by Amy Sumida
“Thrud feels things intensely,” Odin defended his granddaughter.
“Sure, uh-huh, I felt her fury very intensely,” I agreed while internally I wondered if she could be the goddess whom the Horsemen were supposed to kill. Wouldn't that just be a rain of toads on my parade?
“Heavy veight to carry alone,” Kirill shook his head, “knowing of your own death.”
“He wasn't alone,” Trevor noted. “Rain knew.”
“And never told us,” I blinked in surprise. “I hadn't even thought about Rain knowing.”
“It wasn't his secret to tell,” Trevor said.
“Poor Rain,” I frowned, wondering how many secrets he had kept on behalf of others over the centuries. “That couldn't have been easy.”
“He vas spy,” Kirill reminded me. “Secrets are easy for zem.”
“Secrets aren't easy for anyone,” Odin had a strange look on his face, an undecided look.
“Ull wanted us to know that he was happy about his choice,” I took Odin's hand. “He was tired of holding magic he didn't like, of being responsible for things he never wanted to be a part of.”
“So now he has a choice,” Trevor mused. “That's more than any of us get.”
“Which is what I want to talk to you about,” I said to Odin.
“Go on,” Odin nodded.
“Ull seemed to want to be a faerie,” I said gently. “I think he was looking forward to having elemental powers.”
“And now you want to know if there's a way he can choose fey magic?” Odin scowled. “No, there isn't. It's impossible.”
“So was flowing through the wards of Faerie,” I reminded him. “Impossible seems to be a theme with him.”
“Brevyn is in an unformed state,” Odin mused. “A lot can be accomplished in such circumstances but he can't change his DNA. Genetically, he's a god. Gods cannot hold faerie magic.”
“But humans can,” I whispered as an epiphany hit me.
They all gaped at me again.
“Neither of your children are human, Vervain,” Odin finally said. “You gave Rian a fey essence and a god soul, remember? When he split into two, Rian took the fey essence and Ull... I mean Brevyn, took the god soul. There's no human soul in either of them.”
“I'm not so sure about that,” I mused.
“Vhat are you talking about, Villis?” Kirill mocked the Different Strokes quote I loved to use.
“My son was meant to be a twin soul,” I shivered as I felt the truth in my words. I was on to something, I knew it. “He was a being of two essences. Now what happens when you split something in two?”
“It's half the size of the original,” Trevor frowned.
“Exactly,” I smiled. “And Nature abhors a vacuum. So where would they get the other half that they needed to complete themselves?”
“From the only option left to them,” Odin whispered in awe. “Your humanity.”
“This is pure theory right now,” I cautioned. “But all of these strange things happening with the boys... it just feels like they're more than just a fire fey and a god.”
“They're dual souled beings,” Odin smacked his fist onto the table. “Sweet apples of immortality, Vervain! I think you're right.”
“Is there any way to be sure?” Trevor asked.
“Yes, actually, there is!” I blinked in surprise as I jumped up. I ran into my walk-in closet and pulled open a drawer. Then I grabbed what I was after and went running back into the room, waving the goggles in the air. “I can use these.”
“Tlaloc's Farseeing Glasses,” Odin's jaw dropped.
“That'll do it,” Trevor declared.
“So what if they are?” I lowered the glasses. “What if I look at them and I see two souls? What would that mean for them?”
“Well, first of all, you are both right and wrong about human souls,” Odin tapped the table as he worked it out. “A human soul doesn't have fey magic, only fey souls do. Witches have magic because they have a trace of fey blood from ancient human-fey unions. That has nothing to do with their human souls.”
“But I-” I blinked in confusion.
“You already had a faerie essence,” Odin pointed out. “And as we all know, you are a different matter altogether. But your sons are not you. They are fey-human and god-human... in theory.”
“Then how was I right?” I grimaced.
“My theory,” Odin explained, “one I've been working on for years, is that humans are flexible. They're like the universal blood type; the O-Negative of souls.”
