Chapter Thirty-Seven

"Ah," Fer Benn said, taken by surprise. "You can summon anything?"

"No," She put the sword down next to her, "I can't summon objects from my world."

Fer Benn thought for a moment and picked up his club from the ground, "Can you summon dis?"

Cierra looked at him, confused, "I mean, I can try, but it's already here."

"Not everythin' 'round ya is yours tah touch an' use," Fer Benn replied, rolling his 'r's, "Wha' happens when ya need somethin' someone else has?"

She hadn't thought of that; her thinking had been much simpler: item storage. Looking the club over, she concentrated on holding it in her arms, as it was much too big for her to imagine holding with just one hand.

Concentrating, she felt a powerful tug from within her that echoed out into the air around her, as if she was trying to pull something heavy towards her using her insides. Her breathing became labored, but still she tried. Slowly, she felt her strength leaving her, the muscles in her upper shoulder and biceps twitch before slumping down. Too tired to keep trying, her upper body slumped down towards the table, she caught herself, just barely, one hand gripping the table with the last of her strength.

Fer Benn watched for a moment, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Finally, he nodded to her glass, "Drink up, id'll 'ive ya strength."

She did as he suggested, barely able to pick the glass up. The smell hit her first, a scent like cloves at Christmas time. As she drank, it felt as though the warm liquid was dancing down her tongue, warming her as it went. She felt her strength come back, her muscles losing the tired feeling from before and her mind clearing.

"What is this?," Cierra stared at the amber drink, it didn't taste like alcohol at all, instead it was almost like a frothy honey mixture.

"Dis is me special blend, id'll keep ya standin' for as lon' as ya need," He answered, laughing heartily.

"Les dry again," He said sitting back.

"I don't think it's—" Cierra started.

"Don'chya worry, I won't have ya dry fer me club," He reached in his pocket and drew out a ring, the same tree engraved on his belt and the castle walls were emblazoned on the metal.

"Dis is fer you. Id's yers," He said putting on the table halfway between them, "I wanchya tah dry and take it."

Cierra looked at him, wary. She had just tried to take something of his and failed, how would the ring be any different? Signing, she gave in to his request. At least the ring was smaller so it might not wear her out as much.

She looked at the ring, trying to commit each root and leaf to memory. The ring looked as though it had seen hard times, with scratches on the band and across the design.

Slowly, she thought of it on her finger, slightly oversized, metal cold. The ring materialized on her left pointer finger.

She stared at in surprise, "But how…? I've never even touched this ring before..."

"Well, id's yers afder all," Fer Benn winked at her, "Seeing how I 'ave id tah ya."

"Wait," Everything clicked now, "Your saying that as long as it's mine, and it's form these realms, I can call on it?"

The strange man nodded. "Now, 'ive id back an' dry again."

Cierra did as he instructed, giving back ownership of the ring to him. When she called on it again, the ring didn't budge.

"Now show me how ya heal," He said, sitting on the bench, watching her patiently.

Cierra did as he asked, healing her shirt and then moving from inside to outside the castle doors. When she went outside it was already raining, and she came back in wet.

"Can ya dry yerself?," He asked, while her and Cid dripped on the floor.

"I can try," She had never thought to use her power in this way, and so she focused on how they were before going outside. Before she knew it, they were dry and she had even gotten rid of the miniature puddles they had started forming on the floor.

"Do ya know how I made dis castle?" Fer Benn asked, after a moment of silence.

Cierra thought for a second, "Magic?," She guessed.

"Id was," He smiled mischievously, "But id wasn't. Before dat cabin, dere was a castle here. I jus' restored it tah wha' id was."

"So," Cierra tried to wrap her head around his words, "You didn't create anything new, instead you just, what? Reversed time?"

He nodded his head and stepped out the castle doors and into the rain. Raising his hands to the sky, he concentrated for a moment, and the rain stopped. The clouds still hung low and grey, like earlier, but the rain was gone. He turned back towards her, face lined in wrinkles.

"Are you ok?," Cierra asked, taken aback by his rapid aging.

He waved away her concerns.

"Did I create a new sky," He asked, "Or did I brin' us da sky before da rain?"

Cierra looked back at the clouds, they looked suspiciously like the clouds form when they were climbing the hill earlier, but she couldn't be sure.

"Does that mean," Cierra paused, wondering what to say and finding she had too many questions, "…Will the rain still fall? Is that all I've been doing is putting things back in time? If so, why don't I ever move to the past?"

"Time is…complicated," He said, taking a moment to smooth out the wrinkles on his face. "Yer not stron' enough to move da flow of time, wha' yer doin' is repairin'."

He stepped back inside as the rain started to fall again.

"Yer bringin' people and dings back to how ya firs' saw dem." He paced around to the other side of the table, Cierra following a few steps behind, "An' I'd bet ya'd struggle tah heal somethin' if too much time passed."

Stopping by the fireplace he grabbed a poker and set it in the flames for a moment.

Cierra gasped when she saw what he was going to do. With the tip was burning red, he pressed it to his wrist. Cierra imagined she could hear the skin underneath sizzle.

She went to heal him, and he stopped her.

"Give 'er a few minutes," he said, putting the poker back where he got it.

"I dink yer righ' to wanna learn how tah fight," He took a seat back at the table, "Yer not a healer, yer power is suited fer support, but yer vulnerable tah attacks."

"if ya wanna be of use, dere's a few ways ya can be," He added, seeing her face fall when he mentioned she was vulnerable to attacks. It wasn't as if she already knew, but it still hurt to hear.

"I'mma train ya in a few weapons," He looked her over, "Ya look healthy, ya got muscle on ya."

She suddenly felt self-conscious and took her arms off the table as if to hide them from his gaze.

"Yer gonna learn a few weapons, an' yer gonna have tah learn dem well," He added, ignoring her discomfort.

He stuck out his wrist across the table, wound a red welt diagonal across his skin, "Now, try tah heal it."

Cierra imagined how he had looked just moments before he burned himself, the skin matching in tone to the rest of his arm, the inflammation gone.

Again, she tried until she felt the very air around her tinge with energy and the muscles in her body grow weak. When she finally gave up her body arms collapsed, and she felt certain her legs couldn't hold her.

The red welt stared at her as if in defiance; nothing about his wound had healed.

At some point a new glass of the honey drink had appeared in front of her, and she reached for it, bringing it her lips with her last ounce of strength.

When she looked back up, Fer Benn was already concentrating on healing his own wound.

"Who exactly are you?," Cierra asked again, echoing her words from when she first arrived, unable to wait until she could get back home and search his name online.

"I dought ya'd never ask," He smiled wide, "I was Da Dagda, Da Horned One, da wisest of da druids, chief of the Tuatha De Danann," As he spoke his appearance twisted, he grew large and fat, shirt cutting to a v-neck and showing an abundance of ginger chest hair; he was tall, covered in a shawl, with horns like an elk protruding from his head; he grew old and wizened leaning over on his cane like when Cierra had first met him; finally, he reverted to the form of the man Cierra had known thus far, cane thrust to his side as it once again became a club.

"An' from now on, I am yer master."