Confronting Destiny

Signy and Marius find themselves in a dark room, lit only by dimly glowing colored lights. In addition to the rather short man whose hand they took to move from place to place, there are two others. The smaller one seems to be both young and old. His two companions are in a corner arguing over something on a clipboard.

"Hello, Signy, I'm--"

At that moment the older of the two does something along the wall and there's a smell like fresh rain and the room goes completely dark. There's a scraping noise from Random's general direction, and then he's holding some sort of thick wand, magically emitting a beam of light.

"Random. Welcome to Xanadu."

Signy glances around the room quickly, making out as much as she can in the dim light before she turns her attention back to the man next to her. She compares his features to the detail on the picture she was shown in her tent before entering her father's Tower, and attempts a rather stiff half-bow. "Thank you, Your...uh, King Random?" she stammers. "I'm sorry for delaying my arrival, but I had some concern over my companion, and wanted to make sure he would be well until I was able to return."

Marius doesn't say anything, too busy looking around to see if he recognizes the place, even if only by, say, context.

Marius smells ozone and technology. Some things here will be quite different from Amber.

Random smiles, and the light casts odd moving shadows as he moves his hands. "No worries. When you're king people get all protective, especially when charming young nieces-at-arms show up with someone who may or may not be a member of an organization dedicated to overthrowing the royal family.

"If he's a spy, Caine will sort him out. He'll call before he does anything, and you'd want to know that before you took him back into your companionship, I hope.

"So, tell me about yourself. Your mother never mentioned you."

Signy frowns at Random's words about Brother Tomat, and her face takes on a more guarded look as she considers his words.

"I did not really know my mother well -- she left when I was very little. I didn't even know that I had a brother until a short while ago, when Brother Tomat brought him to me." She focuses on Random to see his reaction. "When they found me, I was in the process of laying siege to the home of my father, Weyland."

"Never say I can't be the straight man when necessary," says Random. "Golly, Signy, whyever were you besieging your Dad?"

Soren and Ash stop talking in their corner and look over at Random. Random turns his head towards them. "Fix the lights, guys." They look at each other and head further in to the darkened complex.

Signy looks at Random uncertainly, trying to decide if she is being made sport of.

"He had arranged a marriage for me that I did not care for. When I was less then gracious about accepting, he locked me in my quarters in the tower. I escaped, and decided that one good turn deserved another."

Random nods. "Well, that's OK, then. Perfectly normal for this family, I assure you. What would you have done if you'd beaten him?"

Marius says gently, "She's my full sister, my liege." He emphasizes the "full" ever so slightly. (And, he fears, appropriately for the answer to this question.)

Random looks at Marius. "You all may be the only ones in your generation. Unless everyone's lied to me about their kids, again."

"Perhaps they have just not found the right person to make such a deal with twice," Marius suggests. "After all, the children might rebel after finding their blood such a...commodity."

[Random] reaches behind his ear and pulls out a small tube, red-hot on one end. He puts the other end in his mouth and a burning smell wafts towards Signy. "Your brother suggests that it would not be safe to cross him and lose and you are like him. What were your plans?"

The lights in the room come back on. The strange magic has an annoying flicker to it.

As the lights come back on, Signy blinks her eyes rapidly for a moment, trying to dispell the headache that threatens to start from the flickering. She wrinkles her nose slightly at the acrid smell coming from the small tube, but doesn't give it a second glance.

"I suppose that he would have been given a choice, between imprisonment the way that I had been imprisoned, and taking his chances that he could get away before I got to him." Her gaze is steady and her eyes lock on Random's, though she gives no outward clue as to which choice she thought Weyland likely to take. "Though at least he would know that he had to chose. I did not have that luxury when I refused his lordling."

Marius smiles. It says a lot of things that a feminist might translate as, "Isn't she just PRECIOUS?" with "precious" being akin to "naive," "young," and "She might actually think she's being subtle about this Choice business."

He looks for a good piece of wall to lean against. "And our father, smith of legendary blades, did not seem the type to accept defeat with grace and dignity."

"You make him sound like family. Certainly as lovable as most, anyway. Right, so, Signy? What you've probably not been told is that your family rules everything, in every universe. We're stronger and smarter than people in most places and we have an inborn power to do move between planes, 'shadows' as well call them. It's a power beyond reckoning, and it means you can remake places, make the universe bend to your will, and walk from one reality to the next at your whim. No one can keep you locked up, and no one can prevent you from doing what you will...