We all stared at him blankly.
“A human soul is a soul without magic,” Odin went further. “Yet, we gods have been living off their energy for years.”
“They have the potential for magic,” Trevor mused. “Raw energy.”
“Like Brevyn but on a much smaller scale,” Odin nodded. “I believe that this is why a human can become immortal through consumption of one of our magical enhancers.”
“Or become a witch through breeding,” I frowned. “But I thought that gave them fey essence?”
“Ah ha!” Odin pointed at me. “And now you've come to another aspect of my theory. Faerie essence is unique, yes? It's not a soul exactly. The essence of a faerie comes from their Source; a collective elemental source. The elements are a physical magic; they're of the world. You can find them in nature and a faerie can control the elements through the connection inside them.”
“Yes, that sounds right,” I agreed.
“God and human souls come from the Void; a home for individual spirits,” Odin explained. “The Void is not a collective of any kind of energy but a repository of several separate beings.”
“Da,” Kirill got up and fetched the brewed coffee, brought it back to the table and poured cups for everyone. “Souls versus essences, zese are facts.”
“The Source of fey essences are like this coffee pot,” Odin waved to the coffee Kirill was pouring in his cup. “It can be divvied out in whatever amount is needed. But the Void is like this bowl of sugar cubes,” he pulled the bowl over and took out a cube. “It can only release souls as precise portions.”
“Alright,” Trevor picked up a couple sugar cubes and threw them into his cup. “That makes sense.”
“Now let's go even further,” Odin lifted a brow. “In the Void we have human souls, souls without magic but full of energy, and god souls with magic.”
“Okay,” I added cream and sugar to my coffee and stirred thoughtfully. “I see where you're going with this. You're thinking like a scientist.”
“Yes,” Odin's smile was brilliant. “A geneticist to be exact. Genetically speaking, when two beings mate, the dominate genes are what gets passed to the young.”
“And the god soul would be the dominate,” Trevor narrowed his eyes on Odin in consideration. “At least in a god-human mating.”
“Yes,” Odin agreed. “But a birth is both a physical and a spiritual occurrence so let's look at it even deeper. A god mates with a human and the god soul is stronger so this is what gets sent from the Void into the physical body of the baby. However, the physical has its own stockpile of energy and the baby's body is half human. This human half, with its unresolved magic, would temper the god magic. In most cases this would result in less powerful children who are still immortal but only through a link to their god parent. They would need some type of immortality enhancer to become immortal on their own.”
“Demi-gods,” Trevor breathed.
“Yes, exactly,” Odin agreed. “But now let's consider a human-fey union. We have a spiritual soul being sent down from the Void, encountering a physical essence sent from the Source. Again, the universal potential of the human soul would not fight the dominate magic of the fey essence but the fey essence isn't spiritual, so the human soul survives and the fey essence is left to become a physical trait instead of a fully cognizant essence in control of the body, as happens with a full faerie.”
“Witches,” I whispered. “That sounds right to me. W
hat do you guys think?” I looked to Kirill and Trevor and they both nodded. “That would explain how a fey essence can be diluted through the generations of human families.”
“Precisely,” Odin tapped the table. “But we haven't even got to the god-fey unions. Two dominant magics but one a spiritual and one a physical. In this case, I believe that they would have to coexist. It's only possible because of their different natures but this is how we get dual-souled beings like Aradia. Technically, she's a soul-essence being. We've always lumped essences together with souls but although both souls and essences hold the consciousness of the being, they are completely different.”
“Okay,” I took a deep breath and summed it all up. “So human souls, being this universal magic potential, can combine with anything but fey and god souls can't combine with each other so children resulting from such a union are born with two souls; one soul and one essence to be precise.”
“Yes,” Odin said simply.
“But if your theory is true, then my boys wouldn't be dual-souled,” I surmised. “They'd simply be god or witch and Rian is definitely not a witch, he's a faerie. Only a full-blood dragon-sidhe can shift.”
