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beelieveinfandom · 7 years

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A Better Birthright Chapter Six

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 AO3 Link

I would recommend reading this chapter on AO3.

Morning came like it always does, slowly and filled with the sounds of thousands of crows.

Mizar rather wished it was more like other mornings, where although there certainly were plenty of crows making plenty of noises they weren’t anywhere near her personally. The crows would have relatively quiet stretches where they kept a fairly even level of calls, but every now and then a squabble would break out or a hawk would fly overhead and the world would become a cawcophony of cawing.

There was really no point in trying to get more sleep once dawn broke.

The light of day made the entrance to the Unkindness’ lair rather intimidating. Not only was the hole huge and vertigo-inducing in its indeterminate depth, but the morning sun reflecting on the thick metal border shined with a painful blinding brightness, obfuscating all details of the entrance behind its wall of light.

No amount of light could swallow up the pit entirely, though. It was simply too large and too deep.

Crows were peeling away from the megamurder in small groups, presumably to go about their normal crow business of getting food or socializing or stealing cows.

The sun had moved behind a hill by the time breakfast was done, making it reasonable to actually look at the entrance. The seamless metal walls had somehow made it through the centuries completely unweathered: the only disruption to the unnaturally smooth surface was a line of glyphs written in an old runic alphabet that were cut into the metal. The letters’ edges were sharp to the touch.

A steady stream of cool, moist air rose from the hole.

It felt like they should be doing something to prepare for the presumed long trek ahead of them, but no one could think of anything specific to actually do.

No sense stalling. It was time to descend.

The staircase was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but there wasn’t a guard rail. As no one was quite ready to fall to their death, they walked single file down the seemingly endless spiral.

It was quiet. Surprisingly so, considering the stairs were made of metal. The sounds of each footstep were soft, like the sound was made by something far away.

Nav spoke up, disrupting the steady footfall.

“What is this place?” they asked. The chamber swallowed any echo that their voice may have formed.

Alcor eased into the physical plane. “What would you be willing to give me for an answer to that?”

“I don’t know if I’m that curious,” Nav said.

“I’ll bite. I know a bit about the Unkindness and their Keeper, but this structure looks like something built by the ancients that the crows just took advantage of.” Mizar put her hands on her hips. “I’ll get you an animal around the size of a deer within a week for an explanation of why this place was built.”

“It’s a bit of a history lesson,” Alcor said.

“Seems like we got a bit of a walk ahead of us, Mizar said. “Gotta talk about something. And I think I can handle whatever the past can throw at me.”

“Well then, I accept your deal.” Alcor grinned as Mizar’s hand flashed with blue fire. “And it’s not really complicated. Mostly it’s just… people.” Alcor shook his head. “Before the calamity, people made devices that had the potential to annihilate everything in a stupidly large area. Any one of these could create a continent-wide disaster, and there were a lot of them. To try and minimize the damage caused if there was an accident, they built and kept them deep underground, in highly reinforced bunkers like this one.”

“Why would you risk making anything that dangerous?”

“That was the whole point. I mean, there were times when it wasn’t, when the devices could do such useful things that they were considered to be worth the risk, but people are drawn to raw destructive power and they raced with reckless abandon to make the thing with the biggest possible boom. It was generally said to be about defence, because if your neighbor has a weapon how can you be safe unless you have a better weapon? No one is going to attack someone who has a bigger stick, or so the logic went. Not that it really should matter how much better your things are if your neighbor can still wipe out all life on the continent, but that never seemed to stop anyone.”

“So that was the calamity, then?” There was a note of uncharacteristic melancholy in Mizar’s voice. “A war with weapons that shouldn’t have been made?”

“Nah,” Alcor said, “people weren’t quite that dumb. They were well aware how bad it would be if anyone actually set off any of these weapons, so they locked them behind impassable walls of bureaucracy. They really were built to be symbols more than anything else. The Calamity was actually an accident, as much as anything doing what it was built to do can be said to be an accident. It’s pretty fortunate for Earth, though. If these things had gone off outside of their protective bunkers I don’t think the planet would still be remotely habitable.”

