I come from beyond the moon and sun

but not so far as to be undone

by the price of time and space between

these mortal realms and lands unseen

— Unknown

* * *

The things Wizards do for just a little bit of Mana. It was a subject that was covered almost to death. Literally.

Lessons and lectures almost unending on how to collect Mana. How to generate Mana. Obviously how to coax and glue and fit and spin and stir them into spells and into potions and into amulets and other devices.

How to glue Mana all together with globs of Anima and slice away the unwanted bits and fill them in with desired ones.

How to extract Time Enough for That from the barest glimmering of starlight, and draw Recollection of the Heart from a tearstained journal.

That last was not simple. You couldn't just burn pages and snatch whatever came out. You'd get something useless like Lamentation of very dubious quality and if you were really really lucky, and torched exactly the right journal while in precisely the correct state of mind, you might find the barest tinge of Ashes of The Bridges We Burn in quantities barely even worth the flame spell.

And don't even get started on Time Enough for That. If it was easy, every wizard would do it!

Thankfully, the Mana Barnibus was delving for now was far less complicated.

He just needed a few Nimble Footsteps and — Barnibus spun in a wobbly pirouette, sketched a skip-and-a step — and fell flat on his face.

Barnibus palmed the dash of Meager Footwork and sighed.

He stood tall and straight and studiously kept the chagrin from his face as he muttered the very specific servant animation spell Hat was dictating to him in his ear.

He substituted Meager Footwork for Nimble Footsteps where he had to and tried his best to fill out the missing umph — technical term — with the last of the fish Anima, and the barest dabs of his own.

Of course, different Animas didn't just mix nicely together by themselves, so he added in a little ditty in the middle of his own initiative with plenty of rhyming lines and shared consonants for some added connectivity and prayed the glue would hold everything together long enough.

For a wonder, Hat stayed silent with barely even a sigh as he worked, letting him enunciate and try to will-press and bind the odd mishmash of Animas and barely sufficient Mana together into something resembling a coherent spell form.

Thankfully, Hat had been right. His wizard's robe possessed plenty of Mana all by itself and was doing a large amount of the heavy lifting for him!

'It'll do.' Was all Hat commented afterwards and Barnibus was left with the sudden distinct impression that — was this... was Hat actually trying to work with him? Like a real Wizard's Hat?

The surge of elation was heady and set his mustache on end as he failed to stop a wide grin from spreading across his face and he almost fumbled the catalytic phrase — 'Rise Errant Minion of mine. Now is your surest time to shine. Tea I desire to heat by the fire....'

'Hold it together you numbskull!'

Ok, so working together only went so far. Still, as Barnibus waggled his fingers over his robe just so and intoned the final words dictated by his hat, and he felt the spell spread like a wave through his robe... he couldn't help it!

He belted out a laugh that was absolutely, positively a Wizard's Guffaw and not at all even slightly reminiscent of a Witch's Cackle and exclaimed "Much Fae Craft have thee shown us this night, Forerunner. Wondrous winter and starlight. The glimmering moon, an' horrific fright. Thoust, shown us this night much magic of thine. Now prithee attend to magic of mine!"

And his robe stumbled upright.

Stumbled — as if it had appendages to get in order. It dithered a bit next to him as if unsure as to what to do next, and then bumbled away to fill a kettle with water from the river.

Barnibus flinched as the robe tripped over a tree root on its way out of the circle of firelight, and crumpled on its front.

Then it inflated again, righted itself hurriedly and stumbled away out of sight with bumps and crashes all the way.

It didn't sound like it missed a single bush.

'You just never miss an opportunity to rub that egg in your face....'

Barnibus' face burned — thankfully, hopefully hidden by his beard, and the Forerunner's eyebrow quirked in amusement. Still, "Spake I not that I was Fae." Was all she said in the lightest tone.

At which point Leinan choked on nothing, and Barnibus coughed heavily into his beard.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The Forerunner glared peevishly them. "Thee laugh at mine expense, mortals? Dost thee be unaware I can bring the winter sky down upon thee?!" The Forerunner pouted and folded her arms sullenly.

'The whiplash from her mood swings is going stretch my seams' Hat muttered.

Barnibus coughed again, and sharing a quick glance with Leinan — she turned back to the fire quickly... and was that Blackest — "If I may, — achem — Forerunner... But what else could..."? Barnibus trailed off.

The Forerunner flicked her hair angrily and blew a pale lock from her face. "I told thee! I am a HUMBLE —" The Forerunner glared and then snapped, looking uncomfortable, "An why might Fae approach these shoals? Ne'er longer, Wizard! Have done."

Barnibus opened his mouth to speak —

"Ne'er longer, Wizard." The Forerunner cut in. "Ne'er longer!"

The Forerunner looked... tired all of a sudden. Immortally mortal somehow, if that was possible.

— 'Its not' —

"Have done wizard." She said, drooping. "Have done. Asked twice an' twice answered. Ask not thrice."

Barnibus gulped and for a split, hours-long second, found his eyes caught by the Mortally Naked Immortality glowing from behind The Forerunner's misty-mountain eyes.

It caught him.... And held him.... For an eterni —

And he slammed awake as Hat struck him with a book thicker than a grave stone. 'Are you daft?!' —

— And the The Forerunner laughed her tinkling, wintery, frozen-stream laugh, and for a moment Barnibus wondered — and then it was gone.

