The Bottomless Perdition [Bianca]

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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March 2nd, 2027

A year, to the day weirdly enough, had passed since the last meaningful conversation had been held between her and Bianca of the Magical Law Enforcement. Not that either of them had been negligent in their plans; it was quite the opposite. A lot had happened over the past year, and Fae's frequent trips to meet the new Minister and her research on Merlin had prevented any meetings with Bianca from happening. They were both unbelievably busy, maybe even more so now that Hogwarts was slated to be reopened again for the fall term. An amazing turn around for such a horrible event. Sending the few druid children to the mainland for the exam period had been stressful, the Council preventing her from bringing them there herself due to safety precautions.

Since the Hogwarts incident, the most thrilling thing to happen was boring legislature and political grandstanding, and the fact that she could sort of talk to plants now too. That had knowledge had been kept very much under wraps, a select few knowing the true extent to this seemingly new hypersensitivity to plant life. Over the past five months, her meditations had brought to light quite a few interesting quirks, though she had yet to see how useful this could be in her research. Plants didn't communicate at the same level as humans did, so a lot of it was her supposing and assuming what they were trying to tell her. If only she could outright ask them about who removed Merlin's staff and the barrier, or if they had any historical knowledge on Yrisle. Unfortunately it didn't work that way.

Whether or not this new 'power' of hers was discussed during Bianca's visit to Hy-Brasil was something Fae had yet to decide on. She knew she could trust the other woman, as they (and quite a few others now) were working jointly to figure out what to do with the unwanted island. Laying out the writings inside the Council archives that mentioned, or at the very least alluded to, Yrisle, Fae was fairly certain she'd combed through everything that the druids had to offer. Pouring over centuries of minutes during Council sessions hadn't taken as long as she had expected, mainly because they only went back about three hundred years and were kept to monthly occurrences. This meant she was far too late for Merlin, and nothing stuck out about Yrisle. There were undoubtedly more scrolls, ancient ones, somewhere on the island, though where was sort of the problem. The plants couldn't help with that either.

With her portion of the work displayed in the library and all ready to be discussed with Bianca, Fae made her way down towards the docks to greet her guest. She found it humorous that anytime she personally invited anyone, the same sort of events took place. Especially over the past year. A tour of the island, watching their wonder over seeing the Tranquil Oak upon learning that was where they would be sleeping, assuming height wasn't a problem. Leaning on Merlin's staff, Fae waited patiently for Bianca's arrival. She had such sights to show her!

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 524 ● Beauty and the Beast lol

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

2 March 2027

It hadn’t taken long for Bianca to unravel the inner workings of the Department of Law Enforcement. The rivalries between its senior officials, the caseload that her department could handle before it became completely overwhelmed. The subpar coffee that wasn’t fit to be served to Azkaban’s worst. But most importantly, she’d discovered where the competition was. Which cases every Auror wanted to take, and which they didn’t dare to touch. Now, the Purifiers? That was the hot topic at the moment, and every Ministry worker seemed to sense that that was the way to get ahead. The way to launch a career by making a high profile arrest, and then prosecuting it. She’d gotten an insane number of transfer requests, Hit Wizards that wanted to be assigned to the safe house raids based on the information Asher Burke had provided, or analysts that wanted to get in on the action themselves.

But the druids? It was career suicide to go anywhere near such a divisive issue that hadn’t made any significant progress in decades. It was where promising careers went to die, or where they sent unruly Aurors who needed to be punished with a rotation far from any action until they learned to behave. James had been her proxy in handling the druids, someone who could put out any small fires as they came up -- mostly because Bianca didn’t have the time to give her personal attention to Hy-Brasil and because James didn’t seem to mind the assignment. It was the only reason such a junior Law Enforcement agent could have so much steady access to the High Druid – nobody else wanted the job. And he seemed to be good at it, because Bianca hadn’t seen any incident reports cross her desk regarding ‘the druid problem’ in a year.