“How do enough of these things go off on accident to cause the Calamity?”

“Shenanigans.” Alcor shrugged. “Basically, many of them ended up connected in the dreamscape due to an overlooked quirk of magic, one got triggered by a series of unlikely events and the power of its blast set off a few others. Then everything got amplified by an unrelated device and you got yourself a worldwide apocalypse.”

“If only a few of them went off, does that mean that there are still intact ones that could cause another Calamity at any point?” Mizar asked, alarmed.

“They’re all way too decayed to be even a minor threat anymore,” Alcor said. “Unless you were to go into their bunkers, then they’d be a major cancer risk.”

“So if this was supposed to be a bunker capable of containing some awesome weapon, why is it all open? Shouldn’t this be solid to absorb all the energy or whatever?”

“What we’re on was originally the outer wall of the bunker,” he explained. “The center was a very large building filled with maintenance stuff and various security things. This specific place is special, you see. When its bomb went off it exploded so hard it ripped through the dimensional barrier, and the bunker collapsed and fell through.“

“The whole thing collapsed?” Nav said. “Are these stairs going to be intact further down?”

“The outer layer of the bunker was just about the sturdiest thing people could make back then.” Alcor dismissively waved his hand. “It’ll be fine.”

“Wait a second, are we entering a different dimension?” Mizar asked.

“Sort of,” Alcor said. “When the rip first happened it led pretty much directly into a different dimension, but since then it drifted apart from this one. We’re essentially entering a bubble connecting our dimension to another; it’s a threshold space maintained by both while being a part of neither of them. Once they drift far enough it will burst and the rift will either heal or lead directly to the chaotic realm between dimensions.”

“A chaos realm rift?” Nav said. “That sounds like it’s probably a bad thing.”

Alcor shrugged. “Shouldn’t matter much to you - you’ll have died long, long before it’s going to be an issue. And anyway there’s nothing left there that’s stupid enough to try anything.”

“Left?” Nav asked. “That sounds like a story.”

“It’s a great one.” Alcor grinned. “What would you be willing to pay me to hear it?”

“Oh would you look at that?” Nav looked down over the edge. “There goes my interest. Hopefully it won't hit any crows on the way down.”

“So,” Swift said. “Future danger aside, this is completely safe then? I don’t want to take Jorge someplace too dangerous; he doesn’t really have reflexes.”

“I wouldn’t call it completely safe.” Alcor put his hands on his hips. “The stair’s lack of a rail is a serious OSHA violation. Also the air is probably carcinogenic, but what’s a little cancer ever do to anyone?”

The darkness grew around them as they descended deeper, growing thicker until it swallowed the last stray bits of light. They couldn’t see each other; even Swift’s cavern-evolved goblin eyes were useless. The only thing remotely visible was Alcor, but even the constellations that peppered his dark form were dim. The sky itself seemed to be missing - where the circle of light had been now held only blackness.

They had not descended anywhere near far enough to possibly justify the morning light’s absence.

It wasn’t very cold and yet their skin tingled like it was on the edge of numbness.

Mizar put a hand on the wall to guide her and stared at her flashlight. Looking at it straight on, she could see its circle of light, but pointing it at the wall it cast no illumination unless it was uselessly close.

Distant caws drifted up the open space.

Sharp fractures in the wall caught against Mizar’s fingertips like hooks. Smooth bumpy waves of warped wall surrounded them, so her fingers would rise and fall, only a few millimeters at the edge but whole inches right before the sudden jagged tear. A transfixing dance between smooth and sharp played out under her fingers.

“I’m not the only one that’s more than a little spooked, am I?” Fred asked, her voice clear and close. “Cause this place is causing me a bit of a concern right now.”

“I would certainly be happier if I could see the stairs ahead of me,” Nav said. “Sturdiest material of the ancients or not, that talk of powerful weapons and collapsing buildings makes me nervous.”

“I feel like I’m going to fall forward eternally with each new step,” Plessy said. “I like it here.”

“You would, you weirdo,” Nav said.

“Sure, I may be a weirdo; I will give you that. But what does that make you? For a weirdo is something that one is, a fixed part of one’s very being. But dating a weirdo? That is a choice, and a choice that you made handedly,” Plessy retorted.

