Conviction

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======Wren Kalen Eternity======

There is more to the world than the fens. The snow on mountain-tops. The wind over steppes. Each has its own timbres of sound, qualities of light. Each is sublime, and calming. Each is a different piece of home.

Along the roads, which are the bones of the world, stride three questers after new horizons. There is the cat, the bringer of so much luck. There is the woodcarver who lived for so long with a hole in his chest. And there is the child of providence, who has helped to fill it. Who he knows will change the world. Who already has.

Wren's instinct to obey is redirected. The only law is the road. The tug of beauty. The joy of living, the rawness of feeling. Cold air and hot sun. The shifting colours of the world more than make up for the new stasis in the sky. Everywhere is different. Everywhere is new.

The world is indeed new. Everything has changed, after Bexgate. After God.

They pass through Khamvali, which proudly grants sanctuary to the Wicked Witch of the East, the man who struck the final blow against God. Wren and Thomas's part remains little guessed, at least beyond Bexgate. The Witch is Wren's brother. They have no interest in finding closure with him. They recall the trap he tried to spring.

They have no interest in speaking to Rebecca, either, though they know how it easy it would be to find her. Thomas is the parent they need. Rebecca chose to abandon them; Thomas chose to find them, and help them break down their walls, and care about them, despite all they thought they'd done to be hated. The nightmares still come, some nights; dark unrealities shadowing the beautiful realities of day. But they're coming more and more to believe Thomas when he tells them they are not to blame. The guilt lessens, little by little; some of the darkness seeps out, letting in more light. Half-light. Wren's light. The world's light, now.

The bright, overwhelming sight of God never entirely leaves Wren, but here, they have fewer regrets. The world is better now. They and their friends are free. Every day is a new horizon, and that is not just true for Wren and Thomas and Lucky, passing through places, but for the places themselves. There is pain now, especially from demons like Pfmsltr, but there was always pain; some people just closed their eyes to it. The danger now is something people can band together and fight against; before, it was a boot pressing down continuously, unliftable, with everyone nodding along and pretending it was right.

The world is what's real; the world, and the people in it. Whether God is part of that now, or really gone, it is beautiful, and meaningful, and true.

-----

The time for the return to Bexgate comes, as it does every few years. This place is complicated for both Wren and Thomas, but they know it lies at the centre of all their roads. And there is so much sweetness to be found there, among friends, despite the bitter memories.

The train pulls into the station; the new one, connecting Bexgate to the east. They have written ahead. At the station there stands the strange, chest-achingly wonderful greeting party. The tailor and the demon, arm in arm. The teacher and the preacher, with their child, who is safe, and cared for, and loved, because of the final deal Wren made. Because of something good they did.

Darion has updates for Thomas and Wren; new drawings, unsurprisingly including butterflies. Their visits have become an exciting rhythm for the child, and Wren's heart is warmed by how they approach every day with childlike joy and wonder, as Wren has always wanted to, and couldn't, for so, so long. Their fears and upsets are child-sized, monsters hiding in dark corners of a room, not in alleyways and the halls of power.

Sincerity has been a Councillor, helping to build a Bexgate where people care for each other and mistakes don't lead to death. Amnity and Thrl have been fostering any lost children, demon-tied or not, until permanent homes can be found. Currently their home is empty, and Wren stays the night on the sofa. They are comfortable with the demon, now, but it's Amnity they're here to see. Thrl leaves them to it. There is much to catch up on, but they also fall easily back into old routines of familiarity, joking and bickering until the sun has long sunk away.

The next morning they walk with Thomas, Amnity and Sincerity, through streets that once felt like a labyrinthine prison, sharing tales of quests and natural glories. Their travels become those of an adventuring hero in their tales, but occasionally, a joking interjection will bring them back down to earth. Thomas smiles and does not contest their accounts.

Wren loves them all so much, but they know they couldn't stay here long-term, at least for a long time. There is so much to experience. So many more journeys to be had. They always longed to run out into the world, and now they never have to stop. Bexgate's perimeters, once the boundary around everything, have faded away to nothing; not even the bollards remain.

At a certain point, Wren's friends peel off, returning to Sincerity and Jamie's house. The next part of the journey is Wren's alone.

The cats barrel out of the alley towards them. They have grown, and grown, in stature, and in number. They are an army, standing firm against the monsters in the dark. Lucky is overjoyed to see them again. The chicken clucks merrily, still accepted by her peers as one of their number. Just like Wren, the stray cat, taken in and cared for at long last. There is no pink, smug, hairless demon among them. Wren is never quite sure how to feel about Tslt, who sacrificed himself, checking up on their family.

Wren and the cats spend hours in communion, Wren resting happily against the grass that peeks through the pavement cracks, a reminder that, cover it over though we might, the world is always still present.

Finally, it is time for the last leg of the present journey. Wren approaches the border, where once those angel-like cameras glared. Where once they were pursued. Where once, so long ago, they crossed unthinking, and unwittingly sealed their parents' demise.

Crossing it is still remarkable. Though there is no gate - there has never been a gate - the threshold remains a sacred place. A crossing from solid into air. They take a deep breath, close their eyes, and cross.

-----

Out in the fens Wren Kalen strides, sometimes runs, sometimes stands, soaking it all in. Water, sky and land meld, flat expanses, levelling together; an encapsulation of the new world, without God, or Commission, or anything to obey but the tug of kindness that connects us to each other, and of beauty that connects us to the world.

There are several stopping points on this pilgrimage into the deepest, truest part of reality. Three wayshrines along the way, with their custodians.

First is Winston Lay, who represents Hope; whose writing and beckoning gave Wren the courage to finally disobey. He no longer lives in the hospital, repurposed as it has since been; he has built himself a small hut. He is glad to see Wren, and to talk. It is he, Wren now knows, who sparked the seeds of change in Thrl; indirectly, he helped Amnity towards happiness, as well as Wren.

Second is Theodore Thistlethwaite, who represents Change. The man who Wren feared would destroy the fens, before they 'purchased' them from him, has changed considerably since Wren lived in Bexgate. He has abandoned his business career and his wealth, and built himself a small chapel, deeper into the fens, where he provides hospitality to travelers, Wren included. It stands by a babbling millstream, with a small wheat field from which Theodore make holy bread. A willow provides shade. Theodore has found the Real God, in everything, truly felt in his heart the aching beauty and simplicity, of everything being Theirs. It sounds like another word for the tugging Wren's always felt.

Third (and yet, really, first) is Adonna Solancia, the Witch of the Woods, who is not a metaphor; who no longer fits into other people's schemes or schemas. Adonna and Wren do not need to talk, much, when Wren arrives at her dwelling place, in the deepest heart of the fens. They know what they are to each other. Mirror images, lives distorted by the same demon's tricks, now, at last, living the way they want to.

-----

After completing their pilgrimage into all that is truly holy, Wren Kalen once again allows the tugging to lead them back into the familiar; back to the connections they feel with others. Back to Thomas, and his unfaltering kindness, and the many roads they share ahead. Cat in tow, father and child walk further, across new thresholds, deeper into the world.

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