Streamfield Shifters: Hide & Seek

Chapter Sixteen

Over the next two days, in the time spent traveling between villages and searching said locations, Rachael and I finally dragged more information out of Leihalani about this mysterious Convergence:

According to elven religious scholars, before the High Fae departed this world for an entirely different plane of existence, they decreed that our two worlds would one day become whole. That event would only occur once humanity accepted the presence of magic among them.

"You do realize that us coexisting going to be difficult, if not outright impossible, right?" I said. "We can barely get past racial issues as it is."

"The Summer Court is well aware of your issues," Leihalani noted with a wry twist of her lips. "But they will have to accept us, for we were both born to this world. We shared it once before, it can be done again."

"Yeah, but we have nukes," Rachael interjected glumly.

"Magic is natural, technology is not," Kesio called back from atop his white stallion. "Which one do you think will win out in the end?"

It wasn't an outright threat, but the way in which he phrased it sent a shudder down my spine.

"How will we know when the Convergence happens?" I asked in the silence that followed.

"It is happening now," Leihalani explained, reaching up and fiddling with some of the gemstones in her hair. "The stones in your city were not visible at all when I started crossing over. They will continue to grow until they match the ones on this side of the veil."

Rachael said, "So, everyone will be able to pass through freely?"

"That is what we believe."

Rachael turned to me. "That's going to be hell for the elementary school."

My brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"The equivalent of an international airport is going to pop out of thin air one day."

Oh, boy. That really was going to cause problems. "How many other Gates are there in our, er, world?" I asked, stumbling slightly. It wasn't going to be "our" world for much longer now, was it?

"Two per kingdom," Kesio replied.

"Where does the other Gate go?" I asked.

"California," Leihalani said. She snorted. "While the climate is comparable to ours, it is far too crowded and smelly for my tastes. And the people there do strange, unnatural things to their bodies."

That could mean any number of large cities: Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Francisco.

I sat uneasily on my horse. The merging of our worlds didn't particularly bother me, probably because I was a shapeshifter. But I was in the minority. If you put all of the shapeshifters and witches of the world together, we accounted for less than two-percent of the entire population. We didn't know how many elves lived on Atlantis nor Lemuria. Despite their pastoral existence, we couldn't underestimate their abilities.

But I knew humans, and I could very well imagine the strife that would immediately follow. Far more people would see this as a threat than as opening up new possibilities. Our ancestors had doomed the Neanderthals to extinction; as a whole, we didn't like to share.

Somehow, I believed that an alien invasion would be more well-received than this.

The next two villages we encountered also proved to be duds. In total, we'd spent a week on the road and still no sign of Jimmy. Even discrete conversations with innkeepers and tavern keepers turned up empty.