Topic: Kael

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2008-06-04 17:31 EST
The story er Kael is one ye wilna find in many books.

It has never been a part er any Catholic canon; the name isna mentioned once in the Holy Bible; an' the Dunkirk Codex, the only whole record er my tale, has been banned by the Gallican Catholic Church, an' most er the few copies made were destroyed in the Nine Years War.

How the record came ta be isna relevant; all ye need ta know is that the words are mostly truth, at least the truth as best as a mortal man can understand it. I will reveal a copy ta ye once I am sure ye will survive, but as ye hover nae near Death's door... ye'll hafta content yeself with my story related as best I'm able from my memory.

I was born na at the Beginnin', but one year after Lucifer's first war. The ranks er the Host were depleted, an' God fer the first time looked ta His Earth fer his army. I was a man once, just like ye, young an' soft an' full er ideals.

I was a general with an army sent ta destroy the infidels what'd come to Jerash ta challenge Israel. Forty days wae fought, an' on the fortieth day, the vultures parted from before the sun, an' light fell on the battlefield once again. I took it fer a sign an' prayed and made sacrifices, an' summoned a host er angels ta fight alongside. With great silver scythes they felled the enemy like sa much wheatgrass.

When the battle ended an' the infidels were wiped clean from Jerash, the last angel, Aldebar, pierced my heart with the tip er his scythe.

I died that day, Alain. An' it wouldna be the last time.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2008-06-10 10:04 EST
Alain gasped and gulped air, cold sweaty hands clawing at his own chest as one, two, three shirt buttons popped off and rolled across the hardwood floor. He looked around wildly until he oriented himself - the glow from the fireplace reminded him he was in a chair by the fire at the Silver Mark Pub & Brewery.

He raised his hand to examine his watch, and blue eyes brightened until the hour and minute hands came into focus. Four thirty. The birds were well on their way to making a racket in the sideyard, but the sky was still an inky blue. His holster and revolver rested over his armrest, and Jean breathed a nasal sigh from the ball at his feet. He checked his shirt and sighed at himself: "Christ, Alain..." The dog twitched his ears, and Alain snapped his fingers and they both got to their feet.

While Jean nosed his way around the sideyard and looked for things to mark, Alain enjoyed a cigarette. They were finally beginning to slow him down - he would have to quit soon, he reminded himself...

I work sa hard ta get yer attention, an' ye set me aside sa quickly? Tsk tsk, Alain...

What do you want?

Ta talk.

After your last stunt, I don't think we've got much to say.

And there was silence in his head. Alain took a long drag and reveled in it... until the magic of Sid the Dancemistress played its eerie tune, twisting his thoughts to the worst forms of desire. He grimaced and shook his head and forced himself to think through a prayer, and Kael spoke again.

Ye don'no what yer up agains'.

I do now.

"Come on, Jean," Alain said and whistled, and the dog followed him inside. He rubbed him for a minute and let him trot back to his place by the fire.

I can help.

I think you forget which side I am working for, Fallen.

I know what goes through yer head. I havena betrayed ye, have I?

Not yet. I want the Dunkirk Codex.

Na sa soon.

The Codex, or we have nothing to say to each other.

And at once, Kael fell silent. Alain stood there in the pub, frowning, and went upstairs to prepare for his day.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2008-06-26 14:25 EST
Ye know the Dunkirk Codex is irrelevant. Mayhap ye will have it someday, mayhap na... but ye've more importan' things ta find when the right time come.

When the angels I'd summoned on tha' field er battle struck my heart, they skewered my verra soul, an' I felt pain an' fear in new, more terrifyin' ways than e'er before. I saw skies an' stars flash before me, lights ye canna e'er imagine, boy, an' mayhap someday you'll see.

I heard sounds much like ye've heard before, like birdsong but... better, somehow, more noble an' full er glory. By an' by, as the angels er war I had summoned ta me whispered in my ears, I came ta understand the language, an' soon learned ta speak it... an' I understood what I was hearin' -

It was a cadence. They were bringin' me ter an army.

