Seer Stone

The night sky is not quite as black as it seems at first glance. Light sparkles here and there, twinkling and winking as if the heavens themselves were always watching amused as those below go about their lives.

The stars see everything. They see you, when you gaze up at them from your world, giggling at the silly things you’re doing in that flickering glimmer. They loved to watch empires and worlds rise and fall, the grand battles, and the daring turning maneuvers. Gallant knights riding against hex riddled beasts. Entire planets melting into ash…

They giggled at everything, always watching it all, even each other. Nothing ever really bothered the stars, you see. Sometimes they would become bright novas of explosive light, when something was exceptionally, even spectacularly, funny. This happened rarely, but it was the way all stars expected to go, much better than simply sputtering out.

That night, though, all the stars saw something that for the first time in their timeless lives filled them with dread.

A star was plucked from the very sky by magic darker than the corpse of Chronos himself. It did not fall for a star would often fall to a world that it thought was particularly funny, to see what kind of things could be seen by getting closer… and getting a bit too close. Many adventures and grand legends start with the falling of a star.

Plucked?! It was an affront to the very nature of the way of all things. It was just not how it was done. Yet, as the night sky brightened, as the stars all collectively stopped their inane giggling, and stared in august horror.

Where once their sister had sat, giggling in the sky, now was only a dark hole. A very rip in the miasma and ether itself.

The stars stopped blinking that night.

---

A circle of chalk upon the ground, symbol of Thule, Ys, and Mu, entwined in the whispers of fae Sibylia’s ancient scrawl. A candle in the left hand, a scarlet flame; a book in the right hand, open to the words that can not be named. A voice speaking power, no sound, only darkness.

A glass orb, simple, sitting in the darkness on a stand at the center.

A woman: tall, morose, terrible. A queen even without the title in baring and as dark as the night she had stolen the star from…

“Adonay Agla Craton!” CRACK! Against the ground struck the Dark Queen’s heel. Her crown gleamed, the only color upon her monochromatic form. CRACK! CRACK! Thrice, she struck her heel. A moment.

A beat.

Then all was a GREAT BLINDING LIGHT flooding the room. Far too much for anyone to see with what she bound the star, all that could be heard was the Dark Queen’s voice.

“Gazer from the sky.”

“I bind you down.”

“I bind you!”

“Your gaze I take.”

“Your eye is mine.”

“Your light I bind!”

“Your light I wind!”

“Never again, will you see the heavens!”

“For you are bound. Bound. Bound!”

“Your gaze mind to direct.”

“Your power, mine to demand.”

“None shall be beyond my sight.”

“As long as you are under my command.”

The skin searing brightness winked out, as her hands closed on the glass ball. Now, it shone, with the light of a star. A winking, dimming light. “Good. Now… show me, mmm, show me Septimus.”

---

“A star? She trapped a star in a crystal ball?” The Fairy Godmother asked, as amused as she was horrified. She was mid-tidying up, waving her hand clearing some old and twisted vines away from the impressive architecture of the Maiden Ward, her large wings beating lazily as she floated several feet above the ground.

“It’s glass. Her magic holds it, not the ball. Deep underground, where it can’t be seen by the other stars. They look for it even now, that’s why they stopped blinking. However, it gives her great foresight, and ability to enact her terrible magicks at any distance. I fear that the rebellion was doomed to fail, and any future rebellion will as well, thanks to this Seer Stone.” Charlotte, explained, having been a spy in the Dark Queen’s retinue, and having spent time in both her and the Snow Queen’s Castle, and having learned many interesting things while doing so, this included. “It lets her see anything.”

“Not here. She won’t. She can’t.” The Fairy Godmother said, taking a long drag of her long cigarette holder that always gave her a posh air.

“What do you mean, not here?” Charlotte asked, looking up from her sweeping. Together they had started to make the Maiden Ward presentable again.

“The Maiden Ward, she will not be able to see it, no matter how hard she tries. Won’t even know it’s here if she does nothing but trust her silly magic eye.” The Fairy Godmother let out a long pink puff of smoke.

“Well, then. Perhaps all this cleaning we’re doing isn’t quite so pointless after all.” Charlotte went back to sweeping, with just a little bit more energy in her work.