"Mostly. There are the rest of us. For us, we're the only thing that can reasonably constrain each other. I have siblings I've never met, who chose to never face the limits of being with others of our kind. They miss out on the really bitchen' parties we throw, and don't get called when we need to band together to save the universe, but that's their choice.

"You can have this. If I let you. Luckily, I'm pretty easy-going. I require an oath of allegiance, like the one your brother took to me and your mother took to our dad. Actually, I'd prefer it if it was the one your mother took. Your brother flubbed his."

Random's look at Marius is rather cool.

"Now, one of the good things, is that I swear back that I'll protect you and yours, so you can use that to get me to pry Caine off your pal, if you so desire, since he hasn't committed overt treason against my person.

"And I'll give you access to the ability to control your heritage, which now sits dormant. Any questions?"

Signy listens to Random attentively while he speaks, sparing Marius a curious glance when Random mentions him.

"So, what was the oath that my mother took? And after we exchange the oaths, how will I access my heritage? I trained for several decades, and practiced for several more, to gain the mastery of Sorcery that I have. Will this be similar?"

Random holds the smoking stick at his side. "It will be the most difficult forty-five minutes of your life. Beyond that, all I can say is that it is different for each taker, and it's an exercise in sheer willpower. Oh, and the incentive not to give up is that if you go wrong or try to leave, it'll kill you. Once you've walked it, you'll have access to power and the knowledge of how to use it. Think of it as a crash course.

"Any more questions? I can't promise there are answers, but I'll tell you what I can."

Marius does not roll his eyes at Random's look, nor does he challenge it. It is not that he has the same ambitions, just that he wants to be true to his word. He also doesn't clarify or suggest to Signy that there was any concern to the oath.

"There are those in the family," he adds to Random's explanation, "who have studied it as long as you have studied Sorcery, and longer, and have learned things about it that are beyond my meagre imaginings to express. But then, I have not learned Sorcery, so perhaps you come from a perspective that will grasp things I have not, and miss things I thought obvious. All we know is that our knowledge did not mix as gracefully as it ought. Those who claim to know of both I may be able to introduce you to so as your questions may be answered, but..." and here he pauses and looks at her, "...as much as our liegelord says our skills will free us, our words can bind us, and the costs of an apprenticeship will still apply."

There, that should satisfy both, Marius thinks.

Signy looks over at Marius. "At some point I think I would like to meet some of these family members that do know both. And given my time dealing with my...our father, I am well aware of the dangers of words binding us."

She refocuses her gaze on Random. "What was the oath my mother took to your father?"

Random clears his throat. "I, Deirdre daughter of Oberon, do swear that I will be faithful to you and bear you true allegiance, obeying your commands from this hour forward until my death or until the world ends.

"Pretty simple, really."

Signy looks rather dubious at this. "I trust you will understand that given my recent past, I am somewhat nervous about this oath." She thinks for a moment, looking at Marius to see if he has any visible reaction, before looking back at Random. "If I were to swear allegiance to you, what would be your first commands to me?"

Random opens his mouth and closes it. He holds up an index finger.

"I dunno. Hmm. OK. Two things. One, let me know if you run into anything dangerous. And B, Come back here when you want to talk about shadow, reality, you, and the future.

"Anyway, it's sorta academic. If you stay here, or anywhere we are known, and you're known to be one of us, you'll be assumed by everyone to be oathbound to me, even if you and I were to know otherwise.

"If you drop out of our society, you don't have to do anything, but then you'd want to watch out for your friend's friends, who would use you to get at us." He shrugged.

"I won't tell you I'd never call on you to raise an army and march to war, but while we have enemies, not many of them have armies that can get here. Given that we'll live forever, it'll probably come up one of these centuries.

"So that's the downside. The upside you know. Unlimited, unshackled freedom, bound only by your oath.

"Do you want it, or do you need more time to think about it?"

The question hangs in the air as Signy ponders it and the implications of swearing. After several seconds, her shoulders set and she sighs softly. "Do I swear here, or is there a more formal ceremony?"

"Here's fine." He issues a piercing whistle. "Ash, Soren, c'mere!"

He looks at her again. "Now if you want formal ceremonial shit, we can do it. My wife would love to hold some sort of 'welcome the lost daughter of Deirdre' cotillion, but it's not necessary. Hell, you don't even have to kneel."

