Elves are very light. It's not hard to do.

She turns purple.

She gasps for breath. "I... your enthusiasm is... appreciated. Archmage."

“So… what does that make you? Arch-archmage? Like great-grandmother? Can I call you that?”

He is still holding her cheerily, seemingly unaware of her discomfort. 

"Yes! Yes you may! Let me go!"

She is going to be his superior again. All is well.

“Thank you for the permission, Great-Grandmother.” He places her, rather unceremoniously, on the ground.

This may be the most terrible news he has ever gotten in his life, but Ambrose’s spirits can’t be dampened today.

He is the Gate. Taralda is… a mysterious cool job that he totally plans on using as an inside eye into the real workings of Raikoth.

Oh, he HAS to tell Galora. 

Oh, gods, he's never going to stop calling her that is he. 

As though he knows exactly what she is thinking, Ambrose is grinning at her. He holds out his hand in quite a handsome gesture. “Care for a ride back to Altgrove?”

She extends a hand-

But Ambrose is somewhere else.

He is sitting somewhere, somewhere like a castle, solid stone walls of a comforting steel-grey, high narrow fortified windows that nonetheless blaze with sunlight.

Not again.

An internal sigh. He looks around.

Probably a Good god this time, considering the quite nice decor and the general noble ambience.

Now, which One is it? Sirenna, maybe? Or is it That New One whose Name keeps escaping him…? Iodine?

This truly keeps happening at the most inconvenient times.

“Uh… Hello?”

"Hello, Ambrose."

She's sitting opposite him - a sharp-eyed woman of about forty, heavily armoured and looking grim, but not angry. 

It comes to him softly.

“Iomedae.”

She inclines her head. 

"Why do you think we are speaking?"

Without thinking, he mirrors her gesture. 

Breathless, he speaks. “Is there some danger you have come to warn me about?”

"In a sense." She leans forwards. "Many of the workings of the gods are hidden; but you, Ambrose, already know many things mortals were not meant to know, and so it is more straightforward to speak with you. And what you said before the Council- well." She smiles humourlessly. "You may find it strange by what you know of gods, but that was rather a lot like an Iomedaean prayer. And once, very long ago, I too was a mortal, and so it is... you would not go far wrong understanding it as 'easier'... for Me to talk to mortals than for other gods."

"I tell you this to sate your wizardly curiosity, as something of a gift."

"In truth, the situation is far more dire than was vouchsafed to you. What do you know of the rest of your world? Beyond the borders of what you call the Known World?"

She was once a mortal? His wizardly curiosity only sharpens.

He keeps a leash on it.

With a grimace, he answers. “I have dedicated my centuries of life to exploring the unknown. I have discovered both beauty and danger there, and yet it remains as elusive as the day I started.”

The Gate’s stomach twists. “What must I do?”

"Raikoth in truth exists as a sort of... a small ring of firelight in the darkness. As you would understand it, there is nowhere else. Many interests are involved in keeping it that way. If it were to begin to spread itself by force, as you suggested, then it would open itself to reprisal, and its... current leadership... would be limited in their ability to interfere, by ancient arrangement."

"You prayed to Me. I tell you this: either the growth of your country must be led, not by its old leaders, but by such as you, and my Champion, at the risk of its destruction once more; or else you must wage that war yourself, alone."

"And I tell you one more secret, a most valuable one: there are paths not so very far from your own, down which you yourself become one of those evils to be vanquished. What I offer you is My guidance. But I am not the goddess of keeping mortals from trials, or even dangers, but rather the Goddess of Heroes. If you truly meant what you said in that chamber, then your path will be most delicate, most dangerous. But the good you could do is greater far than you know."

A weight on his chest, like an iron breastplate. Time is different here. He does not know how long it is that he is unable to speak.

He bows, his shoulders rigid.

“Thy will be done, Goddess.”

It sounds appropriate. It’s something he’s heard Galora say, sometimes.

She frowns. "Stop it. This would have been your will in any case, whether I reached out to you or not - you said as much. If you wish to pledge yourself to Me, that I might see you clearer and guide you better, then you may speak to Me so, but that is not who you are at this moment. It is a key strategic asset of the forces of Good that We have mortal allies, and not only servants."

He straightens, bashful. He… hasn’t felt bashful in a while. It reminds him of being scolded by his mother.

His memory of Elnara fades around the edges with every passing year.

“I see. You are… new to us in many ways.”

He falls quiet for a moment.

“In that case, I have questions. What do you perceive my role here to be, Iomedae? If I understand you correctly, are you entrusting your Champion and I with the… leadership of Raikoth? Presumably, the other Archmages and whoever really pulls the strings will not like this. I do not wish to cause infighting.”