The Sea of Chaos and the World Tree

"You're wrong," Oleandra immediately said. "I'm a human, always have been. I have a human family; my mother is Iris Greengrass, my father is Maxwell Greengrass; I've also got two sisters, who are also human. Well, Daphne is more or less human, but Astoria is!"

"Search your feelings, you know it to be true," one of the shadowy figures dressed in Muggle clothes said.

"Are you quoting Star Wars at me?" Oleandra said in disbelief.

"We've got nothing to do when you're asleep," said another. "It gets awfully boring, so we rewatch old memories to pass the time."

A thought occurred; and Oleandra's cheeks turned bright red.

"Does that mean you've seen me—" Oleandra cried. "Can you see everything I see? No wonder I felt like someone was spying on me!"

The shadowy figures of her past selves collectively cringed; after all, they had all once underwent the same baptism of shame when they had learned about their ancestral memories when they were alive.

"No, I'm afraid that was something else," Viviane said seriously. "You've made some dangerous enemies, little one. But to return to the topic at hand, yes, your body is that of a human, but your soul is that of a Greater Fairy's, masquerading as a human's."

In her heart of hearts, Oleandra instinctively knew that Viviane was telling the truth. It certainly explained her inexplicable urge to jump into the Black Lake whenever she saw it. Then…

"Then, why now?" Oleandra asked. "And, how?"

"You fully immersed yourself into the seat of your authority," Viviane explained. "You must have felt the urge before, yes? It certainly took you long enough. Luckily, you live in close proximity to a lake, otherwise you might never have awakened to your power."

This confirmed Oleandra's hypothesis. She had always resisted the urge because of her upbringing; it would have been unbefitting of a noble lady to go splashing around in lake water.

"Then, the changes I've been experiencing lately…" Oleandra began.

"Fey, or Fae Folk cannot knowingly tell lies," Viviane confirmed. "As you awakened to your true self, you also became bound to our rules. And before you ask, you can still touch iron and silver without fear, since your body is human."

"Hang on," Oleandra said. "My Mystic Eyes; I can see magic with them. Are they a Fairy power too? But you said I had a human body…"

"The eyes are the mirror of the soul," Viviane explained. "They've always reflected your true self, even when you yourself didn't know it. But that's not exactly what our eyes do; our eyes seek truth."

"Truth?" Oleandra echoed.

"Do you know what magic is?" Viviane suddenly asked out of nowhere.

"It's the power to manifest our will onto reality," Oleandra recited, trying to remember magical theoretician Adalbert Waffling's words. "Magic is created by the furnace at the centre of the Earth, conducted to the surface by Ley Lines. And there are other sources, like the stars, and…"

"That's not false, but that's not the whole truth either," Viviane said. "The truth is, magic is a disease."

Now that was an answer Oleandra hadn't been expecting. What was this woman going on about?

"Imagine a tree, if you will," Viviane said.

"I'm there," Oleandra said immediately.

"And this tree, it contains the entire world; all worlds, even: including the nine realms you already know about," Viviane continued. "You know it as Yggdrasil, the World Tree. It's where I trapped Merlin, by the way."

One year ago, during her Divination exam, her spirit had been called to the Tree of Terror, where she had encountered a man calling himself the Magus, as well as another mysterious man. So that was his true identity, Oleandra realized. Merlin was famous as the greatest Wizard of all time! And her past self had defeated such a man? Oleandra gained some respect for the Lady of the Lake, if only a tiny bit more.

"Don't flatter yourself, Viviane," another shadowy woman chortled. "He allowed himself to be trapped; it was his destiny, his Wyrd, to do so. Merlin's power and foresight originates from the fact that he is linked to all of his parallel selves across all possible worlds; all of their knowledge, and the possibilities their worlds hold, are open to him and him alone."

"Merlin is a singularity," another shadow explained. "If he hadn't allowed himself to be trapped inside the tree, which connects him to all other worlds and times, his past self would never have got his powers in the first place— he was forced to close the loop, or be ripped apart into non-existence across all space and time!"

Aaaaaand the respect was gone again.

"Then, he was just being a wanker when he cursed our soul?" Oleandra asked weakly, and all of her past incarnations nodded.

"Stupid, sexy, half-incubus," Viviane muttered angrily. "Oh, look at me, I'm a Grand Enchanter, Chief Druid of the Circle, ninth rank Magus and Sorcerer Supreme all in one! Bah! I don't know what any of those are, but the rest is all true, I learned about it later."

Oleandra's head was already spinning from all the revelations, but the Lady of the Lake still had some more to unload on her.

"Going back to the subject at hand," she continued, "continue picturing the tree. Now, imagine a forest; the other trees are parallel realities, what-if scenarios, other possibilities, and all of that. Our multiverse is contained inside one tree, and other versions of our multiverse are in the other trees in the forest. This is why we cannot change the past by going back in time; it would entail migrating to a different tree."

An entire forest of World Trees!

"Now, imagine that the forest is growing in the sea; like a mangrove," Viviane continued. "This is the sea of chaos, from which all originates."

Oleandra raised an eyebrow. Didn't this sound familiar? Ansuz, Laukaz, Uruz! The Aesir, the Lake of Magic, the Gateway between worlds! Show me the path to the Lake of Power, open the Gate to the Source of Magic! ALU!

"Now let me reiterate," Viviane said. "Magic is a disease; the death throes of a world whose cogs have broken beyond repair. Sometimes, the infection, chaos, creeps up the roots of the tree: magic is the power that is generated when reality itself and the laws of physics are distorted and consumed by the rot of chaos. A healthy World Tree's worlds have no magic; unlike ours."