“Yes,” Odin smirked. “But the births of your twins were just as unusual as your own, Vervain. As we already went over, they had two souls, like Aradia; one essence and one god, both fully formed.”
“But then they split,” I sighed in understanding. “The human soul was added afterward and so it didn't have to blend.”
“And thus, your sons each have two souls!” Odin exclaimed. “Combinations that are otherwise impossible.”
“Well damn,” I blinked.
“So Ull wouldn't be able to gain faerie magic,” I concluded with disappointment.
“Well... no, I suppose not,” Odin deflated.
“But he'd have an extra soul's worth of potential,” Trevor mused. “Maybe that's how he's able to manipulate things like wards. He's got this dominant god soul, even more so because it's a reincarnated soul brought back with its awareness in tact, and then a submissive human soul bowing to the wishes of the god soul while simultaneously offering it pure energy.”
“While the god soul is full of undecided magic,” I swallowed hard as the full implications hit me. “He could blow himself to smithereens!”
“He won't,” Odin took my hand. “The god soul is intelligent. It will guide the process.”
“Alright,” I tried to calm down. “So what about Rian?”
“Immortality and elemental control from his fey essence,” Trevor mused. “And pure spiritual potential from his human soul. You realize that he can be reborn now?”
“Oh,” I gasped as tears sprung to my eyes. “No, I hadn't realized that. That's wonderful news.”
“We don't know anything for sure yet,” Odin leaned to the side to hug me. “Let's not start rejoicing prematurely.”
“You're right,” I pulled away from him. “I'm going back to Faerie.”
“Is it wrong that an LL Cool J song just started playing in my head?” Trevor grimaced.
“I'm going back to Faerie, Faerie, Faerie,” Kirill started to sing I'm going back to Cali with his new improved lyrics.
“I'm going back to Faerie,” Trevor picked it up. “Hmmm, I don't think so.”
“If you two yahoos are quite done with your musical rendition,” Odin grumbled at them but I didn't hear the end of it. I was already on my way back to Cali... er, I mean Faerie.
“And there she is,” Arach came forward to kiss me. “I miss-”
“Yeah, yeah,” I pushed him away and rushed into the nursery.
“A Thaisce,” he growled as he chased after me. “How dare you interrupt my romantic endeavors.”
“I need to see something,” I waved the goggles at him.
“You're using those things on our children?” He came to a stop inside the nursery and stared at me in horror. “Why? What's going on?”
The goblin who had been on baby duty, jumped up and ran from the room without a word. Dexter, who was sleeping between the cribs, opened one eye to half-mast, took stock of what I was doing, and then closed it again.
“I'll tell you after I know for sure,” I pulled the thick goggles on and everything went brighter.
Tlaloc was an Aztec god who had once been friends with Blue. He was kind of an evil bastard and we ended up killing him. But he had these goggles which allowed him to see very far... into someone's soul even. When I wore the goggles, I could see what people truly were. The truth was revealed to me. I once saw all of my beasts and I saw a crown upon Kirill's head. That was when I'd learned he had once been Russian royalty. The glasses showed it all.
So when I looked down at Rian, I wasn't surprised to see his brilliant core of fire. I had expected that. As I had expected the shimmering form of his dragon stretching out ethereally past his human shape. What I hadn't expected was that Rian's dragon wasn't like Arach's, it was more like mine. His dragon wasn't in pure dragon form, it was a combination of human shape and the beast. There, lying in the crib before me, was a half-form ghosting over the solid substance of my son's body. A baby boy with shining horns and a glittering tail. Translucent wings wrapped around his sleeping body and spiritual claws tipped his little hands.
“Rian,” I whispered as my eyes filled with tears. Now was the time for rejoicing. “My little dragon boy.”
“What's going on, Vervain?!” Arach hissed.
“Shh,” I chided him as I sniffed back my tears. “One more to go.”