Signy blinks her eyes, somewhat nonplussed at the thought of a formal event. "Nn...n...no. I don't think that would be necessary," she stammers.

As Ash and Soren approach, Signy ruthlessly clamps down on her misgivings and tries to ignore Tomat's earlier admonition. "I, Signy daughter of Dierdre," she begins, speaking steadily and looking straight at Random, "do swear that I will be faithful to you and bear you true allegiance, obeying your commands from this hour forward until my death or until the world ends."

After finishing, she shifts her weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable at being the center of attention like this.

Random smiles. "I, Random the King, hear your oath, and shall remember. And I do swear that I will defend you and yours from every creature, with all my power, until your death or the world ends. " He stretches. "And that's that. Usually, there's ice cream afterwards, with cake, but I think we just want to take you to the basement. 'Why the basement?' you ask? Because that's where the pattern is. It's a giant magical sigil that is written on the ground in the basement and in your blood. When you walk it, it will give you control and knowledge of your power. The only caveat is that it's difficult.

"Marius, you can come or stay here, but if you stay, you have to help Ash fix the reverb."

Random leads the way to a black door in a black wall, and opens it.

Marius pushes himself back into a standing position from where he was leaning, making it look casual and not too eager. "I am glad to follow where His Majesty leads," he says, with a casual half-bow. "It will be nice to see a working Pattern once again." And he's not leaving Signy without the little instruction he knows.

Signy trails after Random, looking slightly dazed at the speed with which events have started to move. "So, I walk this Pattern, and I'll just know everything I need? I spent years with Brother Tomat, and have just barely begun to scratch the surface of Sorcery....."

"Yup," says Random, who seems to savor the awkward pause that follows. "That's what it does. Start there, follow the line to the middle, then stop, but not before. Keys to the Universe are yours in 45 minutes or less or double your money back."

Signy offers a helpless shrug. "Then truly this is an incredible power," she says. "But why would I get money back? Do I need to pay for this?"

"Dunno, nobody's ever asked for their money back. Or payment, for that matter. Are you ready? We don't give much instruction. Start there," he points, "follow the line, expect it to be a challenge to your willpower to stay on the path, don't stop, because it's hard to start again, and don't step off. It's different for everyone."

"You pay in a different coin," Marius assures Signy. "No power without price," he reminds her. "Pain is just one of the many. Loss. Memories of things that happened and did not happen and yet are remembered anyway. It's a test, sibling of mine. If we cannot prepare you adequately for it it is just as our liegelord says: it is truly different for everyone."

He takes a breath. "And if you do not come out changed immediately, it is only because the seeds of such take time to flower. I have no doubt you will flourish, and if there is anything that you may need in such a time it is to have no doubts. Where you falter, and you will," he adds, "remember that. You are daughter, sister, and your own, so take strength where you can. If my experience helps, I tell you this: fear only that which would rather die than allow you to understand, and even then, let it not persuade you from your path."

Random sighs. "This happens a lot when I'm down here. Go ahead, or wait a bit if you'd like." Random steps back a bit, his eyes unfocused. "Who calls?" he asks of the air.

Signy steps out and away from the group, towards the start of the Pattern. She takes a moment to look at it, tracing the loops and whorls in towards the center and drink in the sight before her, before moving up to the starting point. Pausing, she glances back at Random and Marius, uncertain if she truly should procede.

Marius nods, walking over to Signy. "Think not of what you have to lose, but all you have to gain." He pauses. "That's something our mother told me, before I made the first step. I did not really believe I had much to lose. I was constantly thinking of what would be mine."

He looks at Random for a moment, consideringly.

"And I've yet to claim all of it. Still, without the Birthright, no step could be taken upon that path. If you are not ready, do not step on it. If you are ready, do not hesitate - your will is stronger than it. Break it to you, sister. Make it yours and I repeat, do not fear."

Random is speaking to the air, not paying attention to Signy, or seeming not to.

Marius isn't pretending not to listen. Random wants him to hear.

"Sweet. I hear Huon is marching on Rebma as well. Are they together or are they separate? And Moire invited Folly for Royal Tea. I think we'll take a rain check on that and see who is Queen next month."

He sighs. "The official position of Xanadu is that we don't want that mess spilling above the waves. Oh, and Martin's free, of age, and has walked the Pattern, so it's up to him what he does. Between you and me, do you think either of them have a chance?"

