Noan shows the way

A deep rumbling of thunder rolls through the little watermill as you look out the open window, spying approaching storm clouds on the grey-blue horizon. You figure that sleeping indoors, even in a gutted, wrecked building like this, is better than outside in the rain. It doesn't take long to stoke the embers of the firepit back to life, and after adding a few stray bits of timber the flames are roaring again.

You stare at the orange glow, listless.

"Cheese?" Noan offers a tiny monstrosity, which she calls food, to you.

The rectangular slab of cheese looks like it was thrown underneath a table for a couple of weeks, and then left to sit in the sun for too long. Half of it was covered in a green mold, and it smelled like your feet after a week of hard work in the swamps. "No, thank you." You wave away the smelly wedge politely.

"Suit yourself." Noan shrugs and breaks off a piece, tossing it into her mouth. "

You turn back to the fire, ignoring the crone as she noisily devours the cheese, and then produces a small jar filled with an indiscernible black fluid. She slurps that down as well.

"You don't talk much, boy. Afraid of lil' Noan, eh?" She says again between gulps.

You try to ignore the old woman, just wanting to be left alone, but she doesn't relent, "You're not going to speak to me the whole time? Just leave the old woman alone and maybe she'll leave you alone. Is that it? Phah! I've lived alone for more than thirty years now, you think I don't know how to strike up a conversation with myself? You didn't come down all this way just to sit 'round and stare like a fish, that I know."

"And what is it you think you know?" You snap back, "You don't understand anything. You just squat in this hole, eating your rotten cheese. If you had any sense left in your head, you'd be running like everyone else. You're only a crazy, old bat with no sense to just leave a man alone!"

"Aye, I should be running, and I should be trying to survive, more's the pity for me. And mebbe you're right. Mebbe I am crazy. But I have sense enough to know that when the Stone-Bearer comes a-wanderin' to your front step, all lost an' confused an' afraid, you don't close ta' door on his face."

You start suddenly, taken aback by Noan's reply. "Stone-bearer? How...how could you have known that?" You ask, suddenly worried.

"My name be Noan, ain't it??" She growls, as if expecting you to understand, "My dreams be not as strong as they once were, only comin' once a month or so, but the dreams were strong o' ye. I knew you'd be here, and that right soon. Been o' long time since I be playin' a seer again though..."

Seers. You've heard of people like them before, long ago. You remember the old farrier Alvei from your village, with his sagging skin dotted with liver spots and old scars, murmuring stories to you about those with the future-sight. The first seers were supposedly concubines of the faerie king, Aeberon, forcefully bound to him through ancient laws between man and magic. The children of these concubines grew up as half-men, with both human and fae blood warming their skin, commanding strange, unnatural powers, like shapeshifting, control over the weather, and of course, the ability to look beyond time.

"Can you see into the future?" You ask, half-curious to know, half-afraid of what she would tell you.

Noan smiles a toothy grin, her blackened incisors shuddering back at you like maggots in a rotten mouth. "The future be like a tree, full o' branches an' brambles. It be a tangled mess even though I can see. Sea? The sea washes away 'ta other trees, leave behind silt. Or is it salt? Mebbe true, mebbe false. Take it all with a grain o' salt."

You thought you'd put all behind you, but a part of you still wants to rise up. A part of you wants to know if there's any hope. And most importantly, if you play any part in the future you see. You turn to her now with your full attention, "Then...can you tell me my future?" You say nervously.

"Oh, the future not what you be looking for, boy." She replies, shaking her head in disdain, "The future only gives questions, 'who be this young 'un?', 'what do I do there?', 'why she be killin' him?' and on and on. No no no. No good comes from looking at the future. If its answers that ye be seekin', then it's to the past you should be a-looking."

"My, my past?" Flames. Blood. You should have known that it would come to this. You would've had to face this eventually, you knew, but when the moment arrived, as it has just now, your courage has all but fled you.

"Aye, yo' past. It be the only one to turn to when questions need be answerin'. Because what be the future except cause an' effect? It don't tell anyone the method o' the cause. But if you know who you be, knowing where you come from and what makes you, down to yo' bones, then knowing what needs to be done comes as easy as prayin'. All you've gotta do is put your hands together...and believe."

As she says this, Noan clasps her hands in yours and looks at you curiously, as soft and as slow as an early snowfall.

"So do ya want ta' see? Do ya want ta' believe? What are ya going to do?"

What are you going to do. You remember Tri'lanna asking the same thing to you, back near the Druid's Valley, after you discovered the Druids dead and rescued Ceinwyn. A hundred years ago. When your Elven companion had spoken, you knew that she wanted something more, but you didn't know what. She had asked the question and you had given an answer. But now you're beginning to understand - what she was looking for wasn't an answer.

"Yes. Show me."