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Winter came on as mercilessly as fall departed; cold during the day and worse at night. In December, Hvergelmir found herself regretting what she'd committed to so easily in May. It was cold on the bench, and she was dressed for pneumonia -- skirt slashed all the way up both sides, dress sleeveless and strapless, shoes even sockless. Only her cloak offered the promise of hanging onto any warmth. She burrowed down into it during the hours she waited, limbs folded up into a compact huddle to stay as small and warm as possible.

Hvergelmir kept her hours, but they were shorter, and punctuated with breaks to find someplace to duck inside and shelter herself. It was too hard, and frankly too dangerous, to sit out in the cold underdressed and uninterrupted for so long.

Her right hand, still carefully wrapped in ace bandages while the little finger-bones were still healing, was tucked carefully in against her rib cage to hold it in a safe position; her other hand wrapped around her knees to hold her shawl close around her, hood and blanket all at once. Her nose was still red with cold.

And it was quiet. Only Kerberos seemed to come by, these days -- and he in such a state that she wasn't surprised he'd take any safe port he could find. She wondered if she was becoming obselete -- if glimpsing the future had offered people more information than they thought they could get from questions about the past. Well, maybe so. All things changed, in their time. There was still reason enough to keep her appointments here in the park. There were still things she was waiting for.

She was about to abandon her bench for a break, to try and track down some hot apple cider or something. The process of mentally forcing her limbs to uncurl themselves and get into a standing position was a lengthy and difficult one; it was cold, and her body didn't want to move from its semi-sheltered little cocoon. But that was a dangerous impulse to heed, so she willed herself out of it, slowly stretching one leg, then the other . . . then she noticed the feeling of an aura near the edge of her senses, expanding to fill the space of her awareness with its approach.

Negaverse agent, she pinned it down with so much more skill and ease than she'd done half a year ago. Captain's rank.

She was rifling through her mental rolodex for the Negaverse captains she knew of, trying to identify a list of possible candidates for her visitor -- but she didn't have long to wait. Hvergelmir dispensed with her little list on sight.

Only one man had that silhouette. Only one.

There was a heavy crack of stone on cement as she watched him cast his hammer to one side. It hit the sidewalk and rolled off heavily like an afterthought.

She was on her feet in an instant to meet him halfway; her hands went up -- one bandaged into a sort of mitten shape, one heavy with two many bangle bracelets -- and she took his face in her hands with the care as if it was a treasure he'd been delivering to her and he might drop it at any second.

You came. I was afraid you wouldn't ever come back, I was afraid --

Thoughts and words evaporated in her mind; her throat felt dry. Hvergelmir said the first thing that came into her head, in a voice hushed with awe at his presence, which was:

"You shouldn't be out here without a coat, you'll freeze."

With the benefit of five years unearned memories, Hvergelmir often found herself viewing the world through new eyes, and wondering how many things that seemed so obvious to her now had been missed before.

Inexperience, of course, was no teacher at all, and she'd had that in spades. But experience -- even the kind that came from nightmares or in painful headache flashes -- was a teacher both tried and true, and the best sort she'd ever had. She knew things about the knighthood of Order now that she hadn't been exposed to much since becoming one, and she wondered -- with all Titan's straightforwardness, his simple certainty and his unwavering sincerity of feeling -- with all his open and loving heart, that could say things to her like he was saying, even with everything in life around them that was so tenuous and unclear -- how had it not been obvious all along, what he was? How could he have ever been anything but a knight of Earth?

In the future, she'd catalogued them all, observing their similarities and trying to draw conclusions. There were themes to every knightly order, values they seemed to hold dear -- and no knights in the universe could match the order of the Earth for constancy and honest virtue.

I always could draw strength from you. You make me feel so centered.

Braced and balanced securely in the warm circle of Titan's arms, Hvergelmir wound her own hands around his neck. (They felt comfortable there; they felt like they belonged.)

"Yes," she answered him with adoring relief, like he was the sun breaking through the clouds. "Always. Always. Stay." She traced an idle finger around the shell of his ear, still marveling a little that he was here in the flesh -- that he'd come back when she'd started to convince herself he wouldn't.

It was a little odd, though, she thought: now of all times. Not that she minded, but . . . "A lot of people are with their families this time of year. Everything's alright with yours? They're well?"

