Amber - 2 (An Order of Amber)

After some of the comments on Amber - 1 on Spacebattles I realised I was missing something from the Tal'Doren trip and added an additional scene, it's the final one of the chapter. 

No other changes beyond some grammar checking and minor structure edits to the previous parts.

Sorry about this, but it adds some actual purpose to the Tal'Doren trip that had been missing before.

CTRL+F 'Rachel' for start of new segment.

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"How are Robin and Rosaline doing?" I asked Celestine after we retired to her tent for the evening. I somewhat regretted not bringing my own, but at the same time, there was only so much space in my bags.

Magically expanded or not, they were limited in size.

"Robin is well, though he spends much of his time helping Thomas deal with Donna. She hasn't taken well to her pregnancy." Celestine said with a fond smile on her face. "The boy will likely inherit the farm since I am unlikely to have another child..." She sighed, sending a tired loot in my direction. "I don't know how you bullied that mage into coming and providing testing and lessons for her, but she has been ecstatic since."

Demanding Jonas, that twit of a mage, into doing me the favour of testing Rosaline for magic may not have been the right choice of reparations, but it was one that helped my family. I didn't need money, I didn't wantrelations between Gilneas and Dalaran to worsen, so with that minor thing... I let him go. Pretended it had never happened.

Godfrey, on the other hand, hadn't gotten off as easily; even if his punishment hadn't been as heavy as Darius would've wanted it to be. He lost control over the gate, lost landto Crowley so that his people didn't need to cross borders to move around within his own holdings, and was publicly reprimanded. But not for his actions in pulling soldiers from the wall to storm a fellow duke's home, no, for listening to foreigners.

It was something of a farce, based on what I'd heard from Lorna.

"Well, how did it go?" I leaned forward, careful not to wake Emma who had fallen asleep on my lap telling me all about her own journey here earlier. It had been her first time leaving the farm, at least for more than a day or two.

"She has the talent," Celestine said, closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Without me knowing she had dug up all of your old lessons for Emma, the numbers, writing, and all and taken the time to learn them. Not prodigiouslike some," She said squinting at me before shaking her head. "But she has enough of a head for them that Jonas offered to sponsor her for Dalaran. He had a number of questions about you as well."

"I assume you didn't accept." I hadn't told Celestine everything, just the things that could be verified to provide credibility when they happened. And where it was too dangerous to travel. Dalaran being one of them.

"Of course not." She scoffed, shaking her head at me. "I would not even if you hadn'tsaid what you did, my daughter that far from home? Before she's ten? No. Of course, now I have to find her anotherteacher for Arcane Magic somehow. Or else she'll sulk us all to death."

Emma murmured softly in her sleep and I resumed running my hand through her hair, lulling her deeper. She needed to rest well for tomorrow.

"I'll ask Lord Darius. I don't know if Lady Spellwaker is taking apprentices, but her daughter might consider it." Myriam Spellwaker, a woman a little older than Lorna. Just barely in her twenties but as far as I knew one of the better mages who considered Gilneas home. "They live in the capital, so still a distance but not as far."

Celestine mulled it over for a moment. "I'll have to meet them." She said. "What of your own apprentice? This Twix?"

"Trix." I corrected, a smile tugging at my lips. I'd misspokenthe first time I used the nickname, but she reacted so wonderfully I had to keep doing it. "She is doing well, the others are unlikely to amount to much but I will likely bring her here in a few years." Richard also showed some promise but I got the feeling Heather wanted to take him on. He picked up reading the weather exceptionally quick, and my elemental friend seemed to like him; if not as much as it liked Vivi."Though events might get in the way." I finished sadly.

There couldn't be that much time left. Two years, three at most, and while I had won Crowley's respect I didn't know if he trusted me enough yet.

If the predictions I had given him came to pass, the Orcs stealing the Southshore Fleet, the Plague appearing in Lordaeron, and the Culling of Stratholm, I was sure he would be willing to listen. At least enough that I could send information to Jaina Proudmoore as she fled west, across the Great Sea to Kalimdor. Enough, maybe, to make a difference.

I had decided I wasn't going. The Third War would be won, my contributions there wouldn't turn the tide, I hadto believe it could be won. But there would always be the nextcalamity. The Alliance needed Gilneas, and Gilneas needed the Alliance; I couldn't let my home remain isolated until the Worgen ate us alive from the inside out.

