Dragon King Part 26 (Patreon)

Egwene blinked when she slipped the gold ring on her finger and found herself on a dirt path in a forest holding a picnic basket without even feeling her head hit the pillow. She glanced down at herself and stared when she realized that she was wearing a crimson silk cloak that reached her ankles, a short red skirt that barely came halfway down her thighs and an open vest that barely covered her nipples. 'Is this because we walked past a brothel and I'm curious or is this a result of the ring?'

She glanced up at the sky, a touch surprised to see blue sky rather than the dream world's black skies. She took a couple of seconds to center her thoughts and feel the dream, trying to get a sense of the theme or at least where she was supposed to go. She smiled as she got an image of the Winespring Inn set in a forest clearing where her 'grandmother' was, never mind that the woman in question looked like her mother and the Winespring Inn wasn't in a forest. "Dream logic."

Egwene focused on her 'clothes' and changed her skirt and vest into a comfortable blue silk dress. "Not playing that…" she trailed off as her dress flicked and changed into a rather thin silk dress that matched her cloak in color. She focused and her dress changed back to blue, feeling like she was trying to pull something out of the mud.

"Weird," she muttered as she fixed the color of the dress in her mind, feeling like she was fifteen years in the past when she was just learning to control her abilities. She opened the wicker basket and watched as a cold mist poured out of the basket. "That's one way to keep things cold, iced wine and sandwich meat."

Egwene closed the basket and frowned when she realized her dress had changed back to a bright crimson that matched her cloak. "Whatever," she muttered as she started walking, going from barefoot to wearing socks and boots, because you never walked around a strange forest without decent boots. She wasn't sure how long it took to reach the fork in the road, mostly because it wasn't important to the dream and the place seemed stuck somewhere between the world of dreams and a personal dream so the rules were a bit fuzzy.

Egwene felt a chill run down her spine when she saw the missing sign on the sign post, realizing she was lost and that she'd be trapped in the forest and eaten by the monsters and that she'd never make it to her grandmother's house, not noticing the fact that she was shrinking and turning into a young girl as she stared at the missing sign.

Quindora the fearsome howled as she leapt for the tiny human that was trespassing in her forest, ready to devour it. 'Pounce and scare it, then chase it like a rat!'

Egwene bashed the pony sized cat on her muzzle then on the head a couple of times with her gnarled walking stick before it turned and ran away. "Meanie!" she shouted at the retreating dog sized house cat as it vanished into the shadows. She blinked and forced herself to remember that she wasn't a child, feeling the world shrink a bit as she changed from a child back to her normal appearance.

She glanced at her copy of Nynaeve's stick, rather amused that it was the first thing she thought of when wanted to hit something. Her amusement vanished when she scanned the forest and noticed a number of inhuman eyes looking at her from the shadows. 'Pick a direction,' she told herself as she tried to feel the nature of the dream. She got a brief flash of a house constructed of candy in the middle of a swamp down the left path while the right led through a patch of apple trees to another fork in the road. She took the right path towards the vaguely 'remembered' orchard.

Egwene blinked when the scene skipped and she found herself in an orchard. She froze when she turned her head and saw a naked and rather busty red haired girl leaning up against a particularly large apple tree that looked to be a hundred years old. "Hello?"

"Greetings and salutations, would you like an apple?" the naked girl asked cheerfully.

Egwene glanced at the delicious looking red apple that the girl was holding that she hadn't been holding a second ago. "Grandma loves apple pie."

"Apple pies are the best," the girl replied cheerfully. "Feel free to pick enough for a pie."

Egwene wasn't sure what it was about the girl that made her nervous, maybe the fact that she was naked in a forest in a dream or maybe it was the fact that something about the delicious looking apples made her want to run. "I'm not supposed to leave the path."

The girl pouted. "That's hardly fair, you'll just have to catch them."

Egwene glanced around the peaceful looking orchard then set her basket down and propped her walking stick on it. "I can do that," she said, fairly sure having anything to do with the apples was a bad idea but also sure that refusing wouldn't result in anything good. She found her eyes drawn to the girl's breasts as she reached up to grab an apple. 'Mat would love it here, at least until it killed him.'

"I can't quite reach, are you sure you can't help me?" the girl asked with a pout.

