2: Axis Mundi
Queen Thetis sat back and rested her arms on the ornate coral throne. She glanced up at the sparking window that looked upon the Goddess, the light shimmering across the dome as if it were the oceans surface, and then returned her attention to the Princess, fidgeting before her.
“I can understand your intrigue,” she said, “You hold the memory of Prince Dionysus in high regard, so the irregular behaviour of his former aide has caught your attention. Especially since it seems so similar to the way Dionysus once acted.”
“I find it strange that he’s doing it alone though,” said Phantasia, “And that you’ve not been able to trace his movements, either,”
“As I said before, the world only tells us what the world wishes to tell us. If Ophion does not wish us to know what he is doing, then we cannot know what he is doing. To force knowledge is against our nature,”
“We have taken steps to investigate,” she continued, after a brief pause, “We do not believe he is doing this alone, and has associates from the other Queendoms helping him – much like Dionysus did. As you know, he had ways of hiding his movements from us. He gained such assistance from the wind faeries, most likely,”
Phantasia chuckled. As she had found out during her travels, the wind faeries were quite the opposite of their water-based kindred. They played with illusions and trickery, rather than truth and knowledge, and were free-spirited and fun-loving, rather than cold and sensible.
“They are looking into these events themselves,” said the Queen, “But it is hard to convince anyone to commit themselves to this cause. A single faerie acting out of character is no reason to be alarmed in this era. Besides, Queen Áine and the Wind Queendom have their own worries, what with the disappearances of Freyr and Titania,”
“Faeries do disappear,” she continued, as her eyes began to focus on saddening memories unknown to Phantasia, “We can change when exposed to mana corrupted by human hearts. Many of us who fought in the Apostle Wars were irrevocably changed by our time fighting alongside the humans, especially those who experienced the human world when they were only children. Dionysus and Freyr were among those, as was Calypso, until she became Cecaelia…”
The conversation trailed off. Phantasia wondered if Freyr and Titania had been corrupted by the darkness. It was impossible, surely? Freyr had been such a shining example of strength when he fought against Cecaelia, and Titania was a happy, over-excitable faerie her own age. She never saw even the faintest trace of darkness in their auras!
“And you say you have learned nothing?” said the Queen, smiling.
***
