She had taken Adira's advice and laid down, but no matter how she laid, Raine just couldn't fall asleep. The fallen soldier lay across the hall from her, and she could hear the constant flow of doctors in and out of the room talking about his wounds. After laying for what felt like hours, she just got up. She was exhausted, physically, mentally, and magically, but she wouldn't be able to rest here. After a very brief talk with Keiren, she wandered her way back up to the Estate, taking a bit longer as she looked over the ruined battlefield. Even from the hill so far away, the carnage was clear to all, the plume of fire and smoke still burning in the night, blocking the stars. As she opened the door to the estate, she was greeted by both Flora and Zen, who didn't even wait until she was all the way inside before asking questions. "What's going on? Where's Trace?"
"Please tell me Natani and Keith aren't dead."
"They're fine!" Raine smiled. Their concern was sweet, but she was tired. "There's a lot to explain, but I came up here to sleep. I… couldn't rest down there. Please, just let me go to bed, and I'll explain everything in the morning."
"But they're alive? Everyone's fine?" Zen's fur was drained of it's color from his worrying, but Raine put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"They're all alive and mostly recovered. Even Barret didn't stay down for too long, especially with Haelith there to heal everyone."
"Good. Good." Flora wrung her tail, clearly just as stressed if not more so. "You promise to tell us everything in the morning?"
"I promise." With that, she walked upstairs, to the room she and Richard had begun sharing, and didn't even bother changing as she fell on the bed. Sighing deeply, she let the dark room comfort her, let sleep claim her, let her mind wander into the unknown.
And wander, it did.
She suddenly felt weightless, not falling, but not resting on anything either. When she opened her eyes, she could see an inky black expanse around her in all directions, even above and below. Stars twinkled like candles in the distance, and there were no shadows. There was nothing but her to cast shadows. Spinning around, she looked for anything here, looked for anyone. "Hello?" Her voice echoed into the void, falling into the abyss, and into silence. She turned her head around, looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Sighing, she calmed her breathing, and looked down. There were no paths below her paws this time. Paws?she thought I have paws again. Okay.She wore her half wolf form right now, and looked around again. She couldn't wake up, but she wasn't asleep either. "Aruhn? Are you here?"
Again, her voice echoed into nothingness, and she frowned. She knew this was a dream. But then something changed, and she looked down. Below her feet was not a path of gold and silver like before, nor some sort of floor, but her feet emitted a gentle silver and white glow like the fur on them, and she felt as though she walked on solid ground. Slowly, she began to walk, though there was nowhere for her to see to go to. For no time at all and forever at the same time, she walked forward, no weariness or exhaustion came. Finally, she saw something, a light that stood out in the distance. Ever curious, she meandered her way over, and it slowly became clear that she was not seeing a star or light, but a person. Smiling, she willed herself over to him, and walked next to the dragon, who wore his humanoid form. "You are here. Why didn't you answer me?"
Aruhn stood in silence for a long time, staring down into the abyss. "Hm? Oh! Hello, I did not notice you here. How are you this time, young changeling?" he said with a gentle smile.
"What do you mean you didn't notice me? I thought you had to be the one to pull me here?"
"With normal people, yes, that is how it works. But you are special, remember? You can change Fate, you are beyond it's reach." His smile vanished, and he turned back to what he was looking at. Walking up beside him, Raine stared down into the void. "Your actions have consequences. But this is more than you could possibly do."
"What do you mean? There's nothing here."
"Oh? Nothing? You mean to say everything." A gentle hand landed on Raine's shoulder, and the world exploded with color. Lines came from all over the place behind her, threads of Fate, lines of lives, thousands and thousands of them, spiraling and twisting across the void. Each line wove and twirled with the next, and they slowly merged, spinning and connecting to create a vast expanse of threads and colors before her. Gasping, she looked out, and marveled at the beautiful weave of Fate, twisting into a rainbow of wild colors.