"Sorry, you'll have to jump," Egwene replied, not noticing that her clothes had shifted back to a short skirt and vest. Her lips curled into a smile as she watched the girl's breasts bounce when the young woman jumped up to grab an apple, never taking her right hand off the tree. 'There are worse places to spend a day,' she mused as she caught the apple the girl tossed her way.

"Nice catch!" the girl said cheerfully as she jumped for the next apple, giggling when she failed to grab the next apple.

Egwene blinked when she found the apple halfway to her mouth to take a bite before she even realized what she was doing. 'Pie, I'm making pie,' she told herself as she quickly opened the basket and forced her hand to drop the apple in the basket with the rest of the supplies she was going to give her grandmother.

"Ready for the next one?" the girl asked as she held up two apples, her back to the tree.

"Yes," Egwene replied, reminding herself not to eat the apples. She caught the apples and stuck them in the basket then caught the next four the girl tossed at her, feeling a bit like a gleeman as she caught everything and juggled them until she could put them in the basket, knowing she wouldn't be able to do the same in the waking world.

The girl giggled. "It should be delicious."

"Thank you," Egwene replied as she put the last apple in the basket before she could nibble on the delicious looking treat. She picked up her walking stick and the basket and continued on her way, not sure what else to do as she could feel the 'story' pulling her forward. She felt the world sort of blur as she found herself looking at three paths with vague 'memories' of having walked the distance. She glanced down the left path which led to a castle on a hill, skipped the middle path that continued into the woods and looked at the right path that led to a snow covered castle in the distance.

It was fairly clear to Egwene that the center path was the 'right' path but she had the sense that the destination didn't matter as much as the journey. She took the left path, forcing the path to stay there so she could return to take the rest of the paths as she had a feeling she wouldn't be staying. It felt a bit strange walking down the road and through the town when no one seemed able to see her but figured it was just part of the dream and went with it.

She was half expecting the castle to be abandoned for some reason but that obviously wasn't the case, she was also fairly sure that was where the story was 'pulling' her now that she'd taken the left path. "Hello?" she asked as she walked up to the guard that was sitting behind a window with a hole in the bottom.

"Welcome to the Enchanted Castle, the Princess is expecting you," the guard said as he looked in Egwene's general direction but didn't actually make eye contact, making her a bit uncomfortable and not sure if he was actually 'seeing' her.

"Which country?" Egwene asked.

"The princess is expecting you, we can't keep her waiting," the guard said, still not looking directly at Egwene's face.

Egwene glanced at the castle that seemed to shift and change styles when she wasn't paying attention as if the details didn't matter. "How do I find the princess?"

"Walk through the doors and walk up the stairs of the tower, you can't miss it," the guard replied.

"Can you tell…" Egwene trailed off as the guard repeated his first message. 'Not part of the story I guess,' she mused as she walked through the gates. She had a second to glance around the dimly lit courtyard before lightning exploded off to the side of her vision and thunder destroyed the quiet of the night, making her jump.

Her gaze immediately jumped to the strange circular stone tower with metal rods sticking out of the top of it and the metal staircase that wrapped around the tower. She noted the fact that it wasn't raining in the courtyard but the tower was in the middle of a thunderstorm then focused on the large doors in the keep, getting the sense that she could end her adventure there if she wanted with a blue eyed man and a lot of ale.

"No thanks," she said as she pulled the hood of her cloak up against the rain that only seemed to cover the area around the tower and in the distance beyond the tower wall and walked towards the tower, knowing somehow that she was making a choice. She reached the base of the water covered metal stairs that didn't have a handrail and weren't all the same width, height or even length. She focused on the stairs having a handrail and frowned when she realized the wooden handrail was rotten. 'Yeah, no. Metal?' she tried as she imagined a metal handrail only for it to turn into a massive lightning rod at the top of the tower.

Egwene let the idea of a handrail die as the dream obviously wasn't going to let her make the area safe. She focused on one of the powers Myst gave her and flew up the stairs, staying low enough she didn't have to worry about hitting her head and high enough that she wouldn't trip.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting to find at the top of the tower but an open door to a strange workshop with dozens of half completed inventions wasn't it, nor was the mostly naked teenage girl wearing a leather apron. She watched as the girl mixed a vial that flowed like slush with a vial that looked like blood, except for the fact that it was bubbling, getting a green vial that was emitting a purple mist.

Hope finished mixing the solutions then smiled at Egwene. "Welcome to my tower, are you a birthday present?"