Now a year after her last meeting with the High Druid, there were no more fires to put out. Azkaban had been rebuilt, the Purifier takedown was well in hand, and Bianca was thoroughly ignoring the news until they stopped reporting on Asher Burke’s ‘sudden’ release from Azkaban. They would get bored eventually. In the meantime, Bianca could finally turn her attention back to the druids – and the island that had become a shared threat for Hy-Brasil and the Ministry. Everybody seemed to have forgotten about Yrisle, and the morbid fascination around the island seemed to have died down. Nobody tried to sneak through the Ministry’s lockdown, nobody wrote about it anymore, and nobody had been detained in months for trying to do something foolish.

After her first (and last) conversation with Fae, Bianca had followed through on her promise. A pair of Aurors had escorted several boxes to Hy-Brasil, composed of everything Law Enforcement’s analysts could find about Merlin in the Ministry archives. Whatever the druids had been doing with that information – well, that was in their hands. Now it was time to check in and ensure that everybody was working with the same information, an absolute necessity if they were going to work together to find a solution. Since Fae had made the journey to London last time, it was Bianca’s turn to visit Hy-Brasil and see what they had to work with. She’d only visited one time, shortly after her promotion, and that visit had lasted less than two hours. Even in the midst of all the uncertainty and confusion surrounding Yrisle, Bianca could admit she was excited to see Hy-Brasil again. For real this time.

For the first time in a long while, Bianca had dressed down for the occasion. She knew the basic drill when it came to Hy-Brasil – no technology, no outsiders, and barely any roads. In other words, the majority of Chile once you left Santiago and drove for half an hour in any direction. She passed through customs quickly (being a high-ranking Ministry official didn’t mean anything to the druids, but receiving a personal invitation from the High Druid seemed to do the trick). Bianca wove through the crowd, doing her best to ignore the fact that her own dark features stood out so clearly from the pale redheads that surrounded her (the most Bianca had ever seen in one concentrated location). Eventually she spotted Fae, still looking like she’d just stepped out of a fairytale with Merlin’s staff and princess dress. Six year old Bianca would have had a fit. “Fae,” Bianca acknowledged with a nod, “I’ve brought something from James.” She handed over the wrapped package with a shrug. Bianca didn’t know what was inside, probably some inside joke from all the times James had escorted her on the High Druid’s trips to London – but Merlin, it had been impossible to explain at customs.

fae iona cloudbreaker

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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Spotting Bianca through the crowd at the port was easy, not only because where she was standing had the high ground, but because outsiders weren't difficult to pick out. In her years as a tour guide, the look of wonder that most had on their faces as they arrived gave it all away. Even those from the Ministry that had spent a significant amount of time on Hy-Brasil since the barrier dropped were fairly obvious. She supposed she looked the same way whenever she hopped over to London, wide eyes and wanting to take everything in all at once. The best disguise one could have when entering Hy-Brasil was having red hair. There seemed to be quite a lot of redheads on the mainland, and in magical London in general, but the sheer numbers of those amongst the druids outnumbered that. Personally she'd never liked the color, as it just made her like everyone else on the island. Where other druids were red-headed and animagi, she was glad she could choose what hair color she wanted on a whim.

"I apologize if security gave you any trouble. They dislike when I bring souvenirs back as well..." she explained as she took the gift that was from James. A book, maybe? Based on the weight and shape, she was inclined to say no. That meant it could be only one thing! The butterbeer-flavored hard candies she'd seen in the window of one of the candy shops in Diagon Alley during her last trip there! The shop had been closed already, but she had been dying to try them the next time she was over there. Now she wouldn't have to do that (unless she wanted more). "Thank you for bringing this," she said as she slipped the box into her bag. She didn't want to make Bianca a mail courier, but she would have to scribble a thank-you letter out for her to take back to James.

"Shall we go to your lodgings first, or would you prefer that I send them over and we get to business right away?" Starting now would only make everything easier. Fae planned to give a tour of the island as the setting for this meeting. It was much better than the boardrooms and offices the Ministry always shoved her into.