I saw a host er angels as had ne'er been seen by eyes er Man before, angels a war. A great many had swords, more blades than I'd e'er seen, an' the angels with the great silver scythes had wings many times the length er their own bodies.

In hindsight, it may ha' only been what I, a soldier, wanted ta see it all as, but it was still quite a sight, boy. I thought ter myself, Anyone on their side is on the winnin' side er things.

I'd spent my life a soldier, a war leader among men, an' I'd summoned angels er war for my own battles, they'd said. An' for they servin' in my army, I was ta serve in theirs.

Ye see, boy, they had a war all their own ter fight, ne'er mindin' the mortal affairs I'd dragged them inter. Fella by the name a Morningstar was makin' trouble, an' we were ta see him pacified.

Ye'll be wakin' up soon, lad, I can feel it. This may... sting, a little.

And Alain awoke with a cry, scrambling upright in bed only to fall back again with a groan of pain. His body ached, but the real pain ran much deeper, not unlike the pain Kael himself described, he later imagined. Something about his soul was changing, and his fingers clawing and scratching at his own skin did not make the least difference. He writhed and cried out and tumbled out of bed with a thud as images flashed before him - blood, ivory teeth, animal eyes, hunger, feasts of flesh, the thrill of the hunt, building and racing frantically as he felt two parts of what he had, over time, mistaken for himself being torn away...

...and then it was gone. It was finished. Alain opened his eyes and uncurled slowly from his ball on the floor, bringing a hand before his eyes for a closer look. He sank his teeth slowly into the crook between thumb and forefinger, clenched his eyes shut and bit down hard until he tasted the coppery tang of blood. Nothing.

Apostalos and the Artemene were gone, no trace of them left - they had been cast off by Kael, his soul's only rider now.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2008-08-20 21:40 EST
One month since the downfall of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe, about two weeks since the founding of House DeMuer, and Alain should be busy. He's been arranging all the House's big political and business meetings, and he's been present for each of them, and yet... his pace has transitioned from slow by necessity, to leisurely by choice. The wound to his leg hinders him rarely if ever now, and while the scars on his back may never fade, there finally seems to be no danger of opening them.

The meetings are necessary as a House leader - the rest of his time is spent with Lisa, at the Inn, and drifting between his businesses, taking only a little casework when it suits him.

It had been hard to pin down to a single thing. The world did feel a little surreal after his brush with death at Howe's hands... but then love, unexpected and reckless, had taken his mind for a whirlwind ride all of its own... And maybe, he'd thought once or twice, he was afraid at last to lose his life for no other reason than leaving Lisa alone in RhyDin.

Gabriel...

"No." Alain's answers to Kael's mysterious whispers were never this direct, and yet, there it is. A few nights ago, three of the bigger names in Blood House Onyx met with him at the Red Dragon Inn and discussed business. A being called Daugolozan, the archangel Gabriel, an unknown and potentially treacherous key, and a mysterious figure they called "Mab," who drew from Sid, ever the stoic silver-haired Ancient in Alain's eyes, an actual snarl in public.

And Belial wanted Alain to shadow this Gabriel, and seemed surprised to hear he wouldn't do all the footwork himself. I know him. I know his wiles. We can work together, Alain, an' solve this...

She had also told him to keep Kael out, which Alain is only too happy to remind the self-exiled Fallen of. "You're supposed to stay out of this, and for a good reason... Who am I, a mortal, to question the affairs of the preternatural?" Alain's not being honest with himself or Kael here, but it's a way to shut the door.

I am na mortal, boy, ye know this.

"You're right... and all that means to me is - God only knows what you want."

Tha Dunkirk Codex, boy. I'll give it ye - if'n ye only promise ta help, an' work tagether...

"I'm done with those kinds of promises, Kael. I'm working this case - my last case - alone."

The voice falls silent, leaving Alain alone with his ringing thoughts in a chair under the old tree in the sideyard of the Silver Mark Pub. A chorus of crickets fills his ears at once - it's black out, and he doesn't know how long he's been out here. Maybe hours.

