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It had taken several days of packing and repacking, but finally, they had gotten everything Mason needed for his little camping trip condensed down into one - admittedly oversized, overstuffed - big backpack. He’d brought a tent, a tarp, some camping cookware, a can or two of beans and corn, and one large cooler in each hand, one filled with water bottles and the other filled with all the semi-perishable campfire food Madeline could fit by way of 3-D Tetris.

He’d built up a sweat, lugging all this stuff halfway across the city and into the Destiny City parks, and further into his secret little corner of the park that he had claimed as his own. His punching bag awaited him, but he left it hang where it was - there was no point in trying to transport that to Blarney.

No, the only thing he needed to transport to Blarney, aside from food and water, was…well, Blarney himself. He let himself transform, leaving Mason behind to fully embrace Blarney.

That’s what this trip was about. Embracing Blarney.

That was why he’d packed this stuff - this would not be a one-and-done sort of trip. No, Mason—Blarney-–was going camping. He’d been camping a few times, when he was younger, when he and Madeline were enrolled in their respective gender-based scouting troops, but they hadn’t stayed involved long enough to become outdoorsy people by any stretch of the imagination. Still, he’d managed to convince Madeline that he could stand to leave the multiple survivalism books she’d gotten from the library for him behind. He was pretty sure he didn’t have to worry about bears or raccoons at his own Wonder, but…well, what did he know. Maybe there were magic bears or magic raccoons. Either way, if there was a danger at his Wonder, he didn’t think he would find anything to help him with it at the DC Public Library.

Blarney reached for Blarney the Wonder, and stepped into it, the woosh in his stomach leaving all the irritation and stress of packing and preparation behind him instantly.

He was here. He was home.

Home was wherever Madeline was, of course, but this—this was home in a deeper sense. His soul knew this place, and the tension left his shoulders immediately upon opening his eyes.

…But he frowned, confused. He let his hands drop the coolers as he took a cautious step forward: rather than the empty field he’d left behind the first time he and Madeline visited this place, there was now…

A castle.

A castle?

Okay, it was more of a suggestion of a castle than a whole entire castle, but it—it was actually, for reals, a castle.

It was there. It existed.

And that…confused the poor Page, because he himself had not done this, and he was fairly certain that he was the only one who could have done such a thing. He was the only one who could come to Blarney, wasn’t he?

As if looking for an answer, Blarney looked around, doing a full 360-degree turn-around, like maybe a builder was lurking in the shadows somewhere, waiting to explain about stone costs and lumber.

Because Mason, in preparation for this trip, had been doing a lot of reading (also by way of Madeline’s library card). He had read about the real, non-magical Blarney Castle, of course, which in addition to being incredibly interesting also answered a minor question for him regarding his own outfit: the red stag had been the symbol of the clan that had lived in the real Blarney. He knew, though, that this, his magical Blarney, was obviously not the real Blarney Castle–or, well, they were both real, or both had been real, or something—but it wasn’t the Blarney Castle that sat in real, mortal Ireland, given that that one…wasn’t an empty field. It made him wonder about the relationship - probably the red stag symbol preceded the clan, or the clan had claimed it from the magical Blarney in some way, or…something like that. It sort of made his brain hurt to think about it too long.

So then he’d gone on to more general books about medieval castles overall, specifically focused on their construction and daily use, because he thought he’d have to live up to his name and become a part-time magical mason, construct this thing from scratch, or near enough to it. It sort of boggled his mind - they had been like tiny cities, once upon a time, with everything the community needed available right there, either in the castle proper, within the towns that sprung up around them, or within the grounds that a castle claimed as their turf. Whole little microbiomes of people, each with a job, a duty. Symbiotic, in a way, except for like, the serfs, who seemed to get the short end of every single stick.

He’d started out with kids books, with plenty of pictures that explained things in nice simple terms. Then he’d graduated up to books meant for junior- and high-school students, and he’d even dipped his toes into basic architecture books, but those quickly proved beyond his ability to keep up with, no matter how many terms he googled.

