Lillene

Enjoy!

“Then that dream is because of you? That makes some sense, though I don’t know why the Dreaming Tree reached for that one.” Elder Jinsa sounded puzzled but contemplative. “Its visions are always relevant to the present situation though how isn’t always obvious. Perhaps simply because the Mimir are involved, but why did it look into a future that isn’t going to happen?”

“That’s probably the future Serenity prevented when he saved my life and shifted time.” Rissa was quick off the mark with her answer, which reassured Serenity. The fact that she remembered to use the word “probably” as if it wasn’t obvious helped.

“Oh, of course. The Dreaming Tree is probably looking at you, and if that’s when your shift in time,” Elder Jinsa nodded at Serenity, “runs into the Mimir … yes, it all makes sense. It doesn’t help, but at least the links make sense for the second Dream.”

“What about the first one?” Serenity thought it was distinctly interesting to see a long-ago Althyr worried about politics and espionage that affected an organization, probably Order’s Council, but nothing in the conversation seemed to have anything to do with anything.

Elder Jinsa shrugged. “I’m not sure. Visions of the past are always of moments that are somehow related, but I’m often unable to tell how.”

Serenity wondered why she was so confident they were always related if she couldn’t say what the connections were, but he decided not to poke that particular bear. He’d just keep the question in mind as they moved forward.

Rissa nodded sharply and blatantly focused her attention on Elder Jinsa. Serenity took that as a cue to shut up and let the experts talk for a bit; she’d answer his questions later. It was probably her way of telling him not to ask questions he didn’t want answers to. “Your Dreaming Tree does not know how to direct and limit its visions, does it?” 

“Direct and limit the visions? Do you mean Dreams? They come as they come; they’re always related to the questions the Dreaming Tree is trying to answer, but that’s the only direction possible.”Elder Jinsa sounded completely confident.

Rissa clearly disagreed. She didn’t even have to say anything for Serenity to know that; it was obvious in her frown and in the way she held her shoulders. “No, you can choose more than that. There are a lot of different ways to affect what visions you’ll see. I prefer skimming and warping possibilities, but there are a lot of other options.” 

Elder Jinsa looked confused.

Reality rippled around the three of them and flowers began to fall from above. They had no obvious source; they simply fell like snow. Oddly, they disappeared soon after they reached the ground.

“Are you certain?” Elder Jinsa turned to one of the tree trunks, the one that supported the branch the three of them stood on. “I know you invited them, but was that why?”

Serenity didn’t hear anything, but it was clear that Rissa did, because she jumped at the same moment Elder Jinsa did. Serenity didn’t think she’d heard anything before, but apparently the Dreaming Tree could be loud when it chose.

“Yes, I can teach you. Only a little, though; it’s not easy to learn and even a single technique will probably take you months.” Rissa paused and winced again. “No, I’m not insulting you. That’s how long they each took me. Some of them took years. Normally I’d start with control, but direction seems like a better choice for your situation.”

Serenity wanted to tell her to start with teaching the tree to moderate its voice, since it clearly hurt to hear, but he had to trust Rissa to know what she was doing. He wasn’t much help here; this just wasn’t his area.

He wanted to ask why he was here, but truthfully he knew the reason and it wasn’t the possible identification of him as the “Eyes that Shifted Time.” No, it was more routine than that: Rissa wanted his protection in case the Mimir sent someone else after her. He could easily deal with another Valkyrie. She couldn’t. The fact that he felt like a fifth wheel simply meant nothing had gone wrong yet.

He kept an eye on his surroundings and listened as Rissa explained the difference between a localized reach in space as opposed to time and contrasted both with skimming, which followed an idea-thread. He didn’t really follow the explanations beyond the basics, but he picked up enough to know that what they’d done on Lyka was technically a variant of possibility warping. They’d examined several possible futures and used that information to inform their actions outside the Timestream instead of inside it.

The Dreaming Tree seemed to want to try skimming. Rissa repeatedly stated that it wouldn’t do much good without months of practice, but the very fact that she kept repeating that told Serenity that the Dreaming Tree didn’t want to listen. He didn’t think he’d ever skimmed before; it might be interesting.

The trees faded away like a dream.

What faded back in was a scene from the life of a child. A young female dryad, if Serenity’s guess was right. It lasted only a few seconds, but that was still long enough to see that she was following an older brother around. Time skidded forward, showing different scenes with the same girl and boy, all similar. In each, he was annoyed with her presence, but he never sent her away or yelled at her; when one of his friends told her to go away, he told his sister she was welcome to watch.

Suddenly, the older brother was older; the young girl seemed to be the age the brother had been before. She still followed, but the distance was larger. She wasn’t the only one following, either; she had a small group of friends that all seemed happy to follow the now slightly smaller crowd of the brother’s friends around. 