Egwene blinked then looked down at her clothes, realizing they'd gone back to the previous short skirt and vest somewhere along the way. "I got a bit lost, I'm supposed to give my grandmother a basket of food."

"Lucky, I never got the chance to meet mine," Hope admitted as she took a step back and took off the apron revealing a set of breasts that would rival Bodewhin's. "Do you want to see my inventions before I chain you to the bed?"

"What?" Egwene sputtered when the light hit the girl's eyes just right and she realized they were catlike and glowing green. "What are you?" she asked warily as she took a step back, accidently causing her vest to bunch up and reveal one of her breasts.

Hope pulled her attention away from Egwene's breast and focused on her face. "Sorry, I got distracted. I'm curiosity, invention and whatever you make me but you can call me Hope."

Egwene shivered as she realized the girl hadn't really had features until she'd thought to focus on them, the girl's face instantly changing from something bland and completely unremarkable to looking like a cross between her daughters' and her nieces' faces. She did her best to ignore the desire to reach out and run her fingers over the girl's pale skin. She barely noticed the girl's hair change from a bland shoulder length mess to a long red braid that went down her back in a familiar style. "Desire?"

"Close enough," Hope replied with a smile as she gestured towards a bed that Egwene was reasonably sure hadn't been five seconds ago.

"Tell me about your inventions," Egwene told her, wanting to get to know the girl that wanted to have sex with her.

Hope smiled as she skipped over to the half finished clock sitting on a workbench. "I'm halfway done with this one, once I'm done it should tell time and only need to be reset every couple of years."

"You built it?" Egwene asked in surprise, not sure why she should be surprised as the girl was obviously an inventor.

"I've helped my mother build a couple, this is the first one I've made myself," Hope said as she opened the compartments and showed off the inside. "You should see my carriage!" she said excitedly as she ran over and pointed towards a carriage that hadn't been there and wouldn't have fit through the door. "You'll like the brake system," she said enthusiastically.

"Show me," Egwene replied as she followed her over to the carriage, curious about the girl's inventions, if only because they looked like they required a lot of skill to make. The girl was about a quarter of the way through her collection when she heard something howl in the distance that was oddly low in pitch, almost like a horn but more like some massive animal or nightmare. "What was that?"

Hope snatched a rag from the table and sprinted over to the heavy iron door. She grabbed the edge of the door with the rag and swung it shut then dropped the heavy wooden beam into place to make sure nothing could get in. "Sorry about that but when the wild hunt is running around, you need to have your doors shut and locked!"

"Wild hunt?" Egwene asked warily.

Hope shivered as she thought about the stories she'd heard of the wild hunt. "They're basically unkillable horse sized ghost wolves that roam the night and kill anyone that isn't behind a threshold."

"How often do they come out?" Egwene asked warily, thinking about darkhounds.

"It depends on how much they've fed recently and if the Master of the Hunt is looking for someone," Hope admitted as she walked over to the bed. "I think I pulled something in my back, can you give me a massage?"

'Really? That's what you're going with?' Egwene thought with amusement when she noticed the girl's grin. 'Wouldn't be the first time I've had sex with a woman and I have permission.' She blinked when she realized her clothes and boots had vanished leaving her naked other than her cloak. 'Could be worse,' she mused, knowing the wolves couldn't get her as long as she was in the tower.

0o0o0

Rand pulled his attention off his sleeping wife and looked at Myst. "Have you figured out how you're going to deal with the Seanchan?"

"I have a couple of ideas, they're just not particularly nice," Myst admitted as he studied the upgrade page for the half fey child inside of Egwene. 'Spirit of Invention, eidetic memory when it comes to engineering and science related fields, I'm going to need to copy that. Mad Science, her inventions blur the edges of what's possible. Weakness to iron, not surprising.'

"Such as?" Rand asked, trying to distract himself from worrying about his wife.

"Burning all of the boats they've built up would delay things for the short term and would probably only result in a couple of dozen dockworkers and harbormasters getting put to death because they needed someone to blame," Myst replied as he checked to make sure the weakness to iron flaw wouldn't cause the child to fall part or die horrifically because of the iron in her blood. 'No, just weapons, I can leave that until I can figure out how much of a monster she is.'

"What if you did it in a way that obviously wasn't their fault?" Rand asked, unnerved by the casual cruelty of the empire.