And as he googled, he discovered Reddit threads dedicated to castles. They broke down prices of how much it might cost to build a medieval castle in the modern day, which was enough to make Mason start sweating: his parents had money, sure, and he was pretty sure that when he and Madeline turned…either 18 or 21, he couldn’t remember, they’d get access to some money of their own, but nothing even in the realm of the millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars that people on the internet claimed it would take to build a castle, even with modern tools and conveniences. Apparently there was a castle down in Alabama that someone had tried to build using the original, classic medieval methods, but they’d run out of money real quick and all that had been realized of that guy’s dream was a wall and a waste of time.

It was that guy who was on his mind as Blarney gaped at his own castle. As far as he knew, he hadn’t spent millions of dollars to make this happen. He hadn’t spent any money. He hadn’t carted stone from a quarry, he hadn’t felled trees for lumber. He hadn’t done anything to make this building happen.

But happen it had.

Which left…magic. Magic had made this happen.

It was falling apart, it was cracked and had gaping holes in it, but it—he could see where there was a hint of a tower, even. He stared, taking it in, slowly. He walked around it, almost too scared to touch it, but unable to move too far out of its gravity like it might make like a mirage and disappear if he blinked or looked away for too long.

“I…I have a castle?” Blarney blurted, when his voice found him again. When he’d come with Madeline, there had been just - just nothing, just the outline, the foundations of what may have been a castle, at one point in time. A whisper of this beautiful, decrepit thing that now stood in front of him. It looked absolutely ancient, but Blarney could feel the energy coming off the thing, beckoning him closer.

Hesitantly, he pressed his gloved hand against the stone nearest the doorway, something about it making his breath catch. He felt dizzy, for a moment, like he was maybe drunk or maybe losing his mind. He kind of wanted to cry, but in the best way.

This was…this was…

Unbelievable.

“Thank you,” Blarney whispered, not sure if he was addressing magic or the universe or whatever force had built or re-built this beautiful structure, just for him - but the gratitude in heart almost burned for its intensity.

The backpack and coolers were forgotten where he’d landed, half of the contents of his backpack now rendered useless, and he didn’t even care. The castle walls - there were walls! - were covered in ivy and moss, soft and green and growing and wild. He was standing in what must have been the great hall, a large rectangular space that…

Blarney’s gaze lifted up, and he realized that while his castle did - mostly - have walls, it only sort of had a ceiling, and it definitely did not have a roof, several stories above Blarney himself, where it was open to the sky. He looked back at the ground floor, searching for a staircase - and he found one, or at least the beginnings of one. Just a couple of stairs, really, and then it fell apart into nothingness.

But it would take more than a lack of stairs to deter Blarney, Page of Earth, in his own castle, on his own turf. He grinned widely, but resisted the urge to immediately go as high as he could - he had to go through it, one level at a time.

Actually, he told himself, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like his sister’s, what he should do first is get himself unpacked. He carted everything inside, then explored the nearest treeline, picking up some fallen branches that could be broken or cut to make decent firewood. Along with some of the broken stone from around the castle proper, he’d be able to make himself a nice little firepit.

(He would have to be very careful not to accidentally chuck his magic stick into the blaze. That would be both awkward and hard to explain, especially because he had no idea what happened if it got destroyed. Did it always automatically come back to him like a magical boomerang? Would a new one regenerate? Or was it one and done? Blarney was in no hurry to find out.)

Once he had his things settled, he surveyed this area - his Great Hall, he’d decided. It needed Capital Letters, because it was Important. It was the Great Hall of Blarney Castle, and it should be treated with respect.

…And mostly that meant clearing out the dirt that absolutely caked the floor. Why hadn’t he brought a broom and a mop? Sure, he’d had no idea that this thing would be waiting for him and it would’ve made less than no sense to bring either of those items to what he thought had mostly been an empty field, but that certainly didn’t stop him from kicking himself about it anyway.

