Clothed again this time barefoot and in my gown of gossamer, I ran to the rune stones at Livsvann. I hadn’t been there in nearly a decade. I climbed the Waterfall behind Lorlenalin. And paused.

I took a deep breath in. The Shadow. Rune. Bergen… It all was coming back to me.

The moonlight streaked the river that ran through the quiet meadow. I needed time. Time with my Mind. Time with my Settings. Time with my Story. I released a deep sigh and came to walk between the Stones.

I could hear the Waterfall thundering nearby, but by the Stones it was quieter. I looked up at the Stars and smiled. The stones were a Giant Universal Clock that told Story Time. A part of me resisted the urge to burst out laughing and giggling.

“So it amuses you now?”

I smiled and refused to turn.

“Bergen,” I said. I looked at him. “Should I describe you?” I asked.

“Oh, please,” he said. “But only if you do me justice.”

“The Pompous Nord Lord, Prince of Gunir dripped with regal arrogance that rivaled the Gods, but only because he was one, and he knew it. Bergen — Pronounced Bear-gun — moved with the elegance of his Alfar blood line, the Confidence of the Warrior that he was —

“With deeds so great as to be immortalized in song –”

“Most of which he wrote himself,” I added. “And a strut no respecting Lass would be fooled by.”

“Hey now,” he said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

He smirked.

“Not bad,” he said.

“His long black hair fell to his waist, tied back most days and today, as was often the case, he was shirtless. A reminder of his Slave Days that he still didn’t have the stomach to face.”

He went cold at that.

“That was cold, lass.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “And you needed to hear it.”

“I hate clothes. They make me feel claustrophobic.”

“They do, don’t they?”

“We could always strip?”

I eyed, his body. “No, thanks.”

“You didn’t seem to mind last time while you were –”

“And we’re done here,” I said, walking toward the Stones.

“You struggled for awhile there,” he said.

I remembered. Jumping from Story to Story within the Abstract. Disjointed. Chaotic. Lost.

“I was trying to find my way,” I said.

“And the readers?”

“What happened to Lorlenalin? What happened to Rune?”

I remembered my City on Fire. I remembered. And then… I saw the pair of Golden Eyes.

“Kallan,” he said. “What happened to Rune?”

“Don’t call me that,” I whispered. “I’m not that anymore.”

I walked to the edge of the meadow, which was positioned at the edge of the cliff. The moon so close, as if I could reach out and touch it.

Below, the cliff plunged down, past Lorlenalin and into the Kattegat. One more step, and I knew I could Fly. I could feel it. It reminded me of my youth when I stood at the precipice of the gorge, naked then and 50 feet in the air. Waterfalls and black shale rock below me.

I remember that day too well. We were on the way home. We arrived instead to a City on Fire. A Pair of Golden Eyes…

I dismissed the Memory of ten years ago and contemplated taking a step and walking up to the Moon.

“So much has happened since then, between then and now,” I said. “The Story continued. I grew and Changed… and Changed again. The Story Continued. I continued. But not in that Story. In a Different Story. So many Different Stories… And I have not yet been able to find my way back.”

I looked back at Bergen.

“I can’t find my way back to that Story with Rune and Lorlenalin. So I story hop. I jump between Characters and Stories and Stories. I hunt through the Pages… And I just can’t seem to find my way back.”

Bergen took a step closer.

“I tried to get back into Story. I did. And I did succeed. I learned how to move along the Stories and Pages. I learned how to Move and Live as fast as I Dreamed. I learned what I was. What I am. What happened to me. I learned that I’m a Changeling — Daughter of Danu… But also Danu. I learned that I was stowed away in Stories not mine — My Name changed. My Titles stripped from me. My Roles altered.

They wiped my memory and called me a Whore. They called me The Whore of Babylon. And they made me Man’s Whore. Passing me between Owners. Calling me Crazy. Keeping my Truth from me.

I don’t know how many Stories I lived through. I forgot who I was. I forgot what I was.

And then… One day… after writing my Stories — Stories that I thought were Fictions that never were — I remembered… and I wasn’t at all what they said I was. That feeling we’re all born with. That feeling we’re all hiding deep down — Hoping we’re not really a Pauper. Hoping we’re greater and grander than we really are… All of it, Bergen. I remembered and I realized… We’re really real. We’re not at all what they said we were.”

And so it was I put down my pen and that Story, and I realized, I needed to go find my Truth and my Real Story. And so I did.

And now I’m back in the Pages again trying to find my way back to Rune.

So that, Bergen, that is what happened to Lorlenalin and Rune.

I am a writer who lost the Story because I Grew On, but in a Different Story… And now…”

I looked back to the Moon.

“I’m trying to find my way back.”

I knew it. Deep down. I knew it. He was asleep. He was a prisoner locked deep beneath the Earth. He was locked in Under Earth.

“Mimir’s Well,” I muttered. My mind immediately went back to Mimir’s Well.

“And how shall we get there?” Bergen asked. “We’ve tried this before,” he said. “Every time,  we never make it passed talking about it.”

My shoulders sank.

“It was through the Doverfjell, up the Mountains of Jotunheim, through the Dvergar caves and down…”

“Passed Hel’s Gates,” Bergen said. “On to the Root of Yggdrasil,” he said. “There lies Mimir’s Well.”

I sighed.

“It’s not at the Root of Yggdrasil is it?” Bergen asked.

I shook my head. I knew too well the 9 Cosmos. I lived in Logos. I knew too well The 9 Cosmos.

