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THE KEEPER: Tales from the Fringes of Reality. Episode 8 – The Spirit of Love.

THE KEEPER: Oh, hey! You’re awake! Good, good, I was starting to get a little worried when I didn’t see you. Not that you’re required to spend your days out here with me, of course, that would be silly I just… 

Well, it doesn’t matter. You’ve caught me just as I finished up the last file for the day which means I can go back to looking for you. Looking for you in the files, I mean. I know things got a little… sad the other day to say the least, but I’m feeling much more optimistic now. I mean, you’ve got to exist somewhere which means I’ll have to be able to find you. 

Kind of sad you missed today’s story, honestly. It was a fun one, the woman woke up in a reality without her wife and she just knew she wasn’t where she was meant to be because her wife wasn’t there. Didn’t want to exist without her, didn’t know how to exist without her. Would’ve been sad if it weren’t so easy to track down where she came from. Love like that is easy to track, it leaves its mark on the very essence of a person. When Marigold picks, she picks well, I will say that much. 

Maybe that’ll be what leads me to you! If I can just find someone who loves you, someone whose essence is tied to yours across time and space, then I can get you home! It doesn’t always work like this, not every relationship leaves its mark, but it’s a place to start potentially. And that’s more than I’ve had to go on this entire time you’ve been here which means it’s something. Even if it ends up being something I have to rule out, it’s still something. I just need to find loose bonds in the realities and that I can actually find quite easily.

Marigold made the bonds like that by design, you know. She wanted people who were meant to be together– in whatever way they’re meant to be together– to be able to find each other no matter what. I’ve had best friends and queerplatonic partners and lovers and parents and their children all be put back where they’re meant to be like this. It’s one of those contingencies that doesn’t pop up enough to make my job foolproof, but it’s helpful. Min can you do a scan real quick and look for any loose connections?

MINERVA: (violin plucking)

Thank you my dear!

…I hope you know I’m not, you know, trying to rush you out of here or anything. It’s just… You’ve been getting a bit paler and I think being on the fringes is starting to fade you. I’ve never actually seen it happen before– only Marigold and Sparrow have– but fading… I don’t want that to happen to you, not if I can avoid it happening to you. So I’m gonna get you home.

Minerva might take a bit of time searching, you up for another story? Actually… Well, I hate to say it, but most of Marigold’s stories end up a bit sad at times. It’s not her fault, not anyone’s fault really, but love… Love doesn’t always work out like it’s planned and Marigold bears the brunt of that usually. Even the best of intentions can go wrong and go wrong very quickly. 

I think it was hard for her to see all of the other Council members find people they loved when she couldn’t hold onto that for herself. The one person she had… I mentioned fading to you a little while ago. It’s not a pretty process, at least that’s what Marigold told me. I don’t want to scare you, wanderer, but I also think… I’m going to get you home. I am. But maybe… Maybe you should know what fading is. Just so that if it starts we know to ramp up our efforts. What do you say?

Right, you can’t really say anything, can you? But you’re nodding to me, so I think you’re up for this. It’s not another name story, at the very least, so you can take a little comfort in that. It almost seems like Marigold knew that was going to be her name from the moment she sprung forward, holding hands with Opal who didn’t know their name at the time. She didn’t, of course, that came a little later, but like all the names of the Council, it felt destined in it’s own way.

Even with choosing her name as Marigold, she still ended up being called Love a lot, especially by people who didn’t know her. She could walk into reality, looking for connections between people to make and be greeted with a host of people calling her love or lovely or darling, as though she had never taken a name at all. She was– and still is– magnetic, people gravitate to her and crash directly into her orbit wherever she goes. It usually doesn’t matter to her, people will be people no matter which reality she’s in and no one ever really mattered to her so much as to make anything more than the thrill of the chase worthwhile.

At least, not until Xander.

Xander existed in reality 173-3 U, teeming with magic and full of people that Marigold could create matches for. She, like Alasdair, enjoyed the realities with magic in them the most as they made it so much easier for her to hide her work. Creating a chance encounter with someone’s new partner or friend or long lost family member was so much easier when she could simply cast a spell than when she had to try and hide what she was doing. The issue with people naturally gravitating towards you is that they have a tendency to notice when you’re using magic in a world where it doesn’t exist in day to day use, and Marigold learned that quickly.

She met him in a magic coffee shop, as in a coffee shop where they served magic beverages. Things to help with luck or mood or to grant small bits of clairvoyance for big decisions, that kind of thing. It was a good place for Marigold to go to slip some actual love magic in their ‘love was inside you all along’ tea blend, allowing people to find self love and whatever other kind of love they were looking for. Xander was one of the people she had slipped that little spell into, expecting him to follow that line of love magic that seemed to lead to the guy taking his order.

Instead, it brought him to her.

“Mind if I sit?” That was the first thing he said to her, the thing that she knew he was supposed to say to the person he was meant to love. She could see it clearly in her mind, like a speech bubble popping above a comic character. It was supposed to lead to him sitting at the counter by the barista and falling in love with him.

So why was he here, saying all of this to her?

“If you’d like.”

No one had ever broken through her script before. Marigold knew she should be worried, but instead she just felt… intrigued. He must’ve felt drawn to her somehow, and clearly not in the way people usually flocked to her if the way he was, well, ignoring her was anything to go by. So instead of panicking, Marigold watched and waited.

