TAoL Part 7: A History Lesson

Llyle gripped the handlebars of the hover scooter as tightly as he could and made it shift quite sharply in an attempt to dodge whatever was racing towards him. He looked back at Arthur, who seemed to be completely calm and strangely unconcerned. To his amazement, the creature slowed and stopped right before them, idly flapping its huge wings to keep it in place.

“Ah, Good Arthur, it is but you” it said in a feminine voice with a mixture of delight and disappointment.
“You are easier to recognise at a distance, my friend, so I do not hold it against you.” The Guide replied, waving his hand dismissively.

Llyle turned back to the old fae. “You know this thing?” he asked, his face horror-stricken.
“I am not a thing. I am a proud, and very old, creature known as a quetzelcoatl.” And its feathers puffed out in disgruntlement.
“The boy meant no harm, Sartrix. Calm yourself.”

The queztelcoatl’s feathers ruffled but flattened back against its body. She looked the boy over before lifting her head to look at Arthur. “I assume this to be your heir? He’s a bit on the thin side for my liking.”
“A good thing he isn’t here to be eaten.”

Llyle gulped and tried to take in the enormity of the huge, feathered, flying serpent hovering right before his eyes. The fading sunlight caused the rainbow of feathers along the creature’s body to shimmer and glow, but the angle of the slight seemed to be changing very slowly. Perhaps just a trick of the beautiful feathers. “There are things that eat other things here?”
“In a way,” replied Arthur. “Either way, Sartrix will not eat you. She cannot. Now, as for a formal introduction, this is Sartrix, one of the many mythical beasts that call Avalon home. She is a quetzelcoatl, a mythical beast from the lands of the Aztecs. I had planned to introduce you at a later time, but oh well.”

Sartrix dipped her head, but kept her eyes on the boy. Llyle did an awkward bow in return, not daring to let go of the handlebars just yet. “Sartrix, this boy is named Llyle. He arrived only today and shows great potential with the Stars already.”

“Is that so? Well, then, I should be around for many more cycles to come.” Sartrix said, her voice taking on a gentle and respectful tone.
“I can’t really do that much just yet…”
“Oh, pish posh. He took out four Nightmares at the Port on his own!”
“Four, you say? Most impressive. Ah, but Good Arthur, I wished to ask what you and this young boy are doing up here. You have not been in the sky for many a year.”
“I thought it prudent to begin this lad’s lessons as soon as possible, and so, here we are.”
“I understand. Will you hover here all day? Or will you be going anywhere besides in a circle?” the creature said with a hint of amusement in her voice, directing her questions at Llyle. She was sure he hadn’t noticed that he was making himself and Arthur rotate slowly. It was a wonder neither was dizzy.

“What’s so funny?” Llyle asked, puzzled. He then looked to his right and saw the scenery was moving. He let of a squeak and their revolutions stopped.  “I’d wondered why the wind kept changing direction but I thought it was just strange like the rest of Avalon…” Llyle mumbled rather shyly.

“Do not worry. The walking leather sitting behind you couldn’t get this thing to move in a straight line the entire time he has been here,” Sartrix told him in a trill that could have been a giggle of sorts. Arthur grumbled something about making him look bad behind his student. Llyle’s mouth turned into a bigger grin than he thought his face could bear. Sartrix didn’t seem so bad. She was also friends with Arthur, so that had to mean she was good.

“We will be heading to the Port. As you may have gathered from my boast, there was a Nightmare attack there. Some losses, but as far as I am aware, they were minimal.”

“I see. It is regrettable, but this has always happened. I shall accompany you to the Port.” She said promptly. Llyle wasn’t sure where the Port even was and started looking around. He then decided that heading to the River and going from there was probably best. The young boy turned the hover scooter and moved them towards the shimmering surface of the Dream River.

“Turn left when we reach the bank, Llyle” Arthur said suddenly, quickly grasping his intention.
“Yes, sir” he says almost automatically. He looked back and saw Sartrix flying sedately behind them. He focused on the water far ahead of him and moved the scooter along as fast as he was comfortable with, which wasn’t very.