"Whoa. What… what is that?"
"That is Fate, woven together." Aruhn smiled, closing his pure white eyes. "Threads of life, connected as one. A grand tapestry that is ever changing, yet nearly immutable and unfathomably strong."
"It's so beautiful." Raine looked out over the weave of Fate, which stretched on for all eternity beyond her sight. She turned her eyes to the place where the threads were connecting and joining together, and she saw two that looked so closely intertwined they may have been one if they were not different colors. Tilting her head, she looked closer at them. One was silver and gold on the edges, while the other was red with a blue glow, so closely bound and twisted around the other they formed a single strand that danced around the Weave. Another was black with a silver edge, and it was wrapping around a thread of violet and blue. The more she looked, the more she recognized who each one was, seeing a thread that was light blue wrapped in orange, connected and pulling on thousands of other strands. "That's Trace, right?"
"Very perceptive. You see, every single person has their own thread, their own line in the Grand Weave. Each one chooses their path, and that path pulls at the rest. Look there." He pointed a finger down, and she saw a small thread of silver weave it's way out from one side and into the other, causing a ripple of colors to change. "Every choice has a consequence. Even now things are being changed by those choices."
Raine watched and listened in wonder, but then she frowned. "You told me a long time ago that I could change Fate. What does that mean?"
Aruhn sighed. "I never did explain it all to you, did I? You are special Raine. You are more special than you realize, for I have seen many of your possible futures, and I know that you have great power within you. The ability to change Fate is not something just anyone can do. What we just saw was a change, yes, but you can do far more than move from one side to the other. You have the power to change where not just your own Fate goes, but the power to alter Fate as a whole. Would you like to see just what sort of power this can manifest as?"
Her heart skipped a beat. "W- What? Y… You can… do that?"
"I can see up and down Fate as a whole. I can see everything from my beginning to my end. Beyond either is beyond my own view, but they are both very far away. Remember, I have seen power like yours once before. And I know what it did. So if you would like, I can show you just how much power you truly have."
His words were kind, but there was also a fear behind them. She was asking a question he didn't want to answer, giving her an answer he didn't want to give, but there was no way to avoid it. Raine knew this would give her the answers she so desperately wanted, but now she found herself doubting if she wanted to know this badly. "Ignorance…" she started slowly "is worse than any knowledge you could give me. Right?"
"That… is debatable. On one hand, you may know what power you wield, only to be too afraid to use it. On the other, you may realize your potential and threaten to use it all to unknowable chaos. The choice, however, is yours." He held out his hand to her, and waited.
She could not avoid it now. There was a choice to be made. She swallowed her sudden fear, and took his hand. The world reeled around her, the weaving strands sailing by in a blur, and just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Everything looked the same: a brilliant weave of Fate filled with color, but she could see something was wrong after looking for a bit. The Weave, which had once been flat and clear was now filled with imperfections and bumps, like someone had taken it and tried to crumple it. But there were no strands flowing in here, no Fate being written. She stood over the completed Weave. "What are you showing me?"
"You are looking the wrong way." She looked at him, then followed his gaze and her heart stopped. Like someone had taken a dull blade to a piece of fabric, Fate was ripped apart before her. Threads were pulled out and cut off, the very nature of the woven Fate destroyed. Tens of thousands of strands were yanked out and cut short, like the end of a string, frayed and unraveled. Like a rope that was unwound and pulled apart piece by piece, like a plank of wood that had a stone thrown through it, splinters were shattered in all directions, frozen in time. "Behold the potential of your power. You may recognize where we are, yes?"
"That… that's…" she stammered. She knew, but her words could not form, her mind frozen in fear and awe.
"The work of one. The death of many thousands. This is the ruination of Thandolin." His words were heavy and filled with sorrow. "Behold the power you contain. You have the power to change Fate entirely. Unlike so many, where their choices change the lives of a few hundred or even a thousand, your choices will affect everyone, and yet you are not bound by Fate either. You exist beyond it's reach, and yet are so closely bound to it that you will change it whether you want to or not."