She thought that maybe if she waited another day he would find his way to the person he was meant to be with– Antonio, the man who worked the till at the coffee shop. But instead of striking up a conversation with Antonio while sitting at the counter like all of Marigold’s visions seemed to show, he sat down across from her again, a different book in hand, smiling slightly at her as she stared in awe at the man who was truly defying every bit of work she had ever done. 

Part of her was angry, wanting to know why this man thought he could mess up all of the work she had done. The rest of her, though, was fascinated with this man who could so easily break everything she thought she knew about her power and her visions of love.

So she decided to talk to him.

“You’ve been sitting across from me every day for a week now,” she was hesitant to break the fragile silence between them but she needed to know. “Can I ask why?”

“It just felt like this was where I’m meant to be.”

And it really looked like it was where he was meant to be. 

This was unusual for Marigold, I’m sure you understand, wanderer. She was used to being coveted, but not used to being seen, and yet it seemed like Xander truly saw her, saw her in all her flaws and triumphs standing in front of him. They talked more regularly in the cafe now, Marigold ‘learning’ he was a writer and Xander finding out that Marigold was a couple’s counselor. It was an easy enough lie to fall into, she did work in relationships after all. He was unlike any person she had ever met before, or perhaps he was like every person she had ever met before she just didn’t know it because she never gave people a chance.

After all, Marigold wasn’t meant for reality. Even being there for a week, she felt the pull to bounce out of 173-3 U and go create bonds somewhere else, and yet it felt like she was rooted there, unable to leave until she figured out how Xander had managed to break through her plans and fall in love with her instead of with Antonio. 

I don’t think Marigold ever meant to fall in love with Xander. But just like how Xander wasn’t meant to fall in love with Marigold, it happened anyway. If I’m being honest, wanderer, I don’t know how she missed the signs that their hearts were connected. She can see the love of millions of people throughout reality, and yet she somehow missed the heart line extending from her own chest and straight into Xanders.

The heart line is still there, you know, even though Xander… Isn’t.

There’s no really good way to say this, honestly, but… Well, I mentioned fading before. It’s… not a pretty process, though supposedly it’s painless.

Everything in the universe is made of magic, wanderer. Even in the realities that don’t directly intersect with the plane of magic on the fringes, it was still created from magic. You need to have a very high concentration of magic to exist on the fringes, like the Council does. At least, you need that to exist long term. If you’re just here for a little while with a lower magic content, you’re fine, but you can’t stay forever. The issue with Xander and Marigold was that they wanted to stay together forever. Marigold couldn’t stay in reality so…

She asked Alexandria if Xander could join her on the fringes.

“I’m not sure, Mari. We’ve never had anyone here long term from reality, I don’t know what it would be like for him. He could… It might kill him.”

That had been enough to put off Marigold, she didn’t want to risk the love that had found her life just for him to die on the fringes of reality in a space he was never meant to exist in. But Xander was persistent. Even after Marigold said goodbye, leaving him in 173-3 U, he… he followed after her. It was like he could actually see the heart line that was connecting them across time and space and he followed it straight to the fringes.

Straight to Marigold.

“What in the name of the stars are you doing here, Xander?” She was excited to see him but also terrified to lose him, as though his existence on the fringes would immediately lead to his demise. But he stood there in front of her confidently, holding onto this end of the love line that he shouldn’t even be able to see, tugging it– and, in turn, Marigold– to him.

“I followed this. I followed you. You’re… We’re tied, Mari. Literally. Please… Don’t leave me behind. I love you too much to lose you.”

“And that’s why you shouldn’t have followed,” Marigold said through the tears as she wrapped her arms around Xander. “We don’t know if you can exist out here. I don’t… I can’t lose you, Xander. Not for real, not like this.”

Xander ran a hand through the curls of Marigold’s hair. “You won’t lose me, Mari. As long as we’re tied, I’ll always find a way back to you.”

I wish I could say this had a happier ending than it does, wanderer. But it might put why I’m searching so hard for a way to get you home into better perspective.

Xander lasted about six months before the magic that made him who he was was pulled back into the plane of magic. There just wasn’t enough of it in his body for him to resist the magnetic pull of the plane, reducing him to nothingness in Marigold’s arms. The Council calls it fading because the person quite literally fades away, the magic pulled bit by bit out of them slowly over time until nothing remains. Usually it’s a much quicker, simpler process as led by Sparrow as they return people to the plane of magic when they pass but what happened to Xander…

Marigold loved him more than life itself. Loved him so much that he was able to follow that love back to her here on the fringes and that cost him his life. Her heart line still stretches into the plane of magic, though, like maybe someday he’ll be able to pull himself back out again and into her arms.

I hope that happens, wanderer. I hope she’s able to get him back. But that’s why we’ve got to get you home. If you fade… The only ones who remember you when you fade are the Council, and that’s only if they knew you specifically existed in the first place. I… I’m not on the Council, but I think I’d remember you, wanderer. I hope I’d remember you. But more than that, I hope I’m able to get you home soon. Minerva’s been doing some scans on you lately, making sure you’re still intact and that you haven’t lost too much of your essence. Everything seems stable for now, but I’ll let you know if things start to change.

You’re not going to fade, wanderer. I refuse to lose you like that. 

It looks like Minerva is still doing her scan for loose heart lines, why don’t I go and make us some food while she completes that? Once she’s done, I’ll start looking to see if any of those connections are stretching to places they shouldn’t be stretching to. Maybe one of them will be stretching to you.