Well, this is just what I expected this was going to lead to. Fiona stared blankly at Clarke for a good fifteen seconds, watching his expression morph from concern, into confusion. Wingding, psst, hey, care to chime in on this one?

What was more telling is that Wingding was utterly still, she felt that tiny spark of her presence recede from her mind. She took that as her sign that this was something that shouldn’t be talked about in front of Clarke. For now.

She leaned back and composed herself. “Mister Clarke, really, it’s just a winged heart. I’m a merchant. It makes sense, plus before I uh…got the universal transmigration tour, I did art when I was younger! I drew hearts, all the time!”

Even with her elven charm and warming smile, Clarke would not be deterred. “Miss Swiftheart, I know you don’t think this is a big deal. Or, you do, and you’re just playing coy. So, which is it, for you?”

“Which one gets me an answer faster on why you’re acting all doomy?” she pressed, and folded her hands together on her desk. “Because, I have a place to run, and customers that come in on a routine basis. When I’m not there, sales plummet.”

“The answer to that one depends on keeping your interest.” He opened the notebook again, and offered it to her. “Given that you are not of this world, I’m not surprised you know little about this–if anything.”

She frowned–she hated being on the back foot, and she had, indeed, been reading into the history of Cepalune. But it would be an understatement to say that she was woefully lacking in knowledge. “Clarke, I’ve done my research. I never came across the mark anywhere else. I don’t even think I fully understand the classes just yet, either.”

“Then perhaps it’s time for a brief history lesson. I know you have an emporium to attend to so I’ll reconvene with you in person, at a time and place of your choosing.” He pointed to a scribble of writing–his own notes. “The marks were the product of terrible times. An ancient race threatened to destroy or enslave all the other folk races–they were not of Cepalune, as has been suggested. The living gods of our worlds took this personally, came down from the heavens, and gave the tribes the first marks, to battle against them.”

“Hang on. I’ve read about this, and I think that’s stupid!” She leaned forward in her chair, having at least glanced at this. “You’re telling me they waited till the entire world was in peril, to step in? What a load of crock. Are you sure it’s not some naturally occurring phenomenon?”

“Miss Swiftheart? I can go over these details, but I’d be at it for a while, and I’m sure you don’t want a lecture.” She gazed at him, sizing his rather muted response, and withdrawn look. “The marks we carry are their gift to us. There may be a time again when they will be needed to ensure our survival. Everyone has one, to varying extents. You were the first I’ve seen who didn’t have a mark on you–which is, by itself, unique.”

“Look, Clarke, I’m not trying to make a splash, I’m not. So, tell me about these gods and goddesses. I’ve heard they’re kinda shy, and I haven’t been to a church in…uh…well, never. Minus weddings,” she added wryly.

“The gods don’t need worshippers to exist. There is a debate whether they are just superpowered beings with marks above and beyond what is currently known–an entirely different tier of classes, reaching the apex of mortality.” Clarke opened the notepad to show off several tall, regal-looking beings. Some looked human–others looked like the avians, yet others looked like bipedal dragons, a few were elven looking.

“How many were there?”

“Many. Unfortunately, we do know that new gods join the ranks, and others disappear, but we are not sure of the mechanisms on how that happens. Many have tried to do such a thing, and numerous craters stand as monuments to those who failed.”

She raised an eyebrow at this. “Well, duh! Gods don’t like it when some new kid comes around the block! That has to be a pretty exclusive club. How is there not more known?”

“They generally keep to themselves and occasionally stick their nose into mortal business. Though, even gods can die.” He showed another pictorial showing a few of the gods warring with each other–towering over thousands of foot soldiers, in a scene of brutality. One goddess impaled another brute of a man with a golden spear, delicately illustrated in capturing the violence.

“What’s this depict?”

“The Godschism. Five thousand years ago, the gods were at war, when one of them murdered another. Accusations flew, based on the few mortals able to witness the events. The gods did have a certain alignment to them, and battle lines broke out, each faction accusing the other of the heinous crime. Almost every class descends from at least one of them. And some of the class markings, take on a similarity to their parent sigil.”

Clarke pointed to a tall, elegant draconian warrior dressed in blue and white armor, braids of feathery white hair tucked back behind a small golden circlet, and holding a gleaming blue blade. “Mirana, goddess of hope, strength of arms, and discipline. Sometimes referred to as Gaia, the world-shielding dragoness, in the form of a massive green-eyed, silver-scaled dragon. She hasn’t been seen in a long time, but her symbols still exist. Some theorize that she was disgusted by the Godschism and the bloodshed it spawned, and left our world for another.”

He pointed at another, an elven with daggers circling him, as if by magic. “Kanael, God of deception, trickery, and secret hunting. Rumors were that he was the one who instigated the conflict. But, no proof was ever discovered. Those two are of many that are known to exist–or have existed.”

Fiona peered at the image. A few looked faintly like her old Pathfinder gods–but that must be a sheer coincidence. “So, who was killed, and why?”

