Lillene

Enjoy!

Rissa knelt down so that she could touch the false ground. This was someone else’s visualization of the Timestream, yet it was clearly incomplete and uncontrolled. It was almost amazing that the Dreaming Tree and Elder Jinsa could make out anything at all from the flashes; surely it had to be at least slightly controllable or they wouldn’t get anything.

She was certain hers had been as incoherent as a young child, before her mother taught her how to slide between the flashes of an inalterable future to find the bits she wanted and make them real. Once the curse was broken, it turned out that that wasn’t actually what she was doing, yet the skills her mother taught her stood her in good stead. They were certainly far better than these flashes that were nearly impossible to localize.

“Shh. Calm down,” Elder Jinsa told the Dreaming Tree. Her voice echoed over all the different fragments of the future. Rissa could feel her in the distance, but couldn’t see her. “You asked for the Eyes that Shifted Time to come Dream with you. I know you aren’t used to them, but they’re here because you asked for them.”

Rissa couldn’t make out what the Dreaming Tree said in response, but she didn’t doubt that there was a reply. The snippets of the past and future that whirled around her became both longer and less frantic, though they didn’t seem to fit together any better than they had before. That was a change she recognized; trying to reach out into the Timestream when you were upset or angry resulted in incomplete fragments that usually weren’t very useful, if you could even get there at all. It was part of the reason Phoebe had taught her daughter to accept what came, even if she didn’t like it.

Of course, another big piece of that was the curse. Rissa still wasn’t over just how much of her life had been influenced, damaged, by Apollyon’s curse on her family. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get over it. She knew she needed to, though; holding onto a grudge against a dead demon literally only harmed herself and those she cared for.

Including her mother. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that she hadn’t been able to see past the curse.

“Shh. Calmly. Yes, there are two of them. They weren’t clear about why both came, but they have both been to the Timestream before, together. They have shifted the course of the future, as you said they had; they were found just where you saw them.” Elder Jinsa paused and seemed to hear something, because she chuckled softly. “No, I don’t know if they were listening to stories of past adventures when they were found. Does it matter?”

Rissa grinned at that. “If it matters, we were. Serenity’s father and great-grandfather were quite the travelers when Serenity’s father was a child.”

“There, you see?” Elder Jinsa’s voice was soothing. “It’s just like you saw. Everything and everyone is where they belong. Nothing’s changed and sent everything sideways again.”

Rissa blinked at that and patted the “ground” that was truly the Dreaming Tree’s visualization of the Timestream. She hoped it would be reassuring, but unless the Dreaming Tree was an empath, it probably wouldn’t be able to tell what she meant. Was that why the Dreaming Tree had Elder Jinsa send such an incomprehensible message to Elder Omprek? Was it scared when things changed unexpectedly?

That would explain a lot. She would have expected such a large tree to be more relaxed; surely it had seen the years come and go. Things changed; that was simply the way of things.

Could it be that it had never had a change that it hadn’t seen as a possibility before? With Serenity around, that sort of change was not only possible but likely; the butterfly effect might not be true most of the time, but Serenity definitely seemed to be the butterfly that made things happen. Rissa wanted to say she loved him for it, but a lot of the time the truth was that she loved him despite his tendency to upend everything.

“What do you mean you don’t know how to take the next step? You’re the one who had me invite them! Isn’t it just like working with me?” Elder Jinsa’s voice sounded just as surprised as her words. “Ah, you two, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your names. Can you reach out to the Dreaming Tree? It says you’re blocking it, staying separate and it doesn’t know how to deal with that.”

“I’ll handle it.” Rissa had expected the Dreaming Tree to take the central position. If she’d known the Dreaming Tree was clueless, she’d have established a time-link to begin with. Most of her practice was as the junior member, but Phoebe had made certain her daughter knew everything she did, and being able to time-link was important both for training another Oracle and for taking a Guardian into the Timestream. She already had a minor link with Serenity, so she extended one to the Dreaming Tree.

The Dreaming Tree accepted the link almost immediately. As it did, it pulled at the Timestream like it wanted to show her something. This time, Rissa could feel an emotion; it wasn’t from the Dreaming Tree but from Elder Jinsa. She was upset.

As it did, the chaotic Timestream fell away from Rissa. The past sucked at Rissa and she let it pull her in. 

It was clear that the Dreaming Tree didn’t know how to relax and just let visions wash over it, much less how to gently guide them; it grabbed for them instead, trying to force something to happen. In this case, it should have relaxed and allowed Rissa to guide it, but it didn’t know how to do that. Teaching it was going to take a while, but the basics might not take that long. It had so much to learn that even a little would make a large difference.

