"I can explain! No! Fix! Fix!"
The fist had struck with enough force to spray crystalline snow across Sterling's face, each flake stinging like tiny needles against his flushed cheeks. The bitter wind carried Gerda's frustrated growl as Sterling wisely summoned "Witness of the Author" with desperate haste, his breath forming panicked puffs in the frigid air.
"Gerda Arendelle"
"Gerda Arendelle is very angry about her damaged clothes and boots and now eagerly wants to use her fists to fully express her long-unseen joy at Sterling's arrival."
So Witness of the Author had developed grammar skills now?
A labour-saving modification flashed through Sterling's mind, but some corrections couldn't be skipped. He quickly changed "damaged" to "renewed" and "fists" to "chatting".
Thus Gerda's torn sleeves drew together as if alive. After a flash of brilliant white light, not only were the previous tears invisible, but the fabric looked exactly as it had when Gerda first purchased it.
Her boots also became like new. Gerda removed one shoe and examined it carefully with genuine wonder.
"Remarkable. Though I already knew your Origin Magic couldn't be weak, I still didn't expect it to be this powerful."
"Don't Origin Magic effects have no distinction in strength?"
Gerda rolled her eyes at Sterling with exasperation. "Did you read that in magic books? That's just consoling people whose Origin Magic isn't impressive. You actually believed it? My Origin Magic isn't nearly as powerful as yours."
"What exactly is yours? Writing becomes reality? Actually changing my body... what a terrifying ability. It feels no different from my sister's Origin Magic."
"Queen Kai's Origin Magic?" Sterling sat up with sudden excitement. This concerned a great wizard's Origin Magic, which he still knew nothing about.
Neither Maleficent nor Vivian would reveal such secrets, insisting Origin Magic wasn't something to be casually discussed.
Gerda enjoyed Sterling's expectant expression immensely.
"Sister's Origin Magic is ice and snow. Surprised, right? Everyone thinks Sister created a fourteenth school of magic, reaching the Thirteen Magic's level, ice and snow magic, but it's actually just Origin Magic."
"Sister learnt very little conventional magic, because our parents encountered a shipwreck and didn't have time to teach her proper spellwork before..." Gerda's voice caught slightly. "Anyway, Sister reached great wizard status purely through Origin Magic."
"Or rather, she was already a great wizard when her Origin Magic awakened, only recently revealing herself because of me."
Gerda lowered her eyes with visible sadness, but quickly brightened. Being dejected served no purpose. What she needed now was to find Kai and apologise in person.
"Just relying on Origin Magic alone. No wonder you think her power is impressive."
Sterling patted "Witness of the Author" with disappointment. Why couldn't his Origin Magic learn from Kai's example and promote him to great wizard status from the start? Then he could have dealt with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest long ago.
After "Witness of the Author" trembled briefly, it vanished completely. Sterling tried summoning it again, but surprisingly, it refused his call and created a delicate snowflake in his palm instead.
"Gerda, is it expressing..."
"It's probably saying if you like Kai's Origin Magic so much, go use ice and snow; don't bother me anymore." Gerda stroked her chin like a wise scholar. "Few Origin Magic abilities develop self-awareness like yours has. That makes it incredibly valuable."
"By the way, why did you come to Avalon today? I haven't found where Sister is yet."
Sterling scratched his head sheepishly. It wasn't that he hadn't been visiting recently. To keep his body motionless while sleeping, he'd actually been in Avalon every night lately.
But he'd find a comfortable snow pile, cast warming charms, and settle down to sleep without seeking out Gerda.
"I encountered Avalonian artefacts in the present world, so I wanted to ask if you knew under what circumstances Avalonian things would fall out."
"You're asking the wrong person. I only know about the present world's existence from royal records. I'm not a wizard."
"Why don't you ask your teachers and godmother? They're great wizards. They'd understand such things."
Sterling puffed his cheeks in frustration. Did she think he hadn't tried? He simply couldn't locate them and was desperately seeking any available help.
"Wait, I think I have some memory... When Mother told Sister and me stories, she seemed to mention..."
Gerda's eyes focused intently on Sterling, making his heart flutter nervously.
Gerda's expression grew distant, as if reaching back through layers of memory.
"Your godmother, the great wizard Vivian's kingdom, experienced what the royal archives call a 'Great Fall'." Her voice dropped to a whisper that seemed to carry the weight of centuries.
"Mother would tell Sister and me stories about it during the worst winter storms—how entire magical realms can sometimes... slip through the barriers between worlds."
Sterling felt his heart quicken. "How long ago was that?"
"Eight hundred years." Gerda's answer came with the finality of carved stone. "Whatever caused Vivian's kingdom to fall, it wasn't natural. The archives suggest it was sudden and violent and left magical artefacts scattered across your present world like seeds in fertile soil."
Perhaps he could research magical history to see if anything significant happened eight hundred years ago? Sterling reasoned that if Avalonian things really fell out through this "Great Fall", they couldn't have remained completely unknown in the magical world.
Hopefully those sometimes detailed, sometimes frustratingly brief histories would be thorough regarding the eight-hundred-year mark.
Sterling was lost in thought when Gerda suddenly grabbed him and began running toward her campsite. Moments later, looking at the damaged tent, soup spilt everywhere, and the half-remaining cooking pot, he swallowed hard.
"Since your problem is resolved, now it's my turn."
Though Gerda's voice remained gentle and her expression pleasant, Sterling could feel the hand on his shoulder slowly applying increasing pressure.
"Witness of the Author!" Stop being temperamental and appear, or your master might face physical violence.
"Witness of the Author" fell from somewhere above Sterling's head, striking his skull heavily before bouncing into his waiting hands and automatically opening its pages.
"Gerda Arendelle"
"Gerda Arendelle hopes Sterling can compensate for losses he caused her. Sterling is helpless about this since he currently can't use magic or Reparo."
After changing both instances of "can't use" to "can use", Sterling felt the grey mist that had been wrapped around his magic power disappear instantly like snow meeting sunlight. Magic flowed smoothly through his body once again.
"Reparo!" Sterling's magic flowed smoothly through him, and within moments Gerda possessed a completely restored tent that looked better than new.
"Convenient," she observed with approval. "Avalon doesn't have such practical spells."
"Well, since I got my answer, I'll head back now. I'll return again in a week. Hope you've found Kai by then?"
As Sterling prepared to cast Stupefy on himself, Gerda immediately grabbed his hand and pressed a compass into his palm.
"What's this?"
"A compass that can indicate my location. This way you can find me directly next time without wandering all over the snowfields. I don't want to locate Kai only to discover you got lost and couldn't make it."
"Excellent idea." This time no one interrupted him from stunning himself back to consciousness.
When he woke up in his four-poster bed, the sun hadn't fully risen yet, and Robin was curled up sleeping peacefully in its cage.
Sterling stretched luxuriously, and the compass—warm from his palm's heat—tumbled onto the soft wool blankets with a muffled thud. Its bronze surface caught the pre-dawn light filtering through his dormitory windows, revealing intricate engravings that seemed to pulse with their own inner radiance. Sterling's breath caught as he traced the achingly familiar inscription with trembling fingertips, the metal warming under his touch like a living thing.
"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."
The bronze lettering, after being read aloud, instantly transformed into a shimmering blue raven. It circled once on the compass surface before reforming into a completely different line of text.
"Room of Requirement".