Impossible Dreams [Fae]

[Bianca Alia Rivera]

5 November 2029

Bianca was exhausted. It seemed too much to hope for a little quiet, even after years of dutifully cleaning up the last big mess that had exploded in the Ministry’s face. The Purifiers were out of the news these days (out of sight, out of mind apparently) but it’d taken time to root out corruption in the ranks of the Ministry and finish the investigations and trials of the last of the Purifiers that’d been caught. Still, Bianca had been enjoying the relative quiet. It gave her time to reexamine the way her department worked, and even have a little bit of a personal life – which wasn’t particularly personal or private these days. It was mortifying to have her relationship poked and prodded at by the most gossipy tabloids in Britain, speculating over how it’d started and how it was going and who wore the pants in the relationship, but she’d still prefer that over a werewolf attack a hundred times over.

Because she was just a security official. She could run her department and provide her professional expertise to the Minister, but that was it. When political decisions were made – like HOWL – Bianca could only stand by and receive her orders. That feeling of powerlessness drove her up the wall, pacing furiously in her office and raging when she was at home. So she badly needed a distraction from the supposed werewolf rampages happening in Hogsmeade (why did it have to be Hogsmeade again, hadn’t the dragons done enough damage to the Ministry’s reputation when it came to protecting that blasted village). Bianca needed to just be able to solve one thing, have a success in hand to stave off the worst of her demons that threatened to overwhelm her in the quiet hours at night when she was most susceptible to the creeping doubts that whispered she wasn’t good enough.

So she took the druid issue out from the corner where it’d been quietly gathering dust, and reexamined it from every angle. She’d raised an eyebrow at Fae during their last scheduled meeting, silently speculating about where the mysterious Merlin memories had come from and how long Fae had been memory-jumping without her. But she hadn’t said anything at the time, only wrapped up their routine check-in and spent some time in her office looking over the memories herself. She wasn’t a Merlin researcher, though, and it didn’t take long for her to decide that she wasn’t likely to have caught something Fae might have missed. And since it was likely Fae had already gone to the Merlin Museum (a natural starting point), Bianca skipped it and went to the Oraculum. It was lesser known, even to much of the public, but they’d never failed to provide her with information when she’d gone looking in the past. Britain’s national magical archive could seemingly perform wonders and miracles in that sense.

It did seem ironic to turn to a werewolf as a distraction from a persistent werewolf problem, but life was funny that way. The Oraculum had promised that the archivist she’d been assigned could help her. Marisol had started her career as a Merlin researcher, after all, and was particularly good at noticing small details that might seem irrelevant to most people. Bianca pored over the notebook Sol had compiled for her after several (closely supervised) sessions with the dusty memory vials, as well as Bianca’s own notes from conversations with the archivist. She’d sat on these observations for a while, mulling them over, but it seemed time to loop Fae in and see what they could figure out together. It seemed that cooperation was the only way to solve this mystery, and Bianca suspected that she wasn’t the only one who badly needed a win under her belt. Fae looked more tired every time the two women met.

She decided to visit the High Druid in Hy-Brasil instead of waiting for their next meeting, especially since Bianca wanted to corroborate the routine reports she received from her Aurors and Hit Wizards doing guard rotations on the island - even though she still hated leaving her phone behind and being out-of-touch except for whatever owl managed to reach her. Fae still had to pick up Ministry representatives at the port, another casual little show of how much the druids distrusted outsiders, so Bianca pursed her lips and let her eyes wander over the crowd of redheads until she found the druid she was looking for. Instead of engaging in small talk (which Bianca had never enjoyed), she skipped the usual greetings and cut straight to the chase. “I’m sure you were expecting James,” Bianca said as she referenced her habit of sending one of her only Hit Wizards that actually seemed to enjoy a rotation on Hy-Brasil, “But I’d thought I’d handle this myself. We should talk.” She held up Marisol’s notebook by way of explanation and nodded at the staff that Fae carried with her everywhere. The same staff that they’d both been trying to puzzle out its secrets for years, although Bianca didn’t limit her interest to only restoring the barrier that had once surrounded Hy-Brasil.