"You didn't learn these things from your visions the last time you were here," Celestine said.

My eyes snapped up to meet hers, her dark eyes watching me carefully. But there wasn't distrust there.

"True," I said softly. "Does it make a difference?"

There was a long pause, the silence dragging on. I had known Celestine for a long, long time. I hadn't lied to her, I hadn't spun tales to try and convince her, merely stated what I knew would come to pass.

I trusted that she would believe me. Yet, memories of Modera's dismissal, of Goldensword's disbelief, of Calebren's scepticism... my hand trembled even as I brushed through Emma's hair.

"You were never a normal child." Celestine eventually said, her tone even and cautious. "Always with knowledge you didn't have the means to learn, ideas that sprang fully formed, and that hasn't changed. I do not know how you know what you do, but I trust that you do know it. Even if the shape of your fear is wrong... something is coming."

Her hand rested on my shoulder. "When you are ready to tell me all of it, I will listen. As the Speaker of Ravens."

Slowly, cautiously, as if moving too swiftly might shatter the trust she had offered, I nodded. "Thank you."

-oOoOo-

That night, I Dreamt. Once again I wandered the glade at the heart of the Blackwald, beneath the boughs of the Great Tree, but in a place that was so similar and yet so different from what I slept beneath. Things remained hazy and indistinct in places, fuzzing as my perception failed to account for what I was seeing, my position seemingly changing without my knowledge as I slipped in and out of wakefulness.

I was, when it came down to it, dreaming. A lucid dream where I pushed myself into a realm I didn't truly understand but still just a dream. I had no true dream gate, nor an enchanted barrow to draw me in fully; even what I had built in my own grove was a pathetic imitation of what Cenarius' students used.  For all I had made progress I hadn't rebuilt the teachings of Cenarius from base principles in a few short years.

Knowing what was possible allowed one to venture forward confidently, but that didn't stop baffling mysteries from being baffling.

One moment I was walking along the edge of the clearing, following a trail through the grasses worn down by the passage of thousands of animals. The next I was scrambling over the roots of the Great Tree, Daral'nir, to reach the stone door I had found my last time here.

The transition was seamless, my mind rebelling at the thought I hadn't moved between the two places despite knowingI had not. I had been there, I was now here, and that was a fact. Even if I hadn't passed in the space between those two points.

I held tightly to the roots. I needed to be more careful, becoming lost here without knowing the way back... I didn't know what would happen. Even if I was toleratedhere in the Blackwald, waking or dreaming, it was not the welcoming embrace of my own carefully tended garden.

There were no differences from the last time I had seen it, the stone seal still weathered with age. Though now I could at least place the writing on the door. Not read nor understand, but the characters bore a clear resemblance to Thalassian. It wasn't a surprise, I knew the origins of the prison already, but there was a thought that I could take note of them and bring them away to be translated by some scholar.

But there was hardly a reason to do so.

"Here sleep the Druids of the Pack, those both blessed and cursed by Goldrinn and the Scythe of Elune," I muttered, brushing a hand against the weathered stone. Feeling the warmth, the comforting lullaby, the silent song calling all who heart it to sleep emanating from within. "Until some fool wakes the beasts from their slumber."

For all I had honed my senses over the years I had no real frame of reference for what I was seeing. It had been a fleeting dream, before I understood that what I saw and felt was magic, that I had last visited this place. And yet...

And yet there was a sense of something lurking. A hollow space where part of the magic should have been.

Deep underneath the surface, something hadchanged.

Arugal had presented the Worgen to Genn as a solution, having studied Ur's works on shadow magic. His study that lead to the discovery of the Worgen, and their strength, then thought them controllable. For all I knew they would be a bane that would threaten to break Gilneas in their own right I didn't see a path to stop them, and often wondered that even if I didwhether I should.

The Worgen were survivable. The Scourge, should they break the Wall, were not. A choice between two monsters.

"All curses can be broken," I said to myself, though honestly, I was less than certain it was the truth. At the very least a Worgen could regain their mind, maintain control of themselves; they were not slavesto the curse or those who turned them.

Unlike those raised by the Scourge.

Even if some would break free and become Forsaken in the end that would be years of mindless servitude. No, for better or worse the Worgen were the lesserevil.