He'd told Lisa to wait for him, and she probably fell asleep waiting. With a long, weary sigh, he retreats indoors.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2008-12-21 17:09 EST
(OOC - I'm doing a quasi-retcon here... While I won't be changing any previous posts to reflect this change, I'm ditching Kael's accent. I was never really satisfied with it, and I feel like it's been holding me back from making posts involving Kael. So there.)

Kael always spoke the most clearly in dreams, a realm in which Alain had learned little in the way of control, in spite of the aid of Melantha's silver acorn in mitigating his nightmares... In the waking world, Alain was alert and more often than not in full control of where he was going - by contrast, in the dream-world, the young detective was at his most vulnerable.

He was first aware of the distinct feeling of floating over water, as if he'd been laid upon a slim raft, though he could see nothing but vague shapes of silver light passing before his eyes. Frost-coated grass crunched under his bare feet for three steps and he felt no chill, but he saw the grass, and that his surroundings were covered in mist. He felt a strange weight upon his back, but felt compelled first to observe his surroundings as some of that fog rolled back into the distance...

Alain was in a roughly circular meadow containing maybe a dozen beech trees and tall grass, matted and yellow with the onset of winter. Ringing the meadow were more trees, similar but in an impossibly dense arrangement, preventing any exit and yet not feeling at all claustrophobic - in fact he thought this place was more open than any he'd been since his "vision"-journeys with Sid, as if it were on the edge of all things. If the fog lifted completely, he was certain he would see the vastness of the cosmos overhead, though they felt dizzyingly like his meadow was dangling by a thread above them, with the countless stars and great empty space below.

Directly behind him was a pond, halfway frozen, and even in that subtle turn of his head enough snow had somehow fallen to dust the grass and the treetops, painting his world white and grey...

Seasons pass differently here, lad, he heard a close voice say, a familiar voice. Kael's voice. Time is irrelevant. Here lie the lessons of immortality I am still learning, that you may soon learn.

"What is this place?" Alain asked as he placed his fingers upon his own flesh, felt for and found the familiar scars, and noticed he was naked, and yet not at all chilly.

One of the few I may still visit beyond the realm you and I share, a place forgotten by powers that once used it... Neutral ground most of the time, a rare place where opposites may meet and the unaligned are free to come and go, and yet whenever war breaks out... no man's land.

"Why have you brought me here?" The snow began to fall in a thick flurry, nearly a whiteout, the treeline barely distinguishable only fifty feet away.

We seek our old weapon.

"I seek your old weapon," Alain snapped to correct him, and Kael chuckled softly. The host could almost feel his rider shaking his head, like it was his own...

We are bound, DeMuer, you and I, and more than you think. My residence in your soul comes at a price... There is more of you than there is of me - someday I will be absorbed, but lend you what is mine. For every inch I become more like you, you become more like me - we will be one, DeMuer.

"...I lost the Artemene... I lost Apostalos..."

Kael scoffed, and Alain felt something twitch, heard wind whoosh by his ears. They were as good as dead already, but I am here to stay. Separately we are damned, but together we may earn redemption and more... Listen to me, lad!

Alain felt dizzy and pressed his hand to his brow, but Kael's words snapped him back to attention.

Our sword, I left it in what used to be a great city connected to RhyDin by a great gate through which thousands passed every day. A great tragedy befell the city, and the gate is all but gone, but you can still reach it, Greyfast. I left it among the only ones I could trust, those who would not betray my secrets into this world... Find it! Find it, and we will cast down the demon calling himself Howe together, and regain Heaven's favor.

Alain nodded mutely, but something else occupied his thoughts, something itching at him, something that felt not quite right... He turned to the pond, and starlight pierced through the clouds enough to cast his reflection. His eyes were both grey and blue without competing, but he saw what at first appeared to be a great shadow looming behind him... In a flurry of feathers, two great black wings, angel's wings, opened behind him.

