"Did you have to encourage her?" Mary complained as she pushed herself off the door she was leaning against and approached me. I affected a confused look, cocking my head to the side.
"Encourage her, whatever do you mean?" I asked innocently.
Mary didn't buy it and just glared at me petulantly, "It's my birthday, you know, you are supposed to be nice to me."
"I don't think that explicitly stated anywhere, just assumed." I pointed out irreverently. "I think the only social convention is to bring some sort of present, or you'll be considered rude."
Mary crossed her arms under her breasts and pouted at me. Then something occurred to her. She considered it for a moment before she smiled at me prettily. "So where is my present then, seeing as you wouldn't be so rude as to not bring one."
I grinned at her and presented her with the silver box, "But of course, fair lady. I would never be so crass as to come to a birthday party without bringing an offering."
Mary squealed in excitement and snatched the box out of my hand so fast I almost wondered if she'd spontaneously learned how to teleport things through sheer force of will. She admired the box for a moment before she flipped it open and gasped in excitement at what she found inside. She carefully lifted out the necklace and held it up to her face to look at it closer while making nices of appreciation. It didn't take her long to focus on the small teardrop-shaped pendant and notice the hinges on it. She set down the box and fiddled with the locket for a moment before she managed to get it open, letting the faceted stone within fall into her waiting hand. She held it in her hand and looked at me.
"Is this an emerald?" She asked in awe.
I laughed lightly. "Ah no. I figured you'd want something a bit more special than a simple gemstone, no that's..." I hesitated as I quickly tried to figure out what to call it. Ectotite wasn't really dramatic and didn't sound very magical. Spirit stone? Ew, no. Ghost stone? No better. Ah I had it. "...ghost amber."
Nailed it!
"Ghost amber?" Mary asked confusedly.
"It's what ghosts are made off, essentially," I explained succinctly.
Mary looked at the gem dubiously. "Like my parents?"
I was confused for a moment at what she was referring to until I realized that she meant the time I summoned her parents with the Resurrection Stone. "No, those weren't ghosts, ghosts aren't actually dead people. Actual ghosts have never been alive in the first place, even if they believe that they have." That just made Mary look even more confused and I had to stifle a laugh.
Mary shot me a glare when she saw my smile.
I raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, the long and short of it is that ghosts are a kind of remnant of dead wizards and witches that's left behind when their soul goes to the hereafter. It is something like if you were to press your hand on some clay, it would leave a handprint behind, but it's not your hand, understand?" At Mary's nod of understanding, I continued. "Right, so they are like a three-dimensional picture of a person made of silvery light, but with all the memories and a mind of its own."
Mary nodded but still looking a bit confused. After a few moments of thinking it over, she decided to ask a question. "Aren't ghosts supposed to be made of.... nothing?"
"Everything is made of something, otherwise it wouldn't be anything," I told her with a smile. "What I think you meant is; arent they incorporeal? And they are, but that doesn't mean that they don't have an effect on their environment. Their presence will cause the air to cool, water to ripple without visible cause, and turn fire blue. They also leave a... residue, when they pass through things. If there are enough ghosts around that stuff will start to build up and then start to harden, much like sap will slowly fossilize into amber over time."
Mary formed her mouth into a little "o" of understanding as she caught up. And she looked down at the gem again with appreciation. "So it's magical?"
"Eh." I hedged, wiggling my hand back and forth. "Not as such. It's more a product of a magical phenomenon." At her disappointed looked I quickly forged on. "The necklace itself however is a bit magical. It's silver and it was hand-forged by a dwarf friend of mine and infused with a particular type of magic inherent to her kind. It makes it about three times a tough as ordinary steel and it will never tarnish."
Mary made another "o" of astonishment before she froze and her eyes shot wide open and even bulged out of their sockets a bit.
"It's MITHRIL!?" She shrieked out in a mixture of excitement and amazement making me flinch back in surprise at the sudden audial assault.
I did a quick mental check on what I knew about mithril and realized that she wasn't that far off. I doubted it would shine like cold fire in the moonlight but that was hardly important. One thing was important though. "Well not exactly. You know what mithril is?"
"Of course! I read about it in Lord of the Rings" She told me excitedly as turned and ran over to the sitting area and the bookcases and pulled out a large white book brought it over to me, pushing it into my hands excitedly.
Fellowship of the Rings the text on the dustjacket proclaimed in bold black letters. Under that was a picture of a ring, and below that was a circle of red elvish letters and inside that was a black circle with a gold border with a small red eye in its center. And under that was written J.R.R Tolkien in large black letters. The book below the dustjacket was red and unadorned. On a whim, I flipped it open and read when it was published and if there were any mention of later impression. There weren't. I also noticed that it was signed.
I whistled softly, impressed. "A first edition, and you got it signed. Impressive. I think I read somewhere that the old guy didn't like doing that."
Mary just shrugged. "Aunt Liz got them for me when she found out I liked them."