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 386 ● Song by Artist

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

The package passed into Fae’s hands, although she didn’t open it right away. That was a shame, since Bianca had been curious from the moment James had shoved it into her hands like it held the answer to the meaning of life. Instead she weighed the box in her hands and slipped it into her bag, leaving Bianca to raise an eyebrow but refrain from commenting. She’d have to assume it was an appropriate gift from the Ministry to the High Druid, and leave it at that. At Fae’s question, Bianca only shrugged slightly and shook her head. “I understand. I wish we took similar precautions in London…” Bianca knew that she tended to use a heavy hand when it came to implementing security procedures, an impulse from her Auror days when she would silently judge the last Department Head’s choices. There might’ve been a justification for heavy security in the days of the Purifiers, but people were more relaxed now and expected less hassle from her department as a result. That just left Bianca to silently anticipate the next threat and where it might come from…

At any rate, she appreciated the chance to avoid wasting time. Merlin, Bianca couldn’t stand all the inane chatter before a meeting or a high-profile visit – pretending they were there for anything except to work. She had her personal life, enjoyed her time off just as much as anyone else did…but she didn’t need to talk about it with work colleagues. That was private, and she wanted to share just as much as she wanted to hear it from the other side. As in, not much at all…But Hy-Brasil promised a whole host of things she’d never seen before, and Bianca had never hesitated to jump into the unknown. Everything about the island and the druids’ way of life repelled Dark magic, which meant Bianca could marginally relax and let herself be less vigilant. Still a little – that was just who she was – but she would enjoy ignoring the impulse to glance over her shoulder and check for a tail.

“I don’t need to see the inn,” Bianca decided, having heard plenty about the only real building in Hy-Brasil from others who had visited the island before her, including Xiulan and the last work trip she’d taken to discuss her prophecy. No, out of all the things in the island that Bianca was eager to see – the place where she’d be spending the night wasn’t one of them. “We have a lengthy agenda to cover,” she pointed out before continuing with a small sigh of exhaustion, “And finally some quiet to do it in. It’s been impossible to take meetings in the Chimaera Room since Sir Cadogan moved in.” She finished that last point in a mutter, although Bianca knew she couldn’t really complain. During the fire at Hogwarts, his portrait had been extremely active. He would run through corridors until he found a Purifier, and then shout and follow them until he’d alerted the Ministry (truly amazing given how out of shape both he and his pony were). Rescuing his portrait had been an afterthought for her, but Cadogan had taken it as a personal insult that she wouldn’t allow him to return the favor and fulfill his knight’s oath. Hence his new spot in her typical meeting room, and the reason why even a dull meeting could become quite eventful with his colorful commentary in the background. At any rate, Bianca was looking forward to a couple days of peace and quiet.

fae iona cloudbreaker

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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Not that she should be judging the security efforts of the Ministry, but they were rather lacking. If they simply committed people to working as hard on normal security as they did with ‘protecting’ her whenever she was visiting, then she assumed a lot of the problems on the mainland would be solved. Fae also wasn’t ignorant of the fact that Hy-Brasil’s own safety bubble had been literally popped, but nothing had truly happened from that aside from creatures going amok and then a potentially related island of literal dark magic appearing soon after. There were theories those two things didn’t coincide yet she hadn’t been convinced yet. When the protective spell Merlin put in place was located once again, she would return the staff to where it belonged. And if that caused Yrisle to disappear, then so be it. In the meantime, the problem was dealing with Yrisle, and removing it from being a thorn in all of their sides was much more important than a barrier spell.

Bianca shook away the offer to go to the Tranquil Oak first, and the little piece of tour guide that remained in her shattered instantly. Every important guest that came deserved a walk around the island so that they could get a lay of the land. But not today it seemed. Straight into work, as it seemed to always be. To say she was a lot more relaxed when at home would be an understatement. While on the mainland, getting the job done was her number one goal, so essentially what Bianca wanted to do right now. But she was right. There was a lot that needed to be covered now that they seemed to be in agreeance that Yrisle had to be dealt with before it truly became a problem.

