Early by at least half an hour for the GAC meeting, Caroline left her Mini parked up outside the Great Hall and wandered up over the porch and into the Red Dragon to wile away the time. One drink before the meeting wouldn't hurt, surely ...

Making her way over to the bar, she offered a smile to Ed Batten and his companion - who looked vaguely familiar - and turned her attention to considering what it was she would like to drink.

Leaving her bag on the bar, Caroline slipped through the break to grab herself a beer, not wanting to interrupt the conversations going on around her. It had been a while since she'd actually had the time to come into the Inn, much less to sit and drink, and frankly, she enjoyed the anonymity. Too many people at the GrangerGuild workshops knew her on sight these days for her liking.

Smiling back to Ed and Katt - yes, she remembered the name, finally - Caroline popped the cap on her beer as she took a seat on a stool, checking the time on her watch. Ten minutes ....Ah, well, she could always take the bottle across the square with her. It was doubtful that the Governor would even notice that she'd brought alcohol, since she hardly ever spoke up these days anyway.

In the moments between tilting the bottle to her lips and lowering it to swallow, however, her plans for the evening were utterly overturned. No longer was she sitting on a barstool at the Red Dragon, waiting patiently for 9 o'clock to roll by. Instead, Caroline found herself seated on the same barstool, holding the same bottle, in a space that was so plain it did not even warrant the word 'spartan'.

The floor stretched away from her into the distance, seeming to have no edge but to fade into the nebulous mass of swirling stars against dark emptiness that surrounded that stretched of wooden boards. Overhead, the same mass of stars whirled without ceasing, the silence of the place pressing down on her until all she could hear was the beat of her own heart, and the gentle cadence of her own breath.

Some would have been frightened by this experience, others would have gone for the weapon they carried on their person. But the Grangers, like many Rhy'Din born and bred families, had an odd connection to the Nexus - she would, on a whim, remove one or many of them from the normal span of space and time every now and then. They would always be returned safely, usually hours after they had left, in an entirely different part of the city, and rarely would they speak of it to anyone else.

It had, however, been years since the Nexus had taken a direct hand in Caroline's life, and she was a little nonplussed as to why she had been whisked away on an evening when she had already been booked for something else - something that was, in fact, in place for the good of the Nexus' gathered population of the weird, wonderful, and normal.

Lowering her beer bottle to her knee, she cleared her throat, looking up at the nebulous stars patiently. "Was there something" Only I am expected to attend the Governor's Advisory Council meeting tonight; I missed the last one, I really shouldn't miss this one as well."

She got the distinct impression that the Nexus was laughing at her for this comment. Apparently, her concerns weren't all that important right now. Rolling her eyes, Caroline sighed, rising to her feet to put her beer down on the stool behind her.

"Alright," she conceded, shaking her head in vague bemusement. "Obviously you want something. Is it something I can help with, or were you just bored and looking for someone to irritate this evening?"

Again, she got the impression of laughter, though it was followed swiftly by a sense of deep and troubling concern. Despite herself, Caroline frowned, tilting her head as she looked around at the stars that danced around her. "What is it, what?s wrong" Show me."

She was standing in a familiar workshop, the space the GrangerGuild mages used for their experiments and investigations. Around the open hearth at the far end of the room, four of the youngest magic users were gathered, earnestly preparing for some ritual they had not told her of.

Drifting toward them, knowing somehow that they were unaware of her presence, she watched as candles were lit, totems placed, hands linked, and words chanted. She was aware of a building power, a pressure against every part of her that must surely break through or destroy her very essence, setting her to ache and groan, buckling under the immense sensation of weight and fullness.

Watching through watering eyes, she saw one of the mages take from his robes a knife that glittered in the half-light. It was almost transparent, a weapon of glass that would do no harm to a mortal form, and yet she felt terrified by the sight of it. He swept his arm through the air, the point of the wickedly fragile blade flashing in the firelight, and all that she had once been was no more.