I backed away from the seal, part of me had hoped some guardian was watching over this place. Listening and observing so as to warn its creators if things went awry. It would have been an excellent way to send word to Malfurion, to Tyrande, of what was coming before it did. But there was no such thing; it was sad that it didn't surprise me they had sealed away a danger like the Worgen, ostensibly so they could master their madness while asleepsomehow, and then forgot about them for ten thousand years.

Malfurion was an immensely powerful Druid, a hero and protector of Azeroth of the highest order, but frankly, his decision-making was suspect at times.

A prison left without a prison guard. The only beings here were the Ravens in the trees, who watched over everything in the forest in the Dream as well as the waking world, and other Dreaming animals that lived out sporadic moments here and there before waking. A rabbit binkying under the moonlight, a deer grazing peacefully on succulent grasses, a family of wolves chasing each other around in circles.

And a shimmering little fox peering at me from around the roots of Daral'nir. The only animal that had paid me any heed.

"Hi," I said, crouching down as I recognised the little one who'd stolen one of my stars.

It slowly crept forward, sniffing at my outstretched hand. Then nuzzling into it gently and letting out a demanding yip. Obligingly I started scratching at its ears, shifting to take a seat against the trees.

"You're more real here than the others." Far, far more. It likely had more substance here in the Dream than I did. It crawled into my lap, nipping at my hands to get me to resume my petting.

The weather shifted, from a brisk winter night to a warm summer evening. Somehow.

I didn't understand the Dream. I might know what it was, or at least what it had been made to be, but that didn't mean I understood it. I couldn't even be sure what I knew about it was correct; Freya had shaped the Dream, turning it into a blueprint for how Azeroth would be had sapient life not interfered. No buildings, no cities, no Titan forges, pure Life as Azeroth would naturally have been.

And yet, as I knew from the Seal, that was not wholly true. There wereartificial constructs here, brought in by those meant to supervise the place.

Even that, flawed as it was, didn't tell me what the dream was beforethat. Where it had come from. Was it the Dream of Azeroth, the sleeping World soul? Or was it a universal plane like the Twisting Nether or the Shadowlands?

There wasn't a way for me to find out. Not now and alone, at least. Perhaps if I lived to see Ulduar I might find the answer.

Slowly I felt myself growing tired. I was asleep, but it was a waking sleep. The sun would rise soon enough and then there would be much to do before the ceremony.

"Good night, little fox," I said, rubbing its snout one last time before I allowed myself to fall into a true slumber.

-oOoOo-

"Who here stand for those who seek to join us?" Old Grims croaked, once more wearing the Raven mask as she led the rite of initiation. "Who here believes these children are worthy to join our coven? Who here thinks they are ready to bear the knowledge of the Wardens of Old?"

I stood beside Heather in the crowd of Witches, all of us arranged in groups and factions according to small-town politics that I, honestly, didn't have time for. For all, I was the strongest here in terms of magic that meant little. Age, connections, friendships, and favours traded; I had little of that. And nor did I have the years in which to gain them. So, I stood by my friend because she was my friend, because I trusted her.

Celestine stepped forward with Emma, leaving her standing very nearly where the heart of the fire had been this morning. "I stand for my kin and child." She said, her voice steady and even. "She is mine and has lived in our ways since before she could walk. She is young yet, but talent cannot be denied lest it grow unattended. She is ready to learn more."

Emma glanced around, the centre of attention, and fidgeted nervously. I shot her a reassuring smile, but as her eyes locked with mine for a moment fear and worry seemed to rush through her.

It was easy to tell what was running through her mind. Celestine might be sure she was ready, capable enough to be inducted alongside any other apprentice, and I remembered from my own time with her that she was decent enough even four years ago. Not quite enough to compare to my Twix after two years of teaching, but it wasn't as if she had stood still since then. She more than deserved to be here. But that didn't matter.

The one she was comparing herself to was me.

For all that I felt a glimmer of pride that she looked to me as someone to aspire toward, far stronger was the feeling of guilt that I had cast such a large shadow for her to languish in. She didn't have my advantages, and likely would never catch up.

I had come to terms with the fact that while I wasn't a walking demigod like some of Azeroth's heroes I was by no means normaleither.