“We can do that in the archives if you like? No one will disturb us there as I have made it sort of my office over the past year,” she grinned as she used the mainlander term. No one here would ever claim a specific room in a building as theirs, even if they were the sole occupant of it. She wasn’t incorrect in saying that it sort of functioned as her workstation now though. Turning, she began to walk in the direction of the archival building, only stopping slightly to ask another question, “Who is Sir Cadogan? Do you have a knight in your employment now?” The name sounded so familiar to her, but what didn’t at this point? Spending the last year reading through centuries of material within the archives had inundated her with so much information that everything felt like déjà vu to her now. On top of that, her deep dive into everything relating to Merlin had led her down a road of mainlander muggle reading as well. Their stories were essentially useless to her, despite being entertaining at times. And the knights always had funny names, just like this Sir Cadogan.

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 457 ● Hotel amour by Coeur de Pirate

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

Bianca could have spent the rest of the day venting about all the initiatives she wished she could pass but couldn’t – but she forced herself to bite her tongue. It wasn’t right to discuss Ministry problems with an outsider, especially one that had a vested interest in maintaining their independence from the Ministry. That had always been a touchy issue between the mainland and Hy-Brasil, and Bianca’s less-than-trusting instincts told her that Fae would be more than happy to hear about the inner deficiencies of the Ministry’s bureaucracy. As it was, their new Minister had proven to be no more active than the previous one – annoying as a general principle, but it did give the active department heads more power. Bianca was becoming more and more tempted to do as she saw fit to do her job and protect the British magical community, especially as it had become clear she wasn’t going to get any instructions from above. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?

Fae’s offer to work in the archives sparked Bianca’s interest – because that was a part of the island that she was very interested to see for herself. “I suppose I always pictured druids working outside,” Bianca admitted, her lips curving into a dry half-smile at the sight of Fae’s wide grin. A thoughtful expression settled on her features as she wondered aloud, “Unless you’ve placed it all in a tree? I’ve heard you build your homes into natural features.” Like Hobbits, she added silently in her head, thinking of the movies and how they’d built the Hobbit holes right into the low rolling hills of the Shire/New Zealand. Merlin, it’d been ages since she’d carved out time for a marathon– and even longer since she’d referenced it out-loud. No one ever seemed to understand those references, except for other Muggleborns. And hey, Bianca had been carefully cultivating her image since school as the tough, no-nonsense Auror (and former Quidditch star, not that anyone ever asked). She didn’t need anyone to realize how much she liked comics or fantasy shows.

She’d become quite talented over the years at hiding her thoughts behind a blank, stony expression – but she couldn’t resist rolling her eyes and giving an annoyed grunt at Fae’s question about Sir Cadogan. “The man or the portrait?” Bianca replied as the High Druid curiously asked who he was. She’d read about the knight before as a kid, and been quite impressed with his heroic actions. In fact, when Bianca had been looking for a name for her new owl, she had immediately gone back to King Arthur’s adventures as she ooh’d and ah’d over the knights and their gallantry. Still, trying to work in the Chimaera Room with the knight’s commentary in the background had worn her (already limited) patience thin. “Sir Cadogan was a knight of the round table. He was quite well-known for defeating the Wyvern of Wye,” Bianca recalled from the book. Her expression turned grumpy and her tone sour as she continued, “His portrait is a pain in the ass.” It was well-known that portraits gained their mannerisms from the subject themselves, who had to teach their portrait how to act and think. That made Bianca grateful that she’d never met the man himself – it was probably bad form to strangle one of King Arthur’s best knights.

fae iona cloudbreaker

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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There were a few conventional ‘buildings’ on the island, the archives being one of them. It all came down to maintaining the climate inside, as hundreds of the scrolls that called the building home were capable of crumbling if the slightest breeze hit them the wrong way. Though it definitely wasn’t the same kind of structure that Bianca would consider a building, and far from being anything close to a library. Mainlanders had grand, towering places that they lived in. The archives were essentially a hovel. “Most of our time is spent outside, yes. But we do have a few locations that require four walls and a roof,” she explained. Her home was similar, though lacked a door or anything in the windows, as there wasn’t exactly a reason to have either. “Your lodgings will be in a tree, for instance.”