With a gasp the detective awoke in bed, and when he felt for his shoulderblades, his fingers touched nothing but the familiar paths of the long scars Howe had left upon his flesh...

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2009-01-29 18:30 EST
Alain was alone in the Red Dragon Inn ? a rare treat, a moment of blessed solitude in a comfortingly familiar place. He had his scotch and a cigar handy, as well as an old book and a new one in which he made pencil sketches.

Something studied. Something listened. Something watched. From where was not certain, but there was a presence there. Some might be fine-tuned enough to sense it. The she that was came to be more *there*, as a slight draft became a breeze, became a little whirling dervish, became a mini cyclone, almost soundless, and then there, standing on the landing, she was. Lovely, blonde, wingless to all appearances, and dressed in black wool pants, a black tube top, and a black leather duster. Hair long and to her waist, like cool moonrise, and she was peering over the railing at the lone occupant. A faint smile snared pretty lips.

One patron walked in, and another appeared... It was enough to stir the silver that lurked in his eyes, which told his passing hand to shut that book and subtly flip open his shoulder holster. Alain raised his scotch for a long drink, his posture relaxed in spite of the gathering goosebumps.

?Hello?? the patron on foot ventured uncertainly, a grey-furred being of some kind.

"Come on in," Alain said, his voice gravelly at first, from lack of use all day and too much smoking. "Bar's self-serve."

?Good? this is actuallly my first day here??

The woman began to move down the stairs. This woman had Presence. Eyes would naturally be drawn to her, like ears to music. She moved with the grace of a dancer, the sure confidence of a ram on the mountainside, and the leisure of the Unhurried. 5"8" of slim femme, with eyes that were the blue that only Kashmir sapphires could equal. They passed fleetingly over the odd male, no expression given to either greet or condemn, to him, and then settled on Alain. Unwaveringly, as she continued to move towards him.

"Welcome, then..." Something else was tugging at Alain?s mind, though. The creature with the spear didn't bother him, no... It was that Presence, the one that made his rider uneasy, the one coming his way. He turned slowly, like molasses, in his chair, and raised his eyes to her, a silent question in them. What do you want.

Lowan, the other patron, turned and looked at the woman, sure she didn?t much mind and had a good spirit, so he offered a greeting. ?Hello to you as well.? He spoke as he headed for the bar and looked at it, his butt situated on the stool and tail flicking.

The woman didn't answer the unspoken question. At least... not yet. Aware of the other occupant, she kept walking to Alain's table, and moved around him, steps slow and sure, hips swaying with feminine allure, though not overly so. Unintentional, really. Blues flicked to the furred one, and lingered for a moment, as she kept walking until she was just behind Alain and to his right. She bent to the side a little, and some forward, to peer at his hand. His right hand. She pulled in a breath and then rose up to look at Alain's face in profile. "We need to talk." A voice? such a voice! Like silk over satin.

The click of the hammer of his pistol was as quiet as his breath. He could see her eyes in his scotch and the way she looked at the mark on his hand. It had all the feeling of a Mexican standoff, and no one had drawn a gun yet. "Old business?" He turned his head to the other side, bringing her face back into view.

She gave him a sudden smile, near blinding with charm, sweet allure, and innocent beauty. "Oh, I think we should call it new business.?

A swish of Lowan?s tail, and a bob of the head, he was humming to himself something or other, he was just glad he reached his destination.

It was immediately clear that Alain didn't trust that smile. And why should a man like him do a thing like that? He was peppered with scars, each of them a lesson learned the hard way. The silver swam in his eyes, almost as powerful as the brilliant blue. "New business... You look like you've seen me before. Or something about me."

The woman?s head tipped to the side, giving him a slightly chiding look for not falling for her sweet smile and look. Amusement curled deep in those endless blues. The silver in his noted most carefully. Her smile never faltered. "That would be a good guess. New business taken off of old business, then, if you want a more descriptive title, hmm?"

Alain was quiet a long moment before he said to her, "Grab a glass and whatever you like, if it's not my scotch you like, and take a seat. We need to talk, after all."

