Legend of Ransera

Finn was pleased that Arkænyn was able to communicate with Arvain; it felt strange given how used to byzantine speech he had become in Solunarium.

"I..." he began in answer to Phædreon's question, but was forestalled by the answering voice from the Void. "I..."

He was making everyone uncomfortable. Could they sense how the chains of fealty had grown entangled? Oh, he was glowing again.

"I have a spirit of vengeance in my thrall," he explained quietly for his compatriots. "The Nykara slave that Æros consigned to the Void. I was curious to see whether my thralls could sense me, how it would work from another world, another reality. It seems there is a similar spirit here, and it answers via the same oath from another reality, but it does not know me."

Finn stood from the bench, shaking it off. "I could open a portal to Ailizane, or try, at least. Whither ought I cast its terminus, Phædreon?"

He wondered whether Alcinæus would just let them go or seek to keep them a while. And he wondered whether this was some version of Zalkyriax or perhaps Cithæra's father. Then again, how much did he need to know of a foreign reality? These might be the sorts of details that would get him too embroiled here to return home.

But he couldn't stop himself:

"Oh, we are working on fucking Æros," he assured the pretty platinum princeling.


There now, he was spreading his God's majesty across realities now. And now, back to work. Finn considered, then nodded to Phædreon. "Assuming we all survive this happy little jaunt through realities and time streams, we will certainly debrief." His halo dissipated as he released his hold on the other Khyan, hopefully happier for being a village boy rather than the fallen son of a senator and the slave of a piece of shit.

"If you can think of anything that might help prepare us without pointing back to you, Your Blazing Brilliance," he said with a bow, "we would not turn it down. And I would rather die than further empower her to do harm." Of course, he didn't want to die, and he didn't want his compatriots to die, but there was a level of risk involved and they had all deemed it acceptable. He offered Arvain a faint, complicated smile, and then focused upon the slipspace around him.

It felt different in ways he couldn't articulate in the moment. Give a bard some time and perhaps he could, but not now. Thankfully, nobody was asking.

Before he opened the portal, it was already keyed only to himself and to Phædreon and Arkænyn. And then it opened, a perfect circle that rippled easily like the surface of a pond, only it was vertical and only light shone through.

"The Night Mother's blessings upon you and yours, sire," he said, and then led the way into the little pocket of slipspace he had carved out for them. When his companions joined him, he let the portal close behind them, and glanced askance at Phædreon, lest his abilities prove unfettered here where they were unfettered by space itself. Certainly, he first opened windows to the various places he could connect this place, arachnine, from the center. A little reconnaissance went a long way. Then, he began to weave tunnels to various places.

"I wonder," he mused, half to himself, "whether leaping back to our timeline from here would leave me a path back..." He blinked, glanced at his companions, and shook his head. "Never mind." He did so want to learn the line between ambition and hubris, to be an avatar of Aværys' better nature rather than find darker paths. If time was truly the forth dimension, the three dimensions of space moving through change, then he didn't really want to know if a sufficiently masterful traveler couldn't do both. Hunger for Power was one thing, but overreaching was definitely another.

"If I fall, the portals I have created and this junction, will remain for some time and they will open for you, but no others. You can go to Kalzasi, to Aur'arnis, to Dalquor, to Tertium, and back to Solunarium, or their equivalents. But first... Kaladon." The strange aetheric space in which the stood—there being a sort of ground to stand upon because Finn willed it so—began to curve and tunnel, and then there was another portal. And Finn looked tired; this was taxing work even for a master of his craft. But he wasn't going to pass out anytime soon, and so he smiled.

"Once more into the breach, dear friends," he declared, and preceded them into the unknown.

Finn nodded seriously to Phædreon.

"I think I would like to perceive in more dimensions," he said softly, "though I would rather leave well enough alone. Unless, you know, playing Vigilia Temporis." But he let that go. They didn't have time for flights of fancy just now; they had to focus on the task at hand.

So, too, did he bypass for the moment the Vastian version of his old home and venue, the gardens where he had serenaded his prince and his sister-in-law's prospective prince, more modern somehow in this reality. He wasn't really a landscape artist, nor did he have time to do more than make cursory reconnaissance.

And then they were in a great city at mighty Kaladon's feet, working magic in an alleyway.

Finn put his hand on Arkænyn's shoulder and said without cracking, "I wouldn't kick you out of bed, Arky."