“That makes me fucking awesome,” Nav said. “Cause weirdos are, in my experience, pretty much the greatest people this world has to offer, and by dating one, some of that innate coolness is transferred to me by proxy.”

“So,” Plessy said coyly, “what you’re saying is you only love me because I’m basically perfect in every way.”

“That’s it.” Nav flicked their arm up. “That’s exactly it. I’ve never been so called out in my life.”

“Well, I suppose I can’t hold it against you,” Plessy said. “I’d probably become enamored by my own charms too, were I not immune to such things.”

“Oh, you’re immune to being charmed now?” Nav narrowed their eyes.

“Completely above it,” she responded.

“Oh reeeeeally?”

“Absolutely,” Plessy said, her head high. “I’m so far above it I’m at grave risk of suffocation from how thin the atmosphere is up here.”

“You’re really cute when you’re full of shit.”

“A genuine compliment?” Plessy giggled. “Noooooooo, my one weakness!”

“And you better believe that there’s more where that came from!” Nav said, grinning.

“Is there nothing I can do to obtain your mercy?”

“No…” Nav shook their head. “No, it is far too late for that now. Do you have any last words before you take your onslaught of admiration?”

“I love how dramatic you are.”

“Heh,” Nav chuckled, the darkness swallowing their cocky grin. “So it’s a duel then?”

“If fate has conspired to bring such an event to fruition then so be it,” Plessy said with a heavy weight to her voice.

“I love your ironic seer shtick.”

“Is that so? Well I love how you laugh at my dumb jokes.”

“Your jokes aren’t stupid, they’re hilarious. I love how funny you are.”

“You guys are really cute,” Fred said.

“A challenger has appeared!” Nav exclaimed. “You know, Fred, you’re a delight to be around.”

“You brew a great cup of tea,” Plessy said.

“Oh… no, I didn’t mean to get involved.” Fred blushed. “Thanks for the compliments, though. You’re really nice.”

“Yeah?” Nav’s grin was evident in their voice. “Well your face is really nice.”

“Your welcoming presence is a breath of fresh air,” Plessy said solemnly.

The talk helped fill the space and made the voluminous cavern seem slightly less like an ancient tomb. It was still incredibly freaky, going down down down to destination unknown, each footfall paired with a panicked moment before the next step was felt where it seemed there was no next step, there was nothing but the darkness to fall through forever.

Needless to say, it was slow going. And there was a lot to go through. Without any visible sky or light, it was impossible to gauge how much time passed, winding around slowly through the darkness. It was definitely a long time, though, far longer than anyone wanted to be walking down stairs, impenetrable darkness or not. But eventually, after everyone’s muscles were starting to get sore, after it seemed like there was nothing in the world beyond this staircase, specks of light started to appear down below.

The lights were ethereal colorful streaks that raced up and down, not perfectly straight but as if tracing out some indecipherable ruins. The lights themselves were too faint to illuminate the room but their dancing reflections along the walls revealed what fingers had already figured out; the walls were no longer the peculiar smooth material of the ancients but rough, textured stone.

The cawing stopped as they approached the lights, leaving the room in haunting silence, only broken by the occasional flapping of wings.

The farther down they went the more lights there were. They still were dim, but together they were just bright enough to dimly illuminate the forms of crows lining the edges of the stairs like the world's most precarious railing.

They finally seemed to be reaching the bottom.

Streaks of light were grouped together in the center of the room likes bars of a cage. Within was a truly massive bird, whose shimmering form appeared to be made of liquid. Their tail poured down like a waterfall into a perfectly circular pool beneath them. The lights around them filled their form with an ever-shifting rainbow, dancing off their surface onto the walls, its pastel echo briefly revealing the dark iridescent rainbows hidden in the feathers of the numerous birds that filled the space.

And the birds were so very numerous. Thousands of beady eyes shone in the darkness, all fixed on the party. They covered the floor, they perched on crevices in the walls, they lined the staircase. With each step forward came the sounds of wings as someone landed behind them.

