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He hums while digging up the ground and the Nemeton is happycalm at the back of his mind but it isn't the tree he speaks to. "I know you can hear me and I know you know what I'm doing. I think you think you can outlast this as well." There was a burst of hatredmalicerage like an echo of the Nemeton's connection to him and he laughed.
"I don't think you know this but we were once the same. You were me and I was you and everyone thought getting you out of me left me completely me but that's not true, is it. You could never let go, always had to leave a mark no matter if no-one even knew it was there. But you never thought what that would mean, did you?"
He's silent for a moment placing the foxglove in the ground and starting to dig up a place for another and there's an abrupt stillness in that echo.
"You leave a piece of yourself behind and that's a piece of thousand years of knowledge in my head. Most of it is of no use to me but you were always so worried someone would realize how to banish and bind you in the void. Should have thought about that before possessing a spark."
He completes the circle around the Nemeton and wills it shut and all of the foxgloves grow about ten inches in seconds. Just in time it seems as the sudden shadow form on the Nemeton rages at him without sound.
He smirks that downward smirk the Nogitsune left in his muscle memory and turns his back on the shade and walks away.
**********
It takes him a while before he realizes his most pressing problem. Even more so than the cursed silver family.
He doesn't have an identity in this time. There was little Zem but now that he's dead, he'd just feel weird and wrong and all sorts of dirty if he assumed the boy's identity. (not to mention his dad is still around)
So, he has to get a fake ID and a good one at that, which means he needs money. Money means work and work means an ID or the shadier side of life. Well, that's an easy answer if he'd ever seen one. Shady it was then.
Or maybe not... He might get Deaton to give him some contacts that might buy something, a consultation or maybe a ward, aaand it again goes back to having money and an ID to open a bank account. Fuck.
Shady it is then.
***********
He sits cross-legged on the Nemeton. Deep and controlled breaths follow each other and slowly he sinks into a state he only knows by instinct.
The world around him explodes with colour and disappears into darkness at the same time.
When he opens his eyes, he can see magic.
He thinks back to the healing and the trance he'd been sucked in and the woman of shadow. It all plays in front of his eyes like a shadow play but now he sees the magic's flow.
He concentrates on the woman and her power. He'd felt it passing through his hands (his soul) when Duke had been kneeling at his feet.
He sees swords and shadow and warrior-followers and he looks at the woman.
The image of her turns her head and black terror-inducing eyes lock on his and he's shocked out of the magical plain.
When he looks around, the clearing is as it has always been with no woman or moving shadows in sight but still his heart races and he can feel a cold hand grasping around the muscle and cold laughter and he swears he'll never mess with the Gods again.
*
That night he dreams and a soft voice made of northern lights whispers a name in his ear and he gives thanks as he should.
*
He lies in bed staring at the ceiling for a long while that morning and amends his vow, he'll never mess with Warrior Gods or Goddesses again.
***********
Noshiko remembers burying the jar under a tree. She's pretty certain that it was a Nemeton but now she can't even remember which town the tree had been in.