So he got creative. In a move that was in absolutely none of the survivalism books he’d read, Blarney grabbed a decently-long fallen stick and affixed some of the long, reedy strands of grass to it with a hair elastic he pulled from his subspace - he didn’t even remember putting it there, but Madeline’s hair accessories got everywhere, so he wasn’t even surprised that one found its way into his subspace too. There were probably hair pins in there too somewhere, those things had their own kind of teleportation magic, he was just sure of it.

It wasn’t pretty to look at, but he’d made a broom! Sort of. He couldn’t go as fast as he wanted, but he did start sweeping the floor of his Great Hall, pushing the dirt and grime out the front archway. It wasn’t like he had a garbage can nearby, but it also wasn’t like there was any trash - just dirt and dust, like this place had been sitting for hundreds of years instead of the few weeks since he’d first visited Blarney Castle.

The weather was fair and pleasant, but he quickly grew warm and sticky from the exertion, so off came his pauldrons, his gloves, and his belts. At least now he could move more comfortably, and the rest of the sweeping finished as quickly as it could, allowing for the three or four times he had to repair or re-affix the ‘bristles’ of his ‘broom’. It wouldn’t pass Madeline’s definition of ‘clean’ by any means, but it was clean enough for the moment, Blarney decided with a nod to himself. He turned and left, carting the backpack and the coolers into the relative shade of the castle (his castle!), where he began to unpack what could be unpacked; the water and the food would need to stay in the coolers, even given the sort-of-kind-of ‘indoor’ state of the halfway falling-down castle, but his backpack was another matter. He pulled the tent out and set it aside, deciding he’d fight with it later if he decided he needed it, then his sleeping bag, which he tossed to a covered corner of the Great Hall. Beneath that were his cooking supplies, which was what he was really looking for; a mini set of pots and pans, a cup, some aluminum foil, foldable metal pokers for hot dogs (or, more likely, marshmallows to serve in s’mores, because was it really camping if you didn’t have s’mores?).

Now he paused, glancing around the Great Hall speculatively, torn between an indoor or an outdoor fire. Common sense told him fires should almost always be outside, but he might get cold in the night, or it might rain, and it wasn’t like there was carpeting or fabric that could catch alight…

So, trusting his castle wouldn’t betray him, Blarney went to work assembling a little fire pit within the bounds of the Great Hall, one that was partially covered by the decaying ceiling but still had room to breathe, thanks to the holes in the walls and lack of roof. It took him longer than he’d admit to anyone else to get the fire actually going strong enough to cook anything, but he finally got there, and by the time he did, he was starving.

As he began cooking the hot dogs over the low simmering fire, Blarney wondered if this was a first. When were hot dogs invented? Had anyone ever eaten a hot dog at Castle Blarney before?

“If my ghost is around,” Blarney said, addressing nothing that he could see, “can you tell me if anyone here ever had a hot dog before?”

Unsurprisingly, there was no response, and Blarney bit down on his disappointment. He had no memories that weren’t his own, which according to Joy meant that he was supposed to have a ghost. So, what was the hold-up? Where was his ghost? He felt silly for hoping, and more than a little greedy - what, a magic castle wasn’t enough for him?

Blarney shook his head to clear it, finished eating, and cleaned up as best he could.

“Okay, what next?” Blarney asked, mostly himself, as he surveyed the Great Hall. The fire still crackled merrily away, and he was fairly confident that it could be left alone without risk of burning the place down - that was a benefit of a solid stone surrounding, he had to admit.

Blarney felt he had discovered most of what there was to be found on the ground floor, so he moved over to the beginnings of the staircase, first studying the steps, then the wall that they had formerly been attached to. He wondered if he could reassemble them somehow, as the rubble was in a big pile on the floor below where he imagined it had once wound up and up, but…well, he was Mason, not a mason, and any attempt at stoneworking would probably end in disaster.