After a number of similar scenes from that year, the vision shifted to a crying girl, clearly several years older than the previous versions of her. That didn’t last long; in the next instant, she was playing some sort of card game with her friends. Her brother was nowhere to be seen.

The visions skipped quickly through the next few years as the girl grew into a young adult. She was obviously in her mid to late teens when the next major change happened: her brother’s wedding. After that, he was around again but things were different. She no longer followed him around as she had as a child; instead, their interactions seemed to all come over meals.

There was no satisfying conclusion to the vision sequence; instead, the green and brown of the tree-filled expanse that stood in for the Timestream for the Dreaming Tree faded back into sight.

“Yes, that was skimming. Did it tell you anything? Why are those scenes relevant? What triggered them? That’s why you can’t just jump into skimming. It doesn’t tell you anything without knowing how to direct it.” 

“No no no. Why did you have to look at that? I never talk to anyone about that. I did not follow my brother around like a puppy!”

Serenity listened to Rissa explain the tree’s failings to it. She was nowhere near done when Elder Jinsa’s mutters became obvious. It seemed that the Dreaming Tree had skimmed through part of the elder’s childhood and she wasn’t happy about it.

Serenity had to grin at that. Unlike the other dryad leaders, Serenity wasn’t upset with Elder Jinsa. It was still funny to see her so bothered by a normal part of childhood. At least, he assumed it was normal; he’d been an only child, so he could only guess based on shows he’d seen. 

The Dreaming Tree was stubborn. They spent the next several hours winding their way through skimmed sequences in the past and future. None of them seemed to have any more relevance than Elder Jinsa’s childhood, but the Dreaming Tree didn’t seem to want to try a different method.

One skimmed sequence did stand out, a shortened version of Serenity’s original trip to the Necropolis. It included both the fight against the necromancer and the fight against former City Lord Stojan Aith. Elder Jinsa seemed impressed by it. Serenity had always thought of it as a simple battle he won more by trickery and luck than skill, but he had to admit that the lucky break he’d needed, being completely immune to Death magic, seemed far less obviously necessary from the outside. It looked less like a desperate improvisation and more like a deliberate plan. 

Eventually, the argument between Rissa and the Dreaming Tree escalated to the point where Rissa told the Dreaming Tree to relax; she’d show it how skimming was properly done, with one simple question: Where is the mother?

Serenity wouldn’t have predicted that outcome, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. If there was one place Rissa was sensitive, it was her skill with foresight. Challenging her to do a better job was an excellent way to get her to try.

The trees faded out again. This time, they faded into darkness. It was like the emptiness of space yet it wasn’t nothingness. It was presence and absence at the same time, responsive to the thoughts of anyone in it. 

Serenity recognized the place immediately, even though he wasn’t pushed into his Sovereign form this time. It was the space beyond his Rift, the Origin. 

It wasn’t a good place for most people. Serenity immediately looked for Rissa; he’d never brought her to the Origin and he didn’t know how she’d react.

Rissa looked around in wonder with a slight smile on her face. Why had he worried about her? He should have known better. One of the major threads in her Path was accompanying him; he’d known she had a Skill that protected her against areas with high concentrations of Death. She probably had one to help her with this, as well.

Elder Jinsa, on the other hand, wasn’t handling it well. She’d buried her face in her hands and seemed to be silently screaming. 

The Dreaming Tree wasn’t much better off. It couldn’t move, but Serenity could see where the Potential that normally filled the Origin had drawn a little ways away from it. It had to be using a defensive Skill of some sort, probably a powerful shield skill. While most shields wouldn’t block Potential, stationary beings often had unusually powerful or comprehensive shields, probably because those that didn’t develop that way died. The Dreaming Tree’s seemed unusually comprehensive but that was probably reasonable for a tree that used visions to travel across the universe.

Serenity moved to protect Elder Jinsa. Since this was only a vision instead of reality, it might not hurt her, but the chance was enough; she needed to be protected.

Moments after he went to the elder dryad’s aid, the scene shifted from the Origin to a point somewhere in space. Elder Jinsa uncovered her eyes and looked around. She seemed surprised by Serenity’s presence, but when she tried to say something, she didn’t make any noise.

Of course she didn’t; there was no sound without something for it to travel in and they were in space.

That thought was immediately shown to be incomplete by words that came from nowhere and yet were clearly said by something nearby. Something or perhaps someone. The voice was familiar.

“We can’t stop here. Ships have to keep moving.” Serenity wasn’t sure whose voice that was, only that he’d heard it before.

“We are moving. We can still survey the area. Be silent or leave the bridge.” The second voice was immediately recognizable as Baxter.

Lillene

No, I didn’t have any plans for Serenity’s birthday present when Rissa showed up with it.

And if you believe that, there’s this nice bridge for sale…