"Do any deny these claims?" Do any dispute them?" Old Grims asked after the girls had been announced. Only one other apprentice in attendance. Jens, the other girl from my own initiation wasn't here either.

It was hard to tell if there were more or fewer of us than last time.

"We're too few," I murmured softly to Heather.

Even with my efforts to expand our numbers, teaching those I found who had any talent at all, we were too few. Too weak. Some of my thoughts of turning our order of Witches, our Life magic, into developing a cure or preventative for the Plague of Undeath seemed even more of a dream seeing our sorry state once more.

Something needed to be done about it, and I could make a start at trying here.

"I know." She whispered back.

The clouds parted again, and once more the Blue Child hung in the sky behind the branches of Tal'Doren, its light streaming through the leafless canopy and down onto us all. I basked in the ethereal light, breathing in the charged air. Modera had taught me to call on the Stars, not the Moons, but that didn't mean I ignored them.

But for all my efforts in trying to reach Elune, even going so far as prayingto the Lunar Goddess, it amounted to nothing. And in all the past times I had reached out to the Blue Child it had felt shy...

Here and now, resonating with the power of Tal'Doren, and also that of Daral'nir that I had felt in my Dream last night, the light of the Blue Child felt like a comforting blanket. The embrace of a friend after a long time apart.

"Auspicious," Joseline said, a susurration running through the others as they echoed her sentiment.

"It happened during mine as well."

Joseline nodded. "My daughter's. Perhaps it is Celestine?"

I wasn't so sure, Celestine came every year. But even if there was a vague sense it was here for me with just two occurrences I couldn't let myself read into it too much.

Emma seemed transfixed as she stared through the branches at the moon, the presence of the Crowned King of the Blackwald looming larger and larger as it drank in the light.

"One who puts her child forth has an apprentice still." Meredith protested loudly, answering Old Grim's question almost as she was about to continue the rite.

A deathly quiet fell over all as Old Grims whirled on her, and all the birds in the trees above croaked their disapproval.

Meredith wasn't cowed. "It is our way. One teacher, one apprentice."

Celestine laughed, but it wasn't her who answered.

"Tabitha the Green Hand, Joice Treesinger, Lady Stormweaver, Aderic the Wolf's Blood." A woman said mockingly. "Famous teachers all, who tutored a dozen apprentices at a time. Who sheltered the children of those stolen from us by Inquisition."

Old Grims simply chuckled. "Candice Grimsby, teacher of Irwen and Celestine both. Two apprentices at once. It is customto take but one, for few can teach so well as to lead forward more than one..." She turned an eye to me, strangely piercing through the slits of the raven mask, but I stood resolute. I was notneglecting them, for all I favoured Trix the others learned from me as much as they wished to and were able. "But those with the will and skill to do so have done so. Time and again."

She cut a hand through the air, the ravens croaking with laughter once more. "And the matter was settled. Celestine has no apprentice, we have a sister full. Hold your silence, Meredith."

Tal'Doren loomed impatiently and Meredith shrank back, bowing her head with clear frustration on her face.

"Serves her right," Joseline muttered, and I nodded even though it wasn't meant for my ears.

"Any others?" Old Grims demanded irritably. "No? Then... let them be judged."

Much as I had been, she poked and prodded at Emma, eliciting a muffled squawk of pain as she pulled on her ear. When the fire crackled to life, burning nought but embers and ash I felt it burn away the words that passed between Celestine and Emma, denying them to our ears. They weren't for usto hear.

While the other witches returned to their talk, their gossip and bets on how long Emma might last, I watched the flow of magic. The energy coursed from the ground into the fire, through the runes laid on my cousin's skin, and into her body. The visions she would see. For a moment I saw a way to interject, to interfere and witness them myself. It would have been a minor adjustment to how I had shared my vision of Dalaran with Heather when I first visited her on my return.

To share a vision and memory with another.

I snorted in amusement to realise that I had recreatedthis ritual in part in making that, only with myself as the provider and not Tal'Doren.

Though I knew that if I did interrupt, even if I was capable, it would like as not end badly for me.

Soon Emma was finished, shaking and crying with snot dripping from her nose as she clung to her mother. Her eyes were wide with awe even as tears filled them.