So, he cheated.

He took a running leap up the two stairs and aimed for the next floor, high above him - after all of his roof jumping, it almost felt easy, but he still tripped at the finish line and went tumbling onto the second story of his castle, nearly rolling directly back into the Great Hall by way of a gaping hole in the floor.

“Could’ve been worse,” Blarney said to himself, a faint grunt escaping him as he stood up and dusted himself off. He could’ve missed entirely and slammed his chest into solid stone and cracked his ribs, or hit his head and blacked out here, with nobody to find him ever.

But…in a place like this, that sang the same melody that played in his heart, it was hard to imagine something that bad happening to him. He felt like the castle was holding him, keeping him steady, a stabilizing, safe presence. Maybe that was what Joy meant? She thought that energy was a person, or had been a person, somehow? Blarney had no idea.

He studied the second floor curiously; unlike the Great Hall, which was just an open space, he could see where the second floor had been, once upon a time, partitioned off into separate rooms. The staircase had led to a hallway, and there were edges of walls that were no longer standing here and there, hinting at individual rooms. What purpose those rooms may have served Blarney had absolutely no idea, but - they were there. Bedrooms, maybe, or a study, or…he tried to cast his mind back to those books he’d read from the library, the ones that detailed what every part of a castle could be used for, if maybe any of these held some hint about what they were supposed to be, but…

Blarney shook his head. There was no way to tell, not yet. He drifted through what he could, hopping from here to there where it looked stable. Then there was the third floor, which…he wasn’t actually sure if it was a third floor or if it was part of the roof that wasn’t. He figured it had to be, if only because what kind of castle only had two floors? That wasn’t a castle, that was a house in the suburbs. But either way, he couldn’t access the floors beyond, at least…not from the inside.

Blarney returned to the main floor and wandered outside, taking another lap around the castle, studying it, trying to envision it how it was supposed to be - how it had been, once upon a time. Maybe, if Blarney could parkour his way from gaping hole to crumbling ledge to gaping hole, he could make it to the top…?

And then what, he asked himself, resting his hands on his hips. Then you’re stuck on top of a falling-down magical tower. How would you even get back down? Blarney snorted to himself and shook his head, then returned inside. He started ‘sweeping’ again, clearing out more dirt and dust to reveal that there was actually stone down there for the floor, beneath a whole lot of grime and dust and dirt. He swept the debris out, going in neat lines like he was mowing the lawn. Finally, he reached the end of the rectangular Great Hall, and something caught on his ‘broom’.

“What’s this?” Blarney asked, setting aside his tool to kneel down. He pushed dirt away from the thing that had caught, and after moment, he realized: it was a trap door, with a big ring as a handle - that was what had gotten his attention. Cautiously, he gave it a tug.

Nothing happened.

“Huh,” Blarney said thoughtfully. He pushed more dirt away, scratching and scrabbling until he revealed the rest of the trap door - a neat rectangle, made of solid, heavy wood. It was maybe the only thing in the whole castle that wasn’t falling apart. The ring was rusty and heavy and clearly ancient, but the wood slats that made up the trap door itself looked like they may have been installed as recently as last week for how strong and sturdy they looked.

“...Okay,” Blarney said slowly, glancing from the trap door to the rest of the castle, then back to the trap door. “Okay, you can keep your secrets. For now. But…” Blarney stood up, hands on his hips again. “I’ll figure you out. I will,” Blarney promised to the castle itself.

In the meantime, Blarney decided to start cleaning up the rest of the castle - as beautiful as the ivy was, he didn’t think it belonged on the inside part of the walls, so he began pulling it down, pushing the moss and ivy away from the stone, and into the fire, which crackled happily in response. It was fiddly little work, and all the green and growing things were embedded quite thoroughly in the walls, so it was nearly sunset by the time Blarney had finished even one wall.