"Well now, Wizard of mine ire" The Forerunner said, "pray, what entertainment dost thine heart desire? A game of riddles mayhap? Circles of wit an' games of mind?"

The Forerunner was crouching suddenly, her hand caressing her chin and a thoughtful expression on her face.

The Forerunner, it seemed, was back, and Barnibus was reminded that The Forerunner never did seem to stop moving.... Except when she did, and then she was as still as frozen stone.

"Or mayhap a contest far less refined?" The thoughtful expression turned into a blood thirsty grin, and, for a moment, a blade of ice extended from her hand which she flourished and slashed through the air as the other members of the circle stiffened.

The Forerunner laughed and jumped and spun in a kick-spin that kept spinning for seconds until she landed amid a circle of glittering frost. "Or mayhap we dance a jig all wild an' hay, an' prance an' play the night away? Tis up to thee Wizard One, what dost Wizards like yee do for — fun?"

Barnibus shook himself "Wha — huh?" And his Hat snapped 'Entertainment you idiot! Entertainment! What's gotten into you!'

Barnibus blinked owlishly at The Forerunner. "W-well... I... we" —

— 'If you say study, Barney....' Hat warned ominously

— "Achem! I — we, of course! Not study we... Tea. We drink ah...".

'You,' Hat cut in seriously. 'Are fixing to be entirely too truthful and far too unhelpful besides. You just deal-wammied an immortal FAE — whatever she claims — into sticking around for entertainment. Admit you don't have a plan and she might just find that so entertaining she might just leave early.... And then kill you for it!'

The Forerunner was looking too delighted by far, Barnibus noted with a hitch in his chest. She was also licking her lips and....

Barnibus cut off abruptly and scrambled to organize his muddled thoughts again. What was — Leinan.... Blackest Hatred... how did she get that in her eyes?

Two children... there they were, huddled next Leinan and watching him very very intently. Barnibus squinted.

Three fish. Eleven strokes... his heart lurched guiltily again remembering the deal. Entertainment! Stir the cauldron! What?

'Fish testicles.... She really did a number on you. Even you aren't normally this bad.'

Did she...? Barnibus thought haltingly.

'I doubt it was on purpose.' Hat sighed after a moment. 'Would probably break her rules of hospitality. She just let a little too much of that OTHERNESS leak out is all. I'd bet my brim on it.'

Other....

'The Fae are Existential' —

She's says —

'My bleached BRIM STITCHING!' Hat hissed. 'That there is a Fae or I'm not a hat! She just won't — can't — I don't know — isn't admitting it. And I'd bet my tip it has something to do with your Grandfather's Fell Doom and Grand Demise or I don't know my Faery Tales.'

"But the — "

'Focus Barny,' Hat continued. 'We have objectives. Get ourselves out of this mess. Get the children out of their mess.... And I suppose' — Hat continued as Barnibus lowered metaphorical, bushy and very wizardly eyebrows at him — 'we can help try to stop the Forerunner from gobbling up the fool girl too.'

Barnibus nodded decisively and hard enough that it shook him completely out of his Wizardly Pondering.

The Forerunner was gazing at him expectantly.

Leinan was watching him concernedly.

Aemon had no expression on his young face but was, oddly enough radiating an Approving Glow — not to be confused with Glowing with Approval — completely different in fact.

And Keimen —

Keimen was listening and watching his robe flounder back into the hollow, covered in dirt and leaves and looking, somehow as tired and out of sorts as Barnibus would have felt if he had needed to draw water from a river, in the middle of a gloomy forest, by moonlight.

It practically tumbled into the firelight and proffered a small kettle to Barnibus, slopping water the entire time and generally making the entire area around itself a sopping wet puddle.

That was alright. Wizard Kettles, like Wizard Robes, and Wizard Hats... and Wizard Slippers... and Wizard Handkerchiefs —

'Handkerchiefs Barney?'

— Handkerchiefs, carried far more than expected.

Barnibus took the kettle from his robe, which released a relieved sort of sigh as it deflated and almost collapsed before Barnibus picked it up as well and swung it about himself.

It was not warm, but it was not too cold either. Damp, but not sopping. It dragged, but not heavy.

Most importantly thought, it was Wizardly and Wizardly was what was important.

A Wizard is always a wizard, even when his pants are down... but pants were still important, or no wizard would wear them.

He barely paid it any mind as he waved the kettle into the air above the fire with a muttered cantrip to heat, stroked his beard... and Pondered.

How does one entertain the Fae...?

And as he Pondered, he watched the Forerunner idly blow a lock of winter-frost hair from her eyes. He remembered The Forerunner —

— 'So blunt. So mundane! Oh where art thy game of riddles? Thy circles and tricks?'

— 'A piece of thine dignity shall suffice!'

Barnibus recalled her tinkling laugh and then all the stories he'd read about wicked faeries and clever children...

And Barnibus... smiled. Again.

* * *

And despite herself, Leinan's heart jumped.

Because it was back.

As the Wizard tugged his pants back on, and wrapped an odd belt around his odd robe, she saw it.

There was that glimmer in his eyes again, like stars peaking out from behind his eyelids.

There was that Something about him, warm and reassuring and mysterious.

And as the Wizard's twinkling eyes clashed with The Forerunner's, glowing with moonlight, Leinan thought she saw a tale as old Master Bordenshire might have told playing out in front of her.

* * *

How does one entertain the Fae...?