[Authors Note:   At last, I’m starting to bring all my separate “mythologies” and characters together, in the War for Panthelia.  So, Wendy has up to this point, been largely at the WhiteWolf chats, and Joseph Strife is the son of Billy Joe Bob and Renee Strife.  Otherwise, as the story explains, this is an introduction to the future Panthelia story I’ve been musing over for over a year now.

A note on Chronology.   Okay, these events take place about 35 years from the current events in the WW role play.  They are about 30 years after the death of Nerlana, and 5 years before the main events of what will be the War for Panthelia.

Note: this story is NOT final.  In particular, there is a story angle in this story concerning how Wendy came to this world that may be changed from top to bottom, but the essentials of the story will remain.

As always, comments are appreciated.]
 

   Wendy looked out from the front porch of her cabin and could already feel it was going to be one of those days.  She could feel the slight pall of melancholy coming over her, even as she saw the morning fog fade away from the forest she lived in.  She sighed a bit, reflecting on how that seemed to be the pattern of her life.  She always seemed to live in the pain of her memories.  When she was younger, the pain was a tearing, ripping assault on her very being.  Now, years, and bitter experience had transformed them, to a dull blanket that would just envelop her in melancholy for a few days at a time.

    Wendy went back into her house, and looked in the mirror.  She thought it ironic how in your younger days, she obsessed so much on how she was not beautiful like so many other women.  Now, the passage of time had begun to even things out.  Though Wendy was pushing 70 years old, she only looked to be about 40.  That was one little gift that of the Life Magic she had picked up over the years.  Even so, she didn’t look too bad for a 40 year old to be honest.  Where she had always felt she stuck out like a sore thumb, she now felt like she could mix with 40 year old women and just be one of the crowd.

   She looked back out the window, as she heard a screeling outside.  Sure enough, she saw a black dragon was high overhead, on whatever purpose it had for the day.   She frowned at that, wondering what local kinglet would be bullied today, or whose farm would be burnt for not paying taxes.  She had been told that once, not long ago, the dragons here were noble, helping the pe0ples of this world, but that was before she had come here.  Now, they were the dictators, and their leader was as cruel and heartless as any that Earth had ever produced.

   She frowned at that, thinking of how she had come to this world.  She had been here almost 7 years, though the first year or so of it seemed like a vague dream, somehow wrapped in cotton, so she could never quite get ahold of it.   She knew that her friend Aeryn had brought her here, hoping that being here would soothe her, and also, Wendy had since figured out, to keep her from running out half crazed looking for vengeance.  She sighed, again letting the anger, the grief and the guilt run over her.    But, over her years here, she had managed to get control of those emotions.  She would carry them to her dying day, but she had also begun to find peace.  She found it hard to believe that she was the harridan from all those years past but time did give a certain perspective.

   Wendy wandered back into her cabin, and opened the last door, the one that her friends laughingly called her “sanctum”.  Actually, it was a larger room that was carved into the side of the hill she lived on.   Even though Wendy had come to this world of magic and wonder, she still held on to her past.  Hidden in this room was a television with tapes, cooking supplies and a few other luxuries from the “old world”, powered by a generator she had hooked to the natural hotsprings beneath her house.  She had just finished her sausage and eggs though, when she heard a knocking at the door, so she went out to see who it was.  It was ironic she thought, that when she lived in the city, she seemed to be alone so much, but now, that she lived in the middle of nowhere, she had constant company.  At first, it had been her friends checking in on her out of worry in that first terrible year, but now, it was just friends coming by to say hi.

   She got to her door and looked out, and saw a familiar face.  It always struck her how much he looked like Gourry from that old Earth animated series come to life, but there was one very important difference.  This man’s face did not have Gourry’s dimwitted expression, but instead showed a bright and keen mind.  “Hello Joseph, come on in” Wendy said smiling.  “What brings you out to this neck of the woods?”

   “Well, er, um, ya see Wendy me darlin, I be a heer ta” Joseph began with a wry chuckle.

    Wendy winced and said “Do you have to do that?  You know how much that bugs me”

    Joe laughed, “okay, okay, sorry.   Just want people to know what I went through growing up.”

   “Um, Joe, how ARE you doing, I mean, I haven’t seen you since the funeral you know”.

   “Well, actually, it’s ok.   Actually, I’m glad it happened the way it did.  It was really weird, to walk into the house, and to find them curled up on dads favorite chair they way the liked to, but both of them dead.  I’ll never understand how they both died at the same time of natural causes, but I’m sure that’s what they would have wanted, to die together,  in one last embrace.  My parents were a strange couple, to be sure, but you could never doubt their love.   I would not want to think of either of them living alone after the other died…”   Joseph stopped mid sentence and sort of looked down.   “I’m sorry, I wasn’t’ thinking”

   Wendy gave a small smile, “it’s ok Joe.  It’s been 7 years now.  I’m sort of used to it.  Though, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive myself…”

    “Wendy, you know that you had no choice, none at all”.

     “Of course not, but it’s not like that makes me feel any better about it.” Wendy responded with a  sigh.   “You never did answer my question though what are you doing here?”

    “Oh, well, I’m here to ask a favor Wendy, and it’s a big one.  You see, Sherina and I, well we have our duties to attend to, and we need someone to watch over Robyn.  Well, not just to watch over her.  I’ve tried to teach her, but it’s hard to be both a father, and a teacher for an apprentice mage at the same time.  Especially considering how much I spoiled her to begin with.  Would you be willing to take her on as a student?”

    Wendy thought about it for a moment, and then responded, “of course I will.  I know how important it is for you to help out your Aunt Aeryn with her various “duties”, and well, somehow, it just feels right that she be here, like that is the way things are supposed to be.”

   Joe smiled a big grin of relief.   “Thank you Wendy, I know, it feels right to me also.  I’ll bring her by in a couple of days”

   “Sounds good,” Wendy replied.  “Let’s go into the back and have some tea, I managed to get it imported from home.”
 

    A few days later, Wendy found herself with her first ever student.  Robyn Strife was a girl of medium height, about 14 years old, and had the usual Strife blonde hair.  Like her father, her eyes glowed with the power within her.

   “Hey, Teech, c’mon, do we have to start today?  I mean, it’s a great day, and I saw a deer over there.  We don’t see too many deer in the swamps you know.  Aw, c’mon, c’mon.”

   Wendy could hardly keep a straight face, but went on. “Well, no, I think it’s time that we got started.   Today, we will begin to learn to watch.”

   “Watch? Aw, c’mon, what fun is that?  I wanna DO something”.

   “No, we watch, to see how things work.  I mean, how are you going to do something, unless you know how it works.?”

   “Awww, I guess.”  Robyn replied with a small pout.

    As Wendy began to get out a candle, for her to watch the power of the flames, she thought to herself “This is going to be very interesting”