world, and make important decisions for their peoples. Yet, for all their relief and joy to never be too far from each other, there was a void where the Fire Titan ought to have been, and she knew it pained them all. For reasons that not even the Keeper of the Crystal could see, for it had happened so many ages ago, the people of Fire had broken away from the others. For many centuries, the Fire Titans had ceased to lend their power to creation and balance. Instead, they used it to wage war on their brothers, to struggle against them and conquer them.
In their youth, the Titans had wondered about this, as they rose to their power one by one. Even before then, they had wondered why the Zebak had always been so bent on destroying them, and what had been done to cause such ongoing conflict. Now they understood that it was simply in the nature of Fire to struggle so for power and dominance. Fire was particularly strong against Earth, could only be tamed by Water, and Air could do little to stand in its way. It was in Fire's nature to try and consume the other elements, to trample anything that would bend to it, and to root out and destroy its one weakness. The Dragon, in his natural state of balance and perfection, might never think of overpowering his brothers and sisters. However, with his fiery blood in their veins and a talisman full of his mighty power, a race of imperfect human beings might certainly think to do just that.
And so, however that rift had been made, it had happened. No one representing the people of Fire had joined the hive mind of the Titans in so long, it seemed impossible that it had ever happened once. The three who remained felt the absence deeply. They lamented that the rift between them and their long lost brothers and sisters might never be mended, that they would never be truly whole, and that the power of the Titans would forever be one of destruction instead of the creation it had been meant to be. They would always have to be in conflict, as long as Fire raged against them.
All of this was a heavy dose of reality, as strong as any potion her father could brew, that Star knew would never become easier to swallow. It was who she was. It was where she came from. But it was a lineage that was hard to bear in secrecy; her father had sworn her to keep the knowledge to herself, and she knew it was unwise to confide in anyone else. Not even her cousins were completely aware of it. Not even her grandparents, who were sure they knew their son so well. Her parents didn't like to think of it, and she didn't either, but she was the daughter of not one Lairad, but two. The daughter of a Titan and a woman of Fire. She had no real magical capabilities of her own, as her father did; but by blood, she was as much Lairad as either one of them were.
Star looked up briefly from her book for a moment, as another dose of hard reality occurred to her. With parents like hers... It was possible that she could actually be one of the most powerful, most important people ever to be born. The idea had occurred to her many times before, and she suspected that her parents wondered the same thing about her; but she didn't like to think of it. All she wanted was to read and write great books, to live freely and happily with her family, and make her home a better place in her own small ways. The destiny that came with being the most important person in the world was sure to be a big one. It would rip her away from everything she had ever known, and she would never be able to go back to the way she was. It would be more sudden, more painful, and more permanent than anything that had happened to her parents.
That was terrifying. And frankly, she had no time for that.
She sighed deeply and sat back in her chair, as she reluctantly remembered that she wasn't without her magical abilities, after all. Normally, the Titans bonded fully with their talismans by a mystical rite, wherein they had to overcome the element they naturally conflicted with. The Air Titans were the lucky ones, as far as she was concerned, for they had no natural conflict, and simply learned to command their crystal pipe through training. For the others, it was different. For three centuries, the Keepers of Maris had been chosen by a man or woman of Rin—of Earth; and before that, they had been chosen by the lost, destroyed Maris clan representing the element which could absorb their power and render it useless. The Earth Titans were forced to undergo an equally intense trial by fire, the element that could most easily swallow them up. However the Fire Titans rose to their power, it certainly had something to do with water.
But Star was different, and obviously special. Apparently, the fiery Dragon blood in her veins was enough to count, for she had never had any trouble using the Earth sigil, herself. Not even as a tiny child. One morning, as her father had held her in his arms, she had held the gold medallion idly in her small hands as she had done so many times before, and asked a simple question.
"Papa, what we will do today?" she remembered her three-year-old self asking. Then suddenly, in a blaze of burning pain, she had received an answer that had left her unconscious:
The father's power, bright and gold,
Reveals the secrets that it holds.
The time for knowledge is at hand:
Reveal the mother's truthful band.
