Legend of Ransera

When finally he had won them to a place within the Warrens where he felt safe to open a portal home, Finn had chosen a safe room in the Citadel. From there, his colleagues would be alerted. He and Sirena, as he had taken to calling her for the time being, would be safe. The Custodes Deorum would be safe. There were protocols for such things, and he was following them. Sirena, named after the old elven story, could not exist without scrutiny and it were better she have the support of the Vigilia Argenti.

The Assessors had come, of course, and he permitted their scans, though he held them off from anything more invasive than that. She would be a subject, yes, but she was still a child. It were better they didn't find some violent power within her by scaring her into some instinctive reaction.

Before leaving for Zaichaer, he had left his reports. He hadn't known what he would find when he answered Lyra's strange, muted call, but they were already aware of her from reports when she had answered his call while assisting Hilana in her divine quest.

Weary, dirty, he sat with the creature that at least looked like a young elven girl upon his knee, his Zaichaeri coat around her shoulders. When Phocion strode in, though, he stood immediately, and Sirena held him, peering curiously at the moonborn Sentinel.

"Sentinel," Finn greeted crisply. "I tracked Lyra's call to a crater in Zaichaer's midtown, bypassed rudimentary wards, and discovered passage into the Warrens. There was some evidence that she had been resting there, but was discovered by the remains of the Order of Reconciliation. But the signal took me deeper into the Warrens where they hadn't followed. There I found an arcane device that held this, her daughter, in stasis or, perhaps, in incubation.

"Lyra chose me, I suppose, as a surrogate until such time as she escapes captivity or whatever has befallen her. As her guardian, I beg asylum from the Custodes Deorum."

Finn sat again when Phocion quit the room. It was not so much that he was unwilling for the Assessors to do their work as he wanted to ensure their safety; anything related to Lyra was dangerous, even if not of a malicious bent. The woman herself had always been kind to him, and if she didn't reveal all her secrets to him, she had always dealt honestly with him. There would always be questions to his loyalty, he knew. Should Solunarium go to war with Kalzasi, should some higher authority conflict with Arvælyn, should his sense of right come up against necessity. Lyra was a friend and her daughter's safety was now his responsibility. He knew what the Custodes Deorum would require, and he would not stand in their way, but he had to balance that with the needs of the child herself.

She seemed too alert to nap, though they were both of them in need of long, untroubled sleep. He hummed a song, leaving out the words; it sounded like a lullaby but the words would give it the lie. As he rocked her, dark hair under his chin, he unraveled the mesmeric protections he had woven around her mind to protect her from certain dangers in the Warrens. He was aware of the Assessors endarting their arcane senses, and let them, though he was alert as any watchdog.

He stood again when Phocion returned.

"Mistress Aniyah," he said, bowing to her and setting Sirena down on her own two feet, catching a corbie crouch beside her. "This is... well, I'm calling her Sirena for now. Sirena, I will be back as soon as I straighten things out with the Vigil." He waited patiently until she nodded, kissed her forehead, and straightened up with a little groan as his lower back cracked.

They had already spoken a bit of what she could expect when they arrived and she was preternaturally self-aware. Still, Finn glanced over his shoulder as if to be sure she still existed before he passed through the door, and then closed the door behind him.

His posture was as correct as any Golden Guard in a parade ground, but Phocion could tell it would take only the barest kinetic nudge at the right time to knock him over. Finn inhaled, considered what Phocion would already know from his previous reports relating to Lyra.

"I believe the experts still believe Lyra to be an Outsider," he began. He hadn't even heard of those until he joined the Vigilia Argenti's god squad, god-like creatures but neither drægir nor moritasi. The spent mark of her wrath on his hand, most likely left when she repaired it, as well as the brand upon his neck, both nearly invisible, seemed to itch. He didn't move to scratch.

"I felt her call and left to investigate per my reports. While she has been embroiled in Karnor's calamities, the Custodes Deorum needed to know what was happening abroad. Finding her was quick enough work; getting her through the Warrens so I could bring her home took more and longer doing. In that time, I can say that she is what she seems—a girl of perhaps six. But whether she is the daughter of whatever flesh Lyra has worn, a vessel for her to ride in future, I do not know. I would say that she could survive initiation in the Rune of Command now, though I would not advise that in any six-year-old. Her... mother... was a master of the craft when I was still a toddler. Certainly, the Assessors will see more. For my part, I see a strange, precocious child. Whether she will grow into something Other or not, I cannot say. Her mother may come for her at some point if she escapes the Order of Reconciliation or whoever has her. But, in the meantime, I seek asylum for her because she is, as yet, an innocent child and I am the guardian her mother chose for her. Here, she will have a place. She will have safety and succor, education and training, and whether she becomes a powerful sorceress or more, she will see Solunarium and the Divine Twins as her safe haven and protectors."