“No, it is not,” I said.

“Where is it?” he asked.

I thought of it all then. Every book ever written. The Pages of Story. The World of the Abstract.

I grunted and walked back to the Stones.

“Anna,” Bergen said.

“You know,” he said.

“So do you,” I said. “Do you remember?”

He blinked.

“You had shoved your way into the little corner of my website that you preserved for yourself. A bottle of Guinness — My Guinness — clutched, too comfortably, in your hand. Perhaps you had one too much to drink.  Or five. Perhaps something deeper troubled you that day. Do you remember?”

A dark shadow had passed over him.

“The light was out save the single candle that burned on one of the tables,” he said. “Wax had pooled into the grains of the wood… Yes.” He said. “I remember. I nearly toppled to the floor that day when I stumbled back into one of the half-dozen bar tables. I mumbled and dropped into one of the chairs at the table with the wax and the candle.

“I used to be an adventurer once,” Bergen muttered, repeating his words as they all came back to him. “I studied afar in the green lands of Eire with the finest of scholars.”

A distant look swept his eyes as he spoke.

“They had secrets there, secrets none dared write about,” he explained. “Secrets they buried in stories. To preserve their stories, the masters took an apprentice and taught him. For every master there was an apprentice. But there were so many stories that those stories accumulated year after year. Apprentices studied and mastered the oral songs until they too were masters. Then they learned new songs and new stories filled with new secrets. Every day, these masters would recite every verse, every song, every word they had ever memorized so as to keep the words fresh. Their life equaled a hundred lifetime of masters.  It took a life time to become a master. Many apprentices died unable to reach the lesson’s end. They left the masters alone, with none to take on the secrets and stories.

“Secrets were buried. Secrets to youth, to life, to the gods, and to weapons. Secrets that could wipe out entire civilizations. With each master to each apprentice the stories grew.”

Bergen raised his dark eyes to me, suddenly remembering I was there, listening.

“What would a master who was facing death desire above all else? He would desire immortality,” he says. “I am the last apprentice. Only I know the songs that speak of those secrets.”

Bergen stared hard at me.

“But you remembered them, didn’t you, Goddess.”

I raised my head high, proud, and also as if defensively. Debating. Should I speak? Should I deny? Should I Lie?

“We memorized the Stories to carry them here to the Goddess… So she would remember. But you did remember, didn’t you. All on your own. Didn’t you.”

I felt my eyes go cold. I knew I didn’t have to answer. I knew he knew.

So all the reasons… The Secrets…

“I wrote the words, and I remembered,” I said.

He looked at me. Stunned.

“I wrote Dolor and Shadow. I wrote Fire and Lies… And as I wrote about Remembering… It unlocked my own Spell and I remembered. So I wrote Broken then to try and find my way out…”

I was suddenly tired of the rune stones and Livsvann. I wanted my Ship. I wanted my Chambers. I wanted my Cabin in Ireland. I wanted…

“I realized Dolor and Shadow and Fire and Lies… They were real… and I realized I was writing about myself, the whole time. I realized I was Kallan. And then… I realized… I couldn’t go back into that book and pretend.

The research it took to write that book… unlocked my Memory. The research was the Key to active my own Remembering. And I saw Lorlenalin burn. I saw the Golden Eyes. I saw The Sionnach Sidhe. And that… I could then write no more.”

And I saw a Temple and a Pyramid in Ra Kadet. I saw the blood of Zabbai as she lay dying in your arms. I saw a box with an Ash Tree. I saw the Trionidad. And I saw a Fruit and the Tree. And I saw you, Bergen. With your Wife.”

“That’s enough,” Bergen said.

“Exactly,” I said. “It was enough. And that is when I realized… None of this had ever at all been a Fiction. They were my Memories. And I was waking up.”

I snapped my fingers and we were downstairs and inside the City, within my Chambers. The fire roared in the fire place casting a comforting glow over the white opal stone and the wooden floor. I pulled my night gown from the chair dressed in red velvet and stripped my gown of gossamer, allowing Bergen the feast before I pulled on the dressing gown.

The dark ruby red fabric hugged my body elegantly, but loose enough to sleep comfortably.

I pulled my hair from the gown and let my rainbow locks drop to my waist. I took up the house coat of emerald green and wrapped that around my shoulders before dropping onto the red velvet lounger than matched my chair.

Bergen looked as worn out as I felt.

“So…” he said. “Wanna have sex.”

I scoffed and gave a smirk.

“I am spoken for,” I said.

“Right,” he said.

“I want to go find that box,” I said. “I want to go find those Druí Archives. I want to go speak to Weyland. But…” I sighed. “Why?”

Bergen looked at me, the question not asked on his face.

“What would be the Why?”

He shrugged.

“For the Adventure.”

I looked into the fire. I was feeling tired and ready for bed. I knew where this Adventure was really going. I thought back to the old rustic Door and the Golden Stones I still had left to explore, define, catalogue… I was feeling the Journey ahead. It was just… Not at all like anything else I had ever — in my wildest dreams — ever imagined.

“Fine,” I said. “But we’re bringing Asha.”

“You…” Bergen gulped. “Ah. No. Kal- Anna! No.”

I was up already and climbing into bed. Ignoring his protests. I turned my back to him and gazed out the open window at the Moon.

“I love you,” I whispered.

I heard Bergen’s shoulders drop. He gave a sigh. The scrape of the chair, and I knew Bergen was in the chair.

“I love you, Goddess.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I said and a moment later I was asleep.