A serial tale of a hero/ine whose Manifestation offers hope to an entire mythical species, and gives promise to many awakenings in a sleeping world very much like our own.

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In which the set-up of this universe is concluded. I will still have these characters (and others) and continue writing them and telling their story, but I would like to also open it up to other authors who are free to invent their own characters within this setting.

-Arianrhod.
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Annie
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The Sidhe greeted us, and we were ushered into the cave. We came to a large chamber where three Sidhe were seated. I recognized them as Rauthor, Kaldon, and Promely.

"All of you, come here," Llew called with a tone of command. Playing the Queen, alright, I thought.

Being with the Sidhe again brought back memories of Maoten, and I turned to ask Aryllia, "If you're actually here again, doesn't that mean that you are trackable by the other tribes again?"

"I've been thinking about that," she replied. "I suspect that they were able to track me by magical means because I was shackled inside your consciousness. Now that I am free and have my corporeal form back, I very much doubt that they will be able to find us as easily."

"Fair enough. Looks like everyone's here," I said quietly.

"Indeed. I'm interested to see where Llew goes with this."

Looking for all the world like she was about to make a speech, Llew drew herself up in front of everyone...as much as she could while in jeans and a tee shirt, that is. The torches in the cave flared up with her, and the reflection of the flames in her silver-grey eyes was strangely inspiring.

"A war is coming. I have told all of you this, many times. The Time of Renewal is almost upon us, and we are most definitely not ready. We had some sort-of allies before, but they proved false, with goals that ran contrary to our own. Tonight I present to you formally some real allies. I would like everyone to meet Aryllia, ur-dragon of the void, and Cyntheria, who you know already as Annie.

"Some among you have questioned my decision in this matter." She broke off momentarily and glanced at the Council before continuing. "To them, I say: be not fools. The ill effects of this alliance would have been felt regardless. It is true that we have now set ourselves squarely against the other eight dragon clans. It is also true that we would have needed to face off against them when the Time occurs, anyway. Hunted to near-extinction, and forced to hide for centuries...did you really think that they would try to save humanity from the coming chaos?

"I think not, and the advent of Aryllia's reawakening has provided us with an opportunity that I have decided to take. I hope that in time you will agree with me, but for the here and now, agreement is not required. Understanding is. If any of you have any questions on this matter, raise them now, before I continue."

She paused, but the gathered Sidhe were silent.

"Very well then. I'm sure you all remember the last time that we attempted to form a settlement.." she trailed off as the room was filled with groans.

"We'll we're going to try it again," she said firmly. "This time we will be more careful, and this time we will have help," she continued as she glanced meaningfully at me and Aryllia.

"I see no particular reason to stray far...in fact, I see no reason to move at all. We will set up permanent camp here, and this location shall henceforth be known as Baile de Dhá³chas: Town of Hope*. Trena, I'm planning to begin construction tomorrow first thing. We'll plan to weave our powers once again to accomplish it -- same goes for you, Tailtiu. I want the rest of you to enter into a training regimen. Rauthor, you'll handle that, I trust?"

He nodded, and grinned. I saw some of the other Sidhe flinch visibly.

Llew continued to give her speech, as Aryllia pulled me to the side. "I think it'll do you some good to join in with the training. You need some help learning how to use your abilities, and as much as it pains me to say so, it would not be the worst thing in the world with the Sidhe to practice against a dragon.

I nodded. "I'll plan to stay the night here, then, and get an early start tomorrow. Are you going to help me get the hang of it?"

"No, Cyntheria. I'm going to be renewing some old acquaintances. There are a number of lesser races that had sworn allegiance to me and my clan. I'm going to try to locate some of them...with luck, they both still exist and remember me. Perhaps I will be able to find our fledgling coalition some much-needed support."

"That would certainly be welcome," I agreed.

The rest of the evening was relatively quiet. Aryllia left, citing a long distance to travel. Llew had apparently thought that we were going to return to my family's home before getting to work, but I changed her mind on that. I really wasn't having any problems with my parents, or at least so I thought. I told myself that I was protecting them by staying away, but I wasn't sure that I even believed that anymore.

Regardless, there was a ton of work to do, and I needed to focus on it. I'll worry about my family later, I thought as I lay in the makeshift cot that the Sidhe had prepared for me. Sleep came slowly, but it was damn good when it did come. Fresh air apparently works wonders.

I awoke shortly after dawn to Llew shaking me. "Rise and shine, time to work!" she exclaimed entirely too cheerfully.

I slowly got up, bitching about morning people the whole time. By the time I was fully awake, I saw a very strange thing indeed.

Llew, Tailtiu, and Trena were all channeling their powers into a weird column shape. It was formed of earth in the center, but was being mixed with water and silver magic, which was swirling around the whole thing like some kind of demented ice cream cone.

"What the hell are you three doing?" I yelled over, but they didn't hear me.

"They are constructing a town by fusing nature and magic into one," a rumbling voice said behind me. I turned to find myself staring at Rauthor's chest, and was reminded once again of how short my human form was.

"Are you prepared to begin training?" he inquired.

"I'm not sure I can say that I'm ready, but I'll give it my best shot," I answered truthfully.

"That's all anyone can ask," he replied. "I think we'll put you with the ranged combat group first, and then move you to melee later on."

The 'ranged combat group' proved to be myself, Kaldon, and Ghorder.

"Tailtiu would normally be here, but she's busy helping with the construction project.Llew sometimes practices with us as well, although she usually fits in more with the melee practice group," Ghorder explained...while staring at my chest. I quickly solved that particular issue by shifting to full dragon form, and was rewarded with the disappointed look on Ghorder's face, while Kaldon grinned.