“It’s almost ready.” A creature that looked like a koala bear spoke to a small dragon, or perhaps the dragon was the normal size and the koala bear was gigantic. Rissa couldn’t tell which, but they seemed similar in height.

“I know.” As the dragon spoke, their surroundings became clear. The two of them floated in an open space; a few feet above a metal walkway that peeked over an abyss next to a multicolored glowing crystal. The crystal extended out of her vision on all sides. It dominated and nearly filled the space; the walkway was barely wide enough for the two figures. Behind them, the wall was broken stone. It would have glowed with heat if she were there. It seemed like it was a very unpleasant place. “It’s hard to believe we’re only a few years from being able to assist both spellcasting and advancement. Artificial Skill aids will be a thing of the past, and-”

The koala put up a hand. “Spare me the lecture, Althyr. I’ve heard it far too many times. The Council as a whole accepted your proposal and even accepted performing it using Tranquility’s Core. I’ve made my objections and had my questions answered. It’s too late to back out now. That’s not why we’re here.”

“Then why are we here?” Althyr’s head swung towards the koala instead of watching the shimmering patterns in the crystal.

The koala sighed. “Because no one can overhear us here. Well, no one other than Death, and Death does not care about what we say. It can’t.”

As the koala spoke, a dark figure seemed to become obvious behind them. It floated near the crystal, probably touching it. It had been there the whole time but until the koala mentioned Death, it was simply a darkness in the vision. Now that Death had been mentioned, it was clear that that was who or what floated there, apparently inactive.

“We don’t need to worry about Death,” Althyr agreed. “It knows a great deal but never speaks of it. What could you possibly need to tell me that you must keep from the rest of the Council?”

“Information, supplies, people, and even locations have been disappearing. Some of that is normal, but this is not normal. I can’t separate it from the usual mistakes and minor featherbedding, but the rate has doubled over the last century. I feel a pattern but I can’t find it. Worse, a number of the people I’ve sent to find the missing resources disappear themselves. Some turn up dead later, but most are simply gone. I thought I was making progress, that it would turn out to be the sort of slippage that happens when a big project takes all of the attention, except.” The koala stopped short. He didn’t seem to want to say whatever came next.

“Except?” Althyr yanked on the word the koala left dangling.

The koala sighed. “Except that one of the people who disappeared managed to get a message out before he vanished. It took a couple of years to reach me; he was a long way out from Tranquility, and don’t start on how your new assistant will speed up travel through the extensive use of planetary portals. I’m not certain it will be as useful as you think it will but it’s not in place yet so it’s not relevant.”

Rissa saw Althyr’s mouth close as the koala called him out on what he must have intended to say next.

The koala gave a short nod once it was clear Althyr wasn’t going to say anything. “There was a lot of other stuff, mostly to get it to me and make it clear who the message was from and that it wasn’t tampered with at all, but the core of the message was short: the stars have eyes.”

“Of course they do, but most voidborn don’t like being called stars, even the ones who make their own light.” Althyr sounded disapproving.

The koala sighed ostentatiously. “And what makes you think it’s about voidborn? It isn’t. The stars are people with power who shine brightly in their area. In this case, most likely councilors. More than one. As for having eyes, it means they’ve planted people in my own staff somewhere. That explains far too much but it also makes it very difficult to track down …”

The vision seemed to glitch; half of it turned sideways and seemed to scrunch together then shoot off into the distance as the koala sounded like he was talking underwater. Rissa wasn’t certain if anything about the vision was important; if something was, there was a decent chance they hadn’t gotten to it yet. She hadn’t heard anything that sounded relevant to the prophecy the Dreaming Tree was worried about, after all. 

Whether the vision was useful or not, it was clearly over. Rissa tried to tell the Dreaming Tree to relax, that she’d help guide it to what it wanted, but it didn’t listen. Instead, it grabbed for another vision. This one felt like the future, but it was a stunted future that would never come to be, a future that could have followed the past they’d seen but which didn’t match up with the past of reality.

There was a moment where Rissa could have taken control; that was the advantage of being in the central position in a time-link. She decided not to, not yet; the last thing she wanted to do was panic the Dreaming Tree and it seemed to panic all too easily.

Lillene

Rissa will likely have a heavier hand with her own children when they’re first learning about the Timestream, at least if any of them inherit her ability to reach it. Of course, they’ll likely already trust her to guide them, which will help a great deal.