A knight of the Round Table! Fae stopped walking as Bianca explained who Sir Cadogan was, and how he still existed within the portrait she now had. Whether or not he was annoying wasn’t exactly of any matter to her, as all sorts of individuals were like that but still had value to them. She could meet a portrait somewhere in the middle especially if it meant being able to talk to him about Merlin. “I would like to speak to him as soon as possible,” she said, her tone shifting to a more serious one. “If he was part of the Round Table, then he would have known Merlin.” And thus, the staff. Reading about the knights and exploits of King Arthur and Merlin was great and all, but to have someone (or something?) that existed at the same time? That was worth the trip to the Ministry alone even if it didn’t produce any results. “After we handle what we need to discuss today, of course. I still believe that the problem we dealt with here is connected to Yrisle, meaning Merlin is potentially a topic of interest to explore.” Her trip to the museum named after the warlock had been an important one, though hadn’t provided her with anything she deemed important yet. But Sir Cadogan? Now that was a lead…

Continuing their walk, Fae led Bianca towards the archives. It wasn’t the greatest building in the world, and she assumed that some ancestor had created it as an attempt to mimic the mainland after a visit. With an ugly exterior and sporting a thick wooden door that was almost too wide for its frame, the inside was where the real treasure was. A hard tug on the handle made the door clunk open, a creak as the force made the hinges bend. She really needed to fix that. “This is our archives, or library. All of our written history is in here, amongst other things. For the past year I have been combing through all of it trying to make sense of how our ancestors dealt with Yrisle the last time it appeared. Everything I could gather is on the table over there,” she pointed at her workstation.

There were only a few scraps of paper and two scrolls, one of which was filled with her own notes taken from interviews with druids about the stories they had heard over the years. The three pieces of paper each mentioned the Wyrd, which is what the druids had called the fog that rolled across the island and seemingly caused distortions within those that had magic. It was equated to being an ancient form of magic, if it even existed to begin with. Especially if it was used by the Evil god, who went against everything druid-kind worshipped and followed. Her own observation of the Wyrd hadn’t amounted to much as she hadn’t even gotten off the dock at Yrisle, so she was only going on what others had confirmed for her since. “Some unnamed druid at an unknown point in time decided to write down the story that parents have been telling little ones for centuries to keep them in line. You would call it a ghost story. That is all on this scroll,” Fae stated as she unfurled it. The story itself varied slightly from what she had heard growing up, but the gist of it was still the same: a druid child misbehaving and harming a particular bed of flowers became the target of a hazy mist known as the Wyrd. Touching it would turn them into a monster that served the Evil god. The actual writing was very elementary and almost looked like a template to be used by parents for whatever situation they deemed fit. So once again, not much help towards what they were trying to achieve.

“To be honest with you, if past High Druids marked down information on Yrisle, it had to have been so long ago that the scrolls have crumbled or been moved elsewhere. I am at a loss to what was done the first time to make it go away, and everything you have been doing seems to be more productive than this,” Fae admitted. “We pride ourselves in our oral storytelling, but this is the first time where I fear it may have failed us.” In a huge way too. The island’s seclusion from the rest of the world had definitely hampered it in this instance. She couldn’t even step foot on the island without feeling like every fiber of magic within her body was going to be ripped out of her. Becoming a support role wasn’t how she had imagined this going.

“I can have copies of these made up for you so you can take them back to the Ministry as well. That is the least I can do after only coming up with stories we use to scare our children into behaving…” Fae offered as she looked over everything on the table again. Merlin this was a bad look on her end. Especially after how excited she had been only a few minutes earlier at the dock. “I do wish to help further though. Hy-Brasil may not have many resources, but we all want the Wyrd to go away. Something that old is not welcome in this world anymore.”