“A goddess who accurately predicted the arrival of the Outsiders. Eldritch abominations from beyond our realm of existence, seven thousand years ago–the threat we faced that could have ended our world. She was the first to rise against them. The first to grant her class mark to others.” he turned the page to show that various markings of the gods, and some of them did indeed, look like class marks, with various permutations. Weapons, animals, trees, winged creatures–there was a variety of representations. Clarke’s finger traced the page, and stopped at one.

Her eyes widened at the appearance of an all-too-familiar winged heart, with jeweled facets forming the beautiful symbol. They gleamed on the page as if they gave off their own light, and she shook her head as if she were dispelling an illusion. When she looked again, the page seemed…plain—lacking vividness. “Clarke. Why haven’t I come across this, before?”

“Because I had to track it down to the source. This particular symbol has been forgotten, and hasn’t been seen in so long, I had to talk to the Bar’dathi clan, the closest elven community of significance. Even then, they were close-lipped about it. I think I might know why.”

He turned the page, one more time. She squinted her eyes, to an image of two gods. The first, was a male elven with light armor, a halo of light at his head and looking solemn, and wrapping his hands around an elven female in a loving embrace.

An elven that looked–

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She squinted and peered closer. The woman looked…almost like her. More slender face, and blue eyes. But, she had the same tangle of bright red hair as her, looking content, and the jeweled heart was etched into her shimmering gown. She tapped the picture, for emphasis. “Who is she?”

“Feo’thari. The Goddess of Fortune.”

“She looks like my mom, kinda. I mean, I didn’t have pointy ears when I was–well, where I was from.” She felt her heart racing.

No way. Was my mother keeping secrets, chilling on Earth, with the rest of the mortals? No, she aged as I got older, and he just said this goddess is gone. Even though I resented her, she never would have held a secret like this. Clarke gazed at her curiously as her finger shook slightly when she traced the page. “Clarke, I’m not her. It’s a coincidence. And my mom looks a little similar, but…”

“You show up, from nowhere, without a summoner, bearing the mark of a dead goddess?” he asked calmly, his eyes focused on the illustration. “Things haven’t been going right on Cepalune in a long time, Fiona. I know it might be a cheery place, here, in the Unified Kingdoms. But there are many places, it is not so cheery. We are fortunate to have built and defended our freedoms, against those who desire power and control.”

“What are you trying to say, Clarke? That I’m a dead goddess brought back to life, through some divine fluke? That that is me?” She pointed accusingly at the still image, her breath sharp and angry.

He regarded her with a slow tilt of an open hand, the immenseness of this discovery weighing on his face. “Have you not considered it? No one knows how the gods replenish their numbers. Or why do some just disappear? Perhaps they hid themselves away, in mortals, in the far corners of the universe, waiting for some moment to reemerge.”

“Let’s get one thing straight. I died, Clarke. I died horribly. I tried to take down a monstrous, eldritch dragon horror on my world, in my last act of protecting those I cared about. One massive monster that was one of many tearing up our civilization, and I gave it my best by trying to drop several hundred thousand tons of a collapsing building on it. It got up from that.”

Clarke blinked, and opened his mouth to speak, but she put out a hand for him to hold for a moment. “I must have killed dozens of the little ones in a last-woman-standing holdout. But I ran out of ammo, explosives, knives, and willpower to keep fighting. Especially with a piece of debris lodged in my torso. My last thoughts? It was for my ex-girlfriend, and praying I’d bought enough time for people to flee. Her included.”

Her posture finally gave way, and she slumped, as if talking about this with someone other than her friends, drained the life out of her. “Those last moments are lodged in my memory like they’re ingrained in my skull. They are never going away. You, dumping this on my plate? Is the last thing I need.”

“So, you have no memories of anything else, other than–”

“No.” She was adamant that there weren't other foreign thoughts lurking in her head. “One of two things is possible. One, I’m a reborn goddess, and no one gave me the first clue on how to be one. I couldn’t even run a shop, back on Earth, without drama and struggling to make ends meet!”

“What’s the second possibility?”

“When whoever brought me here, they took some poor soul, and dumped me in her body. Because it’s not mine, I mean it’s close, but it's not…me. You know?” her lips trembled slightly, wary that she’d considered this possibility, but never thought it was realistically possible. “Clarke? I’m a ghost running around in a biological automaton, if that’s true. Both outcomes are immensely disturbing. Like, existential dread levels of disturbing.”

“I know. Which is why I have told no one of this research I have conducted.” He closed the notebook gently. “There is more, of course, and a third, possibly more complicated explanation. I think the more realistic take is that you were brought here by a god, or goddess–only they would have the power to pull you here in such a way. At least, without an elaborate setup to ensure your body and consciousness wasn’t smeared across the boundaries of reality.”

“Descriptive, and gross.” She suddenly felt like this room was too stifling for her taste. “But why me?”

