Villainess From the Stars

35. A Good Talk

Home held a different meaning now to Vienna.

It was a cluster of different places and people.

It was the sound the trees made when they rustled in the wind.

It was an ancient place lost in time.

But the home she had missed most was the warm place in her father's arms, she might have brought the visages of the other homes with her but it was in her father's arms where she at last felt true peace.

"Let me look at you, my little flower." Pop looked her over and smiled as he reached up and touched the tips of her ears that were hidden beneath her camouflage. A smile appeared on his lips. "You found your way."

Vienna looked at him, "I've wondered how come I can't see yours."

He smiled and glanced around before pulling a ring off his finger, a ring she remembered had always sat on his finger even as he slept. As soon as it came off his finger, he seemed to grow even taller, as he stood straight, his hair had a tinge of forest green through the dark brown waves and his ears were pointed at the arches just like hers had been after her inheritance. He slipped his ring back on and they sat down beneath the Old One like old times.

"I was just a young-ling, on my quest, when disaster struck my home. I had barely come into my inheritance before I was forced to run away from everything I had ever known."

"How did you cope?" Vienna remembered the days crying alone in caverns on her journey, the terrible night terrors that came until she reached a safe place filled with light. Her father rested his head back against the tree trunk of the Old One a long sigh escaping him as if it had been saved up for decades.

"I didn't at first." Winden Thorne stretched his legs and looked at the branches, marveling how the light sparkled through the leaves. "I found moments of peace in nature, but I was away from our beloved trees for quite some time before I made it to the Continent. Just vast seas for as far as the eye could see. If I didn't have the reassurance of the seeds I took from the sunken lands I would have gone mad."

Vienna moved her satchel to her front, before pulling out a small bag full of the remaining seeds she hadn't planted in the Secret Garden. "Like these?"

Her father's eyes grew wide as he peered into the bag, "I didn't think there were any more left. All this from that locked place in the Širdkryp-Gardinōs?"

Vienna nodded. She brought forth her staff, her thoughts turning to the tendrils that followed her from the ancient place locked away in the Širdkryp-Gardinōs, a place only for someone such as herself. A lost youngling Myndælfêt.

The tendrils had woven themselves through her clothes wishing to stay as close to her as physically possible but this time she whispered to them, "Time to join with this Old One."

The tendrils reached out from over her shoulder, her whole staff shuddering as the pieces came apart and the leafy beasts from the ancient land flowed into the Old One becoming one with the old tree.

"You brought back more than seeds." Her father's eyes were wider as he viewed the scene before him, as the beasties showed themselves their heads poking out from the Old One's leafage. "I never thought I'd see them again. I thought them extinct along with our people."

"What if they weren't all gone? What if there are others like us?"

Her father shook his head, "I would have felt them."

"Perhaps but I've learned there are more impossible things that can happen." Vienna gazed down at her hands clasped in her lap. "Did you read my letter?" She asked even though she knew he would never have left it unopened when she had left.

"It changes nothing. You are still my Vienna. Another might have lived differently in another timeline, but you are mine in this one and that's all that matters."

Vienna smiled at her father, he always saw things so simply; so straightforward.

"If anything it just means I need to keep you protected all the more." He looked at her with such a loving gaze she wondered how she could have ever doubted it. "What were the rules you spoke of? You were so frightened your hands shook as you wrote the letter."

"As a Starlight Soul, we are given two rules by the Caretakers. Never allow anyone to take advantage and beware of a violent death. If any of these are not followed then the timeline will be destroyed."

"You spoke of a danger to you but didn't state who or what it was."

"I was afraid because..." Vienna wasn't sure how to word the next bit. "There was a story from the world I came from before that was inspired by events that occurred in the other timeline. The other Vienna died by getting in the way of the main character. I was frightened because this person turned back time but still retained all their memories from the other timeline."

"And this person is?"

"Adeena Nesrin."

"The Nesrins were never the right kind of nobles. One of those who sided with the people during the war at the end when they saw which side was going to win. A vain family through and through. Their daughter, Adeena, has been the talk of society, especially among the council member's wives, but she hasn't been heard of much by the rest of Wofford. She seems to have a single-minded focus on those she deems higher than others." Pop looked down at Vienna, "There is nothing you should fear from her, however, it is always good to keep aware of your surroundings."

"Just in case."

"Just in case."