Harry pauses in his circulation of the barracks - half looking for Murphy, half just making sure nothing's exploded in his absence - when he spots Will, and he studies the boy for a little while before he actually approaches. He was always kind of... strange for a boy his age, but there's something even more different now. Something that makes Harry worry a little about what might have happened to him out there in the Dark Woods.
"Hey," he says gently, pausing a few steps away. "Are you okay?"
"Better than I have been in a long time, actually."
Will answers the question with an absolute calmness bordering on serenity. And yet, he could not avoid a vague sadness to his words as he mourns for the child he had been here. The burden of an Old One's duty left little room for life as a normal child. His true childhood had ended on his eleventh birthday.
But it was still true, what he had told Merriman so long ago. Sometimes he wished he could still be a child. Sometimes, but not always.
"...good," Harry says slowly. That very unchildlike serenity Will has going on right now is... kind of creepy. Harry's known some weird children who weren't - the Archive comes to mind - but it's the change in Will that strikes him as strange and unnerving now. Sure, he was solemn and very mature for his age the first time they met, but... not like this.
"I heard you were trapped out in the woods for a while," he adds after a moment, hoping to prompt some kind of explanation.
"I was. But I think it had a good effect in the end." He smiles suddenly, in a way that transforms his usually solemn face. "I feel as if I have finally awakened after sleeping all of these months."
Well, that was... enlightening. Except for the part where Harry still has no idea what's actually going on. He sighs a little and crouches down so he can talk to Will on his level.
"Whatever it was you couldn't remember... It's back now, isn't it?"
"I'm glad to hear that." He still sounds a little unsettled, but completely honest too. The new, improved Will might be slightly creepy, but the fact that he's not missing parts of himself anymore... That's got to be a good thing, right?
"I feel much better in myself now." Will frowns, as something tickles against his mind. "I couldn't feel it before, but you have some sort of power to you. Do you not?"
Harry can feel it too, the strange electric buzz of another with power - not any kind of power Harry's experienced before, which is strange in itself, but certainly not unheard of here in the Wood. But it's strong, and in a child Will's age... well, that's a little scary. Harry swallows hard and nods.
It was strange, Will thought. That there were so many humans here who called themselves wizards. When in his own world there had been no human wizards at all. "We have been called that before by humans. But we do not call ourselves that."
"By humans," he echoes softly. Wizards where he's from might have more abilities and longer lifespans than your average vanilla human, but there's still no debating that they are human. "So you're not... What do you call yourselves?"
"We are not quite human." For although they were born and lived among humans, in the end they were not the same. "I am the last and youngest of the Old Ones."
As he says this Will watches the wizard's reaction carefully. It wasn't a secret. Not exactly. It was only that many humans were not able to handle the knowledge of the Old One's existence. Will thought that someone with their own knowledge of magic would not be troubled. But you never knew.
And if he began to panic, Will would need to remove his memories of this conversation.
"Oh." Harry nods a little, his eyes skittering over Will's without lingering enough to initiate a soulgaze - it might not happen at all, if he's really not human, but whatever the boy is, Harry's not sure he wants to risk it.
He considers this information for a second, and it's... okay, not as helpful as it could be. On the bright side, he shows no signs of panicking, just general confusion. "So what's an Old One?"
Well now, there was a question. What an Old One was was not a simple explanation at all. Will casts his mind back to remember how Merriman had once explained it to him and answers slowly.
"In the world and outside of the world, since the beginning of the time, there has been the High Magic which governs the workings of the universe. And directly beneath the High Magic are two forces. Poles, you might say. Which we call the Light and the Dark. And there are those people who are the Light and there are those people who are the Dark. Those of the Dark are humans who have chosen to become something more dread than their fellows, while we of the Light were born to serve its interests. Since the beginning of time, we of the Light have been bound in an eternal battle against the Dark. We exist only to oppose them."
"There is a great circle of us, born into every place and time. I was the last to be born, and the first to be born in five hundred years. After me, there will never be another Old One."
Harry frowns thoughtfully as Will speaks. It doesn't match up exactly with Harry's understanding of the world and the supernatural, but that's not exactly surprising here in the Wood - things rarely do work the way he expects, when the topic of magic comes up. But it makes sense, in a way. Kind of.
"And how not-quite-human are we talking? Basically human with a power boost, or... phenomenal cosmic power crammed into a human shape?"
Will observes him carefully. He seemed to be accepting this quite well. Better than Paul or the Vicar had. Will had never forgetten the expression of uncomprehending terror on his brother's face in that beginning moment of realization.
"It is nothing so simple as that," he says quietly. "In a sense we are much like humans. We are born into human families and live among them. We can be cut and injured. Only, we cannot die. But in another sense altogether I am not human at all. I am the Signseeker, the Youngest of the Old, and an Old One of the Light. I carry with me all the knowledge of Gramarye. I have ridden the wind, walked the Old Ways, and spoken with the stars. I am as old as the land and older even the that, although I have only lived for eleven years."
"Hey," he says gently, pausing a few steps away. "Are you okay?"
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Will answers the question with an absolute calmness bordering on serenity. And yet, he could not avoid a vague sadness to his words as he mourns for the child he had been here. The burden of an Old One's duty left little room for life as a normal child. His true childhood had ended on his eleventh birthday.
But it was still true, what he had told Merriman so long ago. Sometimes he wished he could still be a child. Sometimes, but not always.
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"I heard you were trapped out in the woods for a while," he adds after a moment, hoping to prompt some kind of explanation.
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"I was. But I think it had a good effect in the end." He smiles suddenly, in a way that transforms his usually solemn face. "I feel as if I have finally awakened after sleeping all of these months."
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"Whatever it was you couldn't remember... It's back now, isn't it?"
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"Yeah... I'm a wizard. You?"
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As he says this Will watches the wizard's reaction carefully. It wasn't a secret. Not exactly. It was only that many humans were not able to handle the knowledge of the Old One's existence. Will thought that someone with their own knowledge of magic would not be troubled. But you never knew.
And if he began to panic, Will would need to remove his memories of this conversation.
Reply
He considers this information for a second, and it's... okay, not as helpful as it could be. On the bright side, he shows no signs of panicking, just general confusion. "So what's an Old One?"
Reply
"In the world and outside of the world, since the beginning of the time, there has been the High Magic which governs the workings of the universe. And directly beneath the High Magic are two forces. Poles, you might say. Which we call the Light and the Dark. And there are those people who are the Light and there are those people who are the Dark. Those of the Dark are humans who have chosen to become something more dread than their fellows, while we of the Light were born to serve its interests. Since the beginning of time, we of the Light have been bound in an eternal battle against the Dark. We exist only to oppose them."
"There is a great circle of us, born into every place and time. I was the last to be born, and the first to be born in five hundred years. After me, there will never be another Old One."
Reply
"And how not-quite-human are we talking? Basically human with a power boost, or... phenomenal cosmic power crammed into a human shape?"
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"It is nothing so simple as that," he says quietly. "In a sense we are much like humans. We are born into human families and live among them. We can be cut and injured. Only, we cannot die. But in another sense altogether I am not human at all. I am the Signseeker, the Youngest of the Old, and an Old One of the Light. I carry with me all the knowledge of Gramarye. I have ridden the wind, walked the Old Ways, and spoken with the stars. I am as old as the land and older even the that, although I have only lived for eleven years."
Reply
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