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Fight it… Run from it… Destiny still arrives.

A rather melodramatic observation, considering how happy I am to finally be here.

I stand silent before a half-cold hearth, my back to the long darkness of the hall, and watch the embers burn. Coals lie scattered like isolated cities between charred remains of smoking logs. The smoke drifts past me, faintly sweet. Applewood? I haven’t smelled that in an age. Already the fumes of kerosene and the stench of factories and burned rubber wheels fade from memory. I close my eyes for a moment, basking in the warmth— and blessed silence! — then open them again and turn towards the hall.

Still empty. But at least it’s open now. At least it’s finally beginning.

They’ll be here soon. Popping up one after another, shaken like old mothballs from the wrinkles of Time’s neglected garment. Finally… familiar names will have faces. And faces will have stories. And somehow, all the stories come together. Here. This is our stop.

A single ember exiled from the hearth flickers on the round table, perched atop a nodding candle too sleepy to really illuminate the hall. Drafts dance around it, brushing it with icy laughter like little maidens blown in from the darkness.

Come on…

Heavy wooden chairs range around the table, carved with the wings of dragons, the beaks of crows, and the teeth of lions. I walk around them, brushing my fingertips over their high backs. Names I know are carved in the table at each spot.

Noah. Maddie Jay. Archer. Cindy. Wylie.

Each chair has a different story. Noah’s chair, still and silent to the left of the Guildmaster’s, has a fish intricately worked into the headpiece. And the arms… are those… legos?? Archer’s is carved with krakens, fauns, eight-legged horses galloping across rainbow bridges, symmetrically knotted trees, and nodding Narcissus flowers. The whole back of Cindy’s is covered in gigantic sunflowers. Wylie’s chair is scattered with scrolls and notes of music.

What’s taking them so long? The council promised it would be all of us this time…

I walk round the whole table and stop at what must be my chair, clasping my cold hands on the back and tracing swirls of billowing smoke, water, and fire carved into the wood. Little nymphs of long ago are now asleep, almost lost in the satiny folds as they fade, with smiles on their childish faces. What will replace them? What do we become?

I shake myself with a little laugh and pull out my chair, sinking into its familiar embrace. Time enough for random philosophy later. I want to hear what they’ve all been up to, scattered over the face of history (or maybe the future? That’s what it was for me…) and the universe… and what we’re going to make ourselves, now that we’re together.

I glance to my left, then reach out and trail a finger through the dust on the Guildmaster’s chair. A profusion of tiny butterflies dances up the arm, swirling round the top with firelight flickering on their wings.

If somebody doesn’t come quickly, I’m going to get nostalgic, and then I’m going to cry… dramatic as that would be, I hardly want to have to explain my puzzling psychology to them.  At least not on the first day. I smirk, then rub my hands through my hair and flop forward to prop my chin on one hand, gazing at the sputtering candle.

The crabbed, illuminated letters engraved in the center of the table say it all: New Wessex, Haven. Our coat of arms nestles snugly in the V.

I guess I could fall asleep here… better than waiting and worrying…

Somewhere in the depths of the hall, hinges creak.

 

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