Hvergelmir, who was one of life's natural cuddlers (or, arguably, one of life's natural lampreys, especially when it was cold and someone else was warm), settled comfortably into this new seated position by curling up and pillowing her head somewhere in the vicinity of Titan's shoulder. She made an awkward effort, with only her good hand to use, to shake her cloak out over them like a makeshift blanket -- then, when she was satisfied that she'd done her best, she let out a little, content sigh.

"My family isn't really, um, the holiday type," she answered for her presence. It was nicer than saying the whole truth, which was my family isn't really the being together type. "They don't mind if I go out." They don't notice if I go out. Only if I come back with broken bones.

"I'm sorry about Obsidian," she said with more solemnity. Kairatos had told her about it, but it was different to hear it in Titan's own voice. Obsidian -- Titan's troubled, unseen lord that he'd tried to help. His experience that reminded her of the shard of ice that always felt lodged in her own heart, Tara's yawning absence. "I know how much," she started -- but she cut herself off, thinking that sounded presumptuous, and said more simply, "I know it hurts," with her fingers splayed over his heart like she'd done when they'd first met.

Half a year ago. Five years on. He was always warm.

"I see things when I sleep," she admitted. "A far-off future where my people lose the war. And waking, sometimes, too -- if something reminds me. My head starts pounding and I feel dizzy, like I stared too long into the sun. A tent city drowning in fire, burning in the night . . . " She ran her tongue along the backs of her teeth, a new nervous habit she'd picked up. "I went to the forest to see it, but there's nothing there yet. It's just trees."

Hvergelmir shifted her hand to toy idly with the ties of Titan's shirt, the tunic soft and familiar. There were no signs he'd ever torn it and placed it in her hands.

Not everything that was true could be proved. Some things had to be believed without evidence.

"What do you see, when you dream?"

"A real place," she agreed solemnly, "just the same." She'd stood among the trees alone -- picking out where the graveyard would be, the mess tent. The patch of land beneath the great cedar tree where she'd pitched her own tent, and made a hunched-over little home of it. You were there, she wanted to say. You were so much of my life. You brought me flowers and perfume and anything I wanted. You made me smile long after I'd forgotten there was any point in doing it. I loved you so much -- and if it was all real, at least that was real, too.

But that wasn't what he was asking. He wasn't asking to be burdened with the full weight of her emotions, to carry baggage he hadn't accrued in the first place -- he just wanted to know about the person he'd become.

She could understand that. It was a fearful thing, to have an unasked legacy.

"I remember we were out of touch for a long time," she started her explanation. "You made General, and I'd stopped being able to come here to my bench for a long while before that. You sent me a letter asking me to meet you here -- and we stood in the gazebo, looking out over the duck pond, and you told me you were ready to leave."

She didn't say, My heart broke for you that day. She didn't say, I went home that night and wept for you, for all the innocence you'd once had, that I could never protect. And most of all, she didn't say, I was afraid you'd forget me, and be perfectly happy, and it would be painful to look at you and know you'd never really been mine at all. She told him what had happened -- the ambush with Kairatos and the other knights of Mars -- the purification -- and that was all.

"The knight you became -- I guess you could say he was very much like you. Like you are now. He had your warmth, your caring -- " Hvergelmir gave a fond little tug on the ties of his tunic, still wound loosely between her fingers -- "Your generosity of spirit. Your honest heart. But gradually it was like . . . it was like a cloud had lifted. Like you'd found something that you'd been missing for a long time." Something that had been taken.

"It was a very hard life. You were almost always starving, and the hours -- the work -- that part was punishing. But the camp was happy, and we all found our own way of doing things, right up until the end. Actually,you were my best companion -- you and I did the medical supply runs together, in and out of the city. You kept us safe."

It was a difficult balance -- wanting him to know how proud he ought to feel about who he'd become, how cherished he was -- but not wanting to bury him under the weight of responsibility to become someone he saw as a stranger.

"You know," she said a little more quietly, reaching up with little, fluttery soothing gestures to smooth down the lapels of his collar. "I remember things sometimes, when I'm at the Well. Not future things -- things from another lifetime, a thousand years ago. Before the war started. She had a different life, and she was . . . " Hvergelmir sighed, still uncertain of what she thought Nephthys had been, exactly. "I'm afraid of her, sometimes. And I don't know if it's because I'm afraid I'll become her, someday, or because I'm afraid I never will. I resent her for that -- which is stupid because, I mean, she's me -- but it's hard not to think of her as someone else. I'm still getting used to it."