They flew on in silence for a few minutes, during which Sartrix overtook them and did a few loops in mid air, looking as graceful as a swan. Llyle suddenly had a thought. “Arthur, as far as I know, God created Earth. Did he create Avalon, too?”

Arthur didn’t respond for a while, but there was the sound of humming. “That is a fair question, Llyle. I believe I can give you an answer. You see, Avalon is a place of dreams. It is a world where dreams go, and where dreams live.”

“Is Sartrix a dream, then?”
“All mythical creatures are dreams, for they first lived in the minds of all who believed in them. The more with the same dreams, the more of them there are here. It isn’t uncommon to find earthly things that wash up on the shores of the River, as they were dreams too, once upon a time.”
“Avalon was formed by the coalition of many dreams, Llyle. So, God created it by proxy, indirectly.”
“Hmmmm. Alright, Arthur. I don’t think I have any more questions for now” Llyle said softly, content with that.
“Do you wish to know how the Guides came to be?” Llyle’s tutor asked him suddenly.
“Do you mean that they weren’t always around?”
“Avalon came into being when the first dreams were dreamt. When fears became less primal and nightmares began to plague the early world, the Dream River began to change, to become murky and dark. That is when the Nightmares were born, and when the first Guide was needed.” Arthur said gravely, adding a bit of drama, as he was fond of the dramatic.
“Where did he come from?” asked Llyle, his voice full of wonder.
“From an ancient version of our world, many civilizations before what we know as recorded history. He, too, fell into a coma on Earth and awoke in an apparent paradise, inhabited by strangely coloured people with wings. He could speak to them, though he was unsure as to how they understood him and he them, but they did not shy away. ”

“Were they the faeries? Where did they come from?”
“Yes, Llyle, they were and still are. They, too, are dreams, in a way. They are the souls of people that never got to live, and so ended up here to become fae, where they can have a chance at a life and growing up.”

“What do you mean, never got a chance to live?”

“They either died before realizing who they are, so as children, or before they were born at all.” Arthur said sadly, the explanation bringing back painful memories from almost two centuries before.
“So that makes them dreams?”
“It does. The First was not in Avalon long before he came into contact with his first Nightmare. He wished to protect the fae, but lacked a weapon of any sort to fight the creatures. They attacked without preference, and those who they touched would turn to shadow and fade away.”
“Just like today?” and Llyle’s voice was also touched with sadness. He remembered seeing some of the fae disappear, and feared for the same happening to Lizzy when a Nightmare had pinned her in a corner.
“Just like today, Llyle. The First, however, had a great will and great determination, and through will alone birthed a Star in his own hands and formed it into a sword, though he knew not of sources of Stars like we do. He defeated the Nightmares, and realised he could save the faeries, after all.”
“Then what did he do, Arthur?”
“He studied the River, and saw that the Nightmares came from it as shadows in its depths and flowed with the river. He then followed the River back to its source, a huge feat in itself, back to what became known as the Crown Peak and stabbed the darkened Crystal at the bottom of the spring through which dreams enter Avalon. The Crystal was then cleansed, and so all the Rivers as well, thus freeing Avalon from the plagues of fear-induced Nightmares until it had to be done again in a distant time.”
“What happened to the First after that? Did he go back to the fae he protected?”
“Oh yes, but he too became a fae. He was offered a trip home by an Angel, or say it is said, but he declined and so became a faerie as he was then an inhabitant instead of a visitor. He then took it upon himself to learn what he could, for the Angel also told him another would come, so that he could teach the next what was required of them and what they would need to do.”
“Will that happen to me if I decided to stay, Arthur?”
“Of course. Just as it happened to me when I chose to stay and wait for you.”
“So, if I choose to stay, an Angel will tell me who will come next? Okay. But what lesson did the First learn?”
“How am I supposed to know that?”