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 1,037 ● Mano a Mano by Blanco White

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

Fae’s matter-of-fact comment that her lodgings would be in a tree almost made Bianca wish she’d agreed to a quick stop before continuing. She couldn’t imagine exactly what Fae meant by that, and her mind whirled with the possibility of a tree house or of Fae opening a door into the tree itself in a style like the Nightmare Before Christmas. Either way, it would be worlds away from Bianca’s flat in London – comfortable to be sure, if not slightly reminiscent of a museum with all the art she’d carefully chosen and because of the sense that it’d never quite been lived in. Still, Bianca was work-oriented to the extreme and she couldn’t be sorry that she wanted to take advantage of the trip to finally align expectations with the High Druid.

But she couldn’t help the fact that she’d started to trail behind Fae in her attempt to take in the entire island at once while they walked. To a druid who’d spent their whole life in a place that felt so alive, Bianca could understand why mainland cities might feel so…empty. Or full of dead stone and wood that didn’t talk. Hy-Brasil was brimming with magic, and it was obvious everywhere you looked. She could hear the faint calls of golden snidgets flitting among the canopy above their heads, and the plants shimmered and bloomed in a way Bianca hadn’t seen since the rainforests of Brazil. She craned her neck to examine the beautiful, and completely wild, vista around her. But as focused as Bianca could usually be, so careful of her surroundings and always able to immediately spot someone following her, she’d gotten overwhelmed with the island.

So Bianca just managed to hold in a rather rude swear in Spanish as Fae abruptly stopped in front of her without warning. Bianca in turn Bianca in turn stopped quickly enough to avoid unceremoniously walking straight into the High Druid, but she accidentally trod on the trailing end of Fae’s poofy princess-style dress. Bianca hastily took a step back, and then resolved to walk next to Fae for the rest of the trip. As fairy-like and graceful as Fae could seem at times, she…could also be quite uncoordinated. Bianca had had to stifle a snort during the High Druid’s last trip to London and the sight of her accidentally slapping not one, but two interns during a passionate speech with plenty of hand-waving. As Fae excitedly pointed out Cadogan’s origins to the Round Table, Bianca’s eyes wandered to the impressive staff in her hands. Of course. Cadogan and Merlin had been friends, which meant he might know something about the secret powers the staff supposedly hid.

“You’re welcome to visit him in London. I’m sure he would happily accept a meeting,” Bianca responded, a slight twist of irony to her words as she thought about how the knight would surely flush and puff out his painted chest at the opportunity to be important. Arranging a meeting wouldn’t be the difficult part – but sorting out the valuable bits from his endless stream of boasting and medieval swears? That was another story entirely. “Have you…advanced any further in your studies on Merlin?” she asked, being as diplomatic as she could even if there was a note of skepticism in her voice. This was why she’d never been considered for the Department of International Cooperation and sent immediately to the Auror program. No, she certainly wasn’t a diplomat.

The door to the archives opened impressively and Bianca followed Fae into the small building. Her first impression was that the room was…full. There were books and scrolls and documents everywhere – piled on tables, stacked on shelves and cubbies. You couldn’t turn your head without eyeing a badly-balanced stack of ancient books. In a corner of the room, Bianca recognized familiar boxes with the Ministry’s seal on the side. So the records had arrived safely after all, not that Bianca had ever doubted her Aurors’ abilities. She studied the table that Fae pointed out carefully, and leaned over the scraps of paper without moving to touch them. They looked like they might turn to dust at any moment.

“So the fog is the magic.” Bianca’s tone was flat as she glanced over the scroll that Fae had pointed out to her. She remembered the unnatural way that it moved, and the way it seemed to cover the landscape like a shroud. As Fae offered to have copies made up, Bianca nodded vaguely to show her approval as she continued to read. She doubted that her analysts would be able to find clues that the druids themselves hadn’t, but it was good to ensure that everyone knew everything. Considering the Ministry’s central role in keeping an eye on the island, the druid stories might have hints on what to do. Bianca sighed heavily and glanced at Fae again. “The best I can do is keep it contained for now,” she admitted, a frown pulling at her lips, “But there are some cursebreakers working on the problem. I understand they’ve been studying the island for a year…so they might have discovered something that isn’t mentioned here.” Rhys and Cas Karkaroff, along with other (former) Order members, had been visiting the island regularly for months – Bianca kept herself fairly informed since she, after all, was needed to approve the permits and keep their presence quiet. She hoped they’d found something because she was at her wit’s end.

