"...You're in my head now?"
"Well, I'm kinda in your head and kinda not. I'm connected to you through the ring- like, my messages come from the ring and into your mind but I can't actually get in- even if I wanted to, your brain has a pretty hefty defensive system-"
He shook his head quickly, trying to get Malakar to stop. It worked, for a moment. He thought quickly and continued.
"Okay- so what, you're just sitting back at your palace in Deirdrin, talking with a ten year old in your free time?"
He felt the knocking again.
"No, MY palace is gone. Along with the rest of my world. Lost to the futures' past. I'm just an impression- a collection of his memories imprinted to help the wearer of the Dragonstone...who I thought would be my daughter. And stop talking out loud, you look like a lunatic."
Okay- Ilyana is the daughter of the demon king. Cool. Cool cool cool. So why was she leading the armies of demon kind instead of him? While pondering this, his father came to the door, leaning out. "Kael- here." He held out an axe, hefting it with one hand. Kael put on his best little kid face and took it, hefting it in his arms. He wasn't a particularly large kid. In fact, he was rather scrawny. His father pointed around the house.
"Head around the house just there and get started on the wood. We need a Cord by summers end or things are gonna get a little chilly."
It was times like this that the events of the future led him to forget, but now that he was back living them he knew what his follow up should be- 'Father, I'm a tenth your weight and skinny like a skeleton- how am I going to chop any wood? Can't I go and play down at the river?' His mouth turned up a little in a grin, almost like he was ecstatic to be asked to do it.
"Yes, Father."
Jack (short for Jackson) was quite used to the childish nature of his sons responses. All kids cared about was playing, and hearing the sounds of them laughing and splashing down at the water probably left some kind of feeling in his sons gut. In fact, he almost changed his mind before hearing an answer, even as Kael took the axe. He wouldn't be a little boy forever....perhaps it was best to-
Instead, he was left blinking at what he got instead, reaching up and rubbing his chin a little as Kael jogged around the corner. He turned back inside and spoke aloud to Pera, his wife- "That boy grows more and more every time I speak to him." Pera chuckled as she finished the dishes, drying her hands on the apron and turning to wrap her arms around her bear of a husband. "Yes...I know just what you mean. Soon he'll be with you, in the mill, grinding flour and snatching some poor girl to tend his house and raise his children."
Jacks smile faded a little as he heard the first WHOMP of the axe, splitting the logs. The smile faded completely as he took her shoulders.
"I hope not." He sighed. "I want our son to attend school, then perhaps a higher form of education. Maybe get work in the Capital. A different sort of life than this."
Being a miller left a bad taste in peoples mouth. Yes, they needed the flour but they assumed based on rumor and heresay that all millers were gutless thieves, picking pockets and breaking into homes. Anytime something went missing, the guard showed up at his door first. He didn't want that sort of life for Kael, where just associating with him lowered your own standing. Pera hummed, kissing Jacksons stubbly chin.
"Well, maybe. But I'll say I quite like my miller."
**************************************
Kael suppressed the aether he felt coming from the ring- this made it impossible for it to communicate with him. Until he had the time to sit and investigate, he needed to make sure it wasn't taking things from his memory. For all he knew, what this things saw could cause it to want to harm him. After all, most of the last ten years was spent slaughtering his people. Plus, he didn't really want to deal with it now- he was still trying to revel in being back with his family. Nobody really understood what life was like when all the people who raised you were gone. There was a specific kind of empty hole that nothing could fill. Suddenly, you became the one making the choices, saving the money and fighting the battles.
No one to ask for advice on love or school. Nobody to hug or be close to. That kind of thing could drive you mad if you let it.
Still...as he continued cracking through the wood, he supposed some discussion wouldn't hurt. He hadn't felt any hostility and as long as he kept a strong connection to the Aether in his body he felt confident that drilling into his head would be more work than it was worth. He look a deep breath and connected with the ring again.
-Why are you here?-, he said in his head, sending the thoughts in the direction of the ring and the voice.
"I told you. To help the wearer of the Dragonstone."
-Help with what?-
"How to use it."
