Katie St. Claire had made a habit of watching her world die. The dreams she’d had the previous night were no different, but she naively hoped it would just be another dream. She scowled into the cold of the night, staring at her ceiling of frost covered branches. She took a deep breath, then another, soothed by the warm touch of her boys cuddling into her. She turned her head to look at Kyle, he seemed so peaceful in his sleep.
In her dreams, it had been the opposite. She dreamt of a crack in reality and a long fingered hand clawing its way out of it. There had been a smile that stretched too wide across an almost human face and eye like a kaleidoscope that glittered with devilish glee as it picked up Kyle. It reminded her of that painting of wild eyed Cronus eating his young.
She turned to look at Peter, as she carefully pried herself from underneath his and Kyle's arms. Peace had placed itself across his face, but unlike Kyle’s this was a peace that had settled like the dust from rubble of a demolished building; Peter had cried himself to sleep again.
“Shit,” Katie said under her breath. “He's been getting to you again, hasn't he, Petie?”
Gently, she kissed his forehead and tucked him in closer to Kyle. “Keep him safe for me, Starman,” she whispered as she began carefully getting up. It was unlikely he had heard it, but it warmed her heart when he pulled Peter closer.
Then more flashes of the dreams. A maelstrom of space-time against the backdrop of nothingness, like an infinite web of spider webbing cracks in a never ending mirror. Peter cried her name in desperation as he fell forever into the endless void.
“I need to go for a walk.”
She took a deep breath of the crisp forest air, the sharp coldness of the winter frost already dissipating into the wet tones of spring. She closed her eyes to take it all in. This place had magic in its bones. It wasn't just the way the seasons changed as capriciously as the elves that called these woods home. It was the way it whispered to her, stoking her emotions from dying embers into a bonfire of feeling. But unlike her boys, the whispers weren't nearly as tempting.
“Boys,” She said, cocking a hip out and gesturing to a nearby tree. “Can’t just talk about their feelings. They gotta bottle it up and let a forest uncork ‘em. Am I right?”
She winced at the Forest’s reply; a crippling silence that chilled her far more than the frost ever could.
She continued to mutter under her breath and put on her boots as well as the piecemeal armor they had made from materials of the four different worlds they'd run to before this one. She carefully draped the violet colored cloak she'd stolen over her shoulders and gingerly pulled the hood low over her brow. She stiffened at the crackle of a branch underfoot, her palm aglow with purple flame as it aimed at the sound.
A child emerged from the woods, his ears were only slightly pointed and his impish face more humanly round than the jagged angular look of his kinsmen. His chlorophyll green hair and his crooked smile made the half elf look as though he were a plant turned into a human. Despite his appearance, Robin Goodfellow- Puck, to his friends- was one of the most powerful mages ever to have lived.
“My lady,” he said quietly with a low bow. “I heard you enjoyed yourself last night.”
She pursed her lips. “I did, Puck. Thanks.”
His eyes twinkled humorously at her. “I heard you enjoyed yourself several times last night.”
Her lips twitched in faint amusement; despite his youthful appearance, Puck was one of the oldest people living in Broceliande. Had she not still been reeling from her dreams, she might've even laughed out loud at her mentor’s joke but she just wasn't in the mood.
“Uh oh,” Puck said. “What's wrong?”
“It's just the dreams again,” she replied.
“Uh huh. So, would now be a good time to tell you, you've got a visitor? Or should I wait?”
She shook her head. “Who the hell is it?”
Puck’s smile faltered, and for a split second the mischief in his eyes belied a sensation she'd never seen mar the half elf’s face; For the first time ever, Katie saw fear in Puck’s eyes.
“Another Sealbearer. Knows about your dreams, stripped my wards. He says he wants to talk. Says he’s got a solution to your problem.”
Katie stiffened, she'd been dodging Sealbearers ever since she learned about them by accident from an old bookseller with the red beard, or more specifically from the book that Peter had stolen; the same book that haunted her dreams, whispering even louder than the forest ever could. It had predicted a faceless man would come and threaten her boys; It had promised he would kill them. So she decided to take them and run.
Puck smiled, but this time there was no humor in it. “What was I supposed to say? I said you'd talk to him.”
Katie flinched, her words more caustic than she had planned for them to be. “Really? No bargaining on my behalf?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Contracts require a fair exchange of power, and a fair exchange this is not.”
Katie scowled at him. “...If anything goes wrong…”
Puck cut her off. “Nothing is going to go wrong. This time.”
“BUT If IT DOES.. ” She paused, taking a deep breath. “...You get my boys out somewhere safe, okay?”
“I will see what I can do, but you can't run from him. He's… Em’Rhactn Fo Ed’tha.”
Katie's mind translated the Na’gramas tongue automatically and she winced.
'Merchant of Death. And if he's a Sealbearer, the title is probably literal.'
Puck smiled wanly. “Fortunately for you, he's actually here to help this time.”
She shook her head. “And what if I don't want his help?”
“They're just dreams, right?”
Puck shook his head, his smile gone. “Dreams are never just dreams. Not even the fun ones where you can fly or are embarrassed because for some reason you’re pantless before The Oberon.”
“The point is,” Puck continued. “Especially in Broceliande, Dreams are prophetic. And with the ones you've been having, you need all the help you can get.”
She sighed, annoyed that he was right, but utterly certain that this was something that would come back to bite her.
“Lead the way,” She told him, after what felt like the longest heartbeat of her life.
Puck nodded and clambered for a hidden ladder made of rope like vines and down the shaft of the stout ironwood tree that they'd made their home inside. She vaguely remembered Puck’s explanation about how he had a whole bunch of these across the forest to avoid becoming prey during his people’s hunts. She felt it ironic, that it hadn't mattered; She'd still become prey.
It felt like forever, but they finally made it to a tunnel made from the branches of several willows carefully knit together.
At the far end of it, stood a young man her age with a cocky smirk and dark eyes hidden beneath a broad brimmed hat, his face was so indistinguishably ordinary that he might as well have had no face at all. The trench coat was well worn and dusty, with patches of both cloth and chainmail.
“Hello, Cousin” Corvus St. Claire said warmly. “I hear you've been having bad dreams. I can help with that.”
Katie didn't understand why Puck was so afraid of this man.
“Who are you?” She asked, confused. “What do you want?”
“We'll get into what I want later, little miss Tinkerbell, but as for who I am, well, you can call me Mr. Hand.”