At last they made it to the end of the stairs, to solid and flat floor.

The room exploded in cawing. They could make out some words in the noise, but it all seemed to run together as a single presence of sound.

The large bird at the center of the room spoke, their haunting voice clear and easy to make out through the inescapable presence of the chatter.

SO YOU HAVE ENTERED OUR DOMAIN WE WERE NOT EXPECTING YOU SO SOON FORGOTTEN ONE

“Don’t mind me, I’m just tagging along with her,” Alcor replied, gesturing at Mizar.

THE BURNING HEART WHAT BRINGS YOU TO US

Mizar walked forward, slowly and purposely, until she was at the edge of the pool in front of the entity the crows were referring to as The Keeper.

“Oh Keeper, of the Unkindness,” she said.

“I am Mizar, the Twin Star, high priestess of the demon Alcor, the Light Breaking through the Darkness. I am here on behalf of those of the Pack of Even Hand, of their first mother and of this child.

“I would ask of you to return what you were given by the child. I would beseech you to return to him his emotions.”

WE WILL GLADLY RETURN IT BUT WE WILL NEED IN EXCHANGE A SECRET A FORGOTTEN PATH OR

SOMETHING SHINY

“I have for you an offering,” she said. “A forgotten path, freely given.”

For a minute the cawing intensified to the point that talking was impossible.

“I am the last shaman of the Fallwood people.” She spoke slowly and clearly. “I am the last to know our rites. I am the last to carry our history. Master of the Lost, I offer you the name that I was offered upon my birth. I offer you all that comes with it. This name is not an identifier but an identity. It is a title, it is that history. The name is a signifier that its bearer has gone down the path of shamanhood. I offer you a name, Keeper of Secrets, and through it I offer you my birthright.”

THESE TERMS ARE PERMISSIBLE

COME FORWARD WITH YOUR OFFERING

Mizar stepped forward, testing the depth of the pool in front of her. Her foot stayed on the surface, however, and having established she wouldn’t sink she confidently strolled over to The Keeper. When she was a few feet in front of them, the liquid suddenly stopped supporting her and she plunged into darkness.

She gasped in surprise, only to find she had no problem breathing.

It was warm beneath the surface. She felt lightheaded and fuzzy. Strange noises came from above. It was like someone was talking very far away. There was stuff down here. Big piles of weird things. She thought about her childhood. About learning what she was going to be doing. About the rituals she would do. About the people she would lead. About those who came before. And the more she thought about it, the less she remembered. It was warm. She was warm. What had she been thinking about? Maybe she should get out of this, leave this… wherever this was. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

She walked aimlessly for awhile before it got shallow enough for her to surface again. Her head hitting the open air was like falling face-first into the snow; the cold shocked her system and her thoughts became coherent again almost instantly.

She finished walking out of the liquid and tried to wring out her hair, only to find it was already dry.

Jorge was walking towards the pool with the same slow, aimless gait that he seemed to do everything with. He walked like his legs were a separate entity with separate intentions that he didn’t know; like he would be surprised to arrive at whatever destination his legs brought him to if he could only muster the energy.

He reached the pool and collapsed down to his knees like a dropped ragdoll. He cupped his hands together and took a drink from the dark liquid.

Almost instantly he started coughing. Deep, heavy, choking coughs like something was caught far down his throat.

Swift rushed over to help. He slowed as he got to Jorge, moving a hand to the child’s shoulder.

Jorge pushed him away. “You did this!” he said hoarsely. “Why would you do this? Everything was fine the way it was!”

He was angrily blinking back tears.

Swift sighed. ”I guess that answers the question of how you’re feeling.”

“How am I feeling? I feel awful! I feel like shit! I never wanted to think about what happened again and now I can’t stop.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Swift asked, his voice betraying that he already knew what answer he was to receive.

“No I don’t want to talk about it!” the teen shouted. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want anything to do with it! And why would I want to talk about it with you? You’re the one that did this to me! This is all your fault. I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you!”

Jorge ran away to the stairs, shoving anyone in his way out of it. Taking the stairs two at a time, he quickly ascended out of view, which didn’t mean much considering how dark it was. Your hand could get far enough away from you to disappear from sight if it got especially ambitious.