Star remembered the episode as if it had happened only the day before, though she had remained deeply asleep for most of that day. The force of those visions was enough to leave a young student or an aging master very weak, and craving sleep in order to recover. And Star had been so small and unprepared, her father had feared she had been struck dead from the force. When she had woken at last, with the rhyme still burning her brain, her parents had been beside themselves with worry and fear. Whatever they had planned to do with her that day, it had been put aside for later. Much later, for the rhyme had made very clear that there was a lot of explaining to be done.
Since then, her father no longer wore the sigil in plain sight as he had before, but kept it hidden under his clothes, where she would be unable to touch it. More recently, he had decided that perhaps, now that she was older and stronger, it was more prudent to train her to use it. After all, this unforeseen ability was only proof that the Zebak had dragonish blood in them all; if she possessed the power to use the sigil, it was her right to do so, and her duty to know how to control it. Her mother hadn't approved of this decision; she had stood against it with all her might, and had spent long days and nights quarreling with her husband over it. He had convinced her, in the end; but it had been another difficult test of their friendship, and their faith in one another.
Her training had begun in the previous fall. She would sit with her father in their garden and he would light a small fire, burning sticks of juniper incense, which flared bright green in the orange and red light, to help clear her mind. He would allow her to ask simple, harmless questions of the sigil; and the sigil would give her an equally simple answer. Answers so simple that they never even knocked her out, and were easy to decipher. While the experience still wasn't pleasant, it was becoming easier, less abrupt, and more useful. The words of prophecy no longer felt so much like coals burning their way out of her; and with her father's training and careful attention, she was learning how to think quickly to unravel the future hidden in the riddles.
True to its own nature, the sigil did, indeed, reveal its secrets; at the same time, though, it kept enough back to challenge its bearer to think. To use his or her head. To grow a relationship with its power, instead of just using it. All the talismans had their tricks, she was sure; but the Earth sigil was very picky, very clever, and very wise in how it handled itself.
That was her father's job, though. While she understood that her training was useful and perhaps necessary, she knew this skill was only for use in moments of direst need. The sigil had other powers; but she had no idea how to tap into them, and her father had no intention of teaching her. She may be Lairad, but she was not the one true Titan. She was more than happy to leave that work to her father, who had been chosen by fate and trained for the task.
Somehow, though, Star had a sneaking suspicion that she might not need that choosing or training for the sigil to answer her. She often felt as though the small gold medallion almost called to her, its creating energy singing into her very soul. She had been forged by fire in a most literal way; there was nothing to stop the power of the sigil from reaching into her heart and mind. Begging her to take it, learn of it, become one with it, use it. To take its great power and create with it, and heal with it. To share its light with all the world.
While the sensation was intriguing, almost too much to resist sometimes, it was frightening. She didn't like how the sigil's power wormed its way into her mind, trying to bend her to its will. She wasn't sure how her father could stand it. In fact, there were a great many things he didn't seem to mind, which Star was grateful she didn't have to deal with. The trappings of being a Titan would surely get in her way and hold her back. She had always been told she was too sassy and strong-willed for such a calling. Much like her namesake had been. She was beyond grateful that she would never have to take her father's place.
Star tried to push all these terrible thoughts from her mind and focus on her book again—it was a book on the stars, their names, and the constellations they formed. She had been enjoying it recently, and had been excited to pick it up again. Now that she was thinking of the Lairad, the Titans, the Earth sigil, and her own magical blood and her destiny, it seemed impossible to concentrate. Frustrated with herself, she closed the book and stuffed it back into her bag.
All at once, it occurred to her that she had no idea what time it was, and that it had been a very long time since she looked at a clock or even out a window. She swiveled around in her chair and faced the nearest window, shocked to see how deeply colored the sunlight outside was, and how long the shadows were growing. She glanced at the tall clock in a nearby corner, and groaned in annoyance. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. Her stomach growled suddenly, also aware now that lunch was long over. She was sure to be scolded for forgetting to come home again. And she was still very hungry.
Sensing that she would get no more real work done that day, Star began packing her things away, and stacking her borrowed books to carry back to their shelves. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, she also fished her bundle of cookies from her bag and quietly munched on them as she cleaned up her workspace. Violet didn't like it when people brought food or drink into the house of books, and she probably expected Star to be more respectful and careful. At the moment, though, Star was too hungry to care that much. She couldn't believe how ravenous she was.
