The Gift of Good and Evil: Bound By Blood

The Final Vote

You stepped into the tower doors just as Dovey was shutting the door to her office. They must have set up their meeting there, because you could hear chattering for a brief second before it went silent.

You could only assume someone had cast a silencing charm, so that you and Storian couldn't hear what was going on.

"Hello my dear," Storian cooed as you stepped a little farther inside. "How are you feeling?"

Your gaze shifted to the direction of the quill at her podium. "I'm feeling...well to be honest, I'm feeling a little nervous," you admitted.

"Understandable, as your fate hangs in the balance...but not exactly what I meant," Storian cooed as she continued writing in her book. Though as she finished her sentence, and silence filled the air for a moment, she rose, turning to look at you. You had been walking toward her lightly, and as she turned, you were only a few feet from her.

"I'm...fine," you said, though it wasn't convincing.

"Y/N," Storian said in a somewhat motherly tone. "You can lie to everyone else, you can lie to yourself, but you know it's useless to lie to me.

You sighed. "I'm..." you thought for a moment, trying to find the correct words. "I am okay...physically I mean. The blood magic seems to be staying balanced between my two halves okay...though I'll admit it does feel a little like a struggle to keep it balanced."

Storian listened, her form floating through the air toward you as you came to sit down at the end of the table in front of her.

"But mentally? Emotionally?" You added. "I'm..." You looked up at Storian...tears now filling your eyes.

"I know that blood magic is the most powerful magic, and so I shouldn't be blaming myself completely for what happened," you said as if recounting what others had said to you.

Storian hummed. "No, you shouldn't," she agreed.

You looked toward your friend. "But how can I not?" You asked. "I killed King Arthur, I killed Kassandra, my sis-" you choked as a lump caught in your throat. "My sister," you repeated after swallowing hard.

Storian let out a sigh. "Y/N...sometimes, death is inevitable."

You looked at her teary eyed. "But why did it have to be her? I had just found out she was my sister. I had just learned that she and Vanessa were children of Hecate too. Why did everything happen the way it did? Why did I have to go from that beautiful happy moment, to my wife accusing me of cheating and blood magic corrupting me, to me killing people and attacking Camelot with a shadow army?"

Storian floated toward you, lifting your chin with the tip of her quill. "Because that is how the story was meant to unfold," she said plainly.

Your eyebrows knit together. "And you?" You asked. "Lesso told me you...interfered? Did you get in trouble? Aren't you not supposed to do that?"

Storian looked around as if waiting for someone or something to appear. "Well...I'm still here aren't I? I'm still the recorder of tales...so I guess what I did was part of the story all along."

You chuckled. "How can you do that? Act so...unaffected by what happens?"

Storian let out a sigh. "You misunderstand Y/N," Storian said. "Just because I record what happens doesn't mean I don't care what happens."

She rose from where she had been floating next to you, moving off to return to the pages of her story book she was currently writing in.

"As a quill," she explained. "We are told that it is our duty to record the stories, the way they happen. We are given the power to predict how those stories might turn out, though they do not always go as planned. And..." she hesitates, "we are told not to become involved; remain detached from the outcome of the story, and its characters."