She felt the knife slash through her very being, opening her to the cosmos and the chaos it contained. In the same moment, everything she was spilled forth, scattered to the very edges of the multi-verse, lost forever in the whirling dervish of life without purpose. The pain was crippling, blinding her to everything else but the sense of loss and violation as the last of her essence slipped away in the passage of that brutal attack.

Caroline started, feeling the vision sweep away from before her eyes as she shuddered at the memory of the feeling. And she knew, without needing to have it explained, that this had not yet happened; that it could be stopped. She'd be damned if she was going to let the Nexus be destroyed for the sake of curiosity.

A breeze brushed over, ruffling the hair at the back of her neck, and she realised she was standing in the grounds of Maple Grove, having been returned to the city now the message had been delivered. Her eyes turned toward the magic workshops, to where a flicker of light in a window told her that the mages were still at work.

Her jaw set determinedly as she turned in that direction, walking briskly over the gravel and grass to let herself into the quiet building. There, at the far end of the main room, four figures were gathered at the fire. There were no totems, no candles; this was a discussion, and one she knew she would have to interrupt and turn aside if she were to prevent the vision she had been shown from being made true.

"Good evening, gentlemen."

Four pale faces looked up as she joined them, each showing differing evidence of smiles at her arrival. She was greeted with deference and respect, offered a chair that she refused, shaking her head.

"I am sorry to walk in on you so late, but I'm afraid I have a request that I would like to see performed before I leave," she apologised to them, her smile masking the deathly serious nature of her visit. The eldest of the mages rose to his feet.

"Of course, Ms Granger, if it is within our power."

Caroline nodded, drawing in a slow breath. "It has come to my attention that one of you has in his possession a glass knife, capable of rending the fabric of space and time." Judging from the looks on the faces around her, she'd hit on the right group. The eldest fidgeted awkwardly, and finally delved into his robes, bringing the knife out for her inspection.

She took it in her hands, unable not to admire the craftsmanship that had gone into its making. Even she, a woman with no magical ability in her bones at all, could feel the raw power it radiated. But she remembered the terror she had felt upon seeing it before, and the pain and torment its use had unleashed. Handing it back to the mage, Caroline met his eyes, and watched as her solemnity cut him deep.

"I would like you to destroy it."

An outcry arose from the other mages there present, cut off by a single word from the one whom she held with her gentle, uncompromising gaze.

"Ms Granger, this athame is unique," he told her, obviously struggling for the right words with which to convince her that her request was not necessary. "There were only four made by the wizard who crafted them - of those, one is lost in the Nexus itself, and two have been destroyed. You cannot ask me to destroy this one."

"I did not ask." Caroline, this time, stopped the arguments that rose from the others, continuing to speak over them. They were forced to stop their protests to hear what she had to say. "I understand you are planning to use this knife in some ritual to open a rift in the Nexus itself. If you do, the malice in that glass will destroy the Nexus and everything it holds together. You will be responsible for the deaths of millions, and more than that, you will be the murderer of a power greater far than any you will ever encounter again. If you do not destroy that ....athame, as you call it, I will. This is not up for discussion."

How many times in a mage's life would he be presented with facts he had only glimpsed in texts by a woman he knew to have no magical power at all" How many times did a magic user stand on the precipice of a decision that would change the world and make the right choice? Realistically, he could refuse; he could laugh in the face of his employer, dismiss her uncanny knowledge as foolish scaremongering.

But Caroline had never come directly to any of them and given an order before. She knew she had no real power over them. And they knew that she could have come with guards a-plenty, with the other mages in tow to apprehend and bind them, to destroy the precious athame without ever even needing to offer them a nod. Yet here she was, their employer and protector, standing among them without even a shield to keep her safe from the backlash of their combined power, stating that their plans would destroy everything they held dear if they did not do as she requested.

The choice was already made. As Caroline watched, the athame was plunged onto the stone at the mage's feet, shattering into a billion glittering shards. Even the hilt, made of thicker, stronger glass than the blade, was pounded until it, too, cracked and fell into pieces.

The warning had been heeded. The Nexus breathed out. _________________ http://newswatch-media.nationalgeographic.com/files/2010/06/nebula-van-gogh-picture.jpg