It serves me right, for forgetting a whole meal again, she told herself. If I could bother myself to remember more often, I wouldn't be so hungry. It seems I'm always hungry, lately, and this is probably why. Alanis will laugh at me; Shaaran will be anxious; and my parents will be angry. All the same, I never actually promised to do anything. I only ever said that I would try. But I didn't, did I... Oh well. I can always try to try again tomorrow.
"Hello, Star. Don't suppose you could spare a bite?"
Star sighed sharply at the mocking, unexpected voice behind her, and turned to narrow her eyes at the brothers who had appeared behind her.
"Hello, Matthew. Hello, Luke," she greeted flatly, her eyes flicking respectively from one brother to the next.
"Food isn't allowed in here with the books, not even for you," sneered Matthew, the older brother, in a superior tone of voice. "Your aunt's work, I suppose?"
"What do you care?" Star retorted. "You're not getting any of them."
"That's a pity," Matthew continued coolly. "In exchange for those fine looking cookies, we might have been convinced to let you slide this time."
Star scoffed. "I'm not bribing you with cookies. They're mine. Anyway, I've been working very hard all day, and I'm starving," she said, cramming two whole cookies into her mouth at once, just to spite the brothers. She had never been great at sharing.
"Leaving so soon?" Luke teased, speaking for the first time. "We had brought a blanket and a pillow for you, so you could spend the night under this very table and not have to go home."
"Charming," she answered dryly, wondering if he was jesting, or if he had actually done this. Matthew was a few years older than she was, and she knew him only as another bully from her childhood. Luke was her own age, and meant about as much as his brother did to her. However, it seemed that Luke had taken a fancy to her lately, and it made her skin crawl slightly. He tried to engage her whenever he could, attempting poorly to be a gentleman; but he always botched his attempts at flattery, because he didn't want his brother to think he was soft in any way. They two boys were rarely apart, and for some reason, Luke really admired his rather unextraordinary brother and wanted to impress him.
Having no one to look up to like that, Star didn't understand it. If Luke had something he wanted to say, she wished he would stop stalling and say it, already. The complicated social dance was a pain, and it wasted her time. She hated it when people wasted her time.
Before either brother could go on teasing her, their uncle came striding deliberately around a bookshelf, spotted them, and approached them with a stern look on his face. Star snatched the cookies off the table and stuffed them back in her bag, hurrying to swallow and brush the crumbs off her lips, before the man noticed. Indeed, it seemed that she had acted quickly enough. He wasn't paying attention to her, but rather to his sister's sons.
"Stopping to waste time with the healer's child again?" he scolded. "How many times have I told you boys to leave her be and not get tangled up in her affairs? Your laziness shames us all. Get back to your work, and don't let me see you speaking to her again."
The brothers muttered halfhearted apologies and scurried away as suddenly as they had appeared. Star was glad they were gone; but she didn't appreciate the way their uncle spoke about her. As if she were a scourge, or an object for passing amusement, and could neither hear nor respond. He hadn't chased his nephews back to work because they had been wasting time. He simply didn't like her, or her parents, because they were different. He didn't want his nephews involved with who he thought of as, the wrong sort of people.
He turned his stony gaze down on her, and she glared back. Oh, she knew what was coming...
"I do not appreciate the way you come and skulk around here every day, making a mess of our books and distracting my nephews," he growled. "Sitting in the shadows, frittering away valuable time, as if you were doing something useful and important. My sister may not mind it, but I find it despicable. Your parents ought to be ashamed of you."
"Never forget," she answered, unafraid, "that I am very much like my parents were, when they were my age. They weren't like you, either. And because they weren't, they were able to save not only your sorry skin, but everyone else in this village, many times. You should be grateful."
The large, muscular man towered above her, simmering visibly with rage; but he had been conditioned from his earliest days to keep his emotions hidden and under control. All the same, he was big and strong enough to snap her in half like a twig, if he was pushed to it. And he was unused to children talking back to him. Perhaps Matthew and Luke had been taught to obey their elders immediately, and without question, and their uncle liked it that way. But Star had been taught differently.
"Grateful?" he demanded loudly, squaring his shoulders. "I am not grateful! Your father is a freak, your mother is a monster, and you are named after a dumb, useless beast of burden."
Star suddenly felt her own rage boil over, as if a flame had been lit deep within her. She could feel it burst like a soap bubble. She jumped up so violently that she chair skittered backwards and toppled over, landing on the hard floor with a crash.