Something in the way he spoke made her nervous. I have been dark, even in their company. He was dark, even now. She wished she had something better than her presence to offer as comfort, something to dispel his black thoughts of death and dying, and the yawning hollow in him where Metallia had eaten away all his self-esteem. Leave the Negaverse, and learn how good you are, she thought. Leave, and learn that your worth comes not from the Earth you serve, but from the good works of a good heart. I can't bear to see you hate yourself so much that you think any improvement must be a different person.

She brought her hand up to trace the edges of his beard with the pad of her thumb, where it grew from his face, then the line of one eyebrow, where she longed to smooth away his worries. Hvergelmir offered a smile. "If I thought it meant you'd die, I couldn't counsel you to it: my oath still protects you. Obviously we see it a little differently, that's all."

She shook her head. "But come -- you asked for another story, and this is my fireside. I'll ask of you the same I ask of everyone else who comes to me with your questions: that you listen, and decide for yourself what truths and lies you find in it. This is your journey alone."

We have set you on a path -- and I'll hold your hand to the very end, if you want me -- but by your own feet you must walk it. There is no other way; purification is always a choice.

Hvergelmir had spent a little time considering how she'd tell Titan the story of their history, if he someday asked. She was guilty of tailoring herself to most people she met, in some way -- but in the war, she did it most of all, if she could see a way to. It was important to be liked, to be understood. It was important to meet people where they were, and not expect otherwise. The little code-switches came so often without thought -- a different person waxing philosophical with Bischofite than the one that spoke plain with Kairatos, or the Hvergelmir that donned courtly airs with Titanlåvenite. It was as natural as soaking up an accent -- the same beliefs, delivered with emphasis on different syllables.

Lies are still lies, whatever the pale color of them.

She wondered if he would find fault with her -- with the makeup she put on, different words and moods, to wear different versions of her face with the people she met. Whatever the pale color of them. She supposed he would.

"The galaxy we live in was different once, a very long time ago," she began. "It was lush and green and wild with life, and people lived and thrived on planets and stars from here to its farthest end. They built homes and cities and great nations, and magic and peace alike both flourished. The union of these worlds was protected by an empire the likes of which the galaxy has not seen these thousand years since, under the reign of the queen of the White Moon. This empire was called the Silver Millennium. Its capital was high up on the face of the moon itself, on its fields of white rock -- crowned by a shining palace of pale stone, under a great glass dome that protected its atmosphere. I've been to the Moon to see that much for myself; I've stood among the crumbling spires of its great white palace. It's beautiful, and very sad."

She cast her gaze up at the sky, finding the moon's glow beneath the black silhouetted arms of a tree.

"On Earth, there was a second empire, very nearly as great, and independent of the Silver Millennium's rule. The Earth was ruled by a Prince called Endymion -- young and passing fair. He was a broad-minded youth, eager to have alliances and trade with the other worlds in the vastness of space -- and with the support of his closest generals, by the magic and power of Earth, he championed the Order of Knights in which you and I both have titles -- based initially at its great Academy here on Earth. The knighthoods of this planet, I imagine, are its oldest -- born here before the knighthood made its alliances with the greater kingdoms of space, giving us the knighthoods stationed to protect and serve on other worlds.

"Though the empires of Earth and Moon remained separate, and the Earth protected its sovereignty despite the closeness of its powerful neighbor, Prince Endymion's wise rule saw overtures of commerce and diplomacy between the two kingdoms at last. From the brightness of the Moon, he met a young woman, gentle and beautiful, and the two fell in love: the prince regent of Earth and the crown princess of the Moon.

"The heart, though, loves without regard to convenience -- the prince had already been betrothed to a young sorceress from Earth, a woman called Beryl. She was heartstruck by this cruel turn of events, and her heart grew dark and clouded. In her time of darkness, a great force of Chaos called Metallia reached out to her -- and they forged a contract between them, Beryl and this great dark thing, to reclaim the Earth and overthrow the Silver Millennium.