Marius grins. "Besides, there are wars to be won, glory to be had, and blood to spilt. What greater pleasure, sister of mine?" He sighs.

Random continues to talk to the air.

"Gotcha. No bagpipes. I'll put you down for an all-girl Bombarde orchestra from Texorami, then."

Random pauses. "Your mass-trump thing, does it involve a volcano?"

As Random continues his conversation, Signy steels herself and puts her first foot down on the Pattern before anyone can interrupt. She takes a big stride onto the Pattern, and her eyes widen slightly in surprise at the sudden feeling that something has grabbed hold of her rearmost foot when she tries to pick it up. She continues into the Pattern, sparks and flames that somehow have no heat beginning to rise in response to her footfalls, and her hair begins to stir as if a breeze has started as she realizes that to stop now is to invite death. Her feet continuing to rise and fall as she winds her way along the outer edge and starts to move into the Pattern, slowly advacing on the center.

She flashes back to another walk, this one along a road, black as night. She had to keep moving then as well, though the penalty for stopping then was capture, a return to her prison, and here the stakes were...higher. She moves steadily, with a purpose, her steps here coming easily enough considering the resistance she feels from the Pattern. She continues along the outer edge, remembering days of walking and hiding, though she doubts that she'll find anyone on here the way she did next to the Black Road, a band of warriors trying to escape a trap they were in.

Her shoulders hunch slightly with effort, and she starts to feel a familiar burn in her legs from the effort of each step, as she sees a section of the Pattern starting to approach, a section that somehow seems more twisted, and glows just a little brighter, then all the rest. Sparks and tendrils of fire crawl up her calves and graze her knees as her feet continue marching onward towards the first Veil, memories flowing past her like the specks of light rising from the pathway in time to her footsteps.

She sees herself rolling over onto her back, gasping for air, her ribs ached as if they had been caught between one of her father's hammers and the anvil, and the ringing in her ears took several seconds to start to subside. Looking around, as the sounds of a dying combat started to penetrate her consciousness, and over to her left, she saw the...thing that they had just killed, now a large collection of mangled and half-rotting flesh. In the distance behind it, that damnable Black Road, which almost seemed to follow the Band around as if it were a living thing with a mind of its own. Climbing to her knees and then stopping as she saw the inert form of her comrade next to her, dead from the force of the Sorcerous energies they had just wielded.

She makes the final turn towards the First Veil as Dagobert comes up the hill and stops next to her. "We've driven them off, but they'll return with greater numbers. They always do." She nods and climbs wearily to her feet as he continues. "We're gathering the survivors, and heading for the forest, and see if we can't lose them in the deeps. If you want, you can come with us -- it was your plan that let us catch them unawares and take out that big one, and with Carrick dead we're out our one magic user." He turns and heades back down the hill, as Signy turns one last time to look at the scene, noting her father's Tower, distant enough to be almost indistinguishable from the terrain.

She feels the resistance increasing, no longer a pressure that yielded to a determined stride, but something actively starting to claw at her, try to hold her back. She wonders if this is the right course to take, to align herself with these people that she barely knows. As the sparks continue to creep up she wonders if she's making the right choice, or if she would be better off striking out on her own, and not tying herself to these strangers.

There's not much Marius can do, short of jumping on the Pattern himself and pushing her, so he's merely offering what others might call a prayer, and watching. Oh, and, well, eavesdropping on Random so he doesn't have to care so much.

Signy presses along, and Random continues to amuse himself by talking to Ossian

Random shrugs. "Your funeral." He reaches into a pouch at his side and withdraws a familiar pasteboard rectangle. He holds it out until it disappears. "Gotcha.," says the King. "No bagpipes. I'll put you down for an all-girl Bombarde orchestra from Texorami, then.

"Hey, you're the one who said 'No bagpipes'. Why, you planning on being there for it?"

Random pauses. "Your mass-trump thing, does it involve a volcano?"

Random raises a finger into the air, opens his mouth, and closes it. "Sure, why not? Can't hurt to give it a try. One way, though."

Random nods. "That's key. Can't let anyone think they don't need a goose to lay the golden eggs. OK, you're on commission. Give it a shot. One way, test it with some of Venesch's men. Oh, and make it from Amber Castle to Xanadu city. I'd prefer people have enough investment in what they cart that they're willing to pull it up the mountain."

"Anything else?"