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[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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Meeting a knight seemed like it would be an exciting experience, even if he was only inside of a moving portrait. That sort of magic interested her immensely, as she was unclear on how the process worked. The mainland newspapers had a wide array of moving photographs in them, yet they did not seemingly retain memories and thoughts (or autonomy) like those of the moving portraits did. She recalled there being hundreds, if not thousands, of them at Hogwarts the two times she had visited for her exams. This Sir Cadogan didn’t come immediately to mind as one that she had interacted with, though she also never ventured far into the upper levels of the castle. Being inside such a humongous building was unbelievably intimidating for her back then. Nowadays it was becoming a frequent occurrence, though she still wasn’t one-hundred percent behind living and working indoors yet. Even the island ‘library’ needed to have its windows and doors open constantly while she was working in there, otherwise she felt claustrophobic.

“He sounds like an interesting individual. I hope he can make some time in his schedule for me,” Fae said happily, assuming that a knight in a painting had to be fairly busy. Especially one that was part of the infamous Round Table. She made a mental note to remember to create a list of questions that she had for him, as that would definitely keep her on track. Wasting his time would be horrible, and this was the sort of thing where she would probably have to continue setting up meetings in order to get everything she needed. As for Merlin, that was a bit tricky, “I went to his museum last summer. While helpful, I do not believe what I am looking for is there at all. There is a lot of information missing on why he came to Hy-Brasil.” There was actually nothing on why he had come here in the first place or why he would leave his staff, of all things, here to protect the island. A mystery for the ages, really. That was why more insight from Sir Cadogan would be important here. She sort of hoped that it was because Merlin was an odd person and simply left his staff here and forgot about it, fully intending to come back one day. The alternative was that it was to protect Hy-Brasil from the horrors of the unknown, or the Wyrd. Such a wise individual had to have known about Yrisle and the dangers that came with it.

The fog. During her own trip to Yrisle, Fae had not seen it because she couldn’t even make it off of the established dock. There had been whispers of it from the very beginning though, and the elder members of the Council had assumed that the true danger of the island lay somewhere deep within it, creating or controlling the mist that warped everything that came into contact with it. “That is my assumption as well,” Fae confirmed. If the island had allowed her to enter, she would have liked to have seen it in order to report it back to her people, but going from secondhand accounts was the best she could do still. She exhaled through her nose in a deep sigh as Bianca stated that all she could do was prevent people from going in and the fog from going out, assuming the latter was even possible. Containment was all they could ever do anyways.

“Those are the individuals that study ancient runes and objects, yes?” Fae asked. She was unsure if she had ever come across a cursebreaker before, but they were talked about a lot whenever anything regarding Yrisle came up. Apparently they dealt with tombs of magical nature and the things that came from within them. “If there is a chance that they think they may have figured out a way to fix things, I would like to be there as well. I cannot enter the island, but having the staff nearby could potentially be useful.” Plus, she wanted to be there to witness every attempt to send Yrisle away. And then she was going to write it down a million times so that there was record of it should it come back. Sher wasn’t going to fail her ancestors like her own had done with her.

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 728 ● Infinite Resurrection by Tomb Mold

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

Fae had a strange timeless quality to her, and Bianca didn’t know what to make of it. There were times when she held herself with grace and sophistication, and spoke like she was carrying the knowledge of a hundred generations of druids before her. Which, Bianca supposed, was exactly the job description of being the High Druid. In those moments, it could be easy to forget the druids were just another group of wizards, because they felt so separate from the rest of society. Strange habits, long memories, a different way of doing magic. Fae represented all of that wisdom and more, which had certainly been useful in the fight against Yrisle and this strange new partnership with the Ministry. But then there were other times when Fae seemed so…young. There was a look of wonder, almost childlike, when she visited the mainland or spoke about Merlin.