"I don't want to do that. No. No!" She tried to move, but her body was frozen, her muscles would not listen to her mind.
"You do not understand-"
"No!" She shouted, pulling herself free from his grasp. "No! I will not become like him! I will not destroy people! No!"
"Raine!" Aruhn's voice suddenly boomed over her, a draconic visage over him, with wings of silver spreading from his back and fire burning deep in his eyes and his chest. "I brought you here to show you not what you will do, but what you may do." He sighed and his voice calmed down, the illusory image becoming contained once again. "Your power is not that of destruction and death alone, but one of choice. You have the power to destroy and create. You have the power to kill and to save. You have the power to change the Fate of others for better or worse. Please, understand that your power is that of unbound choice. This is one possibility of infinite."
"Then what am I supposed to do? And what did you mean earlier? 'This is more than you could possibly do'? What's happening?" He seized her hand, and the world reeled again, and they were back where they started. He let go, and stepped away from her, looking around for… something.
"There." He pointed, and she followed his gaze again. She saw nothing strange. Twisting lines that formed a vast cord, with one strand breaking off before the cord ended. The lone strand joined the Grand Weave, but the rest… She suddenly realized what was wrong. The rest of the cord of colors was cut off, ending before they could join the rest. It was not as bad as what she had just seen, but the destruction was clear: this was death.
"What happened? Why didn't they connect?"
"I don't know."
Raine raised an eyebrow as she looked at him in shock. "You don't know? I thought you could see the future?"
"I can see the future of the Weave. That is beyond my sight. They did not join the Weave. They did not have the chance. Something stopped them, cut their Fates short. And it worries me." Raine could hear the fear in his voice, the worry and concern. Coming from a dragon like him was terrifying. "It is beyond my sight. But that only pales to what is to come."
"What is to come? What am I going to do?"
Aruhn gave a nervous chuckle, which turned into a manic laugh. "I have no idea! I have no idea at all! I can't see! My sight is veiled!" he shouted, falling to his knees, fists pounding on nothing, yet the very void trembled at his anger and fury. "I am blind! I have no idea what is to come! I can't see anymore! I now stumble around in the dark, and it is terrifying! I do not know what will come anymore! I see only darkness, only nothingness! Like the light has left my eyes, I cannot see into the void! Darkness has overtaken me, and I am terrified!"
His anger and rage shook everything, but then it all came to a halt as a gentle hand touched his shoulder. "I used to be afraid of the dark too." Raine gently knelt down next to him. "When I was young, I never wanted to be in the dark. It was terrifying not knowing what was lurking in the shadows. But then I remembered that I know my room. I know where I am. When you remember where you are right now, then the dark doesn't seem as bad."
Aruhn was silent, his body still trembling in fear. "You don't understand. This is not the first time this has happened. It happened once before. With Thandolin. And I'm afraid now that my actions, my interactions with you may bring ruin and death again. And I cannot see. And I am terrified beyond belief."
"I won't be like him." Her words carried conviction and power. "I will not be like him. I refuse to be like him. I will make the path myself, but I will not be like him. I will change Fate if I must, but I will never, ever be like him."
"Your will is great, your power even greater, and your potential greater still. I hope, for the sake of all creation, you are right." He looked up at her, his eyes reflecting the Weave of Fate, and he gave a weak smile. "But your time here grows short. It would do well of you to remember this when you wake up."
She smiled back at him. "I always have a pencil and paper in my bag, just in case."
"Then until we meet again, here or in the real world, be safe. May the wind be ever at your back, young shapeshifter." With those words, Raine began to fall, past the Weave of Fate, past the threads that stretched into eternity, into the endless sea of stars that covered the inky void. She fell onto her bed, with the first rays of light poking through the curtains, back to where she knew she belonged. Back to the world of reality.