[Information, Surprise]

  “So what am I supposed to call you?”

  “Anything you like, milady, I did not lie, I am yours to command. Shall I strike you with inspiration?”

  “No, tell me how did you wind up here in the dirt if the queen gave you to Shakespeare how did he lose you, weren’t you a symbol of his importance to the queen.”

  “I was milady, but by the time that Will arrived here he was in his early sixties, after nearly ten years in the fey court he wanted to see more of Emain Ablach. Three of the queens ladies in waiting lured him here promising all manner of fun. Even at sixty, Will still enjoyed his fun. But what the ladies meant by fun was poking fun at Will who’d fallen from grace with the court, between age, drink, and the ladies his first class wit had dulled.

  Every morning I’d try to get him to write, even just a sonnet. But the wine from the night before made his head pound and it wouldn’t stop until he’d had his overly large ration of morning wine. Then the chamber maid would catch his attention and all thoughts of writing was gone. After a few years he was no longer invited to the royal banquets, so he just drank on his own or with any that he could find to drink with. So when the three fey beauties showed an interest and an extra horse, it was across the country. Many days by horse to Quintessence they lured Will to this very hill, where they coaxed him out of his clothes, a sort of naked hide and go seek.

  They gathered his clothes, I fell out of the pocket of his britches, onto the dirt. I implored the ladies not to abandon my master, they merely tittered. Later it came to me this was the plan all along, to get Will far from the court, strip him of everything including the little dignity he had left. When he stumbled upon me the next day, we argued, I called him a silly old fool. I told him that he’d played right into Titania’s plan to rid herself of him.

  He got angry and threw me as far as he could. That was the last I ever saw of the man. At first I was bitter, just laying on the forest floor, no one to converse with. But soon it seemed or I wanted it to seem that the trees would listen to my tales and if it was a particularly good tale, one written by the Bard or Kit, the trees would seem to wave their branches in applause, even when there was not a breath of air.

  I’m not sure how many years I lay there like that, but I was covered with dead leaves, I could no longer see the sun, but I could still feel her warmth for which I was grateful. My bitterness for Will waned and I told more of his stories to the trees, for in the beginning I was still angry and lied to the trees and said that Kit was the best English writer of all time. I even made up stories of my own about how Kit was a spy for the crown and that’s how he came to be assassinated in that tavern. One of the dukes didn't like the idea that a woman was the leader of the country. But time passed for me and those dead leaves turned to dirt. It seemed like every year I was just deeper and deeper in that cold ground.

  It must have been a hundred years before I heard the voices and the axes, I could feel the trees shiver as the axe blade cut them, killed them. Then came the farmers and the plows. I have nicks from the plow blades that hit me and each time I thought I hoped that I would be turned over into the sun and found and claimed by someone. But the brutes couldn’t hear me. They wouldn’t know a sonnet from a warthog, so my imprisonment continued. I didn’t think I’d ever be freed from the earth, milady. You are my savior, I heard the others, if it hadn't been for you I would still be entombed. I will protect you, I will do anything for you. I was crafted for a great writer, but I might help you milady, do you write correspondence, I can help you turn a phrase.”

  “I’m sorry but your wording has gone out of style, four hundred years have changed the language, but we must have a name for you, I can’t keep calling you shield, when in fact you look much more like a badge. I think we need to call you Hal, if you were intended to inspire, and inspire you must have because Shakespeare wrote two plays Henry V. So what do you think of the name Hal for yourself?”

  “I’m honored milady, but how can the good queen's English go out of style?”

  “Language changes just a tiny bit but over four or five hundred years those changes are cumulative. If you read Shakespeare’s plays today you need footnotes for so many of the words which are no longer in use or for which the meaning has changed, sometimes the exact opposite of what it originally meant. Like Awful means something terrible now, or villain which means criminal today, in your time meant farm worker. So I’m sorry but your wording is out of style, but you know what never goes out of style is stories.”

  “Aye, milady, stories must have begun when man sat around his first campfire, and I know plenty of stories. Good, like you’ll like our house you can live in the library. Doug, our librarian is almost always there, his girlfriend Daisy is a ghost, so you won’t be able to hear Daisy, but she’ll hear you and she likes a good story, plus she’s two hundred years old so she’ll have no trouble understanding most of your language. Doug the librarian is twenty five hundred years old, so he’ll understand you and can get you up to speed on what up to speed means. You don’t need to do anything for me, I couldn’t just leave you lying in the dirt. I’m just glad you’re not an evil mage bent on destroying or controlling the world.”