Lowan smiled and looked around? Bored, he left to find entertainment elsewhere.

The blonde nodded and moved over to the bar. She noted the self serve sign and then moved behind the bar. A few moments was all it took to find a bottle of Tanqueray. She proceeded to mix herself a tall Tanqueray and Tonic on ice with a twist of lime, and then returned to his table. And waited...beside a chair, looking at him expectantly.

Alain looked at her... then looked at the chair... and said at last, with a thin smile that was charming in its own dry way, "But of course... where are my manners." He moved fluidly from his chair, then pulled her chair out for her.::

The smile she bestowed upon him was scintillating in its brilliance. She lowered gracefullly into the chair and scooted it forward, with his help, and then settled back against it. Her drink was sipped while she waited for him to reseat himself. Then... "I know your mark. I know who rides you. I want to know... why... he rides you."

As she began to speak, Alain removed a pen from his coat pocket, clicked it once, and set it on the table. The various surveillance devices embedded throughout the inn, tucked away in corners, including a couple of his own, suddenly had trouble seeing, and even greater trouble hearing, the pair and their immediate surroundings. He took a seat beside her, sipped his scotch, set it back down, then steepled his fingers as he considers his response...

"Bad luck. Kael came to me as part of a curse... I was to be a slave, of sorts, to a local witch, and I think she wanted Kael to rebuild his power through me and lend it to her. Every aspect of the curse has been removed, except for Kael." He pointedly did not mention whether or not Kael remaining with him was his choice.

Sipping her drink she watched all that he did, and how he did it. Eyes on the pen for several seconds, she smiled at him as he considered.

"To speak plainly... what's it to you?" Alain leaned forward then, eyes settled on hers.

Ah, he was most forthcoming. She had not expected that. It perhaps flickered in her eyes, only for a moment. If he was good he may catch it. If he was very good, he may understand it. His question, tossed back at her in fine form and challenge, had her smiling wider. "I can see why he would ride *you*. You have something he always lacked." She nodded slowly and then sipped again. "Together, you two make a more formidable Kael than Kael made by himself." She tapped long fingernails, painted in the French manicure style, against her glass. "I have a need. I am Hunted. I need a refuge and protection."

"Kael says you Fell," he said, and collected his cigar. "God only knows what Hunts you, and if my House can keep it from destroying you... or all of us, for that matter. Why would you come to RhyDin and turn at once to a broken old traitor - a one-time offender at that?"

At his question, she first chuckled, and then laughed, a near belly laugh, though more feminine, one hand holding
her belly. At length, it eased off, and then she shook her head, lifted her drink and finished it off. Those shimmering blues raised to
Alain again. "Kael and I have a ...common....enemy. He knows things about him that will be helpful. I wager they will be. I wager
a lot." The amused look left her eyes and finally there could be seen fear lurking within. She studied her glass, mourning the lack of a drink. Setting it down, she gave an upnod to Alain. "Kael will fool you as long as he can. You should read a book? a certain book." Leaning towards him, she whispered the name of it, so that even powers greater than Alain's mighty pen could not hear.

He was frowning at her laughter, and leaned in to her whisper, and when he heard the name of the book... his eyes widened slowly. The worst of his fears hammered in his heart, and Kael was eerily silent, the silver leaving his eyes in quite a hurry. "Christ... it can't be."

She was sure that if he could be, Kael was most likely cursing her from one direction to another. And that he would bring her harm for ending his little game of Fool Alain. But she had a greater fear than even outting Kael would cause. And Alain might figure that out, once he was done reacting. She risked much in angering Kael, for even a fallen in his position could wreak harm on her. While he thought, and rose up to get another drink.

At some point in going for another drink, she simply stopped being there, a windbone moan and whisper swirling around her taking her out.