"Beryl began to speak to Endymion's closest knights, turning them against him one by one. Endymion, they said, had lost his way. Endymion had been seduced, transfixed. Endymion would give the Earth, and all its great glories and traditions, over to the greedy Moon. The alliances between them -- the connections they had forged among the stars -- must end.

"There was a great war. Eager to strike at the heart of all that she saw as the hallmark of space intrusion, the self-proclaimed Queen Beryl of the Earth army, together with her generals, launched an attack on the Academy and all those who lived and trained there. With only a few full knights serving there as teachers, most of the Academy's defenders were unprepared to mount its defense: children still young in their training, cooks and servants, workers of the fields. These were the enemies Beryl's army laid low in their great battle; by sorcery, she cast a spell to rip open the very heart of the Earth and sink the Academy into it entire, that Endymion's alliances with the stars might never again see the light of day. It has been sealed all this time, and all its poor victims transfigured into the soulless creatures you now call youma.

"The last battle was staged on the moon, where the castle fell. No one yet's been able to tell me how it ended, how all the worlds in space were destroyed -- or what led to the thousand years' quiet between that part of the war and this one." Hvergelmir let out a long breath. "Now you know what I know. I have no memories yet of my time at the Academy itself, I'm sorry."

He didn't seem satisfied with her answer, though it was as thorough a telling as she always gave, peppered throughout with added visual cues and narrative trappings in hopes of making it more resonant with someone who'd admitted to difficulties with processing and remembering facts. He didn't look like he'd failed to understand, he just -- seemed disheartened.

Whatever it was he wanted to know about the Academy, it wasn't one of the embedded details made requisite by her story -- the only source she had for facts about their once-great place of learning.

What is it you're wondering? What troubles you so?

"Hmm," she stalled, considering his question. "Well, it would've been a military academy primarily, so you'd expect it to be built along military concepts. I can't say I know much about modern warfare, but -- along a waterway, maybe, since this area's too flat to use a cliff or a high face: something that limits points of access. And then, if the Academy had to support itself, like it did then, you'd need open space for farming, and workers' cottages." She tapped a finger to her chin. These things were far from her remit, and not easy. "And the Academy was here, but our amphitheater was at Olympus on Mars, so the Academy must've been smaller, not large enough to play host to the entire Knighthood, or they wouldn't have needed a second location.

"You could convert the airport, I guess -- if you tore out the runways for planting. Otherwise, I don't know, some place symbolic, maybe. You are the light of the world; a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Destiny Tower -- some place that would be visible from miles away."

She frowned, her lower lip turning out in a puzzled pout. "I'm sorry, I really don't have any expertise in that sort of thing. I'm not sure my ideas are any good for what you're asking."

The news wasn't any better on the next front, either. "The Academy hasn't come up much in conversation in that regard," she admitted. "If anyone's had memories of it in specific, I could ask around. Babylon might know more -- he has a better connection with his ancestor's experiences now. He may have some second-hand memories that might help him tell you what you're looking for."

Her heart fairly thrummed with excitement. "In the Rift?" she said, clasping her injured and uninjured hands together with the immediate beginnings of a smile on her face. "You would do that? Will you tell me what you find?"

It was an old, familiar feeling -- that rush she'd used to feel when Tara would propose some scheme her parents deemed "hare-brained," something daring and brilliant, in uncharted territory. She was giddy for a moment, wondering what might be on the other end of such a search. What might the Academy look like after all these years? Would any parts of it still stand? Would there be ghosts in the ruins, like Babylon's ghost, haunting the lines of old hallways, looking out from archers' gaps in the towers? High on the hill sits a big old house with something wrong inside it . . .

Worry came on belatedly; she felt guilty for that. "Wouldn't it be dangerous? Couldn't you be hurt?"

All her memories, past and future, felt the same way: like memories, her own real memories. But she supposed, perhaps, there were differences.

"Visions of the past come to me waking, and only at the Well. I see the future sleeping or waking, wherever I go, if something reminds me -- but the visions I have of the future are more . . . more immediate in feeling. When I remember the past, I remember things that happened. When I remember the future, I remember things that happened, and the way I felt when they did. Not just seeing it, but being there." She ran her tongue along the backs of her teeth. "I believe it can all be changed. But yes -- I see truth in it, in my heart. I believe that what we don't change will come to pass just as we saw it."