"I doubt the people in charge would care, they want to rule the world and they're willing to slaughter half of it and enslave the rest to get their way," Myst argued as he looked at the child's aura of corruption. 'Limited, Egwene al'Vere, aura causes Egwene to be more inclined to break social conventions if it makes her daughter happy. Not as bad as it could be.'

Rand glanced back at his wife. "Do you have a way to deal with them that doesn't cause a civil war?"

"Best case? I can make sure one of the empress's children takes the throne after making sure they learn some humility. In theory, we could nudge things in a better direction but that's going to take years or even decades, that type of hatred leaves scars," Myst pointed out.

"I'm glad I don't have to make that choice," Rand admitted.

"One of the downsides of being king," Myst complained as he turned his attention back to keeping an eye on Egwene's health, fairly sure her regeneration wouldn't let her die to something as mundane as blood loss but wanting to make sure she was as healthy as she could be. "Eventually they're going to sail across the ocean and they're going to run into my country and they're going to try to steal it."

"At which point they're bandits?" Rand asked.

"At which point they're dead," Myst replied, not surprised that Rand didn't have a response, mostly because he was used to dealing with challenges related to the weather and small town problems, not things that shook empires.

0o0o0

Egwene shivered as she woke up, cold and alone for the first time in three weeks or at least that was her first thought before she realized that she'd been dreaming in a dream or skipping time and the last three weeks hadn't happened. She glanced at the spiderwebs covering all of the inventions and the empty hearth that should have had embers considering how long they'd been talking and cuddling into the night, seeing nothing but cold ashes. She glanced at the weak sunlight coming in through the metal grates over the windows. 'At least it's morning, as much as that seems to matter.'

Egwene rolled out of bed, going from wearing nothing to wearing stout Two Rivers wool along with boots when her feet touched the cold stone floor. She took one last look around the room she'd spent the last 'three weeks' in then walked over to the door, ready to face the world. She paused as her hand reached for the wooden beam, getting the sense that opening the door would be a mistake, something about the evil prince tossing her in a dungeon because his sister went missing. 'Everything is a test or trap,' she mused as she picked up her basket.

She closed her eyes and took a breath then released it and focused on the path leading to the mountain. 'Hope snuck away and I left early so I could get back to the path. They never found us, she's safe and sound.'

Egwene opened her eyes and started walking down the path towards the ice castle she could see in the distance, knowing she needed another place to hide as the hunters searched for them. 'You're not catching me that easily.'

Egwene reached out with her dreaming talent and tried to feel the story as she walked down the snow covered path towards the stone tower. 'Frozen death or something grabbing me when the ice breaks, screaming death if I fly out of the tower?' she mused, just getting bits and pieces of what might be.

She considered staying close to the ground but got the sense that the snowmen she could see near the path could animate and weren't particularly friendly. 'I need to go fast and I can't fly, it's all downhill,' she mused, wondering if it was that easy. 'I'd be gone by the time my weight is on the weak spots and fast enough to avoid the snowmen.'

"Some village children obviously use this trail as a sled run," she said as she turned and grabbed the sled that she 'knew' was propped up against a snow drift, despite the fact that she'd obviously 'missed' the white sled the first time she'd looked. 'This is going to make a weird story when I wake up.'

Egwene sat down on the sled then made sure her basket was situated between her legs and pushed, sending herself sliding forward down the slope. She ignored the weird and almost festive music that started playing in the background as the sled started picking up speed, quickly going from a nice glide to oh light, we're all going to die.

The music changed as she flew down the trail, sounding faster and more frantic, giving her the sense of a gleeman's story when the villain of the story was introduced. She focused on the race having more people, hoping that more targets on the path would help. She nearly tumbled off her sled when a blonde child in weird fluffy clothes flew past her on a sled with a tiger that was wearing a red scarf around his neck.

Egwene almost crashed when a young man or flat chested girl with pointed ears and green clothes came flying down the hill on a snowball, running along like it was perfectly normal to run on a rolling ball of ice and snow. 'Don't question it, just go with it,' she told herself, lending into the story of her being a natural at sledding.

She stopped worrying about anything other than dodging the balls of ice the snowmen were tossing and the lunatics flying down the hill at speeds that would make hounds jealous or the people that were suddenly in front of her.

'One more turn and I'll swing around and I'll be fine,' she told herself, rather happy that the snowmen had terrible aim. Of course, it only took a near hit at the exact wrong time to screw things up and cause her to hit a ramp, sending her flying towards the castle with enough speed that she was going to miss the landing field.