“Well that’s probably not the response that you were hoping for,” Mizar said to Swift. “Sucks, dude.”

“I mean, it isn’t ideal,” he said, “but it’s about what I was expecting. He’s been through a lot and hasn’t dealt with any of it. It’s only natural that he would start with some pretty negative emotions. Honestly, I’m glad to see anger; I was worried he would just shut down again.”

“You gonna try to calm him down?” Mizar asked.

“Me? No. I’d probably bugger it all up, honestly. I’m… not the best at helping someone work through their trauma. We got some people back home that know what they’re doing though. At this point I’m just here to make sure he can get to them safely.”

“Should we be concerned that he’s running ahead?” Nav asked.

“He’ll tire himself out long before he reaches the top.” Swift looked up the stairs for any sign of his ward. “Still. We should probably go after him.”

“Like, right now?” Nav asked. “I was hoping to rest a little first. I’m still tired from the climb down.”

“I’m not sure I could rest right here,” Swift said. “Anxiety over Jorge aside, I feel like I’m invading the crows’ space.”

“Wait, we’re leaving already?” said Fred. “I was hoping I could get something back from the Unkindness, while we’re right here and all.”

“What’d you have Taken?” Nav asked.

“Oh, nothing as hoity-toity as my emotions or nothing, just some dried cantaloupe actually, but I’ve been craving it somethin fierce lately and hey, no sense leaving the butcher empty handed.”

“Fruit,” Swift said, in the same way as one might respond to being told that white picket fences were actually mind controlling parasites, and were secretly responsible for all of society's ills.

“Yep,” Fred said, completely oblivious to any subtext. “Got it awhile back and kinda forgot about it for a ways. Then one day I wake up with that hunger that only cantaloupe can fill and get all excited ‘cause hey, I just remembered I got some. Two shakes and a beat later I find that I can’t find it. I’m not even certain that it was Taken, to be open as a peach, might have just lost it.”

“What were you planning on giving up in return?” Nav asked slowly.

“Oh I got all kinds of childhood memories I could best do without.”

“Memories?” Nav asked disbelievingly. “For some fruit?”

THESE TERMS ARE PERMISSIBLE

“Oh, nice,” Fred said. “So how’s this work then? I just walk over here thinking about that which I’d rather not think about and-”

Fred plunged beneath the surface of the liquid.

Fred emerged from the liquid, after a minute or so, triumphantly holding a leather satchel.

“Personally I wouldn’t have returned the bag. Let’s see her carry a pound and a half of dried fruit with her hands.”

“You’re a bit of a pedantic prick, aren’t you?” Nav said.

“I like to think of it as teaching the value of careful wording.”

“So a pretentious pedantic prick, got it.”

“Pretty much,” Mizar said.

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side.”

Mizar shrugged. “Maybe if you tried being less of a pretentious pedantic prick I wouldn’t feel the need to call you out on your shit.”

“Well maybe I’m old and have been through things you couldn't dream of and have earned the right to conduct myself in however prickish of a manner I like.”

“Then you should learn not to get offended when people tell it like it is.”

“Well I’ve gone and done what I was gonna go and do,” Fred said. “Anyone else have something they might want back or should we be off?”

“I would appreciate it if we would go follow Jorge,” Swift said. “If that’s alright with everyone. I wouldn’t want to stop you from being reunited with that cool leaf you saw once just because I want to keep an eye on the child in my care.”

“You want some cantaloupe?” Fred asked, as they started to walk.

“...” Swift put his face in his hands. “I kind of do, actually.”

It didn’t take them long to catch up to Jorge. He had stopped fairly close to the bottom and sat down, legs dangling off into the dark abyss. Not that anyone could see that through the supernatural blackness.

“I hate stairs,” he declared. “They’re awful and there are too many of them and I hate them.”

“You ready to go home, Jorge?”

“That would involve climbing more stairs, so no. I’m not ready to go home. I’m going to sit here forever and never climb a stair again.”

“We can rest awhile if that’s what you want,” Swift said gently.

