Heir To The Iron Crown: Dyrith

18 - Átjánda

I looked at the cottage beneath me, watching the old man walk out through the yellow-painted door.

"Buri," I whispered.

He looked up to see me, smiling as he watched. He put his hand out, palm facing towards the sky, as the flowers continued to fall, one of them falling right in his hand.

"Interesting," I heard him say. He was on the field so far away from where I was floating, yet I heard him as if he were standing right next to me.

He started to float upwards, towards me, and it was incredible to watch the frail old man fly with such grace.

Once he reached me, he remained quiet, as if waiting for me to say something first.

"How are you here?" I asked him.

He looked down towards the cottage.

"Gridastadur is here, she is my home. I'm home," he said.

"I've never seen you in my dreams before," I told him.

"I'm apparent when I wish, and hidden when I wish," he said simply, his long grey beard floating in the wind with him.

"Then why are you here now?" I asked him.

"I thought my entrance was predictable. I always make my way to you when you need help Raynhildur," he said, brushing a daisy off of his nose.

"And how can you help?" I asked, thinking about all the things in my life that are still quite vague.

"I don't know how I can, but I know Gridastadur can," he said.

I looked at the cottage down below.

"How?"

"Gridastadur was the only witness the night you were found," he said. "I was traveling that night, but I know that Rosabelle found you near my home."

"I was left by someone near the cottage?" I asked him.

"Yes," he replied. He seemed to quite enjoy the raining daisies.

"But cottages don't speak. How can Gridastadur tell me anything about what I want to know," I asked.

"It's not what she will tell you, rather what she can show you. I am a master of illusion child, and so is she. But she is far more powerful than I am. What the past and future hold, make no sense to me. But Gridastadur understands, for she is an Oracle. And I think she has knowledge that belongs to you," he said.

It took me a minute to take that all in.

"Can you ask her for it then?" I asked him. "Surely she'll show you?"

"Why are you under the impression that she'll not show you?" he said.

"Child, she wouldn't show me even if I asked because the knowledge that you seek is not mine to possess.
We learn that which we are meant to learn, everything else is stolen."

I looked at him. I knew there was wisdom behind his words, but perhaps I was too naive to understand what that meant at the moment.

"You're no ordinary pack wizard, are you Buri?" I asked him.

"I'm just as ordinary a wizard, as you are a wolf, Raynhildur," he said.

I smiled at that. I'd started to realize that there was more about who I really was than was visible to the eye. If what Buri said was true, Gridastadur could help me find out more.

"What does all this mean? These dreams? The flowers?" I asked him, pointing to the still changing colors of the sky, and the raining daisies.

What do they represent?

"You cannot go looking for meaning in everything Raynhildur. Some things are just meant to be experienced," he said, laughing softly as he started to move the flowers around him with the slightest motion of his fingers. It could only be considered telekinesis.

"Everything you see here, is a force of nature. But werewolves aren't creatures of the air, my child. You can only enjoy this feeling for so long," he said, the flowers now forming an orb around his floating form.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him, trying to see him through the curtain of flowers.

I heard him chuckle before he was completely invisible behind an opaque wall of yellow.

"As my good friend Newton once said, 'Gravity, catches up with us all'" I heard his voice say before the ball of flowers suddenly collapsed, leaving no sign of the old wizard behind.

I raised an eyebrow at this.

What?

"Newton didn't say tha-"

My words were cut off as the invisible strings that held me in the air were cut, and I fell towards the cottage beneath me, screaming.