"Today we have a new sister!" Old Grims raised her hands into the air, though her arms did not stretch above her head anymore. "Though it will take time to learn and time to trust, she is kin now and until the end of her days. Let none deny her place; Celestine, bring her into the fold."

Celestine was beaming as she lead her daughter over to me, sheltering her in her cloak as she had done me.

"Well done, Emma," I said, smiling as I took her hand. "Well done, sister."

She smiled up at me tiredly, pride bubbling up through her exhaustion.

It was the small things, the little things, that made me dream of changing the future. I wanted a Gilneas that didn't fall, one where Emma didn't lose her home, wasn't hunted by Worgen, wouldn't be threatened by the Forsaken. One where she wouldn't have to flee to live her life in a tree in a far-off land so unlike home.

One where I could be sure she, and all the other children like her, had a chance to live.

I might have failed to stop the Third War before it began. But things would be different.

-oOoOo-

"What's it like, working for a lord?" Rachel asked. "I know you answered when we first talked but, well," She waved a hand in the air. "I know what it's like, all that blathering an' asking'. Weren't no proper answers."

It was the morning after the apprentices' induction, and Heather and I were aside with most of the younger Witches. There were clear groups and divisions amongst us, little covens and coteries, and this was the 'young' one. Though Joseline sat with us beside her daughter and the apprentices were elsewhere.

With their teachers, being taught, for the most part. Though Celestine had been in deep discussion with Old Grims' for a while now.

"Stable," I answered after mulling the question over for a few moments. "If I had to use a single word for it, stable. I used to travel with my mother before I settled under Celestine, wandering most of Gilneas, and it was... hard." My time walking to Dalaran had cured me of the rose-tinted glasses I'd seen our travels by, but a part of me still enjoyed them. One day, when Azeroth was a little safer, I'd set out to explore more of the world.

"Having someone who pays you day in, day out, whether you're mending a wound or not, just so long as when someone doesneed it you're there?" I smiled, remembering when I first negotiated my wages. Darius had lowballedme the first few months, and only my experience in Dalaran had let me know it. I accepted it while I was on probation but not after. "It's reassuring. There's no worry about food or shelter. But," I raised a single finger, "but, you have to be able to trustthem too. That they won't go foolish on you."

A couple of the women nodded, and Ethel piped up. "Aye, know that. Helped a lordling once with his sick lady friend. Bastard didn't want me telling no one he weren't faithful and tried to gut me." She grimaced. "Weren't a fun night, that one."

"Nobles are bastards." Janice spat.

"Some are." I nodded, though in my mind I had to wonder whether it was mostrather than some. "Lord Godfrey dragged in a paladin and a mage to try and arrest Lord Crowley for associating me. I thinkhe meant to have me burnt; he's that sort of man."

"Keepers," Rachel hissed.

"And then you turned the paladin on him. How'd Lorna tell it? He orderedLord Godfrey's own men to stand down, and they did." Heather was grinning, she'd greatly enjoyed the story when Lorna told it. "Brought his own comeuppance along with him!"

"Not quitewhat happened," I said, grinning as I minutely shook my head. "But still amusing. Lord Crowley did the work, I just accepted the paladin's test."

"Test?"

I shrugged. "He touched me with the Light, it was... singular." Very different from the Arcane or Life, that was for sure. Magroth practically screamed I Shall Defend The Weak and Helplesswith every fibre of his being. "A song of Purpose and Will drowning out all else."

It was very easy to see why the Light had its following. People turned to religion to find purpose most of the time, to find meaning in their lives, and the Light actively reinforced the feeling of having a purpose in those that flocked to it. It didn't givethem purpose, but whatever they chose it would sing as a song to be upheld until the end of days; so long as you didn't waver, nor would the Light.

"And it didn't burn you?" Ethel asked sceptically.

Heather rolled her eyes. "Don't believe the propaganda," She said, pulling on my vocabulary. "We're Witches and Life wielders, not Warlocks and Fel users, the Light doesn't have anything against the living, does it? The Priests use it to heal all the time, it's actually closer to us than it is the Mages of Dalaran if you think about it."

I smiled knowingly at her, Heather enjoyed my teaching just as much as my students did. Though she didn't find Astral Magic comfortable to use, something about it made her feel cold and left pins and needles everywhere when she used it.