  “What do you do, milady, I know that you are no hedge witch.”

  “I’m a Bibliomancer.”

  “A fortune teller, milady, did you know that ye would find me?”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “No, I’m not a fortune teller, truth be told I don’t believe in destiny, it’s great in a good adventure story but in real life, it’d mean that we have no free will that everything that would seem like a choice is just been predetermined and we are just actors walking in the world saying the lines and doing the things that some author has thrust upon us. I don’t believe that, I’m a writer and I don’t treat my characters like that, they have agency, they change, they grow, they change me, make me grow. But in a fictional world, I control the reality, the fictional worlds I created I have complete control, the shared world, fictional places like earth, or Holme’s London, or even Middle Earth, created by one man, expanded by his son, and expanded ten thousandfold by fan fiction.”

  “What is fan fiction, milady?”

  “It’s a world that an author has created, that is so beloved that people feel compelled to add to the story. So they sit down and write a story, they can’t sell it, because they don’t own the original, but the story they write is set in the author’s world and many times uses some of the characters that the original author created. It is like the highest form of compliment at least it is in my mind. On earth, they actually exchange these stories with each other. Some are very good, I read a very long one set in my favorite story world Middle Earth, it was just wonderful. It was a chance to be in my favorite place again even though the author is no longer writing. Think of Romeo and Juliet’s world so beloved that thousands of people start writing stories set in Verona, some might include one or both of the title characters. The writing might not be as good, sometimes it might be downright awful but for a while I get to visit that world again."

  “What do you mean you can control reality in fictional worlds?”

  “Like gravity, I can make people just float one hundred feet off the ground, or I can create things, buildings, people, anything I can think of really. But only in fictional worlds, here in Emain Ablach, I’m pretty much powerless. I only know one spell, locate.”

  “Why don’t you just live like a god in a world that you create or even someone else created? If this Middle Earth is your favorite place, why not just live there.”

  “All my friends live here, the woman I love lives here, I committed to a seven year apprenticeship here. I love Middle Earth and over the years I’ll visit it very often, both in person and by rereading the books but I can’t just abandon reality to live in fiction. Now if I was born in a fictional world like Earth, I’d leave and bring my loved ones here. But we have to go, I still have some tasks that I need to finish. But first I’ll bring you home and introduce you to Doug and Daisy and Elmer. I forgot about Elmer, he’s a sentient tree that lives in the library.”

  So that’s what I did, I portaled to the library and introduced Hal to Daisy, Doug and Elmer. Then I portaled to the baker to talk to Ruby. Lily and Paula were waiting on customers when I walked through the bakery into the tea house.

  “Hi Ruby, something came up today talking to Draco about Opal’s training. Do you have a moment to talk?”

  “Sure Rose, just have a seat and I’ll bring us some tea, want some cookies too?”

  “I always want the cookies, Ruby!”

  She laughed and brought the cookies and the tea.

  “So what’s bothering you, Rose?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because you never come rushing over here after talking about Opal’s training, so I assume Draco said something that’s bothering you.”

  “Okay, yes you're right it is bothering me. We were talking about having Opal teach me magic, Draco would teach her and then she would teach me. Teaching is really a great way to learn, because to teach something you really have to understand it.”

  “You aren’t bothered that Opal would be teaching you are you? I know she’s only eleven but she’s been telling me about the healing and I think that is great.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not jealous, it’s the spells, at first it’ll be simple stuff like light, fire, simple stuff but then Draco wants to teach her defensive spells and I said no, and we argued about it and he made some good points but then I told him that it was up to you ultimately.”

  “Good, I absolutely want her to learn defensive spells. Rose many times when it was just Opal and I out on the road in that sales wagon. I didn’t feel safe. A man or group of men might ride by, they might have been perfectly nice and thank Fortuna nothing bad ever happened but we were sitting ducks out there. I know I fought you on it, because I didn’t want to impose on you and Lu but I’ve never felt safer since moving into the tower. Which is really weird because we live with a werewolf, a firebreathing dragon and a ghost. But if Opal becomes a great healer, that will probably put a target on her back. I never want her to feel scared like I did so yes, I definitely want her to learn defensive magic, even non lethal offensive magic would be good. Didn’t I read in one of your stories that it’s better to have an army and not need it, than to need an army and not have it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ruby, you are undeniably correct and I apologize, now let me give you a hug, before I go and apologize to Draco.”