• With her ability to fly, it made getting to Athlone faster than if she had had to travel by foot or horse. This meant that she made it there just around one thirty in my morning, a four hour flight. Dian was a night owl, so he would still be up, and she knew he would be happy to see her no matter what time it was. She got to his door, and knocked. She saw a light on in the kitchen, near the back, and heard a chair scuffle. A tall man with blood red hair and pointed ears made his way to the door, a look of curiosity on his soft, angular features.

    “Wolfe!” He exclaimed when he opened the door. “My friend, its good to see you again!”

    “Same.” The faerie replied. “I’ve gotten myself into something you might be interested in.”

    “Come in, then.” He said. “I’ll make you something to eat and we can talk about it.”

    ------------------------------

    Wolfe sat in Dian’s kitchen, looking at the papers he had strewn about his table. They were mostly bard’s tales, stories about the truly mythic creatures, and legends about the truly unknown things in the world. Why was Dian reading these things?

    “So, tell me then, Wolfe.” He said, turning from his wood stove and the luluhid pancakes he was cooking. “What is it you’ve gotten yourself into, that you need my help?”

    She smiled, and bade him turn back to the food so it wouldn’t burn. Explaining about the box – Dian mentioned that he remembered how she’d been following it around for about a century and a half now - she told him about Silanis, and how she found and then proceeded to open the box. Wolfe also added in the part about her vision, and how she fell to the floor out of nowhere. She explained the plan Silanis had come up with, and the role she needed Dian to fill, making sure to mention he could leave once they had gotten Silanis on the road.

    “What, and leave a young human girl open and vulnerable to the hardships and cruelties of travelling so close to Cianira’s Bunch over in Meadowvale??” He shook his head. “If I decide to go, I’d be going all in.”

    ““Cianira’s Bunch”? What are you talking about?” The faerie quirked a brow.

    “I used to know Cianira when we were both around a hundred and thirty. That was a little over five hundred and eighty years ago. She was a nice girl, very much into designing projectile weapons. She created what she calls “hand cannons”. They are very dangerous, because they shoot a pointed chunk of lead at a fast velocity. She leaked her design in secret to humans, but on a smaller, less powerful scale. “Let them figure out how to make ‘em bigger.” She said to me when I spoke with her before she did it.

    “I’ve only spoken with her a handful of times in the last five hundred and eighty-two years – the last time was about eight months ago. She was running out of an underground base near the Meadowvale Feyveil Tavern.

    “I think they’re crazy, bunch of anarchists living so close to a human city... I could understand way back when, but these days its just… Stupid. Anyway…

    “They like to… Search for people who could possibly know Zaçic. They interrogate any humans that stray too close. It’s funny, because there are at least two humans in the group.

    “I know there was Vervain, who has a personal vendetta against the wizard, but there’s another named Jahnjyeh, whose motives I don’t know. They would stop you two for sure, especially alone. If I’m there, on the other hand…

    “I’m the only Elve with blood red hair in the last thirteen centuries. They’d know me simply because of that fact. Ci might even help.”

    Wolfe scratched her head a bit and thought. An anarchist group living so near to the Feyveil was certainly an interesting predicament. How had she not heard of that sooner? It hadn’t occurred to her that she was that far out of touch with the rest of her world, which actually made things more difficult. She would need Dian for the long run, and hoped desperately that he would agree to go with her.

    “Look,” Dian started, putting a plate of the pancakes in front of her, “this has been important to you for over a century, right? And it’s tied in directly with the Elders not only in your home, but here in mine as well, so she would have to stop here anyway. That makes my meeting her inevitable, regardless of how you get her out of her own home. I’ll come, I’ll help, and I’ll see what her fate is. Once you learn that, I say we stay here a little longer than you planned while I make a hard choice. I do have a sister to worry about, remember?”

    He most certainly did have a sister, and Wolfe remembered Nuku well. The two never got along, she always thought that Wolfe stole her brothers attention away, and quite frequently said that the faerie would be the death of one or the other of them. She was asleep right now, up two floors in the tree line, her own entrance locked tight. It was a five-story home, the third split in two, with a locked door, and two entrances – one from the ground, and one from the tree line onto a bridge.

    “Okay.” Wolfe replied, sombrely. “That makes sense.”

    “Alright.” He picked up one of his papers and began to read a bit. Wolfe took a bite of the pancakes, he always made such heavenly food, and she was thankful for the Elvish cooking mastery he had picked up from his uncle as a child. But, of course, with a few centuries of practice, almost anyone could become a fantastic cook. All that took was practice, which Wolfe had never once bothered with.