“No I don’t want to rest here,” Jorge said with his voice raised. “It’s dark and creepy and I don’t like it.”

“Well, what do you want, then?” Swift asked.

“I want to be at home, like I was,” Jorge said. “Not feeling all these things, like I was. Not here. Not in the dark on the stairs surrounded by more stairs and hating everything. It sucks, Swift! This sucks!”

“Well, the faster we get moving the faster we can get home. Then it can suck slightly less.”

They continued to ascend the staircase. Mizar’s thoughts drifted to her childhood. She could still remember the general shape of things; what she learned and why. When she tried to remember any details, however, she started to feel all warm and fuzzy again, and the harder she tried to focus the more lightheaded she got.

She could still remember her exponent just fine. Which was a relief? Yes. She wouldn’t want to forget about him, no matter how much it still hurt.

The ascent went considerably faster than the descent had. The sky revealed itself as a circle of light after what felt like no time at all, at least compared to what they had been expecting. And once they could actually see the stairs ahead of them they could move considerably faster. They were at the top before they knew it.

The sun had barely moved from the position that it had been when they went down, despite the fact that it seemed unlikely that a whole day had passed.

They took a short rest and started down the long trek back to the Pack.

It was late evening when they got back. The area was still crowded, despite the hour. The buzz of people going about their evenings and the literal buzzing of bees filled the air, undisturbed by their presence.

The Bright One came out to greet them, led by an eager child.

“It is good to see you returned,” she said. “Did you find what it was that you sought?”

Jorge took that moment to run off - the thought of sitting there while people talked about what had just happened to him like it was some sort of victory to be celebrated was too much to bear.

“Yeah,” Swift answered. “He’s definitely feeling things again.”

“And not too happy about it, or so it would appear.”

“No he…” Swift sighed. “I wish I could do more for him. Feelings ain’t my strong suit.”

“He will heal in time.” The Bright One smiled. “For now I imagine that he will want some space. We can have-”

She stopped and looked behind her.

A wave of silence swept through the crowd, which parted leaving a straight path between the party and the oldest and strangest looking dryad any of them had ever seen. Not that that was saying too much considering that dryads were somewhat rare, but the half-wolf form that she took was bizarre by most any standards. Her skin, where visible, was ether rough, flaking bark, or fleshy in a way that just looked wrong. The moss that hung off her fur was so prevalent that it was impossible to determine what was hair and what was plant. Each step shook her whole body; even standing still it seemed like the wind might blow her away.

Dominating her features were her massive branch-like antlers, covered in fiery leaves. Withered brown leaves hid amongst the bright reds and golds.

She was hunched over a staff - a small tree, really. If she were to stand upright, she would probably be pushing twelve feet.

“First Mother,” The Bright One said in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting you to be active.”

“I’m old, not dead,” the First Mother said, her gruff voice skillfully projected. “I can still uproot myself when the time calls for it.”

She turned to Mizar.

“So,” she said, “you must be the latest Mizar.”

“That’s me.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Mizar,” Mizar said. “My name is Mizar.”

“Well that’s sure confusing.”

“That’s what I said!” Alcor said. “But she was all ‘oh who cares it’s perfect’.”

“And of course you can’t deny your twin star anything.”

“Look Catreena, have you ever tried fighting with a Mizar? Once they’ve made up their mind about something they’re impossibly stubborn.”

“Whatever.” She turned back to Mizar. “I heard you all went out of your way to help one of my kids.”

“It was nothing, really,” Mizar said.

“Oh, it’s something alright. A Mizar traveling with Alcor… you got something you want to get done. And you still went out of your way to get some kid what he needed, even if he didn’t want it. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” Mizar said.

“So tell me, what is it that you’re doing?”

“I’m going to fix the corruption,” Mizar declared. “To bring back what was lost with the Calamity.”

“No you damn well aren’t,” The First Mother snapped.

“Excuse me?” Mizar asked.