Phocion's quip, if quip it was, earned a strange look, but no question. He nodded grimly through the lest, not protesting. It was as expected and he would not fight his best partner.

"It seems as though most of our assets teeter between boon or blow," he acknowledged. "She needs to be scanned by cleverer mages than me, and mages less... emotionally entangled... than me. I would ask to be present, however. I would protect her from what trauma I may and, as you know, I prefer working through such rather than having it magically erased." He didn't believe that was fully possible; there were traces even Assessors couldn't suss.

"And I accept my quarantine. I tried to be both... father and Vigil... in bringing her here. Now that she is in your capable hands, I must needs act father in the absence of her mother. On my honor, I agreed to stand for her. If that separates me from the Custodes Deorum until matters are settled, I accept that. If you deem her too dangerous to stay, I ask that you allow me to depart Atraxia with her to find some other safe haven."

Finn certainly hoped it wouldn't come to that. There was always Lyra's mansion outside Kalzasi; she had faithful servants there. But could they protect her daughter from whomever might come for her? That, he didn't know. He also didn't want to be separated from Arvælyn as much as that would require.

"I suppose," he added wearily, "that between the two of us, we could petition the Divine Twins for a judgment on the matter..."

The snarl took him off guard. He didn't know whether, in his weariness, he had come across a certain sort of way, but he seemed to have made a faux pas. The sting of it left his eyes stinging, surely from sand rather than tears, and his mouth fell open for a moment in surprise and, perhaps, response, but instead he shut his mouth and sighed. Hands came up to rub wearily at his face. He took a moment to compose himself, and then walked past Phocion and the Assessors to let himself back into the room.

He smiled reassuringly at the girl, and gratefully at Aniyah.

Finn sat upon the floor, engaging with the girl and the woman, but allowing Sirena to have her way. He was curious about her too, and his field observations had been a far less controlled environment. When he was certain his reaction to Phocion's reaction had stopped rippling through his symphony, he brought down his mesmeric wards, as well as the wards Phocion himself had taught him to build through the Rune of Negation.

He was exhausted, but he kept going for the child and for the Custodes Deorum.

If Lyra was playing a long-game on him, then he was too simple to see it. If she had hooks in him that Aværys couldn't see, then they were all of them in trouble.

He looked up at his veiled compatriot and smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

With that, he stood and took Sirena by the hand.

"You, my dear, are in grave need of a bath and then sleep. Shall we?"

Finn had helped with these sorts of things when his younger siblings were born, and again now that one of his younger siblings was spawning. Bathing hadn't been safe in the Warrens, and so it was high time both of them got clean and rested, and perhaps she would let Aniyah prepare her so Finn could see to himself.

In either case, he would be awake on the morrow to ensure all was well with her before Phocion arrived.

Finn slept like the dead, though he did reach for Arvælyn as he woke, feeling a moment of confusion before reality crept back in. The sun had not yet risen, and he was hardly recovered, but at least he felt human again. In the Warrens for a week, he hadn't dared truly sleep, truly let his guard down, both because of where he was and with whom he was. But Lyra had always outstripped his power and his wisdom. In making contact with the strange, arcane egg and the person who lay within, he had laid himself open to her influence and if it were a pernicious influence, he would need his brother-in-law's help to purge it.

He checked on Sirena, who slept under Aniyah's watchful eye. He hoped she managed to rest, as well, though she hadn't come to this assignment as depleted as he still was. Finn nodded to her without words, and then went about a truncated set of calisthenics to get his blood moving, to wake him up. After his ablutions, he changed into a clean set of Sentinel blacks with which they had provided him, and he was just about to ask leave to quit the apartments when word was brought to him.

"Pancakes are good," he told her, finding it strange to be speaking about commonplace things in lofty Vallenor. "Spread the butter evenly, and make sure you give each bite a little time to soak up the syrup. Berries or bananas are good, too. Ask for bacon if they don't bring it. The salt will balance out the sweet, sweetling."

She smiled back at him and it did melt his heart a bit, but he didn't know whether it was manipulation or an echo of how he had felt when his little niece first squeezed his fingertip and yawned. His face was stoic, though, by the time he quit the apartment.

"Verro, domine," he said to Phocion's opening volley. "I will assure him that you were doing your duty and following proper protocol should I be allowed to communicate with him today. She is my problem, a problem that I have laid at your feet. I would also be the one who assuages that stress. I will have to share that duty, of course, with more objective agents, and I will bow to your will, but I would be her advocate. Her father, as you say. And I will, of course, take your word for it if it is determined that I have been compromised. Before we continue, however..."

He took a knee, resting his hands on the other. Earnest blue eyes looked up from below.

"Forgive me if in my weariness I misspoke yesterday. It was not my intention to call your judgment into question, though I realized after I spoke how it might have sounded. I respect you as my superior and I love you as my brother and I would not have bad blood or ill thoughts between us. This is secondary in priority today, but no less important to my heart. Mea culpa."