Random turns to Marius. "If I ever figure out how to make an answering service for those things, I'll be the happiest King of Xanadu, ever." The king squints across the pattern. "She's passed the first veil, which is something."

"I doubt not her tenacity, leaving that worm to gnaw only at her motivation." Marius smiles. "I need not remind your majesty that there is the obvious alternative to answering such calls. Only one on an uneasy throne would not have someone he can trust to listen and sift requests. Or do you remain available in defiance to those before you who were, shall we say, less so?" Marius grins, certain the King understands his teasing as well as his rhetoric.

"Alas, as I fall unsuited for any of the aforementioned occupations, I must seek alternate employ. You already have a castle dreamer, and a few fighting for the role of clown. So whimsy and fate have been dealt. I do not like to deal with blood, as much as rekindling such ties show a certain savor to it. I wonder: how many of our enemies are more dangerous to us dead than alive?"

Random watches Signy progress through the vast arcs and curves. "Do you know what it is to kill a Lord of Chaos? They metastasize all their hatred and get eaten by others who become your new enemies. Anyway, the answer is ' generally, most of them.' " Random pauses. "Family excluded, of course." He pauses again. "Or was that supposed to be a rhetorical question?"

Signy grits her teeth with the effort, pushing through the Veil. It would have been easy, to have left the Band before the battle to their fate, a convenient distraction. To have begged out of walking this, and use her Sorcery to slip away in the night. But taking the easy path has never been a hallmark of her life up to this point, and the push through this Veil is but one more instance of that. Suddenly, Signy realizes that she's past this first testing, continuing on through the Pattern, the effort of the Veil an indelible memory like the months spent, on the run, turning to fight like cornered rats. Were there others, other siblings, other cousins, who found themselves confronted with that damned Black Road, always chased, always fighting, but never realizing that it was drawn to them, the way that it was drawn to her? Her feet continue on, sparks beginning to crawl up to the shirt tucked into the waist of her pants, as she sees another strech of Pattern leading into another Veil.

The light is more intense, the floating sparks shining and gleaming the way the light did in her Father's formal dining room on *that* night, bouncing off of the burnished swords and axes on the wall, and the heavy gold salt cellars and place settings on the table. Weyland sat at the head of the table, Madoc at his right hand as his guest. The table was just too large for the room to be considered intimate, for all that there were only a half-dozen people seated at the table. Signy sat, idly picking at the food on her plate, though by then most of it had gone cold. The rest of the table sat and ate in silence, the almost festive atmosphere long since gone. Dvart servers moved around unobtrusively, yet still managing to avoid going too near her for fear of what might happen next.

A slight smile had flicked across her face as she thought about that evening, provoking a brief scowl from Weyland as he noticed. A change of outfit for both Weyland and Madoc when Dvarts bearing full platters of food somehow managed to trip and dump the contents all over the two of them when their pants came crashing down to their ankles. She wasn't positive, but she was pretty sure that nobody saw the brief hand gesture and quietly voiced words of hers, much less inspected the belts which had rotted away to nothingness in the flash of an instant. A ruined pair of trousers for Madoc when his soup bowl shattered when placed on the table in front of him, apparently the result of a flawed firing of the pottery, and he still sat somewhat gingerly at the end of the evening, as if his back pained him from when his chair collapsed from underneath him. That one, she probably didn't get away with, as Weyland surely would have noticed the rotted wood legs. The wine soaking Weyland's sleeve wasn't her fault, technically, but at that point the Dvarts doing the serving were rather nervous, and when Brother Tomat knocked his fork onto the floor.... There would be a price to be paid for this evening's activities, but after a week of this, Madoc barely even looked at her now.

The dinner finished and Weyland and Madoc rose and left, not sparing Signy a glance. Signy rose and headed off to her quarters, glancing quickly at Brother Tomat on her way out. His features were carefully neutral as he also rose, but as their eyes briefly met, there appeared a flash of...happiness? Signy made her way up to her quarters alone, and an hour later her door opened, Weyland standing in the entryway.

"Well, Daughter, congratulations. Tomorrow Madoc leaves, and you will be staying here," he says, voice and face expressionless. "But since I apparently can't trust you to not act like a little child and stay out of trouble, I guess we'll just have to send you to your quarters until you decide to grow up." With that, he steps back and the door swings shut, the lock clicking home with a solid finality.