“I am hoping you could tell me. You don’t remember anything else?”

She frowned. There was one other time in recent memory. “I think someone did speak to me. There was this random thought I had. But it wasn’t mine? Like someone else was projecting thoughts in my head. ‘Is this the way you want this to end, Fiona’ is about all I remember. And I think there’s more. Or, you know, it was my last gasp of consciousness, and it was just me, as I was bleeding out on the ground, about to be crushed by a vengeful eldritch dragon.”

She straightened up her posture. “Clarke. Two things. Wingding–er, my mark–is animated. I think she’s alive. I’ve been teaching her simple code language so I can try to speak to her. I’m starting to get something out of her, but it’s like trying to teach a toddler. Are there any other individuals that have a mark like that, act like it’s alive?”

“None that I know of. And you trust me with this knowledge, why?” He didn’t even question her assertion, surprisingly.

“Because I don’t want King Barry to ever get wind of this. That creep already has it out for me. If he thinks he has a pocket goddess in his kingdom, while his dad is taking an admittedly much-needed break? My life goes from relatively normal, to complete chaos. Also, the second thing is, would the Bar’dathi elves have any indication of being able to tell me more? At least who I am?”

He peered at her in curiosity, and his face brightened. “Maybe. Their elders–yours, I suppose–can live a long time. There may be some that could recount what happened when Feo’thari died or the exact circumstances. But, it’s such old history that I doubt you’ll get far.”

“Where is Vale, exactly?” she hadn’t actually looked it up on a map.

“South. The elven roaming settlements have been a bulwark against that cesspool for a long time, and Greybeard has gone to great lengths to ensure a powerful alliance between ourselves and them. Though, they do choose a fairly nonmaterial existence.”

She let out a puff of air. “Tree-hugging elves. Fun. I’ve got something to mull over for a bit–”

She heard a shuffle at the door. No, not shoes. The click of claws. She smiled as she had a figure for who it was. “Bonnie, don’t hex him the second he comes out, that’s a big no-no! Clerks are friends, not enchantment practice!”

The door creaked open, and Bonnie and Greg were stacked at the door, looking moody. Clarke looked averse at the new arrivals, and then looked to her for approval. “Fiona, are your friends–”

“In the loop, and I’m keeping it that way. Clarke, I have an idea. And it might be an intersection of business needs, and personal needs.”

“Tell me we’re not going to Vale. Tell me we are not helping that little creep bail himself out of whatever giant dung heap that he stepped in,” Bonnie uttered with a throaty growl. “We have a shop to run, Fiona! We can’t just have you go out for potentially weeks or months of negotiations!”

“Bonnie? Weird stuff is happening. And I’m just a tiny bit terrified that Wingding here might have some answers. If I can get her to use more than a few letters to mime out answers with my Morse code, maybe we’ll have something new to follow.” She rolled up her sleeve to show Wingding giving a cocky and enthusiastic flap of her wings.

“We’re not going to Vale, Fiona! It’s a cesspool!” Bonnie groaned.

“Well, if Vale is as bad as you say it is, I’ll probably have a lot of fun flattening it.”

“Fiona, we can’t possibly do this without you. You’re the selling point of the store! I can’t do what you do nearly as well!” Greg also sounded worried, despite his typical composure and straight face. “Unless push comes to shove, we can’t have you go do this farce of a negotiation with Vale, to help Barry!”

“But, Lucy needs our help on this. What if Barry is in over his head, and takes the kingdom down through incompetence? Or inflict lasting damage his dad can’t undo easily?” She put her hands on her hips, and waited for Greg to come up with a counter.

“Girl, unless you can magically teleport to this store on a whim, that deal isn’t gonna happen, and we don’t know what scheme Barry is cooking just yet. We’re going to have to find another way,” Bonnie concluded. “Clarke, thank you for your discretion on this so far. I was worried you might drop some kind of bombshell on Fiona, and it appears I was right.”

“I think at this point, the truth is indeterminate. I can continue to investigate, only because I worry about what those who are more prone to panicky reactions may do. The appearance of a mark like this, could cause waves. I prefer not to do that.” It’s at this time that Clarke noticed Greg, and gave him a gentle head nod. “I see you’ve finally found a vocation of the less…dramatic type.”

“Hah. Look at who I work with, and say that with a straight face.”

No amount of elven glaring in the world could get the smirk off his face. “Guys, we need to get to the bottom of this one, sooner or later. Let’s try to find a way where we can do business, while we go on a field trip.”

“The shop doesn’t have wings, unlike your mark,” Bonnie quipped. Fiona felt an elven grin emerge, and Bonnie went wide-eyed. “No, Fiona. Do not even attempt to ask me to levitate a whole store. That will end badly.”

“Oh hey, maybe we go take it for a test flight over by the palace first–”

“No, Fiona.” She was more annoyed that even Darla called out the disapproval, all the way from her booth.

It was like she knew when elven mischief was afoot.