Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

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Ingress had a brilliant birthday. She’s eleven. Eleven is nearly grown up! It’s also the year when children in the stories she’s read come into their own. Adventures begin, schooling starts, worlds are saved… she can hardly wait to see what will happen next.

Her party earlier was such fun. Door was almost nice to Puck; Ingress had worried a little about that after she invited him. But he was very nice and charming, and Tom was nice, too, and Puck helped Ingress steal lots of roses off the cake while Havelock talked to Tom and Door, and it was brilliant.

She ate far too much icing sugar, but Tom had the peppermint potion waiting for her when the party was over. She feels much better now. And she’s eleven!

It sounds so good in her head. Eleven, eleven, eleven.

She should have asked Mary to stay the night with her, she thinks, as she tosses and turns. She’s never going to fall asleep, even with staying up past her bedtime. Tom and Door insisted she go to bed after she started yawning. They can be so silly sometimes.

She tosses one more time, and she thinks, again, how impossible it will be to go to sleep tonight. Her eyelids flutter and close. It is not long before she’s deep in dreams.

Comments

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"No. I like stories. Won't you please tell me?"

[last-heraldmage.livejournal.com]

Content with his tuning, Vanyel begins to pick out the melody of one of the Windrider ballads. "It was a very long time ago," Vanyel begins, his fingers still moving on the strings of the gittern. "Eight hundred years, very nearly, since Valdemar and his people escaped the old Empire. They traveled as far as they could go, as fast as they could race, until they found a land that was empty and ready for them. It was good and fertile land, and when Valdemar's people saw it, they knew the gods had blessed them."

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Ingress settles down on a stump, listening to the tune, to his words.

Stories are not new to her. But stories of Valdemar still are. Vanyel's stories of the past are stories of her future.

[last-heraldmage.livejournal.com]

"The refugees chose Valdemar as their king, and named their new land after him," Vanyel continues. "But King Valdemar worried, because his people had fled corruption and mistreatment, and he feared that the leaders who came after him might become as corrupt as the court of the Emperor. One morning he went out into this grove. He cast a spell and prayed to all the gods and goddesses he knew to help him keep the kingdom honorable."

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From the corner of her eye, she catches the glint of shining white hide flashing through the greenery.

"And what happened then?" She smiles. She knows.

[last-heraldmage.livejournal.com]

Ingress is so young, so eager to serve. Vanyel smiles down at her. (Was he ever that carefree? He doesn't think so.)

"Then Valdemar was answered by a great white light -- at least, that's what the chronicles say -- and out of the light, at the heart of this very grove, came the first Companions. One of them Chose Valdemar himself, and another Chose Valdemar's lady wife, and a third Chose the Heir to the Throne. But the fourth Chose the chief herald of the court. In those days, a herald's duty was only to know and announce names and titles. But ever since then, all of us Chosen by Companions to protect Valdemar have been called Heralds.

"And the Companions have guided us ever since, selecting and supporting worthy leaders, showing the rest of us how best to serve our kingdom, and watching over us to ensure we remain honorable."

If something dark and painful flickers in Vanyel's eyes as he finishes the sentence, it's replaced by another smile almost at once.

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"I'm glad. When Megwyn found me, I was so sad. I thought I'd never be cheerful again."

She beams, because that was a long, long, long time ago.

"But I shouldn't like to be on the throne. I'll be happy riding circuit."

[last-heraldmage.livejournal.com]

"Wise of you."

(Time shifts and changes: now Vanyel's flickering in and out, and the trees behind him are visible through his body. Perhaps, if Ingress looks down, she'll see the gittern Vanyel was holding, grown into the roots of the nearest tree.)

::Ride well, Herald Ingress.::

(Now there's no one here at all.)