"I see. I have to say; you don't strike me as someone that would read something like this." I said as I waved the book at her.
"I didn't, or I wasn't." She told me frankly. "Until I met you that is. It's your fault." She said and gave me a mock glare. "I didn't even use to read all that much, but then you showed up with your magic and, and... stuff. And now I can't get it out of my head. My whole world turned upside-down because of you!" She grabbed hold of me and dragged me over to her bookcases and waved a hand over them. "Look at this!"
I could see what she mean, the bookcase was indeed filled with all kinds of fantasy works. Most of it I didn't actually recognize, me being more of a science fiction guy at the end of the day. But I did recognize some works, such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White. And more famously The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The last one had been one of the first "famous" works of fantasy that I'd read when I was a kid. I smiled slightly, it was a good memory.
"Terribly sorry," I said irreverently.
"You should be! Because of you my bookshelves are full of tales of fairies and magic and all that. Aunt Liz thought I was trying to escape reality or something like that, wanted me to talk to some headshrinker about it. Have you any idea how embarrassing that was?!" She complained.
"You should be happy she cares about you so much," I said with a smile, deciding to needle her a bit.
"Don't you dare start in on that again, you've encouraged her enough already!" She said warningly, stabbing me in the chest with a finger.
"It's all in good fun, Mary." I tried.
"For you maybe." She shot back sourly.
"Well, at least you get a pretty necklace out of it, silver lining." I teased.
The reminder was enough to turn Mary's frown upside-down and she was all smiles again, cooing over her new prize. "I can't believe an actual dwarf made this, like in the stories! Is he like in the books, with a beard and all gruffly but good-hearted? What's his name?"
I laughed outright at that but answered the question before MAry could get irritated with me again. "Well, first of all. He is actually a she by the name of Lys, but besides that, she is pretty much like you'd expect a dwarf to be."
"A girl dwarf, really?" She asked, astonished. "Does she have a beard?"
"HAH!" I barked and shook my head. "No, no beards"
"Oh." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Do they live under mountains?
I winced despite myself, "They used to until the goblins stole their homes about five hundred years ago... with some help from wizards..." I said, mumbling through the last part. Mary, being female and thus predisposed to always hear things that would get a guy in hot water, heard me.
"What!? Why would you do something like that!" She demanded hotly.
I held up my hands in surrender. "Hey. Not my fault. That was way before my time. And they did it for the same reason as always. Greed. The dwarves were rich, mountains of gold and all that. The goblins had always been at odds with them and wanted their riches and knowledge. The wizards just wanted their gold. A match made in heaven, so to speak. Or hell."
"And what happened to the dwarves?" Mary demanded.
"They were driven from their homes as I said. Lost most of their knowledge on how to work metals and other things. Now they live on the outskirts of the magical world." I told her honestly causing Mary's countenance to darken further.
"Goblins!" She hissed with far more vitriol than I'd expected. "It's like in the Hobbit!"
I chuckled lightly. "Not exactly, they are bankers."
That seemed to snap Mary out of her surprising rage and instead caused her to stare at me incredulously. "Bankers?"
"Yeah. Let's not get into how that happened, it's just as stupid as you might imagine, but they pretty much run the economy here in England and in parts of Europe. But they are just as nasty as you imagine them to be, both because they are goblins AND bankers." I told her. "Probably more because they are bankers." I amended after a moment.
"And you just go along with it?" She asked.
"Do you mean me as a person, or us as a community?" I asked in return.
"Either, both." Was Mary's prompt response.
I scratched at my ching for a moment. "Well, as for wizards in general I don't think they think about it any more than you think about what normal banks are doing, also most of them aren't all that bright, I'm sorry to say. As for me personally, no. I keep my money elsewhere since I'm in with the dwarves helping them get their act together."
"You are?" She asked.
"Yeah. You remembered how I summoned your parents?" Stupid question, I know. "Well, that's not something anyone can do. In fact, at the moment I'm the only one that can, and I've been using it to summon old dwarves so they can teach the dwarves of today the secrets that were lost when they fell. Your necklace is a direct result of that work."
Mary was quiet for several moments, obviously thinking over what she had been told. Then she started to ask more questions; about the dwarves, about the magical world in general, obviously trying to for some sort of image in her head that she could wrap her head around. I answered her freely since at this point I didn't see the point of keeping it from her. I did caution her once more to not go blabbing about this to anyone, just to be sure. But if she hadn't mentioned it to anyone yet then I doubted she would after this. Also, I was curious about what she was going to do with the information. I got the impression that she might want to try to help out in some way, but I wasn't sure, and I felt it would be better to wait and see what she would do.
Just to be certain though I didn't mention any ways she could use to enter the wizarding world even if the charms should keep her away. But then again, no defense is perfect. We'd started to touch upon the fact that Arthurian legend was actually not a myth, or at least not entirely when a knock on the door interrupted us. Another servant then informed us that the rest of the guest was beginning to arrive.
I guess it was showtime.