Drake

As you get close to him, his arm flashes out and grabs your hand. He is very strong, and although he's not trying to hurt you, you know full well you couldn't break his grasp. "Look at me, Drake." His voice is full of power, and you meet his gaze.

There's a fire in your mind, suddenly, a web of bright lines and ominous darkness, a vast construct, larger than anything, and for a brief moment you see the whole thing, hanging in space. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

Distantly, you hear your mother. "Well, daddy? Does the blood run true?"

Your grandfather lets go of your hand. He's smiling gently. "It does, little Floramel, it does. Even unto the third generation. Drake, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Oberon, your grandfather, and you are the first grandchild brought before me."

He stands, picks you up, and tosses you into the air, grabbing you into a hug on your way down. "Flora, Drake, you've made this old man very happy." Out of the corner of your eye you can see your mother is crying, just a little, dabbing at her eyes with a silk handkerchief.

Lore

"No, almighty, the winds and rain carries them away, into the rivers and beyond the walls of the world. Now, almighty, in the evening yesterday you said you wished to walk to the beastiary today, perhaps to see a griffin and a manticore battle? Such a fight has been prepared for you, if you still wish it."

Grettir

"You are the priest of Odin, Grettir! Surely you can protect yourself from Loki Trickster-God." He looks at the small wound on your finger. "I'd say you protected yourself well. Such a small wound for a god to inflict on a child, you are more powerful than he, Grettir. And we will make you even more powerful. I have plans, my child, plans of war and conquest . . . ." Your father begins to spin out his vision of dealing with the other villages, then the other tribes, then the nations across the sea, and you have a momentary image of yourself as the demon on the prow of a longship, a symbol of fear.

Soren

Father is fiddling with a very large, long rifle, with a scope on top. He's shooting at something invisible to the naked eye, probably set up on the low stone wall over a mile away. He doesn't turn from his work as you approach. "You've finished with archery." Not a question, a statement. "Find a rifle, start at one hundred meters, standing, kneeling, prone."

Bellona

Morgenstern's muscles move like metal pistons under Bellona, and the afternoon sun dapples the greensward with a rainbow of colors. Your father's long back hair streams out behind him, and he's laughing with joy as the horse tears up the turf. Within a few minutes you're heading down a steep slope, racing a burbling stream toward the sea. Off to your right, eternally distant with the sun setting behind it, is the mountain, and on top of that the city. Mount Kolvir, and Amber, spires reaching up into the clouds, glittering gold and white.

Rachel

The knight races after the duck, fumbling and bumbling in his heavy armor, and the duck quack quacking quacking like laughter, laughter like thunder, rolling away over the hills and cliffs, sheltering cliffs, and the waves growing.