    As he sat there reading the papers in the dim magic light of the kitchen, Wolfe watched the expressionlessness of his beautiful face. What was he reading, she found herself wondering, that he was so unconcerned with everything else around him, even ignoring his own luluhid pancakes. Having never seen him this intent on reading random papers, she shifted uneasily.

    "Um... What are you reading, anyways, Dian?" She asked, and he looked over to her. Shrugging, she looked at him with an expression that read 'what’s so interesting?'

    "You know about the Völva of the ByTalna cliffs, correct?" He responded.

    "The supposed bird-women who live in almost unreachable caves?"

    "Those would be the ones." Dian affirmed. "They are supposed to know the secret of the New Goddess who will bring Zaçic to ruin."

    "No one has ever seen them off hand, you know," Wolfe said, "just stories about friends of friends who met them. Just fairytales, woven by the creatures of fairytales."

    "You, of all creatures, Wolfe, should know that the creatures of fairytales are real, even if they are the fairytales of us "fairytales."" He dropped the page in front of her, pointing to the drawing etched in charcoal on the parchment paper.

    On the parchment was a woman with hair so black it seemed to shine blue, and eyes that looked both amused and deeply sorrowed. There were wings behind her bangs, sticking off of her head, and wings on her back, both magnificent shades that looked almost silver. Her midriff and flat stomach were exposed, as was her cleavage, but there was a long, sectioned metal necklace - or at least she assumed it was a necklace, but with all the sections, it looked as though were she to take it off, her neck would flop over. That probably made her look taller than she was, unless her spine was really that long. The sleeves of her bellytop hung well past her hands, looking like the sleeves of a robe instead, and her skirt came down almost to the bottoms of her boots. Wolfe could see her tail feathers poking out from behind the skirt, too. This was a Völva, she was certain, and from the detail, it looked like the artist had her pose specifically for the occasion. It was unsigned, so whoever did it did not want to be known.

    "On the back it reads as follows:

    "The Völva Priestesses are part bird, part woman, and hold the True Prophesy of the NEW Goddess, and her battles with the False Prophet and Wizard, Zaçic, so-called "Son" of the falsified "One True God."

    "The Völva reside within the ByTalna Mountains, in cave dwellings among a series of cliffs in the center of the mountain range. They each hold loyalty to one other God, but all worship the NEW Goddedss first and foremost.

    "The practices of the Völva are obscure and generally unknown, though are said to involve food, drink, and sexual activity,

    "The existance of the Völva is generally put off as myth, legend, folktale. Most will write them off as a fairytale, though there are always those who will search for them, or claim to have seen them.

    "I have met them, by a chance encounter, on a journey through the mountains to search for certain gemstones found in the region. The Völva are kind, and gentle, and they treat their guests with love and respect at all times. Stumbling upon them is very good luck, as they will take you in and help you.

    "Its signed Heyail Reid." Dian finished, looking to Wolfe. "This man met them, he spoke with, danced with, and slept among these priestesses."

    Wolfe simply stared at her friend, unbelieving that the one who drew and wrote of these creatures was related to the very girl who had found and opened the box. Unable to think clearly or even to speak, she sat there staring at the page after a while, and trying to put this together.

    "Are you okay?" Trying to get a feel for what kind of reaction this would turn into, he bent to try and look into her eyes. She looked back to him, a look of utter disbelief on her face.

    “I know now how Silanis must have felt when I told her everything she thought to be a fantasy was real.” In her foolish pride, she had assumed she knew it all, but she really only knew a fraction of what she had thought. If the Völva were real, then perhaps there was some truth to their prophecy. “But it opens up interesting theories in regards to their new goddess.”

    “I’ve found myself more and more interested in them as time goes on.” Dian looked at the drawing. “I want to find them.

    Wolfe sighed. “Look, you probably slept all day, so you’re good to drive, right? I want to be there in the morning when Silanis wakes up. I wouldn’t want her to think I’d forgotten her.”

    Dian nodded and gathered up his papers. “I’ll have the carriage reading in about half an hour.” He walked away to get some things together for the journey, and Wolfe finished her pancakes, though they had gotten a little cold by now.

    She contemplated the idea of a new goddess, thinking of ways it could be beneficial. She looked through all the pages, and there were several more drawings of other things, a good chunk signed by Heyail Reid with various dates and years.