She comes back with a start to the Pattern, realizing that she's slowed almost to stopping as it clutches at her and tries to hold her in place yet again, an imprisonment for more thorough then anything Weyland had accomplished. She wonders if she is up for this struggle, to fight the Pattern the rest of the way to the center through three more Veils, the silence of the Pattern an eerie and far more ominous counterpoint to the sound of Weyland leaving and sealing her in her quarters.

Her steps on the Pattern falter as she remembers that sound, the finality of the lock clicking, but she quickly resumes a measured pace as she reaches the second Veil. Her forehead creases in concentration as she continues on, focused on putting one foot in front of the next as the pressure to stop, to yield to the Pattern increases. She pushes forward, struggling against the Pattern with the same intensity she attacked the wardings that kept her trapped in her quarters, looking for a weakness, an avenue that she can exploit. Time seems to slow and the struggle stretches out until suddenly a probing foot is past the Veil and her steps come easier again, in a striking parallel to her escape from the Tower, with the sudden weakening in the Wards after countless time spent hammering at them.

Glancing up from the path quickly, Signy notes the tightening of the arcs, moving quicker into the center, and she starts to feel a familiar tightness in her back and shoulders, the strain of the exertion matching that she found at her father's forge. Sweat soaks the back of her shirt as she strides towards the Third Veil, and as the sparks start to climb up towards the middle of her torso, her mind fills in the missing heat, dry and ferocious, that she remembers from all those times at her father's forge pounding at her arms and face, as sweat poured from every pore in her body. She absentmindedly wiped at the sweat that threatened to drip into her eyes, but the sodden sleeve did little to save her eyes from the slight sting as the latest bead rolled in. Weyland stood at her left, focused intently on the glowing white bar of metal lying on the anvil. "Very good," he said, not seeming to need to raise his voice to be heard above the roar of the fire. "This would be serviceable enough as a dagger, but we can make it better. Now focus on the knife like Brother Tomat taught you to. Focus in on the edge...." Weyland's voice fades as Signy's focus spirals down into the cooling blade in front of her, until suddenly she can *see* the edge of the knife. Her attention flows down the edge, as her free hand moves over the knife without thought. Cool blue light outlines the edge of the blade as she "sees" the edge straighten out, becoming finer then could ever be put on normally. As the blue light slowly fades off her focus slowly shifts back and she looks tiredly at her handiwork, breathing heavily from the exertion. Weyland reaches over and takes the tongs holding the piece of cooling metal from her, and looks at the edge critically. "Not bad for a first effort, but I think we can do a little better." He casually tosses the blade aside, and grabs another piece of metal. "Let's try that...

...again." Signy looks over at Brother Tomat in exasperation. "Why? I get it, I can make the plant grow with Sorcery. Let's move on." Brother Tomat returns her gaze calmly. "It is truly amazing that one so young has already mastered all there is to know about Life and enhancing and encouraging it," he says dryly. "Now, if you would be so kind...?" Signy sighs, and focuses on the last potted plant in front of her. Clearing her mind, she extends her hands towards the plant and recites the words she has just been taught, and as the greenish light strikes the plant, it starts to swell and grow. Stopping, she cocks her head and frowns in concentration as the plant swells to three times its original size.

"Very good, but why did you stop?"

"It's just, well, something struck me." Signy clears her mind again, extends her hands, and starts to softly speak again. The cadence changes, becoming harder, sharper, until a dark brown beam strikes the plant, and the leaves begin to wilt and wither, and shortly the thriving plant had shrunk back in on itself, withered and rotted. Signy sat back in her seat, a slightly dazed look on her face. "I...uh.... It seemed to logically follow that if one could grow things, one could also decay them, but...."

Signy woke from her reminiscing with a slight start, as the Third Veil looms before her. The Pattern is shaping her, refining her, as much as Weyland and Tomat did. What is this thing trying to make her into; what paths is it sending her down? She doesn't have much choice in her path as she walks the Pattern, but is this its legacy, locked in on a path and unable to deviate? She feels a moment of despair as she contemplates the Pattern locking her into a path, with no more ability to change or stray then she has now.

Signy bares her teeth in a silent snarl as she reaches the Third Veil and starts in on it. She hits the now expected resistance, stronger now then anything she's hit before, and the ghost of a wry smile fights to take the place of the snarl, before both lose out to a more sober look. No matter who is doing the forging of her, she will not just be a tool to be used by this new King any more then she was for her father. Though wether her father intended her to be the price for some other service, or if she was the prize Madoc sought was an interesting question, and one that she intended to find the answer to soon.