fae iona cloudbreaker

[fae iona cloudbreaker]

▲

Four years had passed since the barrier had fallen around Hy-Brasil. Four long, arduous years that had left Fae in a state that she truly never thought she would be in. The trust she had in her fellow druids had decreased significantly over the past year as well, a result of their sudden increased efforts to isolate once again. She could understand that in the moment of their protection disappearing and their island’s fauna scattering, that the desire to close the borders once again would be high. But the time in-between had felt to her like the breaking point in integrating the druid community with the greater magical world. Apparently, Fae had assumed wrongly. Her desires did not align with the majority of the island’s population and now she was seeing those results.

The outright rejection of mainlanders had started once again, and to her, it was almost like they were regressing back beyond where High Druid Root had left off. Fae had never believed her early years in the position were going to be easy, yet this was beyond ridiculous at this point. Even the Ministry knew that she had ‘lost control’ of her own government. If there had been a way to forcibly remove her, she was positive that The Council would have done it by now. A year of no change on their end wasn’t strange, though she wished a switch-up would come soon. One where she could wrest a little power back to her side and make herself heard once again.

Her latest correspondence with the Ministry had been vague, though it was within her duties to meet whoever showed up at the port. More often than not it was James, a slight reprieve in her current horrid mood. Standing amongst the small crowd that had gathered as Bianca instead arrived, as much was pointed out by the head of the Ministry’s law enforcement. Fae was unsure if that meant the woman was aware of the tryst with James, or as a more unassuming factoid about how he was always the one to be sent here. Pushing through the murmuring crowd, Fae motioned for them to return to their work, as none of them were privy to any of the conversations she was to have with Bianca. Not even The Council was, which did help with the control of information from the mainland.

”He is the one usually sent, so yes,” Fae responded, trying to mask her displeasure. If Bianca was here, it meant something of great importance had happened or had been discovered. She held up a notebook, and her glance at Merlin’s staff told Fae everything she needed to know. ”Ahh…” she trailed off. It had been a while since she had felt like pursuing that mystery. After she had delved into the warlock’s memories two years prior, she had essentially given up. The specific memory showing how to restore the barrier had been used, most likely for the event that caused it to disappear in the first place, and she was left with very little information to go on. The museum had proved unhelpful as well, much to her disappointment.

Fae motioned for Bianca to follow her and headed in the direction of the island’s archives. That was where every bit of important written material in Hy-Brasil’s known existence was stored, and for some reason, quite a bit on Merlin from his time here. She had purposefully kept it all where it belonged in the building, as she felt it imprudent to remove it, in the off chance a future researcher needed to find it as well. As they approached the building, one of Hy-Brasil’s only fully un-natural building (for the sake of preserving the materials inside), Fae produced the oversized and charmed key and unlocked it.

”We will not be disturbed in here. Even the Council members are granted limited access without my explicit permission,” she explained as she stepped inside. Tapping Merlin’s staff on the ground, globular blue lights shot out and filled the many sconces around the room. It was far more organized after she had conducted her research a few years prior. Before, none of it made any sense. Now at least, any written transcriptions of meetings were collected together organized chronologically. Having the island’s history in an accurate timeline was the only way to keep track of everything.

Moving towards the far corner of the room, Fae stopped in front of the area she had originally found all of Merlin’s materials. ”There had been a false wall here…everything that was behind it is still here, though I am not sure how much more information we can gleam from it without anything new.” The possibility of setting up another meeting with Sir Cadogan had crossed her mind a few times, though she was positive not much more could come from it. The moving portrait hadn’t really known why Merlin had come to Hy-Brasil in the first place.