With the sun setting, Blarney went outside and began to pull up what he thought were weeds; he felt bad about it, because like - Madeline said that weeds were just flowers that grew where people didn’t want them to be. He didn’t know if he agreed with that - some weeds were just gnarly, or hurt local animals or even other plants - but he trusted the instincts that told him what to do, which long grasses were good and which were bad.

And so the day gave into evening, and into night - more hot dogs, followed by, yes, marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers - and nighttime meant sleeping. Blarney laid out tarp over the front entrance - just in case he was wrong and there were magical bears or raccoons that would come sniffing around once the sun went down. Sort-of door in place, he undid his sleeping bag and flapped it out in front of him; the thing was super-warm, rated for all kinds of nonsense, he’d stopped listening when Madeline had extolled its virtues to him. The tent, however, remained folded and tight, as there was no need for it, thanks to Blarney Castle’s walls (hole-y as they were).

As Blarney settled down to sleep, he let out a soft sigh. He knew, to protect from rain, he should have set his sleeping bag up safely beneath part of the ceiling that was in tact, but—the sky was so clear. The stars were so beautiful. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky anywhere, as far as Blarney could see, so he decided that the odds of getting rained on were slim enough to risk it, in exchange for being able to see the stars.

That was what he needed to do next. Learn about astronomy, so he could verify his sneaking suspicion - that those were not normal stars. Those were not the stars he knew from Destiny City. Those were not the stars he knew from Earth. But then - where were they? Where was he?

Eventually, he did fall asleep. At least, he must have, because the next thing he knew he was waking up with the sun, which was peering over the horizon feebly as the sky began to light.

The second day continued much as the first had - cleaning, fixing, pulling up weeds. Making Blarney Castle the best castle it could be, even with the walls only being half-there in some places. It was tiring work, but it was gratifying, because he could really see his progress as he went, the fact it was shaping up nicely as he went helped buoy him along.

After lunch, Blarney returned to the back corner of the Castle, and that trap door. It remained tidy and neat from yesterday, and when Blarney pulled on the ring…

Nothing happened.

He thought, for a second, that he’d felt a slight give in the wood, a slight lift to the door. Something that felt like progress. But—three more tugs and nothing gave.

“Okay,” he said again, with a heavy sigh. “I hear you. We still have work to do.”

More cleaning. More tidying. He’d moved onto the second floor, with his sort-of broom kicking dirt to the bottom floor, and then out the door. It was becoming - well, it had seemed like an adventure, the previous day, and now it just - well, it just felt kind of like regular chores, and regular chores weren’t exactly riveting. Even if they took place in a magic castle.

At the dawn of the third day, Blarney awoke and began to pack. He thought that was all he could do, at least for this trip, without other tools; a regular broom would make everything go so much faster, and a mop might actually put some shine into the old stone. Plus whatever else he could think of to help bring the Castle back to life; maybe he could bring some stones, help the magic along…? Maybe.

He began packing up, assembling everything he’d brought with him. The coolers were mostly empty, as were his water bottles and most of his food. He wouldn’t have been able to stay another day even if he’d wanted to - and he did want to. Even if the chores weren’t fun, he wanted to stay here forever and ever, all the time. As soon as he had a bed here, or real walls, or a way to eat food other than hot dogs…

All packed up, Blarney made his way back to the front lawn of Blarney Castle, where he always arrived, and turned to look at his beautiful castle, almost like a dream, waiting for him to sleep again and rejoin him there again.

“If my ghost is around,” Blarney said, voice soft, “I’ll be back, and I’ll figure this castle out. I’m going to make it beautiful again. I’d really love your help, if you can give it.”

Silence. Blarney sighed and shook his head - ghost stories. Maybe Joy was just selling him some nonsense after all.

“Bye, Blarney Castle. I love you.”

And then Blarney disappeared back to Destiny City, unaware of the pale, transparent figure that watched him from the shadows of Blarney Castle - waiting, to see if the new Blarney, Knight of Earth, would be worthy of the mantle that had been thrust upon him.

((WC: 4341))