“There are some things that are better off forgotten, kid,” the First Mother said. “Don’t get me wrong, low infant mortality rates and a stable population were great. I’d love to see the return of vaccines and what have you. Instantaneous communication? Still miss that. But the other crap? The social side of things? You don’t understand what it was like to live back then. To be a preter, to be the wrong ‘kind’ of human, to move wrong, or act wrong, or look wrong, or to be born under the wrong circumstances… you might as well not be a person. There had been millennia of power and wealth being secured by a small group of people and everyone outside of that group didn’t matter. We had the ability to cure just about any ailment but people still died of sickness because they didn’t have the right resources to exchange for treatment. You could communicate instantly with anyone anywhere on the planet, but everything was monitored and if you said the wrong thing you would be locked away.”

“How could a small group of people keep control for that long?”

“There was a lot to it,” she explained. “Partially, they had the best of the best of the wonderful technology of the ancients. When you have a whole fleet of machines, any one of which could take down a small army, no one is going to successfully overpower you. A lot of it wasn’t brute force, though. Information was carefully controlled. It didn’t occur to many people that there was any better way things could be. Conversation was monitored to the point that it was almost impossible to find or plan protests, don’t mention an actual revolt. And there was a lot of propaganda, saying that everyone was being treated equally, and those who said otherwise were just lazy, not working hard enough, and trying to get special treatment. Or that anyone could become one of the elites with enough hard work, and because of how hard the elites worked they deserved the obscene amounts of power they held.”

“This does make some of the things I’ve read make more sense,” Mizar said. “They were really obsessed with work, weren’t they?”

“In this area, yeah. Other places put less focus on work ethic and a bit more on other things to control the masses.”

“Were there any places that didn’t put a huge effort into ‘controlling the masses’?”

“I don’t know, probably. It was a long time ago and I didn’t give a rat’s ass about foreign politics back then.” She shrugged. “But most of the world was a powder keg. If the Calamity hadn’t happened first it really was only going to be so long before someone figured out how to summon the right demon to bring it all down. Then again, people had been saying that for centuries before the Calamity happened, so maybe it really was a stable clusterfuck. Whadda I know?”

“How did things get that bad?”

She made a noncommittal grunt. “I was never a history person until my life became history. If I had to guess I’d say the answer probably has something to do with colonialism. That’s definitely why white humans were in control, at any rate.” She shook her head. “Anyway, enough about the shitty past, let’s talk about the shitty present. Where you headed to that you think you can do something about the corruption at?”

“Apparently the largest collection of books on magic from before the Calamity is still intact,” Mizar said. “I’m starting to get an idea about what I might do, but I need to get a lot more information before I can hope to execute it.”

“So you’re going to Gravity Falls,” the First Mother said. “You’re with Alcor, so I’m sure you’ll be fine, but... be careful. You’re not the first person to get the idea that finding that library might be useful. It was a pretty common quest back when people still remembered it existed, actually. But the people who go looking for that place, they had a tendency to disappear. I haven’t heard of anyone making it to that town since the Calamity happened, and we get our fair share of people from everywhere, what with being one of the only suppliers of honey and all.”

“I don’t suppose you would know what might be making people disappear?”

“They wouldn’t exactly be disappeared if they could come back and say what happened, now would they?” She sighed. “Anyway. I’m old and tired, so unless you have any more questions I think I’m going to be off and and sleep for a couple months. But before I do, Horned One, can we talk?”

Fred looked up in surprise. “Well, sure. And it’s Fred, if you will. I haven’t really done anything to earn a formal title or nothin.”

“You have horns,” the First Mother said. “Ergo, you are the Horned One.”

“Well I suppose that is a pretty literal thing, and I can’t really deny that. But the way you’re saying it makes me think there’s more to it than just that, and I’m not sure I’ve really done anything to earn being the Horned One instead of just being some guy with horns.”

“There is more to it than just the horns, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t you,” she said. “Look, I don’t mean to make an argument out of this, let’s just talk.”

The First Mother led Fred slowly away from the rest of the group, towards the grove of trees in the center of the town.

“How long do you think you will be staying?” The Bright One asked.

“I’m itching to get on the road again, if that’s all the same to you guys,” Mizar said. “We’ll stay the night. And in the morning? We’re going to Gravity Falls.”

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

#A Better Birthright #Transcendence AU #My Shit #fic

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