Bianca Alia Rivera ● 828

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Bianca Alia Rivera]

There was a certain level of uneasiness in standing in a crowd of people who were all stealing suspicious glances at her, but Bianca still had to admit that visiting Hy-Brasil was a million times better than going to speak with Sir Cadogan again. Back when she’d first received her promotion and inherited a hell of a mess from the previous head of Law Enforcement, Bianca’s priorities had been focused on figuring out what was going on. For a while, that had kept her busy enough. Fae had already been High Druid for some time, so Bianca had been unusually cautious in navigating that relationship (compared to her usual shoot-first-ask-questions-later style, at least) and exploring the dynamic between the Ministry and the druids. After a while, they’d run out of things to talk about and it’d become more difficult to uncover leads to unlock the mysteries surrounding the druids’ streak of bad luck in the last few years. Speaking to Cadogan’s portrait had been a last-ditch attempt to uncover new information, but Bianca had trouble appreciating the tip he’d given them. She’d spent the whole time with her jaw tightly clenched, fingers twitching near her wand while she resisted the urge to Silence the portrait.

So yeah, this was better. Maybe a more polite person would’ve pretended not to notice the stares, but Bianca had never been good at pretending anything. She didn’t hide the way she scanned the whole area, trying to clock potential threats, and if she accidentally made eye contact with someone – well, she stared back until they got uncomfortable and looked away. She’d never been a particularly reassuring presence, and if people back home did take comfort from seeing her do her thing, then it was because they knew Bianca was good at her job and took it seriously. But it didn’t exactly inspire warm and fuzzy feelings from people who’d been raised to view her and her kind as untrustworthy outsiders. Still, she hadn’t come to make friends. Fae motioned for everyone to return to their tasks, and while some of the tension in the air melted away – well, Bianca let her eyes linger on one particularly sketchy-looking redhead until Fae began to speak.

She wasn’t particularly moved one way or the other by the knowledge that Fae had apparently been looking forward to seeing James, if the little disappointed look was anything to go by. After the Hogwarts fire, Bianca knew she could trust James with her life. But that didn’t change the fact that he talked way too much and seemed to take her returning silence as permission to continue. It definitely didn’t change the fact that if she could stuff a gurdyroot into his mouth without receiving a citation for it, she’d probably have done it already. Bianca was pulled out of those thoughts as Fae seemed to understand her hidden message about Merlin, since she began to wind her way through the woods so they could talk in private. Bianca let her attention wander over the landscape as they walked in silence. She could see the appeal of living in a place like this. It didn’t suit Bianca’s particular interests, or the way her phone was usually glued to her hand, but she still got it.

“You’ve got some real characters on your Council,” Bianca said dryly, her tone flat while she took a look around the building. “I suppose you haven’t told them much about all of this?” They certainly seemed to take every opportunity possible to criticize Fae and work against her. Bianca didn’t know if Hy-Brasil had a local newspaper, but British news did a good enough job of reporting what happened on the island (the only downside was the delay, since it took time for the news to travel). But if the media could be believed, then there was no love lost between Fae and her Council. Bianca, from her own personal meetings with the High Druid, also couldn’t help but notice the vast differences between Fae’s rhetoric and vision, and what actually seemed to be happening on Hy-Brasil. So it wouldn’t surprise her to learn that they didn’t know anything about Fae’s research into Merlin, or efforts to learn about the sort of magic that might be used to restore the barrier.

Bianca’s eyes traveled over the organized chaos of the room, and she hummed thoughtfully. “At this stage, I don’t think looking for new information will help us. We don’t need more of it…just to understand what we already have.” Bianca had been contemplating this problem for a while, and she’d reached the conclusion that they’d finished with the fact-finding part of the mission (at least for now). The next key to unlocking the puzzle was here somewhere, in the boxes and memories they’d already found. Marisol’s observations seemed more oriented towards interpreting what they had, at least, rather than trying to dig up new tidbits of info. Now that they were somewhere more private, Bianca flipped through the notebook again and explained. “I met with a researcher from the Oraculum a few times. She’s gone over the Merlin memories you gave me and wrote down some notes. Hopefully she’s noticed…something. A new lead, or interpretation, or something we haven’t tried yet. She did say Merlin was acting oddly in a few of the memories. Out of character, I guess.” Bianca shrugged. Everything about him had seemed odd, but Merlin researchers were supposed to be able to sort between normal-odd behavior and abnormal irregularities.

fae iona cloudbreaker