Alain pushed his chair back suddenly and his drink away from him - the cigar was abandoned in the ashtray to smoulder out as it would. He turned to speak to the unknown woman... but she was already gone. In another moment so was he, jogging out through the front door.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2009-02-02 12:45 EST
Her name, or the one she chose to go by, was Lix Tetrax. She was once the wrath of a jealous God, a beautiful and treacherous being, beautiful because of her treachery, now Fallen and hunted. Neither Alain nor the ever more firmly bound voice called Kael trusted her, but each knew how profoundly to trust (and exploit) desperate need...

The book was Xaven's Travels of the Agent, and though it never mentioned Kael by name, the author had still divined the travels of Kael after he left Earth, and it became so clear that Kael's betrayal by Hell was neither swift nor simple.

The Agent of Ruin was not the Seeds but merely their Sower; the Seeds fell from the Black Orchard of the Architect, whose designs I will not dare to divine, lest I invite the same ruin to my house that has claimed my colleagues...

The Architect was the great mystery of this tome, buried deep in the archives of Saint Curwel's Abbey; when Alain mentioned that name to the poor monk who kept the library, he paled and became very ill. "The Fall of House Aruss," the monk had said after recovering, "a three-volume set... if you must."

Two of the volumes were missing, with no record of their removal - "Brother Mann must be restoring them," the librarian explained with a smile of grim satisfaction. But through the first volume and the rest of Xaven's account, and finally with Kael's grudging cooperation, Alain pieced together the rest of the story...

The Architect was an ambitious lord among the demons of Hell who had planned an invasion of Heaven that depended on the acquisition of certain relics, a daring move that he felt would place him above Morningstar's lieutenants, and perhaps even above Morningstar himself someday. He contacted Kael, a disenchanted agent of Heaven on Earth, used and insulted by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, and offered him great power and independence from his bonds in return for killing the angel Sharine, who made it her goal to recover the relics that endangered Heaven.

Kael befriended her, seduced her, and struck her down on Earth when he joined her in her search for the relics, but she must have known what was coming, for she led him to a dead end and her brethren recovered the coveted items elsewhere. The Architect's first plan was ruined, but he had another; he could not bring Kael into Hell and risk direct war with Heaven (or Morningstar's potential great ire), and so he gave him Ilthorne's Keys, which enabled him to cross the realms, stay one step ahead of the forces of Heaven, and see to the will of the Architect in many of these realms, bringing ruin through clever magick and betrayal for some unknown greater purpose...

Kael was not, as Alain had thought for so long, a lesser soldier among the Armies of Heaven who simply Fell - he was an Agent of Ruin, whose deeds had claimed thousands of lives.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2009-02-11 14:04 EST
The wisdom of Corwyn and Belial, and the wiles of Kael and Lix, and all the schemes of DCH fell rapidly into place in Alain's young but jaded mind. Any mortal less exposed to preternatura intrigue and the infiltration of angels and demons into seemingly everyday conflicts might have snapped, but even as Alain withstood the barrage, the powerful dangers facing RhyDin became a reality...

He knew of the lesser, more mundane threats that came at the city and the realm as regularly as clockwork, but some optimistic part of him had wrongly assumed that greater beings, at least, understood the value of RhyDin as an intact and 'untainted' neutral ground, a crossroads as fundamental to the good order of the Multiverse as the laws of physics. Now he understood his hopes about the aspirations to be a naivete, invented by his own mind to separate himself from the affairs of Above and Below.

DCH were only three minor demons threatening RhyDin for their own ends - RhyDin seemed a viable means of accessing not only the raw, untapped power of the Nexus, but using RhyDinian centrality and that power to manifest such items of power that might corrupt the realm and break the purity of Heaven itself. For every broken being that made its way into the realm with intent or by accident, there were countless avenues to achieve unimaginable destructive might.

"You lied to me, Kael. The hell should I believe what you've got to say now?" Even as the words left Alain's lips into his empty study, he knew he couldn't stand firmly by them. He would budge because he had to, and his gut instincts told him to, but his pride was wounded, and it enraged him. The ruins of his office were testament enough - a mirror was broken over his desk, his chair was upended and broken, books scattered all over the floor... He was lucky nothing had gone through the windows. It was all on a downward swing now, but the burning in his face reminded him of its simmer.