Then he turned to let Phædreon work illusory magic upon him as well. He wondered why his Mesmer hadn't been quite so effective if alternate timeline's magic was different enough to bypass some protections. Well, more on that later, perhaps.

If he wasn't recovering from quite a bit of spatial manipulation, he might have opened a window to see what the chronomancer had wrought, so instead he turned, spreading his arms wide for Arkænyn to judge. If one were looking for it, one would still find Finn, but his bulk had gone leaner, his ears elongated, his skin taking on a more ashen, Moonborn appearance. His Sentinel blacks had become a highborn's robes. There were certain alterations to bone structure that made him undeniably elven—Moonborn by Re'hyæn standards, possibly Siltori by other, though one would be disappointed if they stripped him searching for witchmarks.

The earnest expression was still Finn's, however.

"Am I sexy?"


Whatever the answer, he turned to lead them out of the alley and into the street. His eyes and his feet turned toward the mountain stretching up out of the horizon. He hadn't wanted to chance opening a portal into an active volcano if the reality shift affected his precision, and so they were down here. But now he could see the mountain with his eyes, and his accuracy would increase exponentially.

"Let me know what you sense," he ordered Phædreon, "or we can duck into another alley and I will take us closer to the summit if need be." The mountain itself might have been the anchor point, but surely the city would be where Thalya would go to ground, and he wasn't sure whether the point of ingress or the place where she bode her time would prove the more facile tracking point.

Finn let the uncomfortable humor go, though he couldn't help it if his mind imagined a bit of a threesome. It wasn't his fault, though: bards had excellent imaginations, Phædreon was an aesthete and an artist, and, well, Finn was only human. But titillating as the idle thought might be, he was more focused on the task at hand than getting his hands on what was under their clothes. He was responsible for their safety and the safety of Finn's husband was this mission's whole raison d'être, at least from his perspective.

He wanted to get home to his Arvælyn.

Phædreon's explanations and Arkænyn's insights made sense, so Finn just nodded and then they were off. He might have taken them closer, but if it wasn't far, he would rather be a bit more conservative with his spell casting. This was why he hadn't spent aether soothing Arkænyn's earlier discomfort.

An eviller version of Finn might use his majestic emblem to enthrall pretty things into his bed, but not this one.

As they walked, he did passively engage his crafts, however, listening to the chorus of symphonies, mapping the space around them so he could take decisive magical action if necessary for their safety.

"The Immortals of Auris had chronomancers," he noted quietly as they walked. "Do you think it likely there are equivalent time mages here, or would they have... hm... cleaned up after her mess?" He supposed that protecting the Prime Timeline was part and parcel of Phædreon's work. Otherwise, he would have fucked off to be self-aggrandizing like the bitch queen herself.

He wouldn't ask if they should expect trouble; a Sentinel always did, and just prepared to deal with it.

Finn nodded, listening to everything Phædreon had to say, albeit with more conservative enthusiasm. He was suddenly curious who would protect them from becoming collateral damage if some other time mage came calling while Phædreon was taking a nap. Or perhaps he would remain now that the Divine Twins were ascendant once more.

"I never did understand why they called them lost magics, when the Hytori king is a well known dreamwalker, Auris has its Immortals, and all..." But he shrugged it off; it was probably propaganda. He just didn't know whose.

He nodded too to Arkænyn. Although it looked as though Aværys had decorated his Divine Father's palace, but it was quite a similar palace otherwise. He sighed, but at least they had her trail. It wouldn't have been realistic to expect she would be there waiting to be apprehended.

"Moved on spatially or temporally?" he asked glancing at the elder elf for clarification. If the latter, he could break up the junction he had created in the slipspace and absorb some of it back. The effort of creating it was lost, but he could magically cannibalize the structure and be less depleted for the next requirement placed upon him. "Also, how long has it been for us since we quit our own timeline?"

Finn assumed one of the perks of Phædreon's craft would be the sure knowledge of such things: relative time lapse. He believed that was the phrase he had read. It would be up to Finn, though, to ensure his men were fed, watered, and rested throughout this endeavor. They were his responsibility. And they would need rest if they had to keep reapplying glamours, as well as moving them through space and time along her trail. If nothing else, he could probably ply his emblem here to get them sumptuous room and board. Then again, it would likely draw undue attention. He didn't know that he wanted to meet a version of his God who did not love him, whose behavior might be far beyond what he had learned of Him.

If spatially, Finn would guide them to the next place on his list. If temporally, he would recall his aether before they moved on, though he hadn't the context to tell Phædreon when to move them.