I headed to Brevyn's crib with a pounding heart. I could see the gleam of his soul before I saw his body. Then I was standing beside the cradle, looking down at a glowing, shifting swirl of energy I assumed to be Brevyn's undecided god soul. Trails of light streamed out from it, as if it were questing for magic, looking for something to make its own. But within that swirling vortex there was a steady, blinding light; a cache of energy that was feeding the vortex. As I watched, sparks siphoned off from the cache and went surging down the tendrils like electric signals. Was he communicating magically with the world around him?
Then I noticed that the tips of one of the tendrils was crimson. It faded up to orange, then yellow, and then back to that blinding white. The tendril undulated sharply like a cracking whip and flame burst out along it.
“Fire,” I whispered and reached out to touch the tendril.
It raced to meet my hand like it was magnetically pulled to me and then twisted around my finger lovingly. I gave a little gasp and felt Arach pushing in behind me.
“I feel that, Vervain,” he whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Just wait,” I said absently as I looked closer to the ends of the other tendrils.
Oh gods, there it was; a tendril filled with shimmering liquid, deep indigo fading to cerulean, sapphire, turquoise, and then sky-blue before blending back into that white heart. As if it sensed my notice, it lifted and the water within it bubbled then burst from it in a mist of tiny droplets.
“Water,” I murmured and Arach stiffened behind me.
Then I spotted the verdant glow of earth, sending questing vines out. I frowned at it and searched further. I knew I'd find... yes, there. A tendril of golden light bursting into breezes. A tiny tornado circled it. And then, skulking in the shadows, harder to see because it almost looked like a shadow itself, was a tendril full of darkness. I only spotted it because of the sparkling mist leaking from it. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Darkness, all drawn to the Spirit at the center. But these were only five of the numerous lengths of light streaming out from Brevyn's core and the others were still searching. My son remained undecided but it seemed that Arach was right; Brevyn could hold all of the elements if he wanted to.
I pulled off the goggles and turned to the Dragon King with a sober look.
“I have some news for you about your sons,” I smiled a little when I saw how worried he was.
“Vervain, I swear on the bones of my father that if you don't tell-”
/> “They both have two souls,” I announced and he stopped to gape at me.
“What did you say?”
“When our sons split, it created a vacuum,” I explained the theory. “They both needed another soul to make themselves complete again.”
“And they only had one option left,” Arach gave a huffing sigh. “Are you saying that Rian...?”
“He has a human soul along with his faerie essence,” I nodded. “If the worst should ever happen, he can be reborn or I can bring him back from the Void.”
“A Thaisce,” Arach hugged me. “That's miraculous.”
“You haven't asked about Brevyn,” I teased.
“What about Brevyn?” He pulled back to look at me somberly.
“Rian's human soul gives him the possibility of rebirth and an extra horde of energy to use, maybe to fuel his magic,” I explained. “Brevyn's human soul has been dominated by his god soul, a soul which hasn't decided on its magic yet but which longs for faerie magic. The human soul is fueling the god soul's desire and these unresolved potentials are most likely why he's been able to move through the world so magically.”
“Vervain,” Arach growled. “Speak plainly.”
“Brevyn has called all of the elements to himself,” I chewed at my lip, trying to work out the wording. “He seems to be communicating with his environment and searching for more.”
“He has all of the elements and he still wants more?” Arach gaped at me for two seconds before he burst into laughter. “That's my son!”
“Arach,” I shook my head, unable to hold back the huff of laughter which escaped my lips. “It's unsettling to see. He could choose all of the elements or he could change his mind and choose something else entirely.”
“He's fireproof,” Arach mused. “We know this already and we know that he remains so in the future. He showed you that vision. So he must have at least decided to keep Fire.”
“Alright, I'll concede that,” I frowned.
“Did the Fire look more rooted than the other elements?” Arach asked.
“No,” I blinked. “But it' hard to say.”