Whenever that happened, it made Bianca almost forget she was working with someone that held serious authority over her little corner of the world. And it made those few years in the age difference between them feel like a much larger canyon that separated them. It was so different from Bianca’s own style, and it threw her off sometimes when she needed to decide how to respond. This naïve awe over Cadogan had a similar effect on her now, and Bianca tightly rolled her shoulders but didn’t comment on what Cadogan’s schedule might look like. She’d eat her wand if the portrait turned down a meeting with the High Druid, much less a willing audience for his many stories. Instead, Bianca skipped over the subject and decided to settle her own curiosity. “What exactly is Merlin’s history with the island? He didn’t create Hy-Brasil, did he?”

There were gaps in her knowledge about British magical history for obvious reasons – she had a much more solid grasp of Latin America’s magical communities – but she was also starting to realize that education on the druids was generally lacking in the mainland. Everything Bianca had learned…well, that had been through her own research during her severely limited free time. And there was only so much you could teach yourself on such a niche subject, especially when all the information at her disposal came from a very specific point of view held by the Ministry. So Bianca hated that she needed to rely on Fae for the information, but it was a necessary evil if they were ever going to solve this mystery.

Discussing Yrisle was a much safer topic, because Fae and Bianca were united in the fact that they both knew very little about the strange magic. “Mm-hm,” Bianca confirmed at Fae’s question about curse-breakers, “And they’re quite talented at reaching conclusions based on limited information as a result. They’ve been studying the island from a field station they created there last year. Between all of us, we must be close to a breakthrough.” That was the hope, at least – between Fae’s research, Bianca and the Ministry’s administration, and the cursebreakers’ analyses…it had to be enough. Enough to figure out what had happened to seal the island last time, what had gone wrong, and apply some new solution to close the issue once and for all. Bianca wasn’t much of a hopeful person, but this new hope wasn’t based on just wishes and fantasies. No, they were conducting practical research and collecting evidence as a result, and that would have to be enough.

fae iona cloudbreaker

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

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Merlin's history on Hy-Brasil was an excellent question. Unfortunately, it was one that Fae was still trying to piece together and figure out. She knew that he arrived at an unknown point in time and left his staff in the hidden cave, only ever telling the current leaders of the island. As far as she could tell, there wasn't a set date on when that happened and her predecessors failed to write it down too. There was also the problem of conflicting mainlander information: muggles said Merlin existed in the time of King Arthur and his knights, which by her reading, firmly places him as centuries older than what magical records show. Not that it was impossible for a wizard to live for several hundred years, but that alone made it more confusing. Whatever the reason, no he hadn't created Hy-Brasil. That she was sure of.

"Not created, no. He left his staff here to form and maintain the barrier, though we know how that turned out." Fae tried to not let her emotions show, but she could tell that her hair dulled ever so slightly, taking on a gross pallor for a moment. "The reason for him doing so is something I am still hoping to discover. There are sections of this archive that I would like to go over again..." There had to be something more than what she'd presented to Bianca. For being important enough to have a museum named after him, it was amazing how little information existed about him. Or even better, how trustworthy some of it was. Because the museum definitely had a fake staff in it. She supposed it could have been owned by him later in life, but the one she toted around was the real deal. Chock full of his magic still too.

"Ah." she uttered, the realization that these cursebreakers were the 'crazy' individuals that had been camped out on Yrisle the whole time. That made a lot of sense to her now. "Though I want this figured out as soon as possible, I am still afraid of approaching it without an airtight plan. I fear what the repercussions of failure could be." Yrisle, as far as she was aware, was a sentient island, or at the very least, the magical fog on it was. The alternative was that nothing happened, and the island would simply continue to do nothing like it currently was. That, she could be thankful for. "I trust the specialists to know what is best though. If I could step foot on Yrisle, I would. My support through this is all I and my people can give, currently." Fae intended to be nearby when it all went down. She had to see it through, and to prove that she was worthy of her position as a leader on the world stage. Unfortunately all Hy-Brasil had done so far was issue warnings that had been ignored, and rambled on about Merlin somehow being involved. Or maybe that was just her...

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 503 ● Song by Artist

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