Blinking, she realizes that she has made it through the Third Veil, with just one last Veil a short distance ahead of her. The sparks level off at her shoulders, and every step requires superhuman effort to pry the foot off of the Pattern. Signy's breath comes hard and steady, and she wonders what Weyland would think if he could see her now, know how much the hours she spent at his forge is helping her now. She feels a burning at her wrists, and glancing at them as she continues her inexorable march towards the last Veil and then the center of the Pattern itself, she notices her wrists seem to have become scarred. Her pace slows as she raises her arms, and as the sleeves shift and fall slightly away her eyes widen as she realizes that her mark that she stamps on the items she would craft at her father's forge has been branded onto her wrists, the intricate knotwork inside of a circle completely enveloping them.

Signy lowers her arms and attempts to pick up her pace, wondering at the meaning of this. Is it a sign of what lies in store for her, a new role, that of Master Smith to the King, with a lifetime to perfect her art and perhaps to create things to rival the best work of her father? Or is it a mark that she is being shaped by her past, acting as both the smith and the metal? She thinks back to when she stood in front of King Random, two paths in front of her. On the one hand, accept the oath, and potentially gain access to the power to shape reality itself. Or refuse the oath, and...what? Get locked up until she is more "reasonable"? Get kicked out of...wherever this is, and be left to try and make her way to somewhere? Versus an oath that could put her back to where she was all that time ago, forced to choose between obeying an odious order and rebelling and risking whatever censure is brought to bear.

Signy strides into the final Veil feeling her heart pounding in her chest, Brother Tomat's warning echoing in her ears. Family she never knew she had, powers she never suspected, and just the word of Brother Tomat that Marius was indeed her brother. Who then promptly turned and warned her to be wary and not trust her new family. In the end only time will tell the trustworthiness of this King and the rest of her new family, but for now judging by Lilly and Brennan she trusts that she will have the ability to hold everyone off until she sees where her path lies.

Signy's feet find the Pattern at the other end of the final Veil, and she has just a few steps until she reaches the end of the Pattern, and sees the truth of what Random and Marius have promised.

Signy manages the last half-dozen steps on the Pattern before reaching the center. At the sudden lack of pressure, she staggers and sways before catching herself and turning to look back at Marius and Random. She inclines her head slightly in Random's direction, before drawing herself up and disappearing from the center of the Pattern.

Random turns to Marius. "Looks like you'll need to pick her up at Amber, if she survives the return voyage. She-- Hold on..." Random looks at the ceiling for a moment, then he speaks to it.

"OK, since you asked so nicely. 'Man, that Knock isn't very impressive, is he?' Anything else I can do for you, oh mystery caller, or did you just call to tell knock-knock jokes?"

Signy appears in a room that is only somewhat familiar to her, although she remembers it from her recent sojourn there. There's a man behind the desk and a knife flying at her.

Seeing the knife sends a burst of energy through Signy's tired muscles, and she throws herself off to the side. Desperately, she calls out "It's Signy! I came seeking Brother Tomat!"

The first knife scrapes over her forearm, where it would have lodged in her chest had she not moved. The second thunks in the wall behind her and to one side where Caine's throw either went wild or he pulled it but couldn't suppress the reflex to throw it.

Caine is halfway out of his seat and another knife is in his hand. The door bursts open and there are two naval officers armed with swords advancing on Signy. Caine waves his hand and they back off.

"It's my niece," he says. "She merely has an unorthodox way of arriving. One she won't be using again."

Signy rises unsteadily to her feet, and tries to control the combination of exhaustion and adrenaline that tries to make her muscles shake. "I'm sorry -- I didn't think that my arrival would cause this much of a stir." She runs her hand through her hair, and looks at Caine tiredly. "I suppose ultimately I've come back for Brother Tomat, but I think I need to get some rest before that."

She scrubs at her face, and lets her arms drop. "But before all that, I was wondering if I could talk to you about him."

Caine says, "No." He looks to the midshipmen. "See the lady to a chamber in the family wing--the steward should have one prepared for her."

They salute and one of them moves to offer Signy his arm. The offer seems more than nominal, probably because she looks like she might fall over in a stiff breeze.

Signy looks at Caine, a slightly befuddled look on her face at his flat-out refusal. She draws breath as if to argue before conceding this arguement. Tiredly, she turns and takes the arm of the officer and heads out, following his lead.