"Star was more useful than you ever were!" she thundered, shoving her finger as hard into his chest as she could. "The adder that struck and killed her had been aiming for my other—without Star, we would have both died! I am proud to be named after her!"
The big man's own rage boiled over—she could see it in his eyes as, infuriated, he snatched her wrist in his hand and gripped it as hard as he could. She gasped as pain surged through her hand, and her fingers went slightly numb.
"Gregory! What are you doing?"
"Unhand my goddaughter this very instant!"
They both turned toward the outraged voices, and Star was overwhelmingly relieved to see not only Violet hurrying toward them, but also Marlie, her godmother, who looked ready to strangle someone. The older woman was striding determinedly across the room, taking full advantage of her impressive height, her face thunderous; Violet almost had to scurry to match pace with her, but that didn't detract at all from how angry she was, herself. Nervous at the sight of them, Gregory quickly released Star and sort of shoved her away from him, as if he had never touched her and the action would excuse everything.
But Marlie was like a lioness, and always had been. If anyone threatened someone she loved, there would be hell to pay for it. In a few paces, she had crossed the room and snatched Gregory by his shirt collar.
"We do not, ever turn our strength on each other—let alone on children!" she growled "As a respectable citizen of our village and a son of Rin, you ought to know better! You should be absolutely sick with yourself!"
Gregory began sputtering an apology, almost too fearfully quiet to understand. He suddenly seemed like a cowering, terrified child, and may as well have been. He was a grown man now, with authority of his own; but in this moment, Marlie was the adult, and he had no power over anything. She was his elder, to be respected and obeyed. That would never change.
Clearly disgusted with his cowering and babbling, she released him roughly and turned to swoop a protective arm around Star, pulling her away from him. Lowering her voice, she asked gravely, "He didn't hurt you did he?"
"No, I'm alright," Star quickly insisted, carefully rubbing her bruised wrist. Even though her godmother's wrath wasn't for her, she was still intimidated by it, just a little.
"Let me see," Marlie demanded anyway, taking Star's hand without waiting for a response. She looked it over briefly, then clicked her tongue in annoyance. "You seem fine for the moment, yes. Well enough to gather your things and come along. Quickly, now."
Star wordlessly obeyed, replacing her things in her bag and slinging it back over her shoulder, listening as the two women turned to one another.
"Marlie, I really can't apologize enough for this—"
"I don't blame you, Violet. I know you would have prevented this, if you could have. You take excellent care of her, and we all appreciate it."
"I will deal with my brother in my own way, and with my sons, as well. The way they speak to Star is unacceptable, and it will be corrected. You can be sure of that."
"Thank you so much for your help."
"And send my deepest apologies to Rowan, also; he should never have to fear sending his only child to work here. I can only imagine how upset he will be with me..."
To this, Marlie laughed sharply. "Rowan? Oh, don't worry about him being upset with you. Worry more about what Zeel will do to your brother, should they cross paths," she remarked, as she began herding Star toward the door. "He would do well to avoid her, from now on."
Violet smiled sheepishly in agreement and thanks. "Feel free to come back any time you wish, Star," she called after them. "This will not happen again, I swear it."
Star didn't doubt that. All the same, she left the house of books that day, feeling for once that she couldn't leave fast enough.
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Afterthoughts...
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Yes, stars. Yes, dragons. Yes, Zebak. So many leftover plotholes were so easily and nicely filled in this way, with a little thought. Because, when you think about it, whenever Rowan ends up in a party of four, each one of them has something oddly specific they're meant to do. And each of them can reasonably represent one of the elements. And guess what? Pardon my language, but shit gets done. It makes too much sense NOT to work out. XD
Violet is a reoccurring OC of mine, and is mentioned briefly in Deluge, if you care to look it up. (Which you should. It involves Zeel and Rowan making out in the rain. ;D) She isn't largely important, I just wanted to say that I am perhaps overly fond of her, and that her children are awful. Star and Luke are not a ship, I promise.
If anything in this chapter has boggled your mind—which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest—feel free to send me a private message. I'd be glad to explain it, as I have notebooks FULL of details. For the moment, though, just accept that Rowan and Mithren are magic now. Why Mithren? Because he is the only other Traveler who has a spoken line in the books, that's why. :P