-And what, you're still gonna do that? Even if I'm not Ilyana?-
"It's what I was made for. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop from assisting you. They who wear the stone make the rules."
Kael stopped chopping as his mother exited the house with a cup of water, setting it on the makeshift wooden bench his father had built. He smiled, moving over and grabbing it to take a long drink and wipe sweat from his brow. It had been maybe half an hour since he started and already his entire body ached. At the same time, something about it felt oh so good. He wanted to keep going....so he did, moving back over and stacking another log.
-So sending me back in time wasn't the only thing this stone can do?-
"Technically, it didn't send you back. It rewound time. Dragonstones are rare- there are maybe two or three that I know exist. They exist in Dragon hearts and the only way to get one is to take it out by force. I don't know if you've ever seen a Dragon, but they're not easy things to find let alone kill. Anyway, each Dragon has its own niche. It's own specialty it works with- a red dragon deals with fire. A green dragon with earth and so on. The stone came from a black dragon, which everyone assumed to mean darkness- and rightly so. Black dragons do indeed control shadows and the dark. They also manipulate time, to some degree. They protect the owner of the stone from death by rewinding time- I thought that meant rewinding your body or healing it in some way. Clearly, I was wrong. It literally rewound time."
He frowned, shaking some sweat off his brow and stacking another log. While he didn't necessarily need the history lesson, it wasn't unwelcome. Though he was an archmage in his previous life, he didn't know a damn thing about Dragonstones. Hell, he'd never even heard of it before. To be fair, he was really only focused on how to kill things with Aether and magic, not anything else. A new life....a new Kael.
-Why didn't it protect the black dragon, then?-
"It would have, if we let it. After you die, you have about thirty seconds to a minute before the stone activates. If you can get it in your possession before then, you're safe. If not..."
Malakar let himself trail off, their present predicament being all the ending to that sentence that would be needed. So a Dragonstone was capable of rewinding time to this extent. Did it have a particular time frame to recharge? He asked-
-So what, every time I die, I come back here?-
Wasn't so bad a thought.
"No. That part of it is a one use deal. It takes thousands of years to infuse the stone with enough Aether to come back like this. Now that its gone, just the dragons residual energies are left."
-Hmm.-
The answers seemed to be coming too quick to be lies. What would be the point of misleading him anyway? He furrowed his brow after that last chop, taking a knee. This body was weak. Very, very weak. Compared to his father, Kael was woefully under built for physical activity such as this. He set the axe against the large stump he'd been chopping the others on. Only then did he realize his hands were specked with two popped blisters and a third forming. He let out a breathy laugh as he pushed himself to his feet. He'd begin picking up the wood he'd cut and stacking it by the door, where his father normally kept them. He heard his parents inside as his father left for his afternoon work, having popped over for lunch and a breather. His mother sighed and made her way back over toward a small wooden chair Jack had build for her.
As he looked in through the cloth covered window at her, the smile he was sporting faded a little, then transformed itself into a frown as he looked around himself. At the house, the chopped wood, his mother...then up at the mountains of the vale. He remembered rain. Blood. He could see the pass that the horde of demons would surge through in five short years. It was like he could see them there now, a veritable swarm that made the land look as though it were wiggling and moving on its own. The light of torches could be seen from end to end of the vale pass with no end in sight. In fact, when he lie on that beach, it had taken hours for the sounds of the horde to move on...and the information he got later indicated they were just the advance party. The army that came after was smarter, stronger and much, much larger.
Perhaps he could enjoy the time with his family. But that's not all he needed to do. He was here, and he could start harnessing power earlier, learning more sooner. He was sure if he tried, he could protect this place when it started. And if the power in this ring was all Malakar said it was...
Taking a seat on the bench, he drained the glass of water and set it on the ground below, resting his forearms on top of his knees and clasping his hands. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus, pulling in Aether and letting it bleed out through the pores and back into the air. He did it slowly, not wanting to hyperextend his weaker body and end up hurting himself in the first place.
"Well now, that's just inefficient."
His brow twitched.
-Yeah? You got a better way?-
He could swear, he felt Malakar grinning.
"Actually, funny you should ask...."