Prometheor

Northtree

Aryn Northtree stared at Elliot Grandmore from across tented fingers. Between them, on her large oak desk, lay three glowing cubes.

"My past, my present, and my future," he said when he first sat down, touching each with his fingertip to light them up.

At thirty-seven, Aryn Northtree was the youngest voting member of the House of Gods. Her father passed on the mantle years ago to enjoy his remaining decades and dreams. The Northtree family owned nine stars and the habitable worlds they warm; as head of the family, Aryn was ultimately responsible for countless billions of lives on several planets, half a dozen moons, and a few old asteroid mining concerns; to say nothing of the family's legacy of political independence from the Thearchy.

As such, her face was prematurely lined with worry, but she was still the only member of the House of Gods without grey hair, a fact she held close to her heart.

Sitting across from Elliot Grandmore, she felt like an insignificant little mammal, a scurrying triviality. She'd already dreamt of him a few times before he barged into her office.

#

She was returning to her home-star after a mission of diplomacy when she learned of the blinding of the prescient dreamers. She was often away defending her family's independence. In a flash, she pictured spiking crime rates, families without food, economies crashing. In a flash, she was angry with herself for taking on the mission which brought her away from her family when all this was unfolding.

When she was finally on the ground, in her home, she was a steaming machine of frantic calculation hidden behind the cool exterior of a woman accustomed to extraordinary responsibility. Her desk was often cluttered with dreams and data screens, holy commandments, and royal proclamations.

She had time to address three from the enormous pile of dreams to dream before her wife poked her head into the study to see if Aryn was ready to dine.

When Clara saw the daunting pile of dreams next to the dismal pile of dormant cubes, her answer was immediate and discouraging.

Aryn loved Clara very much, and highly valued her, in part because, at times like this, Clara understood the galaxy was in a crisis and she was married to arguably the most politically powerful woman in the galaxy; a goddess.

Clara left and five minutes later, she heard three quick knocks on the door and automatically said, "Come in," before it registered that Clara would never knock.

#

He still hadn't moved or spoken beyond laying out the three cubes and filling them with the dreams of his past, present, and future.

"You barged in here, without invitation or prayer," Aryn said.

"I knocked on the door. You told me to come in."

"You know it's not that simple, not for you," she replied. She thought of the dream she had of her prescient uncle. As soon as she sat in her chair, her first impulse was to dream of her uncle.

"Soon, they're going to start calling him the Worldwalker, once everyone knows what I know. No place will be off-limits for him; any throne room, administrative office, secret military base, hospitals, schools, factories, you name it. Anywhere there's a prometheite orb and dreaming humans, he can find them..."

Her uncle was always eccentric, but never prone to exaggeration. That was the first of three dreams she had before Elliot knocked on her door and stepped in.

She dreamt of her uncle's prescient warning, the fall of the capitals, and the three warships sent home with a message; each left her more shaken than the last.