I was betrayed, boy. When I came to RhyDin, where the Architect may still have designs, I was betrayed, tricked into separating from my power and ambushed by his assassins. For all our differences, we know the same intrigue - you're a lot like I was when still I had a mortal coil... But I know I can help you, and you know I have helped you before.

"The warnings..." Alain shut his eyes.

And the curse! Don't be a fool, Alain! You think you would've thrown off that old witch's power if I hadn't wanted you to? Like hell I'd have her playing us into the hands of demons, hunting for relics she couldn't understand! Think of all the times I could've left you...

"There's more to it, and you know it. Just as you fulfill my needs, I fulfill yours. Without a body to hide in, you're helpless. You're fodder for amateur summoning at best - and at the mercy of the Architect, at worst."

But no longer. Now we can stand against your enemies, and against mine... and Lix, too, stands with us. You know what we need...

"...one more..."

...and think of what we can save. There is one thing I have learned from you, boy, a thing that can work to save us both and those around us... penance. Lilinbane can become a righteous blade once more, and we'll bring down the Agents of Ruin where once I worked for their designs and lift their curses where we can.

"Vengeance would lose us the respect of some of our allies..." The detective's thoughts turned to Corwyn, who seemed so fair-minded...

Their ways would have the likes of Howe walk free for their sins. Can we allow that?

Alain fell silent, conceding the point to Kael. Together, and with the aid they needed, they would fight the tide.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2009-04-20 15:45 EST
?These are ash trees,? Alain said aloud in the meadow. The spring had arrived early in what he liked to call the Dreamwalks, the place Kael first took him to speak of their conjoined fate when Alain sought to shut his voice out; now they came here once a week, sometimes twice, to speak a little and to meditate. Time passed strangely ? six hours of sleep meant sometimes a full day, and when Alain?s soul itself became weary, he would nap within the dream, under the shade of the broad ash by the little spring in the middle of the field. When the dreams first started it had been a sickly old thing, and he could not recall if it was even an ash. It still felt ancient, but more powerful and full of life?

The tree had grown since the Triumvirate formed. Alain squinted through the eerie and pale sunlight until it came into focus behind him, as he himself stood at the edge of the woods. He had been musing over the urge to plunge into them, to lose himself down shaded pathways that begged to become familiar again, and find new meadows and commune with the spirits. He did not regard the wild fancies with skepticism, he knew they were pure, but he knew also his spirit was young, and far from wise about the realms beyond the material. He was not ready, so in the meadow he would remain.

You?re clever, boy, Kael said, and the wildflowers, all paled gold and silver nearly made white with their strange unfocused shimmer, stirred with his cool whisper. The petals tickled his ankles, and Alain slipped his hands into his pockets and strolled towards the spring, enjoying it. Ash trees hold the lives of whole worlds ? some say their roots are veins for the blood of the cosmos. ?These were Sharine?s, once, long ago.

Alain had taken a look up at the strange sky above; the fog had lifted a little each time, and he could see more stars than before, even clusters of them that shone like scattered jewels. That name, though, had him turn his head, but there was no Kael beside him to look for ? just a voice over his shoulder. ?Yggdrasil,? he said, and Kael chuckled.

You had it all along. Yggdrasil? more or less. The Tree of Life to some, though what you see here is neither. Just a symbol? a shadow, at most. Sharine?s sisters, and those who carried on her spirit, called it Yggdrasil when they whispered in the ears of North-Men. Amusement crept into the whisper as he continued, I understand some of your ancestors did, too ? saw all the worlds hanging in the branches of a great tree like so many flowers.

Alain had to smile. It was calm, serene, and a little amused like Kael. He stooped by the water and raked his fingers across the water. ??Lilinbane hasn?t tasted blood in a while. But I should?ve expected that.?

Just the opening skirmishes.

?And now the battle lines are drawn.? He tipped his head to the sky again and wondered? ?I hope we win.?