"Looks like this one won't have to put up with you," he said mirthfully to Ghorder.

The next several hours were spent decimating a small portion of the mountainside. Kaldon and Ghorder were both mages, although the pervert was substantially more powerful. It took me nearly an hour to reliably produce my breath weapon, but when I did, we discovered a slight problem.

Kaldon and Ghorder cheered when I finally emitted the void stream...until we realized that by practicing my breath attack, we were going to lose our training grounds.

Luckily, Kaldon had an idea: "We all know how devastating your breath attack is; what matters is that you become more reliable with producing it and controlling it, not the amount of power that you can put into it. Try firing short, controlled bursts into the open air."

We concluded our training by lunch time, and I was able to consistently produce the void beam in varying thicknesses by then. The construction project was coming along swimmingly, or so I thought. The bizarre conglomeration of mud and magic was actually starting to resemble a building, now.

The afternoon consisted of training with the melee group, which was made up of Rauthor and Hrulder, while Llew and Trena were working. For this exercise, Rauthor had me in humanish form, and I began to learn the rudiments of basic fighting styles and swordfighting.

"This is pointless, I'm never going to need to know this," I complained once.

"Probably not," Rauthor replied agreeably. "But if for some reason you find yourself unable to transform into your full form, you still need to be able to at least defend yourself until you can."

Grudgingly, I had to admit that he had a point.

The next couple of weeks proceeded slowly. I visited my parents a couple of times, but I think they understood that I was going through a lot right now, and mostly left me alone. My sister was a bit more demanding of my attention, and accused me of not paying enough heed to my human side nor to my newfound femininity. And you know what helps with being a human female? Shopping! I merely groaned and managed to push it back...and back...and back. She bugged me about it every time I saw her, but that's what little sisters do.

The building of Baile de Dhá³chas proceeded smoothly. One by one, buildings of earth and magic slowly rose to meet the tops of the trees surrounding the area. I won't pretend to say that they looked like much, because they really didn't, but they were surprisingly sturdy. Apparently the magic supported and shaped the mud until it hardened, at which point the magic weave actually became part of the structure itself, forming the floors, walls, and ceilings. As a result, the whole settlement literally glowed silver, making lamps unnecessary.

Aryllia came and went, her black wings beating silently against the night sky. She said that everywhere she had traveled, there was no sign of any of her retainers, but she had a troubled look to her. It was almost as if she was finding things, and what she was finding troubled her greatly.

We did, however, come into contact with several other Manifestations. Twins named Chris and Erica were the first. They both Manifested into, for lack of a better term, angels. They had sprouted wings overnight and their powers were primarily based around the manipulation of light. At first I envied them, because they hadn't been forced into an unwanted sex change, but the more I found out about them, the more I began to think that I was actually pretty lucky. Their parents, ironically enough, were atheists. When you don't believe in any deity at all, let alone the Christian God, and your children turn into angels...well, that's going to cause some problems. They were both essentially thrown out on their own. As she was on one of her trips, Aryllia spotted them and brought them back with her.

A centaur named Devon was the next to join us. Like the twins, he was brought to us by Aryllia, and like the twins, he had also had an unpleasant experience with his family. He quickly developed into a master archer, and was capable of forming both a bow and an arrow out of magical energy, which was very convenient since it meant that he would never run out of ammunition.

Somewhere along the way the semester ended, and my sister began showing up of her own accord. How she found us, or who she seduced into driving her out so far, I have no idea. She was utterly determined that she was going to keep me grounded in my once-humanity, though, and I suppose that in a way I was grateful for that.

She also brought us news of increasing numbers of Manifestations. They were largely being kept hush-hush, but the Internet has a way of disseminating information that the authorities don't want anyone to know about. What happened to them was a mixed bag, but was often tragic. For example, one tale she told us was of a teenage girl who Manifested into a simple magic-wielder, but was careless with it and showed it in public. She also happened to live in Mississippi. Reports were that she was burned at the stake, but some digging revealed that Sarah Evans was supposedly never born.

The settlement of Baile de Dhá³chas grew rather quickly. We each had our own 'house', so to speak, and Hrulder also had a blacksmith. He couldn't really use it that well yet, since we needed a forge and tools for it, but the building was there at least. Likewise, Llew had also constructed an infirmary type building, which Promely was already stocking with bandages and medicinal herbs in preparation for the coming darkness.

And we didn't have long to wait.

July 11th found Michelle in my quarters at the crack of dawn, shaking me rigorously to wake me up.

"Urf, I'm here, I'm here," I finally managed.

My sister had tears in her eyes. "It's happened, Annie. I was hoping that you were just playing hero and that none of it was real, but it is really here," she sobbed.

A lump grew in my throat very quickly. "Mom and Dad?"

She shook her head, and fresh tears sprang forth. I joined her in sorrow for a few minutes, before the tears of sadness turned to rage. "Who?" I asked simply.

"I don't know. Everything's chaos...the town is burning, Annie. Weird things are in the sky, people are running all over the place with magic sprouting from their fingertips uncontrolled, and there are reports of much, much worse from the bigger cities all across the world."

I think she had more to say, but she was interrupted by a tremendous roar from the middle of Baile de Dhá³chas. I ran to the window, and saw Aryllia illuminated against the dawn, with the day's first light streaking across her ebon form.

Raising her head to the morning sky, she bellowed, "THE TIME OF RENEWAL HAS ARRIVED!"

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*Apologies to anyone who actually knows Irish Gaelic...I did the best I could to not butcher it completely with the aid of several online translators.