Part 2
It was around 7 in the morning when Hamlin finally woke, only to see Rebecca sitting at the end of his bed, and fully dressed. She motioned for him to follow her, and left the room. After dressing, he woke up Jack, Marv, and Heather, before opening the door to the room, and leaving quietly. Making his way down to the large public room downstairs, he waved at Vaust, who pointed towards the private booths downstairs. Hamlin nodded, and went downstairs, making his way to Rebecca's personal booth at the end of the first hall.
"To what do I owe the early morning conversation pleasure, Duchess?" Hamlin asked, smiling as he entered the booth, only to find her fist deep in food already.
"As I said yesterday, we're going to Point Thoryn today." Rebecca said, speaking between bites of food.
"It's several hundred kilometres away and you seemed to imply we would be there today, so what's the secret?" Hamlin asked, eating a stack of pancakes in a single bite.
"Wait until the other three arrive. I'd rather only explain once." Rebecca replied, messily continuing to eat.
"You're going to get fat if you keep eating this much." Hamlin admonished.
"Oh I'm sorry who's the most powerful creation mage on Karand here, DeFountain? Me or you?" Rebecca shot back, eating stacks of food with her bare hands. "I'm doing this on purpose, as unlike most idiots, I know exactly how creation magic works thanks to a certain dragon locked up in my head."
Before Rebecca could elaborate, there was a knock at the door, and the rest of the party entered. Marv and Jack looked as bored as ever, but Rebecca noted something different about Heather, and pounced on it immediately.
"You've dropped the act." Rebecca stated. "Your posture has changed, it's not that of a nervous mage."
"The time for illusions has long since passed, Duchess." Heather replied, his voice a full octave lower, but still quite high for a man. "Do you mind?" Heather asked, grabbing an entire plate of food for himself. "I know you're preloading for something, but needs must."
Rebecca just winked in response, before continuing. "So, we're going to be in Point Thoryn today."
"Uhhh, how exactly… Boss? Duchess?" Marv asked, slightly unsure how to address Rebecca. "That's several days away even by the fastest horses."
"That's why we're going to get a… ride, I suppose, from a certain dragon." Rebecca said, flashing a huge smile. "King Zarfangal owes me a very big favour, and he'll be eager to get rid of this debt to me."
"I'm sorry is this some kind of fairy tale?" Jack asked. "We're going to ride not just a dragon, but the Dragon King himself all the way into a city?"
---
"Zarfangal you're just in time." Vaust said as he saw the Dragon King approach his counter. "A certain mage wants to call in her favour."
"So that's why I'm here." He replied with a chuckle.
"Indeed. Downstairs, last booth on the right."
---
"Don't tell me you've never wanted to ride on a dragon!" Rebecca argued.
"Of course I have! But it's the Dragon King!" Jack shouted back. "It's like I'm asking for a piggy back ride from the fucking God of Chaos!"
"I assure you, my reputation is far overblown." Zarfangal said, swinging open the door without warning. "Rebecca Astrid Ashe, what is your little plan?"
"I need to get to Point Thoryn today. That's a bit far even for the best displacement mages, so I need a ride badly enough to ask you." Rebecca said, after wiping her hands and standing up, approaching the Dragon King, and bowing. "If you do this for me, I will consider your debt repaid in full."
Zarfangal howled with laughter after Rebecca made her request. The sheer bravado! The impudence! To ride the Dragon King! He laughed and laughed, as the rest of them stood around awkwardly, not sure what to say or do. As the laughter died away to a chuckle, he patted his large partially clawed hand on her shoulder. Zarfangal didn't say anything, but Rebecca noticed how he winced as he did so, retracting his hand nearly immediately.
"Of course I will, Duchess. But in return, you must listen to a story from me, first. A story I once tried to tell Xilro the Flamemaster over fifteen thousand years ago." Zarfangal said, a sly smile on his face. "Of why I forbid the birth of Saffron the Cursed."
Rebecca narrowed her eyes. That was a new title, one she hadn't heard before. "That's a new one. I've heard the dragon that never was, the witch of the north, the lady of the woods, and even Xilro's bride. But never the cursed."
"You are the reason I forbid her birth, Duchess." Zarfangal said plainly. "A certain God told me at the dawn of time of this kalpa, that Saffron must not be born, in order for a key person to be born, and in order for Professor Hargrave of Tostein to fix the universe."
"A key person? Me? My children with the Moonfall Prince?" Rebecca asked, gesturing at Heather, who merely raised his eyebrows but otherwise didn't respond.
"Oh heavens no, someone far more important, someone one of your previous incarnations birthed." Zarfangal said, smiling. "I've been forbidden from telling you who, for... many reasons."
"You said me, though." Rebecca replied after a moment.
"Yes, thanks to you, Professor Hargrave will be alive to fix a problem only he is capable of fixing."
"So the game was rigged from the start." Heather said. "Xilro was always going to lose."
"Yes, I suppose in a way he was. I knew he would steal Saffron's soul, as his love of her from the previous kalpa would make him disobey his King. But as she was not blessed by me, her soul was unstable."
"Unstable?" Hamlin asked.
"It frequently surged with creatia and mana, and would destroy the body it was contained within, and the result was the only known case of natural reincarnation." Zarfangal explained. "I see though, that the Primal Gods have fixed your soul, Duchess."
"It seems whoever told you that information forgot to tell the other Primal Gods, as Lady Vordea was quite surprised to find out Saffron was very much alive." Rebecca answered. "She briefly trapped us on fucking Carcosa in order to fix it."
Zarfangal's eye twitched at the mention of Carcosa, and he knelt down to look Rebecca in the eye. "You've been to Lost Carcosa?"
"The dirt doesn't lie." Rebecca replied, remembering the feeling she felt when she picked up those piles of dirt. "The corpse of a dead universe."
Zarfangal placed a hand gently on Rebecca's head, but recoiled immediately. Rebecca looked at his eyes, and could see the same terror she felt when she saw that hole in the sky years ago.
"It's instinctual, I take it?" Rebecca asked. "That's the same way I felt."
Zarfangal refused to elaborate, and quickly left the room, his footsteps receding rapidly.
"You're not getting out of your debt that easily!" Rebecca shouted, starting to leave the room to chase him.
"Rebecca..." Hamlin began, but he stopped.
The room around them was suddenly replaced by the mangrove swamps of Southern Karand, and those who were seated found themselves unceremoniously dumped on the ground. Standing in front of them was a mage Rebecca had hoped to never see again, Sirene Ignitis.