"Still surprised your lord's fine with you teaching folk." Rachel said, changing the topic. "Even if he's fine with you around it must've been hard to convince him."

"Not really, like Old Grims said I started teaching in the church." Sister Roper was a good woman, it hadn't taken much convincing for her to let me teach. Merely saying there'd be morepeople able to care for the sick and injured in the future had done it. "The Sister watching over the lessons quieted a lot of naysayers, and after the second year, it was routine. Some folk complained but more had seen me heal their kids' scratches, fix up their lame horse, or end a blight on their crops."

A significant amount of my time was still spent tending to the people around Crowford, and the injured who journeyed for milesto get free healing. Some of them weren't even Crowley's folk, coming across the border.

At least Heather handled most of the ones from Walden's lands since she was closer to them and getting to be nearly as well known as me now. And Twix, the poor delegatedlittle girl that she was.

Keepers, she was cute when she got flustered.

"I was incredibly lucky to apprentice under Celestine," Even if the circumstances had turned sour, she hadbeen a good teacher. The best I could've hoped for in the Eastern Kingdoms with our kind of magic. "It's been good to pass that on."

"I wouldn't be half the Witch I am without you," Heather said appreciatively.

Janice snorted. "She's famous for a reason. Best bloody Witch in a hundred years, darn right you got lucky. My mum only knew healing, so that's all I knew too. Fat lot of good it did her; heard Celestine knows how to make plants fight for her."

"We do," I said, I pushed my hand into the snow and ran my fingers through the grasses, coaxing them to grow. Tal'Doren bore down on me for a moment, examining what I was doing, before permitting me to continue.

I shivered from the sensation. I couldn't forget where I was.

It was beautiful watching the strange grass of the glade intertwining itself as I drew it up into a vine, the snow lightly falling away. Once it was long enough, and woven enough, I snapped it out like a whip; the air cracking and the snow it struck sent flying.

"When she brought me here seven years ago I first got to see it. There was a spider, one of the Widow's Brood, and it chased us. She crushed it with the aid of one of the trees."

"I remember." Heather said, "I was such a blabbermouth back then."

I nudged her with my elbow. "It was cute, though you were shyer and less willing to–"

Heather lunged at me, tackling me into the snow as she wrapped me up in a hug. "Less willing to?" She asked teasingly.

"Use me as a cuddle toy." I huffed.

"One day you'll grow out of that." Joseline sighed. "One day. Please, Watchers all, please let her grow out of it."

I knew Heather meant nothing by what she did beyond friendship, I'd seen her snuggling up with her mother, all of our students, Lorna, and just about everyone willing to let her. So long as no one tried to take it anywhere romantic she was always up for a cuddle. The ones she actually wanted to romance she was weirdly less touchy-feely with.

"It's not as if you mind," She said, holding me close as she pulled us back into a sitting position; now with me in her lap and wrapped up in her arms.

"True," I said, leaning into her warm body. The snow was cold, even through the blankets, and she was more comfortable than the forest floor. "Very true." There were times to be embarrassed, and there were times you shouldn't be; when one of your best friends decided you needed to be hugged was one of the latter. "I'd be willing to teach any of you, though I've commitments that keep me in Crowford so you'd have to come to me. I've spare room for guests so you'd have a roof over your heads."

"So long as you don't mind the creaking of a waterwheel," Heather said.

Honestly, I'd gotten so used to it that sleeping withoutthe sound of water falling onto the wheel and its steady turning was kind of odd. It was like rain white noise to me, so very soothing.

"I live down on the Duskmist," Jandice said, shaking her head. "Bit too far for me."

"I've got kids," Ethel said, looking thoughtful. "Though my eldest... she's not ready to be an apprentice yet, but a year of learning? It'd do her good. Mother sent my brother off to learn when he was her age."

Rachel hesitated a moment before speaking. "Maybe around summer?" She said, seemingly asking herself. "After planting's done with. My folk are good and used to me helping with the seeding, messing the crops up by missing it wouldn't make them happy."

"A week, a month, or even a year is fine," I said, happy with even two of them thinking about the offer. "Even if I have to leave for one reason or another I get Heather to fill in for me." I butted my head against my friend gently. "She helps me keep on top of the kids."

Almost unsurprisingly things quickly devolved into them all wanting a lesson from me, and I was happy to provide it.